When Tom and I vowed to love each other for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, we were clueless. Literally clueless. Neither one of us have ever been married, we didn't date long or have the romantic proposal and we weren't able to have that pre-marriage counseling either. And like this book says its hard when you don't have an example of a working marriage, since we both come from what is referred to as a "broken home." Tom and I were married April 7 and he was gone to New Jersey April 11, literally days after we said, "I do."
We both were left in the dark not knowing how to keep our marriage going or even in what direction. We both wanted to read together anything and everything, so I was off on a search for a "marriage" book. I combed through my search results, most of which are religion based and Tom isn't the praying and bowing type. Until I stumbled upon this book, Why Did I Marry You Anyway? by Barbara Bartlein. I sent Tom a book and I received a book.
We soon jumped into the book and the rest is history. This book has quizzes and tools to use for each chapter, like communication, children, trust, commitment and more. We would each read a chapter a night answer the questions read the tools and write about it in our nightly letters. This book is so amazing. It was easy to read and funny and honest. Surprisingly enough Tom loved the book. The tools at the end of each chapter allowed us to learn what we were already doing wrong in our relationship, what needed to change and what to do in the future. Barbara lines out how marriage isn't based on love, its based on commitment and the difference of lust versus love. Tom and I both agreed that maybe we were more in lust than love, but our love has matured to what it is today. I would recommend this book to any couple, married, dating, incarcerated or marriage for years. We both will hold onto our copies and a month before he comes we will read it again. Now we just suggest, "The books says," whenever we have a disagreement or even just to be funny. This book has given us the guidelines we needed and need for the future.
