Marriage Development

Open Monogamy is Dr. Nelson's guidebook for couples who wish to explore new directions in their relationships - to bring in excitement, variety, and fresh experiences without sacrificing trust, security, and respect. In this practical, skill-based book, she helps you find your place on the "monogamy continuum"; have honest conversations about attraction and desire; remove shame and suspicion from an open relationship; and create agreements - traditional or otherwise - that are fulfilling, exhilarating, and built for enduring love.

One night during his divorce, after one too many vodkas and a call with a phone-in-therapist who told him to “journal his feelings,” Matthew Fray started a blog. He needed to figure out how his ex-wife went from the eighteen-year-old college freshman who adored him to the angry woman who thought he was an asshole and left him. As he pieced together the story of his marriage and its end, Matthew began to realize a hard truth: even though he was a decent guy, he was a bad husband.

Pastor Mark Driscoll and his wife, Grace, talk about sex and marriage in down-to-earth terms, hitting issues other Christian books won't. While a wonderful wedding day is important, it's the last day of marriage that really counts. Will the last day of your marriage come prematurely through divorce? Will it be filled with regrets as you sit at the funeral of your spouse? Or, by God's grace, will the last day be a time to rejoice in the life you lived together?

Over time, the business of life creeps in and even the most deeply committed couples can feel like they're living parallel lives rather than enjoying life together. Their once happily-ever-after can quickly turn into an endless grind of work, chores, errands, and carpool. And the pull of social media becomes more compelling than engaging with one's spouse. In this book, Dr. Greg and Erin Smalley offer practical ways to rekindle the passionate, intimate, heart-to-heart spark of connection between husbands and wives.

Men are right. The "relationship talk" does not help. Dr. Patricia Love’s and Dr. Steven Stosny’s How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It reveals the stunning truth about marital happiness: Love is not about better communication. It's about connection.

While observing exotic animal trainers for her acclaimed book Kicked, Bitten, and Scratched, journalist Amy Sutherland had an epiphany: What if she used these training techniques with the human animals in her own life?

Marriage is all about sharing: sharing space, sharing joys and sorrows, sharing hopes and dreams. Yet we often hold back a part of ourselves because we fear that being wholly transparent - about our past, our desires, our failures, our faults - will bring judgment, rejection, or even just unwanted friction to our relationship. We are afraid to be fully known. As a result, we never experience being fully loved. In this paradigm-shifting book, Ryan and Selena Frederick show you how to develop a see-through marriage, one that is marked by full transparency and confident vulnerability.

One person talks; the other listens. It's so basic that we take it for granted. Unfortunately, most of us think of ourselves as better listeners than we actually are. Why do we so often fail to connect when speaking with family members, romantic partners, colleagues, or friends? How do emotional reactions get in the way of real communication? This thoughtful, witty, and empathic book has already helped over 100,000 people break through conflicts and transform their personal and professional relationships.

In prospective, long-term research with over 700 couples, Gottman has discovered certain factors that distinguish happy, stable couples from both unstable, ultimately divorcing couples and stable but unhappy couples. These findings, which are explained here in understandable, nontechnical language, form the basis of his Sound Marital House theory of marriage, which guides the new therapy. This therapy has two goals: changing the marital friendship and teaching couples to regulate conflict.

You can't put it into words, but something is happening to you. Your stomach churns, your heart aches, and the tension in your marriage is making you feel weary and a little crazy. The constant criticism, disrespect, cruelty, deceit, and gross indifference are eroding your confidence and breaking your spirit. For any woman caught in an emotionally destructive marriage, Leslie Vernick offers a personalized path forward.

As founders of a multicampus church and marriage coaches with 30 years of experience, Dave and Ann share the hard-earned but easy-to-apply biblical principles that ensure a strong marriage. Written in a funny and highly relatable dialogue between both husband and wife, Vertical Marriage will guide you toward building a vibrant relationship at every level including communication, conflict, intimacy, and romance - though Dave is still figuring that last one out.

Author Amy Harper knows exactly what it feels like to struggle with anxiety and be in a relationship that reflects your inner self-consciousness. You don’t mean to do it, but you project your doubts onto your partner, causing distrust and negative emotions to build in your relationship. This book is here to help you overcome your anxious attachment style and reclaim your confidence. Establish healthier relationships, find happiness within yourself, and let go of your anxiety.

Couples can get beyond their old marriage and its destructive habits and build a brand-new one with the same spouse. And they can do it in just 90 days, even if only one spouse is committed to change. Thousands of couples in marriages that are on the brink of divorce will never enter a therapist's office. For more than 20 years, David Clarke has seen marriages turn around in just three months. In I Don't Want a Divorce, he takes his practical plan and presents it using wit, Scripture, and personal stories to help couples turn difficult marriages into great ones.

Licensed counselor and relationship expert, Debra Fileta, walks you through eight significant choices involved in taking marriage from hard to great. Throughout each chapter, Debra shares astonishing survey results from thousands of singles and married couples, revealing intimate details about things like love, sex, conflict, communication, and attraction. From her experience as a professional counselor and wife, Debra believes that a beautiful exchange occurs when spouses learn what it means to choose we before me.

When Ron and Nan Deal suffered the devastating loss of their child, their marriage was nearly shattered by their destructive cycles. At wits' end, they sought the help of pioneering therapists Dr. Terry Hargrave and Sharon Hargrave, LMFT, whose transformational Restoration Therapy has helped millions through the practice of emotional mindfulness. Now, the Deals and Hargraves introduce listeners to this proven method that challenges popular beliefs about how relationships work.

When it comes to adultery, never say, "It won't happen to me." Just when you think your marriage is safe from adultery is when you may be the most vulnerable. With eye-opening stories, clinical insights, and up-to-date data, Dave Carder reveals what adulterers learned the hard way - and what they want the rest of us to know to save us the pain.

Lasting marriages are built one defining moment at a time. Ultimately, these are invitations from God to consider our direction and pursue transformation. With 37 years of marriage and thirty-three years of pastoring under his belt, Dave Harvey has identified those life-defining moments of a post-newlywed marriage. He wants to help couples recognize them in their own relationships so that they can take a proactive, godly approach to resolving conflicts, holding one another up as change inevitably happens, and ensuring that their marriage survives and thrives.

Until now, we've been taught that forgiveness is good for us and that good people forgive. Dr. Janis Abrahms Spring proposes a radical, life-affirming alternative that lets us overcome the corrosive effects of hate and get on with our lives—without forgiving. She also offers a powerful and unconventional model for earning genuine forgiveness—one that asks as much of the offender as it does of the hurt party.

Do you find it difficult communicating with your spouse? Are you tired of arguing and fighting with your spouse whenever you try to communicate? Is your spouse not talking to you anymore? You are not alone. Many couples (including us) have had to deal with these communication problems at some point in marriage, and it's not fun! But don't worry. No matter what communication problems you struggle with, you can learn how to communicate effectively with your spouse today.

Marriage is beautiful. It’s meant to be a picture of Jesus and his love for the church. But it’s tough to live up to that. Every relationship comes with challenges. Whether you’re in your first or 51st year, you can grow in your marriage.