The Book for You Before the I Do's: A Book Review

                                        
              My sister and her fiancé have already successfully gone through a series of premarital counseling sessions, yet they understand the importance of continuing to discover more about their compatibility. For this reason, they are currently reading the non-fiction book Things I Wish I’d Known Before We Got Married by Gary Chapman. Although its lessons are geared towards people who are contemplating marriage, this book was recommended to me as a single person. I read its text and have reviewed it below. I feel that this book is an exceptional guide for anyone considering marriage at some point in the future.
The review:




Non-fiction book: Things I Wish I’d Known Before We Got Married by Gary Chapman

Product summary: A relationship blueprint to help you decide if and when you’re ready to tie the knot

Price and distributors: Paperback (176 pgs) retails for $12.99 at all major bookstores, but can be found at http://www.amazon.com/ for $9.35

Rating: 3 out of 4 karats   

        

                In a fairy tale, the story always ends as soon as the couple says ‘I do.’ There is never any mention of how the prince copes with spending Christmas with the wicked stepsisters, or how the princess deals with her new husband’s fondness for saving damsels in distress. In real life, the story continues past the happily ever after, into the marriage itself. Four million Americans get married every year hoping for a happy ending to their story, yet few couples plan past the wedding. As a marriage counselor, pastor, and husband, Dr. Gary Chapman has seen how destructive it can be to enter into a marriage without first learning the skills necessary for building a strong foundation. This best selling author (The Five Love Languages) wrote his newest book, Things I Wish I’d Known Before We Got Married (released on September 1, 2010) in order to spare other couples from entering the pitfalls both he and his clients have experienced.

            Things I Wish I’d Known Before We Got Married is an easy-to-follow guide which encourages dialogue between couples whether they are dating, engaged, or newly married, and gets them asking important questions regarding their compatibility. It also offers practical steps toward working out whatever differences those questions may reveal. Its text not only applies to couples, but to individuals, as well. For single people, this book offers information which will ease the transition from singleness to marriage.

            Each of its twelve chapters covers a lesson which the author wishes he had learned before marriage. The short chapters (under 10 pages each) are brief enough for even the busiest readers to handle, and deal with standard areas of contention such as money, family, and sex. They also cover less conventional topics which range from offering apologies and forgiveness, to deciding who will clean the toilet. Warm and often humorous personal anecdotes introduce each of these topics. The story in the chapter “That Toilets are Not Self Cleaning” is particularly enjoyable. Chapman writes:

In the home in which I grew up, the toilet was never dirty. It never crossed my mind that someone was cleaning it. To this day, I don’t know whether it was my mother or my father cleaning it.  I never saw anyone cleaning the toilet. Two weeks after Karolyn and I got married, I enrolled in graduate school and we lived in student housing. It was a small apartment, but it was clean and nice. About three weeks later, I noticed that the toilet had dark stains. (By this time I knew that toilets had to be cleaned. After all, I was in graduate school.) I mentioned to Karolyn and she said, “I know. I was wondering when you were going to clean it.” “Clean it?!” I said. “I thought you were going to clean it. I don’t know how to clean a toilet.” “Well then, let me teach you,” she said.  (Chapman 76)

Chapman concludes his story with,

Before marriage, I never considered the idea that I would someday be a toilet cleaner… If and when you get married, who do you think will clean the toilet in your apartment or house? I have discovered in premarital counseling that most men think the wife will clean it, while most women think their husband will clean it. Without premarital counseling, most couples never even think about who will clean the toilet and three weeks after the wedding, they too discover that toilets are not self cleaning. (Chapman 77)

            This is an abbreviated version of the anecdote that introduces chapter 7, which stresses the importance of eliminating role confusion over household duties in contemporary marriages. Thought-provoking discussion questions and personal assessments follow this chapter, and each of the 11 others. These questions allow people to not only read the material, but to apply its lessons to their lives.

Because Dr. Chapman is also Senior Associate Pastor of a Christian church, his approach to counseling is based upon Biblical principles. His book includes a chapter titled “That Spirituality is Not to Be Equated with Going to Church,” which asks couples to discuss their religious beliefs both theologically and personally, and to address their spiritual differences. Although this is an important aspect for people of any faith to consider, non-Christians may choose to skip this chapter. It is entirely possible to still take away valuable lessons from the rest of the book. Any other religious reference made in its text illustrates the convictions of the author in a manner which is neither preachy, nor heavy-handed.

This book is geared toward those seeking an introduction to practical marriage tips. It is not meant to replace marriage counseling, and does not delve deeply into how to deal with major and serious conflicts. It does offer helpful lists of websites and books in the appendix for those seeking additional information from other experts in the field of marriage counseling, however.

The best thing about Things I Wish I’d known Before We Got Married is the warm, conversational way in which Dr. Chapman offers advice to his readers, regardless of their level of relationship status or religious beliefs. He shares in his book that he has been counseling couples for over 35 years. In that time, he has seen many marriages fall apart over day-to-day struggles. In the introduction, he explains:

It is my conviction that many struggles could have been avoided, had the couple taken more time to thoroughly prepare for marriage. That is why I am writing this book. I want you to learn from their mistakes. It is much less painful than learning from your own mistakes. I want you to have the kind of loving, supportive, mutually-beneficial marriage that you envision. (Chapman 11)

This book is a worth-while read. Although reading it does not equate with waving a magical wand to eliminate all problems which might arise in a marriage, it does give both couples and singles a good idea of what conflicts they may expect in married life. It also offers practical lessons for dealing with those conflicts. Those lessons just may bring its readers one step closer to the happily ever after that they have always imagined.

This is an audio version of the book's introduction: