Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts : Seven Questions to Ask Before--And After--You Marry

With more than 600,000 copies sold, Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts has become the gold standard for helping today's engaged and newlywed couples build a solid foundation for lifelong love. This expanded and updated edition has been honed by ten years of feedback, professional experience, ongoing research, and the authors' own insights, making it more helpful and informative than ever. Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts will provide the practical tools you need for a lasting and loving future together. Book jacket.

Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts
Copyright 1995, 2006 by Les and Leslie Parrott
This title is also available as a Zondervan audio product.
Visit www.zondervan.com/audiopages for more information.
Requests for information should be addressed to:
Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Parrott, Les.
Saving your marriage before it starts : seven questions to ask before — and after — you
marry / Les & Leslie Parrott. — Expanded and updated ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN-13: 978-0-310-25982-4
ISBN-10: 0-310-25982-7
1. Marriage. 2. Marriage — Religious aspects — Christianity. 3. Married people —
Psychology. I. Parrott, Leslie L., 1964– II. Title.
HQ734.P22 2006
646.7'8 — dc22
2006005251
This edition printed on acid-free paper.
Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible: Today’s New
International Version. TNIV. Copyright 2002, 2004 by International Bible Society. Used by
permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations marked CEV are from the Contemporary English Version 1991, 1992,
1995 by American Bible Society. Used by permission.
The website addresses recommended throughout this book are offered as a resource to you. These
websites are not intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement on the part of Zondervan,
nor do we vouch for their content for the life of this book.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form or by any means — electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or
any other — except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the
publisher.
Published in association with Yates & Yates, LLP, Attorneys and Counselors, Suite 1000, Literary
Agent, Orange, CA.
Interior design by Beth Shagene
Printed in the United States of America
06 07 08 09 10 11 12 • 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Before You Begin
We never had premarital counseling, but we spent the first year of our
married life in therapy. Once a week, we met with a counselor who
helped us iron out the wrinkles we never even saw before getting married. Not
that we were in serious trouble. But we had this naïve idea
that after our wedding our life would fall naturally into place, and a
marriage preparation course or counseling never entered our minds. We had dated for six years before our nine-month engagement, and
we had a lot in common (even our first names). We simply thought
we would tie the proverbial knot, set up house, and as the fairy tales
say, “live happily ever after.”
But we didn’t. The first years of marriage were difficult right from
the start. Literally. In the limousine ride away from the church, as
both of us waved good-bye to our family and friends through the back
window, I (Leslie) began to cry.
“What’s wrong?” Les asked.
I kept crying and didn’t answer.
“Are you happy or sad?” Les put his arm around my shoulders and
waited for a reply. When I didn’t answer, he asked again, “What’s
going on inside you?”
“I don’t know,” I whimpered. “I don’t know.”
Les gave me a squeeze with his arm. I knew I was hurting him, but
I didn’t know what to say or why I was feeling so sad.
Except for the clanging of the tin cans behind us, the ride to the
airport that afternoon, June 30, 1984, was quiet. As we waited for
14 Before You Begin
our flight in a smoke-filled terminal at O’Hare Airport, both of us
felt hazy about what we had just been through. Were we really married?
It didn’t feel like it. We were newlyweds, but we felt more like
refugees.
After boarding the plane, we fell into our seats, exhausted. So
much time and energy had led up to that wedding ceremony. And
it had gone as planned. But now what? Both of us sat on the plane,
emotionally spent, quietly pondering the meaning of marriage. What
was it all about, this marriage? Why didn’t I feel any different? Who
was this person I married, really?
For Better or Worse?
Let’s be honest. The “till death do us part” statement of the marriage
vow rings increasingly ironic. In the 1930s, one out of seven marriages
ended in divorce. In the 1960s, it was one out of four. Of the 2.4
million couples
who will get married this year in the United States,
it is predicted that at least 43 percent will not survive. For too many
couples,
marriage has become “till divorce do us part.”1
Every couple
marrying today is at risk. More than two-hundred
thousand new marriages each year end prior to the couple’s
second
anniversary. After they toss the bouquet and return the tuxedos,
couples
often assume they’re headed for marital bliss. But a study of
those who recently tied the knot revealed that 49 percent reported
having serious marital problems. Half were already having doubts
about whether their marriages would last.2
The truth is, most engaged couples
prepare more for their wedding
than they do for their marriage. The $50-billion-a-year wedding
industry can testify to that fact. According to experts, the average
two-hundred guest wedding today costs twenty-two thousand dollars.
3 More than one million copies of bridal magazines are sold each
month, focusing mainly on wedding ceremonies, honeymoons, and
home furnishings — but not on marriage itself.
Before You Begin 15
Looking back, it seems silly that Les and I did so much to prepare
for our wedding and so little to prepare for our marriage. But the
truth is that less than a fifth of all marriages in America are preceded
by some kind of formal marriage preparation.4
One wonders what would be the effect if the same amount of time,
energy, and money spent on the ceremony was invested in the marriage. Planning
the perfect wedding too often takes precedence over
planning a successful marriage. And lack of planning is the ultimate
saboteur of marriage.
The wedding-bell blues are common after the excitement of an
elaborate wedding celebration. “The emotional high of ordering
engraved invitations, selecting music for the ceremony, and choosing
a china pattern took my attention off the big picture,” a young bride
told us. “The ceremony was more tangible and less of a gamble than
the marriage. I put my energy into the wedding and hoped for the
best.” For too long the trend has been to fall in love, marry, and hope
for the best.
This book offers a different approach.
How to Predict a Happy Marriage
Over the last three decades, marriage specialists have researched the
ingredients of a happy marriage. As a result, we know more about
building a successful marriage today than ever before. For example,
happily married couples
will have:
• healthy expectations of marriage
• a realistic concept of love
• a positive attitude and outlook toward life

---

Excerpted from Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts: Seven Questions to Ask Before--And After--You Marry by Leslie Parrott, Les Parrott, Les Parrott, Parrott
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.