the journal

I believe in love and I believe that marriage can last forever! So, I want to share 3 books with you that will change your marriage! Now, I am NOT a reader. But when you get to read with someone else, it makes it a little bit easier. =) So, I suggest reading these books together and having hard conversations before you get married. I thought marriage was going to be a fairytale and then reality slapped me in the face and I realized that it is HARD WORK. And that’s okay.

Book #1 ~ The 5 love languages ~ Now, I have to be honest, Geoff and I haven’t read this one together yet, but we have taken the love languages test to help us figure out our love languages. And I cannot tell you how much it has helped our marriage! Both of our love languages are Quality Time. And let me tell you, when we don’t have enough time together, it is ROUGH. But just knowing our love language has helped us make quality time a priority in our marriage. We have weekly date nights and we’ve had them since we got engaged. This is just one way that we make time for each other. Now, your love language might be different than ours and that’s great! That’s why this book is SO important! It has amazing tips on how to serve your spouse in accordance with their love language. And helps you figure out what means most to you as well.

Book #2 ~ What we wish we’d known when we were Newlyweds ~ Ah! We LOVED this book! We started it right after we got married (because we got it as a gift for our wedding), but I totally suggest reading this before you get married! John Bytheway (the author) is hilarious and we had so much fun reading this book! For anyone that doesn’t really like reading, it’s actually the perfect book because it had humor mixed in it too. And, it’s not very long. Bonus! What we loved about this book is that at the end of every chapter there were questions for us to discuss together. We read this book for family night every Monday and it was perfect! So, even if you’re not married when you read this, get into the habit of having family night and start now!

Book #3 ~ Between Husband & Wife ~ This book was so perfect for Geoff and I! We had NO idea what we were getting into when we got married and this book helped us so much! It is so tasteful and explains marital intimacy in such a loving and clear way. If you grew up like I did, this wasn’t a subject that was very open or talked about often. Marriage is sacred and intimacy should be too, but it can be awkward to read this book together. Just remember that the promises you make when you get married are most important and that this is a natural part of life and marriage.