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Simple Tips to Help Maintain a Healthy Marriage

Today we’re going to look at some simple tips to maintain a healthy marriage. When you receive good news who is the first person you want to share it with? Is it your spouse? When an early morning phone call this week told me that I had been awarded second prize in a poetry competition, I couldn’t wait to get off the phone and tell Mick. He is always my first thought when I receive good news, because I know he will respond in an appropriate way and he did. His encouraging words left me feeling I was the cleverest … Continue reading →

The Right Place for Romance

Last weekend in Sydney one man was in the right place looking for romance, or was he? The man among 250 women was Daniel Scarparolo, who was attending the Romance Writers of Australia Conference. From Perth this young man is writing a romance novel – his first. In a time when some publishers have gone to the wall or merged and sales are reputedly down, romance novels are flourishing. In USA sales of romance fiction were $1.37 billion in 2008. In England and Australia sales are also high. This is despite a gloomy economy. What is the big attraction? Is … Continue reading →

Staying in Love

Falling in love is easy. ‘Staying in love, creating a love that last, is the tough part.’ These were words a mother said to her son who was soon to be married. I read them this week in a novel by Marie Bostwick, called A Thread So Thin. Just because it is a novel the words came from doesn’t mean there’s not a lot of truth in them. In fact a lot of the advice about love and marriage handed out in this novel rings true. You suspect many of them came from actual conversations. I’d be interested to ask … Continue reading →

Should I homeschool without my husband’s consent?

Recently, the question was posed, “Should I homeschool without my husband’s consent?” Many times the wife is motivated to homeschool while her husband is against the idea. This issue can cause feelings of frustration and stress which can manifest into arguments. Like the mouse with the cookie, this leads to fighting and the fighting leads to insecure children and that leads to a long line of making independent decisions which continues to erode at a marriage. Due to this snowball effect, my answer is that homeschooling is not an option unless both parents are on board. Homeschooling is a massive … Continue reading →

Getting Upset in Marriage

We all get upset at times with things that happen in our lives, things happen to us that are outside our control and that we hadn’t counted on. Often it is caused by the words or actions of others. How we respond to what happens to us, can tell us a lot about ourselves and our natures. When it comes to marriage and family life, there are always going to be things that will happen that we didn’t count on. I’ve felt that way just this morning. It wasn’t with Mick and the problem wasn’t caused by him but someone … Continue reading →

Three Ms You Don’t Want in Marriage

Yesterday we looked at some Ms to incorporate into marriage. Today I’ve got three Ms you definitely don’t want in your marriage Manipulative We’ve all seen then the wives who manipulate their husbands with tears and emotional blackmail and acts designed to get what they want. We see it in those who manipulate their spouse into doing what they want when they want it, using sex or whatever other means at their disposal to get their own way. Manipulative people often use tactics to make the other person feel guilty, if they don’t comply. They use silent treatment or lies … Continue reading →

The Third Person in a Marriage

There’s a third person in our marriage. Maybe there is in yours too, as there is in several other marriages I know. No, it’s not a new addition and no, neither of us is having an affair. The third person and a central person in our marriage is God. Traditional marriage vows undertaken in a church usually include the minister or priest saying something along the lines of ‘being gathered here in the sight of God and in the face of this company – to join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony, which is commended to be … Continue reading →

A Picture of a Marriage

52 years married and still in love with his wife, that was the picture actor Alan Alda presented in a recent interview with Andrew Denton. These are some of the things that impressed me in that interview with the 73 year old actor. Firstly, that he and his wife Arlene have been married 52 years. In Hollywood and the entertainment industry at large, that in itself is a major achievement. Alan Alda suggested that when looking for a life partner (and that tells you something about the way he views marriage – as a life commitment) ‘your life partner makes … Continue reading →

Free to Be Yourself?

Are you free to be yourself in your marriage? Or do you always feel you have to be on your best behavior or changing the way you act or the things you say or even truing to change your feelings to accommodate your spouse? One of the things I like about my marriage is that I am free to be myself. Because really I don’t know any other way to be anyway. I’m not good at pretending to be something I’m not or with other people who pretend to be something that they’re not. The other night Mick and I … Continue reading →

Would You Let Your Husband Iron His Own Shirt?

Would you let your husband iron his own shirt? Even as I write those words I can hear some woman, particularly of the older generations, reel in shock at the mere suggestion of such a thing. I have a friend around my age, who has the theory if it needs to be ironed it doesn’t get bought. She only buys clothes which can be washed and hung up and then put on or put away in the closet. Okay, I admit I don’t go quite that far. But I am a big fan of skirts that only need washing, twisting … Continue reading →