Before We Marry: A Journal for Christian Couples - by Suzanne Shaw (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Spark deep, engaging conversations with 250 questions for premarital Christian couples

Asking meaningful questions encourages you and your partner to explore your similarities and differences, understand each other on a deeper level, and envision your future together. Written with Christian couples in mind, these questions explore faith alongside other topics to help you strengthen your relationship with each other and with God.

What sets this book apart from other relationship books for couples:

• A range of topics to discuss--Discover more about each other with questions about friends and family, faith and values, your relationship together, future goals, and more.
• Room to write and reflect--Every question includes space for each partner to write, so you can share your notes with each other and inspire further conversations.
• Your safe place as a couple--Feel safe and supported to open up and let yourself be known with this criticism-free space for Christian couples.

Establish a foundation of faith and communication for your marriage with these questions for couples.

Review Quotes

"As a pastor who has read widely on marriage resources, this is the most well-balanced and strategic set of questions for couples I have ever encountered. Dr. Shaw combines depth and simplicity by inviting couples to explore questions about how relationships with family and friends, God, significant others, time, and culture all influence us and shape who we are becoming. Most of us have no idea how to intentionally engage with our spouses in these areas! This book makes that process simple, fun, real, intentional, and most importantly: ongoing. This will be a relationship-changing tool I pass on to every couple I pastor, and my wife and I will also be using and re-using it to set the tone in our conversational intimacy over the years to come!" --Christian Martinsen, MDiv, senior pastor of Frontier Church, Pasadena, CA

"During this time when marriages are failing at an historic rate, Christian couples need this book. Suzanne has done an excellent job of getting couples to think about the core issues that can strengthen every believer's marriage. As a Christian counselor trying to save marriages during these difficult times, I heartily recommend this book. Thank you, Suzanne." --Dr. Mark Baker, clinical psychologist and author

"Having written a pre-marriage counseling manual myself, I love the questions. They are sure to promote intimacy and connections that will last a lifetime." --Mark and Patricia Roser

"Marriages promise to fulfill our deepest longing--to be known, accepted, and loved. Yet only by taking the risk of sharing what we think and how we feel can that dream come true. By revealing who we really are as we seek to know our mate, we will sustain our journey to marital fulfillment. Dr. Shaw, drawing on deep study and years of practice, shares a variety of key questions that, if consistently asked and answered, will nurture the life-giving conversations that yield strong emotional bonds and fulfilling marriages." --Winston E. Gooden, Ph.D., Dean Emeritus School of Psychology, Fuller Theological Seminary

About the Author

SUZANNE SHAW, MFT, PsyD, is a psychoanalyst and licensed marriage and family therapist in private practice in Pasadena, California. She's also a Christian who has led premarital engagement classes and is active in her local church family.