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Mad About Us: Moving from Anger to Intimacy with Your Spouse
Practical steps couples can take to turn mad at you back to mad in love with you from a nationally recognized couple.
226 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 1, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
June 28, 2026
Mad About Us by Gary and Carrie Oliver (Book Review #9 of 2026)
I read this book with my wife, and we both found it helpful to explore our relationship with anger, namely how our upbringings gave us an incomplete view. The book provides some helpful practices and communication exercises to work conflicts and frustrations in your marriage relationship. The chapters aren’t all organized into short, bullet-point lists that would make it an easier read, some chapters are a bit too long. It’s bittersweet once one learns from the About the Authors section that Carrie Oliver passed away either while the book was being written or shortly thereafter. This probably explains some of the difficulty in editing the book but also adds gravity to the chapters as you realize your time with your spouse may be shorter than imagined.
The book begins by exhorting the couples reading the book to appreciate one another’s differences and recognize that the purpose of marriage is to make us more holy, more like Christ. “We don’t wake up in the morning saying to ourselves, ‘‘Today I will be Christ to my spouse.’ But we are very aware of how our spouse is not being Christ to us” (p. 22). We need to look in the mirror and realize that while our spouse disappoints us, we’re also disappointing them, and we need to take ownership of it.
The second chapter is on intimacy, seeing your spouse and being seen by her. It’s about having a healthy sense of self and building trust, honesty, and forgiveness into the relationship. Realizing my spouse doesn’t exist to fix me, nor am I here to fix her. Attempts to do so undermine trust, safety, and intimacy. The chapter ends with a brief word about boundaries, a term which was just coming en vogue when the book was written. “As I understand self, I understand more about what kind of boundaries are important to me. Anger is felt when boundaries are crossed.” Establishing boundaries can be difficult in a marriage, but are healthy and necessary, we should be growing closer but also growing more unique. “The ability to say no in gentle ways is intimate. Christ desires us to become one, but He never said become enmeshed” (p. 33).
The authors then identify barriers to intimacy, such as inability to acknowledge and affirm differences, and expressing emotions in inappropriate ways. “Differences become barriers when we become critical of each other and how we are different” (p. 38). Relationships become toxic when one partner seeks validation from the other and feels threatened when they don’t receive it. This is not what marriage should be among two Christians for whom there is now no condemnation in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1). “The center cannot be whether our spouse loves us like we want, or whether we are getting our needs met. We are motivated to change when we understand that each day is a new day to walk with Christ and to please Him with our heart, our words, our actions, and who we are in general” (p. 45).
The next chapters emphasize the importance of understanding emotions as they relate to intimacy. We all struggle understanding some emotions we feel and why we feel them. Our emotional frustrations too easily can spin up into anger, which is harmful if the anger is expressed in the wrong way. “The people to whom we give the most time and energy, in whom we invest the greatest amount of love and other emotions, are the ones we have the highest expectations of and are the ones with the greatest potential to trigger painful emotions such as fear, hurt, frustration, and eventually anger…The long-term success of a relationship and the depth of intimacy a couple will experience depend on their willingness to find healthy ways for expressing and dealing with each other’s emotions, and that includes the emotion of anger” (p. 63-64). We need to recognize that every emotion has its place, that our spouses feel emotions differently than we do, and that there are healthy and unhealthy ways to express our emotions that take a lifetime to practice and improve upon.
The authors confront myths about anger, such as that it’s sinful or negative, in and of itself. God shows his righteous anger in scripture. Jesus repeatedly got angry. It is something that is a characteristic of God, so it’s a gift to be used and not to be feared. But many of us fear anger because we see it as a gateway to the Dark Side (to borrow from Star Wars) and not as a signpost that points us to deeper, more important things. It’s good to compare which myths you and your partner have bought into and how you both see anger. One tip I found handy was to keep an anger log, to write down the items that make me angry in order to think about them. Sometimes putting things down on paper make me less angry, it helps me fully understand what I’m feeling and forgive or let things go without needing to bring it up.
The remainder of the book provides some strategies and examples of navigating marital conflict. Behind every marital conflict is an unmet expectation. There’s a step-by-step “How to Make Anger Work for You” which is helpful, with one step being that you acknowledge there are some things you’re not going to be able to change or control. There are tips on prioritizing the conflicts that may be “high ticket” items that will require a deep conversation with your spouse, and those “low ticket” items that aren’t as big a deal. More real-life examples could have been useful in the book, and the most useful ones came from the authors themselves. The goal is to have healthy conflict that leads to greater intimacy. Chapter 10 is literally “7 Simple Steps Through Conflict to Intimacy.” Things are simple on paper but will take work to remember and put into practice. From Page 170:
Step 1: Define the issue. Pray, listen, and seek understanding.
Ask: Whose issue is it? What kind of issue is it? Is there more than one issue involved? What is my spouse’s core concern? What is my core concern? (ie: What do I want?)
Step 2: How important is it? Is it a high-ticket or a low-ticket item?
Step 3: Ask yourself, ‘‘What is my contribution to the problem?’’
Step 4: Do I need to apologize or ask for forgiveness?
Step 5: Choose radical responsibility.
Step 6: Choose what you both can do differently.
Step 7: Pray about it, do it, and review it!
In all, I give this book four stars out of five. It felt a bit dense as my wife and I were reading through it together, carving out time before bedtime after long days. But I have not seen a better book on this subject with practical steps.
I read this book with my wife, and we both found it helpful to explore our relationship with anger, namely how our upbringings gave us an incomplete view. The book provides some helpful practices and communication exercises to work conflicts and frustrations in your marriage relationship. The chapters aren’t all organized into short, bullet-point lists that would make it an easier read, some chapters are a bit too long. It’s bittersweet once one learns from the About the Authors section that Carrie Oliver passed away either while the book was being written or shortly thereafter. This probably explains some of the difficulty in editing the book but also adds gravity to the chapters as you realize your time with your spouse may be shorter than imagined.
The book begins by exhorting the couples reading the book to appreciate one another’s differences and recognize that the purpose of marriage is to make us more holy, more like Christ. “We don’t wake up in the morning saying to ourselves, ‘‘Today I will be Christ to my spouse.’ But we are very aware of how our spouse is not being Christ to us” (p. 22). We need to look in the mirror and realize that while our spouse disappoints us, we’re also disappointing them, and we need to take ownership of it.
The second chapter is on intimacy, seeing your spouse and being seen by her. It’s about having a healthy sense of self and building trust, honesty, and forgiveness into the relationship. Realizing my spouse doesn’t exist to fix me, nor am I here to fix her. Attempts to do so undermine trust, safety, and intimacy. The chapter ends with a brief word about boundaries, a term which was just coming en vogue when the book was written. “As I understand self, I understand more about what kind of boundaries are important to me. Anger is felt when boundaries are crossed.” Establishing boundaries can be difficult in a marriage, but are healthy and necessary, we should be growing closer but also growing more unique. “The ability to say no in gentle ways is intimate. Christ desires us to become one, but He never said become enmeshed” (p. 33).
The authors then identify barriers to intimacy, such as inability to acknowledge and affirm differences, and expressing emotions in inappropriate ways. “Differences become barriers when we become critical of each other and how we are different” (p. 38). Relationships become toxic when one partner seeks validation from the other and feels threatened when they don’t receive it. This is not what marriage should be among two Christians for whom there is now no condemnation in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1). “The center cannot be whether our spouse loves us like we want, or whether we are getting our needs met. We are motivated to change when we understand that each day is a new day to walk with Christ and to please Him with our heart, our words, our actions, and who we are in general” (p. 45).
The next chapters emphasize the importance of understanding emotions as they relate to intimacy. We all struggle understanding some emotions we feel and why we feel them. Our emotional frustrations too easily can spin up into anger, which is harmful if the anger is expressed in the wrong way. “The people to whom we give the most time and energy, in whom we invest the greatest amount of love and other emotions, are the ones we have the highest expectations of and are the ones with the greatest potential to trigger painful emotions such as fear, hurt, frustration, and eventually anger…The long-term success of a relationship and the depth of intimacy a couple will experience depend on their willingness to find healthy ways for expressing and dealing with each other’s emotions, and that includes the emotion of anger” (p. 63-64). We need to recognize that every emotion has its place, that our spouses feel emotions differently than we do, and that there are healthy and unhealthy ways to express our emotions that take a lifetime to practice and improve upon.
The authors confront myths about anger, such as that it’s sinful or negative, in and of itself. God shows his righteous anger in scripture. Jesus repeatedly got angry. It is something that is a characteristic of God, so it’s a gift to be used and not to be feared. But many of us fear anger because we see it as a gateway to the Dark Side (to borrow from Star Wars) and not as a signpost that points us to deeper, more important things. It’s good to compare which myths you and your partner have bought into and how you both see anger. One tip I found handy was to keep an anger log, to write down the items that make me angry in order to think about them. Sometimes putting things down on paper make me less angry, it helps me fully understand what I’m feeling and forgive or let things go without needing to bring it up.
The remainder of the book provides some strategies and examples of navigating marital conflict. Behind every marital conflict is an unmet expectation. There’s a step-by-step “How to Make Anger Work for You” which is helpful, with one step being that you acknowledge there are some things you’re not going to be able to change or control. There are tips on prioritizing the conflicts that may be “high ticket” items that will require a deep conversation with your spouse, and those “low ticket” items that aren’t as big a deal. More real-life examples could have been useful in the book, and the most useful ones came from the authors themselves. The goal is to have healthy conflict that leads to greater intimacy. Chapter 10 is literally “7 Simple Steps Through Conflict to Intimacy.” Things are simple on paper but will take work to remember and put into practice. From Page 170:
Step 1: Define the issue. Pray, listen, and seek understanding.
Ask: Whose issue is it? What kind of issue is it? Is there more than one issue involved? What is my spouse’s core concern? What is my core concern? (ie: What do I want?)
Step 2: How important is it? Is it a high-ticket or a low-ticket item?
Step 3: Ask yourself, ‘‘What is my contribution to the problem?’’
Step 4: Do I need to apologize or ask for forgiveness?
Step 5: Choose radical responsibility.
Step 6: Choose what you both can do differently.
Step 7: Pray about it, do it, and review it!
In all, I give this book four stars out of five. It felt a bit dense as my wife and I were reading through it together, carving out time before bedtime after long days. But I have not seen a better book on this subject with practical steps.
October 24, 2024
I found this book at an AirBnB several months ago and am now just getting back to it once I saw it exists on the Hoopla app (which I rarely use). Lots of good advice. Good things to ponder and apply in daily lives. Heavily laced and dependent on Christian teachings and Bible references. I consider this book a worthwhile read.
Read
May 15, 2022Can't read
August 11, 2008
I found this on the bargain shelf at the local "Christian" bookstore. I try to look ahead for possible people I may see in a counseling setting, and I know marriage is always an issue. I also know how important it is for me personally in my marriage.
The authors also discuss anger in a general sense, and I learned a lot about anger management (another important topic)
Some of the quotes I recorded in my quote book:
"Dr. John Gottman found that the number one predictor of a couple on the road of divorce was whether they thought negatively or positively toward each other."
"Developing the skill of seeing the world through your partner's eyes, while holding on to your own perspective, may be the single most important skill in intimate relationships."
"Research tells us that happily married couples disagree and argue almost as much as unhappily married couples. The difference is whether they express their anger in a healthy or unhealthy way."
"Relationship that can't acknowledge or express appropriate anger are usually fragile, unstable, and anemic."
"Delay is the greatest remedy for anger."
The authors also discuss anger in a general sense, and I learned a lot about anger management (another important topic)
Some of the quotes I recorded in my quote book:
"Dr. John Gottman found that the number one predictor of a couple on the road of divorce was whether they thought negatively or positively toward each other."
"Developing the skill of seeing the world through your partner's eyes, while holding on to your own perspective, may be the single most important skill in intimate relationships."
"Research tells us that happily married couples disagree and argue almost as much as unhappily married couples. The difference is whether they express their anger in a healthy or unhealthy way."
"Relationship that can't acknowledge or express appropriate anger are usually fragile, unstable, and anemic."
"Delay is the greatest remedy for anger."
October 12, 2010
Every married couple needs to read this book! Every engaged couple should read this book! The authors help you understand your differences in a positive light. As you read this book you may find examples that remind you of a recent argument with your loved one. There are many examples and these are discussed in an open and caring manner.
Both men and women will enjoy the steps to help with anger. Is it true that spiritual people don’t get angry or is that a myth? In the chapter titled The Myths of Anger you will find that answer and the answers for seven other questions about anger.
The best chapter is about forgiveness. You will understand the importance of forgiving yourself as well as your spouse. This forgiveness leads to a marriage with less anger and frustration.
The book ends with seven simple steps to get through any conflict and back to that special marriage intimacy. Praying about it and deciding how important is this subject we are fighting about, are just two of these helpful steps. The authors have done an excellent job of helping you find a way through conflict into intimacy again, no matter what the fight is about.
I was given this book by christianreviewofbooks.com to review
Both men and women will enjoy the steps to help with anger. Is it true that spiritual people don’t get angry or is that a myth? In the chapter titled The Myths of Anger you will find that answer and the answers for seven other questions about anger.
The best chapter is about forgiveness. You will understand the importance of forgiving yourself as well as your spouse. This forgiveness leads to a marriage with less anger and frustration.
The book ends with seven simple steps to get through any conflict and back to that special marriage intimacy. Praying about it and deciding how important is this subject we are fighting about, are just two of these helpful steps. The authors have done an excellent job of helping you find a way through conflict into intimacy again, no matter what the fight is about.
I was given this book by christianreviewofbooks.com to review
November 17, 2013
This is a really good book. Probably 4.5 stars for me. It's a fresh perspective on anger & how to make it work for you rather than against you in marriage. This book is highly practical. There are several really good exercises that are worth trying out.
Whether you think anger is a significant emotion in your marriage or not, this is worth reading bc it will show you some aspects of anger you probably didn't consider were there. It will also help you better understand your spouse.
Whether you think anger is a significant emotion in your marriage or not, this is worth reading bc it will show you some aspects of anger you probably didn't consider were there. It will also help you better understand your spouse.
October 8, 2012
I purchased this book after meeting the author Gary Oliver at the 2012 ICCA conference on Branson Mo.
The author is an extremely humble, likable and intelligent man who truly loves serving the Lord and people through his counseling, writing, and teaching. This is a must read for anyone that is counseling or coaching couples. Lindon
The author is an extremely humble, likable and intelligent man who truly loves serving the Lord and people through his counseling, writing, and teaching. This is a must read for anyone that is counseling or coaching couples. Lindon
August 22, 2014
Maybe it's a cultural thing, and the book doesn't translate well into my experience as a Pastor in Australia - but I found that this book seemed to trivialise things and I often felt like I was being insulted for being too much of a "cream puff" (author's words).
Whilst it does make many good points, I'm not sure how helpful it would be too hurting people.
Whilst it does make many good points, I'm not sure how helpful it would be too hurting people.
March 9, 2015
I found the descriptions of different anger responses interesting and helpful.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews