Everyone wants the secret formula to a great marriage. We all desire to thrive in the relationship that we value most. But the reality is desire isn’t enough. If desire was what it took to have an amazing marriage, we’d all have the marriage of our dreams.
Our choices have to be...
Each week we receive emails from men and women that read our blog faithfully. They too had a vision for their marriage. They dreamed of happily ever after. Some have kids. Some have a house with a white picket fence. All of them had the desire for a life that is drastically different than what...
A few weeks ago our family finally had a quiet evening at home. We were getting ready to eat when my cell phone rang. It was a familiar name on my caller ID. A pastor of a great and growing church was calling me.
I answered the phone and after saying hello there was a brief moment of...
We have the opportunity to travel and speak a lot about marriage. Most of our content doesn’t come from information we’ve read in books or gained in a classroom. The majority of it has been learned through failure and experience. The thing we’ve noticed as we’ve spoke to...
We talk a lot about having an ordinary marriage. None of us signed up for ordinary. We learn to settle for it over time. Here are a few indicators that you could be in an ordinary marriage.
1. You think that the absence of conflict equals the presence of intimacy.
2. You find yourself keeping...
Every day people search the internet for answers. Medical answers. Parenting tips. Cooking instruction. Marriage help. Every day I can see what people type into their search to find our web site.
The top searches in the picture above is pretty much the same each day. It is sobering to think that...
It is impossible to earn forgiveness. Forgiveness, if it is authentic, is unconditional. Forgiveness is as much for you, the person that is offering it, as it is for the recipient. Trust is something completely different.
Trust has to be earned. Trust is a sequence of relational deposits,...
You are not your past
You are not your failures
You are not your parents
You are not your sister
You are not your regrets
You are not your sin
You are not your weight
You are not your divorce
You are not your unemployment
You are not the choices someone else made for you
You are not your...
No one thinks they will have an affair. We don’t get married with a date circled on the calendar when we will break our marriage vows.
You know how most inappropriate relationships start? They start in a non-inappropriate way. Texting. Facebook. Social Media.
Here is the...
Have you ever had a dream die? Ever had something you put your heart and soul come into fruition, only to be lost in the end?
Maybe it was your marriage.
Maybe it was your career.
Maybe it was a new business.
Maybe it was a relationship.
When you lost it, you lost a part of yourself.
Maybe your...
Most of us only communicate what we expect from a relationship after we’ve been disappointed or let down. Many of us are unhappy in a marriage, discontent in a dating relationship or dissatisfied with a friend, because the relationship isn’t what we thought it would be and...
Trisha and I got married the summer before my second senior year of college. I squeezed four years into five. (Anyone else on that plan?) Four months after we got married, we found out Trish was pregnant with our first son, Micah. Now, almost 18 years later, we are preparing to send him off to...
