Before You Say "I Do": A Marriage Preparation Guide for Couples Paperback – March 26, 2019

My daughter is soon to be engaged, so I purchased this book to give to her and her boyfriend. They have been chomping at the bit to begin premarital counseling, but since they are not yet officially engaged, it's too soon to meet with a counselor. However, it isn't too soon for them to read a book.This is actually a workbook with a strong foundation of Scripture for each issue that is addressed. While space is provided in the book for most of your answers, you will also want to have a binder or spiral notebook handy for the questions he asks you to answer "on a separate piece of paper." Each chapter includes questions and/or quizzes for you to answer individually, and then discuss with your prospective spouse. It could work equally well whether you are seated together at a table to work chapter by chapter, or whether you work on your own time and then come together to discuss and share your answers. In fact, it might be a good idea to do a little of both as you work your way through the book.One thing I particularly like about this author's approach is the fact that he often asks you to write down how you think your potential mate would answer the question. This becomes a really good gauge of how well you know the person you intend to marry.This is a great book for anyone planning to be engaged or married in the near future. Does it cover every potential hurdle? No. One topic I noticed was absent was that of pets. What if one of you loves pets and the other hates them or is severely allergic to them? What if you already have pets? While this may or may not be a deal-breaker, it certainly is something you need to talk about before marriage. There may be other things you will have thought about that are not covered in this book, but this is an excellent place to start, and the format lends itself very well to helping you develop great communication skills, which is vital to a successful marriage. I highly recommend this book for yourself or your loved one.

Our pastor recommended this workbook for us as part of our pre-marital counseling over the next 12 months.Flipping through the workbook I am really looking forward to working through these topics and questions with my future husband and our pastor.. so important and I think it will help strengthen our foundation immensely.I trust my pastor so I ignored the bad review about "a woman's place" that I now see was taken completely out of context. If you look at the photos, I attached all of the context for that small subsection within chapter seven. It's a scale that obviously starts on that extreme side, but you and your partner discuss where you want to be on that scale. (Obviously not property, it's there for discussion)

My girlfriend and I are only a couple of chapters in but we’ve already learned so much about one another and had some really fantastic discussions because of the content of this book! This book will confirm whether or not your heart posture is right for marriage. We ordered the book and the devotional but honestly, there is enough content in just one or the other to keep you busy. We’ve decided that doing 1 chapter per week would suffice and truthfully, that is plenty. If you truly want to grow in a godly way and build a relationship together with God, this book will help you do that.

Highly recommended and so helpful for marriages .

Great workbook for couples trying to dig deeper in preparation for marriage

I am going to be honest here-my fiancé and I have a good relationship. Our relationship is mature for our age. We communicate well.... and then this book came along and challenged everything we thought we knew about our relationship, and made us think of helpful things we had never thought of before.Some of those helpful things were the sections on family backgrounds, and the chapter on individual needs in marriage. There's a chapter on working towards goals in marriage which was probably my favorite-it focuses on short term AND long term goals. The chapter on sex is very helpful and not awkward, which helps to clear up that inevitable anxiety.The book is a lot of work. Sometimes there's as many as 20 loaded questions in a row to answer or an entire page of Scriptures to read, But it's completely based on the Bible and it's so worth it.We shared a book but it is a lot easier, based on some of the questions, for each person to have their own.I'd recommend this to anyone-fiancé and I did it on our own and it was sufficient for our counseling, aside from one required meeting with our officiating minister.

This book our pre marriage counseled had my husband and I go through before we got married. It is very well written and simple. It goes through a lot of good questions but asks them in an easy to understand way. Here we are seven years later, still married and loving life together. We still have the book and go back and reflect on our answers from so long ago.

I ordered this book as requirement for pre marital class. I enjoyed this book. The writer gives a Christian view with support from bible verses that pertain to the point in each chapter. This book is great conversation starters especially for young couples. In older couples, it may open dialogue and conversation that may not have previously presented but needs to be discussed and decided. I would recommend.