DO YOU WANT AN EXCITING AND SATISFYING MARRIAGE? When the dreams fade and the realities of life set in, those magical vows from your wedding day can start to lose their luster. You begin to negotiate the marital maze of budgeting, balancing in-laws, choosing careers, and then you add children to the mix. To top it off, the romantic feelings for each other ebb and flow in the stresses of everyday life. How can we be men and women who consistently and creatively live out our vows after the honeymoon is over? In a culture that tells us it’s ok to quit, it’s time for us to discover what it takes to commit and experience a marriage and love created to last. Ed and Lisa take a penetrating look at what it means to have a lasting marriage in today’s world. Drawing upon their experience in church ministry and successful marriage of more than forty years, they speak openly and honestly about the hard work involved in keeping your marital relationship fresh and alive as you creatively live out your “I Do’s.” The Creative Marriage offers valuable insight into these critical areas: ● Laying a strong foundation for a lasting marriage ● Keeping your marriage relationship at the center of your home ● Building up your spouse with creative communication ● Allowing positive conflict resolution to increase intimacy ● Removing the barriers to a sizzling sex life ● Protecting your marriage against financial pressures ● Recreating marriage and family after divorce Disclaimer: Former Version The Creative Marriage: The Art of Keeping Your Love Alive by Ed Young Hardcover ISBN: 978-0972581301 October 1, 2002 by Creality Publishing New Version The Creative Marriage: The Art of Keeping Your Love Alive by Ed & Lisa Young Paperback ISBN: 9781950113743 February 11, 2022 by XO Publishing Also Applies to eBook/Kindle Version

The Little Book of Great Dates will help build romance and fun into any marriage with its creative ideas for a year’s worth of weekly affordable dates. This book—a simpler, gift version of Focus on the Family’s The Date Night Challenge campaign—will help couples to proactively and intentionally build their relationship, showing how everyday activities can become “dates” that strengthen the marriage relationship. It includes plans for special-occasion dates, such as the couple’s anniversaries (first date, engagement, wedding), birthdays, etc. Couples can get to know each other better by sharing fun times and discover dating again in their marriage with this great little book of ideas!

Ryan and Selena Frederick were newlyweds when they landed in Switzerland to pursue Selena's dream of training horses. Neither of them knew at the time that Ryan was living out a death sentence brought on by a worsening genetic heart defect. Soon it became clear he needed major surgery that could either save his life--or result in his death on the operating table. The young couple prepared for the worst. When Ryan survived, they both realized that they still had a future together. But the near loss changed the way they saw all that would lie ahead. They would live and love fiercely, fighting for each other and for a Christ-centered marriage, every step of the way. Fierce Marriage is their story, but more than that, it is a call for married couples to put God first in their relationship, to measure everything they do and say to each other against what Christ did for them, and to see marriage not just as a relationship they should try to keep healthy but also as one worth fighting for in every situation. With the gospel as their foundation, Ryan and Selena offer hope and practical help for common struggles in marriage, including communication problems, sexual frustration, financial stress, family tension, screen-time disconnection, and unrealistic expectations.

The book, The Long, HOT Marriage is all about creative relating-out of the bedroom and ultimately in the bedroom. From being creative and imaginative in how you perceive your partner to creatively and maturely dealing with emotional pain, you can develop a strong emotional connection to each other, which forms the foundation of passionate, long-term relationship. With this foundation in place, you can create a romantic, sexually creative relationship, use your sexual relationship for spiritual and emotional growth and increase your capacity to give and receive love and pleasure.

At thirty-one, Kirsten has just returned to San Francisco from a bohemian year in Rome, ready to pursue a serious career as a writer and eventually, she hopes, marriage and family. When she meets Steve Beckwith, a handsome and successful attorney, she begins to see that future materialize more quickly than she’d dared to expect. Twenty-two years later, Steve has turned into someone quite different. Unemployed and addicted to opioids, he uses money and their two children to emotionally blackmail Kirsten. What’s more, he’s been having an affair with their real estate agent, who is also her close friend. So she divorces him—but after their divorce is finalized, Steve is diagnosed with colon cancer and dies within a year, leaving Kirsten with $1.5 million in debts she knew nothing about. It’s then that she finally understands: The man she’d married was a needy, addictive person who came wrapped in a shiny package. As she fights toward recovery, Kirsten begins to receive communications from Steve in the afterlife—which lead her on an unexpected path to forgiveness. The Ghost Marriage is her story of discovery—that life isn’t limited to the tangible reality we experience on this earth, and that our worst adversaries can become our greatest teachers.

"When Molly Wizenberg married Brandon Pettit, she vowed always to support him, to work with him to make their hopes and dreams real. She evinced enthusiasm about Brandon's enthusiasms: building a violin, building a boat, and opening an ice cream store--none of which came to pass. So when Brandon started making plans to open a pizza restaurant, Molly felt sure that the restaurant would join the list of Brandon's abandoned projects. When she finally realized that Delancey really was going to happen, that Brandon was going to change all of her assumptions about what their married life would be like, it was too late. She faced the first crisis in their young marriage. Opening a restaurant is not like hosting a dinner party every night. Molly and Brandon's budget was small, and the tasks at hand were often overhwelming. They had to find a space they could afford, gut renovate it themselves, find second-hand furniture and equipment, build what furniture they couldn't find, buy and install a wood-burning oven, pass health inspections, hire staff, and establish a billing and payroll system. They lost a financial partner. Their cook disappeared the day they opened. Still, their restaurant was a success, and Molly managed to convince herself that she was happy in their new life. Until Halloween night, when she was forced to admit she could no longer pretend. While Delancey is a funny and frank look at behind-the-scenes restaurant life, it is also a bravely honest and moving portrait of a tender young marriage and two partners who had to find out how to let each other go in order to come together"--

Offers suggestions on wedding apparel, invitations, photographs, videos, church weddings, receptions, toasts, and special wedding themes.

51 Creative Ideas for Marriage Mentors offers an "idea box" of activities and innovative ways to deepen relationships between mentoring couples. It can be used in any of the three areas of the marriage mentoring triad: Preparing--mentoring engaged and newlywed couples Maximizing--mentoring couples from good to great Restoring--mentoring couples in distress Creative ideas for marriage mentors are grouped into these three areas. There is also an entire section of ideas appropriate for mentoring any couple. With activities that vary from quickly implemented suggestions to more involved interactions, this easy-to-use reference will help alleviate the stress of couples overwhelmed by mentoring . . . and take experienced mentors to a whole new level. Designed to work on its own or in tandem with the Parrotts' other marriage mentoring resources, 51 Creative Ideas for Marriage Mentors will inspire fresh ideas, increase a sense of vision for the marriage mentoring process, and build the confidence of all marriage mentors, regardless of age or stage.

"This book isn't about how to have a perfect marriage, or to change our spouses," says Kay. "It's about having the kind of marriage where you can stand before God and say, 'Lord, I was all that You intended me to be.' Only when we make that kind of commitment can we truly have a marriage without regrets!" Speaking candidly about her first marriage, her conversion to Christianity, and her longtime marriage to Jack, Kay offers practical advice on effective communication, security and significance, difficult relationships, parenting, and God's guidelines for divorce and remarriage. Readers will discover what the Bible says about... resolving conflict understanding each partner's role improving the sexual relationship becoming financially wise respecting and keeping marriage vows This rerelease with a fresh new cover (more than 110,000 copies sold) contains the marriage-building and life-changing material Kay has presented to enthusiastic audiences worldwide—helping thousands of people in many countries experience supportive, Christ-centered marriages.

By the end of World War I, the skyrocketing divorce rate in the United States had generated a deep-seated anxiety about marriage. This fear drove middle-class couples to seek advice, both professional and popular, in order to strengthen their relationships. In Making Marriage Work, historian Kristin Celello offers an insightful and wide-ranging account of marriage and divorce in America in the twentieth century, focusing on the development of the idea of marriage as "work." Throughout, Celello illuminates the interaction of marriage and divorce over the century and reveals how the idea that marriage requires work became part of Americans' collective consciousness.