The term, intimate relationship refers to the connection between a mature man and woman who are in love with each other; not the connection between two females (lesbians) or two males (gays). It is intimate because they are more than just casual friends; they are friends who have deep feelings for each other, share most secret things together and who are either married or have agreed to get married to each other. Example of intimate relationship is the relationship between a husband and wife, the relationship between a man and his fiancée, or the relationship between a woman and her fiancé.
Although marriage was designed by God Almighty, it is the most complicated form of relationship on earth with a lot of challenges. This is because it is the coming together of two different persons, i.e. a man and a woman, from different families, with different characters, different home trainings and different mentalities. As a result, during courtship or in marriage, it is not unusual to see the man and the woman fight, quarrel or disagree with each other; their views, understandings and mentalities are different. It takes maturity, patience, tolerance, time and above all, knowledge to sustain a marriage or relationship.
Love is very essential in every marriage and relationship, but love alone is not enough; you also need knowledge. Before getting married, you must have the knowledge about marriage, the challenges, the good, bad and ugly in marriage, and how to manage them. Even if you are already married, you need to have the knowledge about how to keep and sustain your marriage to last until death. This is why you need a book like this one. It is very important to read books that talk about marriage because they help to update your knowledge and it helps to give you suggestions that will make you live happily in your marriage. Marriage is expected to be enjoyed, not endured. There must be challenges in your marriage; it is normal. But you should have the knowledge on how to manage these challenges. In the midst of all the challenges in marriage, you can still live a happy married life if you know how to manage these challenges very well.
Human beings are very complicated and difficult to understand; this is because humans are dynamic in nature. The complexity of human beings is increasing every day from one generation to another. The more the human complexity increases, the more marriage becomes more complex. This is why the rate of divorce in these modern days is higher than the rate of divorce in olden days. The number of crashed or collapsed marriages seems to be increasing in geometric progression. Modern married couples are more civilized and wiser than our great grand parents, grandparents and parents. Most of our parents and grandparents celebrated a 50-80 year marriage anniversary; they had 50-80 years of uninterrupted successful marriage. But nowadays, the reverse is the case. Nowadays, divorce is very rampant. It is rare to see married couples that have spent 20 years in marriage without divorce these days. Even those who have spent about 10-20 years in marriage did not enjoy an uninterrupted happy married life. Their marriage was being interrupted by divorce about once or twice.
A book like this very one will help married couples to learn how to sustain their marriage. Therefore, this book is recommended for married couples. It is also recommended for people and youths who are still single but hope to get married one day, especially those who are into intimate relationships or courtships and those who are planning to be into one.
All the information in this book were written based on my own experience, my own suggestions and based on what I learnt from highly experienced and elderly people and also what I read from various books, from other people's experiences and above all, I wrote this book with the help of the wisdom of God and the inspiration from Him. Therefore, the information in