Marriage Must-Reads
The last 10 years have changed us much.
Most of the growth has been good.
There's a lot of growing up that needs to happen when you marry at 20.
In some ways that may have made our journey easier.
We matured together and didn't develop too many bad habits pre-marriage.
We certainly didn't find our way without help.
I thought I'd share a few of the books that have helped us get this far fairly gracefully.
And of course, God is the main source for our joy and love over the years.
Most of these books both Bri and I read together.
A couple of them I read and they changed me tremendously.
Maybe one day Bri will check them out, too
The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work
John Gottman, PH.D.
This was one of two books recommended in my Marriage and Family Development class in college. Gottman did a 48 hour study of many couples and watched for 6 signs that the marriage was in trouble. He could predict who would divorce over 90% of the time based on these signs. I read the book and saw how prone I was to some of these behaviors. I feel that it shed light on potentially devastating "normal" responses I would've had in our marriage. In particular, the "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" (as Gottman likes to call them) hit me hard: criticism, contempt, defensiveness and stonewalling. I highly recommend this book to every newly (or not so newly) wed couple out there. And if he (or she) won't read it, you should anyway.
As For Me and My House
Walter Wangerin, Jr
The second recommendation from my college class. It addresses expectations, idealization and realization and forgiveness amongst other things. I learned a ton about forgiveness in this book. Bri and I both have felt that forgiveness is the most "key" ingredient in our marriage (after our relationship with the Lord).
Love and Respect
Dr. Emerson Eggerichs
Love and respect. The subtitle is "The Love She Most Desires, The Respect He Desperately Needs." If you love her, she will respect you. If you respect him, he will love you. It's more indepth than that but that's the crux. And for most of us, that knowledge can change the way relate to one another.
The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands
Dr. Laura Schlessinger
No, this is not Bri taking over my blog. Really, it's a good read and makes sense. Nothing I can say here will convince you to read the book so I'm just going to say: Read the book.
Love and War
John and Stasi Eldredge
This is the most recent book we read together. It explores the way we've all been wounded in our lives and how marriage tends to bring two people together who are broken. We look to each other to help the wound and in our brokenness we often wound each other more. God needs to be in our marriage. Needs to be the center. Needs to be part of our decisions, our days, our every breath.
The Total Money Makeover
Dave Ramsey
Yep, it's a must-read. Money causes fights. Fights cause bitterness, anger, resentment. You can stop that with a little knowledge on debt-reducing and budgeting. It does work!
What would you add to the list? What has impacted your marriage, given you tools to fix, weapons to fight the hardest of times?
Great recommendations! I would also add, "Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts" by Les and Leslie Parrot. We went through it in our pre-marriage course and it was great.
ReplyDeleteI am reading The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands right now...and it is so good! I wish I could get her radio program this far north. Thank you for the ideas. I want to read The Seven Principles next and then the money one. I love to read books that will actually do good or change a persons life.
ReplyDeleteWhen we did our pre-marital counselling at our church, they recommended the "For Men Only" and "For Women Only" books by Shaunti & Jeff Feldhahn. I thought they were both really good. The provided insight into the opposite sex, and while not everything applied to either of us, there was enough that did that it made it worth a read (plus it got us talking about those things). We've been married almost 3 years and I think this would be a good time to go back to those...
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