Fortify Your Marriage Before It Decays

Just as you would protect your valuables, your marriage should be protected too! We often focus our attention on the things that are clearly visible. For example, our kids need new tennis shoes, the car in the driveway needs to be clean, the living room needs a new paint job, the water filter in the refrigerator needs to be changed and so on. Life can be so demanding, we can forget about the things we cannot see or touch, like our marriages. Yet, marriage is one of the most valuable parts of our lives and the infrastructure of our home, it needs protecting.   

How It All Began With Two: The Proposal

Summer 2002

We had been dating for four years and we were in our last year of College, scheduled to graduate in the Spring of 2003. Although Juan often expressed interest in getting married while we were in College, I often turned down the idea. I didn’t want to be married until we graduated. I had big dreams and I desperately wanted to stay focused on them. Despite my hopes of getting a doctorate degree and my desire for a house to call my own, Juan knew I wanted a long engagement. Time was ticking so he began planning his proposal and working two jobs to pay for my engagement ring.

Setting Boundaries in Your Marriage

One of the silent killers in many marriages today is the absence of boundaries. We often convince ourselves into thinking they are unnecessary in marriage. Many times, I hear spouses say they don’t want to appear controlling or they don’t want to be controlled. I’ve even heard married couples say, “I should be able to do whatever I want!” Yet the truth is we surrendered our “want” the moment we made a vow to “become as one” with someone else. 

How It All Began With Two: The Courtship

It’s amazing for me to believe I have been with Juan, my husband, my best friend, the man of my dreams for nearly 19 years. [Side note: You can expect this to be mushy…it’s my love story after all.] To think I’ve spent more of my life with him than anyone else, including my parents, helps me realize the impact he’s made on me. I’m incredibly thankful to God for orchestrating our paths together. We seriously needed one another (and still do) and not in a dependency kind of way, rather in a way to improve and benefit each other’s lives. Although he is hardly the same guy I met back in 1998, I am more in love with him and appreciate who he is today more than ever before.

The Love Walk: How Do We Love When We’ve Been Hurt?

Although we are born into this world eager to love and trust emphatically, we learn over time not everyone is trustworthy and some people are hard to love. We all go through heartaches, frustrations and disappointments from the people that enter our lives and test our ability to love, to forgive and to move on. Sadly, those that are the closest to us often challenge our “love walk” the most. It’s probably because they’re the ones we are the most vulnerable with. We hold our lovers, friends and family’s opinions with high regard and are sometimes caught off guard when they hurt us.

The Importance of Goal Setting as a Team (Married Couple)

I remember a time in my younger married years, following my husband around the house like a puppy dog begging him to plan our next year together. I wanted to set marriage, financial, spiritual and physical goals together. However, at that time he wasn’t fond of setting goals or planning. He admittedly was ignorant about the benefits of goal setting and planning. He thought they were restrictive and that they would chip away from his independence. He didn’t want to be accountable, limited or bounded by any words printed on a paper or on mounted on the wall.

How to Build Teamwork in Your Marriage

Since the beginning of my husband and I’s relationship, we’ve had this unintentional motto that has stuck with us over the past eighteen years, “Together is Better!” Honestly at first we found it silly, but we kept saying it after we’d complete some task together, like it was our victory chant. Before we knew it, our silly little saying started to sound profound as it proved itself over and over true. When we’re given a task or presented with a decision, we instinctively look to each other. Still we have those bad days on the “marriage field” where we’d like to call each other out on performance-because every team has those days. Nevertheless, we have put considerable effort into working as a team over the years and still do; whether it’s in ministry serving, at home cleaning, completing projects, discussing our budget or even being in agreement on how we should discipline our toddlers. This doesn’t mean we have lost our individuality or identity in each other. On the contrary, because we are different people it has greatly enhanced our success as a married couple. We realize we are bringing more to the playing field of our marriage life than if we were replicates of each other’s skills and talents. When you’re a teammate to your spouse you…

Why Women are Incredibly Influential

My husband came home one day with a heavy heart. We were so busy with the kids, church and other tasks, he had to wait until the end of the day to share with me what had happened. As he began to pour out his heart to me, I felt grief consume me. I was offended by what happened to him but I kept silent. I struggled to keep my thoughts to myself but I knew I had to. He went further into detail about what had taken place and I kept thinking, “How could this happen to him?” I was appalled but I felt the Holy Spirit refrain me from speaking. One of our kids called for my attention, so I left my husband’s presence without muttering one word to him in response. Typically my husband would follow me around as I cared for our kids, asking for my thoughts but this time he didn’t. God needed to speak first.

How to Nurture the Friendship in Your Marriage

My husband and I have been best friends for seventeen years. We’ve been by each other’s side through tragedies, victories and everything in between. We’ve watched each other grow and we’ve helped mold each another into the adults we are today. Like every relationship we’ve had our ups and downs. They’re times we feel like we’re in love with each other and other times where we struggle to like each other.What gets us through the tougher times is our relationship with God and putting His Word into practice. There are clear principles we can find on marriage in the Bible that we can use to save the friendships within our marriages.

What Kind of Marriage Is Worth Fighting For?

It’s funny how when we’re younger some of us dream of finding that special someone. We look for the ideal perfect person that we think will make our life complete. Little do we know, we’ve fallen prey to a definition of love we conjured up in our minds; it’s influenced by the movies we see, books we read, by our favorite television shows, images we see on Facebook or other forms of social media. Before we know it, many of us find ourselves either growing impatient looking for our Prince Charming, or tying the knot with someone we anticipate to meet all of our unrealistic expectations. It’s quite the rude awakening, when we realize our spouse can’t make us happy. Then we are left with the questions: “Should I call it quits?” “Is my marriage worth fighting for?”  “Am I better off without him/her?”