James Cordova, The Marriage Checkup: A Scientific Program for Sustaining and Strengthening Marital Health

James Cordova

Marriages don’t whine like children or bosses, but we have to pay attention to them or they can get sick or just plain tired.

Professor James Cordova of Clark University wrote The Marriage Checkup to help couples assess the strengths and weaknesses of their relationship and to develop strategies for strengthening its health. It’s a two-session assessment and feedback program that helps us look at intimacy, sexuality, co-parenting, managing money, and communication, "the marital health equivalent of the annual physical or the every-six-month dental visit.”

We can avoid the emotional turmoil associated with conventional marital counseling since we are simply receiving safe and routine feedback about potential problems in our marriage. Like physical health, the health of a relationship can be developed to greater levels of fitness and resilience to illness; even healthy couples can benefit from these exercises. 

Learn more about James Cordova: wordpress.clarku.edu/coupleslab/

Winifred Reilly, It Takes One To Tango: How to Rescue Your Marriage With (Almost) No Help From Your Spouse

Winifred Reilly

What happens when your marriage is broken but you’re the only one who wants to fix it? We’ve all heard “it takes two” to make a marriage better, but therapist Winifred Reilly noticed that waiting for her change-averse husband to leap up and joyfully embrace her grand plans for remodeling her marriage wasn't working out any better for her than it was for her clients. So she decided to try to rescue her marriage by herself, even though she had no idea what that would take.

Like most couples she works with, she wanted a happier marriage, not a divorce. Now she gives us practical, effective, empowering alternatives to talking ourselves blue in the face. “I know from experience that when one partner takes that first step...behaves in a new way, challenges the status quo, the other will usually follow. Sometimes slowly, not always cheerfully, and often not in the way we imagined. But eventually, both partners become stronger and healthier, and so does the marriage.”

Learn more about Winifred Reilly: onetotango.com

Eric Maisel, Overcoming Your Difficult Family: 8 Skills for Thriving in Any Family Situation

Would it kill you to call your mother? You and your sister aren’t speaking...again...  If you don’t have a picture-postcard family, where everyone loves one another, roots for one another, and never criticizes one another, listen in.

Life coach and retired family therapist Eric Maisel offers useful strategies for dealing with the people you’re connected to for life, even when they are not cooperative. Dr. Maisel tackles the problematic aspects of families, describing eight vital skills to help you cope with challenging relationships. The book also serves as a unique “field guide” to common types of dysfunctional families — authoritarian, anxious, addicted, and more — and how to thrive despite those dynamics.

By following Dr. Maisel’s battle-tested advice, you’ll learn to maintain inner peace in the midst of family chaos and create a better life for everybody.

Learn more about Eric Maisel: EricMaisel.com

Tina Benson, A Woman Unto Herself

Imagine discovering the man you love is a narcissist with a double life! Tune in for the heartbreaking account of Tina's journey to understanding how she fell in love with a narcissist, why she stayed in the relationship for so long, and how it related to her childhood traumas and losses.

Using her 30+ years of experience as a life coach and spiritual teacher, she expertly weaves together the perspective of a woman, a clinician, and a spiritual warrior. If you have looked for love in all the wrong places, hoped that someone "out there" will make you feel complete and whole, and are yearning to find a relationship with your own "Inner Beloved," Tina will inspire you and guide your way home. Move through love, loss, passion, betrayal, heartbreak, to forgiveness, healing, and redemption. 

Learn more about Tina Benson: www.soulwhisperer.com