Wife for Life: The Power to Succeed in Marriage was the winner in the Self-Help category of the 2015 IndieReader Discovery Awards, where undiscovered talent meets people with the power to make a difference.
Following find an interview with author Ramona Zabriskie.
What is the name of the book and when was it published?
Wife for Life: The Power to Succeed in Marriage. The ebook was published in May of 2013, the paperback in August of 2014, and the audio book in January of 2015.
What’s the book’s first line?
“A younger friend and I chatted in the sun one spring day as we planted primroses, bleeding hearts, and forget-me-nots in a little patch of my Washington woodland.”
What’s the book about? Give us the “pitch”.
Wife for Life: The Power to Succeed in Marriage is a woman’s inspirational guide to a grand, lifelong marriage. In the book I reveal that the main motivation for a truly successful marriage comes from a woman’s need to cherish and to be cherished. We desire real and lasting intimacy with our husbands, craving a powerful partnership that will fulfill our husband’s quest as well as our personal dreams. Too often, however, there is one obstacle that stands in the way: ourselves. As we identify the fears and behaviors that inadvertently sabotage our dreams, and as we come to comprehend what actually inspires our husband, we discover that we have more power today than ever before to create not just a good marriage, or a great marriage, but a “grand marriage”: the kind of romantic partnership that blesses the world for generations.
What inspired you to write the book? A particular person? An event?
The very beginning of the book opens with a conversation I had in 2011 with a friend who is about twenty years younger than I am. She was telling me about a number of her friends in their 20’s and 30’s who were already in second marriages. I was stunned by how many of these women she knew. What surprised me even more was that she could not attribute the divorce-and-remarry-trend to any one thing in particular: she wasn’t sure if it was because the women had married too young, or too quickly, or maybe, she said, they just had not seen the “red flags”. That didn’t sit with me. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more compelled I felt to find out for myself what in the world was going on in young, aborted marriages. This “call” to research and analysis completely absorbed me for the next two years until it finally took form as Wife for Life, which has been exceptionally well received by readers and professionals alike. It’s interesting, because originally, my target audience was the newlywed or young married woman, but it turns out that the book’s devoted fans include women (and some men!) from across the board, across every stage of life and marital experience or status. It’s stunning really. Wife for Life has saved marriages, literally, again and again. This is so gratifying because I myself was almost divorced only two years into our marriage. Thank goodness a compelling experience (which I share in the book) turned me on my head, completely reorienting me just four days away from divorce court. Thirty-seven years later, my job as an author and mentor, is to convince readers and students to not let tomorrow’s relationship be limited by their relationship today. I am here to raise the bar higher than it’s ever gone: to say grand marriage IS possible.
What’s the most distinctive thing about the main character? Who-real or fictional-would you say the character reminds you of?
Since Wife for Life is non-fiction, my husband says that I’m the main attraction (I share a LOT of my own experience), which makes him the “featured character”. 🙂
What’s the main reason someone should really read this book?
Although a significant number of Amazon browsers search out the book under “divorce” or “divorce prevention”, I think that the women who love it the most are women in relatively stable marriages who, for reasons they can’t even articulate, want more. Many reviewers claim that “every woman should read this book” – several say that almost verbatim. I think that’s because Wife for Life not only inspires the reader with new perspective on her husband and men in general, but also sheds light on the workings of her own heart. New insight and skills give her confidence in the power of her womanhood. I don’t think we really appreciate what an amazing position we are in as modern women. Men are increasingly reliant on strong feminine energy to help direct and inspire their ambitions. It’s time to set a new standard, to raise the bar, about what “successful” marriage really means. A grand marriage is, in my opinion, totally doable with the right perspective and skill set. And it is worthy of our best efforts because the kind of love we are talking about, and what it means to the world, lives on and blesses others, long after the two people have actually left this earth. And there’s nothing “grander” than that!