Relationship Tips
How to deal with Wedding Mayhem
Weddings these days are fraught with stress for engaged couples. Dealing with family expectations, full-time jobs and a wedding industry on the make are some of the unwelcome realities in the attempt to host a unique and memorable event for some 200 plus guests. It’s enough to send any couple eloping and indeed many now…
Read MoreWhy is forgiveness so hard?
In this Year of Mercy, there’s lots of talk about forgiving: God’s expansive forgiveness and our own obligation to forgive others. We get it. It’s important. Incredibly so. But why is it so darn hard to do? From our earliest experiences as children, we’ve been told how important it is to forgive. We also taught…
Read MoreMating Market – Sheila Shortages and Man Droughts
In the modern Mating Market every one is a loser. When it comes to love and the quest to find a life-long mate, it is common to talk of being ‘in the market’. It’s a bit crude but it does reflect the reality of many people’s experience. Like a shopping for a car or a…
Read MoreHow to Help a Marriage in Trouble
Over our years as a married couple we’ve had numerous occasions when people have approached us about their troubled marriage. It hasn’t always been in the context of being the facilitators at the marriage seminar either – sometimes it’s just a friend looking for support or a family member needing a sounding board. What we’ve…
Read MoreMaking the most of single life
Many people see single life as the opportunity to have some fun and ‘live it up’ before they ‘settle down’ to marriage. In fact, some see it as vital to do so – they argue that failing to ‘experience life’ a bit before marriage will lead them to be restless in the marriage, full of…
Read MoreAvoiding the Divorce Flu
A new study has documented what counsellors have observed for years: divorce is contagious. Just like a virus, divorce spreads among social networks and influences marriages among the divorcing couple’s friends, family and work colleagues. For example, got a divorced sibling? Your chances of divorcing go up by 22%. A divorced friend? Up by 147%.…
Read MoreKnow What You Want
Part 3 of It Takes One to Tango Perhaps you’ve heard the saying: Failure to plan is a plan to fail. So many people fail to experience the fullness of their ambitions in all sorts of areas such as health, friendships, career etc. simply because they fail to plan. Without a plan, we are like a…
Read MoreVirtue in Action
In many of our courses, we teach couples strategies and skills for navigating relationships more effectively. As important as these frameworks are, research suggests that they are not the critical factor in avoiding divorce or building a successful marriage. Rather, the key appears to lie elsewhere, in the practice of virtues. Virtues are personal characteristics…
Read MorePassion and domesticity
One of the greatest challenges couples face in our contemporary age is the presumption of sexual excitement. When the romance wanes, marriages are at risk – but what’s a couple to do when passion is in decline? We’re all in favour of a vibrant and passionate sex life for couples however it’s not always easy to…
Read MoreKnot Yet! #5: Responsibility Phobia
What comes first, maturity or the responsibility? In the world of adultescence, the absence of the necessity to be responsible, delays maturity. Most of us look back at adolesence and shiver – it’s a tough time developmentally when the young person is reaching for independence but doesn’t quite have the mental resources to cope with adulthood. Many…
Read More