Customer Reviews

The Exceptional Seven Percent: The Nine Secrets of the World's Happiest Couples

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This is an exceptional book that aims at an attainable goal--attainable as long as you understand what you're trying to do. You can't get what you want if you don't know exactly what you want. I wanted an exceptional marriage, but didn't understand why it wasn't happening. Had I married the "wrong" person? Were we not as compatible as I thought when we got engaged?

It is absolutely exciting how radically for the better your married life can change when you systematically follow the principles in this book. It did in my case. And as I changed, so did my wife toward me.

So, what's the secret? Nothing less than living up to the commitment you happened to proclaim publicly on your wedding day--"to love and to cherish in good times and in bad...till death do us part." Is that unconditional or what?

Tall trees can't grow tall in shifting sands. An exceptional marriage is absolutely rooted in the solid ground of unconditional commitment.

Lofty language, but it all boils down to this: so many marriages fail when the participants get caught up in thinking "I'd be nice to her if only she were nice towards me," or "I'd do for her what she wants if only she would act towards me in such a way as to deserve it."

Children! Children! Hey, I used to hear those voices in my own head. I started to grow up when I found the courage to embrace the pain of admitting to myself that maybe I really wasn't the man or husband I wanted to be.

The authors of this book made it plainly obvious to me what I was doing wrong. I wasn't really secure in the person I had become at this point in my life, less than my own ideal. Heck, I had forgotten what that ideal was. (Springsteen's song "One Step Up" always tears me up when he sings "Somewhere along the line I got off track...")

That's where this book is so great. It asks you to be clear about what you want to be when you grow up.

So what does it take to have an exceptional marriage? Read this book. Decide who you want to BE. Choose daily to remind yourself to act lovingly toward your spouse whether your spouse happens to be her best self toward you that day or not. The authors discuss the different stages of improvement in marriage, and how you'll never get to the highest stage if you make your love dependent on circumstances of the moment. You need to see beyond the moment to your vision of what it means to be a great husband or wife.

Want a marriage that's better than average, that's exceptional? Then you've got to be bigger than yourself. Yes, you might even have to grow up. With the help of these authors, I have, and man, the view from here is incredible.

Sometimes you come across a book that is like clear music, and that clears up an area of your life that had been foggy forever. That is what this book was like for me. I came out of a failed marriage, and I wanted to understand why I had failed. I read various books. Then I came across this one. It's not the best title, perhaps, since other titles in the same area scream out their message louder. But it made such sense. Popcak speaks among other things of a marital imperative, which both husband and wife commit to, helping each other achieve lifetime goals, so that infidelity becomes far less likely, since another man or woman is not committed to helping you achieve your lifetime goals. Marriage becomes a place where you develop more and more competence. I could go on and on. My only reservation is that it sounded like an awful lot of work, but that could reflect my personal situation right now. I thought to myself, this is how to do marriage and make it work and make it wonderful. Also, I don't think it's just for the exceptional seven percent. And of course in this day and age one would have to say it's not only for marriages. No matter where you are in your relationship or relationship skills, this book might be the revelation you are looking for.

Many books on marriage are designed to teach the basics of communication skills (love languages) to those desperate couples who are on the verge of divorce or abuse, helping them to rebuild their love. This book, however, is for the rest of us, who are in a good position already, who are deeply in love, and maybe even think we don't need help as it's all working just fine. Popcak calls us to a higher ideal, tells us to not settle for being just fine, but to try to be exceptional. Have that type of marriage that fulfills your life's dreams and works for the good of your children and society. The Exceptional Seven Percent does not hide the fact that it will take sacrifice and letting go of old ways of thinking, but it will be well worth it. With surveys and questions along the way, this book makes it easy to chart your progress as you advance through the stages towards being one of the world's happiest couples. Yes, it really is possible, if you're willing to work at it.

This is the best marriage book I've seen. It resonates strongly with my wife's and my experience in our 29-year (as of this writing) first marriage, and also showed us some very constructive ways to improve what we already count as a very good marriage.

Popcak's central theme is The Marital Imperative - sort-of a marital "mission statement" of shared spiritual goals and values - as a Guiding Principle for both spouses to refer themselves and each other to. Or, as Popcak glibly puts it, "What kind of person do you want to be when you grow up?" So that, if I am behaving in a way inconsistent with my own stated goals and values, my wife can 'call me up' to what I've already said is my own vision for the kind of person I want to be. (And it is amazing, isn't it, how we so easily manage to 'make exceptions' to The Kind of Person I Want to Be, when it comes to our spouse? Or our children?)

Popcak very clearly shows how 'Conventional' marriages fall short of what it takes to become Exceptional; how such common tactics as 'Scorekeeping' (a scrupulous focus on 'fairness' and a relentless drive to 'The 50-50 Marriage') and 'Marital Chicken' (a game to see which spouse can make the other one 'blink first' in an argument) have corrosive effects on marriage.

Popcak outlines nine Secrets of Exceptional Marriages - the Marital Imperative, Fidelity (not simply sexual fidelity, but rather fidelity to one's own spiritual values and ideals), Loving, Service, Rapport (a more-comprehensive kind of 'communication'), Negotiation (resolving differences), Gratitude, Joy, and Sexuality. What was stiking to me was how Service flows out of Love - it's the practical expression of Love; where Love 'gets real', so to speak, rather than simply good feelings - and, in turn, how Service fuels so many of the other 'secrets', especially Gratitude, Joy, and Sexuality. It amounts to something more like a '100-100 Marriage' - both spouses just 'go all-in' for each other.

I've read a few of Popcak's other books, and they have all been excellent. 'The Exceptional Seven Percent' is written for a more 'general' audience (as opposed to a specifically Christian or Catholic one), but the truths he communicates here are universal, and accessible to anyone, regardless of their specific 'spiritual' commitments.

This is a terrific book; it gives a very solid, straightforward account of what it takes to have a strong marriage, and how to move from wherever your marriage is into something stronger and more enduring.

With this inspiring and insightful guide, any couple who is as serious about their future together as they are about their financial wellbeing will be twice blessed by dusting off these tools and using them in their marriage. This book provides the foundation and grounding that is available right here on Earth without having to move to Mars or Venus to find happiness. Popcak creatively presents a practical guide to measure your relationship right now, and incorporates the tools to help you dig a little deeper.

This is the best book I've ever read on marriage! Most marriage books tell you how to try to make a bad marriage better. They focus on recovering from seperations, constant fighting, affairs, etc. This book tells you how to make a good marriage exceptional. If you love your spouse, but feel your marriage could be even better than it is today, then this book is for you!

The best book on marriage I ever read is "The Exceptional Seven Percent", by Gregory K. Popcak. It was out of print for a while, but is out again in paperback.

I first ran across this book by accident in the library, read a little bit of it, but didn't have a library card with me, so I could not check it out. I forgot the title, and it took me a year to find it again.

I had read original books of psychology when I was young - Freud, Jung, Adler, Erikson, Skinner, Maslow, Rollo May, Victor Frankl - but nothing for 30 years. The first marriage books I found were clinical, or involved theories I did not like. Some were specific, like Schnarch. That goes with having one or two specific things you think are The Problem.

When I found The Exceptional Seven Percent again and read it, I realized the rest of the books dealt with dysfunction. This author, Popcak, breezes past dysfunctional marriages, and spends most of his effort on functioning marriages. He describes a hierarchy of relationships, from Shipwrecked to Spiritual.

You can bet none of us fit into the higher categories. You may recognize some of your satisfied, successful friends in here, as having Star Marriages, or some other partnership. I know I have, and I know that satisfaction and comfort has left some of them wanting more, but they don't know how to move beyond the successful arrangements they created early in marriage. This books shows you how to move from level to level.

It is not clinical, not about research, does not depend upon data. Like Dr. Harley, Popcak depends upon his own experience. It only references a few other books on what makes good marriages work: The Good Marriage, by Wasserman; the books by John Gottman; and the concept of the Love Bank in His Needs, Her Needs. This book is about 20 years old, a contemporary of HNHN.

If you can't get your spouse to read a 'fix it' book, try to get them to read this and see what they are missing.

Always enjoy Popcak's work. We give this book as a gift for friends who have become engaged. Thorough yet concise, accessible, and humorous. Glad it's back in print.

"The world's happiest couple" isn't exactly appropriate seeing as it focuses mostly on the traditional "perfect" western marriage. This book would be useful to perhaps a couple with years of fighting and unhappiness between them. Not for new, almost-happy couples looking to boost their connection. Had a few useful keys, but nothing earth-shattering to this young reader.

A little tough to read. "Quiz" up front was a little "off-putting." Thorough and basically good marriage book.