Thanksgiving…For My Marriage
(Following are excerpts from a letter we received about What Radical Husbands Do.)
“My husband and I were in the roughest patch of marriage we had ever experienced. We were coming up on our 15th year and I honestly thought that it would be our last. I had been exhausted from the previous years of attempting to satisfy someone who could not be satisfied. In a three-year period, I had experienced a miscarriage, the birth of a third child, a move, and the loss of my mother. I was “fried” to say the least. All the while, I had an a-hole for a husband. So successful in business and being a great father, but he sucked as a husband.
My husband was invited to a retreat called Souly Business. He met a mentor there who challenged him and gave him a copy of your book. The man I fell in love with actually came back from that retreat! You don’t know how many times I’d begged God to bring him back! I’d gotten to where I didn’t recognize the man I was married to anymore.
The chapter you titled, “Create an Environment of Acceptance” was by far my favorite chapter. Boy did I ever connect and relate to this chapter. The part where you say, “it’s harder to accept someone than to love them,” struck home like no other words. It is so true! Being a women that is wired to want to satisfy a man……well it just sucks! And it sucks more when you can never succeed!
This world is so different than the world that even my generation’s mothers had to experience. Today we are expected to never age and always maintain the body of an 18 year-old (and don’t forget to dress like them too!). It’s the culture we live in. Exercise like crazy, inject some botox every three months, and if you don’t succeed, there’s always plastic surgery. The expectations placed on brides today are unattainable! Not every woman can look like the women in magazines, television shows, and porn sites!!!
I also appreciate when you tell your male readers to “burn the ship!” It is so true! If a man wants a good marriage, one that works, he has to burn the ship! It is about time someone steps up and actually tells men what they have to do in order to have a successful marriage!
I’ve planned to write this letter for a while, but I waited because I wanted to see if this was a “phase.” I didn’t know if my husband had just read a book, got moved by it, and then would return to his old self. We’ve been to 3 different counselors over the years. All of them have been unsuccessful for us for many different reasons. I believe my husband had to finally hit an all time “low” in order to be motivated to bounce back. My husband has tried very hard to do what you advise. He actually came to me and apologized for being an a-hole! I will never forget that day! I thought I would never hear him admit that he was wrong for the way that he had treated me. Since he read your book, our married life has changed dramatically! He told me he could not completely change over night, but I was willing to wait and see. The last 7 or 8 months have probably been the best of our entire marriage! I feel as though he actually loves me for the first time in a very long time. The weights of acceptance from him have been lifted, and I finally feel like I can breath again.
I can’t tell you how thankful I am that you wrote this book. I have so many friends that are experiencing this very same thing in their marriages. My husband and I have both given out copies to people that we feel may benefit from it.”
Thank you Lord for marriage and for wives like this one . . . who hang in there far longer than ‘the world’ would tell them to. Thank you for blessing her with the husband she thought she got in the first place!
Happy Thanksgiving!
(Order What Radical Husbands Do by clicking here.)
Breathe New Life Into Your Discipleship
Small group mentoring can help you engage your people, build your core group of leaders, and transform your church. Our free resources equip you with all the tools you need to launch a sustainable mentoring program.