Running head: 4MAT BOOK CRITIQUE: HOPE-FOCUSED MARRIAGE 1
4Mat Book Critique: Hope-Focused Marriage
Anissa Chambers
Liberty University
Dr. Deborah Pinkston
October 6, 2019
4MAT BOOK CRITIQUE: HOPE-FOCUSED MARRIAGE 2
4Mat Book Critique: Hope-Focused Marriage
Summary
Divorce is on the rise here in the United States and many couples feel hopeless and are
looking for someone to help them with a solution to save their marriage. Worthington gives
couples a place to start grounded in a place of hope. The book is divided into two main parts
which is created for giving people a sense of confidence that hope can be rekindled in their
marriages.
The first part of is based on a theory that hope can be restored through willpower for
change along with the way power to change and coupled with wait power for change to bring the
desired outcome of saving the marriage. Worthington says “Hope involves a motivation to
endure when we cannot change circumstances. Hope involves a vision of a way through
suffering”(Worthington, 2005, p. 31).
The main thesis of this book is to develop hope thorough an application of faith, love and
work which he believes is the core essentials that are seen in a healthy marriage. He develops the
idea by explaining that love is valuing the other person and making a stand to not devalue them.
Faith is described as believing that hope will be restored even when it cannot be seen. Work is
explained as “energetic” (p.35). The author says that the major cause for martial demise is the
loss of love which causes a loss of faith and ends the work between a couple. He explains that a
loss of intimacy leads to a couple feeling unfulfilled which leads to the couple not sensing love
which leads to the feeling of little faith or hope for the marriage.
Worthington describes nine areas in which a counselor should focus in order to help
rekindle love in a relationship. These areas include: central beliefs and value, core vision,
confession and forgiveness, communication, conflict resolution, cognition, closeness,
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complicating factors and commitment ( p.37). Which is what the second part of the book
addresses giving strategies to help correct these issues in a marriage. Throughout the book
confession and forgiveness is a major key for helping a marriage survive and hope to be restored.
Once each of these areas have been addressed by the counselor along with homework
assignments Worthington share the process for ending the counseling session with the “final
commencement.” He uses Galatians 5:16 which says, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision
nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love.” Worthington believes in
faith working through love to bring hope and restoration to marriages. He says that once a
couple as done this they will step into a independence as a Godly couple with the tools to handle
any problems that may arise in the future.
Concrete Response
Worthington explains that communication is one of the most necessary keys to help
promote love in a marriage relationship (p.153). My husband had been in a bad marriage where
she had an affair and would not get counseling. She would not speak with him or discuss their
marriage and sent divorce papers proceeded by an email. It was a devastating experience for
him. He was also raised in a dysfunctional home growing up with a mom who always had
another man in her life that was more important than him. Some of the men were extremely
abusive. Communication was not his strong point. He was wounded and broken when we were
married. Worthington says that “listening, sharing information, their experience, feeling and
values; by creating time to communicate; and by avoiding devaluing communication” (p. 155).
We had to work very hard to learn this over the first few years of our marriage. When we did
communicate he used hurtful words presented to hurt me any way possible to defend himself
rather than dealing with whatever issue had arisen. One time he stormed out of our bedroom,
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looked at me with such anger, picked up one end of the couch I was sitting on and dropped it and
stormed out. I had no idea what he was angry about, I guess he had been angry for a while and
was giving me the silent treatment, and I never even noticed because he did not seem different.
My husband when going through classes on marriage counseling and started applying them to
our marriage, God was able to come in and surprise us both with keeping us in love together. He
is now working as a chaplain and uses words all the time to help bring healing. It is through
communication that God did help restore our marriage. We are still working on confession and
forgiveness but we are in such a good place through hope, communication and lots of
forgiveness.
Critique
Worthington’s book was full of useful information however, I wished that he could have
addressed how his theories could work with individuals who have experienced physical abuse,
domestic violence and mental abuse. I had not come from that back ground and God gave me
wisdom and the ability to walk with unconditional love to see him healed. He uses both secular
and Christian approaches to show how to integrate faith, love and work to bring hope into a
marriage that is suffering. There are a great number of people who come from this type of a
background and being able to help them recover from these issues would be a great tool.
Especially for those counselors who are working in communities who are economically
challenged.
The part I enjoyed the most was discussing the core vision and setting a core vision with
goals being a vital part of a healthy marriage. My husband and I teach people about purpose and
finding a mission statement for their lives, it was a great to put that idea into marriages.
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Another part that needed more information when looking at marriages is looking at how
their socio-economic status can affect couples. To use one example from his book was the idea
of spending quality time, however a married couple living in a one bedroom with children need
to be somewhat stealthy to have good quality time together. Strategies to help couples who are
struggling with financial issues can implement some of the ideas in the book. This would help
with all kinds of couples such as those who are in the military and spouses are deployed for long
periods of time. Couples whose jobs are so different that most of the time they see each other
when one is walking in the door and the other is walking out the door. There are many different
circumstances that could have been addressed to add to helping couples spend quality time
together.
Application
Reading this book has caused my husband and I to engage in many conversations as we
discuss marriage counseling as the counselors. One of the main conversations came from
Chapter 8 where we discussed core visions. As stated earlier we help people with mission
statements for their lives, but never applied this information to marriages. Establishing a core
vision is not something that we ever did formally, we had a vision for our lives, our ministries
and our family but never considered creating an actual written version of our core vision. This
has lead us over the last few weeks, in the midst of all the chaos going on around us to have
some great conversations about the vision of our lives and our family and creating a mission
statement. We have not as of yet put it down in writing, but we are working towards that goal.
We are also planning on implementing this idea in our purpose class that we teach. Worthington
wrote, “To help couples gain a vision that can guide their marriage is one target of hope-focused
marriage counseling” (p.111). This same thought is what we have been doing with people’s
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vision statement to show that they have purpose. God is a God of purpose and as such has a plan
and purpose for each individual life but also with putting two people together to walk out His
plans for them and their families. It will be exciting as we walk together and continue to see
healing in our own lives and helping to bring healing to the lives of others through love and
hope.
Lastly, it has stirred us in working on confession and forgiveness as addressed in Chapter
9. Worthington explains that couples will hurt each other and what makes a difference between a
good and troubled marriage is how the reconcile the hurts and how well the do it (p.128). We are
both looking at this and practicing some of the interventions like recognizing our part in the
process depending on the situation.
This book has been encouraging and inspiring to help my husband and I to continue to
work on our marriage. The past six weeks have been difficult and stretched us to the max with
one issue after another crashing down on us. We have weathered this process very well
considering and I do believe this book has also helped as we discussed the book many times.
God is so faithful and always gives us what we need when we need it and this is one of those
things that came at the right time for us.
.
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References
Worthington, E. L. (2005). (2nd ed.). Downers Grove, IL: Hope-Focused Marriage Counseling
IVP Academic.
