“The 4 Steps to a Successful Marriage,” by Sam and Terry Krause, $12.95
What makes a successful marriage? There are probably as many answers to that question as there are successful marriages. One couple, Sam and Terry Krause, believe they have the answers, so they wrote a book called “The 4 Steps to a Successful Marriage.”
The four steps come at the end of the book, but don’t try to skip ahead. They won’t make much sense unless you read the whole book, which isn’t asking too much; it is comprised of 112 pages. In the introduction, the authors say they purposely made the book short and concise so people could read it again and again.
The Krauses have been married almost 30 years. Terry Krause said people have frequently remarked that they have never seen a couple together as much as the two of them, so they must have a really happy marriage.
“We would say we have a successful marriage — not always happy. But we have the ability to return to that original purpose we agreed upon when we got married; that original commitment,” she said in a phone interview from New Jersey. “We thought we could write a really effective and compelling marriage book.”
Terry Krause is a Kansas City native where she was a member of the SYO youth groups at Kehilath Israel Synagogue. Her parents are Lillian Greenberg and the late Allan Greenberg.
“My dad certainly needs no introduction to the Kansas City Jewish community,” she said. “He was the youth group director for the local NCSY chapter at Kehilath Israel — in fact, the K.I. youth lounge was named for him. He was an advocate for all of us public school children who needed our finals to be rescheduled so they would not conflict with the Jewish holidays. My mom — the powerful woman behind the great man — lives at Village Shalom.”
She says she still has tons of relatives in Kansas City. Krause graduated from Southwest High School, then left for college. She came back for summers, but never really lived here again. She attended the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, then moved to New York where she worked for many different designers, such as Diane von Furstenberg and John Weitz.
Sam Krause was born in Israel, but has been a New Yorker since age 9. He is a sought-after public speaker, who Terry Krause says can regale a crowd for a hours with stories about his marriage, his previous jobs as a cab driver and standup comic, as well as surviving the past eight years as a heart transplant recipient.
The Krauses are Orthodox Jews who believe spirituality is a big part of a successful marriage. There are lots of references to Jewish law and kabbalah in their book, and the Lubavitch Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, is quoted throughout.
But Terry Krause said that should not deter non-Jews from reading it. She says the quotes are no different than quoting, say, Ralph Waldo Emerson.
“It’s just something a little more theological, but there’s nothing esoteric about the quotations. My dentist, who’s Greek Orthodox, bought 10 copies. There’s nothing specific to Jewish readers,” she said.
Krause said she does believe two people getting married should be of the same religion, regardless of what that religion is.
“When you’re the same religion, you have a ground of being that’s agreed upon. I think that’s really, really important.”
One of the points the Krauses make is that there is both content and context in a marriage. Content refers to things like paying the bills, raising the kids, finding a house in a good neighborhood with good schools, etc. These are all part of the larger context that has to be created by the couple.
“The metaphor we use in the book is that it’s like a fruit bowl that has to hold the fruit,” Terry Krause said. “The fruit may change or someone eats it or it rots and you throw it away, but the bowl is always there. So the bowl would be the context.”
There’s also commitment — the couple must be committed to making the marriage work. Krause said it’s like the Greek armies who crossed a bridge to fight their enemies, then actually burned the bridge behind them so they could not retreat. There was no alternative but to stay and fight.
Perhaps the most difficult concept to grasp is re-creation, which happens during a conversation. It’s more than just listening and trying to understand.
“It really is about re-creating not just the words he’s saying but the body language he’s expressing and the kind of physical presentation and all the thoughts and the attitudes and the points of view and the opinions that are contained within his words, really using all that entire set of properties to literally re-create the thing that your spouse is saying,” Terry Krause said.
And during this re-creation exercise, there’s absolutely no interrupting.
No easy task! But it seems to be working. Krause said the response to their book has been great. Her husband has received 10 speaking engagements as a direct result of the book and they’ve had numerous book signings.
The book is available on the Krauses’ website, www.thefoursteps.org, amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com.
The Krauses reside in Northern New Jersey. They have six children and three grandchildren.