The Surrendered Wife : A Practical Guide to Finding Intimacy, Passion, and Peace with Your Man

Rating:
Summary: This book is horrible!
Review: This book sucks! If you are a wife who has controlled, criticized, belittled, and dismissed your husband into nothingness, this book might be for you. If you have a good relationship, you are ever looking to make better, this book is fraught with in my opinion downright BAD advice. This book makes me want to write my own relationship book and I have no better qualifications than Ms. Doyle seems to! I have an intimate, passionate relationship with my husband and I certainly don't act like she advises! The fact that Laura Doyle is going around doing Surrendered Wife workshops and starting Surrendered Wife circles around the country is nothing short of scary. According to Ms. Doyle we should all be mindless, little submissive wives in every respect so that our husband's ego is never bruised and he will be intimate with us. The qualities she lists --- being vulnerable, trusting, respectful, grateful and having faith in our husbands might be good. But her means to achieving those qualities leave a lot to be desired. Examples of some of her bad advice: Whenever your husband asks for your opinion, you are advised to respond with "Whatever you think." Even as simple a question as what tie he should wear with a particular shirt. I don't know about other wives but my husband wouldn't ask for my opinion if he didn't honestly want to hear what I think of a particular issue. That doesn't mean I am making his decision for him. No matter what your husband has done if he asks you afterwards what you think, you are instructed to give positive feedback at all costs, even if he just cut your bushes to the ground! No matter how horrible of a present he gives you, you are instructed to like it and tell him so, because it's the thought that counts. I agree it's the thought that counts but personally I'd prefer not to end up with a whole drawer of scarves I can't stand because my husband is under the mistaken impression I like them! Reading this book you'd never guess there are gracious ways to accept a gift and gently tell your husband what you do and don't like. As someone who has a good relationship and was just looking for something to make it even better, the positive reviews for this book sicken me. By the end of this book you may have an intimate relationship with your husband, but you won't have an honest one and don't be surprised if your husband also looks at you as a totally helpless female with no brain in your head to carry on a decent conversation with at the end of the day!!!

Rating:
Summary: Can you imagine Ginger Rogers trying to lead Fred Asteire?
Review: This is an excelent book, being christian, having a 10 year marriage and being a Mars Venus facilitator, I can tell you that if you apply the concepts in this book you will be one happy, very happy woman.
The idea is that the more you want to control (your man/your marriage/the finances, etc) the more stressed, overwhelmed and lonely you end. It teaches you to let your husband do what Fred Asteire did with Ginger Rogers: he led her through the dance floor. She didn't fight him or tried to led herself. She trusted him, she trusted that he would make her look awesome and would take care of her. That is the idea. To make him responsible, to trust him, so we women can lay back and relax. Let him be in charge and enjoy.
You see, women feel loved when they are cared for. Men feel loved when they are trusted. So if you surrender (and by this the author doesn't mean let him abuse) he will lovingly take care of you and he will feel trusted and loved.
I really encourage all women to read the book and give it a try. You will be amazed.

Rating:
Summary: Should be called "The Passive Wife"
Review: While there are some good truths to be found in this book, much of it is so "old-fashioned" I can't believe more women haven't written to complain. I agree wholeheartedly with Doyle's point that our husbands have much good and that we should focus on their positive traits rather than nag and belittle them for fairly minor "infractions." I can certainly improve in this area! On the other hand, much of what she says is so outdated that my husband and I read the book together and laugh. Some of the zingers: 1. Men should do the finances and women should be ignorant thereof (sounds like a recipe for disaster if the husband should die or there should be a divorce), 2. Women should NEVER correct their husbands (I love the one where the husband is going the wrong way and Doyle would have the wife totally silent, even to the point where the husband has to cross state lines before realizing his mistake), 3. Wives should say "Whatever you think" to whatever the husband says, allowing him to make ALL the decisions in the house. She even goes on to say that the husband should be able to change jobs without any input from the wife, even if the end result is that he loses his job (in her opinion, that's not life-threatening. Has she tried to find a job in the current job market???).
Maybe I'm missing something here, but I think that a household where men AND women are equally valued and contribute their opinions is more to my liking. I will say that the book has brought my husband and me together sheerly by its entertainment value!