This is probably one of the only marriage books I would recommend to people. It's encouraging rather than shaming, and while they do throw in a lot of statistics, there is less emphasis on "your marriage is doomed" and rather "here are things you can constructively DO if things aren't perfect." They also have a lot of exercises that you and your spouse can do together (exercises with depth, not just putting a bandaid on a hard situation), and a TON of examples, which I appreciated.

I especially love how he talked about gridlock and solvable/unsolvable problems. I've found that most marriage books stop a little more superficially, but this one doesn't. I felt permission to still get in fights, and I felt so much less of a "now what?" than in other readings of marriage books.

I'd recommend this to anyone in a relationship or married, and a lot of the ideas can be applied to deep friendships as well!