Workbook
The First Year
A Workbook for New Couples Navigating the 12 Months That Define Everything
This workbook produces a quarterly living agreement — updated each season as the couple discovers who they actually chose.
For the couple in their first year of commitment — marriage, cohabitation, or whatever they called it — discovering who they each actually are.
The Name It First Experience
The first year reveals who you actually chose — this workbook is where you name it before it becomes a pattern. The First Year walks a new couple through what is actually happening in each quarter of their first twelve months: what surprised them, what they assumed, what they need to name, and what needs to be updated in the agreement they are building together. It is for the couple in their first year of commitment — married, cohabitating, or however they named it — who wants to discover who they each actually are with intention rather than accident. You work through it quarterly and finish the year with a living agreement that reflects who you both turned out to be.
You can opt into 30-, 60-, and 90-day check-ins from your account. We recommend you do — the point is to see what changed.
Sample questions
- What surprised you most about this person in the first year — the thing you could not have known before?
- What have you learned about yourself in this relationship that you did not know before you chose this person?
- What do you want to name now, in year one, that you do not want to still be carrying unspoken in year five?
Research basis
Grounded in Gottman and Gottman (2007) research on the transition to shared life and the normalization of early conflict / McNulty and Karney (2002) on the tension between positive illusions and realistic appraisal in early partnership / Larson (2000) on expectation gaps and their resolution in the first years of cohabitation.
Choose your format.
Every format asks the same questions and produces the same document.
Print Paperbackpersonalize
A real book and a pen. Write in the margins. The most permanent version of you on a page.
$22.99
eBook + journal
The full guide on any screen, with a companion journal to write your answers by hand.
Not available
Audiobook
We read every question and every scenario aloud. For the commute, the walk, the dishes.
Not available
Hardcoverpersonalize
The keepsake edition — sewn, ribboned, made to sit on a shelf and be returned to.
Not available
Digital Fill + membership+membership
Answer on screen. Your responses save as you go and assemble into your finished document.
$12.99
Hands-Free Interactive + membership+membership
Listen to each question and speak your answer. We capture it. You never touch a keyboard.
Not available
Everything packages
The Paperback Everything Package
[personalize]
Not available
The Hardcover Everything Package
[personalize]
Not available
The Premium Hardcover Everything Package
[personalize]
Not available
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Choose your pace.
The Essential path takes you to your finished document by the questions that matter most. The Full-depth path walks every question, every scenario, every angle. Both produce the same signed document — one just goes deeper on the way there.
Essential path
Shorter sessions. The questions that go directly to the document.
Full depth
Every question. Every scenario, every angle.
Partner Pair
Built for two. You each work your own copy, on your own time — then you bring them together and compare, one answer at a time.
The comparison is the conversation.
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Buy it for yourself.
Choose your format above.