Happy New Year, New You, New Marriage!

Well, not a NEW marriage, exactly, but a completely refreshed and delightful one!

As the best New Years’ announcement EVER, I am absolutely thrilled to tell you that my new book The Surprising Secrets of Highly Happy Marriages is now on shelves!    For me, this is like a new baby… except with a three year incubation period and all the sleepless nights in advance during all the deadlines, instead of after the baby is born. J 

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be giving all of you friends a sneak peek into the various “secrets” we discovered in three years of research into what makes happy couples so happy.  But today, I wanted to let you in on something that has been going on behind-the-scenes as I’ve been working on this: I have been ACHING to get back to marriage relationship research for years! 

It has been so amazing to have had so much attention to For Women Only and For Men Only over the last 9 years since FWO first came out, and I’m so grateful to my publisher for their desire to have us revise and update them – and even help us create this amazing website to refresh our look.  And it has been exciting to expand my research to help teens, parents and the workplace with SIX books since FWO and FMO first came out.  I’ve loved all of that.  But in the background, I’ve felt like I was letting the marriage relationship research wither, and I’ve hardly been able to contain my eagerness to get this research finished and this new book out the door!

Here’s what is so cool (and different) about this newest research project.   Where For Women Only and For Men Only focused on the often-unseen needs of men and women, The Surprising Secrets of Highly Happy Marriages investigates the often-unrecognized process of what makes great marriages and relationships.  I found so many simple, simple habits that most people don’t realize are such a big deal.  That’s why when we had to decide on a subtitle for the book (usually a torturous process) it was easy for once: the little things that make a big difference.  

And once people know what “works” they can not only try out a few new things, they can keep doing the stuff they didn’t realize was so vital.  I was truly shocked to talk to these hundreds of highly happy couples over the last three years, and learn how many of them had previously been so troubled, that they had actually considered divorce.  A lot of them couldn’t even identify what it was that made the biggest difference, which is why it was so fun for me to piece those patterns together.  Once I heard the same thing from 10 couples, then 100 couples, then 200 couples – and then it was confirmed on the survey – I knew we’d hit on some gold.  I found 12 of those simple little habits in the research and I’m thrilled to finally release them!