What Your Husband Isn't Telling You - David Murrow

In What Your Husband Isn't Telling You: A Guided Tour of a Man's Body, Soul, and Spirit, David Murrow walks the reader through the three areas of a man's life (body, soul, and spirit), and discusses the reasons that men struggle and what about his nature causes those struggles.  He defines the two driving forces in a man's life to be Provider and Protector, and then explains how those affect everything a man thinks and does.

This book left me conflicted.  While on one hand, I can foresee situations that will make me reflect on this book and how the author addressed it, I felt let down by his cynicism on both men and women.  He makes a point at the beginning of the book to acknowledge that not all men struggle with the same things, and that some of the points in the book may not apply to the reader's husband, but he doesn't seem to give the same leeway to women.  He seems to assume that that majority of his female readers will fall into all of the same pits when it comes to understanding their men or handling their struggles.  The other disappointment comes from how much emphasis he puts on the nature of men as a reason for their behavior.  He does occasionally say that men shouldn't be given free reign to act on these excuses, but by the end of the book, it begins to feel like an awful lot like a free pass for men's behaviors, and women are just supposed to understand why they happen without being able to change anything.  In addition, the author sprinkles in enough scripture to make his reasons seem Biblical, but he leaves God out of several lines of reasoning.  He talks a lot about "culture" and "society" driving the definition of a man, and leaves out that God created men to be different than women.  He even mentions Joshua from the Old Testament "dismissing the cautious advice of ten spies but accepting the counsel of two risk takers," as if Joshua was merely acting as a "manly man" instead of trusting God's provision and protection in taking the Promised Land.

My rating of the book started to fall the further I read.  In the end, I give it 2 stars.  I think it could have been much better, but I did still take a few points from it that I hope will help in my relationships with the men in my life.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest review.