3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An excellent resource for couples!, December 15, 2008
This review is from: Marriage Isn't For Sissies: 7 Simple Keys To Unlocking The Best Part Of Your Life! (Paperback)
What irony: there are no courses to prepare couples for the best part of their life, that is being loving spouses and good parents. That's why couples need Dr. Beth Erickson's newest book, Marriage Isn't for Sissies: 7 Simple Keys to Unlocking the Best Part of Your Life.
These 7 keys provide concrete tasks for improved communication and problem solving skills around topics not often discussed all in one place, such as avoiding boring sex, traveling spouses, non-traditional families.
She addresses the importance of appropriate boundaries around the couple - not too rigid where there's no room for others in their life, and not too fluid so the couple has no time alone, separate from their children, in-laws, work, etc.
This book is reader-friendly, with check lists that can be put to use immediately. There is a great Self-Assessment Index for rating your marriage, where each partner completes it separately and then discusses the responses. She suggests taking the test before and again after reading the book to see the changes. There are thought provoking Do's and Don'ts for deepening intimacy, building trust and strengthening the commitment to marriage.
The sidebars cover unusual topics, like a list of conversation starters for couples who only talk about children, work, or money. (My favorite topic is "What's your definition of a good citizen?")
Dr. Erickson shares her own personal story of growth while urging readers to confront their own growth. She does this through reminding readers, "The best gift parents can give their children is to be crazy about each other." Children, she says, are the beneficiaries of couples who risk what she calls "emotional nudity" - vulnerable and honest communication.
She provocatively challenges readers: "Fighting can improve your relationship," and she gives specific guidelines how to do fight well. She tackles topics that often go unspoken: like the controversial issue of children sharing parents' beds and the impact of marital problems on Corporate America's productivity. The last chapter of Marriage Isn't For Sissies anticipates some readers complaints: they are willing to change but the spouse won't.
Dr. Erickson gently but firmly prods her readers - with specific guidelines - to improve the best part of their life - their marriage.
Dr. Karen Gail Lewis
Marraige and Family Therapist
Author, With or Without A Man
And the upcoming: The World's First Relationship Dictionary
[...]
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An excellent resource for married couples!, December 14, 2008
This review is from: Marriage Isn't For Sissies: 7 Simple Keys To Unlocking The Best Part Of Your Life! (Paperback)
Dr. Beth writes in a straightforward and easy to understand fashion. She provides a useful guide, identifies the most important factors in a healthy marriage and teaches you how to develop these aspects of your marriage!
In her book, Dr. Beth helps her readers to overcome emotional pain and deep-seated fears as they move toward intimacy and joy. Her examination includes a discussion of the impact of trauma, the fears that can separate you from intimacy, and how to help your significant other to move past their wounds.
I also really enjoyed Dr. Beth's chapter about comforting and nurturing yourself and your spouse. She normalizes our human need for love, tenderness, compassion and touch. She strongly asserts that these needs are ongoing throughout the lifespan--they don't stop as you age. I think her points are valuable to consider.
This is a good read and packs a lot of useful information to think about and discuss. I will recommend it to the couples who come to me for therapy in my psychology practice!
Great job, Dr. Beth!
Pamela Garcy, PhD
Clinical Psychologist, Professor, Speaker and
Author of the #1 National Bestseller The Power of Inner Guidance
[...]
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Why men might want to read this book, October 13, 2009
This review is from: Marriage Isn't For Sissies: 7 Simple Keys To Unlocking The Best Part Of Your Life! (Paperback)
Most reviews of Marriage Isn't For Sissies have been done by counseling professionals and by women. They generally all tell the reader that the book has merit (it does) and that you "should" read the book. This review will be done by a professional, but not in the field of counseling, and by a recovering alpha male who will attempt to explain why men in fact "should" read the book without just telling them that they "should."
I do not know Dr. Beth Erickson's work professionally nor have I ever met her. But her approach to the subject of marriage counseling and her style has earned my highest level of respect and admiration. Clearly she has the credentials and expertise to advise us. Her choice of concise, easy to digest chapters, devoid of academic claptrap, mean that the book is designed to be read by the average person and not a tenure committee. Beth is optimistic to the point of offering a full refund if the reader has given her precepts a good try and their marriage has not improved.
To make this book really work, you need a partner with which to share and each of you needs your own separate copies. The book has a number of excellent assessments that you will want to fill out (but perhaps not share in full detail) as well as passages that beg for underlining or highlighting in your favorite color. I would also suggest that you purchase the companion audio CDs that nicely complement the written text and come with their own workbook with fill-in-the-blank passages. My suggestion is to do one chapter a week except for those two chapters that are sufficiently long as to warrant two CDs each - then take two weeks for those chapters.
You can coast through the first four chapters with relative ease but I dare any man to get through the marital assessment in chapter five without having some degree of consternation. By this time, you and your partner will need an agreed process for how to deal with the book. My wife and I chose to read the book on our own, then sit and listen to the companion audio CD and fill out the worksheets while listening. Only after we had done all that did we dialog. Beth recommends written journaling during the process but I suspect that most men will forgo that option and instead think through the issues in their cave.
The marital assessment in chapter five is one of those assessments that I think personally are best handled by reviewing general patterns and clusters of answers rather than a detailed examination of each partner's scores on 23 individual questions. The questions are good ones, will undoubtedly lead to some surprises, and can set the tone for which of the follow-on chapters deserve more or less attention. Make sure that you have a method for recording your answers the first time and then again later after you have completed the entire book and re-take the assessment to see if there are any differences. There will be if you take the book seriously.
Once you get started with the meat of the book the Seven Keys, you will note that Dr. Beth has an excellent vocabulary and coins or uses phrases that are designed to stimulate discussion. Take as the first example the title of the book: Marriage Isn't For Sissies. I would imagine that you could easily build an entire graduate-level seminar just on the analysis of that phrase. Then too is the phrase "emotional terrorism" - Beth uses this to describe the willful withholding of affection and attention. Emotional terrorism has not yet reached the pages of Wikipedia but it resonates well with many marital partners which is why I suspect she uses it.
I suppose there are couples that do not really communicate at all and I would guess that a "magical ten minutes" of dialog deserve to be prescribed. I liked her suggestion that if a couple claims that they cannot spend ten minutes communicating with each other every day because they are too busy, it is more likely that this is a defensive rationalization than accurate.
One of her more controversial suggestions is that marital satisfaction declines after the birth of the first child until the last child leaves home. Although I tend to agree with this, based upon purely subjective observation, I would also suggest that her implied definition of "marital satisfaction" is probably a narrow one and here is the one place that some elaboration might have been appropriate. On the other hand, I suspect that many men will nod up and down when they read this. Beth later states that the over involvement of a parent with a child is similar to an affair. Again, I agree and suspect that some men will again nod up and down.
Dr. Beth tries to reach us via multiple means. For those who respond better to pictures, the diagrams of the different type of families found in chapter 8 are quite instructive. This chapter also brings up the extraordinary influence and power that children have on the success of a marriage and conversely how adults can and do use children when engaged in internecine warfare, also known as a failing marriage.
I must confess that I had some problem with chapter nine. The material is excellent and men especially do indeed have difficulties with emotions and feelings. The chapter could be improved with some ways in which men can become more comfortable with these areas without just being told that it is good for them and that they "should." Getting in touch with emotions will in fact enhance marital intimacy, but how do you overcome the societal, peer, and work pressures that tell men that "big boys don't cry." Openness to emotions and feelings is a prescription for failure on the job in some professions and at certain ages. Chapter nine is potentially the most important of all chapters and the one that will cause most men the most difficulty.
Healing past hurts comes up towards the end of the book, but it is really central to most therapy. Beth has written a separate book on father loss - Longing for Dad: Father Loss and Its Impact that probably forms the basis for this excellent chapter. If people have unresolved issues from their past, those too often act as a barrier to intimacy because of the defensive wall people erect in order to keep the loss where it's always been - out of sight and out of mind. Issues of father loss and other types of past trauma are extremely complex and this chapter is an excellent introduction to components of a full treatment plan.
The book opens and closes on an optimistic note. Even if only one partner tries, there will be changes. But how can you get your spouse or partner to "do something." Beth emphasizes sending "I messages," rather than trying to compel someone to do something. "I messages" generate intimacy because they put partners' feelings on the table to be shared and worked with. On the other hand, "you messages" sound and feel prescriptive and blaming.
It is probably realistic that most men will pass on reading the book, despite its clever title; or if they are goaded into reading it by a partner or counselor, they may not finish it; or if they do claim that they have read it, they will not devote the intensity of effort necessary to mine it for all its worth. As Dr. Beth recognizes, the only person that we can change is ourselves. If you want to make changes, take advantage of the wisdom contained in Marriage Isn't For Sissies.
My wife and I read it from cover to cover. We listened to all of the audio CDs. We filled out the worksheets and discussed them in great depth. We spent a week on each short and two weeks on the two long chapters. We also took an extra week on two chapters that brought up sufficient discussion to not be accomplished in a single seating. Reading the book was an investment in time of about three months. Total cost was the price of two books ~$40 and one audio CD package ~$100. Compared to the cost of three months of marital counseling [even with insurance] or a messy divorce, and the cost to businesses of failing relationships, the investment in Marriage Isn't For Sissies is extremely cost-effective. And if you are an alpha male that does not want to be seen carrying around a book with a title like Marriage Isn't For Sissies, or you do not want your wife to see that you are reading the book, order the audio CDs, suck them into iTunes, synchronize, and listen to them on your iPod when you are at the gym. No one will know.
Dr. Beth offers numerous other opportunities to help. You can get on an e-mailing list and read her latest thoughts as well as listen to a weekly internet radio show or podcast of the broadcast. Beth is found on many web sites and freely posts advice. She appears to be an extremely warm and open person that readily shares her own experiences and mistakes from her personal life. Beth is currently working on her next book, Remarriage Isn't For Sissies. I will buy a copy (or two).
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