My book," Creating Love For A Lifetime" is all about not giving up and working on your marriage. I feel that the whole journey of preparing, writing and now promoting this book has been an ongoing experience in not giving up. This project has tested every part of my endurance in dealing with challenges and joys along the way. It has taught me what not giving up feels like.

The preparation included a thirty eight year marriage in which my husband and I came from very different back rounds but loved each other dearly. With these differences came many opportunities to learn compromise and negotiation. We both never wanted to feel the excruciating pain of divorce. So we worked through all our issues with therapy, workshops and spiritual development. We never gave up, even though some days we felt like it.

The preparation for the book also included twenty seven years as a therapist, eighteen years as a mediator and certification as a coach. Although I had seen clients of all ages, I found that so many couples were losing their relationships because they had no idea of what they needed to do to rebuild and save their marriage. About ten years ago I devoted myself to changing that. I read everything anyone was using effectively with couples, I did training of all kinds, and I took notes on what was working in my therapy with couples and in my own marriage experience.

The writing of this book was a challenge as I had little experience and skill in writing. For a year I got up every morning and wrote about ideas for creating a good marriage that came to me upon awakening. That was a fun part. At the end of the year I had to put it all together with some order and purpose. I wrestled with this task for a long period. Several very nice people helped me along the way.
Publishing this book has included deadlines, much editing, reworking the material and dealing with many different departments, etc. This is my first book and I again had a lot to learn. Some parts went beautifully and other parts took forever to go right. I love my cover and my website and the book now that it is finished. I was never able to get all the typos out of the printing and this was trying since I am a Virgo and into perfection. I have learned acceptance, when I can change things and when I just need to keep moving forward.Sounds like what goes on in a relationship?

The promotion has begun and again has its wins and setbacks. I still am learning that something worthwhile often takes a lot of work. Sometimes I want it just to be easy. Again it is another opportunity to explain to every couple I work with in person or through this book that I know what not giving up looks like. I would never trade this experience and could never replace all the valuable lessons that I have learned. My advice to you is that things worth having most of the time include easy, joyful, hard and impossible in the process. I believe that they are worth it and I say to you again , "Don't give up". Like me you'll be glad you didn't.