Blog Tour: What's It Like To Be Married To Me?

This book challenges wives to ask themselves hard questions, with the goal of uncovering what it really is like for their husband to be married to them. The goal is not to make a list of ways your husband can change, but more to identify ways that you can change to improve your marriage (and not with an expectation that if I change x then that will manipulate my husband into changing y, but from the expectation that if I make the changes necessary to be the wife that God wants me to be, then I and my marriage will benefit - even if my changes are the only ones that are made.)

In general, I liked the questions that were posed - they're thought provoking and not easy. And I liked the advice (though hard, certainly, in some places) that was offered. But I do think there were a few places that took it too far. There were two, perhaps three (I can't recall precisely - it was either 2 or 3) real life stories provided that were women who were in abusive relationships and who, rather than getting out to protect themselves and their children, stuck around and prayed "to see how God would work." Granted, they were not physically abusive, and I don't think that you should run the first time you have a fight where nasty words are said - but I also think that it's reckless to not put a caveat on any kind of marital advice that if your life, or the life of your children, is in danger at the hands of your spouse - you leave. (And again, that's not necessarily saying divorce immediately - but you get out and you pray from a removed location. You don't stay in the house.)

Other than those situations, there are many more common examples of misunderstandings and personality conflicts that arise in probably 99% of marriages and how some wives were able to start on a process of healing by taking the first step and making hard changes in their own thoughts and responses. There are recommended exercises sprinkled throughout the book and a 10-week study guide (I believe designed for group study, though it could easily be tackled on your own) that help you explore the "dangerous questions" in each chapter more thoroughly.

Overall, this is a thought provoking read and something I'd recommend to any woman in a reasonably functional marriage who wants to improve her relationship (or at least wants to do an individual marriage health check). I wouldn't recommend it to a woman who is in a major marital crisis, and, again, I do think there needed to be a bit more caution surrounding the more extreme situations that can arise.

This book was provided for review by the author.