Patching Cracks


A few years ago, while taking a seminary class on Marriage Counseling, I realized that my performance as a husband left much to be desired. I wasn’t the worst husband in the world and, in fact, had become a better husband than I was early in our marriage. Instead of being terrible, I was just ok. That was not ok by me. I love my wife and want my life to be a blessing to her. I want her to make her life better through everything I do. This began my concerted effort to become the man my wife deserves and that God calls me to be. I approached this task in the same manner I approach every challenge and task in life. I’ve read everything I could find and experimented with implementing what I read. The following books are by no means exhaustive, but they are the ones that have influenced me more than any others. I’ve read most of them multiple times.

• You and Me Forever– This book is one of the best marriage books I’ve read. Francis Chan sets his discussion of marriage in the context of the larger gospel message. He addresses the major areas of the marital relationship in light of eternity. This book is fairly unique among the other marriage books I’ve read because of the broad overview focus. It is powerful because it puts the various elements of marriage in context. The struggles, responsibilities, and worries of marriage lose much of their weight and take on new meaning in light of the fact that your family will spend eternity with God. Marriage is part of the preparation God gives us for that experience. For me, this book set a whole different context for marriage and prompted me to strive to be a better husband as a central responsibility of my life and as as a follower of Jesus. In many ways, this book prompted me to be a better man.
• Sacred Marriage– Gary Thomas’ book is not entirely dissimilar from Chan’s You and Me Forever. It looks at marriage in terms of its role as preparation for eternity. Thomas’ treatment of the topic is more in depth and considers both the positive components as well as the difficulties faced in marriage. Thomas’ assumption that marriage is a means of developing a more intimate relationship with Jesus is profound and serves as a great foundation for spiritual growth. In relation to my marriage, this book fleshed out my understanding of how my marriage deepens my relationship with Christ. It gave me a whole other reason to strive to be a better husband as well as some context for understanding different aspects of my relationship with my wife.
• Love and Respect– Love and Respect is a break from the previous titles on this list. It is far more practical in focus, dealing with the idea that many of the challenges that crop up between husbands and wives are rooted in very different personality types and ways of interacting with the world. The premise is that men need to feel respected by their wives and wives need to feel loved by their husbands. This is not to say that husbands don’t want to be loved and wives don’t want to be respected. Rather, the author argues that they are less important than the alternative. The implications of these needs are expounded on for practical concerns. This book helped me understand my wife’s point of view and offered a great deal of understanding as to why some of my actions/words upset her, which had previously perplexed me. Eggerichs is also a gifted speaker. His seminars are worth watching and very entertaining. He also does a podcast that is excellent. 
• His Needs Her Needs– Harley’s two books on this list are very practical, which I love. He looks at the affection/love feelings couples have in the beginning of marriage and examines why they tend to dissipate as time goes on. He argues that the feelings are a product of having emotional needs met by your spouse. The book explores the various important emotional needs of husbands and wives. This volume was powerful for me because it gave me areas of focus for my energies in serving and loving my wife. In addition, the illustration Harley uses to explain the importance of meeting needs, the love bank, has served to well in my own motivation and in counseling/teaching others. 
• Love Busters– I actually think that this book was more influential for me than Harley’s other book (His Needs Her Needs), but it is more focused on the negative behaviors that damage the relationship. I was shocked at how many of the behaviors I engaged in and how they affected my relationship with my wife. In conjunction with the various love busters behaviors, Harley offers a list of policies to implement in the relationship that help avoid the love busters and that ultimately feed into the more effective implementation of the lessons from His Needs Her Needs. My wife and I agreed on one element of these two books that we did not like. Harley uses scaling questions, which are common in counseling, but we found terribly difficult to deal with. Otherwise, these two volumes are exceptional.