Focus on the positives in your partner and affirm them daily

Move towards your mate with loving actions 

Stephanie Weiss, a dear friend of mine wrote this beautiful piece on marriage in the pandemic and I’d love to share it with you.

Previous to sheltering in place, do you know how much time the average couple spends together each day? 

Now you have time. 

I’ve been wanting to write this blog for the past few weeks. And you would’ve thought that with more time on my hands due to the shelter in-place order, I’d be typing non-stop. Nope. Writer’s block? “What do I say?” I wondered. How do I encourage others in a way that doesn’t sound super-spiritual or trite?

So I woke up this Easter morning and asked God for help. Go figure. Why hadn’t I done that before? And then I felt His Presence confirm that today was the day to put fingers to the keyboard.

The day began in darkness and rain and I thought, “What a solemn Easter.” But as the morning progressed, the clouds quickly moved and revealed the brightest blue sky. I could feel my .........

The third horseman in our marriage killer series is defensiveness. What does this look like? It looks like me protecting myself AGAINST my spouse. It looks like me in battle mode ready to defend myself against the enemy and his name is Steve. Can you see me dressed up in my armor parading around the living room, wielding my shield in his direction. Silly, huh? But sadly that’s what it’s like. Defensiveness is divisive and does nothing to build healthy communication or intimacy. It shows up as each person trying to get their side across, defending themselves and justifying why they are right. The end-goal is to win the battle, but what happens is that the war is lost…or the partner is lost, or the marriage is lost..........

Last week I posted about John Gottman's Four Horsemen of the Apocalapse. And I shared on the deadly number one: criticism. Well, the second horseman is contempt. What is it? Let me illustrate.

"You’re ‘tired?' Cry me a river. I've been with the kids all day, running around like mad to keep this house going and all you do when you come home from work is flop down on that sofa like a child and play those idiotic computer games. I don’t have time to deal with another kid - try to be more pathetic…" 

Contempt is …evil. There, I said it. I can’t even think of a word to describe the depth of pain and death that contempt can inflict on a person. If criticism is the butter knife, .........

John Gottman is a world renowned couple’s therapist and author. In his book, “The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work,” he states that in any marriage, there are four key predictors of divorce. He calls them the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,a metaphor depicting the end of times in the New Testament. These words describe war, conquest, and death. Dr. Gottman uses this metaphor to describe communication styles that can predict the end of a relationship.

The first horseman of the apocalypse is criticism. Criticism is destructive. Its unstated goal is to dismantle your partner’s entire being, and I’m not exaggerating. No one wants to hear how despicable they are. I don’t. Do you? Do we.........

It is always amazing to me how God works. He allows us to experience dark trials, often in our marriages to test our hearts, but also that we can come to the end of ourselves. That’s just how He works because He does not look at the temporal inconveniences that we experience in the same way we do. Don’t get me wrong, He definitely cares about our pain, but He allows it for a higher purpose, because it’s often, only at the end of ourselves, in the depth of our pain that we turn to Him. You know it. How often do we spend time basking in His presence when things are great? It’s often only at the end of ourselves, in our pain and desperation that we take the time to look within to Him and it is there we find Him,............

So imagine this scene with me: It’s Sunday morning and you’re getting dressed for church, you take a shower, put on your favorite outfit and shoes, favorite perfume, best cologne and off you and the family go, heading up highway 71 to church. On the way your husband says something to you about the back door lock being broken and without even thinking about it you start telling him he needs to fix it this time because he never gets around to taking care of household chores anymore. And before you even know it, you’re hurling insults of an intense magnitude at each other, with the kids huddled together in the backseat, on highway 71, on the way to church. As you screech into the parking lot you wave religiously at the self.........

Recently, our pastor preached a sermon entitled, “The Family that Prays Together Stays Together.” It was a great reminder of the power of prayer and how important it is in building a strong family. In our home, we have Sunday evening Bible Studies and it’s such a special time of spiritual bonding! Both our children (thirteen and eighteen) are very comfortable praying aloud, and Steve and I have seen tremendous growth in the depth of their prayers since beginning this practice.

As we reflected on the message later in the week, my husband noted that he felt we should start praying together daily as a couple, as we did in the early days of our marriage before we had children. I immediately agreed. I knew this message.........

In my work as a therapist, I see clients who come in with all sorts of complex issues. Most are out of coping skills, exhausted from trying, at the end of themselves. You might even call them broken. God, on the other hand, is jumping up and down (figuratively of course!).  He’s saying, “This is awesome! This is exactly what I wanted to happen! Hallelujah!” Yep. At least that’s what I think He would say. You see, God loves weak people. He was the one who said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Do you remember this verse? Last month’s post ended with it. God loves broken people because then He can work unimpeded, with explosive power in their lives. We.........