Aaron Delay, LPC-MHSP · Marriage, plainly

The approach

Plain words for the hardest conversations you'll ever have.

I'm not interested in making you feel studied. Everything here is built to be used in a kitchen at ten at night, when you're tired and one of you has already said the wrong thing.

Steady, not clinical

Nothing here diagnoses you. The goal is a lower heart rate and a clearer next sentence, not a label.

Shame-free by design

Couples arrive convinced they're the broken exception. They almost never are. Most of what you're doing is ordinary, and ordinary is fixable.

Faith-friendly, never assumed

I'm a credentialed minister and I write for people of faith. You don't have to share mine for any of this to work.

A note before you start

You didn't marry the wrong person.

That's the sentence I say most often, and it's the one people take longest to believe. The problem is almost never the choice you made. It's the handful of moves neither of you was ever taught.

Aaron Delay and his wife standing together in front of a weathered barn

Aaron and his wife. He gets to practise what he writes about, which keeps him honest.

Who's writing this

I do this work because I need it too.

I'm a licensed professional counselor and mental health service provider in Tennessee, a credentialed minister, and the founder of a practice that sees around ten thousand sessions a year. I've sat with a lot of marriages at their worst hour.

I'm also married, with two kids and the same tired Tuesday evenings as everyone else. None of what I write here is theory I admire from a distance. It's what my wife and I actually use, and what I keep watching work in the room.

Aaron

The resources

Two things to read, in order.

Start free. If it helps, the longer one goes considerably deeper for the price of a takeaway lunch.

Free

The 5-Minute Marriage Argument Reset

Three pages for the ninety seconds where a conversation turns. Why escalation happens, four sentences you can actually say, and a worksheet to fill in when things are calm.

Costs nothing but an email address
Print it and put it somewhere you'll see it

Get the reset

$19

You Didn't Marry the Wrong Person

The nineteen-page playbook. The patterns I see over and over, why they're so ordinary, and the specific repairs that move them, with scripts rather than theory.

19 pages, built to be worked through together
Instant download

See what's inside

For pastors and church leaders

A marriage night for your congregation. No fee.

Ninety minutes, built from the same framework as the book, with a worksheet in every hand on the way out. I've spent years counseling pastors and church staff, and this is how I'd rather spend an evening than almost anything else.

What a night looks like

“Nobody taught us how to do the boring part well.

Heard in the counseling room, roughly weekly

Forthcoming

Saying “I Do” Everyday

A book about the vows, not as a ceremony but as a set of daily actions. Foreword by Gary Chapman. It's written; the rest is publishing. Leave your address and I'll tell you when there's real news.