Marriage Family Relationships

Having a baby is a joyous experience, but even the best relationships are strained during the transition from duo to trio. Lack of sleep, never-ending housework, and new fiscal concerns often lead to conflict, disappointment, and hurt feelings. In And Baby Makes Three, Love Lab™ experts John Gottman and Julie Schwartz Gottman teach couples the skills from their successful workshops, so partners can avoid the pitfalls of parenthood.

Women are like spaghetti, because their thought process runs on and on in an interconnecting web, and men are like waffles because they compartmentalize and "sit" in sometimes blank boxes, just to relax.

Marc Sedaka stood by while he and his wife endured endless rounds of drug therapies, 16 artificial inseminations, 10 in-vitro fertilizations, three miscarriages, and finally, a gestational surrogate ("womb for rent") who carried their twin girls to term. He was as supportive and loving as he could be, but he really wished he'd had a book like What He Can Expect When She's Not Expecting during the process.

Love may be sweeter the second time around, but once the bliss of a newfound relationship wears off a little, the reality of being part of a stepfamily sets in. If you are one of the millions of remarried Americans facing the challenge of blending two existing families into one cohesive whole, you are part of a stepcouple - and you know all too well how hard it can be to make your marriage work in sometimes tough terrain. Susan Wisdom and Jennifer Green provide tips and strategies on dealing with the issues remarried couples face, with a wealth of advice from real-life stepcouples.

As a childfree woman, Dr. Amy Blackstone is no stranger to a wide range of negative responses when she informs people she doesn't have - nor does she want - kids: confused looks, patronizing quips, thinly veiled pity, even outright scorn and condemnation. But she is not alone in opting out when it comes to children. More people than ever are choosing to forgo parenthood, and openly discussing a choice that's still often perceived as taboo. Yet this choice, and its effects personally and culturally, are still often misunderstood.

In her extraordinary best seller, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc immerses listeners in the intricacies of the ghetto, revealing the true sagas lurking behind the headlines of gangsta glamour, gold-drenched drug dealers, and street-corner society. Focusing on two romances - Jessica's dizzying infatuation with a hugely successful young heroin dealer, Boy George; and Coco's first love with Jessica's little brother, Cesar - Random Family is the story of young people trying to outrun their destinies.

You have a newborn, so sleep is impossible, right? Wrong! In the womb, babies sleep up to 20 hours per day. Clearly newborns don't need to be "trained" how to sleep-they know how, and they've had plenty of practice. So why do most parents have trouble getting their newborns to sleep? Elizabeth Pantley, a world-renowned expert on children's sleep, created this guide to explain the ways we unintentionally prevent an infant's natural sleep to occur, and to teach us the simple but powerful ways to maximize our newborn's naps and nighttime sleep.

When Jane, an aspiring writer, meets filmmaker John Bridges, they both want the same things: to be in love, to live a successful, creative life, and to be happy. When they marry, Jane believes she has found everything she was looking for, including—a few years later—all the attendant joys and labors of motherhood. But it’s not long until Jane finds herself subsumed by John’s ambitions, whims, and ego; in short, she becomes a wife.

An inspirational classic for more than thirty years, Where Is God When It Hurts? honestly explores pain—from physical wounds to emotional and spiritual pain—and sheds new light on God's presence in our suffering.

In Why Have Kids?, Valenti explores these controversial questions through on-the-ground reporting, startling new research, and her own unique experiences as a mom. She moves beyond the black and white “mommy wars” over natural parenting, discipline, and work-life balance to explore a more nuanced reality: one filled with ambivalence, joy, guilt, and exhaustion. Would-be parents must navigate the decision to have children amidst a daunting combination of cultural expectations and hard facts.

In all the writing and reporting KJ Dell'Antonia has done on families over the years, one topic keeps coming up again and again: parents crave a greater sense of happiness in their daily lives. In this optimistic, solution-packed book, KJ asks: How can we change our family life so that it is full of the joy we'd always hoped for? Drawing from the latest research and interviews with families, KJ discovers that it's possible to do more by doing less, and make our family life a refuge and pleasure, rather than another stress point in a hectic day.

In this one-of-a-kind guide, dad, doula, and certified lactation counselor Brian Salmon and perinatal mental health and relationship expert Kirsten Brunner offer practical, modern-day survival tips for expectant dads and birth partners. Based on Salmon’s Rocking Dads childbirth course, this book provides everything dads need to know about supporting their partner through labor, birth, breastfeeding, and beyond.

A family rift is one of the most traumatic experiences a person can face. It can have a profound effect on virtually every aspect of life, causing depression, relationship problems, and even physical illness. Healing From Family Rifts offers hope to those coping with a split in their families. Family therapist Mark Sichel addresses the pain and shame connected with family rifts and offers a way through the crisis and on toward healing. Uniquely, Sichel does not assume that every rift will or even should be mended. Instead, he offers ways to recover from any outcome.

In this groundbreaking book, New York Times best-selling author and Hollywood producer DeVon Franklin dishes the real truth about men by making the compelling case that men aren’t dogs, but all men share the same struggle. He uses the metaphor of a dog that needs training as a way to explore why behavior persists in men that can lead them to act against their vows, their integrity, and even their character.

No matter how hopeless you feel about the state of your marriage, we believe you can rekindle intimacy with your spouse. Because it happened to us too. We used to be just like you, missing that deep connection, meaningful conversations, and excitement we had when we first met. However, we have used what we share in this audiobook to reconnect, grow together, and rekindle intimacy in our marriage; emotionally, intellectually, spiritually, physically, sexually, and much more.

Physician Ed Wheat has helped thousands of couples improve their love lives and build happier marriages. In Love Life for Every Married Couple, he'll help you improve your marriage through sharing, touching, appreciating, and focusing healing attention on your mate. Answering physical, psychological, and stress-related questions in a Christian context, Dr. Wheat demonstrates how to bring your feelings of love back to life.

Nobody affects us as deeply as our brothers and sisters - not parents, not children, not friends. From the time we - and they - are born, our siblings are our collaborators and co-conspirators, our role models and cautionary tales. They teach us how to resolve conflicts and how not to, how to conduct friendships and when to walk away.

At age 34 Jo Piazza got her romantic-comedy ending when she met the man of her dreams on a boat in the Galápagos Islands and was engaged three months later. But before long Jo found herself riddled with questions. How do you make a marriage work in a world where you no longer need to be married? How does an independent, strong-willed feminist become someone's partner - all the time?

Psychologists often paint a picture of human mating as visceral, instinctual. But that's not the whole story. In courtship and display, sexual competition and rivalry, we are also guided by what Glenn Geher and Scott Barry Kaufman call Mating Intelligence - a range of mental abilities that have evolved to help us find the right partner. Mating Intelligence is at work in our efforts to form, maintain, and end relationships. It guides us in flirtation, foreplay, copulation, finding and choosing a mate, and many other behaviors.

How to keep your marriage together when the trials of life threaten to rip it apart. It's not a question of if your marriage will face trials. It's a question of when. Illness or injury. Job loss or financial burdens. Addiction. Anxiety. Infidelity. Loss of faith. Whether you've been married for five months or fifty years, it's within you and your spouse's power to ensure your marriage is prepared for those seasons and situations—a place of refuge and safety for both of you.