Becoming Married, Staying Married: A Guide for African American Couples

Many couples believe romantic love is a bond strong enough to keep them together through all situations, no matter how challenging or difficult things get. Life will test your marriage in real ways. Couples that manage the challenges well learn more about each other, navigate through it together, and become a couple on a deeper level. This book is for couples who want to prepare themselves in order to have a good marriage and stand the tests of time.

The purpose of Becoming Married Staying Married is to help you dialogue with your partner and begin a lifelong conversation so that you learn not only what it means to be married, but how to become married more deeply to each other over the years to come. Although written for pre-marriage and newly married couples, truly all married people can benefit from these techniques. Further, while one chapter specifically addresses African American marriages, the vast majority of this resource is totally applicable to any marriage.

What you'll gain from this book: You'll look at some assumptions about marriage and where those assumptions come from; how marriage might be seen as a ministry, what individuals bring to a marriage and what a healthy relationship looks like. You'll examine qualities that will help any marriage remain healthy, such as self-awareness, effective communication, conflict resolution, forgiveness, learning how to be flexible, expressing sexuality in a healthy way, and learning the meaning of 'marriage mature'.