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Drs. Les and Leslie Parrott

Dec 13
Love15

The Married Couple’s Ultimate Guide to Beating Holiday Burnout (Part 2)

By Time 5 Comments

Holidays are a wonderful time of year, but sometimes they can become a source of burnout that puts a damper on your spirit and your ability to enjoy this time together. Whether one or both spouses is feeling this way, holiday burnout can strain your relationship and inhibit your ability to enjoy what should be an otherwise peaceful and happy time. Instead of stressing us out, the holidays are meant to be a time of year to reflect, celebrate together, and enjoy a season of giving. In last week’s post, we shared three tips for avoiding (or overcoming) burnout together…

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Dec 06
Love17

The Married Couple’s Ultimate Guide to Beating Holiday Burnout (Part 1)

By Time 5 Comments

Are you and your spouse looking forward to the holidays this year—or are you dreading them? Do you find yourselves struggling to enjoy a season that’s supposed to be happy and fulfilling? This time of year is fast-paced and crammed with activities, and if we’re not careful, we can end up getting burned out and exhausted instead of truly allowing ourselves to savor every moment together. If the two of you are anticipating burnout—or are already stressed to the max, even before the holidays arrive—that’s okay. Every couple experiences holiday burnout at one time or another, but you can work…

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Nov 29
Love33

6 Essential Ingredients for a Godly Marriage

By Communication, Scripture, Self Reflection 22 Comments

Looking to build a marriage that’s godly, reverent, and lasting? We’ve assembled a list of six important attributes for you from scripture that you and your fiance can meditate on and discuss as you plan your wedding–or that you and your spouse can focus on in your day-to-day married life. Of course, the greatest of all ingredients for a godly marriage is love, but the following list details some of the other important qualities the Bible tells us we need in order to have a happy, harmonious, lifelong marriage. These qualities come from love, and they’re just as important to…

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Nov 22
Love38

3 Ways to Overcome Emotional Distance in Your Marriage

By Communication, Conflict, Self Reflection, Time 27 Comments

Lately, you feel like you just can’t connect with your spouse. Maybe he’s not listening to you, or maybe she’s lost interest in activities you used to enjoy together. You might fight a lot—or avoid communicating to minimize conflict. Perhaps you feel like the kids have monopolized your or your spouse’s time to the point that you aren’t getting quality time together anymore. Whatever the case, lately, you’re feeling more and more disappointed in your relationship with your spouse. You’re lonely and discontent, and you’re wondering whether the two of you might be happier apart, rather than staying married and…

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Nov 15
Love23

7 Creative Ways to Celebrate Your Next Anniversary

By Self Reflection 7 Comments

Your wedding anniversary is a time of year for you and your spouse to deepen your connection and revive feelings that may have been overridden by jobs, everyday stress, and outside obligations. It’s the perfect time to renew your commitment to each other and reflect on your successes–and maybe even the inevitable failures and hard times you’ve overcome together. When it comes to celebrating your anniversary, the sky’s the limit. There are countless ways to make your day special, but sometimes it can feel difficult to settle on an idea that does justice to your love and the life you’ve…

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Nov 08
Love16

How to Handle In-Law Conflict During the Holidays (Part 2)

By Communication, Conflict, In-laws & Family 5 Comments

Dealing with in-law conflict is hard any time of year…but it’s so much harder during the holidays. Today, we’re continuing the conversation about how to handle issues with your spouse’s parents (or yours) this holiday season. Check out part 1 here. If your spouse rejects your family Maybe, for whatever reason, your spouse dislikes your family. And when they join you at gatherings on your side of the family, they act snarky, sarcastic, rude, or completely uninterested in being there. When you’re trying to manage your spouse’s behavior, that can take all the enjoyment out of your family’s holiday celebrations….

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Nov 01
Love19

How to Handle In-Law Conflict During the Holidays

By Communication, Conflict, In-laws & Family 3 Comments

If you’re engaged or newly married, you might be wondering why holiday in-law conflict is such a big deal…and you might even be thinking of ways to try to avoid is completely. Unfortunately, no matter who your parents are, how much they love you, or how much they support you as a couple, your families are different. Those differences are going to create some inevitable conflict once you’re married…especially when it comes to holiday gatherings. Every family functions by its own unspoken rules; we like to say each family has its own “code,” whether they realize it or not. They…

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Oct 25
Love35

5 Ways to Be a Good Listener for Your Spouse

By Communication 63 Comments

Opening your heart to your spouse—and nurturing theirs—requires listening well. With so many different issues, obligations, devices, and people pulling at us from every direction, it can be difficult to slow down and truly listen to one another. Listening can be pleasant, but sometimes it’s downright hard. Sometimes, you might want to tune out and lose yourself in your favorite pastime instead—or dive into the list of to-do items you still need to cross off before the day is over. But to have a healthy, thriving marriage, it’s critical to truly listen to your spouse with empathy and generosity. Today,…

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Oct 18
Love28

Self-Esteem Boosters: 4 Ways to Affirm Your Spouse

By Communication 14 Comments

Building one another’s self-esteem is an essential component of a happy marriage, but it can be easy to fall into a rut where we stop affirming one another in meaningful ways. We might find that we’ve been taking our spouse for granted—or maybe we’ve just been thinking nice things about them that we haven’t been verbalizing. The truth is, we live and die by encouragement. Mark Twain once said, “I can live for two months on a good compliment,” and we’d venture to say that’s a true statement for all of us. It’s easy to have admiring thoughts about your…

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Oct 11
Love16

My Spouse Is Refusing Professional Help! What Can I Do?

By Communication 25 Comments

We all go through times in our lives and our marriages when we’d benefit greatly from getting professional help. Whether we’re having trouble dealing with a life change or transition, experience depression, or facing addiction, there are hundreds of scenarios that could warrant going into counseling with your spouse. But what happens if you recognize the need to get help…but your spouse doesn’t? Is there anything you can do? You can’t force someone to seek therapy, but you can encourage it—and you can make changes to yourself that result in positive changes for your spouse. Read on for four common…

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