Life doesn’t always come in neat little packages. That has certainly been something my husband and I have discovered over the past couple of weeks. In fact, our packages have consisted of things such as problems with our teens (some minor and some not), an unexpected medical emergency ($751), family drama during Thanksgiving, a job change for my husband, a vehicle dying on us, and now trying to figure out how three drivers can share two vehicles. All of this in just two weeks…and meanwhile, I am trying to enjoy what is supposed to be the best time of the … Continue reading →

I was recently reading an article from 2011 that listed the top 10 things that married couples fight about. What I was expecting wasn’t what I read. I was thinking more along the lines of fighting about finances, the raising of the children, and in-laws. But this list was quite surprising. For instance, one of the fights is about stubble in the sink. I am blessed enough to have a son and husband who shaves and doesn’t know how to wash their stubble down the drain (note the sarcasm). But have I ever gotten into a fight with my husband … Continue reading →

I’m a firm believer and I have blogged about picking your battles when it comes to raising teenagers. But I think the same can be said about a marriage. In fact, it seems that we tend to be a bit more nit-picky in our marriages than in any other relationship. Slight irritations can be made into huge deals. Those things we knew about our spouse when we married them suddenly becomes impossible to live with another day. But many of those irritations and frustrations we may experience in a marriage are just not worth the battle. You know the old … Continue reading →

Have you ever reached that point in marriage where it seems like everything is bad? Things just aren’t going well or they aren’t going the way you had expected. Take the time to ask yourself…is it really ALL bad? Here is what tends to happen in these situations. We are so focused on the “bad” we fail to see the good. I have been there…many times. Throughout the course of 20 years of marriage, there have been ups and there have been downs. What I especially remember in my earlier years of marriage is that thinking during the downs it … Continue reading →

For several weeks my husband and I have been attending a class based on a book called, “Love and Respect” by Emerson Eggerichs. The basis of his teaching is the importance of the wife respecting her husband and the husband loving his wife. Of course, this doesn’t mean that the wife shouldn’t love the husband or the husband respect the wife, but he talks about how men and women differ in their relationships. One of the things he repeats over and over again in the video series we are watching is that different isn’t wrong. I think that’s an important … Continue reading →

Every spouse, regardless of how wonderful they are, will do things that drive you nuts. They do this because they are human, and you get annoyed because you are human. This is just part of marriage – or any relationship, actually. For instance, I was washing dishes this morning, and found a ton of plastic forks in the sink. Why? Doesn’t washing plastic forks sort of undo the magic of having them in the first place … so you don’t have to wash them? It’s silly to let something like that irritate me, and I shouldn’t get worked up about … Continue reading →