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Forgiveness & Healing
Sustaining a joy-filled marriage is hard work. When two people get married and live together, the challenges of everyday life start adding up. Between our different personalities, the demands of work, raising children, extended family, married couples can occasionally get on each other’s nerves. It’s inevitable that eventually we’re going to bump into each other and cause some hurts between us. When this happens, we need forgiveness and healing to repair our relationship.
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Great Sex!
Photo by ijeab / Freepik Sex between a married couple is not only good, it’s very good. If you read the research and surveys, you will find that married couples experience better and more frequent sex than non-married couples. Married couples are healthier, happier, and live longer. When we went on a WorldWide Marriage Encounter weekend, we were more than a little surprised when a priest told us that our love-making is good, is important for us, and is important to the world. He encouraged us to “make mad passionate love!”
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What Makes a Good Gift?
Our youngest child graduated from high school this spring, and our gift to him was a grad party. Grad parties are a big deal where we live – white tents, catered food, a fancy cake, and a display of photos of the graduate growing up. And, of course, that pretty box for guests to place their cards!
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I Will ROMANCE You Every Day of My Life
Ahh, Romance! You may be thinking wine, roses, candle light dinners and such. Every day would get pretty expensive. Let’s call that dating — more about that in another post. Dating involves an invitation — that is half the fun. Romance is simple and spontaneous.
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Tone of Voice
Something that we’ve become increasingly aware of in our marriage is how our tone of voice so significantly affects our communication – for better or for worse! It is remarkable how something so seemingly small can make such a huge impact on whether our communication is healthy, productive, and enriching or debilitating, disheartening, and provocative. Believe it or not, tone of voice is huge. WE would go as far as to say tone of voice is at the root of most of the small hurts we experience in our relationship.
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It’s Not About the Dress
The wedding venue, the dress, the flowers, the photographer…when did all this get to be so important?
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Making Up is Hard to Do
Every married couple has conflicts- sometimes over the littlest things. Most conflicts are a result of our unmet expectations– I expected this, but instead that happened. We begin to feel hurt or disappointed. We begin to think we’re disrespected or that we’re unloved.
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The Soul Mate Myth
One of the unique things we share with couples preparing for marriage is what we affectionately dub, “the Soul Mate myth.” Somewhere in the weaving of our cultural tapestry in America, a piece of fabric was sown in proclaiming that in order to be eternally happy, each person must find his or her soul mate – the one special person out there meant specifically for them.
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The Grass is Greener . . . Where You Water It
The Grass is Greener… I love the quote “The grass is greener where you water it.” It is especially appropriate this time of year when Wyoming is lush and green. I love the smell of lilacs and the wet earth as everything comes back to life after an incredibly long winter. It’s rhubarb and asparagus season and I can’t wait to see the green shoots pop their little heads above the soil. I enjoy looking over the fence to sneak a peek at the neighbor’s garden and kibbutz about garden plans. Tulips and daffodils are in full bloom and life couldn’t be better.
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TGIF!
Tom and I can say “TGIF!” with very different ideas of what that might look like especially as Friday unfolds into Saturday and Sunday. I need the weekend to get caught up on stuff and slip in a good workout to make up for slack time during the week. If I approach the weekend with the attitude “I am the only one that gets anything done around here” and paint Tom as “Mr Slouch” it is pretty unlikely he will enjoy pitching in to help.
