The Self-Centered Marriage ─ The Revolutionary Scream-Free Approach to Rebuilding Your "We" by Reclaiming Your "I"

In the best-selling ScreamFree Parenting, Hal Runkel showed thousands of parents how focusing on themselves, in order to keep their cool, can revolutionize their family life. In his groundbreaking new book, The Self-Centered Marriage, Runkel now shows couples how learning to focus on themselves, in order to stay calm in the face of common marital conflicts, is the key to creating a deep, lifelong connection.

Every committed couple strives to hold on to the marriage they envisioned back when they first said "I do"--before kids, mortgages, and all of life's inescapable issues seemed to get in the way. But the truth is this: conflict about these issues is unavoidable. What typically results are two spouses feeling forced to compromise themselves in order to just get along and keep it together. Eventually couples start "screaming" at each other--sometimes literally yelling out loud, sometimes shutting themselves down and shutting their partners out.

In The Self-Centered Marriage, therapist and bestselling author Hal Runkel introduces some radical new concepts about marriage, teaching couples how to embrace their separate selves as a profound vehicle for strengthening a marriage. Every great marriage is a self-centered marriage because it's a bond between two whole, centered people. Calmly focusing on your own behavior, choices, and moods—which you can control—rather than your spouse’s—which you cannot—is the first step toward creating the relationship you really crave. Using accessible anecdotes and disarming humor, Runkel disproves prevailing marital wisdom and reveals a revolutionary path for spouses to be fully themselves, and fully married, at the same time.

HAL RUNKEL is a licensed marriage and family therapist, relationship coach, and international speaker. He is founder and President of The ScreamFree Institute—a not-for-profit dedicated to calming the world, one relationship at a time. Hal's principles have already helped thousands of families revolutionize their relationships. He lives with his wife, Jenny, and their two children just outside Atlanta, Georgia.

JENNY RUNKEL is a writer, editor, and high-school English teacher. While deftly managing her classroom of juniors & seniors, she also manages and helps produce the content on ScreamFree.com, the online presence of The ScreamFree Institute. Her humorous, insightful words reach tens of thousands sets of eyes & ears every month, including those of her husband, Hal, and their two children.