The Marriage You Want
Our book club featuring Sheila and Keith Gregoire's The Marriage You Want
Welcome to our spring book club featuring our friends’ Sheila Wray Gregoire and Dr. Keith Gregoire’s new book, The Marriage You Want: Moving beyond Stereotypes for a Relationship Built on Scripture, New Data, and Emotional Health.
It just released on March 11! If you haven’t grabbed a copy yet, head to Amazon or Baker Books to get it now!
And join me Tuesday, March 25 as I interview Sheila and Keith on IG Live! Join us on my Instagram at 3:15pm EST or catch the replay available afterwards.
How to Have the Marriage You Want
“We all want a marriage to someone who feels like home. We all want a safe space combined with a passion that won’t burn out. But how do we get that?”
This is the question Sheila and Keith set out to answer in their book. Instead of cookie-cutter advice based on their opinion, or even based on their successful 30-year marriage, they base their book on their survey of 1,370 couples plus another 5,000 individuals. (Fun fact: My husband and I participated in the survey!) The marriage you want, the Gregoires suggest, is one built on Scripture, research, and emotional health instead of stereotypes.
When clients or friends ask me for book recommendations on marriage, I frequently recommend secular ones by therapists, like Dr. John Gottman’s Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, Secure Love by Julie Mennano, or Hold Me Tight by Dr. Sue Johnson. There hasn’t been a Christian marriage book I could trust enough to recommend; they are usually all full of complementarian advice, gender stereotypes (“all men need X, all women need Y”), and lacking emotional depth.
Now, I finally feel like I have a Christian marriage book I can whole-heartedly recommend. In The Marriage You Want, the Gregoires agree that “the trouble in Christian marriage and sex advice isn’t an absence of good teaching as much as the presence of bad teaching that has gone completely unchallenged”. Through their ministry Bare Marriage, they set out to remedy those bad teachings by providing “healthy, evidenced-based, biblical advice for your marriage and sex life”.
In fact, the book is organized around this acronym BARE: balance, affection, responsibility, and emotional connection. Chapters address topics like unity, teamwork, friendship, passion, partnership, dependability, understanding, and closeness. Concepts like the marriage hierarchy of needs, unfairness threshold, emotional labor, and the window of tolerance build on the existing literature. The Gregoires interpret their research findings and apply that knowledge to strengthening marriages.
In The Marriage You Want, we now have a trustworthy, safe, and healthy guide to creating a true partnership in marriage.
There is so much to unpack, so I’m looking forward to our spring book club on The Marriage You Want!
Book Club Schedule
So, how does this book club work?
The first Friday of the month, I’ll send out a Substack to all subscribers on a topic related to the book, such as communication, sex, and shared responsibilities.
Then two posts a month will have content for paid subscribers, including a summary of the book’s chapters and discussion and reflection questions. I’ll also integrate more content from psychology, such as the current research on marriage, therapy approaches, and mind-body practices related to marriage.
You do not have to read the book on schedule to participate! But if you want the full content, you will want to upgrade your subscription to paid. It’s just $5 per month of $50 for the year, and includes a live book club meeting in May!
Here is the schedule if you want to stay on track with your reading:
March 14: Introduction to book club
March 28: Book club on Balance: Chapters 1 & 2 (paid subscribers)
April 4: Marriage-related topic
April 11: Book club on Affection: Chapters 3 & 4 (paid)
April 25: Book club on Responsibility: Chapters 5 & 6 (paid)
May 2: Marriage-related topic
May 9: Book club on Emotional Connection: Chapters 7 & 8 (paid)
Sunday, May 18: Live book club meeting at 7:30pm EST (paid)
May 23: Book club conclusion (paid)
Know a friend who would want to join our book club? Invite them to subscribe!
Have you bought a copy of The Marriage You Want? What topics are you most excited to cover: teamwork, sex and affection, shared responsibility, or emotional connection?
Next week we’ll begin covering Chapters 1 & 2 of our book club on unity and teamwork. I love these topics and hope you love the book as much as I do!
Some content (including our live book club discussion) will be for paid subscribers only, so be sure to upgrade your subscription if you want all of the content! I hope you’ll join us!
Warmly, Dr. Camden
