In Intimate Encounters, Dr. David and Teresa Ferguson offer a tried-and-tested program for discovering the secrets of a really great marriage. The worksheets, exercised, and personal inventories inside will help you gain a better understanding of each other’s deepest feelings and needs – resulting in a new closeness.
Follow the Ferguson’s ten practical steps to creating a great marriage…
- Adopt new ways of communicating with each other
- Block the actions that destroy trust and intimacy
- Think straight about your marriage and your life
- Forgive each other and move beyond your hurts
- Reject the games couples play by forging an honest relationship
- Leave your childhood home and come together as adults
- Leave your childhood home and come together as adults
- Mourn your past hurts and heal present relationships
- Understand each other and how to meet one another’s needs
- Identify and put into practice the key elements of a successful marriage
- Maintain intimacy through thick and thin, for a lifetime.
Assess Your Marriage Intimacy
Learn how to evaluate the current state of emotional, spiritual, and physical intimacy in your relationship as a starting point for meaningful growth.
What Do We Really Need From Each Other?
Discover the core relational needs every spouse brings into marriage and how meeting them can deepen your connection.
What’s Filling Your Emotional Cup?
Explore how emotional needs are met or depleted daily, and identify ways to fill each other’s “emotional cup” in lasting, life-giving ways.
Heal Hurts Through Confession and Forgiveness
Learn a practical, biblical process for owning mistakes, offering forgiveness, and healing past wounds that may still affect your closeness.
Blend Four Ingredients for Marital Closeness
Understand the four foundational elements of intimacy—affectionate caring, vulnerable communication, joint accomplishment, and mutual giving—and how to intentionally cultivate each one.
Be Free From Fear
Identify the fears that hold you back from real vulnerability and discover how God's love empowers you to live in trust and openness.
Study Your Family Tree
Examine how patterns from your family of origin may shape your current relationship—and how to break cycles that hinder intimacy.
Be Free For Emotional Closeness
Learn how to overcome emotional barriers and create a safe, grace-filled space for deeper connection with your spouse.
Be Free From Marital Games
Recognize common unhealthy relational “games” couples play and how to replace them with honesty, maturity, and mutual respect.
Understand the Pain and Potential of Intimacy Needs
Gain insight into why unmet needs can hurt so deeply—and how understanding those needs can unlock compassion and closeness.
Leave Your Father and Mother
Explore what it means to emotionally and spiritually “leave” your parents and fully embrace your spouse as your primary relationship.
Blessed Are Those Who Mourn
Discover how mourning past hurts and losses—individually and together—can lead to healing and new depths of intimacy.
Break Free From Unhealthy Thinking
Identify thought patterns that distort your view of your spouse or your marriage, and learn to replace them with truth and grace.
Establish a Vision for Your Marriage and Family
Create a shared vision and purpose for your marriage that reflects your values and gives direction to your relationship and family life.
Walk Together Through the Stages of Marriage Intimacy
Understand the natural stages of intimacy growth in marriage and how to move through them with patience, grace, and shared commitment.
Become Friends, Lovers, and Saints Through Intimacy Disciplines
Learn daily habits that help you grow in friendship, passion, and spiritual unity, building a marriage that honors God and each other.