Commitment
Meet Your Spouse’s Love Needs & Avoid Your Spouse’s Love Busters
If you want to love your spouse well you’ll need to focus on meeting his/her love needs and avoiding his/her love busters. It’s pretty simple really… once you know what they are! So make an action plan: a. List your spouse’s top five Love Needs and top five Love Busters. (To find out more…
Read MoreMarriage Martyrdom
Blood Red In a sea of red, the Cardinals of the Church gathered over the past few weeks to farewell Benedict, elect his successor, and inaugurate Francis. The red of their dress signifies blood, not Christ’s blood, but their blood, that they have proven themselves ready to spill in service of the faith and the…
Read MoreCohabitation Myth
Many dating couples opt to live together before deciding to marry, because they believe that it is a responsible and prudent thing to do. They reason that cohabitating together will be like a trial marriage. They will learn all about each other’s habits and discover whether they are truly compatible. And when they do finally…
Read MoreSmart Dating #1: The Serial Relationship Trap
From university campuses to the work place, the unspoken rules of 21st century dating are that sex is expected, commitment and fidelity are optional, and marriage is a dirty word. Most people will enter a series of intense romantic relationships before marriage becomes a serious possibility, some starting the process of serial dating in their…
Read MoreThe Commitment Challenge #3
Sex and Committed Relationships In a recent discussion at a youth conference, it was put to us by some of the participants that pre-marital sex was acceptable as long as it was a ‘committed’ relationship. Casual sex was seen to be inappropriate and perhaps dangerous, but if the couple were in a committed dating situation,…
Read MoreThe Commitment Challenge #1
Commitment Phobia We’ve heard the phrase bandied around for years, but is it really as simple as someone being afraid of, or threatened by, making a commitment to his or her dating partner? Usually the ‘Commitment Phobia’ accusation is leveled towards the man in the relationship with the related belief that it comes down to…
Read MoreThe 50-50 Marriage Myth
In our society, a lot people think that marriage is a fifty-fifty arrangement. That we each contribute equally to the relationship. The problem with this kind of thinking, is that it leads us to hold back and to keep score. We fell into this trap earlier in our marriage. When life started to get busy…
Read MoreSuccess Breeds Success
You Don’t Need to Fail in Order to Succeed A lot of people think that having a few failed relationships is helpful in preparing them for marriage. Some even go as so far as seeing the first marriage itself as a ‘training ground’ for the grand love that is expected to follow. They reason: now…
Read MoreFree Sex? The Unintended Cost of the Pill
While the western world celebrates the 50th anniversary of the pill, an American economist, Timothy Reichert*, using simple but powerful competition theory, is questioning its benefit to women. The Mating Market The theory goes thus: There used to be just one ‘mating market’. If a person wanted sex, it was readily available in marriage and…
Read MoreOn a Mission to Love
Invest in Love Our ten year old son is a great rugby player. He spends hours in the backyard kicking the ball around, usually over the neighbours’ fence! He eats, sleeps and talks rugby. And if he’s not playing rugby, he’s watching it on TV or ‘playing’ it on the X-Box. It’s not surprising that…
Read More