Restoring Unity

Be angry but do not sin. Do not let the sun set on your anger. Ephesians 4:26 Reconciliation and healing can be a great source of growth and grace in a couple’s relationship. Reconciliation teaches couples how to be more sensitive to the other’s feelings and needs and how to love the other more effectively.…

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Seven Deadly Habits

Research by Dr. John Gottman and others has helped us to understand the specific behaviours which are so deadly for marriages. He is able to predict with high degree of accuracy whether a couple will divorce, by the way they argue.* You’ll want to avoid these Seven Deadly Habits that characterise marriages headed for bust.…

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Conflict

What distinguishes couples in lasting marriages from those in more fragile ones, is not the absence of arguments, but the presence of respect and cherishment. When couples fight, what hurts is not the fact that their spouse disagrees with them, it is the contempt and indifference with which it is often packaged. Contempt – the…

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Stop. Reflect. Connect.

FOR DECISION MAKING Whenever you are making a difficult or important decision, or disagree about how to go about something, the Stop-Reflect-Connect tool for Decision Making can be used. It helps you to avoid an argument by refocusing you on your priority – your fiancé and your relationship. Stop! Before the disagreement escalates to an…

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Embracing the Other’s Value

The call to unity is a call to be predisposed to see things from a couple perspective, taking the other into account and embracing that which affects one as affecting both. …Making what is important to your fiancé important to you… When you make what is important to your fiancé important to you, they will…

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Conflicting Values

Behind every behaviour or decision that you make, is a value; something that you hold in high esteem and is advanced in some way by the action. For example, making the choice to work back late may reflect any one of a number of values, such as: having pride in doing a job well, reducing…

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Priorities & Ideals

What are your priorities? Priorities and Ideals are principles that you embrace as important to the quality of life you hope to experience. An Ideal is something you believe is good and desirable, however it remains an Ideal if you are not yet ready to make the sacrifices necessary to fit it into your life.…

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Affirmation

Consistent, sincere affirmation has the capacity to heal the wounds of inadequacy from which so many of us suffer. It communicates acceptability and lovableness. It lifts us up, and helps us feel better about ourselves. However, the power of affirmation is not limited to the recipient only. The person making the affirmation is also transformed.…

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SmartLoving

Loving the way my fiancé likes to be loved Every person experiences love in a unique way. Some gestures of love will more powerfully communicate love to you than others. For example, some people feel close and connected when they can physically touch the other person. Others demonstrate love through words of affirmation or affection,…

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To Cherish and Respect

Each of you, however, should love [agape] his wife as himself, and let every wife respect her husband. Eph 5:33 When St Paul wrote these words 2000 years ago he was keenly aware of the differences between the sexes and so he deliberately gave husbands and wives different instructions on how to live a successful…

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