I’ve spent years trying to untangle the Christian marriage advice puzzle. When we started researching the best-selling marriage books when we were writing The Great Sex Rescue, we found, to our dismay, that the majority of them ended up giving really bad advice, that...
Is it a "love language" to do basic chores? When we wrote The Great Sex Rescue, one of the things that really bothered us was that evangelical marriage authors talked a ton about increasing the frequency of sex without ever mentioning the orgasm gap or sexual pain...
Is "Acts of Service" a real love language? Many of you may be familiar with the runaway best-seller by Gary Chapman The Five Love Languages, which argues that there are five different love languages, and we all have a preferred one: Acts of Service Gifts Words of...
Is it wrong to have expectations in marriage? We've been talking about entitlement in marriage, and on Monday I wrote about the difference between feeling entitled and having realistic expectations in marriage. I want to expand on that today. So often we're told that...
If we want great sex...we may need to look OUTSIDE the bedroom for answers! Here's a stat that I shared on social media last night about the correlation between arousal and emotional connection:It's just one stat in a bigger chart in The Great Sex Rescue--which has...
What if there's something super simple you could do that could improve your mood and your marriage? I talked on Monday about rhythms in our lives--how to honor our bodies' rhythms, with the need for work and rest; for feasting and fasting. And I thought today we could...
If you know you have an unhealthy attachment style, how can you grow and change? It's the last day in May, and so I want to wrap up our posts about attachment styles. I'm so glad so many of you have found this concept helpful; it's really changed how I see the main...
Our attachment style that we learn in childhood affects our "love styles" as adults. I'm a big fan of the book How We Love by Milan and Kay Yerkovich. It's one of the few Christian marriage books that I can recommend wholeheartedly. How We Love is based on...
Has anyone noticed that the math in Love & Respect for how many people the book applies to doesn't add up? Joanna and her family are on their way down from the Arctic today to stay at my house for a week. They're moving to Edmonton (it's funny to think of Edmonton...
What if sex physically works well--but afterwards you just feel distant from one another? This month on the blog I'm going a "number of the day" series, and I meant to put this post up on Wednesday but the blog was all glitchy that day when we were switching to other...
We're at the end of our Direct Communication series, and I wanted to give you a final pep talk today! This month we've looked at why direct communication can be hard, both in general and for men and women uniquely. We've looked at how it can feel mean, but isn't....
Our gendered teachings in the church can make it difficult for men to communicate directly with their wives, too. We're in the middle of our direct communication series, looking at why it's hard to communicate directly, what direct communication looks like, and more....
Do gendered teachings in the church make direct communication harder? We're in the middle of our series on direct communication--why direct communication is hard; what direct communication looks like; why direct communication feels mean, but isn't. Today and tomorrow...
When you start asking for things directly, it can feel like you're being really mean. But what if the opposite is true? What if speaking directly is actually a way to be kind? We're at the start of our direct communication series this month on the blog, and we've...
What does direct communication look like? And what ISN'T direct communication? This month our series will focus on direct communication in marriage: How to state your feelings and thoughts clearly, without beating around the bush. And how to listen effectively to your...