Building a Marriage: Ten Tools for Creating, Repairing, and Maintaining Your Lives Together

This slender volume by a marriage counselor plies couples with common sense and good cheer. Too often, Graves contends, people think that a wedding is the marriage, and that once the honeymoon ends the marriage just takes care of itself. In fact, he argues, good marriages, like houses or cars, need regular maintenance. He speculates that 90% of all married couples ``are living well below the level of their relationship potential,'' a term he defines as ``how happy they could be.'' Graves explains 10 ``tools'' for promoting or enhancing healthy marriages: forthrightness, conflict, courtship, labels, realism, trust, friendship, distinctions, respect and sharing. Filled with anecdotes from his own marriage and those of couples in his practice, this friendly, optimistic guide would make a thoughtful Valentine's Day gift. (Feb.)