May 8, 2017

Book Review - Happy Wives Club

I came across this book, titled Happy Wives Club, while perusing a local Christian bookstore. I won't lie - the main reason why I bought it was because it was on sale - less than $3. But reading the premise of the book "One woman's worldwide search for the secrets of a great marriage" also caught my interest. These are very interesting times. Social media has allowed a lot of information to be shared, and very often, sadly, the stories about marriage are negative. You don't have to look far to read stories of separations, divorce, infidelity, abuse, and more in marriages all over the world. Whereas our parents typically kept quiet about such issues, our generation is more open. And if we're being truthful, marriage honestly doesn't seem like such a great idea anymore. Even in marriages without major issues, a lot of spouses are just simply "managing." It's particularly painful because God created marriage, and anything He creates is inherently good - but as humans, we have allowed it to become bad.
Source


Fawn Weaver, the author, seeing all this negativity surrounding marriage (even in the church) decided she wanted to form a community of Happy Wives. A community of women who love being married and love being wives. She wanted to prove that there ARE happy marriages out there, and so embarked upon a journey that took her to 12 countries on 6 continents, with the sole purpose of finding out what happy marriages are made of. Her main criterion was that the couples she interviewed had to have been together for 25 years or more. She interviewed widows, couples from different walks of life - Christians, non-Christians; one or two from arranged marriages; one where the man proposed multiple times before she finally said yes; another where they had to work through the wife's infidelity, etc. In all of Fawn's travels, and numerous interviews, there were two recurring themes from the different couples - Trust and Respect for each other. Of course, there were other tidbits, which Fawn summarizes at the end of the book, but Trust and Respect stood out the most.

Another interesting point she mentions in the book is that us women tend to act/react based on who we surround ourselves by. For instance, I have a group of friends with whom I chat with on Whatsapp. It usually only takes one person to start complaining about her husband, and the next thing everyone else is complaining about their husbands too. It can be little things like - he squeezes the toothpaste from the middle (which is why Cakes and I use different toothpastes, because NAH BRUH), to big things like he refuses to help out with any house work at all. It starts with a pebble and turns into an avalanche. Fawn doesn't pretend that marriages don't have their problems, but she challenges Happy Wives to not give into the peer pressure of complaining, and instead focus on what their husbands get and do right. I have to admit, this one stung because I'm very guilty of it. As much as I rave about Cakes, I can certainly decrease my rants about him.

The book was an interesting read, and you can actually join the community of Happy Wives - there's a website, Facebook group, Twitter, and Instagram as far as I know. In today's world of crumbling marriages, it's great to have a voice (even if it's just one voice) that seeks to share the Happiness that can be found in marriage.


Nigerian Food Fusion Tour Post - So imagine! I was actually pregnant in this picture! If you read the end of the post, the signs were clearly there!!!


No comments:

Post a Comment

I'd love to hear from you about this post! Let's all learn and share our worlds.