Daly Focus Blog
Most people don’t get married planning to divorce, but the research suggests so much of what they do before they wed sadly leads them to that place.
Part of the reason might be that, as a culture, we’re often more enamored with the wedding than the actual marriage. A colleague of mine once worked in a church office. He regularly encountered heartbroken brides-to-be who made the mistake of booking the reception hall before the sanctuary, only to discover the church was already taken.
Like most young ladies anticipating their wedding day, Rachel Wolf had looked forward to her father/daughter dance since she was a little girl. Recently, that long-awaited dream came true for her. And, as you’ll see in the video below, it was a beautiful moment.
But this dance was far different than most of its kind. You see, Rachel wasn’t really getting married. In fact, she wasn’t even engaged. No, this was a unique wedding dance she and her family had planned so Rachel and her father, James, could share that special moment together before he passed away from pancreatic cancer.
There’s an important article over at National Review Online that I wanted to highlight for you. “A Guide to Saving Marriage” is an interview with Hilary Towers, a developmental psychologist who has some insightful things to say about marriage, the Supreme Court ruling on same-sex unions, and cohabitation.
I’ll leave you with this gem of wisdom gleaned from the interview:
Young people, in particular, deserve to hear the truth about what to expect from a vocation to married life at this time in history.
We’re rolling out a new marriage program here at Focus on the Family designed to help newlyweds as well as couples married for years. It’ll speak to new moms and dads just starting their family, as well as seasoned parents preparing to send their kids off to college. It has the potential to give hope and help to husbands and wives facing bankruptcy, infertility or even adultery.
Does this sound too good to be true? How can one program do so much?
The 12 million viewers who tuned into this week’s Duck Dynasty season premiere, got more than laughs – they got a lesson in true love and commitment.
In the episode, Phil and Kay, the Robertson clan’s patriarch and matriarch, finally had the wedding ceremony they missed out on when they were married almost 50 years ago. While the episode had its expected hijinks and redneck jokes, the wedding ceremony itself was heartfelt.
To be sure, Phil and Kay aren’t your typical Hollywood characters, so they make for unconventional centerpieces of a highly-rated TV show’s main love story…and yet they are.
Smartphones and tablets are becoming more and more ubiquitous. Increasingly they’re our constant source of news and entertainment. Sometimes it seems like these devices are surgically attached to our hands – but this reliance on smart technology is also demanding us to make decisions about what we prioritize and how we will steward our time.
Today I want to share with you a post written by one of our young staffers. In it, Chelsey, a newlywed, explores how she waded through the choices her iPhone forced her to make:
The phone alarm wakes my husband.
Would you miss the birth of your child for the largest paycheck of your life?
American pro-golfer Hunter Mahan, 31, was leading the Canadian Open, a tournament with a prize of $1 million – and then he got a call. It turns out his pregnant wife, who wasn’t due to deliver their first baby for another three weeks, had suddenly gone into labor.
What did he do?
What would you do?
Immediately after receiving the call, Mahan packed his bags and withdrew from the tournament.
Scientists love to study how happy parents are (or aren’t). Year after year, news outlets report on the topic, touting studies that they say either find how unhappy parents are, or how much satisfaction and “positive emotion” children bring to their parents’ lives.
Here are some samples of the findings on this topic – as you’ll see, there’s a wide array of results.
A 2007 Pew report found children are still vital to adult happiness.
Fox News describe how “parents report significantly higher levels of depression than non-parents”
Research in the journal Psychological Science found that overall, “parents (and especially fathers) report relatively higher levels of happiness, positive emotion, and meaning in life than do non-parents.”
The Wall Street Journal reports “every additional child makes parents 1.3 percentage points less likely to be ‘very happy’”
Andrew Hess is one of our staff researchers, and he recently attempted to make sense of these findings.
The Wall Street Journal recently ran a rather provocative column on marriage and advice-giving, linking the practice to lower marital satisfaction rates. Here’s the crux of the findings:
In a series of six studies that followed 100 couples for the first seven years of marriage, researchers at the University of Iowa found that both husbands and wives feel lower marital satisfaction when they are given too much advice from a spouse, as opposed to too little.
Here at Focus, we’ve long promoted the idea that married couples thrive when they take the time to go on a regular “date night.” Yes, that’s right – in the middle of our fast-paced lives and parenting craziness, husband and wives should put in the effort to plan a time together to talk and connect outside of the normal routine.
For most married couples, it’s not easy to go on dates regularly. For some, it’s hard to justify the expense.
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.