A marraige book with a difference. ( )

This is an awesome book. It's about marriage, but more than that, it's about living with our focus on God and living for Him - which many of us do, or are about to do, in the context of a marriage relationship. The book is excellent theologically but eminently practical in it's outworking of that. It is a few simple ideas about how a wife needs to be loved and a husband needs to be respected and that by unconditionally doing one the other will increase.

Eggerichs' argues that most of us get stuck on the 'crazy cycle'. That's where a wife doesn't unconditionally respect her husband and/or a husband doesn't unconditionally respect his wife. The book then gives tips for husbands on how to love and wives on how to respect. As a man about to be married I really felt the things he outlined for the women about how to respect a man really hit home. This is called the 'energizing cycle'. Finally he finishes the book with the 'reward cycle' where he tells us that because of who God is we must unconditionally love or respect our spouse not because of who they are or what they've done but because of who God is, what he's done and how he tells us to live. This is a great way to finish the book. At the end their are some appendixes to help you live out the things he talks about.

The book is based largely on Ephesians 5 and deals with issues of love, respect and submission and mutual submission very well and in a way that makes good sense. If Ellisa and I can live out the principles in this book as we start our married life, then I'm convinced we will be in for a great marriage centred more fully on Jesus.

Anyone who is married or going to be married should read this book and I will be giving it and recommending it to all my friends and peers and youth who are thinking about or planning to or are married. ( )

This is not a great book, but the ideas in it are well worth reading for almost every married person. The basic premise is that women need love from their husbands and men need respect from their wives. Eggerichs uses Scripture and his years of counseling and conference experience to back this up. My one complaint with the book is that it really could have been adequately explained in a long (10,000 words or so) magazine article. ( )

Invaluable advice on improving and saving marriage relationships using Biblical principles. ( )

One of the best relationship books I've read, and the only one with the courage to tell the full truth -- love is not the whole equation, because while women generally want to be loved above all else, men typically want to be respected.

The statement alone causes shock in this society, that has been taught that we only have to love each other more. We have been taught that women should love their husbands, but nag them and manipulate them to do what they want. I have heard it myself when a man asks for love, a woman will say, "You don't care that I love you?"

The truth has been in the Bible the whole time. Women are instructed to respect and honor their husbands while husbands are to love their wives. Eggerichs painstakingly shows how showing a man more respect can even bring more love into a marriage.

I recommend it highly to all married couples, but more than anything else, build your relationship on Christ and it will succeed. ( )