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Take Five: Improve your Marriage
Do you feel trapped in a dissatisfying or troubled marriage? Do you feel powerless to ‘fix’ it because your spouse refuses to join you in counselling or a marriage enrichment course? Take heart! There are lots of things a husband or wife can do on their own that can have a dramatic impact. Here…
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…
Read MoreTake Five: The Art of Apology
Sadly many couples don’t actually know how to apologise and reconcile when they’ve hurt their spouse. People think that it’s obvious, or that it should just be instinctual, or that love should make it all happen spontaneously. Well it isn’t and it doesn’t. We see too many wounded couples stuck in a pattern…
Read MoreTen Reasons why even a little bit of porn is a bad idea.
According to Ryan Foley of Covenant Eyes, we have every reason to be alarmed by the invasion of pornography in our homes and culture. With 1 in every 8 internet searches being for erotic content and an estimated value of the mobile porn market over $ 2 billion, this is not only big business, it’s…
Read MoreSmart Dating #2: Ask ‘Why’ before you Try
Sexual Compatibility Since the 1960’s the slogan ‘try before you buy’ became a common excuse for premarital sex. It’s still popular today and has underpinned the rise in cohabitation. We’ve been led to believe that ‘sexual compatibility’ is the most influential factor in a successful marriage. Of course when you think it through, the line…
Read MoreBoundaries
The proverb, “Good fences make good neighbours” has a great deal of wisdom. The concept of having clearly defined boundaries helps us to develop healthy relationships. When people know the limits of what they can demand from a relationship, it allows all parties to enjoy it. Hidden agendas evaporate and positive feeling in the relationship…
Read MoreStop the Train…I Want to Get Off!
How the divorce superhighway fails couples. Speaking recently with one of America’s foremost family therapists, Dr Bill Doherty, we had a lively discussion on the divorce process. He noted that there are a significant proportion of couples who are ambivalent about their divorce, but once they file, it’s like they are on a superhighway with no…
Read MoreMid-Life Madness and other Stressors
As mid-lifers in the midst of working through some of our ‘issues’, we are acutely aware of how easy it would be to let our individual stuff derail our marriage. It’s normal for a person in midlife to be irritable and volatile. Some react with depressive symptoms, others get angry and aggressive, others withdraw or…
Read MoreGetting Help
If your marriage is in strife and you need some help, it’s important to make sure you get the right help. Unfortunately, many counsellors and therapists will accept couples for couples counselling without having any specific training. Couples therapy is a unique and one of the most difficult counselling tasks and you deserve a therapist…
Read MoreReconciliation
Love means more than saying “I’m sorry”. There’s a difference between the ‘I’ centred statement “I’m sorry”, and the other centred statement, “Will you please forgive me?” The ‘I’ centred statement simply acknowledges a fact. A person might recognise that they behaved poorly, inconsiderately, insensitively, thoughtlessly or carelessly. They might also just want to move…
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