Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage: Unlocking the Secrets to Life, Love and Marriage - Hardcover

Gungor, Mark

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1416536051 ISBN 13: 9781416536055

Publisher: Atria, 2008

Synopsis

Based on Mark Gungor's wildly popular seminar, Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage® builds on Gungor's success with tens of thousands of couples who credit him with enriching, and even saving, their marriages. By using his unique blend of humor and tell-it-like-it-is honesty, he helps couples get along and have fun doing it.

Through exploring a variety of subjects including the myth of a "soul mate," the different ways men and women think, the conflicting levels of libido, and the necessity to forgive, Gungor proves that the key to marital bliss is not romance or destiny -- it's work and skill. Couples need to work hard at maintaining their relationship and to have the skills to pull it off. The longer spouses wait to learn these skills, the greater their chance of wanting to bail, yet Gungor makes it easy for couples to bring their relationship to the next level.

About this title

About the Author

Mark Gungor is a pastor, motivational speaker, author, musician, and the

CEO of Laugh Your Way America. He and his wife, Debbie, have two grown children

and three grandchildren. He lives in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where he is the

Senior Pastor of Celebration Church. Visit his website at www.laughyourway.com.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

1
The Perfect Mate

Deb and I had flown into Raleigh, North Carolina, to do one of our Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage seminars. Usually during my weekend events I speak for up to six hours or more, so if I am not careful I can overwork my voice. In preparation for an event, I try to limit my jabbering and generally turn down any requests to meet with people, do interviews, and so on. However, the Friday morning before the start of the Raleigh event, my good friend and host pastor, Steve Coronna, asked if I would join him and his wife Connie on the set of their TV program, Making Your Marriage Work. My reluctance to do three television programs on the day of a seminar was mitigated only by my friendship with Steve.

The plan was to leave the hotel at 9:15 a.m. and drive to the studio to meet them. I am not exactly a morning kind of guy, and being true to form, I slept in as late as possible and began to shower and get dressed only at the last possible minute. After I shaved and combed what hair I have left, I went to get a fresh pair of underwear out of my suitcase. However, I could not find any. Since I am a typical man and unable to find something even if it's right under my nose, I did not panic, but simply called out to my wife, who was now in the bathroom.

"Hey, Debbie, where are my underwear?"

"They're right there in the front of your suitcase," she answered.

"No," I retorted. "I looked. There's nothing there."

Exasperated, Debbie shot out from the bathroom to the suitcase to try and find what I had obviously missed. After a few moments, however, she started to giggle and said, "Well, I guess we didn't pack any."

Didn't pack any?! I started to panic. No underwear?! My mind began to race: I have people to meet; television shows to tape! I don't have time to deal with, 'I guess we didn't pack any.'

Perhaps yesterday's undies, I thought, switching from panic to resolution mode. A little gross, but it seemed like a plausible plan at the time. Then I realized my drawers were lying wet on the bathroom floor and there was no time to dry them out. I had to go now if I was going to be on time.

Only two options lay before me: a) go au naturel with no restraints -- freely, as it were; or b) do the unthinkable -- wear my wife's underwear. As I pondered the options, a pair of my wife's undies caught my eye. They were made of simple cotton, and, were it not for "Victoria's Secret" stamped all over the elastic band, they almost looked like a pair of men's skivvies.

Dare I? I mused.

Now, every man I have ever shared this story with has told me they would have chosen option "a," and never option "b," even under threat of death or bodily harm. For most men, wearing women's underwear is not an option -- there are way too many conflicting implications. But I just could not see spending my day underwearless. I can't handle that much freedom in my life. I would have found it extremely distracting.

So, option "b" it was. I quickly slipped on my wife's undies, finished getting dressed, and headed out the door, giving what I had just done very little thought.

About five miles down the road, it started to dawn on me that I was sitting in a pair of underwear that had "Victoria's Secret" imprinted over and over again on the waistband. I thought to myself, Good grief! What if I'm in an accident? I imagined myself lying on the side of the road while the medics tried to remove my pants to save my life. I saw myself fighting them off, screaming at the top of my lungs, "Let me die! Let me die!"

Soon I was at my destination, and I tried to focus on taping the programs to be aired over the next three weeks. You can imagine the irony I felt as I looked into the camera and threw out a challenge for the men in the audience to be real men, not the all-too-familiar men who live in a virtual world of TV, video games, and computer porn -- yet all the while I was sitting in a pair of women's underwear! It was a struggle to concentrate on what I was saying.

After the taping, while we were waiting to be seated for lunch, I could hold my secret no longer. I leaned over to Steve and Connie and told them I had a confession to make. Few things get people's attention like an open confession, so they gathered close to me as I whispered the events of that morning. When I finally got to the part where I revealed I was standing there with them in a pair of my wife's underwear, which I had been wearing all morning, Steve screamed and tried to get as far away from me as possible. (Did I mention guys have issues with this kind of thing?) He continued with lunch only as long as I agreed not to touch him. He also asked me to never mention his name when telling this story. (But, hey, what are friends for?)

The Moral of the Story

I reveal this self-deprecating story to illustrate a point. If you are going to survive unexpected circumstances and disappointments, you are going to have to be willing to change, to adjust, to work with what you have, and to commit to doing things you normally wouldn't have chosen to do. Despite our best efforts and intentions, life doesn't always turn out the way we have hoped and planned. This is especially true when it comes to relationships between men and women.

Love can be deceitful. It starts out so easily. In fact, it is the ease of the relationship that convinces us that the other person is "the one." We are so comfortable with them. They are incredibly easy to talk to. We can just be ourselves around them. With seemingly no effort at all, we experience a sense of joy just by being around them.

"It is so easy," we reason, "this person must be the one!"

"Yes," your romance-starved heart answers, "this is it -- true love is always easy!"

So we take the plunge, we make the big commitment, we promise, "Till death do us part." And we know it's right because it's easy. Easy is always a sign from God that things are right. Right?

But after the "I do's" have been exchanged, life kicks in. And guess what? It ain't easy.

Men and women begin their journey believing that fate has caused them to meet each other, and then they date and end up at the altar. They think that since they have spent so much quality time with each other, they truly know each other. They know what to expect and, therefore, feel the relationship is safe -- they have discovered the perfect one. However, due to the intoxicating nature of the dating process, people don't know each other nearly as well as they think.

So when life hits, shock and awe set in. Shock because the differences that attracted them to each other now repel them. Awe because they are now frustrated and angry and feel that their whole marriage is simply awful.

We read in the Old Testament, "Hope deferred makes the heart sick." Simply stated, when things don't go the way you hoped they would, it is easy to get "heart sick" -- to lose your oomph, to want to quit and get away from what disappointed you. But that is a mistake.

The truth is that such lofty ideals of romantic perfection actually work to make people's marriages worse, not better. Since these ideals are rarely if ever realized, dissatisfaction rules the day. You were smoking marital ganja if you expected marriage to be a life filled with constant waves of joy, where every morning birds sing you awake and little bunnies help you sweep the floors as the chipmunks wash the dishes.

It may be a hard pill to swallow, but it doesn't take the ladies long to discover that -- though they were worshiped and coddled like beautiful princesses during the dating experience, and though they married the guy expecting to step into a long life of being the object of worship and coddling -- it doesn't last. Generally, women end up feeling as if they are the property of the Pumpkin Eater (who, according to Mother Goose, has his little woman neatly tucked away in his pumpkin shell, there to keep her very well). Women discover that their Prince Charming is more pauper than prince, and the man of her dreams morphs into looking more like the monster from her nightmares.

Similarly, men get disappointed and offended, but only by the idea that we could ever disappoint a woman. "How can this be?" men reason. "Our moms always said we were perfect." And we guys hate to lose the "Prince Charming" label. The problem is that we can't begin to comprehend why being married would take anywhere near the energy dating did. We have won the girl. The girl said "yes." The boy said "I do." Everything seems set, so we assume we can now begin to redirect our attentions, formerly used to chase our bride-to-be, to new pursuits. There are new hills to climb, new wars to win, new seas to cross, and of course, video games to play. Sadly, many men think "I do" means "I'm done." This is because we generally approach relationships with a conquer-and-possess mind-set. And once men possess, we are ready to move on to new ground.

In a way, what we possess "disappears," kind of the way a new car disappears after we own it for six months, and we often cease to give those we love significant attention. We don't do it to be cruel, we just don't get why we would keep fighting and striving to secure something we already have. Sadly, the romantic chase of courtship gives way to the thoughtlessness, inconsiderate behavior, and even rude assumption of ownership. (I'm not saying this is right or that it has to stay this way, it just is for the average guy.) Our shock and awe in marriage have to do with the discovery that our wives no longer think we are the cat's meow. After all, we are men, the bearers of the magic that accompanies our gender -- endowed to us by the male penis.

Ah, wretched disappointment -- it makes us sick. And when marriages are filled with disappointed wives and offended men, it do...

About this edition

• Publisher: Atria
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1416536051
• ISBN 13: 9781416536055
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304