A hilarious and hopeful primer to prevent, combat, and eliminate the suckage in modern marriage by doing it right in the early years, from one of the minds behind the series Sex and the City and the New York Times bestselling authors of He’s Just Not That Into You, It’s Called a Breakup Because It’s Broken, and It’s Just a F***ing Date Some marriages start out storybook. Perfect proposal, perfect engagement, perfect wedding, perfect honeymoon, and perfect newlywed years. Greg Behrendt and Amiira Ruotola stumbled right out of the wedding gate. Their choices in the early years, they’ll tell you, nearly bought their marriage a one-way ticket to Suckville. The New York Times bestselling authors explore all the adventures of early wedlock, from the moment one of you gets on one knee to the day when sex starts to feel like work instead of play. In this guidebook, Behrendt and Ruotola explore their own marriage and, with gleeful candor, tremendous warmth, sharp humor, and piercing insight, look at what we who have decided to “settle down” hope to get out of our most lasting relationship. We venture through volumes on the engagement, wedding planning, the Big Day, the wedding hangover, the (blissful?) first year, the hard work of marrying two lives, fights, and sex-pectations versus sex-pectreality. The perfect book for those who have just put a ring on it or are thinking of putting a ring on it, Behrendt and Ruotola’s work is a brilliant guide for the first stretch of that wild ride we call marriage.

What if God has purposed your marriage for something so much more than "happily ever after?" Since the very beginning, God's design for marriage has been for husbands and wives to be ambassadors of holy love to a hurting world. Still, too many couples stop short at happy and wonder why they feel unsatisfied. Rather than "you and me against the world," God calls each couple to the rich and meaningful mission of "you and me for the world." In Marriage After God, Aaron and Jennifer Smith, popular marriage bloggers at HusbandRevolution.com and UnveiledWife.com, transparently share their own journey of turning a marriage in crisis into a marriage built on Christ's redemptive love. With fresh biblical insight and intimate stories of their own struggles and victories, this book will guide you toward a God-centered, ministry-minded, and thriving marriage. Throughout Marriage After God, you'll learn to: Discover the signature marks of a marriage after God Find principles for building an unshakable marriage foundation Let God's story take the lead in your love story Recognize the tools God has already equipped you with for a missional life together Filled with timeless wisdom, this thorough and practical book will empower you and your spouse to dream, decide, and do as you step hand in hand into God's ultimate purpose for your marriage. God has created your remarkable, romantic, and redemptive relationship to be a powerful light to a dark and hurting world. Let Marriage After God be your invitation to marriage as God intended--a life-saving, hope-inspiring, and transforming force of God's love. Praise for Marriage After God: "This book is an incredible resource for anyone trying to grow or step into a healthier and more life-giving marriage. Aaron and Jen pull no punches; are honest, raw, and authentic; and show that a marriage in pursuit of Jesus can change the world." --Jefferson Bethke, New York Times bestselling author of Jesus > Religion "There is a short list of books I'm stashing away for my three small kiddos to read when they are older--Marriage After God is one of them. Dear couples of the world, you have picked up a treasure! This book will give you clear direction to live out God's will for your marriage. There is no greater gift you can give yourselves than to run after Him together. Marriage After God will show you how!" --Lara Casey, author of Cultivate and Make It Happen

From the New York Times bestselling authors of He's Just Not That Into You, It's Called a Breakup Because It's Broken, and It's Just a F***ing Date comes a hilarious and hopeful primer to eliminate the suckage in modern marriage by doing it right in the early years. If you're in a committed relationship or thinking about putting a ring on it, then this is the book for you! Greg Behrendt and Amiira Ruotola explore all the adventures of early wedlock, from the moment one of you gets on one knee to the day when sex starts to feel like work instead of play. In this guidebook, Behrendt and Ruotola explore their own marriage and, with gleeful candor, tremendous warmth, sharp humor, and piercing insight, look at what we who have decided to "settle down" hope to get out of our most lasting relationship. We venture through volumes on the engagement, wedding planning, the Big Day, the wedding hangover, the (blissful?) first year, the hard work of marrying two lives, fights, and sex-pectations versus sex-pectreality. The perfect book for those who have just put a ring on it or are thinking of putting a ring on it, Behrendt and Ruotola's work is a brilliant guide for the first stretch of that wild ride we call marriage.

Leave a Cheater, Gain a Life is a no-nonsense self-help guide for anyone who has ever been cheated on. Here's advice not based on saving your relationship after infidelity -- but saving your sanity. When it comes to cheating, a lot of the attention is focused on cheaters -- their unmet needs or their challenges with monogamy. But Tracy Schorn (aka Chump Lady) lampoons such blameshifting and puts the focus squarely on the-cheated-upon (chumps) and their needs. Combining solid advice that champions self-respect, along with hilarious cartoons satirizing the pomposity of cheaters, Leave a Cheater, Gain a Life offers a fresh voice for chumps who want (and need) a new message about infidelity. This book will offer advice on Stupid sh*t cheaters say and how to respond, Rookie mistakes of the recently chumped and how to disarm your fears, Why chumps take the blame and how to protect yourself, and more. Full of snark, sass, and real wisdom about how to bounce back after the gut blow of betrayal, Schorn is the friend who guides you through this nightmare and gives you hope for a better life ahead.

"One of the foremost relationship experts at work today offers creative insight on building trust and avoiding betrayal, helping readers to decode the mysteries of healthy love and relationships"--

Seven essays celebrating the beauty of the imperfect marriage. We hear plenty about whether or not to get married, but much less about what it takes to stay married. Clichés around marriage—eternal bliss, domestic harmony, soul mates—leave out the real stuff. After marriage you may still want to sleep with other people. Sometimes your partner will bore the hell out of you. And when stuck paying for your spouse’s mistakes, you might miss being single. In Wedding Toasts I’ll Never Give, Ada Calhoun presents an unflinching but also loving portrait of her own marriage, opening a long-overdue conversation about the institution as it truly is: not the happy ending of a love story or a relic doomed by high divorce rates, but the beginning of a challenging new chapter of which “the first twenty years are the hardest.” Calhoun’s funny, poignant personal essays explore the bedrooms of modern coupledom for a nuanced discussion of infidelity, existential anxiety, and the many other obstacles to staying together. Both realistic and openhearted, Wedding Toasts I’ll Never Give offers a refreshing new way to think about marriage as a brave, tough, creative decision to stay with another person for the rest of your life. “What a burden,” Calhoun calls marriage, “and what a gift.”

While observing exotic animal trainers for her acclaimed book Kicked, Bitten, and Scratched, journalist Amy Sutherland had an epiphany: What if she used these training techniques with the human animals in her own life–namely her dear husband, Scott? In this lively and perceptive book, Sutherland tells how she took the trainers’ lessons home. The next time her forgetful husband stomped through the house in search of his mislaid car keys, she asked herself, “What would a dolphin trainer do?” The answer was: nothing. Trainers reward the behavior they want and, just as important, ignore the behavior they don’t. Rather than appease her mate’s rising temper by joining in the search, or fuel his temper by nagging him to keep better track of his things in the first place, Sutherland kept her mouth shut and her eyes on the dishes she was washing. In short order, Scott found his keys and regained his cool. “I felt like I should throw him a mackerel,” she writes. In time, as she put more training principles into action, she noticed that she became more optimistic and less judgmental, and their twelve-year marriage was better than ever. What started as a goofy experiment had such good results that Sutherland began using the training techniques with all the people in her life, including her mother, her friends, her students, even the clerk at the post office. In the end, the biggest lesson she learned is that the only animal you can truly change is yourself. Full of fun facts, fascinating insights, hilarious anecdotes, and practical tips, What Shamu Taught Me About Life, Love, and Marriage describes Sutherland’s Alice-in-Wonderland experience of stumbling into a world where cheetahs walk nicely on leashes and elephants paint with watercolors, and of leaving a new, improved Homo sapiens.