Alright ladies and gents, it’s time for the third installment in our current series “How Can I Make My Marriage Last?” We previously discussed John Gottman’s 5:1 ratio in PART ONE, and then addressed some marriage killers affectionately known as the Four Horsemen in PART TWO. Obviously we couldn’t leave you hanging without the antidotes to...
In my last blog entry, I dropped some science in your lap about John Gottman’s 5:1 ratio of positive interactions to negative interactions. What you did with that info is your business, but I hope you went home and made some love bank deposits. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, check out...
Valentine’s Day was a couple of weeks ago, and if you’re still dating your significant other you might have spent the evening staring into each other’s eyes, trading loving caresses and coming up with pet names for one another. If you’ve already been married for a while, however, you might have gotten a heart-shaped box...
Spending time with family over the holidays requires a lot of intentional effort. For myself, it begins with taking off from work early in order to get home and pack up for myself and kids. Then on to loading the van with the precision of the 20th level of Tetris- luggage, gifts, snacks and children fitting with only inches to...
I often contemplate love. I know how important it is because it’s all over Scripture. It’s in every movie, and on the pages of every book. Somehow in a world that is unsure about this whole “God thing,” love prevails as an essential theme of the human race. Even when we are our culture forbids...
Emma was asked to read an award-winning book for school and make a diorama, so we headed to the bookstore to find one. She’s in second grade. She had a few choices —-a Newbery Medal and Honor Book or a Caldecott Medal Book. The Newbery award is given to “the most distinguished contribution to American...
I grew up country, in the hills of Arkansas to be exact. This is a fact most people might not notice about me at first. At some point I laid down my thick southern drawl; but I still wear the boots, get my hands greasy under the hood of a car, use duct tape to...
As a therapist working with couples, my goal is to try and give them what I did not receive (or ask for) as a young man engaged at the age of 20. Over a decade of marriage and four children later, to say that I have done the following poorly for most of the years...
Three Short Insights of How to Stay Emotionally Healthy in the Craziness of Caring for Aging Parents According to Wikipedia, The Sandwich generation is “the generation of people who care for their aging parents while supporting their own children. According to the Pew Research Center, just over 1 of every 8 Americans aged 40 to...
Marriage may be the most infuriating, brilliant, amazing, and humbling of creations. The Apostle Paul actually describes it as a “profound mystery” in Ephesians, which is probably the best description for it. There are more books, seminars, Sunday School topics, sermons, and research about marriage than almost anything else, and yet most of us are...
