David E. Clarke - What Happened to Happily Ever After?

Bored? Lonely? Looking for intimacy? Look no further. Get this book and leave your boring, not-so-intimate marriage behind. Youll laugh, youll fix your mistakes, and best of all... youll start living happily ever after!

DAVID AND CLAUDIA ARP

AUTHORS, THE TEN GREAT DATES SERIES

AND THE SECOND HALF OF MARRIAGE

You and your spouse can live happily ever after! Dr. David Clarke says so, and he will show you exactly how to get there. Leave behind your ho-hum, boring relationship and create a fun, passionate one.

PAT WILLIAMS

ORLANDO MAGIC COFOUNDER

AND SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT

Need to crack the female code or reduce selfishness in your man? In your hands you hold a question-and-answer key to turn your boring, routine marriage into a happily ever after. Based on hours of counseling husbands and wives, the authors will help you and your spouse experience intimacy once again. Get ready to laugh and learn!

ARLENE PELLICANE

AUTHOR, 31 DAYS TO A HAPPY HUSBAND

Most CHARISMA HOUSE BOOK GROUP products are available at special quantity discounts for bulk purchase for sales promotions, premiums, fund-raising, and educational needs. For details, write Charisma House Book Group, 600 Rinehart Road, Lake Mary, Florida 32746, or telephone (407) 333-0600.

WHAT HAPPENED TO HAPPILY EVER AFTER?

by David E. Clarke, PhD, with William G. Clarke, MA

Published by Siloam

Charisma Media/Charisma House Book Group

600 Rinehart Road

Lake Mary, Florida 32746

www.charismahouse.com

This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwisewithout prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Modern English Version. Copyright 2014 by Military Bible Association. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Copyright 2016 by David E. Clarke

All rights reserved

Cover design by Lisa Rae McClure

Design Director: Justin Evans

Visit the authors website at www.davidclarkeseminars.com.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: Names: Clarke, David, 1959

Title: What happened to happily ever after / by David E.

Clarke, PhD, with

William G. Clarke, MA.

Description: First edition. | Lake Mary : Siloam, 2016.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015039633| ISBN 9781629986937 (trade paper) | ISBN 9781629986944 (e-book)

Subjects: LCSH: Marriage--Religious aspects--Christianity.

Classification: LCC BV835 .C57555 2016 | DDC

248.8/44--dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015039633

To Sandy, the most wonderful person in the world.

By Gods grace and with hard work, we are living happily ever after!

CONTENTS

R ECENTLY I WATCHED a Disney movie with my wonderful three-year-old granddaughter, Izzy. It was a classic story of a princess and a prince falling in love, getting married, and living happily ever after.

Izzy (her real name is Isabel) has an attention span of about five minutes. She typically runs from one activity to another all day long. But she sat still, absolutely enthralled, for the entire hour-and-a-half movie!

Izzy loved the movie. She loved the sweet, beautiful princess. She loved the handsome, brave prince. Most of all, she loved the incredibly happy ending. Izzy wants to live happily ever after with her future prince, and I dont blame her.

I want a happily-ever-after marriage too! So do you. So does everyone who gets married. I believe God has put this dream in the hearts of all brides and grooms. He devoted one whole book in the Biblethe Song of Songs (also called the Song of Solomon)to this kind of deeply intimate, forever love relationship.

It is Gods desire for every couple to live happily ever after.

Unfortunately in the real world very few couples live out the happily-ever-after dream. Very few.

Just a couple of years into marriage, the dream gets seriously frayed around the edges. You realize with dismay that your marriage is not even close to the fairy tale love you had in mind. Instead of, And they lived happily ever after, your marriage could be described by one of these tag lines:

And they were OK ever after.

And they were happy some of the time ever after.

And they tried to be close ever after.

And they hung in there ever after.

No one would put these words on a plaque and mount it in their home.

Is this the kind of marriage you want to have? Of course not. Disney wouldnt make a movie about this kind of marriage.

But I have good news. I am in the happily ever after business. Im a Christian psychologist who specializes in helping couples with relationship problems. For the past twenty-five years, Ive worked with couples in therapy, presented marriage seminars, and written books on marriage. Im still a full-time therapist, working with couples five days a week. Ive been married to Sandy for thirty-three years, and we have learned a lot together.

My writing partner is my dad, William G. Clarke. He has over thirty years of experience as a marriage and family therapist. Dad also spent years doing marriage seminars. He and my mom, Kathleen, have been married for sixty years.

Together we can help you take your relationship from where it is now to happily ever after. We have based this book on three pillars: the Bible, our experience working directly with couples in therapy, and what weve learned in our own marriages.

If youre OK with a boring, mediocre marriage (or worse), put this book back on the shelf or give it to a friend. If you want a terrific marriage, you have the right book in your hands. Heres the road map well follow.

In part 1 I explain how you built a boring marriage. You did it the same way almost all couples do. You acted out the rituals in the standard Anti-Intimacy Male-Female Contract.

In part 2 I expose the top ten intimacy-killing mistakes most couples make, and I show how to correct them. When you correct these mistakes, youll get the deep intimacy youve been missing.

In each chapter I include a Dialogue section. These are conversations Ive had with actual clients (no names or identifying features, of course) in my therapy office in Tampa, Florida. These dialogues reveal the main obstacles to intimacy.

At the end of each chapter (and sometimes both in the middle and at the end), youll find a Build Your Happily-Ever-After Marriage section. These sections contain specific questions and action steps that will help the two of you apply my strategies.

In part 3 Ill help you dump your boring rituals, get rid of your intimacy substitutes, and create a spontaneous and exciting love.

If your spouse wont read this bookand some wontthats OK. Youll read it, youll change, and your marriage will change.

Youll notice a lot of humor throughout the bookat least, I think its humor! When a book is fun to read, the principles in it are communicated more effectively. Sometimes my sense of humor is a little wacky. Off the wall. Edgy. But Izzy likes it, and I think you will too.

I need to warn you right up front that I will be hard on both wives and husbands. You each will take your turn in the hot seat. I wont pull any punches. Ill be direct and honest. Thats how I do therapy, and thats how I write. Thats the approach I neededand still need. You need the truth, or you wont change. I dont mean to offend, although at times I will. I mean to get your attention, motivate you to act differently, and show you how, with Gods help, you can build the marriage you want and God desires you to have.