Category: Restoration

Taking Responsibility Does Not Mean You’re Taking the Blame

Blame shifting is one of the biggest reasons couples have a hard time resolving their marital conflicts. We all do it at one time or another. But that doesn’t mean we should. Because the answer to the problem is never in finding who to blame. The answer, whatever the problem, is always found when someone takes responsibility.

Many times couples have come to us with marriage problems and with their own ideas of fixing the marriage by fixing their spouse. While neither husband nor wife claim to have achieved perfection, they are set on believing their marriage problems are the other person’s fault. Each one will admit to the things they do wrong, but they weigh their own faults in a balance against their spouse’s faults and the balance always leans in their favor.

Husbands and wives fall into the same trap all other relationships fall into when there is conflict. We lose sight of what’s most important and we become fixated on who’s fault it is. Who did what to whom? Who started this?

“It’s her fault because she did such and such.” “It’s his fault because he should have done that.” Around and around we go. Where it stops, nobody knows. Read more

Connection is Your Key For Whatever Your Marriage Needs

The condition of your marriage depends on the connections you have with your spouse. If you have poor connections your marriage will suffer and struggle to survive. If you have good connections your marriage will grow stronger and stronger as the years go by. So if you’re wanting to save your marriage. Or, if you’re wanting to strengthen your marriage, your connection is the key.

For the longest time, I’ve been trying to answer a few questions about my own marriage. Such as, why did Janet and I struggle for so many years to keep our marriage together? Now that our marriage is strong, what has made the difference? And how is it that we clearly should have divorced on four different occasions, but somehow we survived each crisis? Read more

Is Your Marriage Restoration More Important Than Your Relationship With God

I wrote an article awhile back called Why Marriage Restoration Should Not Be Your First Priority. I wrote that to express how knowing Jesus as Lord and Savior is far more important than overcoming marriage trouble. Because a few times I have dealt with someone wanting help to save their marriage. While at the same time they had no interest in knowing Jesus or allowing Jesus to help them. For them, their marriage restoration was more important than a relationship with God.

Then, recently I heard from a man who has been struggling to restore his marriage. He told me about his prayers and how he has been seeking God for answers. He said God has given him peace even though his situation hasn’t improved. And then he told me how someone else has accused him of putting his marriage first, instead of his relationship with God. Read more

Consider This When You Think Your Marriage Was a Mistake

There are many husbands and wives who think their marriage was a mistake. They’re looking back with regret at their decision to marry. And they’re wondering now if there is some reasonable way they can correct their mistake. They don’t want to hurt their spouse, their children, or their family. But they just can’t imagine having to live with their mistake for the rest of their lives.

Maybe, this is the way you feel. Or, maybe you have a strong sense this is the way your spouse feels.

In either case, I understand this line of thinking. I’ve been there, on both sides. So I’m not here to pass judgment on anyone for feeling this way.

However, I do want to challenge this way of thinking and the reasonings that go along with it. Read more

Marriage Covenant is NOT a Weapon to Use Against Your Spouse

Your marriage covenant is not an entitlement. And you should not take it for granted. You don’t get to say vows before a minister and expect that to be your guarantee to lifelong marriage. It takes more than that.

I believe many marriages are a lot less than they should be because people treat their marriage covenant as an entitlement. Their chase is over. They have what they wanted. Now they don’t have to give their marriage the same work they did when they were dating. When their former boyfriend or girlfriend had the freedom to walk away.

We believe in covenant 100%

Don’t Run From the Pain

I came to the place in my life that I could no longer run from the pain. My life was a mess and I needed help. I had stuffed all my pain and hurt deep inside from the wounds from others and wounds that were self-inflicted. So I turned to a counselor to help me out of my prison.

I was dealing with abandonment issues from both my mother and my father. I had been abused from early childhood through my adult life. Three different men molested me from age 6 till 11. One of the men did it more than 20 times. I was date raped twice when I was a teenager. I was physically abused by my father and a couple of times in my first marriage. And I dealt with emotional abuse from my father, my first husband, and in my marriage with Jack. Read more

You Can Become Better or Bitter, the Choice is Yours

The challenges we face in life are tough sometimes. Challenges with our health, our job, our children, or our marriage are the type of challenges almost everyone will have to deal with at one point or another. But in every challenge, we face we have to make a conscious decision. Will we choose to let the situation make us better, or will we let it make us bitter?

I’ve seen the importance of this choice time after time. Not only in my own life, but also in the lives of many others. And every time a person allows themselves to become bitter there is always a severe price that comes with making the wrong choice. Let me share a few examples. Read more

Are You Trying to Change, or Are You Just Smoothing Things Over

Do you want to know the reason it took 4 times of almost getting a divorce before our marriage straighten out? Do you want to know what had to change before we could have the marriage we both wanted? The thing that had to change was I had to stop trying to just smooth things over.

There was a cycle we were going through and it was because of the things I kept doing wrong. Time after time I kept finding a way to undo all the previous good I did to fix our marriage. Each time after we reached our breaking point I would begin to do everything I could to become a better husband. I didn’t want our marriage to end so I tried to change and I thought I was making some serious progress. But in the end, all I was doing was going through my own cycle.

Why Marriage Restoration is Better Than a Brand New Marriage

There is something special about brand new. When something brand new comes in your life there are special feelings that come with it. A new car, a new house, new clothes, new tools, new appliances, all share in common that special feeling.

The same can be said about a new marriage. There is excitement and hopeful anticipation for what the future will hold. You don’t know everything this new journey will encounter. But you believe the two of you together can conquer the world.

A brand new marriage, whether it’s the first, second, third or whatever, feels like a new start. There is no bad history, bad memories, or bad feelings between husband and wife. They can take everything they know about life and relationships and apply it to this new marriage. And everything should work out just fine.