Thriving During The Holidays

Raise your hand if you don’t feel some twinge of anxiety about the family dynamics during the holidays. If you’re honest, you feel pretty conflicted about having your parents or siblings over for Christmas dinner, much less visiting your childhood home. And you likely feel somewhat reluctant about going to Read more…

Day 13: Forgiveness

This post is a part of The 15-Day Relationship Challenge. If you’re just now tuning in, click here for the whole series. MORNINGForgiveness. Letting go, holding on.  Good morning. Welcome to Day 13. Imagine dangling from a cliff, you’ve just slipped and caught a tree branch growing from the mountainside with your Read more…

Married Teens

What were you like when you were 13 years old? How were you as a kid when conflict happened in the family? Where did you go and what did you do to feel safe? What was your role in the family surrounding conflict? Sometimes when conflict happens, we can become Read more…

Avoiding Hurt Limits Intimacy

Couples that avoid hurt from happening (or the hurt that has already happened) are preventing intimacy from developing. No one really enjoys being hurt, and being hurt is a part of all close intimate relationships. It’s going to happen. The difficulty is in viewing pain as though it is a Read more…

Grace & Gratitude

Before I release a pre-marital couple to the wild world of marriage, I challenge them to adopt two words (concepts) as cornerstones for their marriage: Grace and Gratitude. Here’s why. Showing grace implies forgiveness, acceptance, and a belief that your spouse is a better man/woman than what the offending action Read more…

Relationship is Conflict

If you want to be in relationships, you have to learn how to do conflict. One of my mentors, Dan Allender, says it well: “All good communication leads to conflict.” Most of us believe that good communication will lead to consensus, not conflict. The word “communicate” comes from the Latin Read more…

Criticism

Criticism without hope will lead to contempt.Criticism with hope will spawn creativity. It’s way easier to give the criticism than to receive it, but we all need helpful, loving, critical feedback in order to grow and change. We can be more receptive to hearing critical feedback if we feel secure, Read more…

Confidence

When we talk about having confidence we’re usually referring to the feeling of being steadfast, solid, or steady in our decision/statement. We also use the word to describe telling someone something private or secret that we ask them to keep “in confidence.”  Confidence comes from the Latin word which means to act Read more…

How to Fight

How to Fight: Strike when the iron is COLD!  The heat of the moment is usually too hot. Wait for things to cool down. Smile. Use hopeful, positive language Smiling takes less facial muscles, is linked to an increased production of dopamine (the “feel good” chemical in our body), and Read more…

Burdens

I’ve been thinking about how many people feel like their marriage is a burden. I agree, marriage is a burden. But I think it’s a burden in a different kind of way. The word “burden” in the Hebrew language means “assignment from God.” Marriage is a burden to our selfishness. Read more…

Making Space for Relationships

Here are three reasons to make space in life for relationships (even the difficult relationships). 1. Loneliness.  Loneliness is an epidemic, and is linked to an increase risk of cardiovascular disease. We’re more connected to information and screens than we are to people and stories. The more information we have, Read more…

Conflict DNA

The other day I talked about the different types of perspectives we have (some we choose, some that choose us). So much of what we see is based on our story, where we come from. Wendell Berry says it well, how is it that we can know where we are going Read more…

Perspective Matters

Our perspectives matter in life, especially in relationships. Usually we see what we want to see, what we are looking for. But, we don’t have complete control over what we see. There are 3 things that shape our perspective: 1. My Stance (what I am conscious of, what is my Read more…

Relationships Need an Enemy

Most couples come into my office lacking a recognizable enemy they fight together. So instead, they fight each other. We often begin our intimate relationships based on infatuation, attraction, and fairy-tale dreams. Rarely do I interact with a couple that began their relationship because two people came together to fight Read more…

Marriage & Separation

It may be that the only way to truly identify and understand the depths to which one goes to get their way in marriage is to separate. Marriages are too codependent to allow for the truth of control and manipulation to be seen. Consistently doing life together and the closeness Read more…

Truth and Truthfulness

Truthfulness is a principal that most would agree is a valuable and worthwhile virtue. Most courses of therapy challenge the client to engage in his/her true self and live out of that core in a truthful way. But the conversation takes a dramatic turn when truthfulness is pitted up against Read more…

The 15-Minute Date

(Authors note: This article was originally published in September 2012 at StartMarriageRight.com) Most couples that I see for counseling have not consistently dated in years. It’s an odd phenomenon that usually happens after the wedding; couples stop dating. The most common reasons I hear and see have to do with Read more…