The Wholehearted Marriage

Book excerpt: The Wholehearted Marriage offers practical tools for helping couples keep a passionate connection with one another and understand the role their hearts play in their lives. Drs. Smalley and Stoever maintain that circumstances, such as busy lifestyles, differences between spouses, personal baggage, the loss of a loved one, childhood trauma, etc., trigger reactions that condition us to close up our hearts for protection, blocking the flow of love. A disengaged, protected heart makes it impossible to experience an intimate, connected marriage. As a result, couples drift apart, trying to find some version of contentment, or they give up altogether and look for love somewhere else. Through their experiences in marriage counseling, Drs. Smalley and Stoever discovered that the commonly heard phrase "I don't love him/her anymore" is merely a camouflaged misunderstanding about what true love is and God's design for it. They affirm that love is more than just a feeling, and that to have true, lasting intimacy, couples need to learn to love wholeheartedly.