Challenges

Engaged

Podcasts

• Addressing Relationship Energy Drainers

  This lesson will teach you to recognize immediately when your energy is being drained and what you can do about it.

• Overcoming the Core Beliefs that Cause Relationship Failures

  Learn how your subconscious beliefs can cause your relationships to fail.

Articles

• Wedding Rings: To Wear or Not to Wear

  For many, a wedding band is a beautiful and important symbol of a couple’s commitment. For others, it seems unnecessary, uncomfortable and even heavy-handed.

• Communication/Conflict

  • Dealing with Cultural Differences in a Relationship

    Differences in culture can put a strain on a relationship; learn how to ensure it does not cause the end of the relationship.

  • Guarding your heart? It’s really a matter of trust

    It can be difficult to trust someone in a new relationship after being hurt but the risk can be worth it.

  • Relationship Mind Games

    Playing mind games with your significant can be a losing strategy for your relationship.

  • Saying You're Sorry

    Saying you're sorry can be difficult at times, TwoOfUs.org lets you know how to make it easier.

  Engagement and Preparing for Marriage

  • How to Combine Your Lives Without Losing Your Identity

    Two of the greatest benefits of a healthy relationship are sharing your interests with someone and learning new things.

  • Meet the Family: Tips for Leaving a Good Impression

    Tips for making meeting your significant other's family a positive and memorable experience.

  • Newly Engaged? Get Ready for an Emotional Roller Coaster Ride ...

    You may have been imagining the perfect wedding day since you were young, but what you probably aren’t prepared for is the onslaught of emotions along the way.

  • Should You Take Your Fiance’s Last Name?

    The vast majority of women marrying today take their husband’s last name. Still, for many women, the decision to do so is complicated, even painful one.

  • The First Year of Marriage

    Get your marriage off to a great start! Tips for building a strong marriage ... from the beginning.

  Family Challenges

  • Managing Holiday Expectations

    It’s important to have several conversations with your fiancé regarding the management of specific expectations relating to the holiday season.

  • Surviving Holidays With the Family

    Take the time to reset the holiday expectations meter for yourself and your significant other with these tips to manage your way to a happier holiday.

  • Your Family or Mine?: Negotiating Family Holiday Expectations

    There are many ways to handle the holidays and extended family members. No one way is right for every couple. But you must agree as a couple how you will manage your time.

  Finances

  • Are Your Money Styles Compatible?

    Learn how to effectively communicate about money and finances when you and your partner may come from different financial backgrounds.

  • Discuss Finances Before Marriage

    Before you begin a new life together, make sure you are on the same page financially.

  • Help for Money Arguments

    Learn how to work as a team to tackle stressful financial situations.

  • How to Confront Your Partner’s Poor Spending Habits

    Confronting your partners spending and financial habits can be difficult, TwoOfUs.org will help couples explore this issue.

  • How to Ride Out the Storm and Recession-Proof Your Relationship

    Read about three ways to protect your love and your money during these stressful economic times.

  • Strategies for Couples Dealing With Financial Strain

    Learn several effective strategies for dealing with financial strain as a couple.

  Healthy Relationship Skills

  • Beating Relationship Boredom

    Tips to help you and your significant other beat the boredom that sometimes sets in with relationships.

  • Cutting the Cord: Breaking Unhealthy Dependencies That Impact Your Partner

    We are all bound to our parents in complex ways that can be beautiful, confounding, and infuriating. But the ties that bind us to our parents can be hard on those we marry.

  • Losing Your Emotional Baggage

    Emotional baggage can be difficult to leave behind. Here are tips to help you leave the past behind.

  • Managing a Long Distance Relationship with Your Fiance

    Maintaining an intimate bond with your fiance while many miles separate you can be a challenge. Here's how to make it work.

  • Managing Expectations, Minimizing Disappointment

    Learn how to manage your expectations and maximize the positive in your relationship.

  • Must the Truth Hurt? Honesty and Relationships

    Everyone says the truth hurts but does it really have to?

  • Selfishness: The Real Relationship Killer

    Is it necessary to sacrifice your significant other’s needs in order to attain your own? Learn the difference between healthy self-interest and selfishness.

  • The Art of Compromise

    Being uncompromising on ethical matters makes you a strong person. Being uncompromising in an intimate relationship, however, is often less noble.

  • Understanding the Emotional Needs of Your Female Partner

    Learning what your female partner values most is essential to making the relationship work.

  • Why Forgiveness is Good … for You

    Too often, we see forgiveness solely as an (undeserved) kindness we extend to an oppressor. But forgiveness is also a gift we give ourselves—a gift that provides considerable physical and psychological benefits to the giver.

  • Your Relationship: Healthy or Unhealthy?

    When you think about your current relationship, how do you feel? Do you remember good times together and dream about your future?

  Infidelity

  • Emotional Cheating

    Learn the damaging effects of emotional cheating and how to recognize the signs of it in a relationship.

  • Spring Fever: Rising Temperatures, Rising Temptation

    Do you find yourself a little bored with your relationship this spring? If you find yourself tempted by an affair, here are some questions to ask yourself first.

  Other Challenges

  • How Stress Affects a Relationship

    It is important to understand how stressful events can affect your marriage or relationship.

  • Stress Management Current Trends - Guided Imagery

    Guided imagery is a gentle but powerful technique that focuses and directs the imagination.

  • The Distracted Partner: Competing with Technology for His/Her Attention

    We are tantalized by technology. What’s worse, so are our partners. But when our significant other falls for this same seduction, we often fail to see the charm.

  Preparing for Marriage

  • 10 Myths About Engagement

    Don't buy into these common misconceptions about getting married.

  • Am I Really Ready for This? Pre-Wedding Jitters

    Many people experience uncertainty about making the commitment to a life-long marriage. Once you are officially engaged, it may seem even more overwhelming.

  • Too young to get married? See what the experts say….

    Exactly what age is the right age to get married? There's not a hard-and-fast rule, but there are some interesting statistics...

  Relationship Stages and Commitment

  • Economic Benefits of Marriage

    Could staying together “for richer or for poorer” actually increase your odds of landing in the “for richer” category?

  Sex & Intimacy

  • The Affection Connection

    TwoOfUs.org explores a new study which tackles the stereotype "Men want sex. Women just want to cuddle."

  Top 10 Lists

  • Top 10 Challenges Couples Face in Forming and Sustaining Healthy Relationships and Marriages

    Here are 10 obstacles couples encounter in developing and maintaining healthy long-term relationships.

  Wedding Planning

  • Can’t We All Just Get Along: Keeping the Peace on Your Wedding Day

    Even though the wedding day should be one of the happiest day, it can be incredibly stressful. Here are some tips to relieve some of this stress.

  • How to Survive the Wedding

    Planning---and surviving---a wedding may be the first in a long line of tests a couple faces in their relationship.

  • The ‘Disengaged’ Fiance: Getting Your Fiance Involved in the Wedding

    It’s a common scenario: You can’t wait for your wedding day. Your fiance can’t wait for it to be over.

  • To Elope or Not to Elope

    Is an elopement the right choice for you and your fiance?

  • Your Dream Wedding … On a Realistic Budget

    Everyone is on a budget these days, including brides-to-be. So how do you ensure the wedding of your dreams, without breaking your budget?

Videos

• Can watching porn hurt my relationship?

  In this video, Drs. Mark and Debbie Laaser discuss the effects that watching porn can have on your relationship.

• Creating a Plan B in case of job loss

  In this video, Drs. Les and Leslie Parrott give advice on surviving a career crisis.

• Emotional cheating: What is it and how do I avoid it?

  In this video David Carder, MA identifies what emotional cheating is and how you can avoid it in your relationship.

• How can we avoid infidelity in our relationship?

  In this video, Dr. Barry McCarthy talks about how to avoid temptations within our relationships.

• How do I learn to trust my partner again after he/she has cheated?

  In this video, David Carder, MA discusses ways you can learn to trust your partner after he/she has cheated.

• How do I tell my partner I want to work on improving our relationship?

  In this video, relationship expert Nisa Muhammad responds to the question, "How do I tell my partner I want to work on improving our relationship?".

• How do I tell my partner I want to work on repairing our relationship?

  How do I tell my partner I want to work on repairing our relationship?

• How do we make our long-distance relationship work?

  In this video, relationship expert Howard Markman, Ph.D. talks about how to make long-distance relationships work.

• My partner's substance abuse is affecting our relationship. What do I do?

  In this video, Drs. Mark and Debbie Laaser discuss the implications that substance abuse and addictions can have on relationships.

• My substance abuse is starting to affect our relationship. What do I do?

  In this video, Dr. Scott Haltzman provides insight on how to deal with a substance abuse issue in a relationship.

• What should I do if I've been unfaithful?

  In this video, David Carder talks about what you should do if you've been unfaithful in your relationship.