Life is going well. Your boss thinks you’re fantastic and used you as the “follow her” example. You just moved up a speed group in your marathon-training team. And, you discovered a local restaurant that is not only reasonably priced, but makes a killer tex-mex salad. But these glorious life achievements may not seem so significant when the storm strikes.

This storm is The Bridal Wave, a squall so powerful that it has the ability to make incredibly successful women feel like worthless beings and turn spirited, funny ladies into cowering, dejected souls.  Unless your ring finger is occupied by a dainty piece of platinum, the pressure of the storm leaves no survivors.

Luckily, Erin Torneo and Valerie Cabrera Krause’s The Bridal Wave: A Survival Guide to the Everyone-I-Know-Is-Getting-Married Years is here to keep you from getting caught in the downpour. It’s a witty handbook that encourages women to be happy with what they’ve got, in the wake of friends and family forcing them to look at what they haven’t got (ahem, like a ring).  And—the most useful part—the book offers ways to handle dreadful wedding-induced situations, like when your aunt Edna asks you “Are you dating? You need to have a baby by thirty!” or when your younger sister calls to tell you “I’m engaged!”