Volatile Couple
Is your marriage writing an emotional roller coaster? If so, you may be what Professor Murry calls the volatile couple. Volatile couples, as their label implies, are unstable. Doing their marital dance on the devoted divorce borderline, spouses are like microwaves and flash freezers. Their emotions, whether positive or negative, instantly heat up and boil over or plunge as cold as ice rapidly. This […]
Avoiding Couple
In continuing to look at the five types of marriages, this week we are taking a look at The Avoiding Couple. Are you an avoider in your marriage? Avoiders are usually stable in maintaining their marriages; yet they don’t experience a high level of emotional intimacy and that produces more of a mutual co-existence rather than a quality marriage. They’re called avoiders because they do their best to […]
Validating Couple
Last week we introduced to you the five categories of marriage that came from the research done by James Murray of Oxford University. And this week we want to amplify the first of his five categories: The Validating Couple. This couple, according to Professor Murray, is going to experience the best marriage and quality of life. This couple’s ability to remain calm reduces […]
Five Types of Marriage
James Murray from the University of Oxford studied one thousand marriages and uncovered five types of marriage. Now that alone is no big deal. However, he was able to predict with a 94% accuracy rate the marital features of these couples based on what type of marriage they had. Now, that’s impressive. Today, I want to quickly overview these five types of marriage and then highlight each of […]
Who Should Sacrifice?
How many times have you fallen prey to the idea that you’re supposed to give up what you want in order for your spouse to take what he or she wants, with the hopeful anticipation that your spouse will return the favor sometime in the near future? The problem with this way of thinking can be the motive behind the giving or […]
How Being Silent Can Save Your Marriage
Every married couple has learned from experience that there are times to speak and times to keep quiet. It takes a lot of self-discipline to hold your tongue, especially when you’re experiencing strong feelings and emotions. So how can being silent help your marriage? Well, first it defuses anger. Proverbs tells us that a gentle answer turns away wrath. We want to learn […]
Dealing with Anger in Your Marriage
Christian psychologist, Norman Wright, in his classic book Communication Key to Your Marriage, details four basic ways we can deal with anger. We can repress it, suppress it, express it, or confess it. Let’s take a look at this… We can repress it. We try hard to deny our anger and ignore our feelings while trying to convince ourselves that we’re not all that mad. This approach is extremely unhealthy to both you and […]
Be a Better You
Recently my body told me it wasn’t as strong as it used to be, so I joined a gym. The trainer smiled and reassured me that I could get a lot of my old self back and promptly started me on an exercise program to strengthen my core…you know, those muscles in our back, stomach, shoulders and […]
Confronting Sin in Your Spouse’s Life (part 2)
Last week we talked about preparing to confront our spouses and we ended that chat by promising to talk about what and how we say what needs to be said this week. So here we go. First, we want to deal with one issue at a time. Too often we go after the root issue by attacking a long list of symptoms rather […]
4 Ways to Prepare to Confront Sinful Activity in Your Spouse’s Life
Every couple will come to a point where one spouse will have to confront the other regarding an issue that’s negatively affecting their marriage. Let’s be honest, nobody likes to be involved on either end of a confrontation. But if you find yourself having to confront your spouse, here are some vital steps to prepare yourself: Prepare your heart. Matthew 7:5, tells us that […]