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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Five Strategies to Improve your Marriage

Is it possible to improve a troubled marriage without the cooperation of our spouse? Read on for our top five strategies to improve your marriage. A lot of people feel trapped in a dissatisfying or troubled marriage. They feel powerless to ‘fix’ it because their spouse refuses to join them in counselling or a marriage…

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The 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…

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Deep Impact Conversations

“How was your day?” It’s one of the most common questions couples ask each other and either leads to a dead-end response like, “fine” or “busy” (which usually means “I don’t want to talk about it”), or a long-winded description of meetings, frustrations, errands and other ‘busy’ stuff. It’s what we call a ‘data transfer’…

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Gratitude: Plant Now, Reap Later

As we look forward to the new year, lots of us are making resolutions, setting goals, planning for the coming months. Most of our colleagues in the marriage education field are posting articles about setting relationship goals – an excellent idea, but we’d like to propose something different. It has been well established that gratitude…

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Help For Marriages Under Stress

January is typically the peak month for divorce applications in English-speaking countries. Having made the decision to divorce, many couples agree to postpone the application for one last Christmas together as a family. The parents hope that by delaying the devastating news until after Christmas, the children will be able to enjoy the day and then have a few weeks…

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The single-minded search

Single and searching? Look for this one quality. Sometimes single people ask us for suggestions on how to find a suitable marriage partner. Some, having had a series of disappointing experiences, are looking for ways to improve their odds of success. Here’s a thought we often ask them to consider. Most people, when quizzed on…

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Three Tips for Trust – Article

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Relationships thrive when trust is strong. But how do we build it in the first instance, and then recover it if we’ve lost it? Here are three tips to help you build trust and hold on to it. 1. Keep your promises We all know major betrayals like an affair is a clear violation of…

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When Desires Don’t Match

When couples marry they rightly expect that there will be a willing participation in a shared life together across a range of activities including sexual intimacy, intimate conversation and parenting for example. But what happens when there is a difference in the desire for the amount or style of one or more of these activities?…

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