Things I Wish I'd Known Before We Got Married
by Gary Chapman Book Review by Miranda Fraser ISBN: 978-0-8024-8183-2 Returning to Chapman, I read "Things I Wish I'd Known Before We Got Married" mostly out of curiosity. Someone familiar to my fiance and I was in the midst of a divorce when they casually told us that this would be a good book for us to read. They continued that it really did sound silly, but we might take something from it. I had heard the praises of his Love Languages book and I figured what could it hurt to read this? What are things that most couples divorce over? To begin with, I am an overly cautious person, terrified of failure and my future, and so my entire life I have analyzed situations from various angles before approaching things. In becoming this way I've learned to never get into a relationship unless you know what you want in your future. And I mean this very seriously, what are the BIG things you want in your future, the things you can't compromise on? For instance are you religious, do you want kids, marriage, etc? These are all things you should figure out for yourself before you date someone, because if they don't want those things you will eventually become miserable in that relationship. I know a lot of people who thought they could eventually learn to live with the differences or could eventually coax the person to their way of thinking, and they ended up wasting years of their lives only to end in terrible break ups. A friend of mine dated a girl who hated Christmas- not just the religious side of it, but Santa and Christmas trees as well. She told him Christmas was going to be banned in their household because she didn't want her kids raised around it. He was very hurt but 'loved her' and thought he could live with this. It wasn't until their (rather nasty) breakup when he admitted how much he hated all their BIG differences and how miserable he really was. I see this happen all the time to people I love. Already knowing this, I made sure my fiance and I had all the BIG things in agreement and from there we worked on the little things. But this is a concept not a lot of people use in their lives and so they get swept up in the "in love" phase and rush into a marriage. This is what Chapman is talking about, we get so swept up in a euphoric feeling for this person, like we've never felt for anyone else, and we think nothing could go wrong. Only to get married and think "I must have married the wrong person!" In fact most of this book is him talking about how rocky his marriage was at the beginning because he and his wife discovered they were very different humans. In fact, for them it wasn't so much the BIG issues, but rather all the little things that build up! There are twelve chapters in the book, each one addressing things he wish he had realized before getting married AND consistent topics he's heard from couples in the course of 30 years of doing marriage counseling. These are issues such as: "Being in love is not an adequate foundation for building a successful marriage", (this is that euphoric high I mentioned.) "That the saying 'like mother, like daughter' and 'like father, like son' was not a myth." Realizing that the actions we've seen from our parents do indeed become a part of us and the languages we speak. He address that if a son's father was an abuser he may too become one, if a woman's mother is an alcoholic she may also become one. Now, I have ALWAYS despised that saying! But I give him a lot of credit for being quick to mention that if we realize the negative actions of our parent(s) we are less likely to repeat them ourselves- you are not doomed to be the same as them. (And for a lot of people that's an important thing to hear!) "How to solve disagreements without arguing" he says there are three ways to go about this: meeting in the middle, the side, or later. And he adequately discusses how to get to the point of being able to make those decisions. "That apologizing is a sign of strength" and "Forgiveness is not a feeling"- these chapters really struck a cord with me. While I am quick to say sorry for everything, even things I didn't do, I did not grow up in a household where people readily admitted their mistakes. In fact, to this day people over 20 years my elder still live their lives by refusing to give or accept apologies and move on with their lives. It's unfortunate, but my fiance came from a family who was very open to discuss such things and give forgiveness, so he was the one to implement it into the balance of our lives. (I am extremely grateful for this.) I'd also like to note that in these chapters he mentioned the five languages of apology and how sometimes people can perceive apologies differently than the other person in the situation. I am curious to see if there is a test to find your apology language, because as I said, my family is not the best at this. "Toilets are not self cleaning", if in her home the father did it and in his home the mother did it, it may come as a shock to find out the other had this expectation of you. A common issue that married couples fight and ultimately divorce over is the dividing up of chores. THIS honestly seems to silly to me but I could see how it could be an issue for someone, I just feel like it should never be something that leads to divorce- and yet it does! There are many more topics and chapters I didn't mention, he says discussing money is a common issue, that remembering marrying someone means marrying into their family. He even discusses that mutual sexual fulfillment is not automatic- male and females are wired differently in a lot of ways, and that failing to recognize your partners needs will lead to serious problems. In discussing the psychological side of sex he discusses the importance of getting your sexual past out in the open BEFORE marriage. Now, I know people who don't care about this topic at all, and some days I envy them, but for me this is a BIG issue. But again, if you're one of those people who this topic doesn't bother, then it's one less thing you have worry about in your future, lol! I mean the goal of this book is to prepare us for happy fulfilling marriages, right? The final thing I really want to discuss is the chapter on "Personality profoundly influences behavior". I mean the chapter title alone sounds silly, but I can definitely see where these would be issues that could severely impact the way you see your spouse: pessimist vs optimist, morning person vs night person, organizer vs the free spirit, etc. We say opposites attract but then can we live with them? For a lot of people it's hard to give up your way of thinking or your vision of how things should be. Chapman wanted to have breakfasts with his wife and early bedtimes for 'love' and cuddles. She wanted to sleep in and stay up late reading or watching Tv. They had to find a compromise to function so that neither person missed the important things just because they were by nature wired to sleep at different times. I know I worried about that myself, because I walk a fine line in between the two. While I am mostly a night person, I have found 5 am to be a prime time to wake up and work on my novel. I can do that most days without a care but if I do that for weeks straight my night owl comes out and BEGS for a night where I drink coffee, scroll through Pinterest, and craft till I pass out from exhaustion. I know, I'm a weird one, but that's okay because Joshua knows this and he's perfectly fine with it! Proving that figuring out what your personality differences are early on, can save you a lot of anguish later. In the end I really have enjoyed Chapman's books. They seem so simple and so common sense and yet I find myself thinking about the various languages all the time. Whenever I see couples struggling to get along I want to offer them a copy of his books and hope they find something in it to help. So here I am, they're simple but they're written clearly and might help someone's marriage so pass it along! If you're reading these because you're getting married CONGRATS! If you're working on your marriage, good for you! I support you and wish you all the best, we all deserve to be happy. I realized I never added my religion disclaimer- Chapman is a religious man and so he does mention where religion influenced his way of thinking. He does it in a very professional way and it's always fitting to the topic at hand, not thrown at you randomly. There is a chapter in this book called, "That spirituality is not equated with 'going to church'". In the beginning I mentioned that Religion is one of those BIG things that you may not be able to compromise on (whether its because you're for it or against it). Religion is a very big issue a lot of married couples have and so it was smart to add it to this book. You can always skip that chapter entirely if this is not something you can use. Read on my fellow bookworms may we one day have Belle's library! And as always links to the authors pages are below.
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October 2020
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