The UP’s of Marriage : Nine Practices That Help Couples Actually Change. by Dr. Don Gilbert PhD
Counselor Dr. Don Gilbert and pastor Jason K. Shanks combine biblical wisdom, emotional insight, and practical tools to address recurring relationship struggles
NEW YORK CITY, NY, UNITED STATES, October 20, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — Love and commitment can remain even when a marriage loses its sense of closeness. In The Ups of Marriage: Nine Practices That Help Couples Actually Change, counselor Dr. Don Gilbert and pastor Jason K. Shanks address that gap through nine simple, repeatable practices. Their approach brings counseling and pastoral perspectives to the task of moving from reactive patterns toward intentional connection.
The book speaks to couples who meant their wedding promises but now find themselves revisiting the same frustrations. Bills, late-night arguments, silent car rides, and increasingly shallow conversations form the everyday context for its guidance. Rather than assuming that diminished connection means love has disappeared, Gilbert and Shanks focus on the skills couples need to sustain closeness amid those pressures.
One distinction is between an effort problem and an alignment problem. The authors challenge the idea that trying harder is always the answer to marital strain, identifying alignment as an important consideration in many relationship struggles. That distinction gives the book a focus beyond exhortations to work harder at marriage: it directs attention to how partners relate, communicate, and respond when familiar difficulties return.
Communication receives concrete attention through tools intended to create safety rather than defensiveness. The book also explores a pause that can help keep a difficult conversation from becoming destructive. These elements address both how partners communicate and what happens as tension builds, making the handling of disagreement part of the work of connection rather than treating closeness as something separate from conflict.
Forgiveness and encouragement extend the framework beyond difficult conversations. Presented as practices, they concern the ongoing climate of a relationship, not only the resolution of a particular argument. Alongside communication and alignment, they give couples several points of focus for changing recurring patterns. The emphasis is on actions that can be repeated, rather than on a single conversation that settles every frustration.
For readers seeking marriage guidance informed by biblical wisdom, the book pairs that foundation with emotional insight and practical relationship tools. Its nine-practice structure is designed to be remembered in the middle of ordinary life, when another familiar disagreement or moment of distance arises. Ease of recall matters to this approach: the framework is meant for use amid the pressures the book describes, not only for reflection when those pressures have passed.
Gilbert and Shanks make practiced love, rather than a perfect marriage, the standard at the heart of their guidance.
Dr. Don Gilbert and Jason K. Shanks bring decades of real-life counseling and pastoral experience to their work together on marriage.
Available now. Get your copy here:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H2QSPS13
For review copies, interview requests, or additional information, please contact:
Dr. Don Gilbert
BrightKey PR
media@brightkeypr.com
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