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

Why The Lies in Marriage?

Why The Lies in Marriage?

Please read the pain expressed by the spouses below. I give six examples of the hurt the innocent party feels when discovering their husband or wife lies to them: three examples from wives and three from husbands.

Which Comes First, Love or Respect?

Which Comes First, Love or Respect?

Every so often I hear someone make this kind of comment: "While I'm all for the love and respect message, God is a God of order and He commands in Ephesians 5:33 that husbands must their wives first, and then wives are to respect their husbands. The responsibility lies with the husband to love first." Why would someone make this argument? Though there are multiple reasons, most often they fear a wife will be mistreated. They believe a woman who puts on respect toward an unloving and disobedient husband could end up abused.

What Did We Know about Marriage as a Six-Year-Old but Forgot as an Adult? -- Part 2

What Did We Know about Marriage as a Six-Year-Old but Forgot as an Adult? -- Part 2

In part 1, we met Jenna, the six-year-old who pleaded to her mom and dad to remember how they were once friends and to find that friendship once again. Jenna communicated well in her video what we all knew fully well when we were six and watching our mom and dad live out their marriage: marriage is about being friends and being friendly. Here are three suggestions on being better friends with your goodwilled spouse who, like you, wants your marriage to succeed.1. Assume your spouse has goodwill but that their gender causes them to react in ways that do not feel like they have goodwill.

What Did We Know about Marriage as a Six-Year-Old but Forgot as an Adult?—Part 1

What Did We Know about Marriage as a Six-Year-Old but Forgot as an Adult?—Part 1

Have we forgotten what we knew about marriage at age six? We knew that a mommy and daddy ought to be friendly with each other because all mommies and daddies ought to be friends. We knew that it frightened us when mommy and daddy were unfriendly with each other. We knew that mommy and daddy obviously liked each other; otherwise they would not have married. We knew intuitively that when they married, and because they married, they were to love and honor each other, especially in front of us. No-Fault Divorce Means the Kids Won’t Be Hurt, Right?