1 Page Summary of "Marriage On The Rocks" By Jimmy Evans

I would recommend this book to you if you are trying to build your marriage alone. Because Jimmy Evans does a good job of reminding you the foundation of how you act in your marriage is not in how your spouse responds but in how your God provides.

Evans dedicates an entire chapter(15) to help you understand the four principles of building alone.

4 Principles of Building Alone (Jimmy Evans)

1. Be “Completely Submissive” to God first.

   1. God is the one who created marriage. He wrote the operating manual so He knows how this marriage thing functions properly. 

   2.  At the end of the day, if you follow all of God's instructions on marriage, all his principles, all his laws, and your spouse still leaves you, God never will.

2. Be Willing To Suffer Discomfort *Not Abuse.

   1. If you are being abused, getaway. period. Your safety is far more important. And creating this kind of distance can be a way of working on your marriage because it is a very clear wake-up call. 

   2. But even if it’s not an abusive situation you should still be ready to suffer for the cause. Most likely people are not going to be ready for you to treat them in a godly manner. So your new disposition will likely be met with hesitancy if not hostility. But you are to continue treating your spouse according to God's manual and endure the suffering of your spouse not getting, as Christ suffered for you.

3. Have a “Vision” of a successful marriage.

   1. “Where there is no vision the people perish”

   2. Or as I like to say, Marriage is one of those things you need to picture well to do well. You can and should seek out other couples who have relationships you admire and would like to emulate. The best picture of marriage you can find is Christ's relationship with the church...so you. Pursue your relationship with Christ, see how He treats you and that is your picture of how a marriage is supposed to work. 

4. Be Around “Positive Support.”

   1. Hard work needs help, and marriage is hard work. There are a lot of places you can go to get help. A good bible believing Church is a great place you can look for a group of people to help you go through this, or maybe one of your couples whose relationship you want to emulate. 

There are a lot of other good things in this book. This is content from 1 chapter out of 20+ chapters in this book. But the reason I emphasize this chapter is that it's the first marriage book I have read that directly addresses someone building alone for an entire chapter. I thought it was unique and valuable enough it needs to be emphasized for the help it can provide.