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Category Archive: Marriage

Three Dangers Of A Kid-Centered Family

Posted by on September 16, 2019

This is an extremely difficult subject because there is so much right about making our children a priority. However, when we place them above our own spiritual intimacy and our marriage, we have really hurt them and not helped. We are to represent the Father to them but we will be in no position to do that, if we walk away from the other two priorities first. This post by Jamie Ivey is worth your time to read:

“My husband and I have been married for 17 years. We have four kids. When you have four kids, your family often feels as though your life is in a kid-centered family. It’s hard work to make sure that our homes are gospel-centered family vs. a kid-centered family. It’s something that our family continues to work on. And it is hard, but it’s doable.”

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Beware Of Emotional Affairs

Posted by on December 18, 2018

I warn you that some of you will think this post by TGC is over-reacting to the new realities of social media. After 30 plus years of dealing with broken marriages, especially with leaders in the ministry, I absolutely disagree. This content by Ellen Mary Dykas is spot on and the questions she asks are all extremely important:

“Josh had been at a new church for four months when Sara—his pastor’s wife—invited him to join their community group, which was a weekly gathering of both singles and married couples. Sara and her husband, Craig, wanted a group where married couples mentored singles.

Josh and Sara hit it off, and they discovered lots of common interests. Their conversation easily flowed during the fellowship time before the Bible study. Sara was surprised how much she missed Josh when he couldn’t attend. Josh realized that talking to Sara became the main reason he enjoyed the group. Not a big deal, it’s just talking.”

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How To Help Your Spouse Cope With Work Stress

Posted by on August 20, 2018

The hardest part of the day for most of us is when we get home and finally look forward to not having to be the person who is on in the room. The challenge: that is the exact same expectation everyone else has who walked through the same door. This HBR post was very helpful for me:

“Home is a sanctuary from work stress, right? Not always. Even if you are able to leave your projects and worries at the office, your spouse may have difficulty doing so — and that stress can rub off on you. How can you help your partner cope? What’s the best thing to say when your partner starts complaining — and what should you not say? Is there a way to help them see things differently? And how can you set boundaries so that home can be a haven again?”

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What Busy Leaders Really Need From Their Spouses

Posted by on August 8, 2018

My passion is to help develop leaders so they can fully integrate their personal and professional lives. This is not about balance but the willingness to be a great leader in every area of your life. If you don’t develop the ability to lead yourself first and then at home you can forget reaching your potential at work. This post by Andrea Williams was excellent:

“With divorce rates hovering between 40 and 50 percent, experts spend countless hours discussing the reasons why so many Americans can’t make their marriages work. Arguments over money, sex, and kids are perennial fire starters. But there’s another issue that is critically important—especially for husbands and wives with demanding careers.”

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Take A Break: Save Your Job, Marriage, Life

Posted by on July 27, 2018

I am doing some deep research in hopes of writing a book on work life integration. It is clearly a top of mind for all executive leaders and this post Rodger Dean Duncan had some great insights:

“It was Warren Buffett who said “the chains of habit are too light to be felt until they’re too heavy to be broken.” The sentiment perfectly describes the creep in both the amount of time people work and the locations where work is done. It’s an insidious pattern that fools people into believing that more hours worked automatically translates into more productivity.

Aaron Edelheit refuses to buy that myth. In The Hard Break: The Case for the 24/6 Lifestyle he makes a strong case for taking a weekly hard break or Sabbath. He’s not talking about just lounging all day. He advocates “doing something different that will allow you to test your brain and to potentially achieve some higher insight or understanding.”

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10 Hardships In Marriage And How To Overcome Them

Posted by on June 20, 2018

I was married at the age of nineteen and had no idea what I was getting myself into at the time. After being married for a long time, I am still trying to figure it all out. One think I know is that there are many things in this life that threaten any marriage and if you are not committed to work through those things it will not last. Mark Merrill has a helpful list and good advice:

“Every marriage faces hardship. It’s a given. This list covers most of the common troubles, but your situation is unique. The key point here is to face the difficulty – whatever kind of struggle it is – together with your wife.

Do you remember your marriage vows? “For better, for worse…” “In sickness and in health…” “For richer, for poorer…”

These promises presuppose tough times. We went into our marriage with our eyes open, so there’s really no excuse for not bringing everything we have to the table when things – once in a while – get dicey.”

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The 10 Best Decisions I've Made In Marriage

Posted by on September 8, 2017

So many ups and downs, good days and bad describe most marriages. You are living with another person that deserves your best while seeing you at your worst. If our primary motive is to manipulate change in the other person for our own benefit then the marriage will probably never last. Mark Merrill and his wife Susan always provide great wisdom:

“As my wife Susan and I were writing our newly released books, Lists to Love By for Busy Husbands and Lists to Love by for Busy Wives, I spent a lot of time reflecting on our marriage and life together. I also thought about some of the choices I have made along the way. Here are the 10 best decisions I (and Susan too) have made in marriage.”

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8 Things To Avoid For A Healthy Marriage

Posted by on August 11, 2017

This is a subject I know far too much about when in the category of what not to do instead of follow me. Probably learning how to communicate effectively when your feelings are hurt would move to the top of the list. On the one extreme we can’t stuff our emotions inside and on the other we can’t just dump them out either. This post by Mark Merrill is a good reminder for all:

“It’s not that there’s anything really wrong with your marriage. You love each other and do life together pretty well. It’s just that you sense that things are not really humming along. They are more ho-humming.

I’ve previously shared with you what you can do when you want more, when you want to enrich your marriage. If you are wanting more out of life and more from your marriage, I’d like to share with you 8 things not to do in your marriage.”

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How To Know What's Important: Calendars and Checkbooks

Posted by on June 18, 2017

We all want to accomplish the things that are really important in life and learn the discipline to walk away from everything else. Most of us have not taken the time to write down specific goals in a life plan that involves everything personal, family, faith, friends and our professional lives. Best practice Living Forward by Michael Hyatt.

So how do we know if we are just filling our schedules with things to do without any serious evaluation or if those are the things that should even be done at all? We don’t want to get to the end of our lives and look back realizing that a lot of our time was totally wasted on things that don’t really matter.

A great place to start is to evaluate how we are spending our time and our money. Calendars can tell us a lot about our core values and priorities because they reflect the choices we are making. No doubt some of our time is not our own to schedule but how we are spending a large percentage of it reflects what is really a priority and what is not.

Are you making time for the people and relationships that you care about the most or are they getting the leftovers at best? If you really want to know, take the time to track how you are spending your time for at least a month. You will be amazed how much of it is scheduled based on what appears to be urgent at the time but in the end is not really important at all.

The next big indicator of what is a priority in our lives is to look at how we are spending our finances. If we are living beyond our means and accumulating unnecessary debt then we have a major character problem that must be addressed.

More stress is brought into marriage by this one area than almost anything else. The only solution is again to write down a budget that includes all of your expenses and then have the discipline to post all your transactions and make necessary adjustments to live within your income.

You may think this sounds like way too much work to me and I am already busy enough. Trust me you are already using calendars and checkbooks anyway but you may not be gaining any of the benefits of leading your life instead of just letting it happen.

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How To Stop Taking Work Stress Out On Your Family

Posted by on June 14, 2017

By the very nature of our work we have to be on almost all of the time. We put up with a lot of drama and the productivity demands alone build up tremendous stress. If we don’t develop habits that allow us to come home with some emotional margin, we will take all of that frustration out on the people who matter most. Amy Morin has two great proven strategies:

“Do you ever come home irritable because you had a rough day at the office? Do you take out your frustrations from work on your family? If so, you’re not alone. It’s an issue I address in my therapy office often. I hear from parents who are disappointed in themselves for yelling at their children. I also hear from spouses who are tired of walking on eggshells in an effort to avoid becoming the undeserving target of an entire days’ worth of frustration and anger.”

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