Just Married

Just Married by Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak is a new book that focuses on how to survive the first five years of marriage and have it thrive.

Written from a Catholic perspective, this is a book that will benefit anyone. The insights are practical and helpful.

Someone once said that marriage is often two ticks who are looking for a dog only to find another tick.

Meaning: if a person goes into a marriage seeking what they can get out of it, they will have a difficult time.

Lowering one’s expectations is essential as well as having the posture of a servant rather than a taker. Just Married expands these ideas into practical reality.

The book is filled with stories from personal experience, scientific findings that are relevant to the conversation, and observations from many years of counseling couples.

The book deals with money issues, sex, the four stages of conflict, having a baby, marriage enemy #1 (which I won’t give away), staying in love, how to influence others through your marriage, and how to pray as a married couple, how to deal with difficult in-laws, etc.

I especially liked the surveys that couples can do together.

The book is written superbly, so you can go through it rather quickly, even though its around 240 pages.

Here are a 7 important thoughts about marriage:

1. many marry with too high expectations.

2. many marry thinking that their spouse is going to meet their needs.

3. many marriages suffer from spouses judging one another’s motives, presuming what the other person’s intentions are.

4. the division of labor in the household is something that needs to be agreed upon and discussed.

5. money is one of the biggest problems in marriages.

6. sex is often a problem as well as both spouses have different needs in this area and males and females are largely wired differently.

7. two great books on this topic are listed in my Top 100 Best Christian Books list.

Whether you’ve been married for a long time, or you’ve just been married, Just Married will help you and your spouse. There are enough valuable take-aways to make it worth the price of admission.