Posts Tagged ‘Marriage’
Attention Deficit Marriages
In a fast-paced world, our attention is a rare and valuable commodity. Is your marriage suffering from attention deficit? True confession: some evenings you’ll find us sitting on the couch with the TV playing and us both on our laptops or other individual devices. We know; it’s not particularly noble and we have a sense…
Read MoreWar and Peace on the Home Front
Every nation remembers the sacrifice of their war veterans with a Memorial Day. Thinking about your marriage: is it more of a battlefield than the safe harbour it is intended to be? Through our work with couples, we often encounter those in embattled relationships. They’ve become trapped in a fractious pattern where almost every interaction…
Read MoreAin’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…
Read MoreResurrecting Our Marriages
Easter Sunday – the highpoint of the Christian calendar celebrating Christ’s resurrection from the dead. But what does this day, this event, have to teach us as married couples? Several years ago, we were invited onto a TV breakfast show to talk about marriage. We are all familiar with the format; people interviewed on couches…
Read MoreThe Daily ‘I do’ When You’d Rather Not
At a recent business conference, a speaker made an offhand remark about having to recommit to her marriage vows every day. It was in the context of a discussion about the challenges of change management and how reforming a company culture requires persistence and recommitment in the face of setbacks and resistance. It was an…
Read MoreMade for More
For two decades we’ve promoted the idea of putting the ‘saint’ back into St Valentine’s Day. Every year we blog, pin, post, and remind the Catholic networks in our database of the day’s origin and significance. It’s become so much of a habit it now feels strange for us to mention the event without ‘saint’…
Read MoreExpectations in Marriage
In this post we feature some extracts from a homily by Bishop Anthony Taylor of the Diocese of Little Rock, Arkansas. Read the full article: here Expectations and Happiness Happiness is determined by our expectations and our ability to notice and rejoice in little things. If our expectations are modest, life will usually exceed our…
Read MoreThree Things I Wish I Knew Before We Got Married
The benefit of hindsight! There’s not a couple on earth who doesn’t have some words of wisdom about marriage to share with the young. I came across this on Facebook and was immediately impressed with insights articulated by this newlywed husband. We hope the SmartLoving community will find it helpful, and we’d love to hear what…
Read MoreSpare the Left-Overs
It’s that time of year again – the season of joy and gluttony. By the time Christmas day is over, our refrigerator will be filled with yummy, delectable left-overs. Unfortunately, not all left-overs are so delicious. Too often in a marriage, instead of our best selves, we serve up the less than appetising left-overs. We…
Read MoreChristmas Crazies!
If there is one thing that takes the edge off our Christmas joy, it’s the pressure of the consumer culture to give better, more unique, and thoughtful presents for an increasing multitude of people. No matter how much we criticize the materialistic values that dominate Christmas, every year, we get sucked into the eleventh hour…
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