Customer Reviews

Marriage Fitness: 4 Steps to Building & Maintaining Phenomenal Love

5 star:		(34)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

When I am giving premarital coaching to young couples, or marriage coaching to married couples, they often want to focus on their problems or potential problems. Of course these issues are of great concern to couples so its not always easy to direct their focus to the solutions, not the problems. Problems are unimportant. Solutions are what is important and with his book, MARRIAGE FITNESS, Mort Fertel has given a simple, yet effective four step plan to marital solutions.

I can't tell you how refreshing for me it has been to read a book by someone who understands and teaches what marriage is really all about. Love. I often use the analogy that love is like a fire. Even an out of control wildfire will eventually run out of fuel and burn itself out. To keep the fire of love alive, we must continually stoke the embers and feed it fuel. This book teaches it differently but essentially says the same thing, and shows couples how to provide the fuel their marriage must have to survive.

The book is very well written and contains some excellent projects for couples. Certainly intended for couples working together, there is also definite help here for one with an uncommitted spouse to help get things back on track.

Part 1, the first two chapters, give couples a deeper understanding of love. This may sound ridiculous, but most people confuse character traits with what I term "soul conscientiousness". Fertel deftly explains why character love makes you role mates, not soul mates. If you really want to take your marriage to a higher level, it is critical that you come to understand the differences between what I call outward love (loving the character traits of a person) and inward love (making the choice within your soul to love a person on the inside, regardless of their character traits). Once you fully understand this concept, your marriage (and innerhappiness) will be changed forever.

Part 2 is Fertel's 4 step program for building and maintaining love in your marriage, as well as his twenty exercises.

Mort Fertel has certainly given my some new ides on how couples can enrich their marriages and take them from ordinary to extraordinary. This is one of the best books you'll find on building a strong marriage. Highly recommended.

Pastor Monty Rainey

I would highly recommend reading the boook above listening to the cd's. Sometimes he repeats words over and over and it starts to feel like your being brainwashed. The information is overall pretty good I think. I've read quite a few books on divorce and marriage, and this rates near the top. It has some fresh new ideas. For people who have "normal" problems in marriage though. Does not deal with how to solve those problems. Only create love.

As someone who has read my fair share of self-help books, I will tell you that Mort Fertel has written an outstanding book-- one that offers readers clear, concise, and practical ideas to improve their marriage. This book should be in the hands of every married person, as I believe it can enhance every marriage when things are going great and even when they are a bit rocky. Do yourself a favor and read this book.

I just read this book and I even though I'm not opposed to some of what Mort Fertel says, some of the things in his book disturb me. On page 139 he makes the statement "your life ended when your marriage began" this along with some other statments leads me to se this book as a guide book to becomoing co-dependent rather than relationship development. He implies that for couples to be happy they must call each other all the time, sacrfice their own jobs, ambitions, hobbies and all that is unique to them to have a successful marriage. I use to know people who sacrificed their whole life for the sake of their marriage and when it still ended they didn't know who they were anymore.
Having said all of this I do believe that couples who grow apart from to much desire of independence can be a cause of an unhappy marriage. I just think there needs to be more of a balance to this than Mr. Fertel shows in his book.

I've gone through his book and his tapes (same). Very practical advice and I like the positive approach, versus drudging up all the problems. He recommends that you concentrate on doing what made you get married origionally.

He hits it dead center when he puts the obligation on you to make the change. You are the only one you can control and you must be the catalyst for change.

I also enrolled in his tele-conference course with my wife. I've only had the first session so far, but it wasn't his best--the session was fuzzy over the phone. We'll see, but I need hope that his approach will work for us since we need to make this marriage better that it is now (5 younger kid's lives are at stake).

This book came highly recommended by my therapist and it is in fact everything it's cracked up to be. I used the practices and it saved my marriage. It's easy to read and what's recommended is easy to do...even without my wife's cooperation. After reading the book, I then signed up for the author's tele-boot camp, which was even more helpful, more info, more practices, incredibly comprehensive, and worth every penny.

I'm not a book reviewer but Marriage Fitness is a must read for any spouse in any situation...even a healthy marriage such as mine. I'm familiar with some of the other approaches to relationship success and I have to say that Mort Fertel has something completely unique to say...and my wife and I both think that his message is "spot on." What's great about Marriage Fitness is that rather than a bunch of unrelated quick-fix techniques; you get a step-by-step system that's part of a comprehensive and unified plan. It all makes sense; everything the author says and how it fits with what he prescribes we do. You really feel like you're working on and learning about the FOUNDATION of your marriage-what's really important. And let's the face it, the proof is in the pudding... and it works!

What can I say about this book...it saved my marriage! My wife was threatening divorce. I heard about this book on the radio and bought it, did what the author said, and it really works. My wife became interested in me and our marriage again and wanted to read the book too. She did, and now we're both doing what it says. The threat of divorce is gone...and more than that we're feeling close again. if you're marriage is in trouble, buy this book.

Great book. Powerful insights and very practical ideas that really worked in my marriage. In fact, I would say that this book saved my marriage. The
author has other products that I would recommend also...the tele-boot camp
is even better than the book and it comes with the book included. I should
have just gone for that from the start. Recommended.

This book gives alot of insight into relationships. However, the book alone does not provide enough material for the reader. Instead, one really needs to join the program (info found in book to join) to get true benefits from Marriage Fitness. Some of the information is radical, and I think will be too much for certain people. However, it is a good program and I reccomend it. But it might be better to go to the marriage max website first to get a better understanding of the content in the book. Plus, the book is included in the program materials, so it may be better to order from the website.