SELF HELP | STAYING POWER:BUILDING A STRONGER MARRIAGE WHEN LIFE SENDS ITS WORST BY CAROLE & GENE KENT / CINDY & DAVID LAMBERT

STAYING POWER

Too often, when a life crisis hits, a marriage suffers--even a healthy one--and all the personality profiles and couples' therapy in the world won't keep your marriage from experiencing the tough stuff. So how do you and your spouse face the stresses put on your marriage and not only stay together but come out on the other side even more loving and committed?

In Staying Power, two longtime couples offer insights, skills, and clear direction so that you can respond to trials in a way that strengthens rather than weakens your marriage. They show you how to

- handle anger creatively, forgive freely, and persevere together
- nurture one another in powerful ways
- learn new techniques for connecting both verbally and nonverbally in the midst of crisis
- and much more

Don't let financial trouble, infertility, health challenges, parenting cares, addiction of a loved one, or heartbreaking loss destroy your marriage. Instead, learn how through your strong relationship you can overcome all of life's curveballs--together.

★★★☆☆

Staying Power presents itself in a pretty standard self-help format. Long-married couples Carole & Gene Kent and Cindy & David Lambert bring together doctors, writers, editors, bloggers, speakers, etc from the Christian community to discuss various common stressors that can challenge otherwise seemingly successful marriages and how to successfully combat them. These contributors share personal stories of hardships within their own relationships, as do the Kents and Lamberts, with the idea that each is supposed to have a "what can we take away from this?" teaching / reflection moment for the readers at the end, closing each chapter with discussion questions. These question lists are labeled "For Couples or Small Groups", potentially making it a useful tool during bible study discussions. Periodically, there will also be Statement Inventory Checklists, a list of statements couples can read aloud and see how true they ring, as a kind of relationship health barometer, and hopefully encourage deeper discussion on these topics (Examples: "I feel guilty when I relax." "We don't seem to face crises with the same intensity.")

*Note: At the back of the book, a blurb is provided on all the contributors detailing their individual professional pet projects or businesses.

vows

The authors point out that while there are plenty of marriage help books out there offering tips on how to navigate problems within a relationship, Staying Power focuses its attention on external challenges that can put relationships to the test, things out of a couple's control such as job layoffs, death, difficult family members causing tension between people, incarcerated family members, health challenges, etc. The book also touches upon situations such as potential clashings around newly blended families or, as in the case of one story here, empty-nester parents once looking forward to easing into retirement years now finding themselves raising their granddaughter because the girl's parents have once again fallen into drug addiction  and are unable to properly care for her.

Some thoughts on a few of the other stories:

* The first story --- the husband seems to have a history of emotionally withdrawing from his wife when it comes to difficult or traumatic situations, such as with the loss of his brother, when he turned to a friend for support and comforting instead of his spouse .... and yet when the wife later voices her hurt over this repeated turning away from her, the authors label that as her "narcissism"?

And I gotta say, I felt for the kids in the background of some of these stories, such as these two:

* Kristen & Dan -- They're describing their son struggling with depression and self-harm and Kristen seems to make it about her and how "stressful and inconvenient" their son's mental illness is on their marriage. Sure, they end up helping him, but their support (or at least Kim's) felt like it came with a grudge.

* Margie & Rico -- Rico's son from his first marriage is kicked out of the mother's house (Rico's ex), so rather than try to understand why Rico might not want his son out in the world homeless, Margie throws a tantrum over the kid living with them, resulting in her smashing Rico's favorite mug against a wall and slicing his hand. I can understand being ruffled by the short notice and inconvenience of it all, but her reaction was wildly over the top. 

scene from the film Marriage Story

Regarding some of the tips and tricks offered:

The concept of "pre-decisions" is nice in theory, but to me it seems unrealistic in practice. The idea is that you make these decisions on how to handle a situation before problems even happen so that you never have to worry about emotions escalating too far. But c'mon. Automatically forgive? Promise not to lash out in anger? Promise to always apologize first and admit you're wrong? (But what if I'm not?) Tell yourself "I won't act or speak as if the sky is falling." (Sometimes it DOES feel as if the sky is falling in the moment.)....

This is supposed to work for all heated moments across the board? I can't see it. Not if you're human. Humans are flawed. Sometimes we ARE going to overreact. Sometimes it will be hard to forgive right away. Each couple will be unique in their history together that might play into the level of emotions with the current argument. I just feel like these things can't be pre-remedied so easily as that.

Oh, and then there's this little gem: "I will respond tenderly to my spouse's needs. When my spouse asks something of me --- whether it be affection, attention, resources of some kind, time, patience, forgiveness -- I will assume that the most important thing at that moment is meeting that need. When at all possible, I will set aside whatever else I'm doing and focus single-mindedly on my spouse's need." 

Again, in theory, sounds nice. But as a married woman I know that some days when your spouse does you dirty, you just want to be mad for awhile, and in my mind, there's no harm in just keeping to yourself for a moment if it will help the relationship down the road. If my spouse has made a royal mess of something... nope, sorry, I'm likely not going to go out of my way to bend over backwards to cater to his needs right in that moment. I'm gonna let him sweat awhile while I quietly figure out how to clean up the mess. I'm allowed to be hurt. I'm allowed to backburner his immediate needs & wants in that moment while I collect my inner self and try to figure out where to go from there. 

vows 2 

All that said, I DO agree with the other half of the "Pre-Decisions" list -- things like "I will persevere through failure," "I will not expect my spouse to read my mind," "I will accept my spouse as he or she is," "I will address concerns openly." Readers are also given anger management tips in chapters like "Anger is Not the Enemy", where it's suggested to use "I" statements to calmly air grievances, count to ten, practice patience, etc (you know, the therapy classics) or, as in the chapter "Forgive Freely", what you might try if you're not quite at the point of being ready to forgive. I wholeheartedly agree with principles shared in the chapter "The Right Word at the Right Time", things like 

* avoid public criticism of your spouse (no bashing on social media or at parties, for example)

* be your spouse's defender if someone else is speaking critically of them

* whenever possible, share praise and congratulations given to you (if your partner helped you with a project, make sure their contribution is known to whoever is thanking or praising you)

* freely give words of praise / admiration to your spouse

* regularly practice gratitude & respect for spouse

perfect marriage

The flow of writing is nice, though it was sometimes a challenge keeping all the rotating contributors straight. The topics are thought-provoking, and I like how the overall message is meant to come back to different ways to remind your spouse "we're on the same team"... but that idea didn't always translate well for me, at least not with the example stories they chose to feature here. In several of the scenarios, while there is a lot of "we" being passed around, it often seemed like the resolution came after the woman apologized, while the guy seemed to get away with a backrub, cup of coffee and a "well, as long as you know" smile. To me, it rang very old-school (as in, outdated) Christian marriage structure which ultimately chafed me a bit as a millennial not yet through her first decade of marriage. All that was missing was a "You're the best, doll." LOL 

Had a little chuckle over this part,

thinking it sounded a little Investigation Discovery 😄

At the back of the book is an Appendix section which includes "Crisis Helpsheets" --- easy-reference bulletpointed lists for how to handle stressful situations such as children with chronic illness or disability, infertility struggles, death of friends or family members, surviving a financial upset, or approaching the topic of eldercare. The authors even include a list for parents of LGBTQ children, encouraging the motto of "Empathize. Advocate. Protect." Impressive! They further encourage parents to remain loving, patient, open-hearted AND open-minded to what their children have to say. Beautiful! 

*Note to Readers: This book contains spoilers for the film adaptation of The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro.

FTC DISCLAIMER: Revell Publishing kindly provided me with a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. The opinions above are entirely my own.