{"id":2137,"date":"2013-10-09T13:00:20","date_gmt":"2013-10-09T18:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/happycatholicbookshelf\/?p=2137"},"modified":"2013-10-07T21:02:55","modified_gmt":"2013-10-08T02:02:55","slug":"just-married-the-catholic-guide-for-surviving-and-thriving-in-the-first-five-years-of-marriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/happycatholicbookshelf\/2013\/10\/just-married-the-catholic-guide-for-surviving-and-thriving-in-the-first-five-years-of-marriage\/","title":{"rendered":"Just Married: The Catholic Guide for Surviving and Thriving in the First Five Years of Marriage"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

When the new Popcak book came my way, I was hesitant.\u00a0I suppose I thought I\u2019d seen enough in real life that I didn\u2019t need a stinkin\u2019 marriage help book. I don\u2019t need to hear about flower power and snappy sappy stuff. No thanks<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Marriage is work. Don\u2019t try to give me roses and tell me otherwise. Now that I\u2019ve been at it for about a decade, I feel pretty confident that, yeah, I\u2019m right about that.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know why I thought the Popcaks would say something I wouldn\u2019t agree with. Maybe it was the perfection of their smiling faces or something\u2026more likely it was some block-sized idiocy planted on my shoulder.<\/p>\n

Leave it to the Patheos Book Club<\/a> to get a book under my nose that I wouldn\u2019t sniff out in a million years on my own.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And oh, the things I would\u2019ve missed if I hadn\u2019t read\u00a0Just Married: The Catholic Guide to Surviving and Thriving in the First Five Years of Marriage<\/em>, by Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak (who\u2019ve written about 100 other books, and are professional marriage people, and have a radio show, and all sorts of credibility stuff).<\/p>\n

This book wasn\u2019t necessarily written for me: I\u2019ve been married ten years this year. Honestly, I intended to skim through it and pull together a general review.<\/p>\n

But I couldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

I got sucked in, just as surely as the dog hair gets into the toothpaste container. (Don\u2019t ask.) I was intrigued and nodding and (dare I suggest it?) making notes of things and learning a thing or three\u2026<\/p>\n

We want you to remember four little words that will help you get through these times. Ready?<\/p>\n

NEVER BLAME YOUR MARRIAGE<\/p>\n

Write it down. Tattoo it on the back of your hand. Memorize it. Chant it. Say it until you can dance to it. Marriages do not have lives of their own. A marriage only has the life a husband and wife give it. People say things such as, \u201cIt<\/em> just didn\u2019t work.\u201d or \u201cIt<\/em> just didn\u2019t make sense anymore.\u201d \u201cIt<\/em> just died.\u201d Remember this. There is no\u00a0it<\/em>.\u00a0<\/em>There is just you, your spouse, and God. If your marriage is dying on the vine, it isn\u2019t because\u00a0it<\/em> (your marriage) is broken. It is simply that you don\u2019t currently have the skills to nurture it under the pressures you are currently facing. Get those skills. Read good self-help books; go on a marriage retreat; join a support group; get therapy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This book put words to things that I\u2019ve felt at a gut level and have struggled to articulate (not that I needed to articulate anything, mind you, but as a word person, I sometimes just\u00a0want<\/em> to have the words for things).<\/p>\n

Many people believe that in order to be \u201ctrue to themselves\u201d they are obliged to say what they are feeling in the middle of feeling it, but the truth is, feelings are God\u2019s gift to you, not anyone else. Your feelings are God\u2019s way of calling your attention to a potential problem. Having received the emotional message, you need to go to God to figure out whether the emotional message was a glitch (because you were tired, or underfed, or overwrought, or otherwise not functioning properly) or whether it was intended to point out some real issue that needed to be addressed. Having sought God\u2019s counsel and calmed down a bit, now it\u2019s time to raise the issue. Instead of leading with your emotions, leading with possible solutions gives you a way to discuss possible ways to prevent the situation from occurring in the future without letting the conversation devolve into \u201cI feel so awful about who did what to whom.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I agree wholeheartedly with the plug on the front of the book by Christopher West: \u201cEvery married couple\u2014newly married or otherwise\u2014will benefit from this book.\u201d Yeah. What he said.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When the new Popcak book came my way, I was hesitant.\u00a0I suppose I thought I\u2019d seen enough in real life that I didn\u2019t need a stinkin\u2019 marriage help book. I don\u2019t need to hear about flower power and snappy sappy stuff. No thanks. Marriage is work. Don\u2019t try to give me roses and tell me […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1133,"featured_media":2138,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[113,17],"tags":[97,82,343,341],"class_list":["post-2137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-patheos-book-club","category-review","tag-marriage","tag-nonfiction","tag-patheos-book-club","tag-review"],"yoast_head":"\nJust Married: The Catholic Guide for Surviving and Thriving in the First Five Years of Marriage<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"When the new Popcak book came my way, I was hesitant.\u00a0I suppose I thought I'd seen enough in real life that I didn't need a stinkin' marriage help book. 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