Resources for Couples

There are hundreds of great resources for your use in preparing for or improving your marriage.

While there are hundreds of great tools for strengthening your marriage, we've listed some of our favorites below. Be sure to also check out National Marriage Event Calendar to find out about marriage-enhancing events in your local community and online.



Arlene Pellicane 

Spokesperson for National Marriage Week, has some great resources for couples.

Arlene has a podcast called The Happy Home. This show is for women and men who want a happier home life. Arlene will help you bridge the gap between your ideal family and the real thing. Also check out Arlene's books... 31 Days to a Happy Husband and 31 Days to Becoming a Happy Wife.



Marriage Date Night

Marriage Date Night was created for married couples to enjoy a fun night out with lots of laughter and music. An evening with unlimited eternal opportunities, a chance for outreach and relationship building. Marriage Date Nights are one night events, taking place throughout the year in various cities around the country. Find more details here.



Cornerstone Marriage & Family Ministries

Is your marriage in crisis? Cornerstone’s one-of-a-kind retreat allows for couples needing urgent care to heal their relationship over a three-day, 22-hour marriage intensive weekend. We call it “Intensive Care” for marriages. A New Beginning Marriage Renewal Weekend is for couples who are distressed, or in crisis in their marriage. It is designed to equip the couple with the tools needed to work through difficult issues, resolve conflicts and restore the love they once had. During the weekend you get to the root of your marital problems and deal with the hurts, problems and pain in your relationship. Since 1994, this life-changing, nationally acclaimed, weekend has a record of helping to restore 4 of 5 crisis marriages and has benefitted literally thousands of couples from all across the U.S and Canada. Find out more at MarriageMinistry.org.



WinShape Marriage

Marriages face a lot of challenges today. WinShape Marriage creates weekend marriage retreats that help couples grow closer to each other and to the Lord. Whether you’re feeling disconnected or fully present, our retreats bring you and your spouse a renewed sense of intimacy. Refresh and reconnect from the moment you arrive at the beautiful WinShape Retreat in Rome, GA, and enjoy intentional time to focus on each other. By combining Christ-centered teachings with unforgettable experiences, we want you to embrace the journey of marriage. See a list of upcoming retreats and intensives at marriage.winshape.org/retreats.




PREPARE/ENRICH 

Research has shown that taking the Prepare/Enrich assessment prior to marriage reduces your risk for divorce by 30%. PREPARE/ENRICH has an online diagnostic premarital assessment, as well as an assessment for married couples. Prepare/Enrich will help you celebrate your strengths as a couple and use them to gain momentum in the growth areas of your relationship. The assessment primes you to have meaningful conversations as you continue to grow as a couple. The site also provides info about facilitator training.




ePREP

Do you want a happy relationship? ePREP is an online program brought to you by PREP, the gold standard for strengthening relationships. The PREP Approach is based on 40+ years of cutting-edge relationship research by Dr. Howard Markman and Dr. Scott Stanley. This self-paced course will teach you skills and strategies which have helped over a million couples around the world.



National Healthy Marriage Resource Center

The National Healthy Marriage Resource Center (NHMRC) is a clearinghouse for high quality, balanced, and timely information and resources on healthy marriage. The NHMRC's mission is to be a first stop for information, resources, and training on healthy marriage for experts, researchers, policymakers, media, marriage educators, couples and individuals, program providers, and others.

With support from the Administration for Children and Families' Office of Family Assistance, Annie E. Casey Foundation, Johnson Foundation, Kohler Foundation, the WinShape Foundation, and others, the NHMRC helps those who want to learn more about healthy relationships, marriage, and marriage education.


 

Retrouvaille

Marriages in crisis can find a lifeline through the Retrouvaille Program. It consists of a weekend experience, combined with a series of 6-12 post-weekend sessions over 3 months. The main emphasis of the program is on communication in marriage between husband and wife. Thousands of couples headed for cold, unloving relationships or divorce have successfully overcome their marriage problems by attending this program. It will give you the opportunity to rediscover each other and examine your lives together in a new and positive way.


 

United Marriage Encounter Weekend

A  48-hour opportunity for a married couple to focus on each other and strengthen their relationship by learning, developing and practicing communication skills they can use over their lifetime. Dates and locations all over the country and the world. All information at www.unitedmarriage.com.

 

 

Growth Trac

Find practical help and resources to built a better marriage at www.growthtrac.com .

Jim and Sheri Mueller founded Growthtrac Ministries in 2001. Jim and Sheri grew this ministry as they resourced the couples they mentored. Since its inception, Growthtrac was a one-stop resource for marriage and spiritual information, but early on expanded its vision from a marriage preparation focus to an expansive Christian-marriage resource.


 

Couple Communication

COUPLE COMMUNICATION began at the University of Minnesota Family Study Center with the research and development work of Drs. Sherod Miller, Daniel Wackman, and Elam Nunnally in the early 1970s. The purpose of Interpersonal Communication Programs, Inc., (ICP) has been to:

  • Provide instructor/facilitator training, tools, and materials to help individuals, couples, and groups
  • Communicate skillfully
  • Make important decisions and resolve conflicts collaboratively
  • Build satisfying relationships with family, friends, and people at work



 

Online Dating, Pre-marriage and Marriage Assessments

Online Dating, Pre-marriage and Marriage Assessments. Based on the Prepare and Enrich inventories, Focus offers a Christian Version of Prepare/ Enrich. The assessment measures more than 12 key relationship areas. Provides a tailored 20 page report on where the couples strengths and growth areas fall. Written for Evangelical Couples with Biblical as well as Clinical insights. Very useful tool for pastors and lay leaders to use in helping couples. http://www.family.org/couplecheckup


 

Art of Marriage

Marriage, the way God intended it to be, is a true art form. That's why for more than 40 years, FamilyLife has been helping couples understand God's plan for relationships. The Art of Marriage weaves together expert teaching, real-life stories, humorous vignettes, and more to portray both the challenges and the beauty of God's design.


 

Love and Respect DVD Series

Love & Respect, the national bestselling book, now offers new 6-week DVD series or 14-week home study series at www.loveandrespect.com .


 

Help for Infidelity and Marriage under Stress

For help with marriages under stress, visit www.JillSavage.org.



Marriage Dynamics Institute

This non-profit Christian ministry has been committed to providing marriage workshops for the last 28 years. Their Marriage Quiz will help couples determine if they are better suited for a 9-week enrichment class or "A New Beginning," their weekend crisis workshop. They partner with couples and churches to create powerful and effective marriage ministries by providing training for leadersclasses that bring about change in marriagesinspirational workshops, and intensive retreats that save troubled marriages. https://marriagedynamics.com/



Grace Marriage- Brad Rhoads

The roads of Brad Rhoads’ life run on parallel tracks. The attorney practiced law full-time for more than two decades, yet as he devoted more efforts to marriage ministry, he felt the Lord calling him to transition to make that his full time work.

Brad began serving as a lay pastor of marriage in his church in 2012 in an attempt to proactively help marriages rather than pick up the pieces after they were broken. He worked with his church’s youth ministry for 10 years. As the teens grew up and began to marry, they saw the fruit of his decades-long marriage with his wife, Marilyn, and asked him to conduct their premarital counseling.



Weekend to Remember

Sharing the love of Jesus has ignited Ann and Dave Wilson’s passion for more than four decades. The Wilsons married when Ann was just 19, and they remember kneeling before God on their honeymoon asking not just for a good marriage, but one that would impact the kingdom.



Loveology

Have the events of the past couple years left you feeling anxious? Worried about your marriage or your family? Maybe you have a relationship question, and you just don’t know where to turn.

These thoughts occurred to seasoned therapists and relationship experts Dr’s. Les and Leslie Parrott. Les and Leslie are a husband-and-wife team who share the same name and passion for helping others build healthy relationships.


Shaunti Feldhahn

When tensions are high and stresses mount, you can be tempted to lash out. You might not realize that choosing a kind response will actually make you feel better. That’s the recommendation of bestselling author and social researcher Shaunti Feldhahn, whose books have sold 3 million copies in 26 languages since 1998.


Ted Lowe

“Don’t follow my example,” said marriage event speaker and author Ted Lowe with his characteristic humor. Ted doesn’t recommend people look to his story for a model of how to begin a marriage. Ted and Nancie got engaged six weeks after their first date, moved to different parts of the country to finish school, then married just a year later. “We had no idea what we were doing,” he chuckled.


Sacred Marriage - Gary Thomas

Have you ever wished you had somewhere to find answers to your physical intimacy questions without feeling awkward? In this situation, Google responses may not be what you were hoping to find.

Pastor and thought leader Gary Thomas, renowned as the author of best-selling Sacred Marriage, has teamed up with licensed counselor and psychologist Debra Fileta to release a definitive guide to Human Sexuality – Married Sex: A Christian Couple’s Guide to Reimagining Your Love Life.


Awesome Marriage - Kim Kimberling

Engaging, Interesting, Relevant… these are the first impressions of the Awesome Marriage website, chock-full of digital resources for date night ideas, prayers for couples, communication tips and relationship challenges. Awesome Marriage was founded by Christian counselor and best-selling author Kim Kimberling, Ph.D., in 2011. The ministry now helps thousands of couples monthly build and enrich their marriages.


His Needs Her Needs - Willard Harley

Nobody gets divorced if they are in love. That profound realization became the thesis upon which marriage therapist and researcher Willard Harley, Ph.D., built his work and eventually became the inspiration for bestselling, His Needs, Her Needs.

In the more than 35 years since the book debuted, it has sold more than four million copies worldwide and has been translated into 22 languages. The concepts Dr. Harley introduced became the bedrock upon which later experts in the marriage field have founded their practices.


5 Love Languages - Gary Chapman

Gary Chapman, Ph.D., counselor, pastor, speaker and best-selling author, can be considered a founding father in the field of family and relationship ministry. He’s best known for developing the 5 Love Languages concept. His book by the same name, The 5 Love Languages, published in 1992, continues to sell more copies each year than the one preceding. It’s now been continually in print for 30 years, sold more than 20 million copies in English and has been translated and published into 57 languages worldwide. Dr. Chapman believes personal endorsement is the key to its popularity.


The Marriage Course

Finding a husband eager to participate in marriage enrichment might be as rare as the proverbial hen’s teeth, and especially if his marriage has hit a rocky patch. The idea of sitting down with strangers to talk about feelings and spill personal secrets makes many men’s skin crawl.

Leave it to the proper, polite Brits to create marriage material without that obstacle. The Marriage Course, developed at HTB in London, England, is the same church that gave us Alpha, the 10-week exploration of faith that is offered world-wide, includes, “no counseling, no airing of dirty linen in public, no group therapy – and it seems to work.”



Developing Strong Relationship Skills

Did you know a divorce can cost more than $30,000? And that doesn’t even factor in the emotional cost to both the couple, their children and extended family. Preventing divorce and strengthening marriages impassions Richard Albertson, Founding President of Live the Life, a Florida faith-based non-profit. He started the organization along with his wife, Elizabeth, in 1998. After being married for 10 years, they realized their own marriage needed serious work to keep them from becoming another divorce statistic.


Understanding Your Spouse - Bill & Pam Farrel

Who doesn’t love to laugh? Humor can open doors, lighten moods and break down barriers. Pam and Bill Farrel, M.Div., creators of marriage and family focused Love-Wise, are known for their enthusiastic and fun delivery of wisdom gleaned from four decades of marriage and ministry. Their Men Are Like Waffles, Women are like Spaghetti has sold nearly 400,000 copies in 16 languages and includes digital components for individual or group study.


Debra Fileta

The 30-something licensed professional counselor noticed a trend: people with marriage problems were flooding her practice. Debra Fileta, M.A., L.P.C., found she enjoyed the dynamics of working with couples, which led her to begin writing articles for Christians about some common relationship issues she sees. Her website, truelovedates.com, started to gain momentum as she addressed topics like toxic relationships that had been previously overlooked.


The Marriage Kit

Investing in your marriage and your relationship with each other is important. 


The Marriage Kit created by SmartLoving is an online course for married couples wanting a lasting, passionate relationship.


Register for the SmartLoving Marriage Kit  here.


For Your Marriage  

An initiative of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops with many resources for married couples and those engaged. 


Resources Related to Intimacy


Authentic Intimacy - Juli Slattery

Sex. Our culture’s obsessed with it. Sex sells everything from cars to power bars. It’s the topic on everyone’s lips – the pursuit of it, the results of it, or whether a person’s pronouns change because they feel like they identify with the opposite.

What was designed by God to be a powerful representation of the union between him and his people has become something (all sorts of things) so far removed from the original intent it’s almost unrecognizable. In fact, sex rarely lives up the potential envisioned by its creator.



Dave & Ashley Willis

When their eyes met in college theater class 22 years ago, Ashley and Dave Willis could not have realized their journey would lead them to work in marriage ministry together. They’ve since become a highly recognized voice for Christ-centered marriages as representatives of MarriageToday (now known as XO). Founded by Jimmy and Karen Evans in 1994, the largest marriage focused ministry in the United States is devoted to helping couples thrive in strong and fulfilling marriages. The Willises reach millions of couples seeking marriage enrichment via their blogs, podcasts, television broadcasts, speaking events, and vlogs. Their weekly Naked Marriage Podcast ranks in the Apple top 35 Christianity Podcasts in the United States.



Theology of the Body - Christopher West

What if you found the cure for cancer? Wouldn’t you want to spread the news? Theologian and Theology of the Body Institute president Christopher West believes he has found the answer to the cancer plaguing our society and souls. The key is intimacy with God – not a sterile, head-knowledge belief, but a true relationship experienced in and through our physical bodies.




Resources for Women


Praying for Your Husband - Sharon Jaynes

The bride waited in the dressing room of the church on her wedding day. It was the happiest day of her life. Then a thought struck her — wasn’t every bride this happy on her wedding day? If so, why did so many marriages end up in divorce? The bride realized as happy as she was, she was going to need help to get her to the lifelong marriage she desperately desired.

That long-ago bride was author and speaker Sharon Jaynes, past vice-president of Proverbs 31 Ministries, whose desire for something different than the home in which she was raised took her on a journey with the Lord.


Suzanne Venker

Despite societal questions concerning gender and masculine/feminine roles, most women still hope for marriage and motherhood sometime in their lives. But too many of them follow the cultural narrative that tells them to put off marriage until they have achieved career success.

According to author and relationship coach Suzanne Venker, this misleading message damages the chances of women achieving the marriage and family they desire. Suzanne has gleaned wisdom from decades of research, her life coaching practice, and interviews with leading thought leaders in the marriage and family realm, which she’s incorporated in her seven books and hundreds of contributions to various media outlets.




Resources for Men


Rites of Passage for Men - Paul Allerton

Be Prepared. It’s the Boy Scout Motto. The Scout Manual provides guidance for any situation that might arise, outdoors or in, even relating to conduct as it encourages a Scout to “Do a Good Turn Daily.” But life outside of Scouting’s purview becomes a little more complicated. How can a man be prepared for the relationship challenges of marriage and fatherhood? Those issues are nowhere to be found in the guidebook.

Paul Allerton noticed this absence as he was figuring out how to grow personally and navigate life. The Eagle Scout and Scoutmaster found Scouting offered him a framework to achieve purpose and meaning as a young man but remained silent when it came to modeling how to be a successful husband and father.



Fatherhood and Marriage - Rick Johnson

Fans of the popular Netflix show Ted Lasso might be amazed how art imitates life. One scene in particular illustrates a key message of relationship expert Rick Johnson. Rick teaches about the power people have to build others up or tear them down. In the show, egotistical athlete Jamie Tartt plays for his own glory, because that’s the attitude modeled by his abusive dad. A scene depicts his father verbally berating him after Jamie took a step toward maturity and unselfishly passed the ball to a teammate. In contrast, the coach, who had been encouraging Jamie throughout the season to grow as a person as well as a player, affirms Jamie’s move.




Resources For Older Couples


Terry and Sharon Hargrave

They’ve arrived! Those glorious midlife years when your grown children are living on their own and the demands of your professional career have slowed. You may be eagerly anticipating traveling, getting back to the hobby you put aside or enjoying your grandkids. Then you get the call. Your elderly family member is sick or has fallen. Decisions must be made. Care must be given. Before you can take a breath, you find yourself busier than before.

Previous generations have cared for elders, but modern medicine has allowed many to survive with chronic conditions, people are living longer than ever before. The increasing number of blended families also multiplies those who might end up needing assistance. Almost every family will spend at least some time caring for an elderly parent. In the ensuing years since its inception in 1985, HomeWord has put forward close to 2 million resources in 30 languages.


Jim Burns

What would motivate someone to start a marriage ministry? According to HomeWord Founder and President Jim Burns, it was the work he and his wife, Cathy, found necessary at the beginning of their 47-year marriage that inspired him to build what has become the source of some of the most trusted family and relationship advice in the nation.





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