Relationship Goals


Book Description

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A candid, inspiring guide to finding lasting love and sustaining a healthy relationship by getting real about your goals—based on the viral, multi-million-view sermon series about dating, marriage, and sex “No matter where you are and no matter what stage of life you are in, Relationship Goals will be a game changer.”—Levi Lusko NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY COSMOPOLITAN You scroll through photo after photo of happy couples and think, I want a relationship like that! The thing is, those intimate relationships are a mirage—the closer you get to them, the more you realize they aren’t real at all. So what does a real relationship look like? And how do you get there? In Relationship Goals, Pastor Michael Todd digs deep to give you good news and real-life ideas for making the most of your most important relationships. Take a look at • what it means to choose intentional dating over recreational dating • how to move on from mistakes you’ve made in the past • why love gets stronger after marriage • what the Bible has to say about sex (hot take: it’s more sizzling than you think) • why the best friendships have God at the center Whether you are married, single, or it’s complicated, aiming for the right targets will make all the difference in finding true satisfaction. As it turns out, God’s got the best relationship goals of all for your life. Why settle for less?




The All-or-Nothing Marriage


Book Description

“After years of debate and inquiry, the key to a great marriage remained shrouded in mystery. Until now...”—Carol Dweck, author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success Eli J. Finkel's insightful and ground-breaking investigation of marriage clearly shows that the best marriages today are better than the best marriages of earlier eras. Indeed, they are the best marriages the world has ever known. He presents his findings here for the first time in this lucid, inspiring guide to modern marital bliss. The All-or-Nothing Marriage reverse engineers fulfilling marriages—from the “traditional” to the utterly nontraditional—and shows how any marriage can be better. The primary function of marriage from 1620 to 1850 was food, shelter, and protection from violence; from 1850 to 1965, the purpose revolved around love and companionship. But today, a new kind of marriage has emerged, one oriented toward self-discover, self-esteem, and personal growth. Finkel combines cutting-edge scientific research with practical advice; he considers paths to better communication and responsiveness; he offers guidance on when to recalibrate our expectations; and he even introduces a set of must-try “lovehacks.” This is a book for the newlywed to the empty nester, for those thinking about getting married or remarried, and for anyone looking for illuminating advice that will make a real difference to getting the most out of marriage today.




For God, It's All about Relationship


Book Description

Daphne Chick received an invitation to the grandest experience possible at the age of 22. Forty-three years later, tried and tested in the fires of Christian experience and ministry, she is still profoundly amazed at the dramatic transformation that altered the course of her life. Daphne now opens her heart to reveal the invaluable lessons she has learned regarding her one passion: experiencing a real and vital Relationship with the living God. Growing up in Los Gatos and Santa Cruz, California, instilled a love for the beauty of creation which she still enjoys in a small town in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. With an M.A. in Political History, 40 years' experience in ministry, her driving desire has been to stand alongside anyone who will listen, and point with awe and wonder to her incomparable Redeemer and Savior. Daphne Chick has done a great work with "For God, it's all about Relationship." She takes the reader through the pitfalls of religion, and then delineates the difficulties and blessings of creating intimacy with God. Daphne lays out the process of relationship step by step like the smooth stones David used to take Goliath down. The stones that bring Satan's bastion of religion down help create a spiritual process that leads us to a life of deep personal intimacy with God. Pastor Bill Swegart, PhD ThD The ocean is made up of water, but the salt content makes it impossible for human consumption. Religion is like saltwater; it seems like water, but it is deadly. I found this book to be like sweet, fresh rain. The refreshing, pure waters of a close Relationship with God are well described and the reader is beckoned to drink deeply. Thank you, Daphne, for the truth. Pastor Richard Hill, Bakersfield Family Church




True Love Dates


Book Description

It is possible to find true love through dating. In True Love Dates, Debra Fileta encourages singles not to "kiss dating goodbye" but instead to experience a season of dating as a way to find real love. Through powerful, real-life stories and Fileta's personal journey, this book offers profound insights from the expertise of a professional counselor. Christians are looking for answers to finding true love. They are disillusioned with the church that has provided little practical application in the area of love and relationships. They're bombarded by Christian books that shun dating, idolize courting, fixate on spirituality, and in the end, offer little real relationship help. True Love Dates provides honest help for dating by providing a guide into vital relationship essentials. Debra is a professional Christian counselor who reaches millions with her popular blog, Truelovedates.com, and her book offers sound advice grounded in Christian spirituality. She delivers insight, direction, and counsel when it comes to entering the world of dating and learning to do it right the first time around. Drawing on the stories and struggles of hundreds of young men and women who have pursued the search for true love, Fileta helps readers bypass unnecessary pain while focusing on the things that really matter in the world of dating.




Wired for Love


Book Description

"Invaluable for so many partners looking to reconnect and grow closer together." —Gwyneth Paltrow, founder and CEO of goop "Stan Tatkin can be entirely followed into the towering infernos of our most painful relationship challenges." —Alanis Morissette, artist, activist, and wholeness advocate The complete “insider’s guide” to understanding your partner’s brain, sparking lasting connection, and enjoying a romantic relationship built on love and trust—now with more than 170,000 copies sold. “What the heck is my partner thinking?” “Why do they always react like this?” “How can we get back that connection we had in the beginning?” If you’ve ever asked yourself these questions, you aren’t alone, and it doesn’t mean that your relationship is doomed. Every person is wired for love differently—with different habits, needs, and reactions to conflict. The good news is that most people’s minds work in predictable ways and respond well to security, attachment, and routines, making it possible to neurologically prime the brain for greater love and connection and fewer conflicts. This go-to guide will show you how. Drawn from neuroscience, attachment theory, and emotion regulation, this highly anticipated second edition of Wired for Love presents cutting-edge research on how and why love lasts, and offers ten guiding principles that can improve any relationship. This fully revised and updated edition also includes new guidance on how to manage disagreements, as well as new exercises to help you create a sense of safety and security, establish healthy conflict ground rules, and deal with the threat of the third—any outside source which threatens the harmony in your relationship, including in-laws, alcohol, children, and affairs. You’ll find proven-effective strategies to help you strengthen your relationship by: Creating and maintaining a safe “couple bubble” Using morning and evening routines to stay connected Learning how to see your partner’s point of view Meeting each other halfway in a fight Becoming the expert on what makes your partner feel loved By using simple gestures and words, you’ll learn to put out emotional fires and help your partner feel appreciated and loved. You’ll also discover how to move past a “warring brain” mentality and toward a more cooperative “loving brain.” Most importantly, you’ll gain a better understanding of the complex dynamics at work behind love and trust in intimate relationships. While there’s no doubt that love is an inexact science, if you understand how you and your partner are wired differently, you can overcome your differences, and create a lasting intimate connection.




Everything I Know About Love


Book Description

New York Times Bestseller "There is no writer quite like Dolly Alderton working today and very soon the world will know it.” —Lisa Taddeo, author of #1 New York Times bestseller Three Women “Dolly Alderton has always been a sparkling Roman candle of talent. She is funny, smart, and explosively engaged in the wonders and weirdness of the world. But what makes this memoir more than mere entertainment is the mature and sophisticated evolution that Alderton describes in these pages. It’s a beautifully told journey and a thoughtful, important book. I loved it.” —Elizabeth Gilbert, New York Times bestselling author of Eat, Pray, Love and City of Girls The wildly funny, occasionally heartbreaking internationally bestselling memoir about growing up, growing older, and learning to navigate friendships, jobs, loss, and love along the ride When it comes to the trials and triumphs of becoming an adult, journalist and former Sunday Times columnist Dolly Alderton has seen and tried it all. In her memoir, she vividly recounts falling in love, finding a job, getting drunk, getting dumped, realizing that Ivan from the corner shop might just be the only reliable man in her life, and that absolutely no one can ever compare to her best girlfriends. Everything I Know About Love is about bad dates, good friends and—above all else— realizing that you are enough. Glittering with wit and insight, heart and humor, Dolly Alderton’s unforgettable debut weaves together personal stories, satirical observations, a series of lists, recipes, and other vignettes that will strike a chord of recognition with women of every age—making you want to pick up the phone and tell your best friends all about it. Like Bridget Jones’ Diary but all true, Everything I Know About Love is about the struggles of early adulthood in all its terrifying and hopeful uncertainty.




The Art of Talking to Yourself


Book Description

"Overcoming the negative effects of self-help dogma on our personal journey, and using self-awareness to understand our patterns of mental self-talk, behaviour, and emotion."--




Modern Romance


Book Description

The #1 New York Times Bestseller “An engaging look at the often head-scratching, frequently infuriating mating behaviors that shape our love lives.” —Refinery 29 A hilarious, thoughtful, and in-depth exploration of the pleasures and perils of modern romance from Aziz Ansari, the star of Master of None and one of this generation’s sharpest comedic voices At some point, every one of us embarks on a journey to find love. We meet people, date, get into and out of relationships, all with the hope of finding someone with whom we share a deep connection. This seems standard now, but it’s wildly different from what people did even just decades ago. Single people today have more romantic options than at any point in human history. With technology, our abilities to connect with and sort through these options are staggering. So why are so many people frustrated? Some of our problems are unique to our time. “Why did this guy just text me an emoji of a pizza?” “Should I go out with this girl even though she listed Combos as one of her favorite snack foods? Combos?!” “My girlfriend just got a message from some dude named Nathan. Who’s Nathan? Did he just send her a photo of his penis? Should I check just to be sure?” But the transformation of our romantic lives can’t be explained by technology alone. In a short period of time, the whole culture of finding love has changed dramatically. A few decades ago, people would find a decent person who lived in their neighborhood. Their families would meet and, after deciding neither party seemed like a murderer, they would get married and soon have a kid, all by the time they were twenty-four. Today, people marry later than ever and spend years of their lives on a quest to find the perfect person, a soul mate. For years, Aziz Ansari has been aiming his comic insight at modern romance, but for Modern Romance, the book, he decided he needed to take things to another level. He teamed up with NYU sociologist Eric Klinenberg and designed a massive research project, including hundreds of interviews and focus groups conducted everywhere from Tokyo to Buenos Aires to Wichita. They analyzed behavioral data and surveys and created their own online research forum on Reddit, which drew thousands of messages. They enlisted the world’s leading social scientists, including Andrew Cherlin, Eli Finkel, Helen Fisher, Sheena Iyengar, Barry Schwartz, Sherry Turkle, and Robb Willer. The result is unlike any social science or humor book we’ve seen before. In Modern Romance, Ansari combines his irreverent humor with cutting-edge social science to give us an unforgettable tour of our new romantic world.




Eight Dates


Book Description

Whether you’re newly together and eager to make it work or a longtime couple looking to strengthen and deepen your bond, Eight Dates offers a program of how, why, and when to have eight basic conversations with your partner that can result in a lifetime of love. “Happily ever after” is not by chance, it’s by choice– the choice each person in a relationship makes to remain open, remain curious, and, most of all, to keep talking to one another. From award-winning marriage researcher and bestselling author Dr. John Gottman and fellow researcher Julie Gottman, Eight Dates offers an ingenious and simple-to-implement approach to effective relationship communication. Here are the subjects that every serious couple should discuss: Trust. Family. Sex and intimacy. Dealing with conflict. Work and money. Dreams, and more. And here is how to talk about them—how to broach subjects that are difficult or embarrassing, how to be brave enough to say what you really feel. There are also suggestions for where and when to go on each date—book your favorite romantic restaurant for the Sex & Intimacy conversation (and maybe go to a yoga or dance class beforehand). There are questionnaires, innovative exercises, real-life case studies, and skills to master, including the Four Skills of Intimate Conversation and the Art of Listening. Because making love last is not about having a certain feeling—it’s about both of you being active and involved.




Your God is Too Glorious


Book Description

Most of us are regular people who have good days and bad days. Our lives are radically ordinary and unexciting. That means they're the kind of lives God gets excited about. While the world worships beauty and power and wealth, God hides his glory in the simple, the mundane, the foolish, working in unawesome people, things, and places.In our day of celebrity worship and online posturing, this is a refreshing, even transformative way of understanding God and our place in his creation. It urges us to treasure a life of simplicity, to love those whom the world passes by, to work for God's glory rather than our own. And it demonstrates that God has always been the Lord of the cross--a Savior who hides his grace in unattractive, inglorious places.Your God Is Too Glorious reminds readers that while a quiet life may look unimpressive to the world, it's the regular, everyday people that God tends to use to do his most important work.