Improve Your Marriage by Improving Your Focus

Dr. Mark Avery Reed’s book, Improve Your Marriage By Improving Your Focus, shows that God’s intent is for our marriage to be happy and mutually enriching as we start emphasizing what we are receiving from our spouse and learn to increase simple, marriage-building behaviors. As we improve our ability to see ourselves, our spouse, and our marriage as the Lord does, we focus less on problems and express greater gratitude to each other. We become happier.

In Improve Your Marriage By Improving Your Focus we learn that a healthy, happy marriage requires two people who have decent mental health. Hence, chapter 1 explains the key characteristics of mental and spiritual health. Sadly, this topic is seldom addressed at length in books on how to have a good marriage.

Dr. Reed offers many surprising and very helpful insights on such matters as appropriate self-disclosure, romance, intimacy, proper expectations, physical affection, sex, and the real nature of both agape and erotic love. The seldom-mentioned but important subject of how to hear from God for our marriage is also discussed with practical ideas which can be applied to any area of our life. Other topic areas with valuable input include how to listen effectively, dealing with conflict without emphasizing our problems, building hope and optimism for our marriage, strengthening commitment, and how to focus on what is positive.

Improve Your Marriage By Improving Your Focus also points out:

-Forty ways we can improve our self-image (since someone with a poor self-image will find ways to avoid deep intimacy lest they be rejected).
-Fifty-five Bible verses which indicate we should focus on what is positive.
-The biblical difference between justified and unjustified complaining and how unjustified griping greatly harms our marriage.

This book provides practical help by which most any two people with decent mental health can move their marriage from unsatisfying to at least satisfying or from good to even better.