Mindful of Him

To be perfectly honest, within the first few chapters of this book I was completely disgusted with it.
I don't know if the author was just going with the frame of mind from the times (1950's) or what was behind the thoughts of those first few chapters, but when there were lines like "there were times in my past I sure thought of belting Eileen a couple of good ones. Might have done our relationship a lot of good if I had" or "I know she must have been hard to live with lately. And not many people ever have a run of misfortune like you've already had this year. Even if you did pop her one, I can see why; after all she did slap you."
At this point of the book, had I not received it in order to review I would have put it down. As it was, I did continue on in the book and while the book did get better, I failed to see a change in the attitude towards the "spousal abuse" aspect of the book.
I find it hard to wrap my mind around the idea that a Christian book would try to play abuse off as deserved or understandable.
I"m aware in the story that chances are the main character Rob didn't hit, but "merely" pushed his wife (I say "merely" sarcastically because any abuse, regardless of how "Small" it seems to be is completely and totally wrong and inexcusable. Her abuse of him, inexcusable, and his abuse of her is also.) but I struggle to move past the part where the characters in the story are continually trying to excuse it away, or worse insinuating that abuse would have made their relationship better.
Really the one redeeming quality of the book that I could point out was the level of remorse that the main character Rob felt afterwards. At the very least he didn't try to excuse his behavior or justify it, and that can be seen as a bit commendable.
In all, I cannot with a good conscience recommend this book, I find the ideas regarding abuse in it appalling and the defense towards abuse inexcusable. I rarely give out a negative review on a book, and I struggled to do so this time as well. However I can't recommend or "Get behind" a book such as this.