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Earning a Time Out
Marriage requires serious accountability to each other in order to last. This is why we are wary of advice to spend time away from each other as if that alone will improve our relationship. Perfectly valid solo activities can be chosen for the wrong reasons, particularly when the reason is avoiding my spouse.
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Family Ties
Julie: We’ve just had the privilege of living in the funny, dramatic, wildly unpredictable world of our 13-year-old twin nieces as we took them camping with us. We’ve taken them for a weekend each year so that John’s sister and our brother-in-law can have time to reconnect and focus on just them (plus it’s fun for us!). It’s something we look forward to and that has helped strengthen our family ties not only with our nieces, but also our siblings.
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What’s Your Spouse’s Love Language?
Is The 5 Love Languages outdated? Not a chance. See how this practical tool is still saving, changing, and boosting marriages today—plus, resources to find your own language.
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The BEST of Your Life
John: “Today is the first day of the BEST of your life.” I retired last Friday after 41 years of working in the IT field. That quote was on the card I received from the team I led. While it is certainly appropriate for retirement, it also rings true in our everyday life. Every day, we can choose to live our best life, regardless of the changes, circumstances, and chaos around us.
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Ready for a Marriage Check-up?
If someone asks, “How’s your marriage?” how would you answer? It’s hard to give an objective answer. This week, we offer a short quiz you can take to evaluate how things are going in your marriage. Before we can move toward the goal of a better marriage, we need to know where we are currently. Doing this Marriage Check-up exercise helped us take stock of how we were doing. Here’s what we learned… We had a couple areas where Ken’s scores were higher than Janine’s (or vice-versa) – Parenting and Spirituality. We agreed the area where we struggle the most as a couple was Conflict Resolution. This all led to some…
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Opposites Attract
Michelle: I love watching Dancing with the Stars. Chris: I love watching Ghost Hunters and I hate that I know the pros, past and present, who have been on Dancing with the Stars. Michelle: One of the pros, Mark Ballas, sings with his wife when he is not performing or rehearsing for a Tuesday night show. Chris: One afternoon, Michelle sent me the song, Highs and Lows, by Alexander Jean (the band formed by Mark Ballas and his wife Brittney Jean). Michelle sent it with a text that read, “This is so us.” Michelle: I remember as a child, hearing that opposites attract and being confused by the concept. My…
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Verbal Judo – Harmonizing Your Tone of Voice
Some time ago, we wrote about the importance of being aware of the Tone of Voice we use with our spouse. The gist of the post was that our Tone of Voice is the key culprit that begins most disagreements, hurts, and fights between spouses. We want to revisit this important topic and provide some additional helpful hints we’ve learned along the way.
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Money Matters
Let’s be honest. Money matters. When you get married, you’re not just sharing your Netflix password and your space—you’re also merging your bank accounts, bills, and spending habits. Money issues pop up all the time in married life. How you deal with finances together can make or break your happily ever after. Compatibility Counts Julie: We all have financial “baggage” or attitudes that affect our spending, from our upbringing to our personal experiences. John and I have very similar backgrounds. Coming from large families with a mom who stayed home to care for us when we were young meant that every penny counted. Neither of us were extravagant, and we were both savers. When…
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Patience, Patience, Patience!
“Patience is the ability to idle your motor when you feel like stripping your gears.” Barbara Johnson Julie: Our daughter-in-law is now 13 days overdue with our first grandchild. We’ve known he was coming since Feb. 9, the news of his upcoming arrival being my best birthday present ever. Looking back now, it seems like an eternity – and I’m not the one carrying him! Patience may be a virtue, but it is certainly not one of mine. This has been the cause of many rifts between John and me over the years.
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Our “One of a Kind” Marriage
Our marriage is one of a kind. While we’re two people who have come from different places, we put together our past and present influences to become something new.
