Because they are the product of failed marriages and watch so many of their peers divorce, most couples don't have many successful long-term relationship role models. Parenting and communication issues are perennial while some challenges - like increasingly 24/7 work lives and economic hardships - mark the current decade. Despite all this, psychotherapist and clinical social worker Marcia Naomi Berger asserts that most couples can make love last, they just need to learn how. in Marriage Meetins for Lasting Love: 30 Minutes a Week to the Relationship You've Always Wanted ($15.95), Berger answers that need with a deceptively simple prescription: have an interruption-free 45-minute (or shorter) meeting each week and follow an agenda that includes the kind of appreciation and planning for fun that fosters intimacy and paves the way for collaborative conflict resolution. Berger has refined these techniques while working with hundreds of couples - with results that are both practical and profound.

Marcia Naomi Berger, MSW, LCSW, has taught her Marriage Meeting Program for a decade. She coaches, consults, and speaks nationally, has served on the clinical faculty of the University of California School of Medicine, and lives in San Rafael, CA.