5 Simple Steps to Take Your Marriage from Good to Great

My wife recently purchased this book and really enjoyed it. She said that she found it to be extremely informative and helped her to better understand how I think. Of course, when she recommended that I read it, I got nervous. I thought that she was implying that our relationship needed help. She assured me that this wasn’t the case so I read the book and I am happy I did. This book is fascinating.

My wife and I really enjoyed taking the quizzes together. I learned so many interesting things about her that I had never known before and we have been married for six years!

I highly recommend this book to anyone in a relationship, not just married people. My wife and I now have a much better understanding of each other. And the tips in the book on how to “spice up” your relationship, they work!
Rating: 5 / 5
5 Simple Steps to Take Your Marriage from Good to Great

Orbuch’s new book is filled with advice about concrete steps to take to enhance the quality of a marriage. Orbuch herself is a leader scholar of close relationships, being a university professor (Oakland University and University of Michigan), and having directed for over two decades the Early Years of Marriage Project begun in the 80s by the late Joe Veroff. She is a distinguished researcher, therapist, teacher, and national media personality (known as “The Love Doctor” on her syndicated radio show). So she knows this subject matter very well, and in this book presents her knowledge in an extremely lucid and compelling manner.

The book is made more credible by the judicious use of reports of relevant research (many of which are thoughtfully set off in boxes from the text). Central to the lessons taught in this book is that every little act counts in a marriage. The reader learns to be more aware and to appreciate the dynamics of closeness that are on display in almost every marital situation. The reader learns about the importance of routinized acts (such as a short getting to know your partner) each and every day. The book is a well-written,-edited read and is so engrossing and challenging (can all these marriages really be saved?) that it could be read in one evening.

Overall, what one comes away with from reading this book is the author’s abiding hope, passion, and desire to understand the processes that affect long-term closeness in relationships. Orbuch strongly communicates these qualities and in so doing tells a number of interesting, instructive stories about persons whom she and her colleagues have interviewed, and even about events in her own marriage of almost twenty years. Early on, she notes her position that most marriages can be preserved and made better. However, she points to a reasonable caveat that marriages involving significant physical or emotional abuse are likely beyond the purview of this book, and that persons in such situations should seek professional help. True to her over-arching optimism, even in such situations, she suggests a person can have hope and deserves to find happiness in a close relationship.

As a teacher in this area for over three decades, I wish that this book had been available long ago to recommend to the countless students asking for a reader friendly primer to give to their partner, parents, or friends. It is a book that would be a wonderful book for a book club to use and debate. I doubt that readers will agree with all of Orbuch’s major points. For example, one could approach this topic by arguing that there likely are types of marriages other than those involving abuse in which the partners need to recognize that there isn’t hope to continue. Possibly the partners were so ill-suited personality-wise, or otherwise, from the outset that reconstructing the marriage is a super-human task. Perhaps they are too ravaged by a trauma such as the loss of a child that there just isn’t a way to move beyond hurt,pain, and anger to form a viable future. Interestingly, I bet Orbuch would counter-argue such examples, and I bet one can find many avenues of logic in her book to support such a counter-argument. Nonetheless, such issues are illustrative of the types of relationships dilemmas that groups might explore via the use of Orbuch’s book.

In the half-century of relatively high divorce rates in the U.S., scholarly and self-help writers have had little impact on reversing divorce rates. Orbuch’s book represents a solid shot at providing practical and wise information and perspective to help people who want to make their relationships work.

John H. Harvey, University of Iowa
Rating: 5 / 5
5 Simple Steps to Take Your Marriage from Good to Great