If you are a home owner, you know about maintenance. Unless your house is newly constructed, and sometimes even if it is, something always needs repair. Or a little touch of paint. Or a battery in the smoke detector. Or….whatever. And spring cleaning is a thing becauses houses get dirty. Once a year or so they need a good going-over …
Gratitude: It’s Good for your Marriage
When someone mentions Thanksgiving, what comes to mind? Turkey defrosting in your refrigerator? Traveling to see extended family? Preparing your home for out of town guests? Perhaps you think about watching the big games on television. While enjoying another slice of pumpkin pie. And after that the annual backyard football game with your siblings or cousins. Thanksgiving is marked by …
Make the Holidays Easier on Your Marriage
Does your blood pressure rise when you look up and realize there are Christmas decorations out at your local big-box store, and it’s only OCTOBER? And feeling pressure to catch the Christmas spirit does not seem to make the holidays easier. Healthline surveyed more than 2,200 people and found that nearly 65% of people feel moderate or significant amounts of …
Don’t Let These Marriage Misconceptions Derail Your Relationship
Before getting married, most of us believe we have some idea of what makes a marriage successful. Consciously or subconsciously, we have formed opinions as we’ve made observations and absorbed information from other people, books, the internet, TV, or other sources. Unfortunately, some popular beliefs about marriage aren’t accurate. Some may contain a bit of truth, but they are not …
The Gift of a Strong Marriage (Part 1) — Fulfillment
People get married for lots of reasons. But according to a telephone survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, the number one reason people marry is love. Shocker. Reasons two and three are also unremarkable. People marry because they want to make a lifelong commitment. And they marry for companionship. No surprises there. Human beings are created in the image …
Four Good Reasons to Pray Together
Pray together. It’s kind of a crazy idea when you think about it. The Creator of the Universe invites us into a conversation. We talk, and Almighty hears. We listen, and God has messages for us. Prayer is both intimate and powerful, and inviting God into your marriage relationship through prayer is full of possibilities. So while there are lots of …
Balancing Marriage and Parenting: Keeping Love Alive While You Raise Kids
Balancing marriage and parenting is not for the faint of heart. For most of us, bringing home our first child introduces a whole new kind of love into our lives. Holding that newborn baby for the first time, we know we’ll do whatever it takes to keep them safe and warm and happy. Yet we soon discover that bringing that little …
A Few Things We Love About Being Married
In the movie Forget Paris, the character Andy quips, “Marriages don’t work when one partner is happy and the other is miserable. Marriage is about both people being equally miserable.” Have you noticed how movies and TV shows tend to portray being married as one of two extremes—happily ever after and happily never after? But in real-life relationships, it falls …
Why Regular Maintenance is Great for Your Marriage
Our bodies require maintenance to stay healthy. Gardens need maintenance to grow. Cars need maintenance to run well. A business needs maintenance to be successful. Why should it be any different for marriages? Many couples have premarital counseling before tying the knot, which is great. But you’d never expect four or five workouts at age 22 to keep a person …
A Marriage Fit for Royalty
A wife of noble character is her husband’s crown, but a disgraceful wife is like decay in his bones (Proverbs 12:4). A Wife of Noble Character Although the meaning has changed, apparently the idea of a trophy wife has been around for a long time. The author of Proverbs lays down a pretty stark comparison to show what he thought …