Marriage Development

The simple truth is that PTSD can be extremely debilitating - not just for the person who has experienced trauma firsthand, but for their partners, as well. And while there are many books written for those suffering from PTSD, there are few written for the people who love them. In Loving Someone with PTSD, renowned trauma expert Aphrodite Matsakis presents concrete skills and strategies for the partners of those with PTSD.

To make up or break up? Whether you’re just getting serious or have a long-term commitment, no other question causes so much heartache and self-doubt. Many other books tell you how to fix your relationship. This groundbreaking bestseller is the first one to help you choose whether you should try—or you need to go.

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.

Discovering that a partner has been unfaithful hits you like an earthquake. Long after the first jolt, emotional aftershocks can make it difficult to be there for your family, manage your daily life, and think clearly about your options. Whether you want to end the relationship or piece things back together, Getting Past the Affair guides you through the initial trauma so you can understand what happened and why before deciding how to move forward.

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.

This popular, science-based guide offers powerful solutions for couples frustrated by continual attempts to make each other change. True acceptance may seem difficult to accomplish, but the clear-cut steps and thought-provoking exercises in this audiobook can make it a reality. You'll learn why you keep having the same fights again and again; how to keep small incompatibilities from causing big problems; what communication strategies really work to resolve conflicts; and how to problem-solve and make positive changes - together.

In the perennial favorite Boundaries, Anne Katherine introduced the concept and importance of personal limits. In Where to Draw the Line, she takes the next step with a practical guide to establishing and maintaining healthy boundaries in a wide range of situations. With every encounter, we either demonstrate that we'll protect what we value, or that we'll give ourselves away. Healthy boundaries preserve our integrity. Unlike defenses, which isolate us from our true selves and from those we love, boundaries filter out harm.

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.

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?

This solutions-oriented guide offers problem-solving and behavior-changing strategies for people working on their most intimate relationships. What distinguishes Intellectual Foreplay from similar titles is that it includes guidelines on what to do with the answers it gives. This makes it useful in both creating and sustaining a relationship.

Best-selling author Dr. John Townsend teaches you that love can actually be learned and gives you the steps and tools to become skilled in love. Using his trademark stories to flesh out the important principles, Dr. Townsend covers receiving love, connecting love, healing love, confronting love, romantic love, and surrendering love. Through his teaching, listeners will discover - and start enjoying - the words, actions, and experiences of authentic love.

With more than five million copies in print, in nearly two dozen languages, The Love Dare has become an exciting, enriching journey for couples around the world. It can now become yours. Though unconditional love is promised at weddings, it is rarely practiced in real life. As a result, romantic hopes often fade into disappointment at home. But it doesn’t have to stay that way. Whether your marriage is hanging by a thread or healthy and strong, this 40-day journey (featured in the hit movie Fireproof) challenges husbands and wives to understand and practice unconditional love.

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.

Marriages today are deteriorating at an alarming rate: As of 2003, 43.7% of custodial mothers and 56.2% of custodial fathers were either separated or divorced (US Census Bureau). One might ask, "Why do so many marriages fail?" According to pastor and teacher Tony Evans, marriages deteriorate not because we no longer get along, but because we have lost sight of the purpose and prosperity of the marriage covenant.

Written by two experts on anxiety disorders, Anxious in Love offers easy-to-use techniques for calming anxieties and strengthening communication in your relationship. With this book, you will learn to stay centered when faced with conflict, understand your partner's perspective, and become more independent. By changing the way you react to triggers and stress, you will be able to focus on enjoying time with the one you love, without anxiety getting in the way.

Is an argument-free marriage possible? Fawn Weaver’s answer is yes, absolutely, even when one or both partners are strong willed, independent, and opinionated. (She admits to being all three.) In this groundbreaking book, the best-selling author and award-winning marriage blogger asks listeners to invest twenty-eight days in learning how to live together without bickering, blame, angry outbursts, or silent treatments.

This extraordinary book presents scenarios of one family's therapy experience and explains what underlies each encounter. You will discover the general patterns that are common to all families - stress, polarization and escalation, scapegoating, triangulation, blaming, and the diffusion of identity - and you will gain a vivid understanding of the intriguing field of family therapy.

Navigating the challenges of long-term commitment takes effort - and it just got simpler, with this empowering, step-by-step guide to communicating about the things that matter most to you and your partner. Drawing on 40 years of research from their world-famous Love Lab, Dr. John Gottman and Dr. Julie Schwartz Gottman invite couples on eight fun, easy, and profoundly rewarding dates, each one focused on a make-or-break issue: trust, conflict, sex, money, family, adventure, spirituality, and dreams.

Single parents who are dating or want to begin a dating relationship wonder: How will dating affect my children and my parenting? They probably have figured out that "dating in a crowd" is complicated. Now they're looking for help. Ron Deal, who has counseled single parents and remarried couples for many years, helps single parents - as well as those who date them - navigate the potential pitfalls involved. He gives perspective on when a relationship may be harmful to the children as well as how it can be a blessing to all.

Is There Sex After Marriage? is the answer for the millions of Americans trapped in the cycle of low- or no-sex marriages. Contrary to the widespread cultural acceptance, from TV shows to standup comedy, sex doesn't have to end once the honeymoon does. Seasoned sex-pert Carol Botwin brings her decades of relationship experience to bear and teaches couples with no-nonsense candor and plenty of humor how to rekindle the fire they had in their courtship, and how to keep it burning forever.