Before Saying "I Do": The Essential Guide to a Successful Marriage

By Michael Batshaw

Have you found "the One"?The decision to get engaged is one of the most exciting and important decisions you will ever make. Before Saying “I Do”: The Essential Guide to a Successful Marriage offers deep insights into how you and your fiancé can use this critical engagement period to build a solid foundation for the rest of your lives together.  Psychotherapist and relationship expert Michael Batshaw shares specific and practical techniques to begin the necessary work for a successful engagement—setting the stage for happily ever after. Topics include:

• Knowing if your partner is “the One”
• How to disagree productively
• Cultivating real intimacy for a lifetime
• How Hollywood gets it wrong
• Issues to discuss before taking your vows

• Language: English
• Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
• Release date: Apr 22, 2011
• ISBN: 9781596529564

Book preview

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One hardly ever hears, I wish I had gotten engaged earlier

How long should one wait before getting engaged? Of course, there is no gold standard timeline for all relationships to enter into such a commitment. However, there are certainly some milestones that should be passed before the big engagement ensues.

First, don’t get engaged before you have become sufficiently annoyed at and resentful of certain aspects of your partner’s personality. It’s essential to have the visceral experience of such annoyances and resentments in order to heighten your awareness and deepen your understanding regarding your partner’s strengths and weaknesses. As a couple, you should have had many arguments and have resolved them well, resulting in greater intimacy. The majority of individuals considering engagement are already having sex. For those individuals, sex should be good and it should be improving in some ways. People who have decided to wait until marriage should have thoroughly discussed their views and feelings about sex with their mate. One should always discuss major value systems and life goals, thereby ensuring that the two of you are essentially