With the divorce rate soaring at a dizzying 60 percent, young couples and experienced partners may lack the skills and understanding to sustain a committed relationship. Linda and Charlie Bloom present 101 nuggets of wisdom that deliver practical guidance and make it clear that regardless of past experience anyone can develop the basic strengths, skills, and capacities needed for a great relationship. Each lesson is presented as a simple, one-sentence thought followed by an explanation using real-life examples. This book demonstrates how couples can enrich their own relationships by working through love's challenges.

OVER 500,000 COPIES SOLD! “Most people spend far more time in preparation for their vocation than they do in preparation for marriage.” With more than 45 years of experience counseling couples, Gary has found that most marriages suffer due to a lack of preparation and a failure to learn to work together as intimate teammates. So he put together this practical little book, packed with wisdom and tips that will help many develop the loving, supportive, and mutually beneficial marriage they envision, such as: What the adequate foundation for a successful marriage truly is What to expect about the roles and influence of extended family How to solve disagreements without arguing How to talk through issues like money, sex, chores, and more Why couples must learn how to apologize and forgive Ideal for newly married couples and those considering marriage, the material lends itself to heart-felt, revealing, and critical conversations for relational success. Read this bookand you’ll be prepared for—not surprised by—the challenges of marriage. - Bonus features include: Book suggestions and an interactive websites to enhance the couples’ experience “Talking it Over” questions and suggestions to jumpstart conversations over each chapter Appendix on healthy dating relationships and an accompanying learning exercise

Therapists Charlie and Linda Bloom have been married more than thirty-five years. Over a two-year period, they interviewed twenty-seven couples who had been together for an average of thirty years and seemed as happy as newlyweds. Were they just lucky? The Blooms found that these couples had faced real challenges - difficulties with children and stepchildren, war wounds, infidelity, and financial ruin. They also found that with loving dialogue and open hearts, the couples had found ways to heal, grow, and deepen their commitment through, and not despite, their challenges. The Blooms distill this real-world wisdom into practical, positive actions any couple can take to achieve or regain not just a good marriage but a great one.

The Perfect Remedy for Cold Feet! More than half of all couples who become engaged this year will never make it to the altar. Why? Leading experts believe it's because couples fail to really get to know their potential mate before getting engaged. Relationship expert and noted couples counselor Norm Wright steers potential brides and grooms through a series of soul-searching questions to discern if they've really met "the One." Couples will be much more confident about whether or not to pursue marriage after completing these in-depth and personal questions. Norm also addresses the delicate subject of calling off the wedding if readers discover that a potential mate isn't actually meant to be a life partner.

The relationship expert from the Ladies' Home Journal, the Wall Street Journal, and Lifetime Television shows how to prevent marriage problems before they start There's nothing wrong with starter jobs and starter homes, but starter marriages? Relationship expert Monica Mendez Leahy is on a mission to help readers make their marriage last. Her 1,001 Questions to Ask Before You Get Married offers a reality check for couples on the marriage path, helping them realize how much they have yet to discover about their partner's nature, thought processes, lifestyle, and marital expectations. Engaged couples learn to discuss issues deeper than "chicken or fish" and to broach subjects that are often ignored before the nuptials yet essential for the foundation of an intimate, long-lasting relationship. Posed in a variety of fun formats, including multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank, and hypotheticals, these questions include topics such as: "Does your partner feel that you're too attached to your parents?" "Is there such a thing as innocent flirting?" "Is it OK to cheat on your taxes?" And more

In the long-awaited follow-up to her groundbreaking, million-copy bestseller The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands, Dr. Laura now focuses on how men and women need to understand and appreciate the uniqueness of masculinity and femininity; what the best ways to relate, caretake, and nurture each other are; and how to bring a marriage back from the brink of disaster. Dr. Laura asserts that in order to produce and sustain a wonderfully satisfying marriage, spouses must recognize and appreciate the polarity between the masculine and the feminine. Both husband and wife have power in the relationship, and each needs to realize this in order to ensure personal satisfaction. Using real-life examples from her call-in radio show, and giving real-life solutions, Dr. Laura focuses on the typical mistakes made by men and women in their relationships and shows how marriages can not only survive but thrive.

Simple Lessons To Make Love Last "This is an exceptional and outstanding book for strengthening... the sacred covenant of marriage and committed relationships. It is a practical, realistic, and inspirational resource for exploring, cultivating, and learning from and about the mystery of love." - Angeles Arrien, Ph.D., author of The Four-Fold Way and Signs of Life Most of us, when we fall in love, simultaneously stumble into a multitude of myths, such as being "meant for each other" and "living happily ever after." Relationships look pretty easy in the movies and on television, where most of us have learned what little we think we know about partnerships. The reality, we quickly learn, is different. With the divorce rate soaring, it's safe to assume that young couples and experienced partners alike may lack the skills and understanding necessary to sustain a committed relationship. Psychotherapists Linda and Charlie Bloom present 101 techniques delivering practical guidance and make it clear that, regardless of past experience, anyone can develop the basic strengths, skills, and capacities needed for a great relationship. Each lesson is presented as a simple, one-line thought followed by an explanation using real life examples - from the authors' own experiences in sustaining their marriage of 31 years to those of the thousands of couples they've professionally counseled or who have taken the Blooms' life relationship seminars. Here you'll find practical ways to connect and reconnect. You'll find the skills and the support to step into the unknown areas so that your relationship can flourish. 101 Things I Wish I Knew When I Got Married is for anyone who is, has been, or will be in a committed partnership.

Bust the Myths to Build a Great Relationship According to bestselling authors and relationship counselors Linda and Charlie Bloom, accepting common myths such as “couples with great relationships don’t fight” or “little things aren’t worth getting upset over” can prevent you from building the strong relationship you hope for. This book offers compelling stories and valuable suggestions for replacing myths with realistic expectations, equipping you with behavior and communication guidelines that will enhance and strengthen your intimate relationship. With the Blooms’ strong yet flexible approach to love, you’ll discover a new openness in which mutual understanding can thrive.

Singles are getting conflicting messages from today's culture, both Christian and secular. Is it okay to want to be married? Is there anything a never-married woman can do, within a biblical framework, to "assist" the process? Candice Watters gives women permission to want Christian marriage, encourages them to believe it's possible, and supplies the tools to get there - despite our anti-marriage culture. This book blends the author's personal journey from singleness to marriage with the biblical perspective on marriage. As an editor for Focus on the Family's Boundless webzine, Candice Watters knows the target audience inside and out. Whether a woman has been told to "get married" or marriage is on her lifelong wish list, Get Married points her to the source!

This book consists of 100+ tried and tested hugely significant compatibility questions that everyone needs to ask their future spouse prior to getting married to them. One practical way of doing this is by way of what I call Marriage Meetings.Introducing: Marriage MeetingsA marriage meeting is where your potential partner and yourself, plus two additional people get together in order to learn about each other. The questions in this guide will be how you learn about each other without missing anything important. Just as a pilot has a checklist before takeoff you have a checklist before getting married. You don't have to understand how it works, just have faith that it does and should you prevail and still marry this person opposite you then I can promise you that you will have a very high chance of a successful marriage.What's the purpose of a marriage meeting?Most relationships fail gradually. Over time, you learn new things about your partner, some of which are not to your liking and thus negativity and regret starts to build up, eventually leading to the failure of that relationship.Marriage meetings allow you to get all the skeletons/demons out of the closet before any commitment is made.Where should this meeting take place?The marriage meeting should take place somewhere public. It is absolutely important that you are not hidden away and there should be a safe and comfortable way for one party to leave should they choose to. Pick somewhere quiet like a coffee shop, a park etc, somewhere populated but not too busy as to cause distraction or inconvenience.Who will attend?Both of you should bring one additional person. Let's call them your "check-mate"; the mate who keeps you in check! This is a responsible person who will have a level head and look out for your best interests. Choose someone who will not hesitate to scrutinise the other person, ask the questions maybe you will shy away from and ensure your are being the real you. This person must be your senior though not necessarily age wise. This could be a colleague, a boss, a family friend, a senior family member or maybe someone of high standing from within your community. The person you bring must be someone you trust and you must listen to them when they bring up concerns. They must absolutely not be a yes man who will just go along with what you say otherwise they are useless to you.Marriage Meetings are not datesThese meetings are not to be confused with dates. During dates, one tends to woo and aim to please their potential partner in what I refer to the human equivalent of the mating dance. But in marriage meetings, one should set out to ask the questions so as to get a clear picture of their potential partner's stance in comparison to your own.Why Marriage Meetings work and ConclusionI have done this personally and it has turned out quite awesome. To me, this is the practical method of getting married. Some may not agree with my methodology and to them, I wish good luck. I am not here to say things that people want to hear but to make you happy in the long term. I call it tough love.The reason Marriage Meetings work is because you have no commitment with your potential spouse. In most modern relationship people want to ask these questions but they don't due to fear of rejection or a backlash. If your potential spouse is hesitant to follow this guide and methodology then perhaps they're not sincere about you or marriage. Should you come up with a question of your own that I have not covered, ask it and let me know too so I can add it to this guide. Marriage is a life commitment and having a sudden crush is not good enough to sustain it; A marriage must go deeper than that.Continue inside the Book: How the marriage guide came into being.....How to ask these questions and the 100+ Questions to Ask Each Other Before Getting Married.