7 Secrets to an Awesome Marriage by Kim Kimberling, PhD

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Okay, another marriage book.  Aren't there enough of them out there?  When I was going through Book Look Bloggers website to try and decide what book to pick to review, I know I wasn't terribly excited about this one, but if I'm getting nice free books to review I want them to be books I can hold in my hand and not books I have to have a computer on my lap to be able to read them.  Yes, I'm from the stone age and no I don't have a Kindle and no I don't need one and I'm not even sure I want one.  My husband might like if I would start my collection of books on a Kindle instead of in our house where they have completely overflowed our bookcases and now take up residence on a bathroom vanity we are storing in our storage room.  Okay, I am way off track by now, so back to it; I wanted a hold-in-my-hands book and so I decided to pick this one.  And once again, I think God was directing my choice.  But I'll get to that in a minute.

I know some of the companies I review for like to know my opinion about how the book looks.  That's not a huge thing to me if I know the author or have read the description, but I will admit, I often do have a first impression about the looks of the book when it comes in the mail.  This book looks nice enough, but it has one major problem.  I like new books and I like books that stay looking nice.  This book the front and back cover do not stay flat.  I don't fold my books back to read them or anything like that, so I have no good reason for why it did this, but it sort of bothers me, but it's not a make or break issue, just something I don't really like.  Moving on.....

We have a great marriage most of the time.  I think I have alluded in my blog posts that over the past few month, the month of May and June especially, D has had to put up with a lot from me.  I was empty, fighting some depression, grief, and baby blues.  That's my unofficial diagnosis, but there was a lot going on in our family and I didn't know how to handle it all.  I still don't, but I have worked through some of it and am more often than not in a good mood when he comes home from work.  I think I am anyway.

This book did point out to me some areas I could work on.  The biggest thing Kim stressed is God must be first and your spouse second.  Anytime those two priorities are not in place, you are asking for trouble.  Sounds simple enough, but takes some hard work to do.

The seven steps that Kim gives are as follows:
STOP the insanities that hold us back
START the practice of putting God first, spouse second
CONNECT the art of listening and being present
ENGAGE: how to fight right
BALANCE: scheduling for a better marriage
MINGLE: sex as the mingling of souls
FIGHT: the power of fighting together on the same team

Good stuff here: will it work for every marriage?  Yes, if both parties are willing to practice them, but a one-sided effort will only go so far.  That is my unofficial idea.

What I didn't like about the book is how okay Kim was with divorce and remarriage.  While I think there are times when spouses need to separate as in the case of abuse, I don't believe God condones remarriage and so I didn't like his complete acceptance of remarriage.

Minus that, this was a very good, challenging book and it has challenged me to fight harder than ever for our marriage.   I would encourage others who want to have an awesome marriage to read the book and to work at it TOGETHER.

This book was given me by Book Look Bloggers for the purpose of reading and writing a review.  All opinions expressed were my own.

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