this is a very good book. about all I can fault it for is the tendency to shrug everything off into "professional counseling", which is not a panacea for everything...as much or more can be accomplished with lay counselors of much spiritual discernment and a "christian counselor" who has been trained by the world the way so many are today could concievably be worse than no counsel at all. first we ALWAYS need to turn to our mighty counselor: God himself. That aside, I was very impressed with this book. most books aimed at a christian market dealing with "tough issues" in marraiges seem to take one of two approachs. the first of which is that you confront the person, use the continuation of the marraige as leverage and if this moves them, great, if not, then out they go...complete with all kinds of rationalizations that because God is not pleased with the other persons behavior then divorce is perfectly acceptable. the other stream is to put the improvement of the marraige on the shoulders of the one willing to make the changes in a manner that often amounts to nothing more than manipulation (as an aside most books about submission dont "work" because they are not about submission, they are about silently manipulating the situation through kindness) which unfortunately ignores the fact that while one person changing may get things to a certain point they often do not take things as far as they need to go. once you get to that point it seems that threatening the offending party with divorce if they do not change has just become the christian way to go these days, complete with bible verses mininterpreted and misapplied to make it seem as if this is what God would want. this book hits it right down the middle with the revelation that while we cannot control another person our actions can very much influence which path they want to be on. I wonder how many sad tales of broken homes that many christians would totally justify might have been saved if one of the parties involved had begun to apply the principles contained in this book.

If you think your marriage, or know of someone who's marriage is in deep trouble, this book can offer you some hope. This author gets to the point very quickly and offers practical advice on the most difficult of obstacles to overcome in high risk marriages. The topics discussed are irresponsibility, workaholics, over bearing spouses, abusive (both verbal and physical), alcoholics, and a few more. No "magic bullet" is being offered which makes this text more valuable for those that are serious and honest about their problems if they are faced with one of these major problems. Even though most of the cases presented are extreme for most marriages, this book should also be helpful for those that want to be sensitive to early warning signs and hence, stay out of these situations. This book is easy to read and understand and is sensitive to those in these situations who may be reluctant to obtain a copy.