The Dear Wife (More Than a Wife #3) by Jennifer Peel

E-Reader Addict Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Wow.

Just…

Wow.  This is the most powerful and poignant story I’ve read in the longest time. It is completely gut wrenching. The subject matter was uncomfortable and potentially controversial, and watching this couple’s marriage fall apart was awful.

But, it is also the best story of true love I’ve read in ages. One that made me think and really ponder. I finished The Dear Wife over a week ago, and I’m STILL thinking about it. So much so, I had a hard time getting into another book. I really liked the first book in Ms. Peel’s More Than a Wife series – The Sidelined Wife, and loved the second one – The Secretive Wife, but my head and my heart remain with this story.

James and Avery Decker have been married for over twenty years and have the kind of marriage everyone envies. They even appear to have weathered the devastating loss of their young daughter four years ago. Appear being the operative word.

Lately, though, everyone in the Decker family has noticed things are “off” between the couple they admire, but no one knows what is going on. Avery continues to put on a happy face, and James is just grumpy.

After a long year of mounting issues, Avery has reached the end of her rope. When she discovers her husband is flirting with crossing the line of infidelity – in addition to having a pornography addiction he doesn’t think is a problem, she realizes she deserves better and tells James things are over.

Watching Avery come to this conclusion was gut wrenching.

Watching her deal with the fallout of her decision to demand better for herself, tore my heart apart.

But watching her put on her big girl panties and make plans to do what was best for herself and her sons – and even James – made me cheer her on. With the support of her two sisters-in-law, she was able to keep her head above water and just keep swimming.

This story is overwhelmingly real. It’s rare that a 20 year marriage doesn’t face a crisis or two, and every action is going to cause a reaction – some healthy, some destructive. Losing a child has got to be the most difficult thing a marriage can experience, and it’s just a fact that two people are going to cope differently. What one person thinks is helping may really not, and the other person may think their way to cope doesn’t affect the other. Before you know it, things have strayed so far from where you were that you don’t know if you’ll ever get back what you once had… As much as I hated James for the choices he made, I could understand how he got to where he was that caused his marriage to implode.

But really, this is Avery’s story of how she found the courage to demand better for her marriage, and for herself. She really didn’t want to call it quits, but when faced with a husband who wasn’t willing to admit his problems, she had no choice. I loved how her two sisters-in-law, Samantha (who is actually James’s sister) and Delanie (who is married to James’s brother, Peter), played the good cop/bad cop roles in facing James and how to deal with him. We all need one friend to talk us off the ledge, and the other by our side ready to help us push the offending party off the cliff! It was so wonderful to see the whole Decker family support Avery’s decision to end her marriage if that was what needed to happen.

Thankfully, James pulled his head out of his ass before he completely lost his family. He had some serious demons to fight and it was hard watching him battle. What made this a true story of redemption was his sincere remorse for hurting his wife and family, and his desire to repair the damage he caused. So often in books we have a man who behaves poorly and all he gives is a half-hearted “I was a jerk” and everything is forgiven. Not here! I loved how this story showed all the feelings, all the emotions, all the hurt, all the anger. Nothing was swept under the rug. But then the couple was willing to do the hard work – yes, both of them (because with most marital problems there’s usually at least some culpability on both parties), and they fought for their relationship and healing. Yes, it was ugly. Yes, it was hard to read. But it was the most beautiful story of love and forgiveness I’ve read in forever.

Besides being a fantastic story about a troubled marriage that finds healing, I’m impressed by this book on two counts. First, The Dear Wife has some very religious aspects (as you might expect from a family with a son who was a priest at one time), showing how faith is important and can help you through your darkest hours. Often times, a faith message is thrown into a story and its presence feels out of place and preachy, or is used to prosthelytize, but that was not the case here. These characters struggled with their faith in very real ways and this was perhaps the most realistic portrayal of people of faith in a book that isn’t specifically labeled as “inspirational” romance. I feel it was done so well that even if someone is opposed to religious themes in a book, they wouldn’t feel offended or put off with it here. And that is quite the feat.

Secondly – and I’m still blown away by this – Ms. Peel decided to write a book about pornography addiction, which goes so far out on the limb of “acceptable” romance topics, which is remarkable all on its own. However, in her author’s notes she tells how she knew she couldn’t have readers pulling for this couple unless we’re already engaged in their story, which would be hard to do in one book. So she wrote TWO OTHER BOOKS first, with this story as the end goal. Which okay, maybe other authors have done that. But you can tell when one story is just a means to another. That couldn’t be further from the case here. The Sidelined Wife and The Secretive Wife were great stories on their own. To have written two great books, in the process of getting to the main story you want to write, completely blows me away. I am in awe of Jennifer Peel’s storytelling abilities. Clearly the woman’s got skillz!

It’s been a long time since I’ve read a book that I could hardly put down. And because of Jennifer Peel I’ve just read two in a row. The Dear Wife is unbelievably touching, compelling, and totally heart wrenching. It’s also an amazing story of true love. The Dear Wife touched my heart deeply and I have a feeling it will be a long time before James and Avery’s story lets go.