Category Archives: Before You Marry

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Why Love Is So Important

It was great to be at the Texas Ministry Conference again this year. It has become like a family reunion for us reconnecting with friends across Texas who are Pastors, ministers and church staff.

A young lady in her late twenties who has never been married approached us to ask a serious question. “Why is love so important?” She went on to explain that she has been in a few developing relationships but has yet to find the man she believes God has in store for her. Yet she finds herself wishing that she did not have a desire to marry as she struggles with loneliness which leads to sadness and frustration.

We believe the answer has its roots in our origins.

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Super Bowl Game For Your Marriage

Every year the Super Bowl becomes an anxiety producing event for married couples.  She’s worried about what to wear and whether or not the right mix of people will work at the party.  He’s worried if he will get the best seat and have his favorite foods and drinks.  He’s worried that she will talk through the game and interrupt the festivities with drama.  She’s worried that he will drink too much, ignore her or embarrass her.

What if the Super Bowl was something that could move you toward your spouse?  We started this game a few years ago and began sharing it with other couples.  You and your spouse can play this game “on the down low”, without any other couples knowing what is going on.  Or you can invite all of the married couples to play along.

The Super Bowl Marriage Game

  • Kiss every time either team scores.
  • Hug once second per point scored.
  • Give each other one compliment or appreciation for every point scored in the game. This can happen after the game at another time.
  • Plan at least one date in the next twelve months for every time your team scores.This can happen after the game at another time.
  • Plan one weekend getaway for every safety.This can happen after the game at another time.
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Lies Hurting Your Marriage

Everyone is wounded. No one has experienced life exactly like you have but all of us have wounds. Sometime early in our life, in our interactions with our parents, or a sibling, classmates, teacher, or a clergy member, we were wounded.

In that moment, Satan told you a lie about yourself.

  • You are not good enough.
  • You don’t have what it takes.
  • You can’t do it right.
  • You are broken.
  • You don’t matter.
  • You are not important.
  • You are unlovable.
  • You are worthless.
  • You don’t belong.
  • You have no value.
  • You are defective.

Believing The Lie Hurts Your Marriage

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Loving Well To The Very End

When we took our vows, we promised to love each other in sickness and health, for richer or for poorer, forsaking all others, until death do we part. We have shared in sermons and in our Life Together Forever seminars that it is our heart’s desire to be with each other to the very end.

To wake up one morning and have a discussion about whether or not Roy has the right upper dentures.

To chase each other around the room with our walkers.

We want to be there for each other for the very end.

This past year we have seen the marriages of people we love end well. Devra’s parents marriage showed us to how to love to the very end when her father passed this summer.

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Your Spouse Deserves Your Full Body Attention

Lisa was about to explode. Her husband of 8 years came home early from work, plopped down on the couch and asked, “what’s for supper?” After a full day of caregiving for her 18 month old and kindergartner, she was tired and stressed. And his first communication with her was one that really pushed her buttons.

As an intelligent leader who had held her own in a corporate job before focusing on raising children, she knew she would have a better chance of telling him how she feels if she kept her emotions in check. So she asked him if they could talk and began telling him about her stressful day of caregiving. In the middle of her report she realized that his eyes were moving from the television to his phone and back to the television. He was facing the television and rarely turned his head toward her face. And she felt like she was not being heard.

What Lisa wanted more than anything else in that moment was to experience what we call “full body attention”.   She wanted him to show her in every way possible that she had his undivided attention. She wanted to know that there was nothing in the world more important or of a higher priority to him than what she had to say.

Full Body Attention

Full body attention is how we tell our spouse they are the most important and highest priority in our world in that moment.

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Five Ways To Move Toward Your Spouse

We had a great time as the guests on a conference call with marriage ministers and marriage counselors from all across the globe. One pastor asked the question, “What are the few things I can tell couples that will get their stale marriages moving in the right direction?”

We believe that every can take action now, immediately, to make their marriage better, stronger, and closer. Here is how we answered the question and what we recommend every couple do to move toward each other and the marriage they deeply desire.

Ways To Move Toward Your Spouse

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Does Your Marriage Need Thanksgiving?

When we first begin falling in love, we notice everything. We take note of how our love-interest acts, what they do and what they say. We are grateful for the effort they put into the relationship, every act of kindness, and any gesture toward us.

From Gratitude to Expectation

As our relationship moves into the commitment to a life together forever, our attention moves to different things. Setting up a household, budget and routine are on our minds instead of the nice things our spouse is doing.

Unconsciously and unintentionally we stop feeling gratitude for what our spouse is doing and who they are. Instead, too often, we only notice it if it does not happen. The thing we once said “thank you” for has moved from something novel and nice to something that we expect. And when it doesn’t happen, we feel disappointed, sad or hurt.

The Power of Thankfulness

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Breathe New Life Into Your Marriage

There is an important place for routine in our lives. Having a rhythm of how we do our life feels safe and creates comfort. Habits create routines that lead to positive and negative results. For instance, a routine of spending less than you make leads to wealth, while the opposite routine leads to financial ruin.

But routine in our married life is dangerous. Routine suffocates the life out of your marriage. In fact Honore de Balzac wrote in the early 1800s that “Marriage must fight constantly against a monster which devours everything: routine.”

The Benefits of Adventure

We feel most alive when we are in new experiences. Adventure changes us physically.

  • Improves our body’s immune system.
  • Increases mental sharpness.
  • Improves self-confidence and self efficacy.
  • Decreases stress and the impact of stress.
  • Assists in weight control.

When you do it with your spouse, it breathes new life into your marriage. Adventure bonds together the hearts of two spouses.

Create Adventure In Your Marriage

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When Your Spouse Doesn’t Have Any Common Sense

Jessica was on the phone with us scheduling a Marriage Intensive. “Austin doesn’t really love me because if he did I would not have to tell him to do the things that any man who loves his wife would do.”

For the first few years after Jessica and Austin married, nine years ago, Jessica felt like they were truly in love with each other. But for the last seven years, Jessica has been repeatedly hurt by his unwillingness “to love me”. This has built such resentment and bitterness in her heart that affects everything.

Holding onto past hurts and allowing resentment to build in your heart makes you act in ways that pushes your spouse away from you. Eventually it leads to, at best, a home with two people living independent parallel lives, or at worse, actions that finalize the end of the marriage in very hurtful ways.

Common Sense Is Not Common

Like Jessica and Austin, every marriage has dashed expectations. When the movie playing in your head about how you and your spouse should interact and what each should do does not happen, it can be very hurtful.

You assume that the movie playing in your head about how things should happen is the same movie playing in your spouse’s head. But it is not. And it is not the same movie playing in everyone else’s head.

The Movie Playing In Your Head

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Text Arguing

Phillip texted us pictures of his discussion with his wife. Long drawn out responses between two people who had made a lifelong commitment to each other just two years prior. Both were very negative.

The original debate was about whether or not they should go alone out to eat and see a movie that night or whether they should invite another couple. Within just a few short texts came an insult. Then a list of problems and issues in the marriage. Finally name calling with “evidence” about how bad that spouse was.

It was a horrible texting conversation to read. Phillip and Sara joined us for a marriage intensive the following weekend.

Text Fighting Easier Than Face to Face