Category: Tips

Our Best Advice For Making A Marriage Last

It’s easy to find good advice on how to make a marriage last. Anyone married long enough to weather a few storms should have valuable things to say. If you ask enough people or read enough material you will probably get a wide variety of answers. So much so, it may be difficult to choose what is the best advice to focus your attention on.

Over the years since we started this marriage ministry, I’ve thought about this idea a lot. I’ve wondered as we prepared for teaching a class, or meet with a couple for private coaching. Is there a single piece of advice that’s more important than anything else we share? Read more

When a Difficult Marriage is an Abusive Marriage

When the difficulty in the marriage is because of abusive behavior, personal safety must come before the marriage.

We love to encourage husbands and wives who struggle with difficult marriages. We believe commitment, hope, and perseverance go a long way in helping couples get past their difficult season. But when there’s abuse, we have to have a different conversation.

There is a serious issue of abuse that is facing far too many marriages today. This issue should never be ignored or overlooked, by the men and women who find themselves in an abusive relationship, nor by the rest of us who have a voice to speak out against it.

In this final post of this series on difficult marriage, I want to help men and women recognize when Difficult Marriage is an Abusive Marriage. Because, when this is the case, the approach to dealing with the marriage crisis must change.

When You Don’t Know How to Improve Your Difficult Marriage

You want to have the marriage you have always dreamed of. But now you find yourself in a difficult marriage without knowing how to improve it.

In our previous post, Why Do You Settle For a Difficult Marriage, I gave a challenge to anyone who felt stuck with no intention of doing anything about the condition of their marriage. I talked about how marriage was designed by God to be a place of “One Flesh” unity and that God esteems marriage in such high regard that He even chose marriage to illustrate the relationship between Christ and the church.

As I mentioned in my challenge, “if marriage has been given the responsibility from God to represent what Christ’s relationship with us the Church should look like, shouldn’t we hold marriage to the same standard of honor and glory that God has already placed on it?”

But maybe you’re someone from my last post who answered yes to the question, “Are you in a marriage that could be better, but you just don’t know how to get there?” And so if this is you, I know you’re not looking for something that simply inspires you to do better. You are looking for some practical advice of what you can do. Read more

Why Would You Settle for a Difficult Marriage?

A difficult marriage is a hard thing to endure. The stress of bickering and division never seems to end. Even when there are moments of hope because love and peace are temporarily restored. That hope quickly fades as another day presents another challenge. Soon, husband and wife fall right back into their ruts of strife, anger, hurt, and confusion. And sadly too many men and women who have this type of marriage have no idea they don’t have to settle for it.

For 19 years I was willing to settle for a difficult marriage. For the most part I was always blind to how troubled my marriage was. I thought it was normal for couples to argue and have disagreements. So I thought what was going on in my marriage was just as normal as anyone else’s. I committed to marriage for life even if I didn’t like the condition of it. Read more

Is Your House Divided?

“If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.” – Mark 3:25

Marriage is a wonderful gift from God. It’s the union of two unique individuals blending their lives together to become as the bible says, “one flesh.” This unity does not happen when husbands and wives become the same in every way possible. Couples establish and hold true unity in marriage by celebrating what they have in common. While at the same time learning to accept and embrace each other’s differences. Couples that strive to become “one flesh” know there is beauty and strength in both their similarities and in their differences.

But there is something seriously wrong when couples begin allowing their differences to create a divided home. Because when they accept and tolerate division in their relationship they open up the door for greater trouble in their marriage.

Secrets To Great Marriage From A Former Unhappy Wife

One of the hardest things I have had to come to terms with in my life is the fact that I spent nineteen years of my marriage being an unhappy wife when all along I could have been a very happy wife. I’ve had to mourn those wasted years. They are gone now and there is nothing I can do to get them back. That’s why I am so thankful the Lord is redeeming that time for us.

Though if I could, I would go back and talk to my former self. Because there are some things I would like for her to know. There are some things I would like to say to her to encourage her and reassure her. So I would say…. Read more

Can You Balance Your Partnership and Friendship?

Every marriage should have a good balance of partnership and friendship. It is difficult and there are many couples who fail at it every day, but it is possible.

Marriage is the only relationship where we should have both partnership and friendship. Ordinarily, in any other relationship, it is considered unwise to mix the two. A business partnership that starts from friendship will usually hurt the friendship. And a partnership that develops into friendship can hurt the partnership. Unless everyone understands the difference and they are able to balance the two properly.

Love Is More Than A Feeling, It’s Also A Choice

On a previous post, I Want To Know What Love Is, I talked about love as a feeling and how difficult it is to describe that feeling. In that post, I said, “not one time does the Bible refer to love as being something you feel.”

But after saying that and reading the Word this week, I had to go back and edit that line. It now reads, “Not one time does the Bible refer to love as something you only feel.” The important change I made was adding only.

I had to make that change because to be honest love has to also be a feeling. It is that thing inside causing us to say, “I love you and I want to marry you.”

And when we do something that shows our love we explain, “I did it because I love you.” Read more

Learning To Accept Your Spouse

Our spouses are unique in their own way. Individuals who have their own taste buds, their own thoughts, how they view the world through their own lenses, how they feel about circumstances, situations, sadness, pain, their past and the way they were brought up. All of these things are ingredients that have made them who they are today. Not everything they say or do is wrong just because we say it is. We have to learn to accept them just as they are.

When my husband and I first got married, his palate was not as diverse as mine. I grew up eating everything but the appliances. My mom is an awesome cook and so was my grandmother. We were expected to eat whatever was put before us with no grumbling or complaining. No matter who cooked it or what it was.