Daly Focus Blog
Sex is the one activity that differentiates marriage from every other relationship. You can have a great conversation with a friend. You can have lunch with a co-worker. You can go on vacation with a family member. But if you’re following God’s design for relationships, sex is only rightly expressed through marriage.
Milan and Kay Yerkovich say that dynamic is hugely consequential to a couple’s relationship when they can’t negotiate their sex life in healthy ways.
Marriage is serious business.
But it can also be hilarious.
You’ll discover that’s true when you hear our next Focus on the Family Broadcast: “A Lighthearted Look at Wedded Bliss.” We’re airing a recorded message from John Branyan, who takes a humorous look at the differences between men and women and explains how a couple’s unique characteristics impact their relationship in serious and hilarious ways.
John also shares a poignant story about his great-grandparents’ 70-year marriage, explaining that while married life isn’t always wedded bliss, it is life’s most profound expression of unconditional love.
Theresa had a stroke 18 years ago. She lost control over her hands. Which means for all these years she’s struggled to do simple things in life, like styling her own hair. That’s why when she goes to the beauty salon, she leaves with a smile. She feels beautiful.
The trouble is, as soon as she washes her hair it falls flat, and she can’t get it to look the way her stylist does. Which means, until her next hair appointment comes around, Theresa doesn’t smile as much.
“For a good time, call HOME!”
That’s not a bumper sticker (although it could be). It’s actually Ted Cunningham’s way of encouraging men and women to invest in their marriage.
You get out of your relationship what you put into it. That means enjoying life and marriage is a decision – a choice you make – not something you achieve by passively sitting back and hoping will come your way.
Compatibility isn’t an accident. It’s something you create in your relationship by choosing to invest your time and resources.
Nick Stumbo grew up in a loving, Christian family, gave his life to the ministry as a 3rd generation pastor, and was married to the love of his life. From the outside, his life was perfect.
But Nick had a secret.
He learned at a young age that anything sexual should be hidden. Sex was exclusively for marriage, and anything outside of that was wrong – even talking about it.
So, when things of a sexual nature started infiltrating Nick’s life – like exposure to pornography at a friend’s house, the school bus, or sporting trips – he didn’t believe he could share it with anyone.
Does your marriage stress you out?
If not, there’s still a good chance that you’re bringing stress into your marriage.
Either way, how do you handle it?
The natural inclination for many couples is to seek stress relief in non-relational ways that enable them to hide from each other – things like drugs and alcohol, or even behaviors like shopping, gambling, excessive cleaning, or binge-watching television – all of which lead to addiction, unhealthy obsessions, or lashing out at other people.
Skyscrapers are amazing feats of engineering. They need to be strong enough to resist the forces that come against them, like gravity and wind. That’s why skyscrapers are built with steel.
They also need to be flexible enough to withstand the forces that come against them … like gravity and wind. That’s why architects design skyscrapers with a certain amount of sway.
Strength and softness. The two sides of a superstructure. Two sides of love as well.
When you think of a family tree, you think of strong branches that represent generations of your family reaching to the sky.
But what do you do when those branches are broken by the storms of life? How do you become a good husband or wife, or a good father or mother, when your past has been marked by abandonment, divorce, or the death of a loved one?
My family didn’t have a family tree. We had a “family bush.” My mother died when I was nine years old.
By: Kathryn Andersen
My name is Kathryn, and I’m a statistical anomaly.
I’m one of the 27% of millennials who are married.
Student debt, cohabitation, and the “failure to launch” phenomenon have all been blamed for the plummeting marriage rates for people my age.
While those may certainly be factors, I think there’s one, huge, underlying issue that is mostly to blame. The best way I can explain that issue is through my story of cliff jumping.
Ever since I can remember, just the sight of a place called the “Hole in the Rock” — a tall cliff jumping spot on the lake my family frequently visited — was enough to make my heart pound and my hands sweat.
You never know how God will intervene in a time of crisis. In the darkest part of Lisa Shea’s marriage struggles, hope showed up in her mailbox in the form of a book.
Her marriage was in trouble as soon as it got started. In their first 14 months together, she and her husband experienced most of life’s biggest stressors. They both got new jobs after they relocated out of state away from friends and family, and they got pregnant and had a baby.
Jim Daly is a husband, father and President of Focus on the Family and host of its National Radio Hall of Fame broadcast. His blog, Daly Focus, is full of timely commentary and wisdom designed to help you navigate and understand today’s culture. His latest book is Marriage Done Right.
