Bible Book Club
Donate

Blog Category

Marriage

Marriage

Prickly Spouse? Prepare for the Porcupine Part 1

My husband, Mark, often describes himself as a porcupine because as he says, “he can get a little prickly.” The reality is we all have porcupine moments in our relationships and especially in marriage. Acknowledging that you can be difficult and identifying what triggers the prickly spouse within is the path to a more harmonious marriage! Acknowledge that you might be a porcupine… Porcupines have sharp quills on its back, sides, and tail, but its belly is tender and vulnerable. So, if you are often prickly or irritable, even though you have a lovable, tender side, you might be a porcupine. Porcupines are very vocal animals, with a variety of calls including moans, grunts, coughs, wails, whines, shrieks, and tooth clicking. If you do a lot of whining or complaining, you might be a porcupine. Porcupines are often solitary animals. If you find yourself wanting to be alone, and being with other people too much makes you grumpy, you might be a porcupine. When irritated or threatened, a porcupine will turn its back, raise its quills and lash out at a predator with its rump. If you get easily defensive, show your backside, and angrily lash out at others, you …

Read Post →

Marriage

Is This the Root Cause of Your Marriage Problems?

Have you ever thought that love and hate are two sides of the same coin? I might have at one time, but marriage has taught me a lot about love. Hate is not the opposite of love, selfishness is the opposite of love. And selfishness is killing marriages. It is the root cause of many marriage problems–problems that are ending in divorce. A decade ago the number one cause for divorce was financial problems. Today it is irreconcilable differences. That sounds like selfishness. Our human hearts are naturally bent towards getting what we want, when we want it. Real love requires unselfishness. It requires sacrificially putting someone else’s desires, needs, and comfort before what we want. Today’s culture creates an atmosphere of self-focus. Social media, although great sometimes, is often just a way to compare ourselves to others. We see what others have and we think we should have it too: the perfect husband and kids, the clean house, the fulfilling job. But what we see is not reality. Our head may know it’s not reality but the discontent it breeds in our heart eats at us and grows until our unhappy heart demands — get it right now and to …

Read Post →

Marriage

You Married for Better, but What about for Worse?

At some point in your wedding ceremony you probably committed to take your husband to have and to hold from this day forward, for better and for worse. I know I did. But I really didn’t think about what it meant. Twenty eight years later, for better and for worse has deep meaning. Our daughter, Megan, got married a year ago. The ceremony was beautiful and Megan’s happiness in those months up to the wedding brought back memories of my wedding day. The unadulterated excitement I had going into my marriage blocked out possible road bumps that would lie ahead of us. For worse never really resonated with me, I just was dreaming about better. I thought the tough part about marriage was finding the right guy. That after the wedding came the easy part, my happily ever after. So many couples don’t go into marriage thinking that it’s going to be difficult. Mark and I definitely were among them. You’re going to be with your best friend every day, what could possibly go wrong? One of the best pieces of advice that I could give to a couple about to be married is to go through pre-marital counseling. Counseling will be helpful …

Read Post →

Marriage

4 Ways to Fight for Your Marriage

You and your spouse are allies—not enemies. Did you get that? You may be thinking: well, of course, we aren’t enemies! But you’d be surprised. I remember when my sister and I were young and we were sharing a room. Technically, we shared a room, but we did not want to share the same ‘space’, so we took tape and put it down the middle of the room so as to deter one another from going into the other’s space. You could be doing the same thing subconsciously in your marriage—you might have drawn a line down the middle of a situation; if your spouse crosses the line in any way, you feel justified and they become the enemy. Don’t make your spouse your enemy, make them your teammate! Fight for your marriage by avoiding these four silent marriage killers. Comparison. Comparison leads to discontentment. When Mark and I had young children, we went on vacations (very inexpensive trips, mind you!) with other families and their children. I remember getting frustrated with Mark and started to verbalize how I wish he was more like my friend’s husband. By my verbalizing it, it created an ongoing, snowball effect of me being …

Read Post →

Marriage

Affair-Proof Your Marriage

Have you ever thought about how you can help your spouse from having an affair? It’s easy to think that they are solely responsible for their actions, and in large part, they are! But, here are a few ways that you can help affair-proof your marriage from a segment we did for channel 5 in Nashville. If you’re wanting to dive into affair-proofing a little further, here are some ways that you might be encouraging an affair without even knowing it.

Read Post →

Marriage

5 Things We Wish Our Spouses Knew

When Mark and I had young kids, I spent most of my time at home with the children. While being a mom was my main focus, I craved a creative outlet and I pretty much became a professional volunteer. Mark didn’t understand that. He couldn’t imagine why I’d want more on my plate. “You don’t get me!” I would say to him when he would try to talk me out of adding more to my life. He was trying to help me but I felt like he was crushing my spirit. Getting to know each other well takes time and effort. That’s why it’s so important for us as couples to take the time to understand each other. We must ask our husbands, “What do you wish I knew about you? What’s important to you?” Asking opens the door to reciprocal sharing and greater understanding for both of you. Then, hopefully, they’ll want to hear our answers to those questions too. Mark and I wrote some of these different perspectives in our books Lists to Love By for Busy Wives, and Lists to Love By for Busy Husbands. I combined a few of them in this post to discuss what both the …

Read Post →

Marriage

Couples Who Out Love, Have Marriages that Outlast

Are you a competitive person? The popularity of reality shows and sports attest to the fact that most of us enjoy the competitive aspect of an individual striving to be the best. Unfortunately, my competitive drive must be satiated as a spectator for I cannot sing, run, or come up with an idea innovative enough for Shark Tank. There is one exception. In this challenge, I can (and clearly I am commanded) to compete. Matthew, the apostle, must have been a competitive man. He asked a question that clearly revealed he was trying to get ahead, to be the best at his game. He said, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” And Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ” This is the challenge I can (and clearly I am commanded to) compete in. The greatest challenge is to love the Lord, but I want to focus on the next level- the second challenge to ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ My closest neighbor is my husband, Mark. Period. And …

Read Post →

Marriage

5 Unfair Expectations I Have of My Husband

Before we got married, Mark and I went to premarital counseling. At the first appointment the counselor gave us a test. At the second appointment we reviewed our results. Before he started the review the counselor asked us, “So, do you two have a date?” We answered, “Yes, on March 4th.” We were 6 months away. He then said something that should have alarmed me more than it did. He said, “Would you consider changing it?” The counselor then explained that Mark and I were very different in our personalities and in our expectations for our relationship. Unfair expectations in marriage are not uncommon, which was a relief to me at the time. But we must take the warning seriously. If you have unfair expectations, they can lead to discontent. I still have to fight unfair expectations about Mark and marriage. Here are 5 that are at the top of my list. I expect that he should get me. My friends got me, so Mark should too, right? Mark really didn’t get me. He is still not my go-to when I need someone to get me. He is a concrete, factual processor. I am intuitive and broad and so our brains …

Read Post →

Marriage

Must Do’s and Don’ts for Your Marriage

In every wedding, you will hear the “Do you?” questions. Do you take this man…? Do you promise to…? Perhaps, if you are like me, you have heard them so many times you almost tune them out. However, these questions and our affirmative “I do” commitment are the substance of what marriage is made of and cannot survive without. To love well, there are things we must do and don’t do in our marriage. The foundational list for how to love well originates in 1 Corinthians 13. It is often read at weddings and it is called the love chapter. I want to love well in my marriage as I know you do in yours. So to refresh your memory on what that looks like here are a few of the Do’s and Don’ts for loving well: Don’t be self-seeking. Some of this can come up in unexpected ways. For example, I’m married to a competitive guy. Mark is an attorney and his father was an attorney, so I would say to him during arguments, “I feel like I’m on the witness stand!” It seemed that the whole point of him arguing was to win, even if he was wrong. Whether you’re …

Read Post →

Marriage

6 Things that Keep an Emotional Connection in Marriage

It’s important to keep an emotional connection as a couple, and Mark and I have learned some ways to make that happen. I say make that happen because if you don’t put your mind to staying connected to your husband, a thousand other things will get in they way of doing it. Or, in my case, 5 children — even though I loved them — had a habit of getting in the way. These 6 things will help you stay connected to your husband: Be courteous and kind to each other. Much of courtesy begins with the words we say to our husband. There’s a really fine line between words that build up and words that don’t. There’s also the words we say and how we say them. And, of course, remember the basics — please and thank you go a long way. Talk about issues before they get out of hand. I’m the worst at this because I’m a camel that can handle a lot of straw, but there comes that one piece that pushes me over my limit and then I’m a flood of “justified” anger. That’s the wrong way to do things because at that point I am …

Read Post →