How these 4 books improved my marriage! Anniversary musings...

Happy Anniversary to me!

Yesterday was my 8th wedding anniversary, and I am chuckling over a statistic I just read online: that 8 years is the average length of a third marriage before it ends in divorce. On top of that, approximately 74% of third marriages end in divorce.

Odds alone are that my marriage is doomed to be those divorce statistics, because the Husband was married twice before me, with kids from his first marriage (a proven factor to increased divorce rates in subsequent marriages). Maybe I shouldn't speak too soon, huh? But I'm feeling pretty good about staying in that 26%, so here I am, talking about How to Avoid Making the Same Mistakes We Made, instead of my undying love for my husband. (Rest assured, we are indeed blissfully in love with each other.) :)

My own photo from my wedding day.

But I won't sugarcoat it: It has not been easy, many a time, being married to an older, twice divorced father. It probably hasn't been easy for him either, being married to someone who was emotionally immature and who discovered after marriage that his "been there, done that" experience led to a lot of unforeseen insecurity.

I credit a figurative family trainwreck that occurred when my own kiddos were babies, for being the catalyst that eventually wrought a major change in our relationship—which was pretty darn wonderful to begin with, but there were definitely weak spots. His guilt parenting was one weak spot (and it directly contributed to the trainwreck). So was his defensiveness, and worst of all was the way he would "parent" me. My emotional blackmail tactics, aversion to conflict, and utter inability to communicate and enforce boundaries were all another glaring weak spot, because they blocked effective communication and led to my bottling up stress and then having very uncharacteristic emotional outbursts.

Lest all that paint too gloomy of a picture, bear in mind that those weak spot factors were not front and center players the vast majority of the time. We had loads of fun together, talked and snuggled and laughed and overall enjoyed life and counted ourselves very lucky to have each other—which was and still is very true!

Steps to Change

The aforementioned figurative trainwreck first led us to marital counseling, which was long overdue and half successful. Unfortunately, the counselor went down a communication techniques rabbit trail, and didn't seem inclined to directly tackle the causes that had brought us there.

An online parenting forum I frequented maintained a list of recommended books for dealing with family issues, and desperate for answers, I ordered the ones people raved about the most. Well, to make a long story (and this post!) shorter, they were like opening all the windows and getting a wonderful fresh breeze blowing through the house; I had answers, I had hope, and I had joy in knowing how I could take control of my own life and relationships. I began to change, in a very good way, and I believe the reason the Husband and I are still together is that he was able and willing to adapt to that, and made changes of his own that improved all of his previous "weak spots". It wouldn't surprise me if many age-gap marriages fail because the older spouse resists it as the younger spouses matures.

Today I'd like to share with you the books that I highly, highly, HIGHLY recommend if you are a person considering marrying into a situation like I did; or for that matter, if you're married and recognize some of the same issues in your own marriage that I described above.

Please note that I'm not recommending these as some kind of cure-all. Everyone's situation is different and I recognize that other folks may have factors to deal with that I didn't. I'm only posting these with the thought that if somebody recognizes themselves or their own situation, they may find these books helpful as well.

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First things first: Get ALL the premarital counseling if applicable (with a non-unicorn, non-doormat counselor).

In hindsight, we made a huge mistake in not doing premarital counseling. This saying is true: "If you agree on everything, sit down and figure out who is lying." When you're in love and excited about the person you're with, of course you get along and think nobody has ever had a love like yours and that you're soooo compatible. Unless you sit down with someone who has experience in fleshing out potential sources of major conflict, you may not figure out what they are and more importantly, how to handle them, until you've been blindsided.

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Now for the books. (Full disclosure, the book images below, which you can click on, are links from my Amazon affiliate account.)

I could never say enough good things about Boundaries. This book is written from a Christian perspective, but a testament to its priceless applicability to human relationships in general, is the fact that I saw it so strongly recommended on a staunchly non-religious forum. People would say "I'm an atheist and I still thought this was the greatest book, I just ignored the Biblical stuff," etc.

If you feel like you spend your life being pulled in all directions, subject to the whims of other people, unable to say No, always in reactive mode, doing things solely out of obligation, constantly overextended, feeling resentful, and/or stuck pleasing everybody but yourself…it might be time to read this book and learn how to lovingly set—and most importantly, enforce—personal boundaries. People who benefit from lack of boundaries might call them "mean," but they truly do preserve relationships, not to mention your mental and emotional states!

There are also versions geared toward specific situations, like Boundaries in Marriage and Boundaries with Kids but I'm a huge fan of the original book, and if you read only one book listed in this article, that's the one I recommend!!

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Codependency is usually associated with substance addiction, and while this book is strongly geared toward the loved ones of addicts, it makes a special point that people can still have ingrained codependent traits without addiction being part of the picture. I recognized myself in many ways as I read; I realized that in a way, I'd partly married the Husband out of the age-old urge to help "fix" his life, and trying to control him into the version of himself that I thought he should be, wasn't doing either of us any favors. I also recognized myself in my tendency to fixate on other people's issues.

Don't get me wrong, it's great to want to help people; but it's also good to recognize the line between helping them and enabling or controlling them, and to not cross that line into worrying more about their "problems" than they do. Learning to "let it go" has made me a much happier person.

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Ever heard of Fear, Obligation, and Guilt aka Being in the FOG? I have a comical confession to make—I began reading this book with the intention of learning how to handle people who used their emotions as weapons to manipulate me, and was quickly chagrined to recognize myself as an emotional blackmailer! My extreme aversion to conflict led me to do things like sulk and give the Husband the silent treatment instead of being direct about my feelings. I feel as if this book caused me to overcome emotional immaturity by leaps and bounds, and as a bonus, I did also learn how to deal with FOG and manipulators.

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Don't let the title fool you! If you are struggling with stepchildren, or are considering marrying someone with children, this book is crucial to avoid pitfalls and help explain the whys of inevitable frustration with certain situations.

I feel as if Disney (and television shows in general) have done stepmothers a massive injustice in helping perpetrate the unfair, unrealistic expectations that society places on stepmothers' shoulders. I myself went into marriage with Maria von Trapp from Sound of Music as my role model, which is not one bit realistic for the vast majority of situations! This book debunks a lot of myths and stereotypes as well as those unrealistic expectations. It was eye opening, to me, to read one thing after another that made me mentally exclaim "Can this woman read my mind?" and it was so refreshing to realize that I was not alone in the things I struggled with. Reading this before marriage would have saved me a few years of fruitless stress and heartache.

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My own photo.

Here I am today, having just enjoyed reaching 8 years of marriage, and feeling extremely thankful that the Husband and I have grown so much from the super optimistic yet rather unprepared couple who tied the knot back then. We have grown together as we each made changes to our own part, to benefit the whole. Here's to continued love and and many more years together <3