#104: 5 Things You Must Know About Your Spouse (Podcast)
How well do you really know your spouse? I don’t mean the color of their hair and eyes, or where they were born and went to school. That’s their biography, their exterior. But what about their inner life: thoughts and feelings, hopes and fears? Do you know them in a way that builds the relationship? If you know your spouse well, you will be able to love them well.
So it’s important to be a student of your spouse, to study them and really know who they are! Today, Susan and I are going to go through some questions that will help you with the must-knows for your spouse.
How to Become a Student of Your Spouse
Like me, it may be some time since you last sat in a classroom, but let’s take a few minutes to think back to those days because they could help enrich your marriage. How so? Well, when you said I do, you didn’t just commit yourself to your spouse forever, you also signed up to be a lifelong learner of how to study your spouse.
Some of those student habits you developed back then can help you now in the class of Him or Her you are taking—one which never ends, by the way! Here are eight habits of good students.
8 Ways to Reduce the Stress in Your Marriage
Nina Simone got it right when she sang, “Into each life some rain must fall.” The jazz great was acknowledging a simple fact of life—that we’re all going to find ourselves under gray skies at some stage. We can’t stop the rain, but we can avoid getting soaked.
Before we look at some ways to cut the stress there may be in your marriage, it’s important to remember that not all rain is bad. Torrential downpours may be unwelcome, but we need a certain amount of water to grow the food we eat and water the lawns we enjoy.
In the same way, while we tend to think of things like divorce, sickness, financial struggles, and losing our job as the causes of stress, good things can be, too. If you have planned a wedding, bought a house, or had a baby, you know that blessings can bring challenges of their own.
So whether it comes from what we might consider a negative or a positive source, a certain amount of stress in inevitable. What’s important is how we handle it. Because while we may not be able to eliminate it entirely, we can reduce it.
Too often we act as though it’s all beyond our control but, usually, there’s plenty we can do to minimize how we get by in the storms—from carrying an umbrella to taking cover indoors. It’s all about how we respond. Here are some ways to reduce the stress in your marriage.
#103: 4 Things Kids of Divorce Wish They Could Say to Their Parents (Podcast)
Over the years, we have worked with teens and adult children of divorce who were raised in two homes. Many times, they literally wanted to shout, “STOP PUTTING ME IN THE MIDDLE!!!” Unfortunately, most kids never have the courage to speak up and share their voice on these matters. – Tammy Daughtry
A few months ago, we posted a blog on iMOM and had an outpouring of comments and responses in regards to children of divorced parents. We wanted to dig a little deeper into the issue and have asked the writer of that blog, Tammy Daughtry, to join us today. Susan, Tammy and I will discuss 4 things kids of divorce wish they could say to their parents!
5 Secrets You Must Know About Your Husband (Part 2)
So in my last blog, 5 Secrets You Must Know About Your Husband (Part 1), I talked to the ladies in particular about how you may have a better idea of how to respond to your husband if you know his “secrets.” So here are 5 secrets you must know about your husband (Part 2).
5 Secrets You Must Know About Your Husband (Part 1)
For many years, our family went to the lake house of our close friends, Rick and Lesley Bateman. We always did a lot of waterskiing there. My parents were part of a water ski show when they were young and I inherited their love for the sport. When it was my turn to ski, I always wanted Susan to go. My motive was not just for her to enjoy herself, I wanted her to go so that she could see me in action. So that she could say things like, “Wow…you’re an incredible skier.” Or, “You are my man!” She quickly figured out my secret of why I really wanted her to go. After that, when I went skiing, she would jokingly say to everyone, “Mark needs me to go watch him ski so I can cheer him on!”
I want to let you in on some secrets that your husband may be keeping from you. But do not worry, I am not suggesting there is anything seriously wrong. There are different kinds of secrets, of course. There’re addiction and unfaithfulness. I’m not talking about bad secrets like those, rather things that most men wish their wives knew about them but just may not feel comfortable saying out loud.
Ladies, once you do know about them, you may have a better idea of how to respond—just as Susan realized what was going on with my invitation to go out on the boat—to applaud my waterskiing skills. So here are 5 secrets you must know about your husband.
#102: 8 Reasons Why Your Marriage May Be Better Than You Think (Podcast)
Did you know that your marriage may be better than you think? Too many couples don’t appreciate the good marriage they have because they are too focused on the perfect marriage they want. Susan and I have experienced this in our own marriage and have to continually remind ourselves of the good, and great, we have together.
Two things are typically true in marriages:
1) Those other “great” marriages are rarely as good as they look from the outside.
2) Your own marriage is not always as bad as you may think from the inside.
On today’s podcast, Susan and I will address 8 reasons why your marriage may be better than you think.
Miracles Do Happen
Annabel Beam, a 12-year-old from Texas, lived in agony with an incurable digestive disorder. It required invasive and painful feeding tubes to eat and pain management drugs just to live. In 2011, she climbed a hollowed out tree with her sister and ended up falling thirty feet. She landed on her head and remained stuck having fallen inside the hollowed out part. It was a fall that most certainly should have killed or paralyzed her. When she was flown to the hospital, everyone was stunned to find that she only had a few bruises. But that wasn’t the biggest surprise. Immediately following the fall, her digestive disorder was healed.
Annabel relayed that when she was unconscious in the tree she experienced heaven and was told by God that she would be healed. Clearly miracles do happen. It was a miracle in the truest sense of the word. God had healed the little girl in a manner that could only be described as supernatural. It is the subject of a new movie called Miracles from Heaven.
#101: 3 Things Your Spouse Should Expect from You (Podcast)
Expectations. They are a very important part of marriage and we all have them, don’t we? Husbands and wives should be able to expect certain things from one another; there are nonnegotiable marriage expectations that should be the same for all spouses. These are much deeper than leaving your socks on the floor. These are foundational expectations such as being a trustworthy spouse that every marriage needs.
On today’s podcast, Susan and I will address 3 things your spouse should expect from you.
