The Surprising Secrets of Highly Happy Marriages by Shaunti Feldhahn

The Surprising Secrets of Highly Happy Marriages: The Little Things That Make a Big Difference

FROM THE BACK COVER:

Have you ever looked at a blissfully married couple and thought, I wish I could know their secret? Now you can. After years of investigative research, Shaunti reveals twelve powerful habits that the happiest marriages have in common. 

Best news of all? Anyone can learn the secrets of a highly happy marriage! 

In The Surprising Secrets of Highly Happy Marriages, Shaunti Feldhahn shares her findings about little, very unexpected, often overlooked actions that make a huge difference. You’re about to discover that highly happy couples:
• Go to bed mad
• Keep score (just not in the way you think)
• Boss their feelings around
• Have factual fantasies 
• Get in over their heads
• Don’t tell it like it is
• Don’t look to marriage to make them happy… 

Packed with eye-opening research and practical helps, this book delivers relationship insights that will take your marriage from “just fine” to “just the marriage we’ve always wanted.”

MY THOUGHTS: 

Shaunti Feldhahn knows what she is talking about. She is a well known researcher on the topic of relationships. In her latest book, The Surprising Secrets of Highly Happy Marriages: The Little Things that Make a Big Difference, Ms. Feldhahn offers tips of the trade to make your marriage a happy marriage. She has taken scientific research and interviews and translated them into the secrets of what "Highly Happy couples do in their marriage. 

The secrets Ms. Feldhahn reveals are that there are really no secrets. It is the little things that make a difference in marriages. She argues that "many secrets of highly happy marriages seem to cluster around choices- especially choices about what to think and feel toward your spouse." (p. 95). This is the basis of the book. She argues that the secrets of highly happy marriages include: knowing that little is big, believing in the best in your spouse, go to bed mad, keeping score, having actual fantasies, hanging out, looking higher, etc. 

I liked how Ms. Feldhahn used real life examples to illustrate her secrets and how she shows the results of the scientific research at the end of each chapter. However, I felt like I really did not learn anything new or surprising in this book. It was an okay read, but I didn't get that much out of it. It is not that I disagreed with her or her principles, but I have heard it all before. There was nothing new to me. I would recommend this for someone who was engaged, or beginning their marriage journey. However, I feel that I have heard everything she has argued in the last 9 years of my own marriage. 

DISCLAIMER: I received this book for free from Blogging for Books in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.