Customer Reviews

Thriving Despite A Difficult Marriage

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The Misja brothers despise pretense. So . . . if you are looking for a fairy-tale book about a fairy-tale marriage, please avoid "Thriving Despite a Difficult Marriage." But . . . if you long to have a good heart even if you are experiencing a bad marriage . . . then "Thriving" is for you.

Satan, the Thief, comes to steal and destroy--he comes to rob the heart of hope. The Misja's understand that Jesus came to offer the heart the hope of abundant living in an abusive world. In reality, "Thriving Despite a Difficult Marriage" is a book about a well-lived life in spite of an unfulfilling marriage. It is about moving beyond suffering and mere surviving to finding joy and supernatural thriving.

While this all may sound "deep," in the hands of master soul physicians like Misja and Misja, the hidden chambers of the heart come alive with wisdom for living. Their practical theology of desire, their explanation of the battlefield of the soul, and their relational process for moving from hoping in your marriage to hoping in God, are each worth the proverbial price of the book.

Through a process of moving from awareness, to brokenness, to repentance, to forgiveness, to disengagement, to re-engagement, the authors walk readers on a journey whose final destination is God, the ultimate Soul Physician, performing open heart surgery, regardless of the state of one's marriage.

"Thriving Despite a Difficult Marriage" is a hard book about a difficult topic. It is an honest book about real change from the inside out. It is the book for any spouse who wants to love well, hope endlessly, and rejoice deeply . . . despite external circumstances and relational disappointments.

Reviewer: Bob Kellemen, Ph.D., LCPC, is the author of Beyond the Suffering, Soul Physicians, and Spiritual Friends.

Michael and Chuck Misja make it very simple to understand how marriages become "difficult" and how one can "thrive despite". I have been to numerous counceling sessions (alone..."since I'm the one with the 'problem'...") and have not received this indepth understanding nor practical ways to restore my dignity and learn to live again. I have a long way to go but feel hope for the first time after reading this book.

How do you keep moving forward when your marriage is hurting? Often, when our marriage is unhealthy or even unsafe, we tend to avoid the people we love --- friends, family, co-workers --- so that no one asks questions.

Why do we isolate ourselves? Maybe it's fear. Maybe we're ashamed of the condition of our marriage relationship. Maybe we feel guilty. For whatever reason, we withdraw and isolate, and things just get worse.

"Thriving Despite A Difficult Marriage" offers honest, wise advice about what to do when things are tough. Nothing is sugar-coated here, nothing is phony or fake. Instead, the authors tackle the tough questions and show you the steps to take to move forward.

This is an excellent book for anyone whose marriage is hurting. Don't worry about whether your spouse will read it: Buy a copy for yourself. Read it slowly and think about what you're learning. This book can help you change your marriage for the better; it can also help you feel better about yourself, while you wait for things to improve.

Dr. David Frisbie
The Center for Marriage & Family Studies
Del Mar, California
Author of: "The Soul-Mate Marriage: The Spiritual Journey of Becoming One"

This book is a solid Christian consoling based book about doing well in a difficult marriage when one spouse is unwilling, or can't, change for the better. Its not the step 1, 2, 3 work on a work book fill in the blanks DVD set with the bonus reflexology foot roller type thing. Joking aside, this book fills a needed void versus all the typical Christian marriage books where the goal is to make everything perfect. Get use to it, there will be problems, and Dr. Mike & Dr. Chuck tell you how to get on despite the problems in one's marriage. There is always hope provided for things to get really good in the marriage, but what do you do when that hope has to wait and you have to be patient? This book addresses that issue. I'm a conservative baptist and like it; its not wishy washy and filled with pop psychology that always blames the guy, there's equal blame to go around. But if you're the spouse that thinks him or herself right on everything and not the problem, be brave enough to read this book and examine your heart. WELL DONE. (Just don't buy it if you're engaged! If you do, hide it good)

I am half way though this book, it has validated everything I have been feeling for the last 15 years in a difficult marriage. It's what you need to read when you've tried everything else and it's not a matter of just learning to communicate better, or learning to speak his love language, or making yourself love and respect,regardless....it's the book to read when despite everything you've tried, you still have a difficult marriage and you're tired of just surviving or existing. It's about thriving as a whole person and loving YOUR life with God.

No matter what struggles you may have in your marriage, big or small, this book could be helpful to you. It is easy to point the finger at our spouse, but the authors help you see your part in the challenges in your marriage. They do this in a way that isn't blaming or condemning, but freeing and enlightening. They also help you gain compassion for the personal challenges your spouse may face in making changes as well. My heart was softened and my resolve strengthened.

As stated by the other reviewers, this is a very good book. As the Misja's descibe the reasons for marital problems, they provide short stories about couples to illustrate the marital problems (names changed, of course). That gave them a lot of credibility in my eyes, as I read accounts of real-world behavior and emotions that I could relate to ("yup, done that", "sounds like me/us", etc.). They then proceed into their ideas for thriving despite the difficult marriage.

However, the "thriving" part of the book is seriously underweighted compared to the problem descriptions. The numerous short stories about marital problems needs to be balanced with just-as-numerous short stories about how people thrive despite their difficult marriage. There was only one short story about thriving that is comparable to the short stories about marital problems: the story of Patty thriving in "Patty and Dave" on page 212 (it is a 214 page book). This gave me an idea what thriving would look like in real life for Patty. The book needs more of these! Ideally one-for-one with the couples with marital problems earlier in the book. I need help putting skin on the Misja's ideas for how to thrive. I need to see what thriving would look like in a real life.

If you are looking for a good description of difficult marriages, and ideas for thriving despite a difficult marriage, this book is worth the read.

I hope the Misja's write a revised version that adds more thriving stories. I think that would add immensely to the usefulness of the book by helping people (like me) visualize what thriving looks in real life.

It's been a year since I first read Thriving Despite. I read it again last week to refresh myself and I learned even more the second time. I was able to look at myself and invite more love into myself. It has been a hard long road, but I feel alive and whole for the first time in years. It's well worth the effort to go through the steps outlined in this book. It may not bring you to the happy marriage that you want, but you will find greater joy and love than you could have imagined. Still, it has only been a year for me, and life is long. Below is my story.

I found Thriving Despite almost a year after my marriage entered a very hostile and aggressive crisis. After months of depression that affected my job and my relationship with my two young children, I needed a way to get back to the joy I had felt in life. I wished with all my heart that I had just ignored the problems in my marriage and never tried to work on it, but it was too late to go back. I was not a practicing Christian, but I have appreciation for all religions, and so this book can be helpful to Christians and non-Christians alike.

I had read many books and had been in marital counseling for 6 months before my husband ended the counseling. I needed something for me, and Thriving Despite was exactly it. I learned that the problems in my marriage were the exact thing that were going to bring me to my authentic self in the way that I had been craving for years. I realized that I could not change my husband, and never should have tried. But I had a great capacity to change myself and to identify my needs. Thank God I found this book just as I was having the biggest spiritual crisis of my life. I had wondered what was the point of all the work I was doing to be a great mom, to save my marriage, to keep my job and trying to be successful at all those things with little support. I was ready to stop living altogether.

Then I read the preview of this book and I had hope and joy from the first chapter! I ordered it right away. I read it in a couple of days and went through moments of joy and moments of dispair. But I prayed for strength and courage to stay with it. I learned to stop chasing my husband when he left. I learned the ways that I had contributed to the breakdown of my marriage, and I got some good useful advice on when to let go. I did not know how to do that because my marriage meant so much to me; I did not want to see it die.

Instead of chasing and arguing, I prayed the repentance prayer and ask God to hold me when I wanted to fly away. I slept beautifully that first week after reading it for the first time in years. I had a lot of anger that kept me up at night and haunted me during the day. I felt that anger in my chest and belly for years and I knew that it would give me cancer if I held it. I spent about 3 months walking and praying to clear some of the negative thoughts and memories from my marriage. After I prayed through the anger, it was gone. The memories disappeared. I have to think about them to get them back in my mind whereas they haunted me before. With my mind clear, I started to see the beauty in the world and friendship in strangers. And I started to feel wonderful.

I became stronger. I stopped trying to save my marriage and gave it over to God. I felt strong enough to acknowledge that my marriage was dead. I did not love my husband anymore and I needed to heal my own heart for the sake of myself, my children, and all the people who know me before my marriage. One night while the kids were out with my husband, I put my marriage to rest, burying it in the garden with some roses. I reached back into my community of friends and started working on my reactions to the 4 and 5 year old's tantrums. I started cleaning my house better, cooking meals again, and taking time for myself to dance and cultivating friendships with women in my dance class.

I won awards at work! The work was flowing from me. The house was clean and the air was light. The children were sleeping better and doing very well in their schools. I started making friends and being invited to parties. I discovered beauty in myself that I thought I had lost after childbirth. I lost weight and got rid of some backpain. I stopped being anxious and depressed. I was happy, truly happy deep down inside myself. No matter what happened, that joy was always in me.

My husband began helping more in the house, and we did not argue for months after daily loud fights for almost a year. But he denied my growth and continued to want to argue. It was too much for me to stand and I disengaged entirely and started planning a divore. I finally started counseling on myn own and further developed my spirituality through it. I was able to create structure in my house and to establish routines, something my husband had protested for years.

My happy ending is that even though my husband and I have been preparing for a divorce while living together for the past few months, we have peace. I am open and loving to everything. I wish him well in his life. I do not have any envy for his new relationship or wealth that he is accumulating. I just have freedom and joy. It was hard for me to share custody of my children when I had been the primary caregiver for them, but I trust the love between us. I am an even better mom now because I am happy. When I hit those feelings of envy or anger, I prayed through them and found my need underneath the negative emotions. Since I have more of a community, I do not depend on my husband to meet those needs anymore. I am self-sufficient and I feel that I have enough love flowing through me to heal my family and community.

This book came to me some time ago. During that time my son was struggling in a rough marriage and having just finished reading this, I was able to help him to come to decisions based on his faith. He "borrowed" the book for quite some time and I just got it back. As a result of his reading of this book, he came to some hard choices and is slowly healing from divorce and the sense of failure that so often accompanies relational loss. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who is wrestling with a difficult marriage BEFORE making any decisions. It offers a number of scenarios, scripture references that point to why the authors make the suggestions and offer the guidance they provide. Regardless of your situation, if you are a Christian in a problematic marriage, this book will advise, encourage, uplift , giving hope and light. In my opinion, as a former therapist, it is sound and yet honest advice for anyone. If you feel that your situation is too difficult and your marriage is not worth maintaining, READ THIS BOOK!
You'll be so glad you did!

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from NavPress Publishers as part of their Blogger Review Program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commision's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."

Just bought the book from the Focus on the Family site after hearing a brief interview with the authors. I'm just finishing my 3rd beer before going to bed because my spouse doesn't care if I'm there or not.....problem is evident...I'll post after getting through the book...read the first 20 pages on the website and really looking forward to learning more....this seems like a great resource for folks like me who have tried about everything and are still looking for answers.
Hope it sheds some light....I'll let you know....