I love this book….
No, wait…
I LOVE THIS BOOK!!!!!
This is the book that you give to young married couples to show them that yes… being married is wonderful… and having a happy marriage is totally possible!!!! Forget that… give this book to young women BEFORE they meet the man they want to marry!!!
The author, Fawn Weaver, first started a blog and a Facebook page:
http://www.happywivesclub.com/
and
https://www.facebook.com/happywivesclub/?ref=br_rs
of which I have been a member of both for quite some time… Ok.. a few years… and I love it!
So listening to her book was just a given for me. I like to celebrate marriage and good marriages are hard to come by right?
Not really. If you open your eyes and look around good solid happy marriages are all around us… But we are drawn to outrage and negativity at a greater pull then we are to anything remotely positive.
So I like the fact that she traveled the world talking and finding woman with good solid marriages and she interviewed them… some with their husbands. I liked hearing about the secrets that they proclaimed were the grounding forces in their marriages.. and what worked and what didn’t.
Last night, laying in my mans arms, I was telling him about what I had learned so far from reading this book…. I could hear him grunt and feel his nod as I spoke. Agreeing with what she was saying….
I like the moment where she talks about a life group they were in.. and she noticed herself finding ways to pick a fight after they were leaving the group each night… and when she put the two together… she noticed that being around a group of women that nitpick their men… or were unhappy in their marriage… she was finding it was contagious… she stopped.. and started to really be careful who she was hanging around…
I find this to be so very true. I love my marriage and my man and we both guard our relationship… I started noticing this same thing with a group of women that I was thinking I would fit in with… I really wasn’t feeling it… and when you boil it right down to why… it was because I wasn’t willing to bash my husband. He is an amazing man and I don’t have anything negative to say about him.
At all!!
But the women would sit around and talk smack about their men and as it came around to me.. I noticed I would agree to just agree.. when in reality I didn’t agree… (Bad Me!!!!!)
My husband and I started to unpack where things were… we noticed that he also was finding he was agreeing with things.. just to agree… fit in with the people we were hanging around with… that while he didn’t agree with what someone was saying (insert a topic here) we were going along… but…. while at home we didn’t feel that way… we found it started to sneak into how we actually behaved in those area’s.
Hence, I removed myself from some area’s of the world. It just doesn’t matter… My man on the other hand… matters! And I have noticed my outlook on life… is changing drastically for the better!!!
I like how she brought that to life for me. The fact that she noticed it also in her own life… helps me realize that pulling away and creating a life with different people was totally the correct answer for me.
I love how most of the couples talked about the hardships they endured and pointed out that they pulled together. Or when one wanted to travel a path, like a career… the other made it work. Towards the end of the book as she is talking to a well-known author’s wife… I loved how the wife mentioned that she listened to her husbands heart… and not exactly what he was saying. They ended up taking a risk and changing their life… not for financial gain… but for happiness…
I related to that… Recently while watching my husband working on something he came to me and expressed his desire in an area… many took it as a failure or ‘stupid’ move… I have heard it all my friends… But I am the one that saw the path and thought and time that my man spent in researching the change… and as he sat in front of me asking for my thoughts… I heard his heart louder than anything else…. and that is what prompted me to say “Do it!!!!”. I know.. People think we are crazy… and we might very well be… but at least we will be happy and together down this crazy trail we are on.
I should say, I like how she talked about her faith but not in a way to bad mouth any other faiths. She was classy… with how she worded it all.. and I found myself wanting to be her best friend. And very happy that I signed on board to be a member of the Happy Wives Club.
Personally I give her props for traveling away from her man for 6 months while she interviewed and wrote this book…. I couldn’t have done it. But I am so glad she did… Because reading about the different area’s in the world and relationships that are out there and happiness in marriages… truly makes my heart beat with happy beats.
We should all be celebrating the fact we have a happy marriage! People need to see that they actually exist out there! And don’t be afraid to guard your marriage with your entire life and being…. It is worth protecting!
The Bettencourt's 