Sometimes assertiveness gets a bad rap in our culture. As if it’s a domineering or bossy attitude. Not so: in reality, healthy assertiveness is a really helpful tool for marriage communication because it can reduce conflict and increase the quality of your marriage.
Sarcasm: it can be one cutting comment that is never forgotten. Or, an easy habit that becomes part of our normal day-to-day interaction as couples. Turns out there’s a lot more to it than just a bit of sass as we shall see.
I do not think that there is a human being on the face of our planet right now who does not struggle at least a little bit with defensives. Some of us struggle a lot. And defensiveness in marriage is definitely going to make you unhappy and dissatisfied with your marriage. Turns out, it’s not an easy one to overcome either—but today we’re going to show you how.
When you become aware and appreciative of that which is valuable and meaningful, that is called gratitude. Gratitude needs to be expressed, and what we notice in our marriage is that we tend to experience it more than we express it. So we thought we should think more about that. Continue reading
You know how sometimes you get so wrapped up in an issue — some kind of disagreement with your spouse — that you really feel like you cannot see the forest for the trees? It’s as if you no longer remember why you were arguing — you are just arguing about the arguing? Today we are going to help you take a step back so you can see the forest again and figure out why you keep misinterpreting your spouse.
Does your marriage involve one spouse working away from home? Or travelling a lot? Maybe you are a military family or you commute to another city for work or do camp work. Let’s talk about some of the challenges and also some ideas to make the most of this situation!
I was originally thinking of coming up with an inflammatory title for this post like “Chapman’s Love Languages Debunked” because that makes for good clickbait on the internet!
But this is The Marriage Podcast for Smart People and I figured, well, smart people are going to see that I’m just trying to create hype. And my mission is to help marriages, not create hype. So we’re actually going to look at research that examines the validity of the 5 Love Languages Concept and challenge you on how you might be using or abusing this concept in your marriage.
Even if you’re happily married you might find dates with your spouse kind of awkward sometimes. What do you talk about? I know we struggle at times to have an easy flow of conversation, too.
So, your spouse just blew it.
Again!
How can you move from the place of being offended – and maybe feeling like a victim – to feeling like you’ve moved the dial on your marriage in a positive direction?
Talking to each other seems like a pretty obvious topic, right? But, how many times have I asked Caleb, about a couple we’re working with, “Do they not talk???”
Nobody is exempt from hard times. Sometimes we get hit as a couple and other times it is really just our spouse that bears the brunt of the burden. How can you draw alongside and support your spouse during those hard times?
We had a couple people reach out and mention how they got into emotional affairs on Facebook – and almost into physical affairs. They really freaked themselves out and it’s thrown a real wrench into their marriage but they’re working on things now. While we’re not anti social media, it’s time to realize the huge impact it has on marriage.