This book came to my attention from a youtube channel called Nate and Sutton. They are a super sweet couple and one of their videos was a breakdown on how to have a “fight” (their word, more on that later) in a way that’s healthy for your marriage. While we haven’t instituted that practice line by line (it’s a very specific practice), we (I) have tried to implement the spirit of it, with good success. They said they got the idea from a sermon at their church, and their pastor got the idea from the book The Second Happy by Kevin and Marcia Meyers, so I bought it and read it.
I didn’t realize that this book is hot off the press, copyright 2021, I’ll be curious to see if it has any staying power. Kevin Meyers is buddies with John Maxwell and Pastor of 12Stone Church in Georgia, which is a church big enough to have several satellite campii. A brief google of him reveals that he is a Weslyian, but we won’t hold that against him.
I’d give this book a 3.5/5. I would rate it highly for its emphasis on a Christ-centered marriage and its offering of practical solutions for real-world problems, but there are small hints of weak theology that hold it back from a perfect score. Still, I think it’s a useful work, particularly for young marrieds just exiting the honeymoon phase. If someone were to say to you “me and the wife always fight and it’s not pretty”, this book would probably help them.
The title is a call to find a more substantial fulfillment than the stereotypical honeymoon phase. In the introduction, they liken it to remodeling a house you love, in putting in the extra effort, the latter can be better than the former. Don’t quit your marriage because it’s hard, put the effort in to achieve “the second happy”, the remaining 7 chapters are practical steps you can take to do this. At the end of the chapter are conversation questions for couples and for small groups. Nice that’s baked right in there, useful even as a solo reader, and they are good questions for the most part. The 7 steps to the second happy are:
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Break the quit cycle
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Get your hands up (specifically, pray, but generally, make God the center of your life and relationship)
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Pick a fair fight (this was the chapter I bought the book for and it did not disappoint, good stuff here)
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Take a knee or two (practice “voluntary mutual submission”)
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Don’t settle for the hollow Easter bunny (focus on making your relationship with your spouse something that’s a primary in each of your lives, full substantial)
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Evict the elephant (address and discuss those difficult things in your relationship)
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Choose your bucket wisely (building on a water/gasoline analogy here, basically learn to be gracious and not to embroil small issues)
Each chapter has a few scriptures describing the point to be made, a catchy story that explains the chapter title/thesis, several personal accounts from the authors or other couples about the issue at hand, and practical steps you can take to do the thing. The style of the book is very conversational, you feel like they are right there reading it to you, and the liberal use of analogy and real-world examples make the principles easy to remember. The sacrifice here is the occasional straying into theological mediocrity. That and some imprecise language. I get that ‘fight’ is common parlance, and they are emphatic that the objective in marital disagreement is oneness, not victory, but ‘fight’ automatically connotes a single victor. Would have much rather see ‘argument’ of ‘disagreement’ there. Another dig on the book, I think they use about 6 translations of the Bible (in chapter 7 he gives a rapid-fire list of Proverbs on the gentle answer and uses two translations in the same list), this bugs me. if your point rests on specific words so much you have to shop translations to make it, then it needs some work I think. In his case, he still made a good point, I just wish he’d pick a version and stick with it, but that’s me.
I think it was ch. 4 talked about the distinction between “unity” and “oneness”, that was a lot to think on, and blessed me, might have to revisit that particular chapter.
Honestly, I read this book hoping I could share it with youngsters having a hard time, and it proved to be that. It stays Christo-centric, pulls no punches, and gives real world, you-can-do-this-today kind of advice that I think many will find helpful. it’s a lil book 4″x6″ maybe, with 222 pages of content, so it’s a quick read. If you’re pressed for time, read Chapters 2,3, 4 and 6 and you’ll get the real good meat from this chicken. It helped me, might read it again with Eileen sometime down the road. Even if it’s not as heavily footnoted as I usually prefer…
One Comment
Super great review of this book! I appreciate all the thought that went into the review and the points that Lucas made in reference to the utilizing multiple translations to get a point across. I would agree with him in that for sure!
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