Relationship Tips
Lent: the ultimate change-maker
Like most people, our optimistic resolutions for the New Year tend to fizzle out before the end of January. Thankfully, Lent gives us another – and a better – chance of success. The Catholic season of Lent gives us an opportunity to get serious about self-improvement. From the Dalai Lama to the most miserable mass…
Read MoreRomance and Mystery
One of the things that makes a new romance so exciting and attractive is the element of uncertainty: Is this person really interested in me? Will this person really be the one I’ve longed for? We can all relate to the thrill of the start-up relationship where the other is essentially still a stranger…
Read MoreTogether with Purpose
The theme for Marriage Week prompts us to reflect – what is our purpose as a couple? Are we together merely by luck, or is there something more? It’s not uncommon to hear people refer to couples in long-lasting marriages as ‘lucky’. It’s as if marital longevity is a roll of the dice, like winning…
Read MoreListening is the Music of Love
One of the most supremely loving gestures we can give another person is to truly listen to them. Yet for most of us, being genuinely listened to is a rare experience. Why is something so simple so hard to give? We remember those early romance days so clearly. Living in two different cities, we relied…
Read MoreMarriage: to be happy or to be holy?
“And they lived happily ever after”… it’s the ending of the fairy tale love story and has become the expected story line of most modern day couples. Swept away by passion and the overwhelming experience of ‘falling in love’, couples expect the wedding to seal their happiness in permanent (and effortless) marital bliss. Of course,…
Read MoreHabit Makers, Habit Breakers
Do your evenings ever disappear into the couch, your phone, and a half-watched Netflix show? We realised ours had—and something important was quietly missing. In this post, we explore how small, intentional rituals can transform ordinary routines into meaningful couple time… without adding another thing to your to-do list. Lately, we’ve slipped into a not-so-good…
Read MoreResolutions to Have and to Hold
It’s a new year, a new beginning. Among all the goal setting, consider what you can do to transform your marriage. Have you ever noticed that New Year resolutions often have a repentance nature? Resolutions such as ‘to drink less’ or ‘to give up smoking’ directly identify behaviours we readily associate with vice. Even those…
Read MoreGratitude: Superfood for Relationships
We all seek happiness and are drawn to the things we believe will make us happy. But sometimes, the things we desire fail to deliver. Whether it’s a lotto payout, the dream job, the celebrity-style wedding or the mega mansion in the best part of town, it often turns out that the things we think…
Read MoreLove in the Waiting
Advent is the season of waiting; we wait in anticipation of the coming of Christ. But are we the only ones doing the waiting? I (Francine) was hurrying to get out the door for 7am Mass. I looked at the time on the car clock and sighed in defeat: 6:58. There was no way…
Read MoreGratitude: Plant Now, Reap Later
As we look forward to the new year, lots of us are making resolutions, setting goals, planning for the coming months. Most of our colleagues in the marriage education field are posting articles about setting relationship goals – an excellent idea, but we’d like to propose something different. It has been well established that gratitude…
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