THE PAIN OF MARRYING AN INGRATE

I did not set out to write a book about pain. I set out, as I so often do, to sit with people in the middle of theirs.

 Over many years of ministry and pastoral work, I have listened to more stories than I can count of men and women who did everything right by love's own standard. They gave, served, stayed faithful in word and deed only to find that the person receiving all of it never quite learned to give it back.

This book grew out of those conversations. It is not a

theoretical exercise. It is an attempt to give language to a pain that so many carry silently for years. I want to be honest about what this book is and is not. It is not a manual for diagnosing your spouse, nor a permission slip to abandon a marriage at the first sign of difficulty.

 This book is, instead, an invitation to clarity, to help you distinguish between a hard season and a hardened pattern, and to give you language, structure, and above all, permission to take your own pain seriously and whatever you ultimately decide to do about it.

My hope is that whoever holds this book will close its final page a little less alone than when you opened it, and a good deal more convinced of your own worth.

Phil Mike Paku