Going From Good To Better

Marital health is about more than minimizing conflict. If we want to go from ‘good’ to ‘better’ we need to capitalise on the positives. Most marriage counselling and education focuses on conflict and incompatibility. It seeks to help couples find constructive ways of dealing with challenges in the relationship. It’s a ‘damage control’ approach that…

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Three Ways to a Better Advent

The Church New Year begins with Advent and is a season of preparation ahead of the birthday of Jesus. Beginning four Sundays before Christmas Day, it’s intended to be a period of intensified spiritual activity.   Yet this time of year for most families is already over-full. Between graduations, corporate Christmas parties and extended retail hours,…

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Knowing what to love

You can’t love what you don’t know. This saying has profoundly influenced our marriage and our faith. About once a decade we book tickets to the opera in the expectation of a romantic date night brimming with artistic delight. We have to confess though, we usually come home vaguely disappointed. Not being particularly musical, we…

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Attachment Style and Marriage

Our earliest experiences of love and care profoundly influence what we each bring into our marriage. Attachment Theory illuminates how.  As infants, we are completely dependent on our parents for basic physical needs like food and clothing. We also rely on them to provide affection, stimulation and soothing of distress.   Research shows that the rapid…

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The Growth Mindset

At our daughter’s recent award assembly, the school Principal addressed the topic of ‘Growth Mindset’. She noted how education was more than merely preparing students for exams and aiming for maximum marks on their university entrance ranking. In a country where we have national examinations of all school children every two years from the age…

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Together again… for stronger and better

Contrary to popular belief, separation does not always end in divorce. Well supported, the process of separation can help a couple address their problems and reconcile stronger and better. Reconciliation between separated couples is not that uncommon – about 10-15% according to some commentators. Although headed for divorce, these couples reversed course and repaired their…

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Sexual Integrity in a Messed-up World

Last month we convened a national symposium to explore how we, as a church community, might pastorally respond more effectively to those impacted by pornography. While not a fun topic, it is an important one. Important for three reasons. Firstly, pornography usage has been normalised and is now endemic, and not just among men, or…

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Making marriage last is all in the Intention

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No matter how easy it may seem to fall in love, staying in love requires attention and effort. We all start out in marriage bright in hope and full of brimming love. Yet rarely do those wonderful, euphoric experiences of early love persist unabated; for many of us disillusionment creeps its way into our consciousness…

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The Ecology of the Body

When we were preparing for marriage some decades ago, we undertook training in Fertility Awareness Methods (FAMs). As graduates in biological science, we got right into the study and application in anticipation of beginning married life.   Five years and three children later, we took up a leadership role in the fertility awareness space and Francine…

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Deep Impact Conversations

“How was your day?” It’s one of the most common questions couples ask each other and either leads to a dead-end response like, “fine” or “busy” (which usually means “I don’t want to talk about it”), or a long-winded description of meetings, frustrations, errands and other ‘busy’ stuff. It’s what we call a ‘data transfer’…

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