Brief

Karen and Evan remind you that there is life after divorce. By reading what has worked for them, you can make a choice to improve upon your marriage and relationship starting now. Follow their lead to start seeing positive reactions from your significant other.

What We Liked

- This was heartfelt and inspiring. This will make you feel better about your current relationship and more optimistic about the future if you're single.
- As a movie, this could be fun as a mockumentary about the lives of this couple and how they met and work together.
- This could make for an interesting unscripted show revolving around couples therapy, maybe even with the writers as hosts helping various couples to implement these tactics in their relationships.
- Key points: Based on a true story; Happy ending; Inspiring and optimistic; Widespread appeal--relationship advice that works even for single people; A feel good story.

Synopsis

Karen and Evan have been married for a while and are very happy, to the point that everyone expresses jealousy that they have each other and asks them how they can find someone like Karen or Evan. Karen and Evan, however, consider their loving lifestyle to be very low maintenance and decided to write this book together to help show other couples that a happy, healthy relationship that's still exciting is possible. They start out by describing the various ways they keep the excitement alive despite being married for so many years--they still flirt and make time for dates and romantic gestures. Nothing has to be expensive or over the top, but they both are just thoughtful. Evan emphasizes throughout the book how important it is to listen to his wife--he says that he's not reading minds because he doesn't have to, his wife is telling him what she wants, and he pays attention and does it. Evan is a thoughtful person who treats his wife like his partner and goes out of his way to make her life a little easier. He describes a time when he brought her groceries and firewood while they were still dating--it was a little gesture that wasn't too expensive or too time consuming, but it touched Karen's heart and she still thinks about it to this day. Something else they recommend in the book is expressing their affection for each other to the people around them. A lot of times people outside of relationships can be protective of their friends, especially if their friends have been through bitter divorces like Karen and Evan both had, so it was important to them to show their friends and family that they truly love each other and make each other happy.

Evan tells us about his life before he met Karen and how at first, he avoided dating altogether, but his son encouraged him to go on dates and really wanted a stepbrother. Evan decided to begin dating and met Karen on eHarmony--he was initially drawn to her because they both had similar values including that they had sons who were their world and wanted someone who thought of their son as their own son. Evan then talks more about his current relationship with Karen and how important it is to make each other laugh. Each chapter of the book has a quiz at the end, and these chapters have quizzes that prompt the reader to think about different jokes they can have with their partner and new subjects they can talk about. The two talk about how the holidays can be stressful, but for them, they make the relationship work by being each other's rock in stressful times. Karen recounts a story of when she was so stressed out that she had ruined a big holiday dinner by buying a bad turkey, but luckily Evan was there to reassure her that the turkey was okay. Evan also helped out and made some dishes for the dinner himself, and they talk about how important it is that the man helps around the house and takes up what would be considered traditionally "women's" roles like helping raise the kids and clean, as most women have full time jobs and the men in the relationships live in the house and are also parents to the kids.

The two talk mostly about quality in, quality out: if you work hard and put good energy and effort into a relationship, you get that back tenfold. It's much easier to maintain a happy relationship than save a failing one, so neither of them feels like they're doing too much work or under-appreciated--both make the effort to appreciate each other and realize that a little thoughtfulness goes a long way. These two love each other and want everyone else to have the love in their marriages as well.

About The Author

Karen and Evan have been married for over ten years and have two sons from previous marriages. This is their first book together.