Making Your Differences Work for Your Marriage (Ebook Shorts) , livre ebook

Baker Publishing Group - Rick Johnson

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48 pages

English

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Relationship expert Rick Johnson shows you how to embrace your individuality, understand your spouse's needs and desires, and work together to build a strong marriage based on mutual respect and understanding.

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Publié par	Baker Publishing Group
Date de parution	01 juillet 2013
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781441241184
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0086€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

© 2010 by Rick Johnson
Published by Revell
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.revellbooks.com
Excerpted from Becoming Your Spouse’s Better Half
Ebook edition created 2013
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means for example, electronic, photocopy, recording without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
ISBN 978-1-4412-4118-4
Scripture is taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
This book is dedicated to Scott and Terry for the model they set and for their encouragement. Also to Dick and Dot for their love and example.
And of course, to the love of my life, the woman who taught me to love my “till death do us part” bride, Suzanne. You’ll always be my girl.
Contents
Cover 1
Title Page 3
Copyright Page 4
Dedication 5
Acknowledgments 7
Introduction: Marriage Is Tough 8
Men’s Modes 14
1. Amorous: Never Give Up! 15
2. Work: Every Man’s Bane, Every Man’s Blessing 25
Women’s Moods 34
1. Romantic: Romancing the Home 35
2. Nesting: Home Sweet Home 45
Notes 53
About the Author 54
Books by Rick Johnson 55
Back Ads 56
Back Cover 57
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Greg and Becky Johnson for the initial idea of and their invaluable help with this book.
Also, I’d like to thank my editor Dr. Vicki Crumpton, who is (surprisingly) not tired of working with me yet. I also would like to acknowledge all the people at my publisher who work so hard behind the scenes to produce and sell my books. I truly believe God gave me the best publishing house and the best people I could ever want to work with thank you!
I’d also like to thank the many women who responded to my questionnaires while I was trying to understand how women think and what they need. (I’ve changed their names to protect their privacy.) Your patience and honesty were invaluable as I searched for a glimpse inside the complicated soul of the female gender.
Introduction
Marriage Is Tough
Marriage is tough. Anyone who says it isn’t is either a liar or a fool. Even after twenty-eight years of marriage, trying to understand and satisfy my wife’s needs is still a daunting challenge. And I’m sure she feels the same way about me.
It’s not that we don’t have great times together. In fact, we’re best friends. I enjoy her company as much or more than I ever have. My respect for her has grown exponentially over the years. Over time the initial rush of heart-stopping passion, lust, and infatuation has been replaced by a more mature, steady, deeper love and affection. I still find her the most beautiful and mysterious creature I’ve ever known.
Sometimes I look at an attractive woman and then look at my wife. I am always astonished at how beautiful she still is, even in comparison to much younger women. She’s charming, and her emerald-green eyes sparkle with electricity when she’s being flirtatious. Every so often I look at her and am stunned speechless when I see a vision of the young girl I married who has ripened into an even more glorious version of womanhood. When she laughs at my jokes, all is good with the world. Her peals of laughter warm my insides like a cup of hot cocoa on a frosty winter’s day. Our bodies fit together like a pair of comfortable old Levi’s. She truly is what makes my world go around.
Differences Strengths or Weaknesses?
Despite all that, we are two separate beings with individual backgrounds, tastes, experiences, and personalities. This merger of individual identities is the confluence that blends two separate streams of consciousness into the river of marriage. Even though I respect and admire her more than anyone I’ve ever met, she still frequently frustrates me to the point of exasperation. She is a bewildering mix of quandaries, enigmas, contradictions, and vexations. And I’m no better. We are two unique individuals with opposing personalities and habits.
One glaring example would be the time we spend in the bathroom. I typically shower, shave, and slap on some Old Spice, and I’m good to go. Give me another minute or so to slip on jeans and a T-shirt, and I’m ready a total of ten minutes tops (fifteen if I’m taking my time) from start to finish. Suzanne, however, uses a considerably greater amount of time and resources preparing for the day. I’ve never actually timed her with a stopwatch, but I’m pretty sure that even under times of great urgency, she’s never broken the one-hour barrier. And that definitely does not include getting dressed. Of course, the end result is a whole lot more spectacular than how I turn out, but the amount of time spent seems a little excessive to me.
In almost everything, we are diametrically opposed. For instance, I can guarantee that anywhere we go in the world, the absolute strangest person in the room will come up and talk to her. She draws those people like a magnet. Then she enjoys spending time chatting with the “different” kinds of people who approach her. Perhaps that is what makes her such a great special-needs teacher. I, on the other hand, tend to try to discourage those kinds of individuals from latching on to me. Frankly, they make me a little nervous.
In addition, Suzanne is bizarrely unorganized; I like to know where everything is. She is incorrigibly late; I believe anything less than five minutes early is disrespectful. She likes vegetables; I like meat. She is very relatable in one-on-one situations; I teach well in front of large groups. She is more loving and intuitive; I am more analytical and logical. She is flexible to change and comfortable in the face of surprises (in fact, she appears to relish chaos); I need to be prepared and organized in order to be comfortable.
However, because we have recognized the value of these differences, we are able to use our strengths to compensate for and even complement the other’s weaknesses. It makes us a formidable team, both in ministry and in our marriage. We believe that as a team we are greater than the sum of our parts. While her differences may annoy me from time to time, I have come to understand the value they bring to our relationship. We have worked out our roles in marriage so they are complementary, allowing us to thrive by working together instead of against one another.
This doesn’t mean that we are not equal partners, or that one is more dominant than the other. Equality in a relationship does not mean sameness it means each person is valued for the contribution they bring to the table. In fact, the very differences we have are perhaps our greatest strengths when they are recognized and used effectively instead of being at odds with one another.
Essential Differences
In my research for this book, I discovered that men frequently operate on an objective-based, goal-oriented system, while women more often incorporate a whole-world view in their thematic approach to life. These observations can best be summed up as a husband’s “modes” and a wife’s “moods.”
Guys tend to operate in modes, which allows them to compartmentalize the different areas of their life; women tend to be driven by moods or emotions. Males are able to separate the various components of their life and forget about some while concentrating on others. Seldom does one area of life bleed into the others. Women, on the other hand, tend to view life as an overall “whole” with every area of their lives interconnected and interrelated. These differences alone are baffling and often confusing to the opposite gender. Bill and Pam Farrel describe this as women thinking like a pot of spaghetti, where everything touches everything else, and men thinking like waffles, where each element of their life is in a separate box. [1] Helen Fisher, in her book The First Sex , says women tend to think in terms of “interrelated factors, not straight lines,” whereas men use “compartmentalized, incremental reasoning process.” [2]
When a husband understands and appreciates his wife’s moods, and when a wife recognizes and respects her husband’s modes of operation, marriage becomes a wonder instead of work, fascinating instead of frustrating, a commitment to intimacy instead of a settling for “just staying together.”
People want an easy marriage. They don’t want love to be so much work. Two people start out with their hearts melting as one in a natural way, but they’re living on the high of bliss-filled hormones. This will carry them for a while, but people can’t live on bliss; there will always be a “coming down,” or crash, from the high. When that happens, and they are unprepared for the daily labor of love, they will soon be hitting their heads against the walls of each other’s hearts.
When we’re willing to put forth the effort to understand our mates and help our mates understand us, this softens our hearts and opens the door to intimacy. When we don’t make this effort together, usually one partner will stop banging his or her head against the wall of the other’s heart and give up. While fighting can be a red flag, a relationship reaches a critical stage when one spouse or the other stops trying and gives up.
When you have the key, it’s easy to go in and out. You don’t have to knock the door down or break a window. You just walk in. But without the key to understanding, marriage is hard work.
Ideally, a Christian marriage begins with both parties committed to loving God and each other. But later, after the “buzz” of love begins to fizzle, communication tails off and spouses can start taking each other for granted, losing empathy, respect, and love for one another. Life is tough, and instead of working as a team, they begin fighting with each other in an attempt to get their individual needs met. They scream at and accuse their mates and then expect their mates t