Marriage Development

Just as Masters and Johnson were pioneers in the study of human sexuality, so Dr. John Gottman has revolutionized the study of marriage. As a professor of psychology at the University of Washington and the founder and director of the Seattle Marital and Family Institute, he has studied the habits of married couples in unprecedented detail over the course of many years. His findings, and his heavily attended workshops, have already turned around thousands of faltering marriages.

Few subjects are as compelling-or as endlessly variable-as love and marriage. The Bible is filled with references to husbands and wives, from the story of Adam and Eve to advice in the New Testament, each open to interpretation. In The Meaning of Marriage, Timothy Keller, pastor of New York's Redeemer Presbyterian Church and bestselling author of The Reason for God, uses the scriptures as his guide to show readers what God's call to marriage is, and why this is such a powerful call.

Is my relationship worth saving? Will the trust ever come back? How can things be good between us again? Whether broken trust is due to daily dishonesties, a monumental betrayal, or even a history of hurts from the past, it can put a relationship at risk. This is the first book to show you exactly what to do to restore trust in your relationship, regardless of how it was damaged.

Tired of arguing with your spouse over the same old issues? Longing for a marriage with less conflict and more intimacy? Struggling under a load of resentment? In How We Love, relationship experts Milan and Kay Yerkovich draw on the powerful tool of attachment theory to show how your early life experiences created an "intimacy imprint" - an underlying blueprint that shapes your behavior, beliefs, and expectations of all relationships, especially your marriage.

Dr. Gary Chapman identifies five basic languages of love and then guides couples towards a better understanding of their unique languages of love. Learn to speak and understand your mate's love language, and in no time you will be able to effectively love and truly feel loved in return. Skillful communication is within your grasp!

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.

What happens when a kingdom man marries a kingdom woman? Kingdom Marriage: Connecting God's Purpose with Your Pleasure helps couples grow together as kingdom couples to fulfill God's design and purpose for their marriages. Through practical insights and powerful stories, Dr. Tony Evans inspires and instructs so couples will discover the hope, challenge, and guidance God's word provides for their journey together.

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?

Cracking the communication code between husband and wife involves understanding one thing: that unconditional respect is as powerful for him as unconditional love is for her. It's the secret to marriage that every couple seeks, and yet few couples ever find. While both men and women deserve both love and respect, in the midst of conflict the driving need for a woman is love and the driving need for a man is respect. When either of these needs isn’t met, things get crazy. Based on over three decades of counseling, as well as scientific and biblical research, Love and Respect is for anyone.

Based on a groundbreaking in-depth survey of 22,000 Christian women, The Great Sex Rescue unlocks the secrets to what makes some marriages red hot while others fizzle out. Generations of women have grown up with messages about sex that make them feel dirty, used, or invisible, while men have been sold such a cheapened version of sex, they don't know what they're missing. The Great Sex Rescue hopes to turn all of that around, developing a truly biblical view of sex where mutuality, intimacy, and passion reign.

Heralded by the New York Times and Time as the couples therapy with the highest rate of success, Emotionally Focused Therapy works because it views the love relationship as an attachment bond. This idea, once controversial, is now supported by science, and has become widely popular among therapists around the world. In Hold Me Tight, Dr. Sue Johnson presents Emotionally Focused Therapy to the general public for the first time. Johnson teaches that the way to save and enrich a relationship is to reestablish safe emotional connection and preserve the attachment bond.

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.

When you said, “I do”, you entered marriage with high hopes, dreaming it would be supremely happy. You never intended for it to be miserable. Millions of couples are struggling in desperate marriages. But the story doesn’t have to end there. Dr. Gary Chapman writes, “I believe that in every troubled marriage, one or both partners can take positive steps that have the potential for changing the emotional climate in their marriage.”

Every day, you make choices that either build up your relationship or leave it exposed and vulnerable to attack. The highest-performing warrior teams pay attention to developing muscle-memory habits, and your marriage can benefit from the same focus. In The Invincible Marriage, former Navy SEAL and bestselling author of The Trident Jason Redman with his wife, Erica, share the tools they use to lay the foundational beliefs and communication skills a marriage needs to last for life. Each chapter helps listeners develop a key tenet of successful relationship-building.

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.

The Happy Stepcouple is a comprehensive, practical self-help book designed to help couples with children from prior relationships thrive despite the complexity of stepfamily life. More than two thirds of stepcouple relationships break up within the first few years of committing to each other. With these terrible odds, every stepcouple needs an arsenal of tools necessary to sustain a loving relationship. The Happy Stepcouple gives them everything they need to navigate complex stepfamily dynamics with confidence and kindness, allowing them to build a happy, fulfilling life.

What if God designed marriage to make you holy instead of happy? What if your relationship isn't as much about you and your spouse as it is about you and God? In Sacred Marriage, best-selling author Gary Thomas uncovers the ways that your marriage can become a doorway to a closer walk with God and with each other. Join over one million others who have already uncovered Thomas's tips for fostering a sacred marriage. In Sacred Marriage, Thomas invites you to see how God can use your relationship with your spouse as a discipline and a motivation to love God more.

In Boundaries in Marriage, Drs. Henry Cloud and John Townsend, counselors and authors of the New York Times bestseller Boundaries, teach us that healthy boundaries are the property lines that define and protect you and your spouse as individuals. Once you have them in place, a good marriage can become better, and a less-than-satisfying one can even be saved.

A resource for couples in which one of the partners suffers from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), this book guides troubled marriages toward an understanding and appreciation for the struggles and triumphs of a relationship affected by it and to look at the disorder in a more positive way. Going beyond traditional marriage counseling, this discussion offers advice from the author's personal experience and years of research and identifies patterns of behavior that can hurt marriages.

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.