Product Description

Relationship experts and award-winning authors Les and Leslie Parrott believe the same forces that can tear down a marriage can become the catalyst for new relational depth and richness--provided you learn the secrets to using everyday problems to strengthen your marriage. In this book they explore how a marriage survives and thrives when a couple learns to use problems to boost their love life, to literally love each other more. 

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #132840 in Books
• Published on: 2005-08-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780310257387
• Condition: USED - LIKE NEW
• Notes:
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From the Back Cover
Every day in every marriage couples bump into problems.  They fail to communicate with each other, they struggle to pay bills, and they face a serious illness or a rebellious child.  No couple is immune to problems.  The question isn’t whether a couple will have problems; it’s how they are going to handle them.  And, more important, how are they going to use them to their advantage – becoming stronger as a result.  Relationship experts and award-winning authors Les and Leslie Parrott believe the same forces that can tear down a marriage can become the catalyst for new relational depth and richness--provided you learn the secrets to using everyday problems to strengthen your marriage. The Parrotts explain that a marriage survives and thrives when a couple learns to use problems to boost their love life, to literally love each other more.  Then, drawing on their wealth of professional and personal experience as a married couple, they explore how: · All your difficulties can be traced to one of five sources – and knowing the source makes all the difference.

· A fine line separates an obstacle from an opportunity, and you can discover the opportunity the instant you see the obstacle with new eyes.

· The magic of marriage inevitably wanes if you don’t recognize and accept the two sides of intimacy and sex.

· Any marriage problem can be solved in five (not so easy) steps.                                                                               · Deep down in the soul of your marriage is a thirst for connection that can only be quenched when you drink from the ultimate source of love.

· Every day your love expands when you clearly see you’ve become a better person for having married your partner. Designed for use with its accompanying, individual workbooks for husbands and wives, this book will change the way you feel about your problems forever. It can make the difference between a marriage that founders on the shoals of circumstance and one that grows through difficulties to find you saying "I love you more … more today than yesterday."

About the Author
Drs. Les and Leslie Parrott are codirectors of the Center for Relationship Development at Seattle Pacific University (SPU), a groundbreaking program dedicated to teaching the basics of good relationships. Les Parrott is a professor of clinical psychology at SPU, and Leslie is a marriage and family therapist at SPU. The Parrotts are authors of the Gold Medallion Award-winning Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts, Becoming Soul Mates, Love Is, Relationships, and When Bad Things Happen to Good Marriages. They have been featured on Oprah, CBS This Morning, CNN, and The View, and in USA Today and the New York Times. They are also frequent guest speakers and have written for a variety of magazines. They live in Seattle, Washington, with their two sons.Leslie Parrott is co-director, with her husband Dr. Les Parrott, of the Center for Relationships Development on the campus of Seattle Pacific University (SPU), a groundbreaking program dedicated to teaching the basics of good relationships. Leslie is also a marriage and family therapist as well as the coauthor of the Gold Medallion Award-wining Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts, The Love List, Becoming Soul Mates, Love Talk, and Your Time Starved Marriage. Leslie is also the author of If You Ever Needed Friends It’s Now and the children’s book, God Loves You Nose to Toes. She has been featured on Oprah and CBS This Morning, and in USA Today and the New York Times. Leslie is a frequent guest speaker and has written for a variety of magazines. The Parrotts' radio program, Love Talk, can be heard on stations throughout North America. She lives in Seattle, Washington, with Les and their two sons.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
I Love You More
Copyright © 2001, 2005 by Les and Leslie Parrott
Formerly titled When Bad Things Happen to Good Marriages
Requests for information should be addressed to:
Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Parrott, Les.
I love you more : how everyday problems can strengthen your marriage /
Les and Leslie Parrott.
p. cm.
Rev. ed. of: When bad things happen to good marriages. c2001.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN-10: 0-310-25738-7
ISBN-13: 978-0-310-25738-7
1. Spouses—Religious life. 2. Marriage—Religious aspects—Christianity.
I. Parrott, Leslie L., 1964– II. Parrott, Les. When bad things happen to good
marriages. III. Title.
BV4596.M3P38 2005
248.8'44—dc22 2005004288
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible: New
International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible
Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
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 Zondervan, nor do we vouch for their content for the life of this book.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy,
recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without
the prior permission of the publisher.
Published in association with Yates & Yates, LLP, Attorneys and Counselors, Suite 1000,
Literary Agent, Orange, CA.
Interior design by Beth Shagene
Printed in the United States of America
05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 /?DCI/ 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
We want to hear from you. Please send your comments about this
book to us in care of zreview@zondervan.com. Thank you.
real-life problem solvers
Below is a listing of some true stories you will find throughout
this book. Each story focuses on a specific marital struggle
and is written by a courageous couple who strengthened their
marriage in spite of their struggle. We offer these contributions
as a source of inspiration and examples of practical problem
solving.
1. How We Overcame Unfulfilled Expectations 38
by Scott and Debbie Daniels
2. How We Won over a Bad Attitude 65
by Kevin and Kathy Lunn
3. How We Found Time and Space
as a Couple with Kids 81
by Andrea and Chris Fabry
4. How We Reignited Our Sexual Fire 87
by Rick and Jennifer Newberg
5. How We Tamed the Busyness Monster 96
by Steve and Thanne Moore
6. How We Brought Back the Fun in Our Marriage 102
by Neil and Marylyn Warren
7. How We Survived Financial Debt 108
by Doug and Jana McKinley
9
8. How We Found Forgiveness after an Affair 129
by Richard and Linda Simons
9. How We’ve Stayed Committed 135
by Jeff and Stacy Kemp
10. How We Learned to Speak the Same
Spiritual Language 149
by Chuck and Barb Snyder
11. How We Find God’s Will Together 156
by Norm and Bobbe Evans
12. How We Found Hope in the Midst of Infertility 186
by Mark and Victoria Eaton
13. How We Won over Depression 192
by Dennis and Emily Lowe
14. How We Found Joy with a Disabled Child 195
by Norm and Joyce Wright
15. How We Dealt with a Rebellious Child 197
by Dave and Jan Stoop
10 i love you more
workbook exercises
Below is a listing of the exercises and self-tests you will find in
the two workbooks we have designed to go along with this
book (one for husbands and one for wives). In each chapter we
will point you to a specific exercise to work on once you have
read a particular section. This list can serve as a quick reference
to the location of the exercises within this book.
1. Taking Inventory of Your Marriage 24
2. Exploring Your Marital Armament 28
3. Why Every Marriage Has Everyday Problems 34
4. What Did You Expect? 37
5. The Big Question 42
6. So Many Choices 48
7. Your Attitude Quotient 56
8. What Have You Been Looking For? 61
9. Coping with the Invasion of Intimacy 77
10. When Husband and Wife Become Mom and Dad 83
11. Refueling the Sexual Fire 89
12. Taking Control of Your Time-Starved Marriage 98
13. Getting to Know You . . . All Over Again 106
14. Healing Your Painful Past 111
15. Owning Up 120
16. High Hopes—Even When You’re Hurting 122
11
17. Walking in Your Partner’s Shoes 125
18. Assessing Your Spiritual Language 148
19. Finding the Inspiration around You 161
20. Taking Cover from a Bombshell and Its Fallout 178
21. Surviving Your Private Gethsemane 191
12 i love you more
love is not enough
A marriage survives and thrives when a couple learns
to use problems to their advantage.
All beginnings are lovely.
French proverb
Two days after our wedding in Chicago, Les and I were nestled
into a cottage, surrounded by towering timbers along the picturesque
Oregon coast. A few miles to the south of us were the
famous coastal sand dunes where we planned to ride horses later
that week. And up the coast was a quaint harbor village where
we thought we might spend another day leisurely looking at
shops and eating our dinner by candlelight in a rustic inn some
friends recommended. Other than that, we had nothing on our
itinerary for the next five days except enjoying the beach and
each other, rain or shine.
Neither of us could have dreamed up a scenario that would
have been better for our honeymoon. Not that everything was perfect.
For starters, we accidentally locked ourselves out of our
rental car the day after we arrived. I was commenting on how the
sun was trying to poke its way out of some clouds when Les realized
the keys were in the ignition and all the doors were locked.
“You stay here in the cabin,” Les said, taking his first stab at
being an everything’s-under-control kind of husband. “I’m going to
walk to that filling station on the main road and get some help.”
“I’ll go with you,” I responded.
“Are you sure? It might rain.”
“It’ll be fun; let’s go.”
We walked and talked the two or three miles to find a pay
phone, where we made arrangements for the locksmith to pick
us up and take us back to our car. Sitting on a curb, we waited,
saying nothing. Les was fiddling with a stick he’d picked up on
our walk when I realized several minutes had passed and neither
of us had said a word. It was an easy stillness, though; a
kind of eloquent voicelessness where we were content, comfortable,
to not talk.
I think it was there and then, quietly sitting on a curb next to
a phone booth under a cloudy sky, that the thought hit me like
a ray of light. I had captured true love. The thing I’d been chasing
ever since I was old enough to know it could be sought was
now in my possession. I had married a man who loved me
deeply, just as I loved him. We committed ourselves to love
together, forever.

Customer Reviews

Tips on strengthening your marriage from veteran relationship experts
With today's high divorce rate, another book on gluing your marriage together is always welcome. Here, veteran relationship team Drs. Les and Leslie Parrott show how difficult problems can lead to deeper, more committed marriages in I LOVE YOU MORE (a re-issue of the earlier WHEN BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD MARRIAGES, 2001). While much of their advice will have a familiar ring to those who regularly read marriage self-help books, the idea of using negative marital circumstances to achieve a positive outcome makes this book stand out from the ordinary.

The Parrotts are perhaps best known for their Soul Mates Seminars and long-running output of books on marriage for Christian audiences. They speak with the experience of interactions with many married couples when they write, "No marriage --- no matter how good --- is immune to everyday problems." The very problems that seem to threaten marital happiness, they believe, are actually the "tipping point" for deeper love between a husband and wife. Sound counter-intuitive? Read on....

Contrary to romantic belief, love is not enough to make a happy marriage. Neither is shared faith. (Oklahoma, they point out, the buckle of the Bible belt, has one of the highest divorce rates in the United States). Don't get them wrong --- love and faith are important. But a good marriage is built by two people's capacity to adjust to negative things. The bankruptcy you didn't expect. The child who is born disabled. The affair you thought you'd never have. The depression that incapacitates your spouse. "We have staked everything on this person we marry," they write. "...And we eventually learn this person is not what we expected, or at least what we wished."

The Parrotts like to break things down into manageable bites of information. They list five possibilities that contribute to marital problems, including idealistic couples with unfulfilled expectations, restless couples who have not examined, contented couples who have not tapped into their unskilled potential, couples who make unhealthy choices, and unpredictable circumstances.

Much of marriage is about attitude, the authors caution, adding that a good attitude is your most important marital asset. "Good attitudes open the double doors of marriage for optimism to do its work... without optimism, couples see no way out of their negative circumstances," they write. They offer four steps to turn around a bad attitude: look for the positive, refuse to be a victim, give up your grudges, and give yourself and your marriage some grace. A sure sign of a good marital attitude is when you are not only willing to go the first mile, but also go the extra mile in your marriage, the "extra-mile principle."

The Parrotts also list "six subtle saboteurs" that can deep-six a marriage: busyness, irritation, boredom, drift, debt, and pain from the past. Practically, the Parrotts offer readers the five "most important" tools a marriage needs to successfully battle everyday problems. Who could resist? Not this reader. The five (not so easy) steps they recommend are: Ownership --- taking responsibility for the good as well as the bad; Hope --- believing that good wins over bad; Empathy --- walking in your partner's shoes; Forgiveness --- healing the hurts you don't deserve; and Commitment --- living the love you promised. They conclude the book with an overview of learning to speak your spouse's spiritual language, partially drawn from Gary Thomas's must-read book, SACRED PATHWAYS. The Parrotts believe that marriage is a spiritual discipline. "A stronger marriage is a side effect of learning to love God --- together."

One thing to be aware of: If you buy this book, the publisher has ensured you'll want to purchase at least one of the accompanying husband or wife workbooks by directing readers to do exercises from it throughout the text. In some ways, this feels a little like a marketing gimmick to sell more books. However, there are questions for reflection included at the end of each chapter, so the book will stand on its own without the additional workbooks.

--- Reviewed by Cindy Crosby. (...)

genuinely helpful
The Parrotts have packed a lot of helpful insight into this short book. Many areas are enhanced by stories from real couples -- talking about a problem area in their marriage and how it was managed or resolved. Married for 13 years myself, I found all of the book to be realistic, and relevant to my experience, and some of their advice was actually new to me. The suggested workbooks are definitely not essential for getting the good out of the book, certainly they take the reflection (the personalizing) further.

Another "Christian" fix-it-yourself-book
From the outside this reviewer did not feel too impressed with this book. There is no Scripture index and the endnotes refer mostly to secular works. Unfortunately, the as this reviewer started reading the book, the conclusion was easily drawn that this is a book that is for any married couple, but because it is a book for everyone, it is not a Christian book. The book is 200 pages long, and includes a total of 2 Scripture references! The first one was Matthew 7:41, mentioned in the conclusion of the chapter on page 69. This means that the Bible was not the basis of the chapter or even a simple point, but rather an illustration. The other was Eph 5:21 (158), which seems to be wrongly interpreted and certainly does not give the basis for the conclusion that is made in the story. By writing a book that lacks virtually any Scripture the authors deny Sola Scriptural, they deny sufficiency of Scripture, and even that Scripture has anything to say about these life issues! Why do the authors base none of their arguments on Scripture? Why is there not even a hint of a discussion of Eph 5:22-33, the Proverbs 31 woman, James 4:1-10 or 1 Corinthians 7:1-6 when they do discuss things like roles in marriage, conflict and sexual problems.
Over and over again they deal with adultery and other sin issues in marriage. But the word "sin," as far as this reviewer can recall, is not mentioned once in the book. There are a few times that one partner in marriage asks the other for forgiveness, but there seems to be not a single time that the person mentioned seeks forgiveness and restoration from God.
Interspersed in each chapter the authors give nice little quotes of "wisdom;" the problem is that they quote indiscriminately from people who are Christians, who may or may not be Christians, and who are not Christians. There is some God talk, but in the end, with the lack of Scriptural discussion, they really are saying, "God's Word is nice, but it does not have the answer to your problems. We do!" The authors certainly did not write this book with this kind of intention, but that does not change the fact this book displays this kind of emphasis. Only chapter 8 is somewhat geared to spiritual matter, but even here the discussion is far from being distinctly Christian. Virtually all the material could have been written by or for Muslims or Jews just as much for Christians.
This book is unfortunately like so much of modern evangelicalism: instead of focusing on the Bible and bringing glory to God through all things (including marriage), this book is another "fix it yourself" book that has no foundation other than the mere wisdom of man.