The Marriage Box

We had a great marriage workshop at church tonight! My husband used an illustration called "The Marriage Box" that really struck me. I don't want to forget it, so I thought I'd post it up & share it.

THE MARRIAGE BOX

Most people get married believing a myth; that marriage is a beautiful box full of all the things they have longed for: companionship, romance, sexual fulfillment, intimacy, friendship, laughter, financial security.The truth is that marriage, at the start, is an empty box. You must put some things into it before you can take anything out of it. There is no love in marriage; love is in people, and people put it into their marriage. There is no romance in marriage; people have to put it into their relationship. A couple must discern what things work to improve their relationship and form the habits of communicating, giving, sacrificing, sharing, loving, touching, serving, and praising. In other words, keeping the box full. If you take out more than you put in, the box will always be empty!

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Book Review: The Love and Respect Experience

The Love & Respect Experience is a devotional book based on the bestseller book Love & Respect by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs. Since this book only contains 52 chapters, it can be read one chapter a week for one year. At the end of every chapter it features a Prayer section and an Action section which I liked.

My husband and I read through this devotional book separately and then discussed the material. I must admit after a while it felt like the same topics were being rehashed just from a slightly different angle. But overall I enjoyed the book.

I would like to suggest that if you have never read Love & Respect, you could just skip the book and get the condensed version by reading the devotional.
Book Sneeze provided this book in exchange for an honest review.

Book Description

A Devotional Unlike Any Other!

Through his international bestseller, Love & Respect, Emerson Eggerichs has transformed marriages around the world with his biblically based approach to understanding the love that she most desires and the respect that he desperately needs. Now, in this long-awaited new release, Emerson has created an experience for couples that is effective, flexible and life-changing.

To build this couples devotional, Eggerichs has taken the top concerns that surfaced in a survey of thousands of couples and has developed 52 devotionals around the three cycles that are at the heart of Love and Respect:

The Crazy Cycle

The Rewarded Cycle

The Energizing Cycle

Some may ask, “Why 52 devotionals and not 365, like other couples' books I have seen?” The author’s research shows that married couples don’t want to deal with that much material, that often. Therefore, the specific devotionals, which can be done weekly or at any chosen pace, are specifically guided to what couples say they most need. And this is a husband-friendly devotional, written and designed in such a way that the husband can feel comfortable in the entire process.

With this wealth of new material, The Love & Respect Experience will be indispensable to anyone wishing to better their marital relationship.

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