The Book
Saving Your Marriage When the Fairytale Falters
In Project: Happily Ever After Alisa Bowman bravely tells the story of how she went from wishing her husband dead to renewing her wedding vows. Her four-month project was a last ditch effort to save a marriage that many—her friends, her colleagues and even her own mother—had written off as hopeless. It’s a fearlessly honest account of all of the topics that unhappily married people and the counselors who try to help them are too scared and guilt-ridden to discuss. Equal parts funny, poignant, and helpful, the book offers other divorce daydreamers courage and hope—as well as a 10-step plan they can follow to start their own marriage projects at home.
In the first marital improvement book written from the perspective of a recovering divorce daydreamer, it tells an inspiring story coupled with straightforward, prescriptive guidance. Readers will laugh, cry, and, for once, feel oh so normal. And then they will save their marriages, too.
Buy a copy from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books a Million, Buy.com, Indie Bound, or Powell’s
Get a Sneak Peak into the book’s introduction
Get a sneak peak into chapter 1
Discuss Project: Happily Ever After at book club
About the Author
Alisa Bowman is the marriage expert for every woman. She writes the popular marriage blog ProjectHappilyEverAfter.com. A former senior editor at Runner’s World magazine, she has been a guest on national television and radio programs and featured in USA Today, Redbook, and First magazines, among others. View her media kit here. Get more background on Alisa here. Contact: Alisa AT alisabowman DOT com.
Early Praise
“If you have reached rock bottom in your relationship, read this book. If you want to be inspired, read this book. If you want a good read, read this book. It’s sexy, savvy, and oh so hopeful,” Pat Love, Ed.D., bestselling author of Hot Monogamy and How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It.
“Sometimes realizing you are not alone—along with having a good laugh—helps you relax a bit and see an answer that was there all along. In Project: Happily Ever After, Alisa is just the confidante and comedian you need in the toughest of times,” Ian Kerner, PhD, best selling author of She Comes First and He Comes Next.
“Project: Happily Ever After will get people talking about those aspects of marriage that most couples keep deep in the vault. With honesty and humor, Bowman takes you on a journey of a marriage in recovery, and wraps it all up with the rarest of outcomes–a happy ending,” John Friel, PhD, co-author of 7 Best Things (Happy) Couples Do.
“Alisa Bowman gets to the funny, painful, buoyantly optimistic, scathingly truthful core of what it’s like to be disenchanted with your husband and marriage—and then tells us, in pull-no-punches prose and narrative worthy of a thriller—what to do about it. If you’d rather kick your hubby than kiss him, rather kill him than coo at him, read this book now!” –Kiri Blakeley, writer for Forbes, contributor for ForbesWoman, and author Can’t Think Straight: A Memoir of Mixed-Up Love (Citadel, Dec 2010)
“Much more than a relationship book, Project: Happily Ever After is a true life love story. Join other readers in the sometimes serious, sometimes silly ups, downs and rebuilding of a couple. The really good news here is that Alisa has given us a road map to do the same for our own relationships. It’s never too late to have a happy ending.” — Barton Goldsmith, Ph.D., nationally syndicated columnist, radio talk show host, and author Emotional Fitness for Couples and Emotional Fitness for Intimacy.
“I adore this book, and heartily recommend it to anybody whose marriage has gone from a sweet fairy-tale to a disaster drama. Alisa Bowman has a delightfully funny and honest voice, and shows how she was able to turn her own marriage around with the help of a willing partner, a lot of self-help books, and raw determination.” — Charla Muller, author, 365 Nights
“Alisa Bowman’s Project: Happily Ever After takes you from the depths of a marriage on the verge of collapse to a healthy and loving relationship. Alisa provides practical and powerful tips for taking control of your unhealthy relationship and making it happy again,” — Jonathan Alpert, psychotherapist and advice columnist
What People Are Saying About PHEA
Here you will find various media interviews and mentions of the book.
NBC 5 Feature on Project: Happily Ever After
A marriage repaired–News-Journal newspaper
Better TV Hot Topics–Can Your Marriage Be Saved?
Join the Conversation
Let’s get bad marriages out of the closet.
Let’s out the death fantasy.
Let’s talk about sex.
Bowman wrote Project: Happily Ever After to make other divorce daydreamers feel normal and to start an honest conversation about marriage. You can join that conversation, too.
Or take a free sneak peek into the book:
Copyright 2010 Project Happily Ever After
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{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
this book is mad good am writing a story about happily ever after
I have you book on my NOOK! I loved it and quoted many lines to my husband. However my husband has recently voiced this……My wife suck. Should have married a rich one like you! This was sent to his friend after telling him we could not afford to go to the beach with them! ugh,
Frustrated and married to a 36 year old adolescent
Bethlehem PA!
Heather–I’m so sorry to hear about your husband’s comment. That sounds so hurtful.
I am so computer dumb How do I order your book? Cost and where to send it. I read your blog everyday it comes and love it. I tried to get this book I while back but it was hopeless. So please make it simple for me. Computers make me insecure!!!! LOL
Linda Bruhn
612-987-1917
Hi Linda–
It’s available are regular bookstores. If they don’t have Project: Happily Ever After in stock, they can order it for you. You can also get it online here http://www.amazon.com/Project-Happily-Marriage-Fairytale-Falters/dp/0762439017/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1309282871&sr=8-1 and here http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/project-alisa-bowman/1100754785?ean=9780762439010&itm=1&usri=alisa%2bbowman
Alisa, I am very glad that you included this papragraph in your first chapter:
“Although our marriage felt dead, we didn’t suffer from anything that
would rule out resurrecting it from the grave. Neither of us was addicted
to anything other than caffeine.We weren’t co-dependent. He wasn’t emotionally
or physically abusive, and neither was I. Neither of us was an overspender
or gambler.We were both intelligent, reasonable people. Perhaps
most important, we both wanted to save our marriage.”
These are very important words. This message should be a wake up call to those of us who do live with addiction and abuse (which so often go hand in hand) that we have other important work to do first, before we can “save” our relationships. We must start with ourselves, to heal ourselves, to repair our relationships with ourselves, before we can have any hope of healing a marriage. This doesn’t mean we should just give up and divorce, but that there are serious problems in the relationship that will surely impede any efforts to repair the marriage IF they are ignored.
Lastly, and so sadly, we must learn to accept the reality that if a partner doesn’t wish to come along for the journey, there is no journey for the pair of you.
These are both such difficult things to accept. I wish peace and healing all those dealing with addiction and abuse, and whose partners have no interest in doing the good work to have a successful and satisfying relationship.
I would like to tell you ladies that i am a husband that has been separated for 2 years.. I have been a horrible husband never cheated but has had anger issues… i just realized 6 months ago that i had a problem and have started to work on it. I am now on my way to win my wife back and am going to buy this book today…
Alisa, I am intrigued by your book. My husband and I married 1 year ago after having dated for 5 years. It is a second marriage for both of us. We have a great relationship and a wonderful marriage, but I secretly have trust issues stemming from some rocky times earlier in our relationship. Will your book help me? Or is it just for women who hate their husbands?
Hi Jen– The book is more of a story–like a novel, but with advice. It tells the story of my own marriage and what went wrong–and how I fixed it. So it’s not just for women who hate their husbands. I’ve heard from husbands who have read the book and have told me that it has helped them. I can’t promise you that it will help you, but I’ve gotten good feedback from about 80 percent of people who have read it, people in all sorts of marriage situations ranging from basically happy all the way to one step away from killing each other.
Hey Alisa
this is really something i am missing this will surely help to save marriages and surely to get happiness in their life. Before i have read one magazine How To Be Happy that tell us the secret to get happy and now this book really help to get happy with family.
Really appreciate you for writing this book.
We have been married over 30 years. we were very much in love. Now, my wife will not talk to me or even let me touch her. She wants to separate.She says that I don’t make her happy. She says that she loves me but is not ‘In Love’ with me.
We have had some rough years with our relationship, my unemployment etc. The work is back and the children are gone. I am devastated.
I have not been happy in life. I want to turn this around, be happy and make her happy.
I truly want to save my marriage.