Starting with Me: Knowing Myself Before Finding a Partner

You Can Be a Success Factor in a Relationship and Marriage!

By the time you're in a relationship or marriage, it's too late to prepare yourself for it. This book empowers you to get yourself ready for marriage before you start a relationship.

Instead of seeking out your ideal partner through trial and error and hoping for good luck, you can take charge of your life and your relationship goals today!

Whatever your age or life circumstances, Starting with Me helps you lay a solid foundation for your future and prepare yourself for a healthy, happy, long-lasting relationship or marriage. It offers uncommon wisdom from the Bahá'í teachings, time-tested guidance from relationship and character experts, insights from everyday people on this journey, and transformative questions and exercises.

Starting with Me will empower you to:

1. Live a full and happy life that includes service to the greater good;
2. Learn from past relationships, and move forward with knowledge and confidence;
3. Know your own character and be able to assess that of a potential partner;
4. Conquer your fears and doubts, and avoid harmful behavior choices;
5. Form realistic expectations and clarify what you are looking for in a partner;
6. Form friendships that could later lead to discovering an excellent relationship partner

While you'll start with yourself, the book provides plenty of insights and ideas for involving others on your journey, such as friends, family members, and community groups.

Whether you're excited, nervous, doubtful, or optimistic, take a deep breath and smile because help and hope have arrived!

Susanne M. Alexander is a Relationship and Marriage Educator, author, coach, and character specialist, as well as President of Marriage Transformation® (https://marriagetransformation.com/; transformationlearningcenter.com; bahaimarriage.net). She is certified to conduct marriage readiness assessments with couples through Prepare-Enrich (prepare-enrich.com), and the Character Foundations Assessment with individuals through Peirce Group (peircegroup.com). She received a BA in Communications from Baldwin-Wallace College. Susanne meets with clients globally to help them prepare for relationships and marriage or strengthen their existing marriages. As a journalist, Susanne has written hundreds of articles, including many pieces on relationships and marriage as a contributing writer for bahaiteachings.org, bahaiblog.net, Simple Marriage, Strengthening Marriage, Marriage Partnership, and First Years and Forever. Susanne has been single, in dating relationships, engaged, married, divorced, and widowed. She is a daughter, stepdaughter, mother, stepmother, and grandparent. All of this has given Susanne a diversity of experiences to share! She is originally from Canada, where she embraced the Bahá'í Faith, which has guided her life ever since. She is married to Phil Donihe, and they live in Tennessee, in the United States.

Johanna Merritt Wu, Ph.D., is an organizational psychologist, who has focused her career and current consulting efforts on organizational development and human resources management. Her work includes executive coaching, teambuilding, leadership training, and career development for corporations, non-profits, and start-ups. Johanna served as a human resources and Six Sigma executive at General Electric and as the department chair of the Human Resources Management program at Franklin University in Columbus, Ohio. She served at the Bahá'í World Center in Haifa, Israel, in the 1990s, and she has lived and worked in several different places around the world. With Susanne M. Alexander (see above), she co-authored 3 editions of Marriage Can Be Forever-Preparation Counts! and other books underway.In addition to her professional work, Johanna is involved in the community-building activities in her local area. Among other services, she has spent 15 years mentoring local youth and 20 years hosting gatherings for collective worship and reflection; she also serves on Bahá'í institutions. Johanna, her husband Steve Wu, and their daughter Haley Grace currently live in Indiana, in the United States.

Jeremy Lambshead is a writer, editor, and trainer who collaborates with youth and adults to release human potential and promote the advancement of society. He received a BA in the sociological study of religion, with a concentration in environmental studies, from Carleton College. He subsequently worked for the Midwest Energy Efficiency Alliance and as a writer at the U.S. Bahá'í National Center. He has since trained youth to serve their communities, worked as an instructor in high school, a music teacher and program manager, a freelance writer, editor and communications consultant, and the executive director of a diversity, equity, and inclusion nonprofit. Jeremy also loves to create and perform songs and poems, has dabbled in acting and voiceover work, and has written blog posts, essays, news articles, and this, his first book-Starting with Me. He has collaborated in a volunteer capacity with the Bahá'í International Community's United Nations Office in New York, Crossing Borders Music (as a founding board member), Interfaith America, Alternatives to Violence Project, and on local task forces and committees, and as a protagonist of the Ruhi Institute's community-building activities. He speaks Spanish, has lived in Ecuador for five months, and has traveled in India, Japan, Mexico, Canada, Turkey, England, and Israel.