The Happy Stepcouple: How Couples with Stepchildren Can Strengthen Their Relationships

Rachelle Katz

Jul 2020 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Coleen Marlo

About this audiobook

The Happy Stepcouple is a comprehensive and practical self-help book designed to help couples with children from prior relationships thrive despite the complexity of stepfamily life. More than two thirds of stepcouple relationships break up within the first few years of committing to each other. With these terrible odds, every stepcouple needs an arsenal of tools necessary to sustain a loving relationship. The Happy Stepcouple gives them everything they need to navigate complex stepfamily dynamics with confidence and kindness, allowing them to build a happy, fulfilling life together. Utilizing the most current research in attachment theory, psychology, communication, and marriage and family therapy, Rachelle Katz offers a grounded approach to overcoming problems stepcouples experience by examining the two primary reasons why so many of these relationships get in trouble: Partners' inability to understand, agree to, and fulfill each other's unspoken needs and expectations, and communication styles during conflicts that increase each partner's insecurity levels and weakens their emotional connection to each other. Here, stepcouples learn how to establish realistic stepfamily expectations as well as identify and modify harmful communication patterns, essential elements needed to strengthen their emotional bond.

About the author

Rachelle Katz is a licensed marriage and family therapist with more than thirty years of experience and the author of The Happy Stepmother. Rachelle is a clinical member of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy and the American Psychological Association. She and her husband live in New York City.

AudioFile Earphones Award winner Coleen Marlo has earned numerous Publishers Weekly Listen-Up Awards and won an Audie Award for her narration of Snakewoman of Little Egypt by Robert Hellenga.