Marriage Articles

What Does Love and Respect Enable a Wife and Husband to Do?

How Is C.H.A.I.R.S. The Key to Having More Meaningful Conversations With Your Husband?

How Is C.H.A.I.R.S. The Key to Having More Meaningful Conversations With Your Husband?

Many wives share disappointment that their husbands rarely talk to them at a deeper level. “Emerson, when we were dating, we used to talk long into the night getting to really know each other. What happened to him?”

Are You Humbly Voicing a Need or Formalizing a Complaint?

Are You Humbly Voicing a Need or Formalizing a Complaint?

In the beginning, after God had created Adam and placed him in the garden to cultivate it, He said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him” (Genesis 2:18).

What Does Love and Respect Enable a Wife and Husband to Do?

What Does Love and Respect Enable a Wife and Husband to Do?

In the Bible, we find two realities to which we are to respond: God’s commands and God’s promises. God calls us to obey His commands and trust His promises. Most of us have sung the song "Trust and Obey,” which captures these two quintessential truths.

You Know What You’re Saying, but What Are You Communicating?

You Know What You’re Saying, but What Are You Communicating?

There are certain phrases we have been programmed to understand in a specific way whenever we hear them. For example, if someone says to us, “We need to talk,” we know there is bad news to come and we get in defensive mode.

In What Areas Is He Feeling Disrespected? Diagnosing Your Deflated Husband

In What Areas Is He Feeling Disrespected? Diagnosing Your Deflated Husband

Is your normally happy-go-lucky husband suddenly more sulky and moody? Has your typically fully engaged and intimate husband for some mysterious reason become more distant and even physically absent?

You Know What You’re Saying, but What Are You Communicating?

In What Areas Is He Feeling Disrespected? Diagnosing Your Deflated Husband

She Applies Respect to Her Fiancé After Reading Love and Respect

She Applies Respect to Her Fiancé After Reading Love and Respect

I always love hearing from others after they have begun putting into practice the principles of love and respect. It is especially encouraging when I hear from young couples who decided to be proactive about implementing love and respect, rather than waiting to see if the need arises for marital help. Love and respect, as explained to us in Ephesians 5:33, is not just about conflict resolution; it is the foundation for a successful God-honoring marriage, intended to be practiced from day one, just as this young lady learned:

A Wife Respects and then Receives the Love She Desires

A Wife Respects and then Receives the Love She Desires

Women want to be loved by their husbands. Adored. Desired. Cherished. That should not be a surprise to anyone. You would be hard-pressed to find someone who would dispute a woman’s desire for love. But sadly, just because a woman desires love more than anything else from her husband, and even though he may say that he absolutely adores her with all his heart, that does not mean she always feels loved by him. And not feeling loved by the one she needs to feel loved by the most can cause a significant gap between her and her husband.

Is It a Stereotype or a Pink and Blue Difference That God Gave Your Spouse?

Is It a Stereotype or a Pink and Blue Difference That God Gave Your Spouse?

Some folks resist anything that seems to reinforce a stereotype. Their initial response to stereotypes is usually to defend individualism and claim that such generalities do not define or explain their situations.How do you feel about stereotypes when it comes to explaining differences between you and your spouse? What if I said that many women see life through pink sunglasses and many men see life through blue sunglasses and these views color what each sees, especially in conflict? Similarly, she wears pink hearing aids and he wears blue hearing aids and each “hears” something different during heated moments in marriage.

What Came First—the Chicken or the Egg?

What Came First—the Chicken or the Egg?

In marriage one spouse tends to assign blame to the other for starting the marital troubles. For example, in courtship the husband was very talkative but after marriage he talked less, even withdrawing and stonewalling during conflict. From the wife’s perspective, this was a bait-and-switch trick. He tricked her into thinking he was a communicative person but after marriage refused to meet her motional need to connect via sharing hearts and feelings.