How do Christian marriage books harm?
We talk a lot at Bare Marriage about how Christian marriage books can harm people, often by teaching toxic things about staying in abusive marriages, giving sex on demand, or perpetuating teachings that we know are correlated with worse marital and sexual satisfaction.
But sometimes they can harm in other ways–like the implication that saving the marriage is entirely up to you.
Every time I do a deep dive on a particular book people send me long emails or DMs with their stories. We’ll be looking at the book His Needs, Her Needs this week on the podcast, but recently we looked at The Love Dare. And after talking about that book, a woman sent me her story that I’d like to share today:
I am currently in the middle of listening to your Love Dare podcast, and since I have a few free minutes at school, I thought I’d tell you my story of the Love Dare.
When the movie Fireproof came out, I was in awe.
(editor’s note: The book The Love Dare was based on the movie Fireproof).
It struck me so hard that God can change hearts and lives, and keep marriages intact. My husband was so similar to Caleb from the movie. He struggled with porn. He lost his temper often. He often neglected me, berated me, and verbally abused me. None of these things registered as abuse to me because he didn’t hit me, and I could tell him if something bothered me.
Most of the time (way back then) he apologized for his explosive outbursts. Each time I forgave, I moved past them, and considered us generally as having a good marriage.
After a while, our church did a Fireproof Bible study.
When we finished, our small group leaders bought the Love Dare book for us and suggested we work through it. Clearly they saw more problems in our marriage than I did, but I did not think it was necessary for us to work through the dare and neither did my husband. The other couple in our small group was having way more problems than we were, the husband didn’t attend church and mine did, so I assumed they were doomed to failure and we weren’t. They eventually did get divorced, but I kept chugging along, kept praying and trying to take all the evangelical marriage advice. I didn’t believe in divorce.
Fast forward to about 5 years ago.
After 15 years of marriage, my husband’s temper was not anywhere close to improving.
He had stopped apologizing for his outbursts, he blamed me most of the time, he demanded respect, sulked a lot, was still neglectful, although he had experienced growth in certain areas like time management and spending time with the children.
I started having feelings for another man and pursuing friendship with him, hoping that a better friendship would make the feelings go away. My husband confronted me about this friendship, accused me of having an emotional affair, and blew up about the whole thing. I asked for forgiveness and decided to end that friendship, and then made one of the hardest decisions of my life to go to counseling and dive into my own personal problems.
In the meantime, my husband accused me of not loving him, and I agreed.
So I picked up the Love Dare and completed every challenge in the book.
My goal was to fall in love with my husband again, and it worked. I implemented every little suggestion, but I also fell in love with Jesus. The last half of the Love Dare leads you to personal growth in your walk with God, and the consistency it taught me has stayed with me to this day.
I was so happy and in love with my husband by the end of that challenge, that I just knew there would be hope for our marriage when my husband also completed the challenge. I gave him the book knowing that in 40 days we would have a solid marriage that God could use, the way I’d always dreamed. But instead of picking up the book to complete the challenges, he accused me of working through the book for my own personal gain, for selfish and self-righteous reasons, that I never meant any of it and that I was just a big hypocrite who didn’t love him or respect him.
After a year or two of consistently trying to restore trust, his behavior remained unchanged except that he demanded even more from me. I compelled my husband with the help of our pastor to go to marriage counseling, thinking the only thing he needed was help for his temper. After a few sessions of marriage counseling, my husband’s abusive behavior started escalating to the point where I was genuinely fearful.
His rages were more frequent and much more severe.
My sister suggested I was being abused, which led me down a rabbit trail of learning how to identify and get safe from abuse.
My thoughts as I’ve been listening to your podcast when you said this is one of the worst books, was that it was true, but for me in the most helpful way. After having the book for 10 years or so and finally getting around do working through it, I was all in. But when I finally realized that no matter how hard I try it will never be good enough for him, getting everything right is not enough, then I finally realized it’s not me, and I started to break free from the enslaving thought that I am the problem and if I can try harder everything can be perfect. It’s hard to accept that I have no control over my husband’s choices.
We are currently in the process of divorce since he wouldn’t accept my request for a separation.
He still believes to this day that if I had taken accountability for my actions and accepted his apology we’d be ok. But since I “falsely accused” him of abuse, he has no choice but to fight dirty.
Back then, I wished he had done the Love Dare. But now I don’t. After learning about abusers, I just know he would have found a million and one ways to abuse me from the toxic teachings in that book, and so I hid it away and am looking forward to the freedom I’ll have when I can finally be out of this toxic environment. I’m still glad I did it, because it helped me in an unexpected way.
I thought this story was interesting because it’s not typical.
She genuinely thought the book would transform them.
But then she realized, if he doesn’t want to change, NOTHING will help.
That’s the big that’s missing from most marriage books, and that’s what keeps people stuck–the idea that if you just pray hard enough, love enough, everything will be fine.
But as we talk about in chapter 1 of The Marriage You Want, you can’t make a marriage work all on your own when the other person is actively destroying it. That’s not your job.
And I wish more books would acknowledge that!
The Marriage You Want is HERE!
It's time for HEALTHY and SAFE marriage advice!
It's time for a marriage book that doesn't leave you defeated or guilty--but instead leaves you empowered, hopeful, and excited.
It's evidence-based. It's got tons of charts! And it's fun.
Available in audio, ebook, or paperback, with an accompanying study guide, let's talk about the things that actually go into making a great marriage, rather than the things that evangelicals have tended to stress that all too often harm.
Together, we can change the evangelical conversation about marriage!
What do you think? Has a marriage book ever helped you in an unexpected way? Did it make you feel the marriage was entirely up to your effort? Let’s talk in the comments!
This is a situation where “it takes two to tango” definitely applies. One can’t tango their way to a better marriage all by themselves.
Except, we know from this blog, that the wife is tango-ing just fine and most (99%?) marriages fail because of bad MEN and their stupid toxic patriarchy bullcrap.
I’m looking forward to the podcast on His Needs, Her Needs. Before I married my ex 26 years ago, we went through that book in our pre marriage class. He never really read it, but whatever teachings he heard in class, he believed them. I thought the book was unbelievably sexist and could not believe that in 1999 they were still teaching that junk.
I never read any marriage books during my first marriage. It wasn’t until I became single again at 26, that I started reading Christian books on dating and marriage. I feel like those books harmed my mindset by causing me to fear men more and not date because of strict purity rules mainly written for teens and early 20somethings, not divorced people like myself.
The Marriage You Want book is about the only Christian marriage book I like along with Boundaries in Marriage.
I’m part of the way through How to Improve Your Marriage without Talking About It. It’s too soon for a post-mortem.
I’m actually having trouble feeling motivated. I’m just tired. I’m actually not feeling super motivated to work on improvement.
But I decided I’ll live with him if he’s only difficult but not impossible, because life has always been difficult, anyway. Coming here makes me feel inadequate for settling, if I’m honest. I’m sure eventually I’ll feel more motivated again.
I’m glad you do what you do. Your audience needs the better options you’re giving them.
(It’s not an evangelical marriage book.)
Hi Exhausted,
If it helps you feel less alone, I too am staying with my husband. It is sexless and I am not fulfilled through my marriage but I am no longer being abused or mistreated. He just isn’t capable of doing what I need to build trust enough for more than a shared income roommate situation, and I don’t have the energy or desire to put in the work of pursuing a divorce. I plan to never remarry if our marriage ends for any reason, so what is the point in slogging through a divorce?
I share that to say each of us here have a different experience, and sometimes the energy required to forge a totally new path is not worth it in the end. Only you can decide for yourself and your situation. I wish you the best as you move forward, hoping you find the healing you need for yourself and that you find your own paths of fulfillment.
“(editor’s note: The book The Love Dare was based on the movie Fireproof)”
“Based on” or “spinoff merch for”?
I thought the message of Fireproof was a bait-and-switch. From what I remember, the husband in the movie was selfish and entitled, and he repented. He did the love dare to earn his wife’s trust and they reconciled.
Then the movie ended with the message that EITHER partner could improve their marriage. They didn’t acknowledge that there is a big difference between a hurtful spouse repenting/making amends and a spouse who has been mistreated trying to improve their circumstances. I was in an emotionally abusive marriage, and at first I was hopeful that my husband would repent like the guy in the movie. But when they said it was up to you to improve your marriage by doing the love dare, my heart sank. It felt like a prison sentence to be responsible to improve my marriage when I was already suffering. The movie oversimplified marriage problems. It failed to acknowledge that some people harm others and won’t repent, that a formula will not heal abusive relationships.
I feel like this is key. Its very different for the offending/destructive/abusive spouse to change direction and seek to heal and restore their marriage, versus the spouse who has been fairly good and faithful to put in more effort and believe that holding their marriage together depends on them.
That’s such a good point I hadn’t picked up on!
I watched FireProof at the theater, when it first came out, with a work group of ladies. Shed tears, but thought maybe there was hope for my marriage.
Nope- like others have said, it takes two people working together to make it better. Not one person trying to meet a very long list of demands by a broken-when-we-met, mentally ill, drug and porn addicted spouse.
Did my best for almost 20 years and God released me by showing me to a site about Borderline Personality Disorder and a former mentor telling me that I was going to be a double-drowning victim, if I did not swim away. I did not break that man, but he did try to break me, over and over again. Only God kept me, and him, alive.
11 years later, I had to get a restraining order because of harassment that continued, off and on. 14 years after leaving, I am married to a man who loves me because he just does. Still getting used to that. And praising God for bringing me out of the miry pit and setting me on a solid Rock.
I think more abusive spouses are mentally ill than is commonly discussed.
Praying for my sisters and brothers who still suffer. Cling to Jesus!