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SELF-HELP RESOURCES

Helping you to have your cake and eat it too!

 

Let me speak from personal experience: relationships can really suck sometimes. As much as you love each other today, sooner or later you’ll hit some terrain that might leave you wondering who the heck it is you’ve married, why on earth they’re being such a jerk and whether you’ve made the biggest mistake of your life. Etc etc. As a celebrant who’s interested in the holistic journey of two people, I never want my couples to feel like they’re stuck in marital gridlock without the tools to be able to move forwards together.

Below is an inexhaustive list of a few favourite relationship self help books I’ve enjoyed and found useful over the years, and there are countless other wonderful books and resources out there – please feel free to share your recommendations so I can include them here too! Currently my husband and I are working with the wonderful people of You Me & Us in Griffith, ACT, who specialise in Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT). We found them following the lucky recommendation of a friend and I can’t speak of the experience more highly. I am actually feeling confident about our marriage again for the first time in a long time! (Hooray!)

There are also useful websites like Family Relationships Online and Relationships Australia that can put you in touch with marriage counselling services and online resources to help guide you towards whatever relationship support you need. Other not-for-profit organisations like Anglicare or Catholic Care can also assist with relationship support and family counselling, at any stage of your relationship or circumstances. But do stretch yourself to seek out different solutions, because I promise that your marriage is worth the investment.

Passionate Marriage by David Schnarch

One of my absolute favourites! This book is written with a lot of insightful case studies and poignant discourse about marital love and how to give your sex life a boost when it is stale and how to move through phases of marital gridlock while maintaining your personal integrity about the things that matter most. For more information, please visit the author’s website.

The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman

Have you ever been asked the classic one liner, “Soooo…what’s YOUR love language?” or has anyone in earshot smugly analysed a compliment with a knowing “Oooh, they must be into Words of Affirmation, am I right?” If this doesn’t sound at all familiar, do yourself a favour and get your hands on a copy of this book. It’s an easy read and a lovely way of understanding and responding to different forms and representations of love for yourself, your partner and others. For more information, please visit the author’s website.

Real Love in Marriage by Greg Baer

Ok, this one can be a little tough to swallow, especially when you’re extra mad with your partner and you are tempted to blame them steeply for everything going wrong in your relationship because you’re in so much emotional turmoil. This book offers the perspective that everyone is drowning and the only way to help yourself and your partner out of deep waters is to experience and share genuine, unconditional love with each other. And it boasts a workable process to achieve it. For more information, please visit the author’s website.

Happily Ever...Before and After

This little pamphlet is one that celebrants must issue every couple in the lead up to their big day. It provides a snapshot of some of the social and administrative things that are important to consider or that may be affected by your marriage, as well as other resources that you can access in the community. For a print friendly version of this brochure, please click here.

The Peacegiver by James L. Ferrell

One from my LDS collection. It’s the story of a man repeatedly visited by his deceased grandfather in his dreams, to help him save his marriage which is only hanging on by a few threads at the beginning of the story. Plunging into events from the Old and New Testaments, the man is given opportunities to freshly consider the effects of his choices and redeem himself and his marriage against the backdrop of the Atonement. For more information, please visit Deseret Book.

ACT with Love by Russ Harris

I’ve just started reading this one – by the same author as The Happiness Trap. What I love about it so far is that it speaks bluntly about how love (in that hyper-romantic “you complete me” lasting kind of experience) is actually a fleeting feeling, with a shelf life of three years at the most. Then it unpacks a process based on mindful acceptance and commitment therapy (where the acronym ACT comes from) which has the ability to reframe and transform the unreconcilable parts of each other. I’ll let you know how it ends. For more information, please visit the author’s website.

 

 

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