God built us with incredible senses.
We walk into a room with a smell of baking bread and it triggers the memory of a visit to our grandparents home when we were children.
We see a piece of artwork that takes us back in time to a place with deep meaning for us.
Laying almost asleep, we hear the faintest whisper from our loving spouse, “I really want you right now, are you still awake?”
The Power of The Human Senses
Every couple has struggles.
Every couple!
Every spouse feels, at one time or another, like quitting.
Every spouse!
Relationships are hard. Doing life together forever is one of the greatest challenges in life.
Looking For Help In All The Wrong Places
When a spouse is struggling in their relationship, they will seek help. They usually begin by searching on the internet for relationship articles addressing their issue. They also search through magazines and books for some source of information that may be helpful.
Before you get a drivers license, states make you complete a drivers education class. The class is the driving basics. Its intention is to set drivers up for success. Basic skills necessary for driving are taught. Most states also require a driver to have experience driving under the mentorship of a driving instructor.
But there are no such requirements for a marriage license. Once the decision to spend the rest of your life with that one special person is made, all relationship focused activities tend to take a back seat to the details of the wedding and living logistics.
Benefits Of Marriage Boot Camp
Over the last fifty plus years of research, married couples report higher satisfaction with their sex lives than singles or cohabitating couples. Sexual frequency and overall sexual satisfaction are consistently higher than what singles and cohabitating couples report.
What Makes Married Sex Better?
Your marriage may have become routine like some of the people we have worked with over the years in our Life Together Forever Weekends or our Marriage Saving Intensives.
“The is no passion in our relationship.”
“Our marriage is boring and dead.”
“I’m bored. It’s the same thing every evening, every weekend.”
The Challenge Of A Lifelong Relationship
You are either growing or dying.
From the first day of life, everything is either growing or dying. The tree, insect, animal, or bird could be in the process of developing, living, spreading, stretching, flourishing, burgeoning, maturing, increasing, enlarging, or sprouting. Or it is in the process of decaying, fading, declining, disintegrating, passing, vanishing, withering, or perishing.
You are either growing or dying. If you are not continuing to learn and develop your self, you are becoming less of the person you really want to be. And the day you stop, give up, or quit trying to be the best you that you can possibly be, you begin the march toward the end.
Status Quo Doesn’t Work
In his early 30’s, Jeremy has been in one relationship after another. He falls in love and they move in together. After about a year or so, things begin to heat up and he feels pressured to put a ring on her finger. When he calls for coaching, he says the same things:
“I’m not financially stable enough to get married yet.”
“I don’t want to get married and end up divorced like my parents.”
“I’m not sure she is the one for me. I love her but we get into fights a lot and she is really annoying when she…”
“I’m not sure I’m ready to make such a long term commitment.”
Marriage In Decline
We were flying back from a weekend recently and ran across a couple in their late sixties who were holding hands. They had been away celebrating their thirty-eighth wedding anniversary. As always, we asked them, “what is the secret to being married thirty-eight years.
She smiled and said, “I’ve always made our home a place where he felt like he belonged.”
We All Need To Feel Like We Belong
Ronald and Linda had been married for 7 years when he called with the question. “I don’t know if I need to separate, divorce or try to work on our marriage with you guys?”
Things were dark in the home. He told us that she seems to not care about how the home looks, how their two young children are parented, what their finances are, or about their relationship. “Every time we get help, she does better for a little while and then slips right back into the same old pattern of doing nothing.”
Common Reasons For Separation
Deidra was crying on the other end of the phone. “I don’t think I can take this any longer. I’ve been stuck in a bad marriage for eleven years. I never wanted to be like my parents and leave, but this is no way to live life.”
Deidra is like many of the couples we have met over the years in our Life Together Forever Weekends and in our Marriage Saving Intensives. For religious and cultural reasons, she is highly committed to her marriage. But her marriage is stuck in a seemingly never-ending negative cycle and it is affecting every other area of her life.
Signs You Are Stuck In A Bad Marriage