Contents
Foreword
Introduction
Chapter 1
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Having been in the counseling profession for many years, I'm not surprised when a couple shows disbelief at my money-back guarantee that their marriage will show improvement within eight weeks providing they are willing to follow my plan and to work at it continually during that time.
The reason I can offer a guarantee is that the ideas I have developed to foster healthy relationships really do work. The success of my own marriage and of the marriages of those couples with whom I have worked over the years proves this.
I'm not suggesting that all couples will succeed in rebuilding their marriages. As I warn them during our first session together, either they will succeed or one or both partners will give up entirely. Rarely does a couple remain the same.
Those who do give up do so because they are unwilling to really commit themselves to rebuilding their relationship. They may decide they are unwilling to work continuously at the specific actions required to rebuild their marriage. Or, as they begin to draw closer through quality time and the issue of intimacy is more keenly realized, they may decide that their marriage, or that marriage itself, is not what they want. commitment. Eight weeks of continual quality time is general!, enough time to force a decision on this commitment. Quality time on a continual basis moves a couple away from indecision.
It often amazes me how many hours couples are willing to spend in counseling, talking about the years of misery they have suffered, in a feeble attempt to repair their marriages. I have known couples who have gone to therapists for months on end in an attempt to reconcile their differences. Where they get the, strength to endure such pain is beyond me.
Frankly, I believe that talking about past misery is a waste of the couple's time and money. It is the most ineffective way to reconcile problems, and the only one who profits from this approach is the counselor.
Once a couple has declared their willingness to work at getting along, then each partner has to begin to examine the nature of love. For most people, love seems to hold an aura of mystery. What is love? When is a person in love and when not? In my work with couples we explore the nature of love as part of the rebuilding process.
Love is really no mystery at all. Simply put, love is a human need, just as food is a need. And, just like the need for food, it is satisfied through the action a person takes with an external object. An apple satisfies my need for food, and a person satisfies my need for love.
How and why that works within the human system is the subject of this book.
The process described in this book has proved successful with all the couples I have worked with who have honestly wanted to work at their marriages and who have worked at putting these ideas into practice for a period of at least eight weeks. That is the key: both partners must be committed to working continuously at their marriage. Married life itself and specifically one's partner have to be the top priorities. If anything is more important than the relationship, the marriage will suffer. If either one (or both) of the partners doesn't want to work at the marriage, then they need a lawyer, not a counselor. There are only three choices in an unhappy marriageŃstay miserable, get divorced, or spend more enjoyable time alone together on a regular basis. The choice is yours.
Couples don't fall in love any more than they fall out of love. They choose to love. This book will teach you how.
I have used a counseling format for this book. The couple I work with in it represents most of those I see. Linda is typical of people who have tried many times to improve their relationship and are skeptical about how well this process works. Mark is typical of people who make promises in a relationship but continue to live on merrily in their own world oblivious to the concerns of others. Only when Linda threatened divorce did Mark realize that their marriage was on dangerous ground. The problems and questions that occur represent those I have heard in the course of many counseling sessions.
It took me many years to understand clearly what makes a marriage successful. It is my hope that many couples will read this book and learn to enjoy marriage for what it was meant to be: a close, loving intimacy between two human beings.
Edward E. Ford, M.S.W.
Phoenix, Arizona
November 18, 1986