Marriage Years

"Life changes fast....You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends." These were among the first words Joan Didion wrote in January 2004. Her daughter was lying unconscious in an intensive care unit, a victim of pneumonia and septic shock. Her husband, John Gregory Dunne, was dead. The night before New Year's Eve, while they were sitting down to dinner, he suffered a massive and fatal coronary. The two had lived and worked side by side for nearly 40 years.

Do you feel overwhelmed and completely unprepared for marriage? Are you worried about failing in your marriage, second-guessing your decision to even get married, or considering a divorce? Here's how to adjust to married life, build a strong foundation, and survive your first year of marriage - EVEN if you don’t know where to start.

Leah was unemployed, broke, and desperate. A few years earlier, a fatal car crash took the lives of Leah’s beloved husband and their two babies, leaving her disabled. Life looked bleak. Then she met Mason. He was charming, charismatic, persuasive, and a successful businessman, well respected in the community. His teenage daughter did nothing to welcome Leah into the family, but life is never perfect. And the nightmares began the day the dog died… Two years into her second marriage, Leah Brand’s world is turned upside down. Inanimate objects move, her clothes are left out for the ...

After 22 years, spent across four continents, with two children - Louis and Marcel - in 1990, Anne and Paul Theroux decided to separate. For that year, Anne - later a professional relationship therapist herself - kept a diary, noting not only her day-to day experiences as a busy freelance journalist and broadcaster but the contrasts in her feelings between despairing grief and hope for a new future.

In Devotions for a Sacred Marriage author Gary Thomas encourages you to build your marriage around God’s priorities and explores how God can reveal Himself to you through your marriage and help you grow closer to Him as well as to your spouse.

Marriage is the most profound human relationship there is. Coming to know and love your spouse is one of the most rewarding and wondrous things we can experience in life. But it is also one of the most difficult and painful. In this 365-day devotional, Timothy Keller and his wife of 43 years, Kathy Keller, share powerful instructions on how to have a successful marriage. The Kellers draw from and expand upon lessons they first introduced in their book, The Meaning of Marriage, offering stories, daily scriptures, and prayer prompts.

Tiller is an average American college student with a good heart but minimal aspirations. Pong Lou is a larger-than-life, wildly creative Chinese American entrepreneur who sees something intriguing in Tiller beyond his bored exterior and takes him under his wing. When Pong brings him along on a boisterous trip across Asia, Tiller is catapulted from ordinary young man to talented protégé, and pulled into a series of ever more extreme and eye-opening experiences that transform his view of the world, of Pong, and of himself.

Dancing Into Marital Bliss tackles these common challenges with relatable insights and practical solutions, offering a guide for couples to navigate the early years with clarity and confidence. If you’re searching for ways to build deeper trust, improve communication, and create lasting joy, this book is your roadmap to a fulfilling marriage that grows stronger over time.

In 2009, 22-year-old Joseph Fink, newly arrived to New York City from the West Coast, was juggling odd jobs to pay the rent and volunteering with a theater company in the East Village so he could snag free tickets to their shows. Meg Bashwiner, a 22-year-old aspiring performer and playwright, was living with her parents in New Jersey, working a desk job and commuting to her internship with that same East Village theater company.

When a marriage is new, it’s exciting. But as time passes, couples can drift apart and wrestle with the challenges that are common in any marriage. It can feel overwhelming, but together, couples will find that a healthy marriage has thousands of course changes. In this follow-up to Getting Ready for Marriage, authors Jim Burns and Doug Fields offer a practical guide designed to help newlyweds build a strong foundation for a marriage that will last a lifetime.

When Nancy Balbirer learns her beloved eleven-year-old beagle has kidney failure, she’s devastated. She and her husband had gotten Ira as a puppy - a wedding gift to each other, and their first foray into “parenthood.” Now, her dog is terminal, her marriage is on life support, and Nancy is desperate to save them both (whether they want it or not). In a single year, she loses her two best friends, but Nancy’s life is about to take yet another unexpected turn. With humor and heart, Nancy Balbirer shares her story of relationships, loss, and canine friendship in this illuminating memoir.

Read 52 Reasons God's People Love Passionate Sex and see for yourself how the "Better Christian You Become, The Better Lover You'll Be." The Bible has always promoted vigorous lovemaking while teaching intellectual, emotional, sexual, and spiritual intimacy. In 1986, when Patsy wrote God’s People Make the Best Lovers, she counted eight health and wellness benefits in the Bible that science had finally caught up with. Now as we begin 2024, the list has grown to 52 reasons passionate sex is like skinny dipping in God’s fountain of love and youth. The 52 Reasons God's People Love ...

This is my story or at least the college and early marriage years of it. As I look back on my life, I realize that it has been a rather interesting one. Therefore, I thought I would tell my story. There are a couple of caveats I need to add here at the beginning. One, these are my memories and, as such, may not be entirely reliable. As with most people, I have a tendency to remember some things and forget others. I, also, don’t necessarily remember it the way it really was, but the way, well, I remember it. I have asked some of those “who were there” to read over what I have written ...

One-night stands are supposed to be with someone convenient, or wickedly persuasive, or regrettable. They aren’t supposed to be with someone like him. But after a crazy Vegas weekend celebrating her college graduation - and terrified of the future path she knows is a cop-out - Mia Holland makes the wildest decision of her life: follow Ansel Guillaume - her sweet, filthy fling - to France for the summer and just…play.

Lou and Josh have been together for 14 years. They share two kids, a mortgage, careers and plenty of history. Now, after a particularly fraught Christmas, Lou is ready to ask herself: is this marriage worth hanging on to? Every month for a year, Lou sets a different test for their relationship - from daily sex to brutal honesty - to help her decide if she should stay or go. Secrets are exposed, old wounds reopened and a true-to-life suburban love story unfolds.

During a cringey visit to IKEA, the store where relationships go to die, Emma finally blurts out to Rob that she is no longer happy in their 26-year marriage. She wants more meaningful work, connections, thrills, joy – and more passionate sex. It’s been ages. Rob knows their marriage isn’t perfect, but it’s good enough…isn’t it? He’s loyal, solid, a good provider. What more does she want, anyway? Emma suggests taking a Marriage Gap Year. Time apart, no calls, no texts. This feisty communications manager wants the comms switched off between them for the next 12 months.

Truly loving another imperfect person is not merely a romantic feeling, but a daily decision. But what are the keys to consistently giving and receiving love? How are love and romance best experienced and expressed in the midst of life’s everchanging pressures and emotions? The Love Dare Day by Day is a one-year devotional designed to challenge husbands and wives to understand and practice unconditional love.

Elise has known Cole for years…and has loved him almost as long. No one knows her better than he does. A little mystery… And a romantic love story that brings two people together just as they were meant to be… Sometimes…especially when least expected…love is simply meant to be… Elise has known Cole for years…and has loved him almost as long. No one knows her better than he does. And during those years he’d slowly battered away at her hesitance about making a long term commitment. He didn’t have any such problem and was determined to get the two of them in front of a ...

At age 34 Jo Piazza got her romantic-comedy ending when she met the man of her dreams on a boat in the Galápagos Islands and was engaged three months later. But before long Jo found herself riddled with questions. How do you make a marriage work in a world where you no longer need to be married? How does an independent, strong-willed feminist become someone's partner - all the time?

Clever and ambitious, Emma Jung yearned to study the natural sciences at the University of Zurich. But the strict rules of proper Swiss society at the beginning of the 20th century dictated that a woman of Emma's stature - one of the richest heiresses in Switzerland - travel to Paris to "finish" her education, to prepare for marriage to a suitable man. Engaged to the son of one of her father's wealthy business colleagues, Emma's conventional and predictable life was upended when she met Carl Jung.