The 4 Seasons of Marriage Paperback – Unabridged, September 1, 2012

If you're looking for a book packed full of ideas for strengthening your marriage, I recommend Gary Chapman's "The 4 Seasons of Marriage" to you. In this book, Chapman uses the seasons of nature as an analogy for the possible states of a marriage. If a marriage is strong and thriving, it is a summer marriage. If a couple is on the brink of divorce, their marriage is deep in the cold of winter. Chapman's purpose in writing the book is to help couples move toward or maintain the blessings of spring and summer.Chapman starts by defining each season of marriage and identifying the emotions and actions that go with each. Then he provides a questionnaire couples can fill out to discover, if they haven't already figured it out, what season their marriage is in. He follows that with seven strategies for improving one's marriage. He closes with a question and answer section and a group or couple's discussion guide.The seven strategies were the heart of the book. No matter what season your marriage is in, implementing these ideas will be a benefit. One of them, of course, is learning your spouse's love language. That chapter gives a brief synopsis of Chapman's brilliant book about this.Throughout the book, Chapman is very conscious of all possible reader circumstances. He often writes to the spouse who is struggling to save a marriage though the other spouse has given up. He provides concrete examples of how such a spouse can adopt his ideas and, hopefully, reach the other's wounded heart. And, though marriage is a team sport, Chapman puts the burden for positive action on the individual. We don't manipulate our spouses into changing for our good; we initiate positive change within ourselves for our marriage's good.I enjoyed reading this book and highly recommend it to you!

Wonderful book and came on time

This book has great information on how to save your marriage and keep it going strong! I love that every point in this book is biblically based.

Initially what drew me to this book was the overall comparison of the seasons to different stages in marriage. The comparison worked really well for me, and Chapman provides a lot of examples of real-life couples that he has come across in each of the different "seasons." I think the biggest comfort was knowing that it is okay to not always be in spring or summer seasons - the dark winters will come but there is a way to get out of them. Along with examples, he providing clear guidelines for how to get out of the winter or fall seasons, and also how to stay in spring or summer, which, for me, was the best part - how important it is to be aware when your marriage may be slipping slowly into fall or winter, and how to be proactive in keeping it in summer or spring.Overall, I found this very insightful, and although I read it individually, I can see how it would be very helpful read together as a couple too.

We gave this book to our couples at emergency tree this year. A very good book on marriage.

My wife and I have been married for 33+ years. This book is something that I recommend all married couples to read. It talks about the 4 seasons of marriage and how it affects all aspects of where you are at. Highly recommend it. You can even do a small group with your church.

I really like this book. It was the first book I read by this author and I’ve since read two others and I found all of them to be just really full of great advice. Yes the book is written by a Christian pastor so it of course has biblical references and that sort of lean and even though I’m not particularly religious I still found many of the suggestions to be quite helpful and the entire book I found to be just overall very good read and beneficial to my marriage. One of his other books — the five love languages of teenagers is fantastic and I think every parent of a teen or preteen should read it!

I ordered this book, to learn the basics of my marriage and understand how to not take, but help my wife with household stuff, great book.