Recommended Reading

In addition to The Solution for Marriages, the following books are recommended for use by mentors and individual couples looking to enhance their marriage or mentoring skills. Your purchases through this site help us provide you with the very best in marriage building resources. Thanks!

Alternate Couple Assessment Resources
The Couple Checkup: Find Your Relationship Strengths
David Olson Ph.D., Amy Olson-Sigg, Peter J. Larson Ph.D.
Drawing on over 35 years of research and the responses of over 50,000 couples, The Couple Checkup explores issues such as communication, finances, sexuality, spirituality, and parenting. You will compare your results with other couples and learn principles for strengthening your relationship with one another. Couples can take and use this assessment on their own.
 
Remarriage Checkup, The: Tools to Help Your Marriage Last a Lifetime
Ron L. Deal, David H. Olson, Ph.D.
Vital Remarriage Advice from Step-family Experts. The leading Christian remarriage authority, Ron L. Deal, teams up with David H. Olson, founder of PREPARE/ENRICH, to give couples vital remarriage advice. Couples can take and use this assessment on their own.
Marriage Preparation
Preparing for Marriage: Discover God’s Plan for a Lifetime of Love
David Boehi, Brent Nelson, Jeff Schulte and Lloyd Shadrach
Helps couples identify growth areas in their relationship so they can start marriage well. Couples learn how to discern God’s will for their relationship, handle finances, clarify roles and responsibilities, develop a loving sexual relationship, deal with family histories and more.

Before “I Do”: Preparing for the Full Marriage Experience
K. Jason Krafsky
“In a time which a wedding day is often little more than a ‘prom on steroids.’ K. Jason Krafsky has provided the faith community with a powerful tool for equipping couples to better prepare for lifelong marriage. Before ‘I Do’ asks all the right questions and presses all the right buttons, taking couples into a profoundly introspective experience that is enlightening, inspiring and practical.” — Randy Hicks, President of Georgia Family Council
Biblically-based Financial Management
The Treasure Principle Bible Study: Unlocking the Secret of Joyful Giving
Randy Alcorn
Managing God’s investment in their lives will become a new delight, as Christians learn to put their resources to their most rewarding use.

The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness
Dave Ramsey
Dave condenses his 17 years of financial teaching and counseling into 7 organized, easy-to-follow steps that will lead you out of debt and into a Total Money Makeover. Plus, you’ll read over 50 real-life stories from people just like you who have followed these principles and are now winning with their money. It is a plan designed for everyone, regardless of income or age.

Marriage and Children (Money Life Basics)
Crown Financial Ministries The MoneyLifeâ„¢
Basics Series offers pocket-sized biblical wisdom, practical advice, and positive encouragement for each topic in the series. It is designed to give immediate answers to common financial questions that affect people in their everyday lives.
Sexual Intimacy in Marriage
Getting Your Sex Life Off to a Great Start: A Guide for Engaged and Newlywed Couples
Clifford and Joyce Penner
Many couples put more planning into the wedding ceremony than they do for what comes after the wedding. Intelligent, deliberate preparation for a lifetime of sexual pleasure is a worthy investment you won’t regret. The authors guide you by dispelling sexual myths as well as getting to know yourself and each other emotionally and physically.

A Celebration of Sex: A Guide to Enjoying God’s Gift of Sexual Intimacy
Dr. Douglas Rosenau
The author states, “I am determined that Christians reclaim God’s wonderful gift of sexuality.” We agree! This book is indeed a “celebration of sex” presenting it as a gift from God. When you follow God’s biblical principles for sexual intimacy, your marriage will be greatly blessed. This book explains arousal, overcoming barriers that hinder intimacy, sexual communication, sensuous massage, body image, mutual pleasuring and what “making love” means to males and females. No Christian couple should be without this book!

Intimate Issues: 21 Questions Christian Women Ask About Sex
Linda Dillow and Lorraine Pintus
Written by two mature Christian wives, this book answers the twenty-one questions about sex most frequently asked by Christian wives in a way that is biblical, informative, practical, and honest.
Dealing with Pornography & Sexual Addiction
Wired for Intimacy: How Pornography Hijacks the Male Brain
William Struthers
Written by a neuroscientist and researcher, this book details how viewing pornography changes how a man’s brain works, how memories are formed and attachment takes place. False assumptions about porn are exposed and the pathway to sanctification can take place.

Healing the Wounds of Sexual Addiction
Mark Laaser
Internet pornography is pervasive and sexual addiction has become a national epidemic that affects up to 10% of Christians, bringing heartbreak and despair to those it entangles. But there is help for men and women caught in sexual addiction’s downward spiral. This book offers a path that leads beyond compulsive thoughts and behaviors to healing and transformation. Sensitive to the shame of sexual addiction without minimizing its sinfulness, the author traces the roots of the problem and identifies a biblical approach to self-control and sexual integrity.

Shattered Vows: Hope and Healing for Women Who Have Been Sexually Betrayed
Debbie Laaser
If you have been devastated by your husband’s sexual betrayal you don’t have to live as a victim. If you choose to stay in your marriage, you have options other than punishing, tolerating, or ignoring your spouse; in fact, extraordinary growth awaits a woman willing to deal with the pain of her husband’s struggles with sexual purity. This guide provides practical tools to help you make wise and empowering decisions, emotional tools to develop greater intimacy in your life, and spiritual tools to transform your suffering. Sexual betrayal can break your heart, but it doesn’t have to break your life.

Every Heart Restored: A Wife’s Guide to Healing in the Wake of a Husband’s Sexual Sin
Fred Stoeker, Brenda Stoeker, Stephen Arterburn and Mike Yorkey
Here is the book for every woman who has become a casualty in the fight for sexual purity, offering godly guidance and wisdom for a woman facing such personal betrayal. As the wife of a man who is addicted to lust, pornography, or masturbation, you are not alone.

Biblical Roles
Love & Respect: The Love She Most Desires; The Respect He Desperately Needs
Emerson Eggerichs
It reveals the secret to marriage that every couple seeks, and yet few couples ever find by cracking the communication code between husband and wife. Uncovers the powerful motivators of unconditional respect for him and unconditional love for her.

The Respect Dare: 40 Days to Improving Your Relationship with God and Your Husband
Nina Roesner
This book teaches the power of a wife’s respect in the life of her husband and the dramatic results that this can produce in their marriage. A great place to start for the wife who desires to rebuild her marriage. Learn the language of respect and truly connect to the man you married.

Guidance for Stepfamilies
Smart Stepfamily, The: Seven Steps to a Healthy Family
Ron L. Deal
Called “the best book available for stepfamilies” this resource is recommended by more Christian family experts than any other.

Family Rules: Helping Stepfamilies and Single Parents Build Happy Homes
Jeanette Lofas
FAMILY RULES not only gives you the tools you need to create a happy well-run family but the parenting skills to develop character, self-discipline, and self-esteem in children. Easy to institute and easy to follow, FAMILY RULES is the best way to bring stability and tranquility to your home.

Marriage Enrichment
Rekindling the Romance: Loving the Love of Your Life
Dennis Rainey, Barbara Rainey and Bob DeMoss
Addresses couples who feel cheated because their marriage has lost its passion. Organized into short, biblically-based chapters, this book is full of practical insights and the keys to unlocking relational and sexual intimacy.

The Marriage Journey: A Flight Plan to Your Healthy Marriage
Chuck Dettman, Mae Dettman
The Marriage Journey gives helpful navigational aids you can easily apply during the stormy times of your marriage flight. The aeronautical theme gives an uplifting perspective to the turbulence often experienced in marriage. The Journey checkups, flight plans, and more, make for an easy read, plus offer a fresh and unclouded approach to help you build a strong marriage and family. Travel on The Marriage Journey for an unforgettable trip. The analogy of plane travel used in the book, the Journey helps couples explore new territories and make surprising discoveries. A successful marriage requires clear flight plans to avoid thunder storms for a smooth journey. God as the pilot and couples as the co-pilots, couples need to work as a team to make the flight as enjoyable as possible and appreciate the beauty of the skies. The Journey will help couples have a pleasant trip. Enjoy the flight! Written by the co-author of The Solution for Marriages, The Marriage Journey shares skills to create a strong, healthy and lasting marriage. It is designed for couples of any age or stage in their relationship. You can turn a good marriage into a great one, find hope in a struggling one, or take a great marriage to a deeper, more passionate level.