***Finding a Co-Author for Your Life by Marrying the Right Guy

By America’s #1 Love and Marriage Experts.

Anyone who gets married and doesn’t understand that their life will be altered in an unalterable ways, henceforth, doesn’t know love – doesn’t understand love.

Love and marriage changes everything. Love and marriage changes everything about your love and YOUR life. If you don’t understand the ramifications, don’t get married. If you want a co-author for your life – get married!

Let’s get real about love and marriage – when you get married you are adding a “Co-Author” of YOUR life!

It is clear when it comes to love – marriage is the ultimate commitment. Anyone that thinks getting married is a casual event does not understand the dynamics of love and life. The simple truth is this – when you get married you are adding a co-author for your life. Nothing about your life will ever be the same. And that’s a good thing.

Marriage begins with a lifelong commitment to each other. And the truth is, the element of marriage that so many are unaware of this – when you get married you are no longer writing your own script for life. You are now writing a script of life and love that is “Co-Authored.”

We hope you understand the power of co-authorship when it comes to your life – your married life. To think you can get married and continue to write your own life’s script is, shall we say, delusional.

For the most part, we write our own script of life after we leave home and the influence of our parents and relatives. We write our own script of life until we fall in love and get married. And then suddenly and without warning, we realize that our life is now being co-authored. We realize that we are no longer in complete control of who we are and who we will become. We are no longer the single architects of our life.

But here is the real deal – married couples wouldn’t want it any other way! Having a co-author for your life is a good thing – a positive thing.

Being the “Lone Ranger” in your marriage is not a desired outcome. When you get married, you share the stage. You write history together. You are no longer the complete master of your house. And that is, indeed, a good thing.

The truth is, the most wonderful thing about marriage is that “two become one without losing the individual identities of either.” Translated – marriage is a coming together of two uniquely different people who love each other and want to spend their lives together. And once the marriage is consummated, the “co-authoring of your life” begins!

After interviewing thousands of successfully married couples on seven continents of the world over the past 32 years, we have found that successfully married couples learn the synergy and togetherness of turning two-into-one early in their marriages and don’t want life to be any other way.

The best qualities of both individuals come together to form a unit of one that is greater than either of the two individuals alone. One couple summed it up by saying, “We are one. We are a team. We support and need each other.”

We have found in our three-decades of research that those married couples who use pronouns such as "we," "our" and "us" behave more positively toward one another and showed less physiological stress.

Our interviews with thousands of successful couples married from 30-77 years would certainly verify their findings. In fact, this “WE” behavior is so critical to great marriages around the world that it is one of the seven pervasive characteristics of successful marriage we have reported in our several books and hundreds of articles, including our new book, How to Marry the Right Guy.

In successful marriages neither the husband nor the wife dominate the relationship. They have achieved the art of togetherness, without losing their individual identities. They have become, “co-authors” of their life together.

So how did they do it? There are three aspects of turning two-into-one for successful couples.

First, sharing interests, feelings, ideas and memories gives their marriage a uniqueness all its own. Second, compromising to form mutually agreeable decisions that both can support is critically important. And third, the best marriages we have observed thrive on mutual helpfulness and support for each other.

The only way for the marriage to become “WE” instead of “YOU” and “ME” is to put sharing foremost in the relationship. Both partners work to bring out the best in their spouses by enhancing their feelings of confidence and self-worth. They become each other’s strongest supporters and routinely think in terms of “WE” and “OUR” and “US.”

The more we learn about successful couples achieving true togetherness, the more we are convinced that a great marriage ceases to form if the husband and wife do not attain that feeling of “WE” as a unit of “ONE.”

It should seem clear – when you get married, your life is no longer single-authored, it is co-authored. A co-authored life is a good life! Enjoy it as we have for these past 47 years of marriage. Our lives have definitely been co-authored!

Creating a successful marriage is not always the easiest thing to do. Your visiting our blog suggests you are highly interested in making your marriage work! And truthfully, we have learned over 30 years of marriage research that there are proven effective ways to ensure a happy and healthy marriage. In fact, we took hundreds of tips from the thousands of happy couples we interviewed and put them into our award-winning and bestselling book, Building a Love that Lasts .

**Today, you can see how you stack up to the best marriages around the world. Take the Marriage Quiz to assess your chances of achieving a successful marriage of your own and buy How to Marry the Right Guy, to find out if your guy has the essential 33 characteristics to be a great husband.

By Drs. Charles and Elizabeth Schmitz
America’s #1 Love and Marriage Experts