2 BONUS CDs when you order both volumes of Marriage: A Taste of Heaven: I: God's People Appreciate Marriage II: God's People Make the Best Lovers Only $37.90 ($49.80 Value--Save $11.90) FREE CDs with your order How to Fight Fair and Face Anger Developing Skills to Solve Problems Secret of the Woman of Great Price Key to Facing Problems of Life Only $37.90 (Save $11.90) Add 2 books + 2 CDs to Shopping Cart Save 13% when you buy Marriage: A Taste of Heaven combos. "How to Fight Fair & Face Anger" Prevents a Murder Patsy Rae Dawson The other day, at my second visit to receive deep massage on my upper back to undo 45 years of pounding a typewriter and working at a computer, I was the only patient in the large therapy room. One of the therapists sat down on a table and began complaining to the other two about a fight she'd had the night before with her husband. Still agitated, she said, "It was over something so stupid! We finally agreed that it was stupid and stopped the fight." Since she didn't know me, I was surprised when she said, "Patsy, do you ever fight with your husband over something stupid?" I replied, "About thirty years ago, my husband and I used to have the same argument every month. You know how it is when you clear the air and you feel better about it for a while. But since nothing really gets solved, you end up having that same argument over and over. We finally decided to learn how to fight fair and really solve problems." I continued, "Now, the thing I value the most about my marriage is that we can talk about anything." Then I told her, "I have the rules for fighting fair on a CD, would you like a copy?" She said, "Yes, I'd really like to learn how to do this, because I'd sure hate to kill my husband." When I went for my next appointment, I took all the therapists and the gals in the office a copy of "How to Fight Fair and Face Anger." When I stepped into the insurance office and asked those two women if they'd like the CD, one said, "As you just saw me slam down the phone, I obviously need that CD." The other said, "My boyfriend and I fight all the time. I'd like to develop this skill before we get married." Over the years, my husband and I have observed that when a congregation or a group works on developing a skill together, they lend great support and insight to each other. I'm eager to see what happens with all these marriages. The original therapist is way too young for murder to be lurking in her heart, even if at this point it is an overstatement of her frustrations.

Part 2 Incredible Lovemaking after Learning to Fight Fair Patsy Rae Dawson   Back in November 2007, I shared with you how one wife had spent the previous year teaching her verbally abusive husband how to fight fair. Every time she brought up a touchy sexual problem, his being unavailable for lovemaking, instead of discussing it and trying to find a solution, he resorted to calling her vile names, giving her the silent treatment, and breaking things. He'd even torn up their marriage license and burned my two books. I'd advised her that she needed to teach him how to fight fair before addressing the marriage problem so they could discuss and actually work on the problem. You can read her story of how she spent a year working on this project before achieving success in Part 1. Six months later, I received this e-mail from her which she gave me permission to share with you: Hello Patsy, I've been hesitant to write to you before I had something concrete to share. I was a bit hesitant to believe it myself I guess. But the good news is that my husband has agreed to go through your Vol. 2: God's People Make the Best Lovers with me. We've agreed to set aside one night a week as our "together night" making sure the kids are in bed and we have no interruptions. We're each going to read a chapter on our own during the week (and do the homework) and then on our night discuss it together. We begin reading this week and our first "together night" will be a week from tomorrow. This is what I've hoped for all along, but it still doesn't seem real to me. I am cautiously optimistic. Please pray for us. I know this is major progress. Oh, a few weeks ago, the whole family went for a ride in the country and we popped your Woman of Great Price into the cd player and listened to the whole thing. That's another big step. It was a good introduction to Patsy Rae Dawson for my husband. Our eldest daughter enjoyed it, too. Oh that I had exposure to this kind of teaching at eighteen! Anyway...I'll keep you posted as to our progress. Blessings, Formerly angry at the Lord and blaming Him, Now reaping His joys of marriage PS - I'm a bit shy about sharing this information (and although there still seems to be a pattern of infrequency in lovemaking) the intimate times we have shared together in the last few months have been some of the most incredible we've ever had together. The mind really does matter as you teach in Vol. 2: God's People Make the Best Lovers! The Bible's emphasis on lovemaking from the Song of Solomon all the way through the New Testament is "Take care of your mind, and your body will take care of itself to give you the greatest thrills imaginable." The same God who created beautiful sunsets and undersea wonders designed a special language of love that transcends words for husbands and wives to speak in each other's arms when they dare to listen to him. Excited about her progress and finally beginning to experience the joy that was missing in their marriage, I e-mailed her back: Hello Reaping His Joys, This letter just makes my day, and many more to come, too! I want to remind you that going through Vol. II together is not to talk about your problems with each other. It is to focus on fine-tuning your understanding of God's word about the sexual relationship. That keeps it non-personal and non-threatening while knowledge is being built to later face the problems. I tell in the introduction to the assignments how one of my proofreaders kept telling me, "You need to discuss some of these hard issues, such as oral sex. People from the world are dealing with this and they need to hear it from a Christian." I kept telling her no, and she kept telling me, "You need to do this." As a result, my husband and I spent many hours in his office talking about things we'd never talked about before. I told him, "I don't want to bind where God hasn't bound, and I don't want to loose where he hasn't loosed." That's a hard line to walk so we struggled with the scriptures together. Afterwards, we both agreed that the exercise did wonders for us both. So when I revised Vol. II, I added that exercise. I've seen other couples benefit, too, from just discussing the scriptures and what God wants from us. I am so thrilled for you. I'm eager to see what God will teach you and your husband, especially since you are both already experiencing the power of the mind over the body. Patsy She wrote back to supply a few more details: Hello Patsy, I know I have much for which to be thankful. We've had our struggles this year (I haven't shared them all with you but we have worked through them). I've seen the Lord bring my husband to the point where he was willing to do the book study with me.

The last time he got upset with me, his reaction was quite over-the-top. He immediately used it as an excuse not to read the book with me. I didn't push it. I used the fighting fair techniques to point out how he was being unjust in his reaction, etc. and left it at that.

He came to me one day and repented and looked me in the eyes and told me he'd read the book with me. I could see his eyes were watery. I know this is a big step for him. I think deep down he has been a bit scared about reading the book together and that's why he was resisting so much. His over-the-top reaction just made it so clear to me. That's why I know we have to keep the problems out of our study and just learn God's Word together. I am so looking forward to it. I know the Lord has much to work in me, too. I'm also looking forward to my husband's insights into what we read.

I appreciate your reminder that our study is not a time to bring up problems. It's easy to forget that sometimes when you just want everything fixed. But there are no instant fixes and the God's perfect timing brings about growth that we didn't even know we needed. I can't tell you how much I've learned from my trials these past two years.

I do wonder if there is something in my husband's past. It seems that sometimes when we talk, he seems to shut down at a certain point as if we might be getting too close to something. I don't push it, and I certainly don't want to surmise. I just pray that the Lord will work and heal. I know we might have some rocky spots. I'm ready and willing to face them, but I am a bit intimidated by it too. More reason to lean fully on the Lord through all of this. He is able!

Blessings,
Reaping His Joys

I closed out our e-mail exchange with one last word of encouragement:

Hello Reaping His Joys,

You and your husband have developed such good communication skills and are still working on them, that I think you'll be able to get through this. Sometimes letting go of the past and stepping out into the full light is hard to do. Mental housecleaning is the hardest work of all. I'm finding that we never really complete that job, we just keep growing to new heights.

Patsy