Marriage, worth researching
I know there’s a lot of books out there on marriage and, if you’re a married bloke, there’s a chance your wife has read some of them to you. So I give this advice carefully.
Here’s a great book. “Love and Respect” by Dr Emerson Eggerichs. Kathy and I have read it together while we were on holidays. It’s done us the world of good. I know in one sense it wouldn’t matter what you read together with your wife on holidays it would do your relationship good, but this book is very insightful.
His main thesis comes out of seeing the different responses in marriage between a husband and wife. In summary see Ephesians 5:33:
“However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.”
God tells husbands to love their wives, but tells wives to respect their husbands. Eggerichs’ thesis flows out of taking this difference seriously, that wives are wired up to want love, and men are wired up to want and need respect.
It’s a good book and works pretty well across the American/Australian cultural divide. It’s practical and easy to read. Kathy and I read a few chapters each, passed the book back and forward and talked about it. It works.
Gentlemen, it’s our job to take the initiative in our marriages, and you invest this time with your lady, and it will help in many different ways. (There’s a degree to which he pushes the thesis a bit too far and uses it as his hermeneutic in explaining mutual submission etc, but this is a decimal point in a good practical book on Marriage.) This book would be useful for any Christian couple. You could also give this one to someone who isn’t a Christian, as an intro to the way Christians think.
Love and respect, essentials in making a marriage work.
Cheers
Al
Al Stewart
Happily married with a bunch of kids he is passionate about helping grow God's church in Australia.
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