Customer Reviews

Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts: Seven Questions to Ask Before -- and After -- You Marry (Curriculum Kit)

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Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts (a.k.a. SYMBUS)is a self-guided pre-marital counseling course my fiancé and I took before we got engaged. We are not exaggerating when we say, "it is an indispensible resource that should be required before a couple enter married life." The authors (Les and Leslie Parrott) did a great job in teaching us the secrets to building a marriage that lasts. We have learned how to uncover the most important myths of marriage, how to communicate with instant understanding, discover the secret to reducing and resolving conflict, master the skills of money management, how to get our sex life to a great start (after marriage that is), understand the essential ingredients to lasting love, discover the importance of becoming soul mates, and much more.

The kit comes with a book, two companion workbooks (one for men and one for women), and a DVD. We have found the workbooks to be tremendous in helping us explore the issues and practice the skills presented in the book. The exercises and self-tests are lively, enlightening and effective in helping us apply what we have learned directly to our relationship. We loved the DVD for two reasons: It's full of entertaining and insightful teaching from the authors, and you'll meet real-life couples who provide incredible honesty and perspective.

So, do yourself and your loved one a big favor by making it a priority to go through this kit TOGETHER. Become one of the few couples who spend more time preparing for their marriage than they do for wedding by going through this comprehensive marriage preparation program. This kit will help you do just that. In the process, you'll build a marriage that will last a life time!

P.S. We also highly recommend H. Norman Wright's book, "Before you Say I do," which is a marriage preparation manual for couples. Read this book after you get engaged.

I just began using the Parrott's materials, Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts, for engaged couples in our premarital education program and, so far, the response has been positive. Couples affirm that it is helpful. One young man said he has begun to think more about what marriage means and what it will entail. He also has been more attentive to other couples and how they relate to each other. I am pleased with the response.

Love this kit! I just started session 1 and it already has help my marriage for the better! Thank God this material is very helpful in understanding my wife and she understanding me better. I highly recommended! many things you might know other things you might think it will not apply to me but you will find new ideas that will definetely help you. I never like writting and I am finding my self spending valuable time with my wife doing the exercises, having fun and understanding each other more. I believe is worth the investment. I found it here in amazon cheaper than in other places. GOD bless every marriage!

we have used this material personally and also for pre-marital counseling with others for years. this kit is well worth the money you will spend and can be used to help so many others prior to or well into their marriage.

Before we got engaged, we read through this curriculum together. Doing so gave us confidence, encouragement, and enduring wisdom that has strengthened our marriage. I highly recommend this book and the workbooks: easy to read, very practical, and very clear advice. Also, it is based on research and is not just their personal opinion on what worked for them.

After 10 years of marriage grounded on this book I am (we are) still happily married. Doing the exercises was the most useful part - they opened up a lot of conversations we'd never have otherwise had, and the tools have stood us in good stead, especially 'when the chips are down'. The video series is a bit 'Bible-belt" but does unpack some aspects of the book. We've given the book and exercise set to a couple of nearly marrieds as wedding gifts. On the downside the section on hot monogamy had some typos that were plain scary. If it had been cheaper to buy the book and two exercise books than the set, I'd still do that.

This book is written by a husband and wife team seeking to guide couples through a very specific type of premarital counseling. Unfortunately, the authors rely heavily on their own marriage experiences rather than accepted social science in providing counsel.

This kit includes a hardcover book as well as two separate, "gender-contextualized" workbooks. The male workbook provides guidance on issues that the authors claim to be male-specific and the female workbook provides guidance on issues the authors claim to be female-specific. For instance, the men's workbook includes advice on positively redirecting anger when the wife is late with dinner or frequently forgets to run errands or do her chores. By contrast, the female workbook discusses ways to positively redirect anger when the husband spends too much time watching sports, forgets to celebrate the first anniversary of their first date, comes home late from work, or criticizes how long she takes getting ready.

In the hardcover that accompanies the workbook, the Doctors Parrott claim that science has proven these gender differences to be hard-wired and not merely social. They substantiate this claim with evidence from their own marriage experience and use a number of tautologies, circular references, and decontextualized quotes from other self-help authors as grounds for their conclusion.

For example, on page 104 of the hardcover book, the Parrott's recount an instance in which gender differences caused a dispute in their own marriage and go on to claim: "Our differences are not unique. They are universal: Men are motivated by achievement, women by relationships." The Parrotts footnote this claim and the corresponding reference cites not substantiative evidence but rather two other self-help books: "As for Me and My House" - Walter Wangerin and "Men Are from Mars, Women are from Venus. - John Gray"

Even within these circular references, the references themselves suggest the authors may not have fully read or understood the material they cite. For instance, the authors quoted Dr. Harville Hendrix's "Getting the Love you Want" to provide substantiation for a claim Hendrix actually takes pains to dispute in his own work. The Doctors Parrott claim that one partner cannot resolve unmet childhood needs of the other partner. The Parrott's citation of Hendrix was structured to suggest that he would substantiate this claim, however, his own work suggests the opposite is true.

Overall, much of the content is likely to be offensive to many readers. The book includes anecdotes and stories about gender roles that many will find misogynistic or sexist. (The book claims that, universally speaking, men get self esteem from accomplishments, while women get self esteem from relationships). What's more, the workbooks ask couples to answer questions relating to the sexual conduct of their parents.

Beyond the potential for offending readers, the book is clearly geared toward very young couples, just out of college or still living with their parents, who might be getting married. Couples with even the most basic communication, budgeting, and relationship building skills will find the workbooks remedial and, unfortunately, the book spends very little or no time at all on more sophisticated topics like in-law and family dynamics, childrearing and discipline philosophy, or other important topics that might appeal to couples truly seeking tools to strengthen their future or current marriage.

Premarital counseling can be made very useful and relevant, but this book fails to connect on both counts.

I ordered the kit directly from Real Relationships. It has some interesting points (for example, the chapter on the differences between how men and women engage with the world and each other) but overall it was too simplistic and put issues too much in black and white. Relationships are complex entities with many factors playing into them that this book doesn't address. Another issue that I had with this set is that the DVD was damaged and skipped at lesson 5. I contacted the company and was sent several replacement DVD's, and they ALL were damaged in the same place. They ended up just not answering my emails and never resolved the issue. For a truly outstanding, beautiful written book that addresses core issues rather than just putting band-aids on disagreements, read Passionate Marriage by David Schnarch.