Susan DeVries - What Every Bride Needs to Know: The Most Important Year in a Womans Life

A lmost twenty-five years ago Steve and Mary Lee Bartlett became my husband Marks first premarital counseling experiment. In spite of the fact that Mark was definitely making it up as he went along, this young couple seemed to enjoy their meetings with him immensely. They laughed, they dreamed, they talked about all the hot topics.

And now, more than a couple of decades later, the Bartletts have become such dear friends that, when we began to work on this book, it was only natural that they would be among the first wed turn to for input. I asked Mary Lee to assess how prepared she felt for her first year of marriage, and Ill never forget her answer: We had a great time in our premarital counseling, but I just wish someone had told me how hard it was going to be.

And now, after helping nearly two hundred couples prepare for their marriages sometimes Mark and I together,

Though weve known many brides who havent had this kind of experience, the let-down feeling is, of course, natural. A wedding is such an incredible high in a womans life that just about anything that comes after it is likely to pale in comparison. For some, the post-wedding blues are enough to convince them that theyve just made the greatest mistake of their lives. Others feel duped, having believed that Mr. Right would bring automatic satisfaction. And still others enter marriage with a relationship suffering from malnutrition, having poured so much energy into the wedding that the relationship has been left starving for attention.

If you are like most brides, youre longing for a guide to help you navigate the unexpected unsettledness you may be feeling and to help you invest strategically in what well be calling the wet cement year of your marriage.

My dear friend Bobbie Wolgemuth and I are excited to share with you some marvelous principles for building an exceptional marriage. But I first want to introduce you to our husbands, Mark DeVries and Robert Wolgemuth the authors of the companion book, What Every Groom Needs to Know.

The Wolgemuths daughters, Missy and Julie, were in our youth group as they were growing up, and eventually both worked with us in youth ministry. And so it was only natural that they would ask Mark their youth pastor to do their premarital counseling and perform their wedding ceremonies. Soon after their weddings the idea of a book came up. Having experienced from a whole different perspective what a powerful influence the right kinds of words can have on a couple starting out, Robert and Bobbie invited us to join them in creating a resource to fortify couples in their first year of marriage.

I want to be clear from the outset that these books are the result of the collaborative effort of the four of us. In one sense, we are four authors of both books. But for the sake of clarity, we have chosen to write each book in only one voice. In this book, you will hear my voice throughout; in What Every Groom Needs to Know, youll hear Roberts. Our dream has been to create books that, by their very format, would bring couples together and would help them become experts at understanding each other.

Youll notice that the chapters of each book have similar titles, but they contain very different material. In this book, we focus on helping you understand your husband and the power of your responsiveness to him. What Every Groom Needs to Know is designed to help a husband gain perspective on how he can learn during this first year to bring happiness to the wife he has married, a fascinating biblical phrase youll learn more about in chapter 1.

During the writing, Mark and I met with a group of couples weekly to get their input. What we discovered delightfully is that these couples just couldnt seem to stick to evaluating the manuscript. From the very first week, even when the drafts of the chapters were in their infancy and even when the group didnt agree with what we had written, the books format led them naturally into working on their own marriages.

Its important at the outset that you realize this isnt a book to help you understand the normal man, because the man you married is undoubtedly far from average. Its a book to help you accomplish your mission of becoming an expert on this one man you have been given as your life partner. Heres a process that can help you apply what you are learning to the end that you and your spouse will know and enjoy each other more than youve dared to dream:

1. Feel Free to Sneak: Among the members of our group, we found that wives had a sneaky habit of reading the mens book. And every now and then, even the most reading-resistant man would snoop around in the womens book, just to see if we were telling the truth.

2. Ask the Expert: There will likely be things you read about men in general that just arent true about the man youve married. When you run across those things, ask your husband questions like, Is this really what you think? and, Is this true for you?

3. Be the Expert: Even if youve only been married for a few weeks, your husband may already be confused. You can help him understand and enjoy you more by being warmly responsive to his questions and his attempts to understand your heart.

The stories youre about to read are true, though many of the details are not. The names and the circumstances have been changed to mask the identity of those whose stories we are telling. And at times weve combined the experiences of several couples into a seamless story with entirely different names and circumstances.

We also want to acknowledge that the subtitle The Most Important Year is true, of course, for those women who choose to marry. However, if the first year of marriage were the only most important year, a person of no less stature than Mother Teresa would have missed it. But because you and I have chosen marriage, and because the first year of marriage is so critical in shaping our futures, we are convinced that nothing conveys the heart of our message quite like The Most Important Year in a Womans Life.

So whether you are preparing for marriage or have been married for thirty days or for thirty years, we invite you to make this next year the most important year in your life.

Susan DeVries

Nashville, Tennessee

Bobbie Wolgemuth

Orlando, Florida