Patty Howell - World Class Marriage: How to Create the Relationship You Always Wanted with the Partner You Already Have

P erhaps the greatest advantage in writing this book has been the opportunity to teach communication skills to thousands of people in countries around the world. From this extensive experience on four continents, we have gained innumerable insights about our fellow human beings as they struggle to make their relationships work. The greatest of these is the sure knowledge that we are more similar in our needs than we are separated by our differences. We have been warmed by peoples hearts and educated by their willingness to share with us. This book benefits from the richness of those experiences. We thank Dr. Thomas Gordon and his Effectiveness Training programs and the California Healthy Marriages Coalition (CHMC) for these unparalleled opportunities to teach and learn.

We have also educated ourselves with many personal growth experiences that have contributed greatly to this book. These experiences classes, workshops, seminars, groups, therapyhave also propelled our growth as individuals and nurtured our relationship in countless important ways. The best investment you can make is in yourself is a saying that rings profoundly true in our lives, and we strongly endorse personal growth as a foundational investment for being able to create a world class marriage.

We are grateful to CHMC President Dennis Stoica for early championing of our World Class Marriage Workshop for couples and for fostering widespread adoption of this program throughout California, as well as to CHMC partnering organizations headed by Ariel Meza, Bishop John Sanchez, Dr. Eun Soon Yang, David DLeon, and Daniel and Liz Ballon, who were early and enthusiastic supporters of the World Class Marriage program.

We are most grateful to Jeanne Fredericks, our literary agent, who has distinguished and endeared herself to us in many ways, including her conscientious shopping and shepherding of our manuscript and her unfailingly classy and trustworthy professionalism. We feel most fortunate to have Jeanne as our agent. We are delighted to have Rowman & Littlefield publish our work and thank our editor, Suzanne Staszak-Silva, for recognizing its unique value amid a crowded field of marriage and relationship books and for supporting its publication.

Finally, we want to thank Diane Sollee, founder and director of the Coalition for Marriage, Family, and Couples Education, as well as the Smart Marriages Conference and listserv, who recognized the importance of working in preventive ways to help couples learn how to create healthy and satisfying relationships, coined the term marriage education, and began and fostered the formation of what is now an international infrastructure of marriage support programs and providers. She should be regarded as a heroine for marriages and families and a national treasure.