Title: Fight Your Way to a Better Marriage: How Healthy Conflict Can Take You to Deeper Levels of Intimacy
Author: Dr. Greg Smalley
My Review:
My marriage has been an amazing adventure with ups and downs that are both exhilarating and frustrating. I was very excited to read the book, Fight Your Way To A Better Marriage by Dr. Greg Smalley who is the Executive Director of Marriage at Focus On The Family (an excellent resource for my family).
Fight Your Way To A Better Marriage: How Healthy Conflict Can Take You To Deeper Levels of Intimacy is a refreshing marriage advice book that empathizes how a successful marriage cannot grow without conflict. While it doesn’t encourage you to literally “fight” on a regular basis it does offer effective ways to communicate as well as the values of conflict to include a few such as:
- How to break, old ineffective patterns
- A way to guard against being too comfortable or too complacent, which breed mediocrity and boredom (my favorite chapter personally)
- Insight into your own personal issues
- Reduction of tension as emotions are vented and stress is released
- Greater trust and intimacy after pushing through difficult and heated conversations (I believe this is what my husband affectionately refers to as “makeup sex” which is his favorite part of a fight between us).
This Christian based book features real life issues that many couple will experience (or are experiencing) in their marriage and offers spiritual and practical ways to address these issues. I love the author’s matter of fact writing style which has inspired me to take an honest look at myself and the ways that I can personally work towards making my marriage more satisfying. One quote in the book by Carl Jung especially resonated with me, “To become acquainted with oneself is a terrible shock” as I realize that I need to address my own personal flaws before attacking my husband for his.
I enjoyed Fight Your Way To A Better Marriage very much and it is available for purchase for the SRP of $21.99 at major retailers and online at Amazon.com, Christianbook.com and more.
*I received a copy of this book for review, but was not compensated financially in any way. The opinions expressed are my own and are based solely on my experiences while reading this novel.*
About Maureen
I wish I would have fought harder for mine. It’s a tough thing.
Thank you for a great review of this book. I too need to look at and correct my flaws, none of us are perfect. Thanks
Great Review! I’m not married but might as well be. I do believe every relationship will have arguments which is healthy as long as its not an everyday thing. Thanks for the review.
I am getting married next year, so this would be a great read. Going into a marriage with this knowledge will really help our marriage last!
Great review..makes me want to buy it, and read it to my husband!
This sounds like a great book with lots of ideas and help offered. I always said that a marriage is like a garden – its needs constant tending to ,to flourish. Thanks for the wonderful review.
This sounds like a book I want to read, my hubby and I have a hard time communicating and I am tired of all the “overused” suggestions that haven’t been working. Maybe this will give us some fresh insight!
This reminds me of a book I read when I was married. It was called ‘fighting for us’ or something like that
Thank you for the reveiw of this book. It sounds like it has some really good advice. I have been married for over 33 years and there is probably things in the book that would even benefit out marriage.
Great review, sounds like a great book for those married ones out there