About Smalley Institute
Building better relationships since 1979
We are built on a solid foundation going back to 1979 when Dr. Gary Smalley began traveling the small towns and cities of Texas teaching the 10 ways to better love your husband and the 10 ways to better love your wife. These two talks eventually became the best-selling books (over a million sold each) For Better or Best and If Only He Knew. Gary’s heart is to educate and inspire couples to love better and last a life-time! If you asked him, the thing he is most proud of is NOT the 60 best-selling books, or the over 12 million videos sold world-wide, the millions of live seminar attendees, the hundreds of television and radio appearances, being on shows like Oprah, Larry King Live, Fox News, James Robison, CBN, and more! Gary would tell you he is most excited about the three children he raised with wife Norma. “All 3 of my kids are helping couples and families and I couldn’t be more proud!”
"Dr. Smalley brought a 2 hour, fun-filled night that at its core was life bringing. He used humor, talked reality, and delivered a message of hope to all who attended. Great night! And thanks Dr. Smalley."
Jimmy Monaghan
Pastor of Care and Local Missions, Canyon Ridge Christian Church
"I want to thank you so much for providing an atmosphere here at Canyon Creek Church that not only (fully) engaged people, but I have received non-stop praise for the weekend event that we just pulled off!"
Paul Willis
Executive Pastor
"Michael is the real deal! Genuine message and marriage champion for our culture. Highly recommend him for your next outreach or marriage event!"
Pastor Glen A. Dry
Sportsman's Church
Helping couples thrive
The Smalley family has continued inspiring couples and families worldwide! In the early 2000’s Gary’s two sons, Greg and Michael, and a team of psychologists began inventing a new way to help couples in crisis. Traditional marriage therapy was not successful in helping couples in crisis stay together or thrive. Marriage counseling can be a frustrating experience both for couples and marriage therapists. There’s not enough time to truly make an impact and change destructive dynamics in a marriage that lead to divorce.
It's not marriage therapy or marriage counseling
The low success rate of marriage counseling forced the Smalley’s to come up with a better way to help hurting couples. Their team was consistently approached by couples after attending one of the marriage events, or reading a book, that the information was good, but they needed more help. Couples on the brink of divorce would ask if there was anything more they could do to save their marriage. The Smalley’s team, headed by Dr. Greg Smalley, eventually landed on the marriage intensive model, which we now call Smalley Marriage Intensive, a 1-on-1 private program for couples who want to reignite the joy and passion in their marriage.
The Story Goes On
Since 2005, the Smalley Institute has been perfecting the marriage-intensive model and developing a powerful training program to help increase the number of couples who can reignite their marriages! We currently have over 10 locations across the United States run by highly qualified Smalley Institute coaches running the Smalley Marriage Intensive 1-on-1 program for couples. Over 99% of the couples participating in Smalley Marriage Intensive would recommend it to a friend or family member needing help!
You are the reason the Smalley Institute exists! You deserve the marriage of your dreams and a family you can enjoy and experience life together. Michael Smalley runs the Smalley Institute today and has big dreams for the future. There are still live events for local communities that bring the proven lessons and skills from the Smalley Marriage Intensive program to couples in a 1-day or 2-day live seminar format. One of the newest live events, and it is proving to be a phenomenal way to reach more couples, is the date night event, The Comedy of Love. This is a 2-hour evening with comedy and entertainment with a purpose. Couples are more apt to attend these events and are more open to learning how to better love each other through laughing. We continue to create new books, curricula, and online courses, all designed from the success of our Smalley Marriage Intensive program. What’s special about the Smalley Institute is that everything we teach and everything we do is based on a solid foundation of research from working with real couples. At the Smalley Institute, we don’t hope what we teach works; we know it does!