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It’s February.  That means Valentine’s Day is coming up.  But some of you aren’t feeling very romantic, because your relationships are faltering.  Before you can get back to “romance” you need to be able to just get to “we can talk to each other.”  Stop the Fight! is for you.  (It’s also for those who aren’t necessarily struggling, but feel their relationships could be better.  Because can’t they all?)

The Downside

I only have one disappointment with Stop the Fight!, and I’m going to put it right up front, because for some of you it’s going to be a deal-breaker.  A couple of the (fictional, as far as I can tell) couples the author uses as examples are homosexual.  Now, I’m willing to live with that for two reasons.  One, it’s a secular book, and I don’t expect unbelievers to act like believers.  Two, the gender of the “characters” is really not relevant to the point being made.  Insert different names and the stories still work.  I didn’t see anything in the philosophy of the book’s content that would give me pause (I mean, aside from the fact that these examples are in there).  This is good enough that I think it’s worth reading, anyway, but if those examples rule the book out for you, I get it.

Why I Love This Book

It’s practical.  That’s the bottom line.  I have never seen another book that so gets down to the nitty-gritty.  There are other books that have some practical ideas in them, but this is all practical; it’s all how-to.

Fights follow predictable patterns, because people are people and we have certain things in common!  The problem is, when you’re the one in the fight, it’s hard to see the pattern, because you’re too much in the thick of it.  You know when hundreds of people in a stadium spell out some word or make some picture, by holding up various colored tiles or flags or the like?  If you’re one of those people, you can’t see the picture.  You can only see your immediate surroundings.  But someone on the outside can see the big picture — and it’s easy and obvious.

The aim of Stop the Fight! is to show you what some of these patterns look like, so it’s easier for you to recognize them when they’re happening to you, and to give you the tools you need to break out of the pattern and “reset.”

It does this by using twelve common fights and using brief stories and lots of cartoons to show how the fight typically happens — and what happens if the participants choose different responses instead.

These patterns are so common to humanity that most of them can be applied to other (non-romantic) relationships, as well.  For instance, some of these would, in my opinion, be beneficial for (older) children who regularly fight with their siblings.  Typical patterns of getting into defensive mode, of confusing intent and impact (effect), etc. are issues for all of us at some point.  (I wouldn’t recommend just handing the book over, though, because there are some marriage-only topics in the mix.)

I would by no means recommend this as the only marriage book you own or read, but if you’re looking for some practical tools to add to your arsenal, I think this can be greatly beneficial.

 

What if Your Relationship is Faltering? Stop the Fight! {review} is a post from: Titus 2 Homemaker