Saving Your Second Marriage Before It Starts

Rating:
Summary: Insightful, practical advice
Review: As a divorced person, I have often felt like there are many books written about marriage, but few that deal with the specific issues that I can only imagine affect second marriages. Not content with reading just another book about the general subject of marriage, and not really wanting to read another book about divorce, I was very pleased to be given this book on remarriage. After reading through it, I feel so much more confident now about my ability to enter a second marriage and not be trapped by fears and insecurities that resulted from my first. I feel much more able now to look objectively at the areas I still need to heal and grow in. Praise God for the careful work of Drs. Les and Leslie Parrott in addressing this seldom-addressed issue. I HIGHLY recommend this for anyone who is divorced, even if they haven't yet addressed the possibility of remarriage in their life.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent book for preparation for remarriage
Review: As a divorced person, I have often felt like there are many books written about marriage, but few that deal with the specific issues that I can only imagine affect second marriages. Not content with reading just another book about the general subject of marriage, and not really wanting to read another book about divorce, I was very pleased to be given this book on remarriage. After reading through it, I feel so much more confident now about my ability to enter a second marriage and not be trapped by fears and insecurities that resulted from my first. I feel much more able now to look objectively at the areas I still need to heal and grow in. Praise God for the careful work of Drs. Les and Leslie Parrott in addressing this seldom-addressed issue. I HIGHLY recommend this for anyone who is divorced, even if they haven't yet addressed the possibility of remarriage in their life.

Rating:
Summary: readable overview - andt misses four key points
Review: I have specialized in providing professional education and therapy to divorced, courting, and re/wedded couples since 1981. I am (a) 66, (b) a stepgrandson, stepson, and ex-stepfather and stepbrother, (c) an invited Board member of the Stepfamily Association of America, (d) a contributing editor to 'Your Stepfamily Online,' and (e) the author of six personal-growth and family-relations books.

I recommend "Saving Your Second Marriage..." to readers who want a clear, readable introduction to some common re/marital stressors. (The "/" notes that it may be one partner's first union.) I do not recommend this book to any student, co-parent, or family professional seeking the most important factors that partners considering re/marriage should evaluate.

Authors Les and Leslie Parrot are clinically well-grounded and experienced. They focus readers on 9 important courtship questions - but miss 4 core hazards that (I believe) every re/courting couple needs to know about:

1) how to assess and reduce partners' psychological wounds from childhood;

2) the origin and impacts of blocked grief in adults and kids, and how to spot and reduce it;

3) co-parent unawareness of five key topics: (a) normal personality formation, composition, and function, (b) high-nurturance families and relationships, (c) effective communication skills, (d) healthy 3-level grief, and (e) stepfamily realities and norms. and...

4) little effective re/marital and co-parenting help (i.e. courtship coaching, classes, informed counseling, co-parent support groups) available in most communities and the media.

In my experience, these factors will often block typical mature, motivated, loving partners from following well-meant relationship advice in books like this one. The factors silently promote choosing the wrong people to re/wed, for the wrong reasons, at the wrong time. Awareness and discussion of these factors promotes fruitful re/marriage choices!

For more perspective on this review, see:

http://sfhelp.org/11/choose_bks.htm

Rating:
Summary: Insightful, practical advice
Review: My soon-to-be husband and I used this series as our premarital counselling guide and found it to be well-designed, practical (without being so full of pseudo-psychiatry that it felt fake.) The suggestions of topics that should be considered prompted some of the deepest discussions we had. We are both convinced that finding this resource was a blessing.