Jan 15
4

4 Tips for Constructively Resolving Conflict with Your Spouse

By | Conflict, Marriage, Relationships | One Comment

In last week’s blog post, we discussed five reasons why you shouldn’t wait to resolve a conflict with your spouse. It’s vital to build a relationship based on open communication and trust; allowing conflicts to go on for long periods of time damages both. The good news is, there are many useful strategies and tools available that can help you and your spouse constructively resolve conflict. In our book, The Good Fight, we lay out some ground rules in chapter 5, “Rules for Fight Club”. Today, we want to share a quick overview of these core rules to give you…

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Jan 08
2

5 Reasons You Shouldn’t Wait to Resolve a Conflict with Your Spouse

By | Conflict, Marriage | 9 Comments

Every married couple experiences conflict in their marriage from time to time. None of us want to face difficult situations with our spouse, but conflict and disagreements are part of life. Because many of us would prefer to avoid conflict, we fall into a habit of pushing our problems further and further down the line. Whatever our reasons, it’s clear that fear plays a hand in our avoidance. The problem is, avoiding hard discussions and conflict resolution with your spouse actually makes problems worse and harder to overcome. Let’s take a look at five reasons why you shouldn’t wait to…

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Jan 01
6

How to Set New Year’s Resolutions for Your Marriage

By | Communication, Marriage, Relationships | No Comments

Once again, it’s time to ring in a new year and reflect on the year that’s past. This is a wonderful time to reflect with your spouse and set New Year’s resolutions for the coming year. Let’s look at a few ways you and your spouse can greet the new year, set goals together, and set yourselves up for success in the coming months. Conduct a Year-in-Review At the end of the year (or the beginning of the new year), take a little time to sit together and talk about the things you’ve experienced together over the past 12 months….

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Dec 24
3

6 Tips for a Restful Christmas with Your Spouse

By | Marriage, Relationships, Time | 5 Comments

The holiday season is a time of year that demands reflection, but it’s also a time when life can feel incredibly stressful. If you want to rest, reflect, and rejuvenate during the holidays, you’ll have to be very intentional about doing so. Today, we want to share some tips for making this Christmas season restful for yourselves and your family. 1. Protect your boundaries. During the holidays, it’s easy to slip into a people-pleasing mode to keep everyone happy. The problem is, that can drain your energy and make you feel stressed and frazzled rather than reflective and joyful. If…

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Dec 18
3

10 Ways to Let Go of Control in Your Marriage

By | Communication, Conflict, Marriage, Relationships | One Comment

Being a control freak in your marriage–or in your life, in general–means you don’t exactly make life easy for your spouse. That probably seems counterintuitive, doesn’t it? We control because we want to make life feel easier, more predictable, or more secure. But it actually makes the people around us miserable–and it makes us miserable, too. In last week’s post, we discussed the root of most controlling behavior–anxiety–and shared 6 signs that you might be a control freak. This week, we’re going to talk about 10 things you can do about it. 1. Learn how to delegate. Delegating is tough…

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Dec 11
3

6 Signs You Might Be A Control Freak In Your Marriage

By | Conflict, Marriage | 6 Comments

Have you ever been told that you’re a controlling person? Has your spouse told you? Chances are, your first reaction was to deny the allegation. How could they say such a thing? Why would they say it? If your spouse has expressed something similar, it’s important to take a deep dive into your behavior patterns–something that can tell so much about your emotional state. People who are controlling are often riddled with anxiety. To cope with their unwanted feelings, they attempt to control too much, too often. If you reflect on the controlling people you’ve known in your lifetime, chances…

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Dec 04
5

3 Reasons Why You Should Walk in Your Spouse’s Shoes

By | Communication, Conflict, Marriage, Relationships | 6 Comments

In marriage, it’s not always obvious what our spouse needs. It’s not always obvious to them what we need, either. One way to get in better touch with each other’s needs is to cultivate empathy. To create more empathy in our marriages, we need to first walk in each other’s shoes. A simple way to do that is what we call trading places. Simply put, trading places means you picture things from your spouse’s perspective. It helps you get in tune with one another, or reconnect if you’ve drifted apart. Everyone needs to check in with their empathy from time…

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Nov 27
6

5 Ways to Transform Your Marriage Through Gratitude

By | Marriage, Relationships | 2 Comments

Thanksgiving is almost here, and it’s the perfect time of year to reflect on what we’re thankful for. This season is always a wonderful reminder that gratitude is transformational, and it can take your marriage through an incredible metamorphosis when you practice it. Cultivating gratitude not only makes you stronger as a person, it makes you stronger as a couple. It strengthens your family and teaches your children to begin practicing the habit of gratitude early in their own lives. Let’s look at five ways you and your spouse can practice gratitude in your marriage all year long. 1. Keep…

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Nov 20
4

What to Do When You and Your Spouse Have Experienced Shared Trauma

By | Communication, Marriage, Relationships, Self Reflection | 4 Comments

We often hear stories from couples where one spouse is struggling to recover after a prolonged trauma or a traumatic event, and their partner needs advice on how to help them through it. Sometimes, though, both husband and wife are dealing with trauma, and they don’t know how best to support each other. Perhaps you shared a traumatic experience like a health emergency, a car accident, or the loss of a loved one. It may have been an event that happened relatively quickly, or it could have been a sustained crisis that went on for an extended period of time….

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Nov 13
7

6 Tips for Connecting When Silence Sets In

By | Communication, Marriage, Relationships, Self Reflection | No Comments

It’s no exaggeration that non-talkers feel it’s painful to speak when there’s an issue at hand. They silently cry out: “Don’t touch me! Leave me alone.” It’s likely these quiet partners have had their hearts kicked across the floor in the past, and when it comes time to work out issues in their current relationship, it’s easier to clam up and vow to never open up again. They become the silent partner. Yet, deep inside silent partners know that their time for healing will come. If you are a silent partner, or are in a relationship with one, there are…

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