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I Could Use Some Help!
You may have heard the analogy that men are like waffles, women like spaghetti. Neuroscientists have found that typically the male brain focuses on one thing at a time while females tend to mentally juggle multiple thoughts. For example, when a man is doing the dishes, he’s thinking about…the dishes. When a woman is doing the dishes, she might be thinking about the grocery list, that salad for the picnic on Saturday, the dentist appointment tomorrow, and that she needs to call her parents to see how they’re doing. All this mental and emotional work is invisible, but it can be exhausting.
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Annual Marriage Tune-Up
A number of years ago, some friends of ours told us about a little trick they use to keep their marriage healthy, strong, and vibrant. Every year, they pledge to attend some kind of marriage enrichment event together. According to our friends, this does not mean weekend getaways to the beach, skiing, or going to a bed and breakfast together.
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Earning a Time Out
Image by cottonbro via Pexels 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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Listening = Love and Respect
Over the years, we’ve heard a great deal about the importance of listening in marriage. This is one of those things that seems simple enough to understand, but for some reason is really hard to do consistently. The simple fact is that attentive listening is a skill and takes practice and determination. Rather than share the ways to become a better listener (you can find that information just about anywhere), we’d like to share with you some reasons why it is important to each of us to be heard.
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Marriage: Our Security in the Chaos
Paul: Our country and our world has been turned upside down these past few weeks with worry, fear, and anxiety over the Covid-19 pandemic. How does all of this affect the average married couple? How can we thrive instead of merely survive this crisis?
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Keeping Your Marriage Sane While Quarantined
Jen: Being quarantined and trying to limit your exposure to others is one thing and having kids at home adds another dimension. So many parents are trying to make a living and unexpectedly take care of their kids at home at the same time. No matter what your situation is, being quarantined at home can add stresses on your couple relationship that you haven’t experienced before.
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Marriage Under Quarantine
This week we created a fun video to get you re-focused on your relationship while locked in quarantine together. Click on video below! Leave a comment on the creative ways you’re growing your relationship during the coronavirus outbreak!
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Love’s Sweet Spot
Photo Credit: Jose Mizrahi on Unsplash Many of you are familiar with theYin-Yang symbol or the phrase “opposites attract.” You know, the eternal optimist vs. the pessimist, the spontaneous adventurer vs. the live by the calendar person. Let’s call them complementary, not opposite. Think: You are the peanut butter to my jelly or the music to my dancing shoes.
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Empty Nest – Syndrome or Summit?
Janine: I remember when we had three children under the age of 5. One thing I fantasized about was being able to leave the house someday WITHOUT a diaper bag. I didn’t know if that day would ever come. In the midst of the wild and crazy parenting years, I couldn’t imagine what life would be like after kids. Before we knew it…our youngest child went off to college.
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50 Ways to Engage Kids
Photo Credit: Jahir Martinez on Unsplash.com “A truly rich man is one whose children run into his arms when his hands are empty.” This anonymous quote (sexist wording and all) caught our eye and caused us to reflect on fun times with our kids. As wonderful as children are, they add expense to any family budget. Kids need love and attention; they thrive when you engage with them. Fortunately engaging doesn’t have to break the budget. Engaging also creates screen-free time, lifelong values and memories. We’ll close with a list of 50 of our favorite ways to engage kids that cost little to nothing and are all screen-free.
