Marriage: It’s Not for Sissies. (This Book Can Help.)

Thirty-five years of rainbows and fresh breezes, bouquets and butterflies, sultry kisses on Saturday nights…..  Well, not exactly.  My husband and I dated w-a-y back in high school, and he was my tried-and-true friend through the college years and all along the way.

But doesn’t that mean that there weren’t some huge bumps in the road through the years, periods when romance was elusive, when the problems seemed to overwhelm the possibilities, and divorce seemed the easy way.

Thank God, we passed through the struggles and emerged, still in love and still committed to one another and, more than that, committed to the marriage.

The early years could have been eased, though, had we had Dr. Gregory and Lisa Popcak’s great new book, Just Married: The Catholic Guide to Surviving and Thriving in the First Five Years of Marriage.

This book would be a great gift for the newly-wed couple in the family, or for any married couple who want to improve their communication and enliven their love!

The techniques and tools in the book are things you really intuited all along–but Dr. Greg and Lisa’s clear and gentle guidance helps to keep the focus on the marriage.

“Pray together” is a fine platitude–good, stolid advice for Catholic couples; but did you know that couples who pray together frequently thought better of each other and experienced their marriage to be more stable, joyful, and passionate?  If you want that kind of love life, and yet you don’t know where to start to pray together as a couple, Dr. Greg and Lisa offer helpful techniques and tips, even the words to get you started.

Every married couple will encounter areas of disagreement–but Just Married helps those just starting their walk together to manage the inevitable conflicts gracefully, substituting positive messages for complaints and criticisms.

This book guides starter couples with lessons on how to deal with money, with in-laws, with work pressures and children and illness and… oh! the myriad of things that can (and will!) go wrong.  It’ll inspire you with rituals and traditions to  cement a marriage.

And SEX!!  Of course, you’ve got to expect some wise counsel from the guy who brought you the best-selling Holy Sex!: A Catholic Guide to Toe-Curling, Mind-Blowing, Infallible Loving. The Popcaks explain the distinction between mere eroticism and what they call “Holy Sex“–the lovemaking between a husband and wife which is, in fact, a physical sign of the passionate way God loves you both. The marital embrace should be passionate, joy-filled, loving, mind-blowing, say the Popcaks; and you shouldn’t settle for anything less.

I offer my heartiest recommendation for Just Married.

And if you haven’t read their earlier books, you’ll want to pick up Holy Sex!: A Catholic Guide to Toe-Curling, Mind-Blowing, Infallible Loving and For Better Forever: A Catholic Guide to Lifelong Marriage.