How to Rebuild Trust After an Affair – Part 2 (the offended)
Last week we introduced a challenging process of rebuilding trust that one spouse has after being unfaithful. We believe that it’s always God’s desire for us to stay committed to our marriages, just as He remained true to his covenant with Israel when they were unfaithful. So this week we’d like to offer some words of advice to help […]
How to Rebuild Trust After an Affair Part 1 (the offender)
Couples who are wrestling through unfaithfulness frequently ask, “How can we rebuild the trust we once had in our marriage?” That’s a great question, because trust is vital to all intimate relationships. When there is no trust, there is no safety, no foundation for intimacy to be built on. The trust of your spouse is something that most of us take for granted until unfaithfulness shatters it. Proverbs […]
4 Ways to Make Your Home a Safe Place
Several years ago, my wife Janeen and I began the process of opening our home to foster children. And after going through countless hours of training, it became apparent there was one overarching theme… safety, both emotionally and physically. These foster children coming from challenging environments needed to instantly know they could feel safe. Our house went through […]
How to Talk to Your Spouse About Sex
It’s no surprise talking about our physical love lives can be daunting. Realizing that we may sound unsatisfied, selfish and judgmental doesn’t make this challenging conversation any easier. But having the love life you desire will not happen by itself. A positive lovemaking experience often requires some extremely personal communication. You need a safe and honest relationship to talk about what does and doesn’t feel […]
Missile Words
When you find yourself engaging in a disagreement with your spouse, your instinctive goal is to craft your argument so that it makes a powerful impact, which typically means that some serious missile words are going to start flying out of your mouth. A missile is defined as an object that is forcibly propelled at a target carrying a conventional or nuclear explosive. So the […]
Excuses for Ending a Marriage
While doing our marriage intensives for couples who want to save their marriages, we’ve heard a lot of interesting reasons why they thought about ending their relationships. Here’s a few… We’ve drifted apart. This classic copout says, “We’ve lost those loving feelings and we’re too lazy to work to bring them back. It’s easier to find a new lover than […]
3 Unrealistic Assumptions that will Kill Your Marriage
Good communication is vital to a healthy marriage. Yet many of us struggle on this important area of marital maintenance. As we lead marriage intensives, we see lots of couples who struggle with communication and have come to the conclusion that many times their problems are linked to one of these three unrealistic assumptions. So let’s take a minute to […]
Is Tech Messing with Your Marriage?
Imagine this…you’re both home after a day at work, the kids are off doing something productive. You finally got some quiet time to yourselves. You’re snuggling into the sofa to watch your favorite show. When the text chime of your cell phone goes off, what do you do? Or imagine this…While you’re cuddled up together, you see your spouse scrolling through their emails or […]
Do I Cherish My Spouse? (Part Three)
Can you remember some of the wedding advice you got once you announced your engagement? Here are some of the gems of wisdom I can recall…Be sure to treat her like a queen, Weird in-laws just get weirder, and my all time favorite, The secret of a happy marriage is still a secret. Karen and I have a marriage that has grown from good […]
Do I Cherish My Spouse? (Part Two)
We’re becoming a nation of rude, self-absorbed, spoiled brats. Our culture screams the mantra “It’s all about me”. While it remains to be seen if this attitude will foster a generation of self empowered people, it’s absolutely evident that this outlook is creating a lethal environment for establishing biblical marriages. Some may think the Bible tells us to love our neighbors […]