Book Review: The Marriage of Your Dreams

The Marriage of Your Dreams

A Woman’s guide to understanding Her Man

Publisher         Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group

Publication Date         10/2012

ISBN: 978-0-8007-2031-5

Author               Johnson, Rick

From the Back cover:

Men are fairly simple creatures with fairly simple needs. Yet women often find themselves frustrated trying to understand those needs in order to improve their marriages. Many wonder, "What does he expect from me? I'm doing everything the best I can. Doesn't he know I'm at the end of my rope here?" Relationship expert Rick Johnson ends the guessing game, giving women an open and honest look inside the world of a man's needs and helping them understand how best to use their influence to have a satisfying and exciting relationship.

Rick delves into the not-so-mysterious-after-all world of a man, highlighting his need for respect and admiration, his sexual desires, his communication style, his work, his emotions, and even his relationship with the "other woman"--his mother. Women will appreciate Rick's candor, humor, and insight as they discover that the marriage of their dreams is closer than they ever thought it could be.

My Reflections:

I was a bit skeptical picking this book up, as I had just reviewed another marriage book in the last couple of weeks. This book was definitely a distinctive kettle of fish!

The book is written from the perspective of a man, to women to better understand her partner and ultimately achieve a satisfying, exciting relationship that lasts a lifetime.

His views are honest, straight forward and his research is conducted via polling men and recording their answers. I think perhaps that an anonymous poll would probably yield fairly honest answers.

Upon reading the first chapter I was a little put off, I didn’t really agree with Johnson’s perspective on mother’s and sons, and how it this relationship affects  marriage..  But because I wanted to glean all I could from the book I persevered through.
I am glad I did, I learned quite a bit about how men think, on all sorts of topics I had never even really given much thought to.

I especially enjoyed reading chapter 5 “His Work”

It really opened up my eyes to the way my husband ticks, I mean he always states he works so much because he loves us, but I don’t think I really got it until I read this chapter. Very thought provoking indeed!
I also got a laugh from the “Real Questions from Real Women” It was so funny how quite a few of the answers were simply put and sounded just like how my husband would verbalize it.
Johnson forgot that us woman want details and not just a few! It was fun to read this section after each chapter, and the content often made me chuckle. I have to share just one in chapter 6.

Q: Will we ever have enough sex to satisfy him?

 A: Probably not.

Some of the other topics included in this book are:

~What’s with his mother anyway?

~His Father

~His relationships

~His Communication

~His work

~His sexuality (no I didn’t skip to this one first, but it is interesting to say the least)

~His need for respect and admiration

And more…

I think after I got over my initial knee jerk reaction to some of Johnson’s thoughts, I would recommend this book to married women. It is truly an out of the box by kind of book. I appreciated that it is written from a man’s viewpoint, not by the usual doctor, counselor or psychiatrist. It has easy to understand language, and includes Bible verses to solidify his “manly wisdom”.

So in closing if you are looking to understand your man a little better and you need a male view point on life and marriage this is your book!

"Book has been provided courtesy of Baker Publishing Group and Graf-Martin Communications, Inc.

Available at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group".

Thank you, Baker Publishing and Graf-Martin!

About the Author:
 

Rick Johnson

Rick Johnson is a bestselling author of That's My Son; That's My Teenage Son; That's My Girl; Better Dads, Stronger Sons; and Becoming Your Spouse's Better Half. He is the founder of Better Dads and is a sought-after speaker at many large parenting and marriage conferences across the United States and Canada. Rick, his wife, Suzanne, and their grown children live in Oregon. To find out more about Rick Johnson, visit www.betterdads.net.