# Books: MMSL vs. SOHMM



## Bottled Up (Nov 12, 2011)

MMSL = _Married Men Sex Life_
SOHMM = _Secrets of Happily Married Men: Eight Ways to Win Your Wife's Heart Forever _

Has anyone read both books? Any insight into how these books compare to each other in their approaches, and if one is seemingly more or less effective than the other? Etc...


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## agentem (Oct 13, 2011)

I read SOHMM first, it's not bad, but MMSL is blunt and it's what changed me and my marriage. 
Read both if you can, but if you've only got the time or the money for one, get MMSL.


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## tacoma (May 1, 2011)

I`ve read MMSL and agree with it's concepts for the most part.

I`ve never read SOHMM, what`s it`s angle?


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## agentem (Oct 13, 2011)

It's by a therapist. He's definitely more male-friendly than some of the others I read, but it really didn't wake me up as much as MMSL.

SOHMM focuses on "Having a great marriage" vs. "Getting laid a lot". Where for me, "Having a great marriage" = "Getting laid a lot".

MMSL just told me pretty matter-of-factly that that I wasn't getting the sex I wanted because I had let myself go physically and had passed a lot of household authority to the wife, who didn't really want it. I fixed that stuff and the sex started to get better, so the marriage got better too.


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## Entropy3000 (May 11, 2011)

stritle said:


> what if the sex life is fine? MMSL still worth reading?


YES.

I think it is essential reading.


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## agentem (Oct 13, 2011)

I envy you and your fine sex life.

The author of SOHMM is a counselor. It's written for people who may be in a rough patch. 

I actually think that the version for wives was more helpful to our marriage than the version for husbands. I got my wife to read both MMSL and the Secrets of Happily Married Wives (SOHMW) and it really helped with what sort of expectations each spouse should have in a marriage. She realized that even though I wasn't doing dishes and folding laundry like the feminists say I'm supposed to I was mowing lawn and fixing stuff around the house, along with all of the other things I keep busy doing to keep the family in order.

So in sum, MMSL > SOHMM for me, SOHMW > MMSL for her.


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## ocotillo (Oct 17, 2011)

stritle said:


> what if the sex life is fine? MMSL still worth reading?


Yes.

I've go zero complaints and read it out of curiosity.


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## DanF (Sep 27, 2010)

stritle said:


> what if the sex life is fine? MMSL still worth reading?


MMSL, if followed will make your wife happier. If your wife is happier and more in love with you, the sex will only get better.

So, is your sex life "good enough", "good", "great", or "Oh My God, I Can't Feel My Legs" terrific?

As I posted in another thread, I have done a lot of what MMSL tells us to do, but I had to figure it out on my own. Now that I have a reference, I have used Athol's ideas more and more.
Usually, when the wife and I are finished making love, I have a hard time moving...


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## Bottled Up (Nov 12, 2011)

Crazy to see my thread only gain traction an entire month after posting it!

I ended up reading both books since I posted this, then read a third one on the 5 Love Languages ("T5LL" since we're abbreviating the others here ).

Ironically, it seems to me that SOHMM is written in a more "beta style" approach to relationship issues by informing men how to better understand, and therefore communicate/connect with their spouses as women. Whereas MMSL feels like a more "alpha-style" writing approach to getting better sex in marriage, albeit by also by making sure you're meeting your woman's needs.

What I liked in SOHMM is the incredible detail given for explaining the physical, biological differences in men and women's brains, which therefore lends credence as to explaining why we are so different from each other and why many relationships falter from a lack of communication. The way our brains process information is quite different in many ways, and it opens your eyes to understanding the importance of recognizing this as you communicate with your wife.

What I liked in MMSL is how it nailed the issue of sex so precisely. Because men feel closer bonding to their wives through physical intimacy, but women need emotional stimulation to _want_ intimacy, it gave me an incredible awareness that it was my job to make sure I was meeting my wife's needs to ensure I was getting more sex by "keeping her head in the relationship" so to speak. I was already a good man to my wife, but MMSL started teaching me to be the best man I could be. A true man. Lots of beta support but still making sure I am forwardly alpha on my wife at times too.

However, the icing on the cake for everything was when I followed up with The 5 Love Languages book. Because both SOHMM and MMSL are written very much in a cover-all style approach to gender differences, T5LL is all about figuring out who your spouse is as an individual. And since we are all very different and unique beings, figuring out answers to our relationship issues really all comes down to figuring out what works for the two individuals within the relationship. So T5LL was by far the most practical book in terms of applying everything I'm learning from the other 2 books now that I've figured out my spouse's own individual love language needs.

I would actually even recommend reading these 3 books in this exact order, because I feel like the knowledge within each works well with each other when revealed at consecutive stages. SOHMM is the logical, understanding soft approach. MMSL then makes you grow some balls but with understanding of what you just discovered in SOHMM, and T5LL brings it all together in the end teaching you how to figure out your spouse's individual needs as well as your own individual needs.


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