Reception
In its original American broadcast, "Secrets of a Successful Marriage" finished forty-third in the ratings for the week of May 16 to May 22, 1994, with a Nielsen rating of 9.8. The episode was the second highest-rated show on the Fox network that week, following Melrose Place.
Since airing, the episode has received positive reviews from television critics. The authors of the book I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide, Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood, thought it was a "confident finale" to the fifth season, which "had seen the series become progressively more surreal and self-aware." DVD Movie Guide's Colin Jacobson wrote that he thought the episode ended the season with a "high note", and that Homer’s insensitive gossiping about his relationship "presents lots of good bits. It completes this excellent year well." Jacobson's favorite line of the episode was "This is a place of learning, not a house of hearing about things!", which Homer tells his class after they demand him to reveal more secrets about him and Marge. Patrick Bromley of DVD Verdict gave the episode a grade of A−, and commented that episodes focusing on the relationship between Homer and Marge can "never fail", and there are "numerous opportunities for some classic Homer-isms" in the episode. Bill Gibron of DVD Talk gave the episode a score of 4 out of 5. One-time Simpsons writer and comedian Ricky Gervais named "Secrets of a Successful Marriage" his fifth favorite episode of the show, and commented that Homer's line to Marge, "I know now what I can offer you that no one else can. Complete and utter dependence," is "so sweet, because he's right!" It was placed at number seven on MSNBC's top ten The Simpsons episodes list. They felt the episode embodied Homer's qualities of being "stupid, good-natured and mildly pathetic, from his conversations with his brain to his final proclamation that the one thing he can give Marge that no one else can is 'complete and utter dependence'."
"Secrets of a Successful Marriage" contains one of CollegeHumor's Amir Blumenfeld's favorite "switcharoo" jokes, a joke that leads you to believe one thing, but is then "flipped completely" to create a new punch line. In the episode, a distraught Marge drives her car while hearing Homer's voice in her head saying things such as "You mean I'm going to be a daddy?" and "I hope we'll always be together... together... together..." The "switcharoo" is that it is revealed that Homer is actually hiding on the floor in the car's back seat, speaking these things to Marge. Blumenfeld said: "God, nobody saw that coming. And I mean that in a non-sarcastic way."
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