Modern culture would have you believe that everyone has a soul mate; that romance is the most important part of a successful marriage; that marriage does not mean 'til death do us part, but merely for as long as my needs are being met; and that when serious differences arise, divorce is the best solution.

According to the Bible, all of these modern-day assumptions miss what marriage is all about. In The Meaning of Marriage — a six-session Bible study — Timothy Keller, along with Kathy, his wife of forty years, draws a profound portrait of marriage from the pages of Scripture that neither idealizes nor rejects the institution but points us back to the relationship between God and man. The result is a vision for marriage that is refreshingly frank and unsentimental, yet hopeful and beautiful.

This six-session Bible study is for anyone from singles to couples considering marriage to those who have been married recently or for a long time.

The six sessions are:

• Service: Marriage Isn't about You
• Covenant: Created to Make Promises
• Roles: Loving through Mutual Submission
• Singleness: Strengthening the Spiritual Family
• Sex: The Act of Covenant Renewal
• Hope: Seeing the Great Horizon

Strengthen and deepen your love with a fun, ingenious program of eight life-changing conversations—on essential topics such as money, sex, and trust—from two of the world’s leading marriage researchers and clinicians.

Navigating the challenges of long-term commitment takes effort—and it just got simpler, with this empowering, step-by-step guide to communicating about the things that matter most to you and your partner. Drawing on forty years of research from their world-famous Love Lab, Dr. John Gottman and Dr. Julie Schwartz Gottman invite couples on eight fun, easy, and profoundly rewarding dates, each one focused on a make-or-break issue: trust, conflict, sex, money, family, adventure, spirituality, and dreams.

Interactive activities and prompts provide motivation to stay open, stay curious, and, most of all, stay talking to each other. And the range—from the four skills you need for intimate conversation (including Put Into Words What You Are Feeling) to tips on being honest about your needs, while also validating your partner’s own emotions—will resonate, whether you’re newly together or a longtime couple looking to fortify your bond. You will discover (or rediscover) your partner like never before—and be able to realize your hopes and dreams for the love you desire and deserve.

The choices you make each and every day determine not only your relationship with God but also the quality of your marriage. The decisions you make today will determine the marriage you will have tomorrow.In From This Day Forward, you will discover five commitments that will absolutely fail-proof your marriage:Seek God.Fight fair.Have fun.Stay pure, andNever give up.If you and your spouse will earnestly commit to do all five of these things, you'll discover a richer, deeper, more authentic relationship and a more rewarding, more passionate love life.Don't be a statistic. Don't be average. Let's get you the marriage you've always wanted.Starting right now-from this day forward.

DON’T kiss dating goodbye—there is a much better way!

Dr. Myles Munroe’s guide to waiting and dating offers sound and humorous advice on dating that will help believers prepare for a long and happy marriage.

In an age where culture’s views on dating, courtship, and premarital romance are increasingly at odds with God’s Word, the late Myles Munroe—internationally acclaimed teacher and bestselling author—offers crystal clear wisdom and biblical truth for a satisfying love relationship.

In this user-friendly handbook to biblical dating, you will learn the importance of:

• Having a shared faith in God
• The priority of personal wholeness
• True, godly friendship
• Dispelling myths about finding the “right” person
• Discerning a God-given relationship

The principles in this book will help you turn what can sometimes be a stressful, uncertain time of life into a joy-filled journey. If you want to grow in the Lord and prepare for the commitment of marriage with that special someone, this book is essential, fun, and full of hope!

Five Steps to Romantic Love will help you and your spouse to know and meet each other's needs and overcome the habits that destroy your love.

This workbook takes the proven concepts found in Dr. Harley's His Needs, Her Needs and Love Busters and helps you make them a reality in your marriage. All of the worksheets, inventories, and questionnaires that Dr. Harley recommends in these two bestsellers are available here in a full-sized and easily reproducible format.

Fall in love again and enjoy an intimate, passionate marriage that lasts.

Reclaim the Bible-based concept of marriage as a satisfying one-flesh relationship. A definitive guide to marital intimacy for newlywed Christian couples, learn how to deepen sexual pleasure and enjoy God's gift of sexual intimacy with your new spouse. It can be difficult to find biblically based sexual advice, especially early on in your marriage. A licensed psychologist and family therapist, Dr. Douglas Rosenau answers specific and often unasked questions about sexual topics, presenting newlyweds with detailed techniques and skills to deepen their sexual pleasure and improve their marriages. An excellent tool for premarital education and counseling or as a wedding gift, it's a must-read for Christian spouses. In this easy-to-read guide, Dr. Rosenau covers topics including: Building a biblical foundation of knowledge about sexual intimacy Enhancing pleasure and enjoying passionate intimacy Overcoming common hurdles Resolving problems and healing brokenness Grounded in Scripture and written by a pioneer of Christian sex therapy, A Celebration of Sex is comprehensive, direct, and honest, treating sex with the respect it deserves and a Christ-like foundation.

Bestselling authors and communication and parenting experts Steve and Shaaron Biddulph bring you a humorous, loving guide to creating a successful long-term relationship. This highly readable book guides you through the ups and downs of life as a couple or family and gives you the skills you need to survive as a loving partner and parent. Everybody wants to find love, but in the real world love is something you learn one day at a time. Being a good partner or parent takes courage, honesty and a sense of humour – this book will help you with all three. The message of this entertaining and informative book is that ALL healthy couples have clashes, and sexual and communication problems can act as sparks that ignite new honesty and closeness – you just need to learn how to deal with them in the right way. This essential guide for anyone looking for advice on how to deal with life as a couple or a family includes: • How to grow commitment in small, safe steps. • Love, Lust and Liking – telling them apart and bringing them together. • Diagnosing your ‘couple style’. • The ‘make-or-break’ crises that every marriage or partnership has – and how to use them to make your relationship stronger. • The Sex-Romance alliance – love that gets better. • How children can help us grow up and develop a more fulfilling relationship.

Many Christian singles today are in pain. Wounded from past relationships, overwhelmed at being single longer than they expected, devastated at finding themselves single again. Eighteen- to sixty-year-olds will welcome the timely, biblically based approach Dr. Raunikar offers as he encourages them along the path to Choosing God's Best: healing from the past; learning how to avoid the pain of "counterfeit oneness" physically, emotionally, and spiritually; and much more. This attractive, repackaged edition delves into the real issues Christian singles face today and offers sound, proven advice for creating deeply satisfying godly relationships.

“All the world loves a lover” and perhaps it loves a love story even more. When the romance in question is real, not fictional, it’s all the more powerful. Every love affair has its unique dynamic, which is what makes them so endlessly fascinating. Romances To Remember is a charmingly varied compilation of memorable South African unions.

There are the deeply spiritual unions of people such as Desmond and Leah Tutu and Beyers and Ilse Naudé; powerful politicians and their partners such as Nelson Mandela and Winnie Madikizela and Albie Sachs’s ‘late life love’ for the much younger Vanessa September; the grand historical unions, including those of Koos and Nonnie de la Rey and Jan and Isie Smuts.

Artists and writers have arguably the most lyrical affairs of them all, and here we have Des and Dawn Lindbergh, Ingrid Jonker and Jack Cope, the ground-breaking marriage of Jackie and Vera Nagtegaal, sculptor Edoardo Villa and his Claire, and prima ballerina assoluta Phyllis Spira and Philip Boyd. The loves of celebrities, such as that between beautiful former Miss South Africa Amy Kleinhans and Leighton Curd and the potential fairy-tale romance of prince Albert and South African swimmer Charlene Wittstock, are utterly irresistable.

One of the most enduring expressions of human love and commitment, marriage exists in various forms in almost every culture and society throughout history.

You can t dance this dance unless it s in your blood. Claire McCall is praying it s not in hers. Claire McCall is used to fighting back against the odds. Hard work, aptitude, and sheer determination have helped her rise from adverse circumstances to an internship in one of the nation s most competitive surgical residencies. But talent and tenacity mean nothing in the face of the discovery that is about to rock her world. It s called the 'Stoney Creek Curse' by folks in the small mountain town where Claire grew up. Behind the superstition lies a reality that could destroy her career. But getting to the truth is far from easy in a community with secrets to hide. As a web of relationships becomes increasingly tangled, two things become apparent. One is that more than one person doesn t want Claire to probe too deeply into the 'Stoney Creek Curse.' The other is that someone has reasons other than the curse for wanting Claire out of the picture permanently. Somewhere in the course of pursuing her career as a surgeon, Claire lost touch with the God who called her to it. Now she realizes how desperately she needs him. But can she reclaim a faith strong enough to see her through this deadly dance of circumstances?"

From the New York Times bestselling author of Unfu*k Yourself comes tough-love that explains what makes relationships work: you taking responsibility to fix yourself.

'Love is patient, love is blind. . .' Until it's not. Then what?

No matter how much advice we get or how much work we do on our 'stuff', nothing ever seems to make the difference. The truth of it is, you're woefully ill-equipped for one of the most life-defining things you will ever take on - being in a committed relationship.

Whether you're currently in one, want to be in one, half in-half out, getting over one, married, single, separated, divorced, or just overwhelmed with the whole thing, let's cut through the morass of relationship schtick and put you back in charge. No flowery BS, no woo-woo strategies, systems, or techniques, just real talk, for real people who want a real relationship in their life that actually works.

A radically inclusive, sex-positive guide to managing the inevitable libido differences in our relationships, authored by two certified sex therapists who are passionate about good sex.

Desire invites readers of all ages, genders, sexual orientations, and relationship structures to shed the shame and misinformation that surround the topic of sex and instead learn from 2 certified sex therapists about how libido really works. Desire differences are one of the most common relationship issues, yet, with fewer than 1,100 certified sex therapists in the country, it can be difficult to find help. This essential book breaks the mold of the sex self-help genre, which typically focuses only on cisgender women.

Through the authors’ expert guidance readers will learn about:

• embracing a more expansive definition of sex,
• identifying various factors that can impact libido,
• managing anxiety around sex (one of the biggest libido killers),
• the structural oppressions—from cisnormativity to heteronormativity to compulsory sexuality to minority stress—that affect our libido, and much, much more.

It rejects the narrow, heteronormative, “staircase” model of sex—a way of thinking where many relationships get stuck. It integrates evidence-based relationship therapy techniques for better communication around sex.

Included are dozens of techniques, exercises, checklists, and journal prompts for readers to use at their own pace to fit their needs, including mindfulness, body mapping, and sensate focus. Whatever your identity, sexual practices, or reason for picking up this book, Desire will help you reach your personal sexual health goals.

Whether you are married or single, this book is for you.

Are you single and desire to have a Godly relationship and a spouse who will walk with you till ever after? Or are you married and would like to enjoy and make firm the foundation of your marriage with your spouse? It doesn't matter how you started, or where you are in your relationship right now. It's never too late to begin or re-establish.

Marriage is a beautiful gift from God. Let's walk together through Purity's own story of love, tears and laughter, as we uncover some of the beautiful biblical truths which seem hidden but very simple for us to live as happy couples.

Fallon Bentley's life outside the fence seemed perfect and was often envied. Yet her journey was like walking through a garden of china roses, fearing every step. Her family, her friends, her soul, the future lay in the balance. How would she survive? Fallon had a choice - conquer her cancer or the government. Her decision: BOTH! Those who said, she would never win these battles, had never walked a step in her shoes. Her determination - Endless. Her mind echoed a story, a continuous maze of moments set in time, building a stairway to a destiny...a future...unknown. Her new found voice of wisdom and an angelic spiritual connection removed the word "No" from her vocabulary forever. Yet with her new found wisdom and spiritual connection, would the growing mystery in her life be revealed?

After ending a painful five-year affair, author Casey Clair came to the surprising realization that being already married isn’t the only way potential partners make themselves unavailable. In fact, men and women keep themselves emotionally, legally and sexually unavailable for happy, healthy relationships in dozens of ways. Casey Clair’s new book Still Single: You Don’t Have To Be! is filled with startling revelations and indispensable advice on how to conquer this all-too-common dilemma.

Through real-life examples and interviews you’ll learn how to:
*Identify behavioral patterns that can be obstacles to a committed relationship
*Keep from slipping into the same old unhealthy dating patterns
*Ask the questions that will reveal the true nature of someone’s intentions
*Help you to eliminate the “unavailable” ones, in all their many disguises
* Identify the ways men and women sabotage their own relationships and discover a whole new approach to dating
* Find new ways of understanding yourself that will help you to find the kind of relationship you’re looking for

Author Casey Clair found her true love by following the principles presented in this book. It changed her life, and it can change yours, too.

Top marriage experts present the first practical guide for using play to add excitement to any intimate relationship

Boredom dooms many relationships and often leads to divorce. In their search for the elusive key to happy coupling, the authors of The Play Solution interviewed hundreds of couples and found that the happiest of them agree on one thing: the couple that plays together, stays together.

In The Play Solution, relationship experts Jeanette and Robert Lauer draw on their extensive work with couples in marriage support groups and enrichment seminars to offer readers a refreshing new guide to maintaining an exciting and lasting love. Using real-life stories, interactive quizzes, and play-enhancing exercises, this husbandand-wife author team presents:

• The many benefits of play
  
• Simple ways to make time for play
  
• The various kinds of play that couples can use to spice up their relationships
  
• How to be sure to steer clear of play that is destructive to the relationship
  
• A quiz to determine your play quotient, and much more
  

You May Be Single, But You’re Not Alone.

Being a great dad is challenging enough when you’re part of a two-person team. But now you’re raising your kids single-handedly. How can you provide the emotional, physical, and spiritual support your children need, cover all the details of running a household, and still earn a living to support your family? Being a solo dad could easily be the toughest job of your life.

The good news is you’re not alone. Inside this book you’ll find the support, advice, and encouragement you need to succeed. Here are practical solutions for everything you’re facing–from conflicting emotions to day-to-day time management. You’ll find useful pointers on a daughter’s unique needs, a son’s inner struggles, and even how to recruit trusted friends to pitch in. With plenty of humor and real-world insight, The Single Dad’s Survival Guide will show you how to expand on your natural, built-in abilities so you can come out on top as a parenting team of one.

• Find logistical help on everyday challenges, including finances, family schedules, household management, and staying on top of your work.

• Take advantage of practical guidance on everything
from supporting and nurturing your kids to protecting your own emotional health.

• Learn how to get past anger, hurt, and fatigue to stand strong as the man
your children need most–a man who provides security,
stability, and spiritual guidance during one of the toughest times in their life.

It’s all here to help you succeed as a solo dad. Single parenting takes everything you’ve got–so learn how to give it your all.

Building a marriage is a lifelong endeavor for both men and women. Most marriage books cover the three C's--communication, compromise, and consideration -- but fail to address many issues critical to a healthy relationship. Family advocate Kay James calls these the "things I wish I had known before I got married": advice on finances, sex, children, and dealing with the extended family. Noting that the apostle Paul exhorted older women not to inspire or counsel younger women, but to teach them how to be wives to their husbands, Kay offers a lifetime's wealth of wisdom for creating an unbreakable marriage relationship.

On 30 November 2006, South Africa became the world’s fifth country and Africa’s first to legalise marriage for same-sex couples. To Have & To Hold explores the journey to same-sex marriage with a collection of interviews, essays and documents recognising the multiplicity of viewpoints on the topic, as well as the multiple aspects and efforts that shaped the making of same-sex marriage in South Africa.

It seeks to represent those perspectives by drawing on the opinions of a wide range of experts as well as representing those for whom the right to marry holds the most meaning – the people whose marriages can now be legally recognised. The combination of historical documents, personal reflections and academic and activist analyses of same-sex marriage makes this book invaluable for understanding this historic journey and its legal, social, cultural and religious ramifications.

Too often, couples enter remarriage unaware of and unprepared for the challenges stepfamily life will bring. The Heart Of Remarriage helps couples heal from the inside out rather than offering surface suggestions that may change circumstances but not the lives of couples and their families.

Drs. Gary and Greg Smalley partner with remarried couple Dan and Marci Cretsinger to offer a marriage-changing idea: No matter what circumstances or challenges a remarried couple and their stepfamily face, the solution starts in their hearts. Couples will learn how to examine their own hearts and heal them from past hurts, so they can be filled with God's love.

The Heart Of Remarriage teaches readers how to create emotional security for every family member and offers practical ideas for connecting at the heart level with their spouse and children.