The Happy Couple for the Married Couple

The Happy Couple is for any married woman or man who (1) wants to be successfully married, (2) wants to resolve marital problems, and (3) wants to feel good about her or himself as a married person.

The Happy Couple is two books in one volume. The first book, The Happy Wife: A Woman’s Guide to Marital Success, explains how a married woman can overcome obstacles and find success and fulfillment as a wife. The second book, The Happy Husband: A Guy’s Guide to Marital Success, explains how a married man can overcome obstacles and find success and fulfillment as a husband. The Happy Wife and The Happy Husband books follow parallel chapters and explore similar themes. This enables a husband and wife to learn the same necessary principles for being successfully married and apply them together as they become a happy couple.

The Happy Wife and The Happy Husband are about being successful as a wife and a husband in the 21st Century. Today, marriage is about choice, responsibility, equality, and fulfillment—values that form the basis for every principle and every marital story in The Happy Couple.

The Happy Wife and The Happy Husband help a married woman and man renew commitment by (1) taking responsibility for her/his choice to be married, (2) acknowledging conditions for being married, (3) knowing how to state conditions and not ultimatums, (4) taking personal accountability to remain faithful, (5) promising to do everything within her/his power to solve problems, and (6) loving without ifs.

A married woman and man learn from The Happy Wife and The Happy Husband that fulfillment is achieved by “staying-on track”— being a wife or husband in accordance with personal action-values. Spouses learn that fulfillment comes from how good they can get at being their best marital selves so that self-realization and authentic togetherness occurs.

The Happy Wife and The Happy Husband include practical marital tips for (1) preventing arguments from escalating, (2) offering an apology, (3) saying it like it is, (4) resolving resentments, (5) supporting individual interests, (6) maintaining healthy roles, and (7) maintaining romance, and (8) deciding the division of household tasks.

Often times a wife or husband wonders if she or he has a personal problem that is causing marital unhappiness, or if it is the marriage that is causing so much strife. A special chapter in The Happy Wife and The Happy Husband, “Am I the Problem or Is It the Marriage?” explains how a married person can effectively resolve this question.

The final chapter in The Happy Wife and The Happy Husband offers a 21-step guide for being successfully married.

The Happy Couple for the Marriage Counseling Setting

It is helpful for couples in marital therapy to read their respective books, The Happy Wife and The Happy Husband, in The Happy Couple. Reading The Happy Wife and The Happy Husband can shorten therapy by several sessions. This efficiency is accomplished by asking the couple to read their respective book before the second session, and specifically follow the steps in the chapter, “Identifying Your Action-Values,” with direction to bring for the next session her/his list of action-values. The general information in The Happy Wife and The Happy Husband, and the list of action-values, is then used to structure marital counseling.

The first chapters of The Happy Wife and The Happy Husband are about taking responsibility for the choice to be married and how to successfully commit. In the second counseling session, the responsibility for choosing to be married is acknowledged and affirmed and commitment is reviewed. Next the action-values that each spouse identified from their readingsare reviewed and rated. Further marital therapy is then focused on achieving success by helping each spouse get “on-track” with her/his specific action-values despite hurts from the past and the emotional tension of the present.

The model that emerges when working from The Happy Couple directs couples away from bitching and blaming and toward action-values such as loving, caring, being a good listener, expressive, respectful, upbeat, accepting, affectionate, intimate, honest, and sharing.  Marital therapy is effective and fulfilling when action-values of this nature become the focus of attention.

The Happy Couple for the Classroom on Marital Therapy

It is rare that a book on marital change offers full case presentations of a husband and a wife struggling to be successfully married. By describing in detail the interactions between the therapist and the spouses as obstacles are overcome and success evolves, The Happy Couple offers a model for doing marital therapy. This makes The Happy Couple an ideal book for college students learning marital counseling. Students learn from The Happy Couple the essentials of a successful marriage and how to help couples overcome obstacles and achieve fulfillment.

The Happy Couple offers a positive change model that ends bitching and blaming and moves quickly toward solutions. The model has been field tested in the many workshops that Dr. Bradley has done for professionals on, “Brief (No-Bullshit) Marital Therapy.” Student responses have typically been positive. One participant stated, “I started using the model right after taking your workshop and have found it amazingly useful. I am starting to enjoy working with some of my most difficult couples now, thanks to your model. I also find the model useful in working with individuals in all types of relationships.”

College professors will also be pleased that the marital therapy model presented in The Happy Couple includes ideographic measures. Couples rate themselves as often as each session on self-generated criteria for success. The marital therapy model described in The Happy Couple produces data that enables the wife/husband to focus their attention on changes and what needs to be worked on, while at the same time informing the therapist and the clients on exactly where therapy efforts need to be aimed for improvement to occur. At the end of therapy, measurable data obtained from the counseling process show whether the marital therapy has been successful or not.