Early in my marriage, I thought I had it figured out. I loved my wife. We were committed. We’d make it work. How hard could it be?
Turns out, pretty hard. Not because we didn’t love each other, but because we each had a lot of growing up to do.
And marriage, by God’s design, is made to do exactly that. It sanctifies you. It exposes your selfishness, your pride, your blind spots. It makes you face parts of yourself you’d rather ignore.
This led me to write about five books that have helped me tremendously along the way. They equipped me, strengthened me, and created some great conversations for us. They were foundational as we built our life together.
1. Love and Respect by Emerson Eggerichs
This was a game changer.
Every marriage book I’d read up to that point was about love, love, love, love, love. And honestly? It all felt so feminine. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was missing until I read Love and Respect.
For the first time, I had language for something I’d been feeling but couldn’t name: I wanted to be respected, not just loved.
Don’t get me wrong—I love my wife deeply. But I didn’t have the same hunger for safety and security from her that she had from me. What I craved was to be admired, respected, even liked. Yes, liked. Sounds odd, but even that was something Dr. Eggerichs helped put language to. I wanted to know she was proud of me, that she saw me as capable and strong.
Eggerichs breaks down these unique needs of husbands and wives with two powerful acronyms—one for showing love to wives, one for showing respect to husbands. Suddenly, we had a framework. We could speak to each other’s actual needs instead of just assuming we both wanted the same thing.
Where most books stay philosophical or theological, this one was SO practical. Actual things to do and say to make us better. This book gave us a common language and helped us stop talking past each other. It was foundational.
2. Finishing Strong by Steve Farrar
If Love and Respect was about understanding each other, Finishing Strong was about understanding myself—specifically, what it would take to go run my race well.
This book scared me out of my invincible slumber.
Early in marriage, I thought I was bulletproof. I loved God. I loved my wife. I’d never stumble. I’d never be one of those guys who let their marriage fall apart or wandered from their faith.
Farrar shattered that illusion with biblical examples of men who started strong but didn’t finish well. Men who had everything—wisdom, power, favor with God—and still fell. Men who made catastrophic choices that destroyed their families and legacies.
The book helped me see how rare it actually is for a man to finish his life with a thriving marriage, a solid relationship with the Lord, and kids who still want to be around him. It taught me the pitfalls to watch for: pride, isolation, compromise, complacency.
More than any other book, Finishing Strong gave me a vision for longevity and perseverance. It helped me take the long view and stay vigilant about the kind of man I wanted to be at 70, not just 30.
3. Dare to Lead by Brené Brown
Dare to Lead isn’t technically a marriage book—it’s about leadership and interpersonal dynamics. But for us, it became essential because marriage requires the difficult work of conflict.
As a man who wasn’t practiced in communicating emotions, I struggled. When conflict arose, my instinct was to shut down, stonewall, close off emotionally. I didn’t have all the emotional tools to recognize what I was feeling—vulnerability, shame, fear—and I didn’t know how to negotiate conflict well. I hadn’t even clarified what values needed to guide my decision-making in those moments.
Brown’s work gave me the language and tools I needed to lead well even when it was uncomfortable. The concept of “rumbling with vulnerability”—leaning into hard conversations rather than avoiding them—changed how I approached disagreements with my wife (and now my kids).
4. Them Before Us by Katy Faust and Stacy Manning
This book changed my marriage by showing me why my marriage matters.
At the time I read it, I was working in ministry, helping to grant/give away money to nonprofits addressing societal problems: incarceration, addiction, poor academic performance, suicide prevention. Important work. Necessary work.
But Them Before Us helped me see something I’d been missing: 90% of those societal ills could be traced back to the breakdown of the family.
I was trying to fix downstream problems without understanding the upstream cause. The book opened my eyes to the single greatest predictor of a child’s flourishing: being raised by your married mother and father. The stability, security, and connectedness that marriage provides isn’t just nice—it’s foundational to human thriving.
Suddenly, my marriage wasn’t just about me and my wife. It was about my kids and their futures. Everything I saw happening in my community, my city, my country — I could trace back to the foundational pillar of family. The institution of marriage wasn’t optional or outdated—it was a keystone and my commitment to it mattered far beyond our four walls.
It also gave me a much deeper respect for the wisdom of God we find in Scripture. Specifically how the Bible teaches that marriage is a covenant—permanent, monogamous, sacrificial, modeled after Christ and the church. I could see the genius in it. The gospel was both good and true.
Them Before Us gave me a mission. It showed me that staying married, doing the hard work, honoring my vows—that wasn’t just personal. It was one of the most consequential things I could do for my family (and for yours).
5. The Bible
At the end of the day, everything comes back to this.
It didn’t take long in marriage for me to realize why Scripture says not to be unequally yoked with an unbeliever. Marriage requires a shared foundation. You need a common playbook, a shared source of truth that exists outside of yourselves.
Without that, everything becomes a matter of opinion. How much screen time should the kids have? Public school or Christian school? How do we handle money and generosity? How do we approach cultural issues—marriage, gender, sexuality?
If truth is just whatever we feel that day, or whatever we grew up with, or whatever the culture says, then we are doomed to be constantly at odds with one another. It would be like negotiating from two different playbooks, and there’s no referee to tell us what’s in bounds and what’s out. We’re playing different games on the same court.
But when both spouses are under the authority of Scripture, something shifts.
The Bible gives us wisdom for decision-making, guidance for parenting, and clarity on the cultural issues that constantly swirl around us. When the world tells us one thing about gender, sexuality, or what it means to be human, we have an anchor. We’re not left to figure it out on our own or just go with whatever feels right.
It’s also given me tremendous confidence as a father. I’m not asking my daughter to just find a husband worth following—I’m asking her to find a husband radically committed to following Christ. Because if Christ is his Lord, if he’s under that authority, I can trust him to lead her well as he is led by Christ. That gives me peace in a way nothing else could.
Here is the Bible I use! (good for note taking!)
These five books didn’t fix everything. Marriage is still hard. We still have conflict. We still have to choose each other every day.
But these books gave us language, tools, and a foundation. They helped us move from just trying to survive to actually building something enduring together.
If you’re in the thick of it right now, struggling to understand each other or wondering if it’s worth it, I’d encourage you to get in church, find Godly community, and then pick up one of these books. Because marriage is too important—and too difficult—to go it alone.
-josh