I Love You More : How Everyday Problems Can Strenghten Your Marriage

by Drs. Les and Leslie Parrott

• ISBN13: 9780310257387
• ISBN10: 0310257387
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-08-01
• Publisher: Zondervan

Summary

Every day in every marriage couples bump into problems. They fail to communicate with each other, they struggle to pay bills, and they face a serious illness or a rebellious child. No couple is immune to problems. The question isn't whether a couple will have problems; it's how they are going to handle them. And, more important, how are they going to use them to their advantage - becoming stronger as a result. Relationship experts and award-winning authors Les and Leslie Parrott believe the same forces that can tear down a marriage can become the catalyst for new relational depth and richness--provided you learn the secrets to using everyday problems to strengthen your marriage. The Parrotts explain that a marriage survives and thrives when a couple learns to use problems to boost their love life, to literally love each other more. Then, drawing on their wealth of professional and personal experience as a married couple, they explore how: - All your difficulties can be traced to one of five sources - and knowing the source makes all the difference. - A fine line separates an obstacle from an opportunity, and you can discover the opportunity the instant you see the obstacle with new eyes. - The magic of marriage inevitably wanes if you don't recognize and accept the two sides of intimacy and sex. - Any marriage problem can be solved in five (not so easy) steps. - Deep down in the soul of your marriage is a thirst for connection that can only be quenched when you drink from the ultimate source of love. - Every day your love expands when you clearly see you've become a better person for having married your partner. Designed for use with its accompanying, individual workbooks for husbandsand wives, this book will change the way you feel about your problems forever. It can make the difference between a marriage that founders on the shoals of circumstance and one that grows through difficulties to find you sayi

Table of Contents

Real-Life Problem Solvers	9	(2)
Workbook Exercises	11	(2)
Acknowledgments	13	(4)
Introduction: More Today Than Yesterday	17	(4)
1. Love Is Not Enough	21	(10)
A marriage survives and thrives when a couple learns to use problems to their advantage.
2. Why Every Marriage Has Everyday Problems	31	(22)
All your difficulties can be traced to one of five sources-and knowing the source makes all the difference.
3. Tackle This Problem First...and All Others Get Easier	53	(18)
A fine line separates an obstacle from an opportunity and it's discovered the instant a couple sees it with new eyes.
4. Who Said Sex Was a Problem?	71	(22)
The magic of marriage inevitably wanes if you don't recognize and accept the two sides of intimacy and sex (not to mention having a baby).
5. The Six Subtle Saboteurs of Every Marriage	93	(22)
Learn to defend your marriage against these sneak attacks and you will have built an impenetrable fortress of love.
6. How to Solve Any Problem in Five (Not-So-Easy) Steps	115	(24)
Discover the "slumbering powers" of your marriage and use this proven plan for revolutionizing your love life.
7. Joining Your Spirits Like Never Before	139	(28)
Deep down in the soul of your marriage is a thirst for connection that can only be quenched when you drink from the ultimate source of love.
8. The Good That Comes from a Problem-Solving Marriage	167	(8)
Every day your love expands when you clearly see you've become more richly yourselves together than you could have ever managed alone.
Appendix: Practical Help for a Marriage in Crisis	175	(26)
Notes	201	(4)
About the Authors	205

Excerpts

I Love You More
Copyright © 2001, 2005 by Les and Leslie Parrott
Formerly titled When Bad Things Happen to Good Marriages
Requests for information should be addressed to:
Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Parrott, Les.
I love you more : how everyday problems can strengthen your marriage /
Les and Leslie Parrott.
p. cm.
Rev. ed. of: When bad things happen to good marriages. c2001.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN-10: 0-310-25738-7
ISBN-13: 978-0-310-25738-7
1. Spouses—Religious life. 2. Marriage—Religious aspects—Christianity.
I. Parrott, Leslie L., 1964– II. Parrott, Les. When bad things happen to good
marriages. III. Title.
BV4596.M3P38 2005
248.8'44—dc22 2005004288
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible: New
International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible
Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
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
05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 /?DCI/ 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
We want to hear from you. Please send your comments about this
book to us in care of [e-mail]. Thank you.
real-life problem solvers
Below is a listing of some true stories you will find throughout
this book. Each story focuses on a specific marital struggle
and is written by a courageous couple who strengthened their
marriage in spite of their struggle. We offer these contributions
as a source of inspiration and examples of practical problem
solving.
1. How We Overcame Unfulfilled Expectations 38
by Scott and Debbie Daniels
2. How We Won over a Bad Attitude 65
by Kevin and Kathy Lunn
3. How We Found Time and Space
as a Couple with Kids 81
by Andrea and Chris Fabry
4. How We Reignited Our Sexual Fire 87
by Rick and Jennifer Newberg
5. How We Tamed the Busyness Monster 96
by Steve and Thanne Moore
6. How We Brought Back the Fun in Our Marriage 102
by Neil and Marylyn Warren
7. How We Survived Financial Debt 108
by Doug and Jana McKinley
9
8. How We Found Forgiveness after an Affair 129
by Richard and Linda Simons
9. How We’ve Stayed Committed 135
by Jeff and Stacy Kemp
10. How We Learned to Speak the Same
Spiritual Language 149
by Chuck and Barb Snyder
11. How We Find God’s Will Together 156
by Norm and Bobbe Evans
12. How We Found Hope in the Midst of Infertility 186
by Mark and Victoria Eaton
13. How We Won over Depression 192
by Dennis and Emily Lowe
14. How We Found Joy with a Disabled Child 195
by Norm and Joyce Wright
15. How We Dealt with a Rebellious Child 197
by Dave and Jan Stoop
10 i love you more
workbook exercises
Below is a listing of the exercises and self-tests you will find in
the two workbooks we have designed to go along with this
book (one for husbands and one for wives). In each chapter we
will point you to a specific exercise to work on once you have
read a particular section. This list can serve as a quick reference
to the location of the exercises within this book.
1. Taking Inventory of Your Marriage 24
2. Exploring Your Marital Armament 28
3. Why Every Marriage Has Everyday Problems 34
4. What Did You Expect? 37
5. The Big Question 42
6. So Many Choices 48
7. Your Attitude Quotient 56
8. What Have You Been Looking For? 61
9. Coping with the Invasion of Intimacy 77
10. When Husband and Wife Become Mom and Dad 83
11. Refueling the Sexual Fire 89
12. Taking Control of Your Time-Starved Marriage 98
13. Getting to Know You . . . All Over Again 106
14. Healing Your Painful Past 111
15. Owning Up 120
16. High Hopes—Even When You’re Hurting 122
11
17. Walking in Your Partner’s Shoes 125
18. Assessing Your Spiritual Language 148
19. Finding the Inspiration around You 161
20. Taking Cover from a Bombshell and Its Fallout 178
21. Surviving Your Private Gethsemane 191
12 i love you more
love is not enough
A marriage survives and thrives when a couple learns
to use problems to their advantage.
All beginnings are lovely.
French proverb
Two days after our wedding in Chicago, Les and I were nestled
into a cottage, surrounded by towering timbers along the picturesque
Oregon coast. A few miles to the south of us were the
famous coastal sand dunes where we planned to ride horses later
that week. And up the coast was a quaint harbor village where
we thought we might spend another day leisurely looking at
shops and eating our dinner by candlelight in a rustic inn some
friends recommended. Other than that, we had nothing on our
itinerary for the next five days except enjoying the beach and
each other, rain or shine.
Neither of us could have dreamed up a scenario that would
have been better for our honeymoon. Not that everything was perfect.
For starters, we accidentally locked ourselves out of our
rental car the day after we arrived. I was commenting on how the
sun was trying to poke its way out of some clouds when Les realized
the keys were in the ignition and all the doors were locked.
“You stay here in the cabin,” Les said, taking his first stab at
being an everything’s-under-control kind of husband. “I’m going to
walk to that filling station on the main road and get some help.”
“I’ll go with you,” I responded.
“Are you sure? It might rain.”
“It’ll be fun; let’s go.”
We walked and talked the two or three miles to find a pay
phone, where we made arrangements for the locksmith to pick
us up and take us back to our car. Sitting on a curb, we waited,
saying nothing. Les was fiddling with a stick he’d picked up on
our walk when I realized several minutes had passed and neither
of us had said a word. It was an easy stillness, though; a
kind of eloquent voicelessness where we were content, comfortable,
to not talk.
I think it was there and then, quietly sitting on a curb next to
a phone booth under a cloudy sky, that the thought hit me like
a ray of light. I had captured true love. The thing I’d been chasing
ever since I was old enough to know it could be sought was
now in my possession. I had married a man who loved me
deeply, just as I loved him. We committed ourselves to love
together, forever.

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Excerpted from I Love You More: How Everyday Problems Can Strenghten Your Marriage by Les Parrott, Leslie Parrott, Parrott, . Les and Leslie 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.