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Is Shame Impacting Your Marriage?

Everyone experiences shame. Few have the courage to become aware of the shame they carry and how it is consciously and unconsciously impacting their lives. Fewer still have the courage to talk openly about shame and help others discover and heal from shame in their lives.

Brene Brown, acclaimed researcher and author of I Thought It Was Just Me defines shame as “the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing we are flawed and therefore unworthy of acceptance and belonging.”

Shame experiences include:

  • Rejection.
  • Failure.
  • When people see you fail.
  • Being wrong.
  • When people see your mask pulled off and you are exposed.
  • Being defective.
  • Feeling like an outsider.
  • When people think you are soft, weak, or not enough.
  • Your flaws are revealed.
  • Showing fear.
  • Being criticized or ridiculed.

‘Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.’ Gen 2:25 (NIV)

The Power of Shame

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How Connected Is Your Marriage?

Look on most lists of things we fear most and you will find intimacy listed in some description. Yet we are born with the deep desire to love and be loved. Deep connection in an open and honest relationship is what our hearts most desire.

God put in our hearts the need for love. In our childhood and teen years, we experienced breaks in trust, humiliation, embarrassment, and shame. In order to protect our hearts for the hurt and pain, we developed a protective filter that keeps our inner most thoughts and feelings secret.

Marriane Williamson put it this way, “Love is what we are born with. Fear is what we learn.” Life is a journey of “unlearning of fear and prejudices and the acceptance of love back into our hearts. Love is the essential reality and our purpose on earth.”

We think we are protecting our hearts from being hurt again, yet we still find ourselves in hurt and pain. The only way to have the deep connection and intimate love that we want is to remove the protective filter and share our inner most thoughts and feelings… to stand naked, intellectually and emotionally, in front of our spouse.

We have written previously about the importance of three-legged table upon which your marriage sits.  Passion, Connection, and Commitment are each just as essential as the other. One of the critical ingredients to having the marriage you have always wanted is Passion.

How Connected Is Your Marriage?

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How Passionate Is Your Marriage?

The best sex you will ever have is in a long term marriage relationship!

Over sixty years of research consistently states that marriage is where the hot bed of sex is. Married couples have sex more frequently and with broader variety of sexual experiences than singles or cohabitating couples.

Sex is good. What makes marriage different is the long term, life long, nature within which sex takes place. Married couples are consistently more satisfied with their sex life than those who are not married. But passion, that feeling of desire and attraction toward your spouse, comes and goes.

We have written previously about the importance of three-legged table upon which your marriage sits.  Passion, Connection, and Commitment are each just as essential as the other. One of the critical ingredients to having the marriage you have always wanted is Passion.

The Passionate Love Assessment

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How Committed Are You To Your Marriage?

Roy was over 10,000 feet hanging out the side of plane when he heard the instructor say, “3….2…1…Go”. The guy before him had backed out… sat on the edge until someone pulled him back in toward the back of the plane. The time of decision had arrived. Was Roy going to be “All In” or wait for another opportunity?

He jumped. There are few experiences that give a person the incredible rush of traveling 120 miles per hour in free fall or the wonderful experience of gliding through the air peacefully with the beauty of the sky and earth around you after your parachute deploys.

But you will never experience them if you don’t jump. If you are not “All In”, you will not know the joy of the experience.

The same is true for commitment in your relationship.

We have written previously about the importance of three-legged table upon which your marriage sits.  Passion, Connection, and Commitment are each just as essential as the other. One of the critical ingredients to having the marriage you have always wanted is commitment.

How committed are you?

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What Every Dad Needs To Know About Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day is just around the corner and Dad’s everywhere this week will be working on how to make this Mother’s Day wonderful for their wives.

‘Into the home of the childless wife, He sends children who are, for her, a cause of happiness beyond measure.’ Psalm 113:9 (VOICE)

There is no Mother’s Day Manual For Dads. Most new and young dads make rookie mistakes. Those of us who have been married a few decades have figured out how to get through Mother’s Day without having major snafus. Here are some easy tips to help set you up for success with this year’s Mother’s Day.

Making Mother’s Day Successful

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Five Quick Wins To Make Your Marriage Better

Kim stopped us after a Laugh & Love Date Night event with a question. “Ya’ll are so funny… this was great.  Besides going to things like this, what can I do right now to jump start my marriage getting back on the right track?”

Perhaps you are thinking the same thing. What can I do now, immediately, to make may marriage better, stronger, and closer?

Five Quick Wins

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Eating Your Way To A Better Marriage

We spent the morning of the writing of this article watching a herd of deer eating and hanging out together on the shores of Lake Travis in Spicewood, TX. It is a beautiful and tranquil site with the lake in the background, seven or more different types of bird chirps in the air and a comfortable sixty-eight degree occasional breeze. Life is good!

We began talking about how important it is to eat together. It is amazing how many of our most important discussions have been over the dinner table. Every celebration we have shared has included food. And we both know what the other’s favorite meals and ordering preferences.

Meals Are Important

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How To Pray Together

Shawn and Abby approached us during a break at one of our Life Together Forever Weekends.

“You talked about how important it is to pray together. We have never done that and we don’t know how to get started.”

The Power of Prayer In Your Marriage

One survey found that less than 1% of couples who pray regularly together get a divorce. It is astounding that there is one thing that best predicts a lifelong love. Prayer makes a difference in marriage.

  • Couples who pray together are on the same page with each other than couples who do not.
  • Couples who pray together are more emotionally connected with each other.
  • Couples who pray together focus more attention on each other.
  • Couples who pray together feel closer to God than those who do not.

Prayer Changes Marriages

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Is Your Marriage Starving For Reconnection?

Larry was tired. “I can’t take her anymore. I can’t take this life any more.”

Larry and Shandra had been married for fourteen years. Seven of those years they had parented their only son, who was diagnosed with autism early in life.

Larry described a life of full time caregiving. The only break he got was when his wife would tag in. As she gave her required full attention to her son, he was lonely. He was miserable in his marriage and wanted to have his wife back.   He couldn’t see a way forward.

Starving for Reconnection.

Larry and Shandra’s situation was drastic, however, in our Life Together Forever Weekends and our Marriage Intensives, we meet couples who are similarly starving to reconnect. Is your marriage starving for reconnection: