"LOVE AND WAR" a book review

After 30 yrs of marriage one thing my wife and I agree on is that people need to be warned better before tying that knot. Marriage is not what it appears to be on many tv shows, films and in many love novels.
In the book “Love and War” by John and Stasi Eldredge they say that there are 2 things everyone needs to know 1. Marriage is hard 2. Everyone brings their own brokenness into marriage.
Everyone has a lot of baggage that they bring with them into the marriage relationship, thus making marriage the hardest thing most of us will ever go through. The authors also state that most marriages, though we are not honest enough to admit it, are a disappointment.

There are some things we can do to improve our marriage relationships.
1. Beware of our common enemy, satan. Satan will do all he can to disrupt our marriages. The authors suggest that the main way to overcome is by praying-praying together.

2. A shared adventure ( this was the best chapter in the book). We have to have more than just ourselves to live for. The authors say, “…adventure helps to build companionship in a marriage…the highest of all adventures are those where we find ourselves partnering together for a cause.”
Thus when we are joined together for a cause it helps us to

3. Fight off “the little foxes”. Those small things that can spoil our marriage.

4. The authors also have a chapter on sex (though not to helpful). They sum that chapter up to three lines. Pg 175 in the book J

The authors state that the odds of a marriage making it is about 50/50. They say that on a scale of 1 to 10. 1 being bad 10 being great most people rate their marriage at about a 3.

A few thoughts regarding the book
1. If there are that many people disappointed in their marriage (and I don’t necessarily disagree) why is it that so many people that are divorce and/or widowed want to get married again?
2. Would stronger pre-marital counseling help in couples decision to marry? Like making it clear that when you get married some of these things you will have to do, weather you like it or not: cook meals, clean house, work at a job, have sex.
3. Too many books on marriage explain the general psyche of the male and female. What about those couples whose make up is the exception eg. Where the wife does not want to sit down and have a conversation about how the day went, but the husband does?

I appreciate the books that are given to me by by WaterBrook Multnomah to review. This book and others may be purchased at http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780385529808