By Sylvia Cochran - Parenting By the Book
Don’t Give Up! (Unexpected Answers to Marital Challenges)
Gary Hoffman
Men on the Edge
June 2010
ISBN 978-0984542109
“Don’t Give Up!” is the fruit of a personal struggle. Author Gary Hoffman is a member of the well-regarded Saddleback Church in California’s Lake Forest. He describes himself as a “marital crisis survivor” and intends to help men who are separated -- or still married but heading down that slippery slope to marital unhappiness.
Hoffman doesn’t mince words. He doesn’t sugar-coat truth or hides behind fancy words and academic talk. “Don’t Give Up!” breaks down the most likely reasons for marriage failure and instructs men on how to turn the sinking ship around. Part and parcel of this effort is the realization that it (whatever “it” is) cannot all be the wife’s fault. Husbands are urged and dared to honestly self-examine themselves and the position they have given God in their lives, marriage and daily interactions.
In order to take full advantage of “Don’t Give Up!,” the reader should be a Christian or willing to embrace the lifestyle. The advice given is God-centered, but even so a lot of it can be transferred onto a non-Christian way of life as well. For example, the urgency to put a wife before a job makes sense universally and while God said so, even a non-believer understands the wisdom of making the spouse the most important person in his life.
I would like to point out that – as a wife – I also find a lot of value in reading “Don’t Give Up!” for my personal growth. Wives, if you want to know what really makes a Christian man tick and how to support and help him, you should read the books that are aimed at the demographic. Gary Hoffman makes it possible for wives to get a bit of an insight into the normally stoic exteriors that the men maintain. Who knew they cried?
I highly recommend “Don’t Give Up!” to any reader – married or not.
