I urge everyone who wants to understand just how wonderful marriage can be to read and reread this book. But I also urge psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists, pastors, missionaries, and lay counselors to study it as well. I urge them because it not only covers a host of important aspects of marriage and includes practical tips but it also has deep spiritual and emotional concepts and even unconscious personality dynamics and how we all, to one extent or another, deceive ourselves in many ways that are detrimental to our marriages (Paul Meier, MD, founder of the national chain of Meier Clinics). Youll never be happy in your marriage if you dont deal with issues head on, such as communication, conflict resolution, and intimacy. J. A. Alexandre, a pastor and relationship expert, helps you build and maintain a loving relationship with your spouse in this guidebook to marital bliss. Youll learn how to rekindle the flame of love that brought you together, avoid choices and situations that could endanger your marriage, get the maximum amount of enjoyment in being with your partner, and recognize the needs that arent being met (including your own). By revealing results from surveys hes conducted during marital retreats, the author shares specific behaviors that can cause trouble in a marriage. More importantly, he provides ideas and guidance on how to overcome problems. Regardless if you are contemplating marriage, already married, or seeking to help couples, youll understand that marital happiness is a choice by seeking to understand the Word of God while confronting the challenges of everyday life.

significant others in her life?

This book should be of interest to scholars, researchers, students, and practitioners alike. Scholars, researchers, and students of personal relationship development will recognize in this book the first serious attempt in over 40 years to do a large-scale, longitudinal study of premarital factors that predict premarital breakup and marital quality; they should also appreciate our attempt to develop a theoretical rationale for predicted paths and to test those paths with the best available statistical tools. Practitioners-while generally not as interested in the intricacies of the statistical results-will find much that is useful to them as they help individuals and couples make decisions about their intimate relationships, their readiness for marriage, and how to increase the probability for marital success. Teachers, family life educators, premarital counselors, and clergy will find helpful our “principles for practice,” particularly as described in Chapter 9, as they teach and counsel couples in any premarital situation. My interest in the development of relationships from premarital to marital probably began when I got married in 1972 and started to notice all of the characteristics my wife and I brought from our respective families and how our “new beginning” as a married couple was in many ways the continuation of our premarital relationship, only more refined and more intense. My professional interest began when I did my doctoral dissertation in 198 1 on premarital predictors of early marital satisfaction (the results of that study are reported in Chapter 8).

Drawing on international comparisons of data on happiness, this book offers both general and academic audiences a simple, deep, and honest answer to the timeless question: "What makes people happy"? The conventional recipe for happiness has long included money, marriage, and parenthood as basic ingredients. What research is telling us, however, is that these elements don't relate to happiness in quite the way we might expect them to. Redistributing Happiness: How Social Policies Shape Life Satisfaction explores the factors that determine "life satisfaction" and demonstrate how an individual's happiness is largely shaped by social context—by where they live and local policies, norms and attitudes about religious beliefs, economic and political security, income redistribution, and more. The book begins with a review of the contributions of other disciplines—such as economics, psychology, and political science—to common explanations of the sources of happiness. Next, the authors offer an international comparison based on their own research on what makes people happy, taking into consideration factors such as marriage, children, money, and job status. Most importantly, special attention is paid to how social policies and social context directly affect people's happiness. All readers high school age and up will enjoy the book's comprehensive—and fascinating—answer to the happiness question because of how the authors connect an individual's experience to the broader environment of the social system and situation in which that person resides.

How to be Happy Though Married: Being a Handbook to Marriage by E. J. Hardy: "How to be Happy Though Married: Being a Handbook to Marriage" by E. J. Hardy is a guide that offers insights and advice on maintaining a happy and fulfilling marriage. Drawing from personal experiences and observations, Hardy provides practical tips and reflections on how couples can navigate the challenges of married life while fostering love, communication, and mutual understanding. Key Aspects of the Book "How to be Happy Though Married: Being a Handbook to Marriage": Marital Wisdom: The guide imparts wisdom and practical advice on fostering happiness and harmony within the context of marriage. Relationship Insights: Hardy explores the dynamics of relationships, offering guidance on effective communication and conflict resolution. Practical Guidance: "How to be Happy Though Married" provides actionable strategies for maintaining a strong and fulfilling marital bond. E. J. Hardy shares insights and guidance for a happy marriage in "How to be Happy Though Married: Being a Handbook to Marriage," offering readers valuable tools for building lasting relationships.

Best-selling author of Happiness Now! "Happiness is a spiritual path. The more you learn about true happiness, the more you discover the truth of who you are, what is important, and what your life is for." Be Happy! is the follow-up to Robert Holden’s best-selling Happiness NOW! In this book, Robert gives you a front-row seat on his 8-week happiness program—famously tested by independent scientists for the BBC-TV documentary called How to Be Happy. Step-by-step he introduces you to a set of proven techniques, principles, meditations, and insights that will help you be happy now! Key lessons include: Follow Your Joy — stop chasing happiness and start enjoying your life as it happens. The Happiness Contract — undo mental and emotional blocks to happiness and success. The Receiving Meditation — increase your natural capacity for happiness and abundance. The Forgiveness Practice — give up all hopes for a better past and be happy now. The Gift of Happiness — use the power of happiness to bless your life and benefit others. "This happiness training not only changes the way you feel; it actually changes the way your brain functions."— Professor Davidson, Wisconsin-Madison UniversityBBC’s How to Be Happy TV documentary

The institution of the family is by far the most important of all the societal networks in which the lives of men, women and children are involved. Nowhere is this more true than in the less developed countries of Asia. Originally published in 1979, The Family in Asia aimed to provide a series of comprehensive survey chapters which described traditional family patterns in a selection of Asian countries at different stages of economic development. These range from a rapidly expanding and highly developed industrial nation, Japan, through modernising and developing countries, India, Pakistan, Iran, China, South Korea and the Philippines, to more underdeveloped countries, such as Thailand and Afghanistan. Each chapter is written by a senior country specialist and covers an integrated series of topics within a uniform framework in order to facilitate inter-country comparisons. Valuable description and statistical material is provided on the literature and on the effects of industrialisation, urbanisation and modernisation, but perhaps more important is a theoretical framework and the editors’ review of some basic characteristics of social modernisation. These include the degree of equalitarian family relations and sexual divisions in society; emphasis on individualism and independence; the differentiation and specialised functioning of social institutions; urban life; birth control and family planning; social mobility; marital disruption and divorce; neglect and care of the elderly; formal education for children; and government intervention and influence on family activities. Read in its historical context, this title will interest specialists in development and Asian studies, in demography, sociology and in anthropology. Students in particular, will value the tight analytical framework in which the book has been written.