Home Improvements: The Chapman Guide to Negotiating Change with Your Spouse (Chapman Guides) [Hardcover]

Gary Chapman (Author)

Book Description

Series: Chapman Guides | Publication Date: December 18, 2006

Those annoying habits can be damaging to a relationship over time. There's hope for change. Dr. Chapman provides a do-it-yourself approach to helping couples learn to overcome bad habits. By learning and using Dr. Chapman's simple 3-step process (admitting and asking forgiveness for your own past failures; discovering and speaking your spouse's love language; and learning the proper time, place, and way to request behavioral change), couples will be able to successfully negotiate change without resorting to arguing or manipulation.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Dr. Gary Chapman is the author of the best-selling 'The Five Love Languages' (more than 4 million copies sold) and The Four Seasons of Marriage. He is the director of Marriage and Family Life Consultants, Inc.; an internationally known speaker; and the host of A Love Language Minute, a syndicated radio program heard on more than 100 stations across North America. He and his wife, Karolyn, live in North Carolina.

From AudioFile

Maurice Englands slight Southern accent is pleasing to the ear as he delivers Chapmans discussion of how to negotiate change in your spouse, using a Christian perspective. The book is divided into three sections, and Matthew 7:8, about the speck in your brothers eye versus the plank in your own, serves as the foundation. With an empathetic tone, England explains Chapmans three-step process for overcoming bad habits: personal examination, admitting the problem, and asking your spouse for forgiveness for past failures. Chapman emphasizes the importance of timing and of learning to speak your spouses love language to encourage negotiation and change without arguments, blame, or manipulation. G.D.W. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. (December 18, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1414300158
• ISBN-13: 978-1414300153
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 4.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #243,149 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #64 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Health, Mind & Body > Relationships > Marriage
  • #91 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Parenting & Families > Parenting > General

More About the Author

Married more than 45 years to Karolyn, Dr. Gary Chapman is just the man to turn to for help on improving or healing our most important relationships. His own life experiences, plus over thirty-five years of pastoring and marriage counseling, led him to publish his first book in the Love Language series, The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate. Millions of readers credit this continual New York Times bestseller with saving their marriages by showing them simple and practical ways to communicate their love to their partner.
Since the success of his first book, Dr. Chapman has expanded his Five Love Languages series to specifically reach out to teens, singles, men, and children (co-authored with Dr. Ross Campbell).
He is the author of numerous other books published by Moody Publishers/Northfield Publishing, including The World's Easiest Guide to Family Relationships, Anger, The Family You've Always Wanted, The Marriage You've Always Wanted, Desperate Marriages, God Speaks Your Love Language (Jan 09), Parenting Your Adult Child, and Hope for the Separated. He co-authored The Five Languages of Apology with Dr. Jennifer Thomas.
Chapman speaks to thousands of couples nationwide through his weekend marriage conferences. He hosts a nationally syndicated radio program, Love Language Minute, and a Saturday morning program, Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, that air on more than 100 stations. Dr. Chapman also serves as senior associate pastor at Calvary Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Dr. Chapman holds BA and MA degrees in anthropology from Wheaton College and Wake Forest University, respectively, MRE and PhD degrees from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and has completed postgraduate work at the University of North Carolina and Duke University.
Dr. Chapman and his wife have two adult children and two grandchildren, and currently live in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a quick, tight read --- perfect for brushing up on your marriage, even if it's already shining., June 5, 2007

By 

FaithfulReader.com (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Home Improvements: The Chapman Guide to Negotiating Change with Your Spouse (Chapman Guides) (Hardcover)

Couples resort to using manipulation within a marriage for one reason: it works! But anyone who has been married for very long will tell you that manipulation is a muddy foundation for any relationship --- it's messy and unstable. Are there other ways to get a spouse to change? Gary Chapman, author of the bestselling THE FOUR SEASONS OF MARRIAGES, believes that there are more effective, long-lasting and loving ways to negotiate change with those you love.

HOME IMPROVEMENTS, the latest addition in The Chapman Guide series, provides a practical, down-to-earth blueprint for building a solid foundation for a healthy marriage.

Why is the desire for spousal change so universal and yet the reality of real, lasting change so rarely experienced? Chapman believes that most couples are starting at the wrong place, failing to understand the power of love and lacking the skills to effectively communicate the desire for a spouse to change.

Real change begins by changing yourself and not waiting for your spouse to make the first change. Chapman prescribes looking for the "plank in your own eye" and assessing your own weaknesses and failures in the relationship. He even goes so far as to encourage asking for outside help from close friends and family members and listening to their observations about your marriage. No doubt some of the comments will sting, but, if used prayerfully, they can help you begin to recognize areas that you need to work on.

What about the change in your spouse? That starts only after you've begun to strengthen the foundation of love in your marriage by learning to speak your spouse's love languages. Chapman draws from his bestselling book, THE FIVE LOVE LANGUAGES, to encourage readers to fill up their spouse's love tank through words of affirmation, gifts, acts of service, quality time and physical touch.

Now down to the nitty-gritty: When you deliver a request for change to your spouse, sandwich it with compliments and remember that even the most minute movement toward change should be applauded. At the same time, it's important to keep in mind that some things will never change, and that the real change is going to have to come from you. Chapman shares a personal story from his own marriage. His wife has a tendency to leave cabinet doors open. After asking her to close them for months and growing more frustrated with the lack of response, the couple's child fell on an open drawer and cut herself. Chapman thought the incident would compel his wife to finally begin closing the drawers. Two months later, it finally dawned on him: she was never going to close drawers! Chapman says he was faced with a choice: be miserable every time he saw an open drawer, or accept this as something that will never change and close the drawers himself. He wisely chose the latter, recognizing that such a simple activity only takes a second a day.

Such down-to-earth wisdom and advice line the pages of HOME IMPROVEMENTS. This is a quick, tight read --- perfect for brushing up on your marriage, even if it's already shining.

--- Reviewed by Margaret Oines