Overcoming Hurdles in Married Life


Book Description

"Overcoming Hurdles in Married Life" is a comprehensive guide that delves into the myriad challenges couples face throughout their marital journey, offering practical insights and actionable strategies for navigating and thriving amidst these obstacles. From the foundational aspects of effective communication and financial management to the intricacies of intimacy, parenting, and extended family dynamics, each chapter explores a vital facet of married life. Readers will find guidance on fostering trust, managing diverse goals and cultural differences, and addressing emotional well-being and mental health within the marriage. The book also tackles contemporary challenges such as technology distractions and long-distance relationships while emphasizing the importance of shared growth and resilience in the face of loss. Whether it's resolving conflicts, delegating responsibilities, or rekindling romance, this book serves as a roadmap for couples seeking a harmonious and fulfilling married life.




Living in Difficult Relationships


Book Description

Peter Kalellis, a practicing psychotherapist and family counselor, offers here practical advice for spouses or those in a committed relationship that clarifies the potential within each person to make their marriage or relationship better. A good marriage begins with a man and w woman who form a loving relationship, psychologically sound, that provides stability, financial security, and material benefits. A serious relationship consists of personal needs, attitudes, ambitions, expectations and issues that require solutions. Emphasis is placed on what one partner does and how the other responds. Feelings and attitudes, both conscious and unconscious, are gradually revealed, and reciprocal attention must be paid so they do not become obstacles in the relationship. The purpose of reciprocity is to bring emotional stability and happiness to both partners. The degree of satisfaction that each spouse derives from the other and the relationship depend on how well expectations are met. Most people pursue physical pleasures or various forms of self-gratification. "When I obtain this or am free of that--then I will be okay." Invariably, any satisfaction that we obtain--accumulation of material wealth or physical pleasure--is short-lived and usually is projected onto the future. This mindset creates the illusion of happiness in the married life. True happiness can be attained as each spouse faces the realities of marriage, and takes personal responsibility of his or her part. This book provides tools for a better relationship and suggests that the couple become aware of God's presence in their life. As our world is going through critical times, couples begin to realize that there is no satisfactory answer in whatever options society offers. But most people find comfort in returning to God, who is the sources of life and provider of all good things. +




Enjoying God in Everything


Book Description

Perhaps now more than ever our lives are in need of beauty! Why do our hearts thrill over a sunset or cry over a song? The experience of beauty does something profound and powerful within the heart and soul of every human being. We were made by God but also for Him and His beauty. Pastor Steve DeWitt invites us to taste and see how God is the beauty behind all beauty. Enjoying God in Everything explores how we were created to wonder at the myriad ways God has designed for us to partake in His beauty: Monet’s waterlilies, baby ducklings, that perfect line in a book, the Swiss Alps, a Pacific wave, that three-year-old’s toothy grin, that elderly couple’s love. Beauty creates wonder in us. It sparks joy. It causes us to weep. And ultimately, it's meant to lead us back to the One who delights in sharing Himself—who delights in giving and creating all that takes our breath away. Wonder is what we feel when we glimpse a reflection of God’s beauty. DeWitt brings readers to the source of all beauty and opens our eyes to beauty’s appointed end: worship! Nothing is more desirable than the beautiful one who saves: Jesus Christ. When we begin to grasp the beauty of Christ’s restoring, sacrificial love, then we begin Enjoying God in Everything.




Ten Lessons to Transform Your Marriage


Book Description

In Ten Lessons to Transform Your Marriage, marital psychologists John and Julie Gottman provide vital tools—scientifically based and empirically verified—that you can use to regain affection and romance lost through years of ineffective communication. In 1994, Dr. John Gottman and his colleagues at the University of Washington made a startling announcement: Through scientific observation and mathematical analysis, they could predict—with more than 90 percent accuracy—whether a marriage would succeed or fail. The only thing they did not yet know was how to turn a failing marriage into a successful one, so Gottman teamed up with his clinical psychologist wife, Dr. Julie Schwartz Gottman, to develop intervention methods. Now the Gottmans, together with the Love Lab research facility, have put these ideas into practice. What emerged from the Gottmans’ collaboration and decades of research is a body of advice that’s based on two surprisingly simple truths: Happily married couples behave like good friends, and they handle their conflicts in gentle, positive ways. The authors offer an intimate look at ten couples who have learned to work through potentially destructive problems—extramarital affairs, workaholism, parenthood adjustments, serious illnesses, lack of intimacy—and examine what they’ve done to improve communication and get their marriages back on track. Hundreds of thousands have seen their relationships improve thanks to the Gottmans’ work. Whether you want to make a strong relationship more fulfilling or rescue one that’s headed for disaster, Ten Lessons to Transform Your Marriage is essential reading.




Uncommon Marriage


Book Description

What does it take to build a marriage that will last? Tony and Lauren Dungy have together known the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. They fell in love, built a family, and made sports history when Tony became the first African American head coach to win the Super Bowl. Yet they’ve also gone through difficult, relationship-testing setbacks, including job loss and devastating personal tragedy. In a culture where it seems harder and harder to make marriage last, what has kept the Dungys strong through it all? In Uncommon Marriage, Tony and Lauren share the secrets that hold them together, revealing what they’ve learned so far about being a good husband or wife; getting through times of loss, grief, or change; staying connected despite busy schedules; supporting each other’s dreams and goals; and helping each other grow spiritually. They offer encouragement and practical advice to equip your marriage to survive tough issues and flourish with joy, purpose, and partnership—in other words, to be a marriage that is truly uncommon.




Believing in Magic


Book Description

In her powerful and inspiring memoir, Cookie Johnson, wife of NBA legend Earvin “Magic” Johnson, shares details of her marriage, motherhood, faith, and how an HIV diagnosis twenty-five years ago changed the course of their lives forever. On November 7, 1991, basketball icon Earvin “Magic” Johnson stunned the world with the news that he was HIV-positive. For the millions who watched, his announcement became a pivotal moment not only for the nation, but for his family and wife. Twenty-five years later, Cookie Johnson shares her story and the emotional journey that started on that day—from life as a pregnant and joyous newlywed to one filled with the fear that her husband would die, that she and her baby would be infected with the virus, and that their family would be shunned. Believing in Magic is the story of Cookie’s marriage to Earvin—nearly four decades of loving each other, losing their way, and eventually finding a path they never imagined. Never before has Cookie shared her full account of the reasons she stayed and her life with Earvin “Magic” Johnson. Believing in Magic is her very personal story of survival and triumph as a wife, mother, and faith-filled woman.




Marriage 911


Book Description




Receiving Love


Book Description

From the New York Times bestselling author of Getting the Love You Want and Keeping the Love You Find comes illuminating and inspiring advice on one of the most complicated issues facing couples today: receiving love. Many people know how to give love, but many more undermine their relationships by never having learned how to accept it. We don't always realize the ways in which we reject appreciation, affection, help, and guidance from our romantic partners. According to Hendrix and Hunt, until we are able to understand the meaning behind our behavior, our relationships stand to suffer. Receiving Love prompts questions such as: -Are you reluctant to tell your partner what you really want or need? -When you do get what you've asked for, do you still feel dissatisfied? -Is it difficult for you to accept kind gestures, gifts, or compliments from your partner? With Receiving Love, you can learn how to break the shackles of self-rejection and embrace real intimacy. Drawing on their renowned expertise, the wide clinical experience of Imago therapists, and their own personal experience as a married couple, the authors offer detailed, sensitive advice on how to turn a relationship between two well-meaning yet misunderstood individuals into a true, everlasting partnership.




Thriving Marriages - 2nd edition


Book Description

Since our first publication of Thriving Marriages, we have given seminars on its content to over 300,000 people across the United States. Two areas emerged that needed further clarification and elaboration: how to make conflict resolution more effective and how to communicate our needs more clearly. As a result, we have rewritten Chapter 10: Solving Conflicts with Wisdom and Respect. The new chapter simplifies the conflict resolution process focusing on the role of Understanding, Validating and Acting, which we refer to as the UVA response. This type of emphathic response allows people to integrate their differences and transform the conflict into an opportunity to grow in their unity. The chapter also includes a new questionnaire which covers the skills required and can be used as a tool to engage in constructive dialogue. For those of you involved in Marriage and Family Life, Religious Education, and Adult Faith Formation ministries, we invite you to include this new edition of Thriving Marriages in your curriculum and ministries as well as our different audio formation materials that accompany it.




Catholic and Newly Married


Book Description

This compact book is aimed at couples who are about to be or have recently gotten married. It assumes that at least one of the spouses is Catholic, although it points out that "all marriages are interfaith" in one way or another. By the editors of the Foundations newsletter for the newly married, this book makes for the perfect supplemental gift for engagements, showers, and weddings, as well as marriage preparation courses.