Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage: Unlocking the Secrets to Life, Love and Marriage [Hardcover]

Mark Gungor (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 25, 2008

Based on Mark Gungor's wildly popular seminar, Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage® builds on Gungor's success with tens of thousands of couples who credit him with enriching, and even saving, their marriages. By using his unique blend of humor and tell-it-like-it-is honesty, he helps couples get along and have fun doing it.

Through exploring a variety of subjects including the myth of a "soul mate," the different ways men and women think, the conflicting levels of libido, and the necessity to forgive, Gungor proves that the key to marital bliss is not romance or destiny -- it's work and skill. Couples need to work hard at maintaining their relationship and to have the skills to pull it off. The longer spouses wait to learn these skills, the greater their chance of wanting to bail, yet Gungor makes it easy for couples to bring their relationship to the next level.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Mark has written a fun and enlightening book that can help all couples communicate and understand each other better." -- John Gray, PhD, author of Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus

"Mark Gungor uses a brilliant combination of humor and no-nonsense straight talk to address the frailties of modern marriage and offers practical solutions to make it better." -- Ken Davis, author, comedian, and radio host of Lighten Up and Live!

"Mark Gungor has a gift. His passionate message about marriage breaks through the current myths and misinformation in our culture and renews hope that anyone can experience a happy, sexy, satisfying marriage. Gungor is a national treasure. It's wonderful to see that he's as good on paper -- as immediate and as life-changing -- as he is in person at his Laugh Your Way seminars." -- Diane Sollee, founder and director of Smart Marriages

"Mark Gungor has all the credentials and experience to weigh in on the issue of marriage, but his street-level perspective and his tongue-in-cheek way of conveying his wisdom make it easy to absorb the truth that he shares on a subject that -- for many couples -- is no laughing matter." -- Dr. Tim Kimmel, president of Family Matters and author of Raising Kids for True Greatness

"This was more than a book to us, it was an experience. We felt understood, empowered, and completely covered. This book will help you!" -- Matt & Laurie Crouch, Trinity Broadcasting Network

"Marriage books? I've read them all. This one's the best -- absolutely rock solid advice, delivered in hilarious prose. This is the first marriage book that's totally fair to men, and totally liberating to women." -- David Murrow, author of Why Men Hate Going to Church --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Mark Gungor is a pastor, motivational speaker, author, musician, and the

CEO of Laugh Your Way America. He and his wife, Debbie, have two grown children

and three grandchildren. He lives in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where he is the

Senior Pastor of Celebration Church. Visit his website at www.laughyourway.com.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Atria (March 25, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416536051
• ISBN-13: 978-1416536055
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #157,430 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Mark Gungor is a pastor, motivational speaker, author, musician, and the CEO of Laugh Your Way America. He and his wife, Debbie, have two grown children and three grandchildren. He lives in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where he is the Senior Pastor of Celebration Church. Visit his website at www.laughyourway.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Should be required reading for all couples!, April 9, 2008

By 

E. Schmidt (Warrenville, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage: Unlocking the Secrets to Life, Love and Marriage (Hardcover)

I preordered this book directly from "Laugh Your Way America," and have been reading it for the past few days. I was married for nearly 22 years, and was widowed last year. I'm in a new relationship now, and this book looked like a good resource for getting a better understanding of what it takes to be a successful, happy couple (it doesn't always happen naturally). This book is insightful, witty, and really does explain some of the basic differences between men and women. If you want a better understanding of the opposite sex and how those differences can affect relationships, this is THE book for you!

Thank you, Mr. Gungor!

18 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, June 12, 2009

By 

Someone's Mom (Chesapeake, VA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage: Unlocking the Secrets to Life, Love, and Marriage (Paperback)

We're doing the series in a group at my church and currently we're about halfway through the video and discussion series. Here's my problem with the book/course: I'd estimate that about half of the couples doing the program kind of want to 'tweak' a marriage which is rusty, and occasionally problematic, while the other half of us showed up wanting to fix a marriage which at times feels desperate -- you know, the "go days without speaking to each other, how the heck did I ever end up with you in the first place, is that all there is to life" situation. "Laughing your way" is pretty good for helping the first group, but pretty darned near useless for the second group. In other words, there's a pretty big difference between being pissed off at your hubby because he leaves the toilet seat up and being pissed off at your hubby because he hates your children who also happen to be his stepchildren. Obviously, fixing the first situation is significantly easier than fixing the second.

My husband hates the series. The word he keeps using is "simplistic" -- it's all that Mars vs. Venus stuff which most of us already know anyway, and the series doesn't go deep enough in terms of actually identifying resentments, nor is it biblical despite the fact that it's used at many churches.

And at the risk of getting all "shrewy feminist a la Kate gosselin or Hilary Clinton or something", I sometimes find that he tends to emphasize altering behaviors over actually looking at the situation and thinking about whether or not it is actually unjust or inequitable. For example, he talks about how women multitask and men "just can't multitask" and, according to him, that's why the wife finds herself simultaneously making dinner/checking homework/unloading the dishwasher and setting the table/answering the phone/packing the kids up for soccer while the man reads the newspaper. His solution -- accept that your husband can't multitask! However, that still leaves the problem of the fact that there are six tasks that need doing and the woman is frequently doing five of them to the man's one. See? There it is again. He never addresses the underlying resentment issue.

Also, he seems kind of fixated on sex as the solution to many marital problems, basically stating that if people are kind to each other and therefore they end up having more sex, then their marriage will improve. On some level, it's a bit condescending -- suggesting that women who've been married twenty years have no idea what men are like or vice versa. I'd argue that this is kind of the "bridges of madison county" of marraige books -- simplistic, feel good, and if you've never read a book before, you might like it. But then again, you might have lower expectations than some of the serious readers or connoisseurs of self-help books. YMMV.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is all about how men and women differ..., November 11, 2008

By 

Kelly M. Potter "Life Counselor" (Monterey, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage: Unlocking the Secrets to Life, Love and Marriage (Hardcover)

Laugh Your Way To A Better Marriage is NOT just for married people! It is a funny, effective look at the fundamental differences between men and women. Everyone could learn from Mark Gungor's book. I highly recommend it!! Kelly is CA