Monday MarriageCelebrating the Ordinary by Gerald W. and L. Marlene Kaufman |
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Tired of all the advice about marriage? Especially when you try it and it doesn't work? You believed the experts when they guaranteed to improve your communication, bring ecstasy to your love life, or promised to make you and your spouse soulmates? Maybe you read it in a popular book, saw it on a talk show, or heard it from a well-known speaker. At first it was so convincing and for a while it seemed to work. But then reality hit.
In Monday Marriage, Gerald W. and L. Marlene Kaufman offer another way to find real contentment in marriage. They suggest you take a rain check on the fantasies. They know that all couples have stresses that come from work, children, finances, and many distractions. The Kaufmans help you find ways to manage your life. They especially want couples to be realistic about each other when the mystery and intense romance disappears.
This book is about discovering the wonderful things that occur in the daily routines of marriage. Things that many couples miss because they chase impossible dreams. For example, the quiet of an evening together after the kids are in bed. Sometimes without a word being said! Maybe the closeness comes from an unsolicited back rub. Mainly they are close because nothing else is allowed to come between them. That is when they discover a richly ordinary marriage. What the Kaufmans call Monday Marriage.
"What is uncommon in this book is the Kaufmans' remarkable capacity to connect the pain of troubled marriages to toxicity in the larger social and cultural setting. The view of marrage that you will discover in these pages also requires the courage to discern and reject much of the marriage advice mediated by pop psychology, celebrity worship and even frothy religion." - from the Foreword, by Vic and Marie Stoltzfus
About the Author
Gerald W. Kaufman, LCSW, BCD, holds a bachelor's degree from Goshen (Ind.)College and a master's degree in social work from Indiana University. L. Marlene Kaufman, LCSW, BCD, holds a bachelor's degree from Goshen College and a master's degree in social work from Temple University in Philadelphia. In 1980, Marlene and Greald founded Kaufman Counseling Service. Their practice serves individuals, couples, and families. They are members of Akron Mennonite Church. Gerald and Marlene have enjoyed nearly forty-five years of ordinary marriage and have helped many couples over the past two decades as professional marriage counselors. They have led many workshops about marriage and family life issues and are the authors, along with their daughters, of Freedom Fences (Herald Press, 1999).