As soon as you order the program you will immediately receive confirmation and instruction to guide you. I'd like to encourage you to take the next steps immediately. Don't wait until you have a break in your schedule, because if you're like most couples, you'll find there are no breaks. As soon as you have access to the program in your Marriage Builders® Account Dashboard, drop whatever you're both currently doing, and complete the first step (below) together.
Step 1. Choose a course
Familiarize yourselves with what the definition emotional needs and Love Busters in the Basic Concepts section. Once you understand how the terms are used, determine together which category needs your attention first. I encourage you to err on the safe side. If either of you feels there are Love Busters that are a significant threat to your marriage, start with the Love Busters course. Keep in mind that both courses will be completed. At this point, you are only trying to determine where to begin the process of creating a truly great marriage.
Step 2. Plan time to complete the first lesson
Take about fifteen minutes to look at both of your schedules for the coming week and decide when you can complete the first lesson together. It will take between two to three hours to finish this lesson, so schedule three hours just in case you'll need the maximum amount of time.
The three hours do not have to be scheduled in one block. You can break them up into three one-hour sessions, or even six half-hour sessions. Or, you can schedule varying amounts of time during the week to accommodate other responsibilities.
Most people do not have an extra three hours in their week, so you may need to eliminate something you are currently planning to do. But whatever you've planned to do, this first lesson will turn out to be far more important to you.
Step 3. Complete the first lesson
In each of the two courses, you are guided by a series of lesson plans. Each lesson has a set of assignments. Your next step is to read the assignments of the first lesson (for either course) and follow those assignments.
The first lesson introduces you to an essential requirement for the course: You must schedule 15 hours a week to be together, giving each other your undivided attention. That time must be spent trying to make each other happy and avoiding anything that would make each other unhappy. The remaining lessons will show you how to achieve that objective. But first you must schedule time to practice, because without practice, you will not be able to change any of your habits. During those 15 hours you will be practicing essential marital habits.
Your 15 hours together should eventually turn out to be the most enjoyable time of your week. At first, though, you may find it to be the worst 15 hours of your week. That's because your habits have become so destructive. But with change, new habits will replace them, and you'll look forward to your time together. By then, you'll be in love. As you can see, you must schedule this time together, or none of the lessons will help solve your problems.
The first lessons are the most difficult to complete
Each of the twenty-one lessons you complete will make it easier to complete the remaining lessons. That's because the more needs you meet, and the less you do to hurt each other, the easier it is to meet other needs and avoid hurting each other in other ways.
So, it goes without saying that the first few lessons will probably be the most difficult for you. In fact, you may find that it's only when most of your marital problems are solved that you'll actually feel like doing what it takes to solve your marital problems. Until then, you will have to force yourselves to do the right thing.
For example, it's very hard to avoid abusive habits when important emotional needs are not being met. But it's also very hard to meet important emotional needs when abusive habits persist. If you could somehow stop being abusive and start meeting each other's important emotional needs all at the same time, both would be much easier to achieve.
But these two problems (abuse and emotional needs) cannot be completely solved simultaneously, and you must start somewhere. But which should you address first? Should you eliminate abuse before you are meeting each other's emotional needs, or should you try to meet each other's emotional needs before you eliminate abuse? Either way, the first few lessons will be particularly difficult to complete.
How long will this take?
Most couples take an entire year to complete all the lessons because some problems require more than a week to adequately address. So be certain you have a good plan to overcome one problem before you tackle another.
But you should not expect to completely solve a problem in the week or two that you are completing a lesson. It should be used only to put a plan into action that will eventually solve the problem. That's because the solution to each marital problem will require a change in habits, and new habits usually take months to create. However, if you stop following the plan before the problem has been solved, you should immediately return to that lesson.
I mentioned earlier that the first few lessons may be difficult to complete, because the more problems you have, the harder it is to motivate yourselves to solve any of them. But if you commit yourselves to completing the first few lessons, and doing what I suggest, each lesson will become easier for you as you grow in your love for each other.