What people are saying about …
THE FIRST FEW YEARS OF MARRIAGE
“Every couple needs a boost. Every couple deserves a great marriage. Jim and Doug are wonderful guides along the way.”
John Ortberg, senior pastor of Menlo Church, author of All the Places to Go
“Drawing from Scripture, countless conversations with young couples, and lessons learned in their own long and successful marriages, Jim Burns and Doug Fields share the biblical principles that form the foundation of a happy and healthy relationship. If you want your marriage to go the distance, set the right tone early using the advice and practical application you’ll find in this helpful book.”
Jim Daly, president, Focus on the Family
“Great marriages are not born, they are developed. And like anything else in life, the sooner we work on improving matters, the better our results will be. Burns and Fields have created a unique, highly valuable and practical guide to those critical first years of the relationship. Highly recommended.”
John Townsend, PhD, New York Times bestselling author of Boundaries, founder of the Townsend Institute for Leadership and Counseling, psychologist
“The book you hold in your hands is so important. Their advice is practical and doable. What you do in the first few years of your marriage, if you make wise decisions, will open the doorway to a successful marriage.”
Gary Chapman, PhD, author of The 5 Love Languages
“You’ve heard it said, ‘How you finish is more important than how you start.’ I disagree. How you start is very important and has much to do with how you finish. Don’t wait until a crisis hits your marriage to seek wise counsel. The sooner you start the better. The First Few Years of Marriage by Jim Burns and Doug Fields is both wise counsel and a great start for your marriage.”
Ted Cunningham, pastor, Woodland Hills Family Church and author of Fun Loving You
“I wish this existed in 2001. It’s so easy to make many mistakes right out of the gate. If you’ve just said ‘I do,’ pick this book up and save yourself a lot of trouble.”
Jon Acuff, New York Times bestselling author and speaker
“The early years of marriage play a huge role in whether or not what follows turns out to be a ‘love’ story, a ‘roommates’ story, or an ‘at-least-we-didn’t-get-divorced’ story. If you’re getting married or recently tied the knot, and would like to save yourselves a lot of unnecessary heartache, read this book.”
Dr. Tim Kimmel, author of Grace Filled Marriage
“Jim and Doug have done it again! First, we made their book Getting Ready for Marriage part of our marriage strategy, and now this one will be added to it too. Excellent. Practical help. I’m excited to see how it will shape the next generation of marriages and put them on the right path. A must read for newly married couples . . . heck, I’ve been married thirty years and I learned a lot too.”
Reggie Joiner, founder of Orange
“I love my marriage. And I love Jim and Doug’s book because it tackles the daily and deepest questions every marriage faces with authenticity, empathy, and wisdom.”
Kara Powell, PhD, executive director of the Fuller Youth Institute and coauthor of Growing Young
“We love this book! Jim and Doug are real, personal, and honest about the challenges they faced in the early years of their marriages and what they wish they had known that would have made things easier. Not only do they share how to surmount the challenges of the first years of marriage, but also how to have some fun along the way. So if you want to ensure that your marriage will thrive in the years ahead, take this book home and read it together—starting tonight.”
Claudia and David Arp, MSW authors of the 10 Great Dates® series
“If you want solid, time-tested wisdom about making marriage work, don’t ask Google. Ask Jim and Doug. They have assembled the best research and practical wisdom of the ages with their years of counseling and real-life marriage experience to give you a manual for getting it right. When you start a new job, a how-to manual from those who have gone before you is helpful, right? This is your marriage manual to get started on a marriage that will last a lifetime.”
Ron L. Deal, family trainer and therapist, author of The Smart Stepfamily Marriage
THE FIRST FEW YEARS OF MARRIAGE
Published by David C Cook
4050 Lee Vance Drive
Colorado Springs, CO 80918 U.S.A.
David C Cook U.K., Kingsway Communications
Eastbourne, East Sussex BN23 6NT, England
The graphic circle C logo is a registered trademark of David C Cook.
All rights reserved. Except for brief excerpts for review purposes, no part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form without written permission from the publisher.
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 David C Cook, nor do we vouch for their content.
Details in some stories have been changed to protect the identities of the persons involved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION® and NIV® are registered trademarks of Biblica, Inc. Use of either trademark for the offering of goods or services requires the prior written consent of Biblica, Inc. Scripture quotations marked ESV are taken from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved; NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
The author has added italics to Scripture quotations for emphasis.
LCCN 2017931012
ISBN 978-0-7814-1198-1
eISBN 978-1-4347-1109-0
© 2017 Jim Burns and Doug Fields
The Authors are represented by and this book is published in association with the literary agency of WordServe Literary Group, Ltd., www.wordserveliterary.com.
The Team: Tim Peterson, Keith Jones, Amy Konyndyk, Nick Lee, Abby DeBenedittis, Stephanie Bennett, Susan Murdock
Cover Design: Nick Lee
Cover Photo: Getty Images
First Edition 2017
For
Christy and Steve Ruiz
Heidi and Matt Hilton
Jon and Torie McBirney
Cody and Taylor Fields
If no one else ever read this book, we still would have written it for you. You were on our minds and in our hearts with every word. You are our inspiration. We are so very proud to be your dads and fathers-in-law. Know that we are cheering you on during every step of your marriages.
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part One: Your Journey Together
Chapter 1: One Marriage, Many Drifts, Thousands of Course Corrections
Chapter 2: Happiness Is a Choice
Part Two: Eight Gauges for a Great Marriage
Chapter 3: Laugh Daily and Date Weekly
Chapter 4: Slow Down
Chapter 5: Celebrate Differences
Chapter 6: Choose the Positive
Chapter 7: Fight Fear
Chapter 8: Have Great Sex
Chapter 9: Enjoy Your Baby
Chapter 10: Keep Your Promise
Notes
Some things you can learn before the wedding. However, most of the skills required for a long-term, healthy marriage are learned in the first few years of marriage. Many couples enter marriage thinking, We love each other and we are going to make each other happy. However, when they come down off the emotional high of the “in love” experience, they find they are not always inclined to “make each other happy.”
All of us come to marriage with expectations and visions of what it will be like. Most of us find marriage is not what we thought it would be. In an effort to be more realistic, some couples decide to live together before they get married. The idea is to do a “trial run” and see how it goes. While this may seem logical, research indicates that most of these couples end up not getting married. Those who do marry have a higher divorce rate than those who do not live together before the wedding.
The truth is, marriage cannot be simulated. It is a covenant relationship in which we proclaim privately and publicly that we will stand by each other in sickness and in health, in poverty and in wealth, and we will keep our relationship exclusive, so long as we shall live. It is a sobering commitment which brings great security for the couple who takes their vows seriously. However, working out the daily details can be tricky.
I have never met a couple who got married intending to make each other miserable. Yet my office and those of other counselors are filled with couples who are very unhappy. The reality is, we must learn how to create a loving, caring, supportive relationship. It does not happen simply by doing “what comes naturally.”
That is why the book you hold in your hands is so important. It will give you the benefit of learning from two counselors who are honest about their own journeys to successful marriages and have counseled with thousands of other couples through the years. Their advice is practical and doable. Wherever you are in your marital journey, you will find their ideas helpful in building a mutually satisfying marriage.
What you do in the first few years of your marriage, if you make wise decisions, will open the doorway to a successful marriage. Once you learn how to work as a team, each supporting the other, you will find the marriage you’ve always wanted.
Gary Chapman, Ph.D., author of The 5 Love Languages
Thank you …
Your early years of marriage are foundational years. The decisions, habits, and values you establish during that time will often determine the success and happiness of your relationship for the long haul. These crucial years are so very important.
The problem with many marriages today is that they are so busy and distracted by other “important commitments” that they drift from the very actions that made them want to get married. This drift is quite common but can become dangerous to your marriage if some course corrections are not implemented along the marriage journey. This is a book about identifying the drift and developing the skills needed to make the corrections that will lead to a healthy marriage—the one we know you want.
As we wrote this book for you, two thoughts were at the forefront of our minds: 1) We wished we would have had a book like this when we were first married. Every time we tell someone we are writing a book about the first few years of marriage, we get the same response. “Where was this book when we were first married?” 2) Even if no one else reads this book, we would still have written it—just for our own children. Four of our combined six kids are in the first few years of their marriages, so this quickly became a very personal project for us.
We loved writing this and thinking of all the couples it will help. We strongly believe it can strengthen any couple’s marriage, even if they aren’t in their first few years. Much of the content comes out of our own life experiences, research, and being fortunate enough to be married to two of the finest women in the universe. We are honored you are reading this, and we would love to hear what has been helpful to you. Write to us at Info@HomeWord.com.
Read the book with your spouse. Whether you both read it separately and then come together to talk about it or read it together and discuss it, try to engage as a couple. We hope you can create shared goals and a common language that can help your marriage thrive.
Consider going through this with a small group. We have created a workbook and video (find the curriculum at HomeWord.com/FirstFewYears) that can be used in a small group with other couples. You can learn so much more from others who are exploring the same topics and doing life together.
Work through the book and video curriculum with a “marriage mentor” couple. We are big believers in the effectiveness of mentors. We encourage you to find an older, wiser, more experienced couple and ask them to go through the content with you. Their insight could be life changing. With The First Few Years of Marriage video curriculum, there is a special message for marriage mentors.
No matter how you use this book, it’s our hope and prayer that it helps you make your marriage a priority and guides you to develop the skills needed to thrive in your relationship. We hope you’ll enjoy this book as much as we enjoyed writing it.
Blessings,
Jim and Doug