The Happy Couple's Handbook

Book excerpt: If you're about to walk down the aisle, you want every day to be as happy as your special day. However while there is lots of advice on planning a wedding, there's precious little to prepare you for the rest of your life together. If you're lucky your mother will offer a few tips and your father will makes some jokes but otherwise you're on your own. Perhaps it's some years since you promised to love and cherish each other and the pressures of everyday life have taken the shine off things. Throw in the sort of crises that everyone faces at some point—like financial problems, losing a parent, family rows and infidelity—and it's easy for the love between the two of you to be seriously damaged. So what are the secrets of happy couples that stay strong rather than grow apart? In this groundbreaking book, marital therapist Andrew G. Marshall, explains that it's not chemistry that keeps partners connected but skills. It's likely that you didn't learn these skills as a child because your parents didn't know them or couldn't explain them. Maybe they avoided conflict, fought like cat or dog or split up when you were young so never showed you to fall out safely, make-up and resolve differences. Fortunately, it's never too late to learn how to communicate better and repair your relationship—even if you're on the verge of splitting up. Marshall draws on thirty plus years working with over three thousand clients to give you his tried and test tool kit for a happy marriage. It includes: - The rules for constructive arguments. - How to be a better listener. - Use carrots rather than sticks. - How to forgive and move on.