Defending our hearts

Photo by Giulia Bertelli on Unsplash

Is defensiveness crippling your relationship? Do you feel regularly on edge, reactive and punchy? Read on for our process for managing defensiveness. Recently, Byron shared a new idea with Francine. Instead of encouragement, Francine responded with “when will you get time to do that?!” The conversation immediately terminated in gloomy withdrawal. Afterwards we unpacked the…

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Perfectly Imperfect Marriages

Despite the promises of Hollywood and fairytales, the perfect marriage is the one that helps us grow the most. And that’s not likely to be a marriage without hardship or trouble. Yesterday, as we were preparing to run a training session later on, we had ‘one’. An argument of sorts. It was more like a ‘splat’…

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Ain’t Marriage Grand!

What makes for an epic marriage? A marriage that faces and transcends challenges and obstacles, that has an interior resilience and grace that comes from the God who is always ready to encourage us. We recently attended two weddings of close family friends. This time, a different part of the ceremony really stood out for…

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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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Experience is not always the best teacher

Lots of people think that dating (and being sexually intimate) with a number of different people before marriage is an essential part of  forming a successful union. But is this kind of  ‘experience’ the best way to prepare for marriage? Many people think that having a few failed relationships is helpful in preparing them (or…

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Change Starts Here

Part 4 of It Takes One to Tango. See others in this series here, here. and here. All change in our relationships should start with ourselves. While it’s comforting to be able to blame our spouse for the inadequacies of our marriage, expecting them to change to meet our demands is not only ineffective, it’s not…

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Resilience Of The Marital Kind

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Let’s face it – marriage can be a tough gig these days. Living in a culture that almost expects marriage to fail, couples wonder what they can do to immunise their relationship against the tragedy of divorce. Marital resilience starts with a well-grounded understanding of what marriage is and what it isn’t. A lot of…

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Marital Resilience

Marital Resilience

Let’s face it – marriage is a tough gig these days. With divorce rates higher than we’d like, too many families are being torn apart by marriage breakdown. What can couples do to immunize their marriages against this tragedy? Marital resilience starts with a well-grounded understanding of what marriage is and what it isn’t. A lot of…

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