Valentines Day is sneaking up on us. So what are you doing for your love?

Our suggestion is a kissing night. Total cost: one bottle of juice or wine. Full details are on John Ince’s article on kissing in our premarital library.

The Bargain Queen has a longer list of Valentines dates under $20. Be sure to check out both posts.

We are not really big fans of the barrage of advertisements that precedes Valentines (or just about any major holiday, for that matter). But we do play a game that works for us.

Heather rates how great/awful the various pieces of jewelry in each ad are. Dan gets an idea of what might work for future presents. It works because there is no pressure to actually ever buy. But the day after we win the lottery…

Happy Couples, Happy Planet!

Heather has written a book! And I am very proud of her.

Road Trip! the life planning guide for engaged and newly married couples is an enjoyable way to set life goals with the love of your life. The idea is that you take it with you on a road trip (or train trip, or Saturday mornings at the cafe, or…) and it walks you through a whole series of questions about your goals. It’s fun and a light read, though goal setting is important for couples.

As a thank you for your readership, we’d like to send you a copy. Free, no obligation, no cost for postage, yadda yadda… All we need from you is your permission and a mailing address anywhere on the planet. You can even be cheeky and ask for two!

The best way to leave your name and address is to leave a comment on this post. We won’t publish the comments! Your private information will remain private. We also will not add you to our mailing list (unless you ask us to). We’ll never use your address again, once we’ve sent you the book.

You can also send an e-mail to Heather at CouplesQuestions.com But oh my, do we get a lot of spam! So e-mails sometimes get lost in the spam filters. If you don’t hear a reply, send us another.

Not yet a feedblitzer? If you sign up by the end of January (and then send us a comment or e-mail with your name and address), we will send you a copy of the book as well.

We will be at two bridal shows this week, talking about the importance of marriage preparation or premarital counseling. If they go like hotcakes, we will need to do a second printing so it might take a little while to get your copy.

Happy Couples, Happy Planet!

- Dan

If you are thinking of buying, now’s the time. We are raising the price of our premarital program towards its eventual final price of $49. The new price is $39.99.

BUT it wasn’t fair to spring it on you like that… so here is a discount code for 50% off. Just enter JANUARY in the discount field when you are signing up on our registration page. The discount is good until January 22.

As of February 15, we plan to put the regular price in place. In our first year of website operation, we knew that there would be some hiccups, so gave an introductory price (basically 60% off). That would go some way to making up for any inconvenience that users found.

Things are mostly ticking along well now, we are pleased to say.

The process of “webifying” the CouplesQuestions program has been VERY ENLIGHTENING! Designing a website that works intuitively for most people is a challenge, even with professional design and programming. I have a lot of sympathy for harried webmasters everywhere!

In addition, banks and credit card companies make you jump through hoops to get a merchant account to accept payment. This is right and good, of course! What an eye-opener to see the vetting that they do to make sure we are a credible, honest operation. (There was never any doubt in our minds, of course!)

There is still quite a bit of work to be done to tweak the site and this blog, but the basics are in place. We are really looking forward to getting our CouplesQuestions colours on the blog… the current look is a little um… bold for our tastes.

If there is anything you would like to see us offer, please get in touch by leaving a comment or e-mailing Heather (at) CouplesQuestions.com.

Happy Couples, Happy Planet!

It’s provocatively titled, and we’re pleased to have it as our latest addition to the premarital library.

Our contributor this time is Bob Grant, LPC, “The Relationship Doctor”. He has been counseling and coaching clients — mostly women — for sixteen years. He’s also written a book for women based on that experience.

The article is What do Men want from Women, but it could just as well have been entitled What do Women want from Men. Guys, it is about trust and how you earn it.

Bob’s book, by the way, is available for purchase and download at www.relationshipheadquarters.com. We don’t make any money off the sale of the book; it is simply a resource that some of our readers will find helpful.

More on Bob, his blog, and his book in a later post…

Happy Couples, Happy Planet!

OK, this is a bit off topic. But you got to admit, it is kind of interesting!

We are willing to bet at least a few of our readers will get to be tourists in outer space in their lifetimes. Warning: according to the LiveScience blog, the sex may well be underwhelming.

Seems unfair, but makes sense.

See? Just one more reason why you should do your part to make this planet a happy one!

Happy Couples, Happy Planet!

Or premarriage course or marriage preparation?

A good rule of thumb is to start six months before the big day. Earlier is even better, of course, but you can also get benefits from a marriage course even shortly after you get married.

The beauty of the six month rule is that you have time to sort things out, without the pressure of the impending wedding. Weddings tend to grow, they tend to become all-consuming, and they can easily push the marriage education right into the background.

Doing your premarriage education early also means that you can cancel the wedding in the unlikely event that you find you have irreconcileable differences. Perhaps in an ideal world, all of us would do some form of marriage preparation and we would actively look for reasons not to get married to each other. Now, you don’t need us to tell you that that doesn’t sound fun. And you don’t really need to worry much about that happening.

It’s safe to say that most courses, counselors and programs don’t actively search out reasons that you shouldn’t marry. Like you, they are generally hopeful, believe that you can learn to improve your marriage, and want you to succeed. They aren’t looking for deal breakers. The good ones, though, do help you find where you might have problems.

Then, you can either sort them out right away or you can be aware of them so that they can be handled when the time comes.

Happy Couples, Happy Planet!

In a previous post, we mentioned that we’d get back to an article from the New York Times*. Then the holidays intervened.

There’s something in the article we disagree with. And we don’t think it is just a conflict of interest!

Near the end of the article, they recommend taking an indirect approach to finding out about each other, using “teachable moments”. Basically, you slyly start interrogating your partner whenever an opportunity presents itself.

We think that approach has some real limitations:

• It’s awkward and you might not be very good at it.
• You may come across as having an agenda or, worse, being manipulative or dishonest.
• Lastly, do you really know the questions to ask? There are a lot of them.

For our money, we think the average couple would be much better off going through a formal process of premarriage assessment or education. Get your cards out on the table and make it clear what is going on.

The potential conflict of interest, of course, is that is what CouplesQuestions does. Our premarital program is about asking the questions you need to when you are getting married. It is a small investment of time and money that will pay rich divendends down through your years together.

How small an investment? Currently, $49 USD and a minimum of about five hours each. You can spend a lot more time if you need to and we know several people who got through in a speedy two hours.

For most people, a more rigorous approach like CouplesQuestions is the way to go:

• You get guidance on what questions you need to ask and references you can turn to when you aren’t clear about something. No need to fumble about hoping that you aren’t going to say something dumb.
• You can have a clear discussion, in which both parties know what is going on. Much less potential for misunderstanding and assumptions.
• And much less chance that one of you is going to feel you were ambushed.

You can find a format that is going to work for you. It might not be us! It might be through your church or temple, or through a couples therapist, or through an evening class or weekend retreat. There are a whole range of options.

(Come to think of it, it would probably be worthwhile for us to post a list of the other options out there for you. OK, we will. Promise!)

* The article is now in their archives, so you’ll need to sign up for a free trial to be able to see it. Or become a Times Select member, which is probably well worth it. The New York Times is one of the few papers that gives serious thought to questions around marriage and relationships on an ongoing basis. Sadly, we can’t offer you a copy of the text — it’ll cost $1,000 for a year of posting.

Happy Couples, Happy Planet!

It is a key question for many couples — how much time together or how much time apart? No matter how much you love someone, you need some time apart. You need to pursue your own interests and you need to look after yourself.

Today, we’ve posted the first of what will eventually be a series of articles on this subject (on the CouplesQuestions library).

It deals mostly with the need to balance your needs with those of your partner and those of the relationship itself.

It really is the case that the relationship is a separate entity from the two of you. You need to take some action to make it better, but you also need to keep yourself as a priority. It is a balancing act that most people could improve a bit. And one that you will likely be able to improve just by keeping it in mind.

In one of those coincidences that happens all the time, I got an e-mail from a friend today. He is serving in Afghanistan in a position that keeps him apart from his wife for months at a time. This is not an arrangement that would work well for me or for Heather. Yes, we’d survive it and our relationship would survive it. But we’d never volunteer to be apart unless there was one heck of a reason. Yet it works fine for my friends.

It is something that can be a real stressor, especially if you are on different pages. If you marry expecting that your partner will generally always be around, you need to make sure that he or she isn’t one of those people who thinks nothing of being apart for weeks or months (for the sake of their career, for example).

Anyway… read the article and let us know what you think.

Happy Couples, Happy Planet!

You’ve probably noticed how slow the blog has been to load recently. We’re making some changes that should speed it up enough that you won’t really notice any delay (depending on your connnection speed of course.)

The crushing painful slowness was due to setting the blog up to run through a secure server. It seemed to make sense at the time. However, since there is nothing worse than slow and since there is no information on the blog that isn’t already public… Let’s go back to unsecure and fast.

The CouplesQuestions site itself continues to run on the secure server. We may make the public pages only partly secure to speed them up one day. However, the order page and member-only area will remain secure to protect your privacy.

Happy Couples, Happy Planet!