Lucky in Love-The Secrets of Happy Couples and How Their Marriages Thrive has left my library to a destination where I hope it can have real impact. It has a lot of nuggets of bolded advice in it (based on her interviews of 100 couples that I hope will have some impact on their own. They will have more meaning however, if you pick up a copy of this book.
-If your friends and family do not think you are making the right choice, listen.
-When they meet, vital couples feel immediately at home with each other.
-When it comes to falling in love, do not dismiss your first impressions-Trust yourself.
-As they begin their relationship, neither member of a vital couple is trying to win.
-Polar opposites are not likely to remain happy together for long.
-Happy couples often experience themselves as being the same and different-As friends and lovers.
-For a marriage to be strong, both partners must stop being single at heart, and come to be married at heart.
-Happy couples establish and follow productive daily routines
-Happy couples establish and follow meaningful family routines
-In the happy couple two souls become one.
-Happy couples usually describe each other as their best friend.
-Happy couples drink each other in-internalized shared identity.
-The happiest of couples share a life Dream.
-If the dream is good for the dreamer, the shared dream is good for the marriage.
-A marriage stands an excellent chance of succeeding when one or both partners are naturally cheerful people.
-Happy couples expect each other to do their best
-When they argue, happy couples follow the rules
-Happy couples care more about the health of their relationships than about winning arguments.
-When an argument is not worth having, happy couples force themselves to walk away.
-If a couple is to be happy, is is essential that the partners see each other, and see themselves, as equals-regardless of how the world may see them.
-Happy couples do not, 'let it all hang out' -re anger and aguiments
-When they cannot agree on how to solve a conflict, happy couples manage to agree, at least in part, on what the problem is.
-When it is impossible to agree, it is important to try to understand.
-When compromise is not possible, happy couples make sure that each partner at least has a say in how things will turn out.
-When an agrument is resolved in terms of what is best for us, rathe than what is best for me, both partners come out happy.
-Happily marred people believe in being able to admint, at least to themselves, that they could be wrong.
-A happy marriage can help both partners to outgrow the worst character flaws of youth.
-Spouses are happiest, and most likely to change for the better, when their mates bolster their self-confidence.
-Marriages work best when partners encourage each other to come into her/her own.
-Marriages thrive when couples set clear limits.
-As with all marital arguments, formulating an ultimatum in terms of what is best for both partners is the wisest strategy
-Infertility may hurt happily married spouses individually, but it does not hurt them as a couple.
-If a child in trouble is a blow to any marriage, it is also equally an opportunity for wife and husband to build new love and respect for each other.
-As marriage enriches the self, so do children enrich the marriage.
-Just as the strong couple must share a vision of life, they must also share an understanding of loss.
-Couples cope best with tragedy when they are at peace with themselves.
-Self-forgiveness is an essential element in coming to terms with family tragedy.
-The strong couple finds a way to create good from bad, life from death.
-When they need help, happy couples instinctively assume help is available, and they keep looking until they find it.
-Most happy marriages are held together by a powerful and enduring sexual bond-even when partners do not fully realize it.
-Happily married couples are more than friends. They are mates (sexual bond).
-Happily married couples see each other's best selves.
-Happy long-term relationships are based in a fundamental chemical match.
-Vive la difference! (between the sexes)
-For happily married couples, it is strictly in the realm of fantasy and sexuality that mean were "superior".
-Almost universally, happy couples strongly believe in, and steadfastly practice, monogamy.
-It is essential not to take any major action that you will have to keep secret from your mate.
-Happy couples follow a policy of talking themselves out of attractions to others long before they leave the stage of temptation.
-Happy couples display a pervasive and fundamental equality on the question of money.
-A good marriage supports each partner's development in every realm: in love, in family, and in work.
-In the good marriage, partners have a good deal of faith in each other even they are concerned that the other may be wrong.
-Happily married people 'do well by doing good'.
-If a marriage is to be happy, both partners must feel that their particular division of labor, and of authority, is fair.
-Once a couple have children, they must function as a team in order to be happy.
-If the small child puts stress on his parents' marriage, the healthy grown child can just as surely support their marriage.
-Those couple who thrive in their older years have made peace with the past.
-Just as the adolescent must separate from his parents in order to lead a healthy adult life, so the parent must separate from the child in order to enjoy a healthy old age.
-When spouses are proud of their life together, they are not preoccupied with life's end.
