Category Archives: Creating The Marriage You Want

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Is Anger Sabotaging Your Marriage?

Daniel and Teresa invested a day in a marriage intensive.   They were in a long pattern of negative interaction that included frequent and intense use of the Marriage Killers. By the end of the day, each had made individual, unilateral commitments to move toward the marriage they wanted.

About two weeks later, we met them for a follow up visit. He had done almost everything that he had committed to doing. She had not fully kept a single commitment on her list.   During the session we helped her uncover deep anger and resentment about how her life was different than the dream she had about it.

Why You Hold On To Anger

Like many spouses we have worked with, holding on to anger is a major block to moving the marriage forward. There are two primary reasons why we keep our resentments instead of moving forward.

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Make Christmas Giving Meaningful

Everyone wants Christmas to be meaningful. Instead of making Christmas giving meaningful, we follow the marketers’ advice and Christmas given just becomes shop, shop shop.

Chrismas giving becomes Christmas stress with credit cards, traffic jams, to-do lists, and useless gifts. When we finally arrive at Christmas morning, we are just glad that we have survived it all.

Did you know Americans are expected to spend over 650 billion dollars this year for Christmas? Average family spending on Christmas gifts is estimated to be over 900 dollars this year.

What if you bought fewer gifts this year? What if you did not buy that sweater she will only wear once, or those additional toys your child does not need, or those random gift cards? What if instead of spending more on gifts you give something of greater value to those you love?

Meaningful Gifts

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Touch Your Spouse More!

Touch is the first of the senses to develop, and it remains perhaps the most emotionally central throughout out lives. Researchers have discovered that gentle, tender, non-sexual touch has powerful health benefits, including

  • Enhances growth in children.
  • Improves emotional, physical and cognitive functioning.
  • Lowers blood pressure and heart rate.
  • Reduces cortisol levels (Stress).
  • Stimulates memory.
  • Oxytocin levels go up, increasing uplifting emotions.
  • Boosts the immune system.

We are all familiar with how important touch is to us. When our spouse shares a tender touch, it not only has the above effects, but it also connects and bonds us in a way that words cannot. Sometimes we long for our spouse to touch us, but waiting for our spouse to initiate touch is self-defeating. According to the Touch Research Institute, the one initiating touch receives the same benefits of touch as the person on the receiving end. Reaching out and touching our spouse when we are wanting touch from them is helpful to us getting what we need.

‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ Luke 6:31 (NIV)

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Making The Most Of Stressful Holidays

Holidays are a stressful time for couples and families.  Negative patterns of interaction grow exponentially as almost all communication becomes focused on the tasks of the holiday.  Frequently feelings are hurt in the mix and there are long periods of negative emotions and energy.

But now faith, hope, and love remain; these three virtues must characterize our lives. The greatest of these is love. I Corinthians 13:13 (Voice)

Make Your Holidays Better

Turn your relationships around during the holidays by implementing these tips for making memories!

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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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Fall Back In Love Again!

The most important sex organ is the brain. And within the brain we are finding the answer to a very important question that is a common problem within most relationships: “How do we fall back in love again and again in a life together forever?”

Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the Lord. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If a man offered for love all the wealth of his house, he would be utterly despised. Song of Solomon 8:6-7

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When Your Facebook Marriage Is Better Than Reality

Let’s face it. We all put the best parts of ourselves forward in our online social media.   In fact, we rarely communicate the challenges of life while almost always posting the best things about being us.

Charlotte called to schedule a Marriage Intensive. She told us about how obsessed her husband was with telling the world how wonderful their marriage was. “I just wish I had a marriage half as great as my husband makes it out to be on Facebook.”

Social Media And Relationship Reality

Charlotte is not alone. One study revealed that positive posts about relationship partners is higher when there is conflict in the relationship. Another study found that those who post positively about their relationship have lower self confidence. In yet another study, over 75% of people reportedly “lie” on Facebook about their reality, making it appear better than it actually is.  Divorce attorneys have reported that Facebook is involved in around 80% of divorce proceedings.

Social Media Can Interfere With Relationships

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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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How Long Do I Wait Before Divorce

Lisa called about her marriage problems. She does not want to ask her husband to go to counseling with her because she thinks he won’t come. If he comes, he won’t change. So she asked us this horrible question:

“How long do I wait for my spouse to change before I end the marriage?”

All My Spouse’s Fault

One of the problems with her question is that it assumes that all the problems with her marriage are her spouse’s fault. It assumes that if her spouse would change, she would have a better and healthier marriage.

Except for cases where dangerous things are happening, the problems in the marriage are rarely one spouse’s fault. If either spouse has contributed in any way to the marriage problem, then they have some room to stand into their power, make different decisions and affect their marriage for good.

Permission to Divorce

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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