The Choice Wine by Steve Bollman is a how-to book with practical steps for anyone who wants to be happy, aimed particularly at married couples. The same advice works for single people and engaged couples; it is basic.
Bollman father-in-law gave him simple advice for having a happy marriage:
Eat dinner with your family every night
Go to church with your family every week.
Bollman builds these two simple ideas into his 7 step guide and adds in statistics and scientific research to demonstrate that these steps do indeed correlate with happiness and happy marriages. At one point he notes that the step may not cause happiness, but that the people who act this way already have habits and attitudes that bring happiness. He uses Christian scripture to anchor the advice.
The 7 steps are:
- Honor your wedding vows. This means fidelity and chastity, including mental chastity. Bollman points out that adultery devastates marriages – which most of us know – and adds the insight that indulging in pornography also hurts the marriage.
- Use money for others. Be charitable with time and money. Bollman talks here about spending time with people (eat dinner with your family) and with giving your worldly goods to your spouse and to others.
- Give God some of your time. This one may be hard for some to swallow but here too we have study upon study that shows the link between going to church/regular prayer and happiness and strong families. This step links to his father-in-law’s advice to go to church weekly.
- Set your mind on things above. This one is common sense but we all too often neglect it. If you think about good things and not bad, it is easier to be good, to think better of others, to not hold grudges, to not be irritable. Our retired bishop gave a homily last year where he asked us to not say one negative thing about another person all week. It was hard but it worked!
- Find God in yourself. This is not the New Age “the god within” but the real deal. This is applying church and prayer to yourself, to view yourself as important to God, to have high personal integrity and a moral code.
- Find God in other people. Just once I saw my husband as God sees him. It was glorious. If we could see each other the way God sees us it would set us free.
- Make it easy to be good and hard to be bad. Common sense.
Writing Style
My only complaint with the book was with Bollman using his in laws Riley and Rose Mary as imaginary discussion partners. It quickly got tedious.
Overall Thoughts
Based on my personal experience and from observing my and Dave’s parents, the advice and the steps are sound. Yes, there are people who do all seven steps and get divorced or are miserable and there are people who never go to church who have been happily married for years.
These steps are not magic. They are meant as practical tips, steps that will greatly improve your chances to be happy and your ability to have a happy and mutually fulfilling marriage.
Likely there are some who will pooh-pooh the advice, especially that based on faith and love of God. If that is you, then why not take a chance, try going to church and looking for God in yourself and others. Just maybe you will find happiness.
I received a complimentary copy in exchange for a review through NetGalley. 4 Stars. The advice is 5 stars.