HOW TO BE YOUR WIFE’S WHITE KNIGHT (or your husband’s Queen of Hearts)

This afternoon I attended a community theater performance of “The Music Man” at my hometown’s high school. By the norms of River City Iowa in 1912, Marion (yes, Marion the Librarian) should be married. Townspeople consider her standards for a husband too high. They envision her becoming an old maid. Marion, too, secretly fears this will happen.

When her outspoken mother confronts her directly about it, Marion sings “My White Night” by Meredith Wilson. During this song we see Marion knows what she wants in a husband. Her standards include, “…I would like him to be more interested in me than he is in himself, and more interested in us than in me.”

Marion is right on target. The focus for a healthy, happy, lasting marriage does not belong on me or on you. It belongs on us (the relationship).

Questions for thought:

• Do you want your marriage healthy, happy, and lasting?
• If you don’t know what to stop doing or start doing to focus (or increase your focus) on the “us” in your marriage, are you willing to learn?
• Will you take the next step towards that learning now?

Top resources exist to help you learn how to have a healthy marriage that can last a lifetime. Immediately available to you as a downloadable PDF e-book (also available in print) is 30 Tips to Healthier Relationships:  A guide for couples and anyone else who has relationships to treasure. See my other Top Book Recommendations here.

RELATIONSHIPS AND SEX – GETTING TO KNOW YOU

A study out of Cornell University on relationships and sex published in the Journal of Marriage and Family found its way into my inbox today.

In short, the study included 600 married and co-habiting couples. Those who waited at least 6 months before having sex were compared to those who had sex within a month of starting to date. Those who waited to develop other aspects of their relationship before having sex reported better outcomes for their relationship in all 5 of these areas:

• commitment to the relationship
• emotional involvement with each other
• communication
• frequency of arguing
• sexual satisfaction.

Do You have a Relationship You Treasure? 30 Tips to Healthier Relationships – It’s ready for you!

Two or three years ago, I had this “stuff” running around in my brain, clogging it up.  I had to capture that “stuff” on paper, so I began writing and ended up with a list of 10 healthy relationship tips.  Each tip was two or three lines long.  One time when I revisited the list, I decided I wanted to say more about these tips, so the two or three lines turned into several paragraphs per tip. 

And then my brain started to clog up again – weird how that happens.  I pulled up the list on my computer, and it sort of took on a life of its own, growing into 20 tips.  After I reached the 20^th tip mark, I realized I had a book in me.  So I started growing the list towards my new goal of an e-book with 30 healthy relationship tips. 

Those of you who follow my blog or get my newsletter (you can sign up to get emails of either or both in the side bar to the right), know I put out a request this summer for tips you wanted included in this book.  I incorporated what readers sent me.  You know who you are – thank you!

More than once I wondered if I’d ever get the book finished.  So many time hogs and unexpected circumstances kept getting in the way.  Yeah, life as usual…

But wonder of wonders, I finished the e-book.  I’m excited!  It has user-friendly formatting and pictures. 

30 Tips to Healthier Relationships:  A guide for couples and anyone else who has relationships to treasure has been available since October 13^th.  I’ve received positive feedback from readers.  They like it!  They say it gives them tools they can use to help them succeed in their most important relationship(s).

Here’s what one internationally known therapist and author has to say about the book:

“It’s easy to go on automatic pilot in relationships, taking them for granted or falling into unhelpful patterns. Jenny Olin’s 30 Tips to Healthier Relationships can serve as a wakeup call, renewing your relationship and making it much better each day. Spend one month using these simple but useful tips and you’ll find out for yourself.”   -Bill O’Hanlon, LMFT, author, Love is a Verb and Rewriting Love Stories

You can download your copy today in a PDF format.  I have a special coupon code for my blog readers to receive $5 off.  And, if you don’t like the book you can get your money back, so what do you have to lose?  Better yet, what do you have to gain?

I almost forgot to tell you – I also wrote a companion workbook to help you decide how you want to use these tips, measure your progress, and evaluate your results.  Formatted as a Word Template, you can type your answers right into the workbook and save it on your computer.  Workbooks help many people stay accountable for their choices.  

How do you get your discounted copy of Thirty Tips to Healthier Relationships?  Click on this link http://www.HealthyRelationshipsForLife.com/mb and make sure you type in the coupon code BLOG.

Many more details about the book are available here http://www.HealthyRelationshipsForLife.com/mb  but make sure you use the coupon code BLOG, or else you miss out on the special discount.