marriage Archives

Connecting Spiritually with Your Spouse

How to spiritually connect with your spouse may be one of the most misunderstood concepts in marriage.

Couples tend to think in terms of spiritual activities they ought to dotogether: Read their Bible, pray, go to church together, memorize Scripture.

Certainly, those are important spiritual disciplines, and they fit the personality of a lot of people especially well. Some couples are so structured they treat devotions like mini-church. They gather together each night, read verses from the Bible, share their thoughts, and close in prayer for one another.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, faith, husband, marriage, spouse April 11, 2019 by Jim Daly

Finding Hope for Your Desperate Marriage

You can’t change your spouse.

Period.

So what do you do if your marriage is in a desperate place?

Many couples believe there are only two choices: “I can stay here and be miserable for the rest of my life, or I can get out of this and hope that I’ll find happiness somewhere else down the line.”

Dr. Gary Chapman says that’s a myth. There’s a third option: “With God’s help and with godly counsel from others, I can choose to positively influence my marriage in such a way that it creates the greatest possibility for my spouse to choose to change their behavior.”

The idea that you can change your spouse is a myth.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, faith, husband, marriage, wife March 26, 2019 by Jim Daly

How to Fight Fair

Did you know that researchers can predict with almost 95-percent accuracy whether a couple’s marriage will succeed or fail?

Their predictions are based on how a couple fights – not how frequently the couple fights or even what they fight about, but howcouples engage each other in conflict.

Researchers discovered four elements to marital conflict that are destructive to a relationship. Dr. John Gottman calls them “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.” They are:

Criticism
Defensiveness
Contempt
Stonewalling

Wouldn’t it be great if couples could avoid the Four Horsemen and use conflict to invigorate their marriage rather than allowing it to burn up their love life?

Topics: Family and Home Tags: arguing, broadcast, faith, fighting, marriage March 19, 2019 by Jim Daly

Connecting with Your Spouse for a Lifetime

Let me ask you this: Which part of your marriage relationship do you believe will develop the deepest intimacy?

Here are your choices:

Sexuality
Emotions
Spiritual connection

They each have their place, of course, but all things considered, spiritual connection with your spouse will create a deeper, more meaningful connection than the other two areas.

Here’s why. The benefits of spiritual intimacy naturally spill over to the other two areas, but not necessarily the other way around.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, faith, family, marriage February 14, 2019 by Jim Daly

Valuing Marriage in a Culture That Doesn’t

Marriage is changing.

There are a lot of reasons for that, not the least of which are cultural forces, political maneuverings, and judicial rulings that have systematically redefined marriage in past years.

There’s also been a shift in the average age for first marriages. More and more young people are staying single for far longer than past generations. Some are choosing not to marry at all, in many cases as a reaction to seeing their own parents divorce.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, marriage, relationships February 4, 2019 by Jim Daly

Starting Your Marriage Out Right

Years ago, while working as a camp counselor, author Craig Jutila floated on a canoe to the center of the lake for a few quiet hours alone. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and the water was completely still.

It was after hours, and no other boats were out. So he did the only sensible thing: With an extra life jacket for his pillow, he nestled in for a short nap.

An hour later, he woke up to the voices of strangers.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, faith, family, marriage January 18, 2019 by Jim Daly

Coming to Tucker Carlson’s Defense

Do you watch Tucker Carlson’s show on FOX News?

A few weeks ago, the popular television host offered a bold and pointed commentary on how the decline of marriage and family is driving the majority of the poverty in our nation. (You can watch and read the text here.)

He didn’t so much lay this decline at the feet of declining morals, but poor economic policies perpetuated over the last few decades by the growth of Big Government.

Topics: Current Events Tags: events, faith, family, marriage January 16, 2019 by Jim Daly

Living Well in Middle Age

Comedian Ken Davis was 65 when he told his audience, “These are some of the best years of my life.”

He wasn’t joking.

He’d been a Christian for years, but it wasn’t until he was older that he’d begun living the truth of Philippians 3:10, where Paul says that he desired “to know Christ and the power of His resurrection.” Christians will experience the fullness of Christ after we die, of course, but Paul reminds us that we can also know the power of God’s resurrection in this life!

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, faith, marriage January 10, 2019 by Jim Daly

Saving Your Marriage from Divorce

There’s good news about bad marriages: No matter how dire your circumstances, there is hope. When a marriage enters dangerous territory, the journey out isn’t easy, but the results can be beautiful.

Dr. David Clarke has a proven 90-day strategy for getting a broken marriage on track toward healing and intimacy. He says healing begins by identifying the type of marriage you’re in:

First is the couple who admits they’re unhappy and struggling, but are willing to work on it.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, divorce, faith, family, marriage January 8, 2019 by Jim Daly

Making Daily Choices to Love Your Spouse

Theresa had a stroke 18 years ago. She doesn’t have control over her hands the way she once did. She has a hard time doing simple things in life, like styling her own hair. When she goes to the beauty salon, she leaves with a smile. She feels beautiful. But as soon as she washes her hair it falls flat, and she can’t get it to look the way the stylist does.

Andrew, Theresa’s husband of nearly 45 years, knows how much joy a new hairstyle brings her.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, love, marriage January 4, 2019 by Jim Daly