Robert Wolgemuth - What Every Groom Needs to Know: The Most Important Year in a Mans Life

I t doesnt matter how you happened to get a copy of this book. It may have been a wedding gift to you and your bride; it may have been given to you by a friend, a minister, or a professional counselor. What matters, really, in the end is that youre here.

You may be eager to dive in and learn everything you can about having a great marriage. You may forego meals and sporting events until you get the whole way through because youre so excited. Or maybe not.

S OME P ERSPECTIVE

When I opened the huge box I had just wrestled from the trunk of my car and set it on the garage floor, there was a piece of paper lying on top of all the unassembled pieces. Warning: Improper Assembly May Cause Serious Injury was printed on a piece of inescapable, iridescent lime-green paper.

My wife, Bobbie, and I had just bought one of those gigantic gas grills. I enjoyed barbecuing but decided that I had coaxed my last pile of smoldering charcoal briquettes. I needed gas!

The outside of the box had alerted me that there was Some Assembly Required. But when I opened the crate and saw the lime-green warning, I became very serious about following the instructions. It was the words may cause serious injury that did it. Envisioning raw steaks on the grill and a well-done chef was not a pretty thing.

Your marriage license should have included a similar notice printed on loud paper: Warning: Not Paying Attention to the First Year of Marriage May Result in Serious Lifelong ConsequencesUnhappiness Like You Cant Imagine.

So you can think of this book as an assembly manual for your marriage much easier to follow than the one included with the gas grill.

W HO A RE T HESE P EOPLE AND W HAT A RE T HEY T RYING TO D O?

This book and the companion book, What Every Bride Needs to Know, are the result of the collaborative effort of two couplesMark and Susan DeVries, and Bobbie and me, Robert Wolgemuth. Mark and Susan have been our close friends for many years. Our daughters, Missy and Julie, grew up with Mark and Susan, who were their youth leaders and mentors. Eventually our daughters both worked with them as volunteers in youth ministry.

As a pastor, Mark has counseled hundreds of engaged couples (sometimes with Susan, sometimes by himself), including our two daughters and their fiancs, Jon and Christopher. Seeing firsthand the effect of Mark and Susans premarital counseling with our own children, we wanted to make these crucial insights available to otherspeople like you who may never have the chance to meet Mark and Susan.

Being a lay minister and Bible teacher for over forty years has also allowed me to be involved with many couples who have dealt with marital challenges. And Ive come to a single conclusion: There is no more important human quest than building exceptional marriages. The principles you will soon read about were not learned in a classroom but through our own experience, particularly the multitude of mistakes weve made during the combined total of almost seven decades of our own marriages.

These two books have matching themes but contain quite different material. In this book, What Every Groom Needs to Know, Mark and I are speaking on the mens side; in What Every Bride Needs to Know, Susan and Bobbie are speaking on the womens side. In this book, you will hear my voice throughout; in What Every Bride Needs to Know, your wife will hear Susans. But Mark and Bobbiewhose voices you will not hear but whose names you will often see have been at the heart of the development and the actual writing of both books from day one.

W HAT A M I S UPPOSED TO D O W ITH T HIS B OOK?

We want you to know from the outset that this is not a book to help you understand the ordinary woman we realize that the woman you have married is not ordinary. This is a book to help you accomplish your mission of becoming an expert on how to bring happiness to just one woman and, in turn, enjoy the benefits of a great partnership.

Though different couples will approach these books in different ways, heres a process that can help you take what you are learning in these chapters and apply it to the end that you and your spouse will know and enjoy each other more:

Feel Free to Sneak: Once the first drafts of the manuscripts for these books were complete, we presented copies to several volunteers from our Sunday school class for their reading and evaluation. We found that wives had a funny habit of reading the mens book. And every now and then, even the most reading-resistant man would snoop around in the womens book. Thats good. Some of the best interaction you will experience will come when you and your wife read portions from each others book and then say, Thats me, or, Im not like that at all!

Ask the Expert: There will likely be things you read about women in general that just arent true about your wife. When you run across those things, ask your wife questions such as Is this really what you think? and Is this true for you?

Be the Expert: Even if youve only been married for a few weeks, your wife may already be struggling. Some researchers estimate that as many as 90 percent of brides experience some depression in their first year of marriage.1 The more your bride has the chance to feel understood, to hear your reaction to what youre reading, the more quickly youll see the fog of uncertainty lift.

A F EW M ORE T HINGS

The subtitle for this book is true for men who choose to marry. However, if the first year of marriage were the most important year in every mans life, a person of no less stature than Jesus would have missed the most important year in his life. Because you and I have married and because the first year of marriage is so critical in shaping our future, we are convinced that the subtitle The Most Important Year in a Mans Life best conveys the heart of our message.

Some long-married couples who have reviewed these books have asked, Is it too late for us to have the most important year? Actually, no. If after several years of marriage you and your wife are willing to wake up to your need to invest in your relationship in a whole new way, it is not too late. So whether youve been married for thirty days or for thirty years, we invite you to let this next year be the most important year of your life.

Just a final note: The stories you are about to read are true. In most cases, the names and the circumstances have been changed to mask the identity of those whose stories we are telling.

Robert Wolgemuth

Mark DeVries

Orlando, Florida

Nashville, Tennessee