FOREWORD

Every married person naturally wants a thriving marriage. Every spouse wants peace and harmony in the home. Every reasonable husband wants to feel he’s meeting his wife’s needs. And every good wife wants to feel the same toward her husband.

That’s why the habits we form in marriage are so important. As we look at a situation, especially if we’re unhappy or there’s open conflict, what are our first thoughts? What assumptions do we make about our spouse’s motives? What words flow from our mouths, perhaps before we’ve even considered what we ought to say?

Sadly, it’s all too easy to get off track. The train can jump the rails before we realize what has happened. How well I remember a time when that occurred in my own marriage! Though I’ve told the story before, it bears repeating here.

My wife, Karolyn, and I were having a typically hectic weekday morning, getting the kids ready for school and me ready to go to work. Searching frantically, I asked her, “Karolyn, where is my briefcase?”

“I don’t know,” she answered.

I take my briefcase home every night, and I leave it in the same place. Since it wasn’t there now, she had to have moved it.

“Come on, Karolyn,” I said, raising the volume. “I’m in a hurry! Where is my briefcase? I put it right in there by the dresser last night, and it’s gone. Where did you put it?”

The reply came back —also at higher volume —“Gary, I don’t know where your briefcase is!”

We went back and forth like this a couple of more times, each time a little louder. I was getting really upset. Of course she had moved my briefcase, but for whatever reason she couldn’t or wouldn’t say where. Didn’t she understand how much I needed it and how big a hurry I was in? Didn’t she care how frustrated I was becoming?

Burning with anger, I sped the kids out the door, into the car, and off to school. I cooled down enough to speak calmly to them about their schoolwork. But after they were on their way into the building, I immediately went back to full-burn anger with Karolyn for losing my case.

For the entire drive to my office, my thoughts steamed along like this: How could I have married such a scatterbrain? My briefcase is important. In fact, I can’t operate without it. What am I going to do today?

You can see all the assumptions I was making, right? And from them I had drawn conclusions, none of them complimentary to the love of my life. But her unwillingness to help was driving me crazy.

As ideas and emotions like these churned in my mind and my stomach, I parked the car and stomped into the office. And what did I see the moment I set foot through the door? My briefcase, of course, exactly where I had set it down the night before.

I’m happy to report the story gets better from there. All that building anger instantly drained from my mind and body. In its place sprang up embarrassment, chagrin, and a desire to make things right. How could I have entertained such thoughts about Karolyn? How could I have said such words to her, and in such a tone of voice?

Being human, I briefly wondered if I could somehow explain away my unkind and unloving words and behavior. But no, there was only one acceptable course of action. First, I prayed and asked God to forgive me. I thanked Him for the Cross and the assurance that my sins have, indeed, been paid for. My conscience clear toward Him, I then asked for the grace and strength to do the next thing necessary.

I picked up the phone, called Karolyn, told her what she already knew, made my apology, and asked for her forgiveness.

And how did she respond? “I thought you’d call!”

Clearly, some of my habits relative to our marriage still needed work. But she also knew that one of my better habits was and is a shared commitment not to let disputes fester and anger to take hold. She understood I would soon realize my mistake, admit my fault, and take steps to set things right between us.

Like any other good habits, however, healthy habits in marriage develop only when you’re intentional about them and put consistent effort into growing them in place of bad habits. Our human nature tends toward laziness and self-centeredness —neither of which produces strong relationships, let alone a thriving marriage.

That’s why I’m so excited to recommend to you the book you now hold in your hands, Crazy Little Thing Called Marriage. Greg and Erin Smalley have looked carefully at the best research about how to have a great marriage. In addition, they’ve drawn on their own extensive experience in helping to heal marriages that had stood on the brink of collapse.

From this research and experience, they have identified twelve traits, or “romance secrets,” of a thriving marriage. They’ve seen that if you learn these traits and grow these habits of thought and action, you, too, can have a great marriage.

At the very heart of what makes marriage work is “this thing called love.” God loved us when we were very unlovely. When we respond to His love and receive what Christ did for us, His love begins to flow through us. But it flows only as we maintain a close relationship with Him. As I said before, by nature we are not lovers but self-centered and selfish. Two consistently selfish people will never have a healthy marriage. Two lovers, on the other hand, will experience all that God had in mind when He created us male and female.

So enjoy reading this book. Learn the twelve habits that allow you to cooperate with God in keeping love alive in your marriage. The practical ideas the Smalleys share will encourage and equip those couples who want to experience a thriving marriage.

PhD, author of The Five Love Languages