Posts by Francine & Byron Pirola
The Surprise Factor
Have you ever received an unexpected gift or kind gesture from someone? Remember how it delights you and warms your heart towards that person? Sometimes, it can turn a thoroughly rotten day into a great one. We expect kind gestures to have a positive effect, but is it only about the kindness, or could there…
Read MoreVideo: Love and Respect
This interview with one of our favourite authors and marriage educators – Emmerson Eggerichs – is brilliantly insightful. In it he discusses how men and women experience love differently and how so many couples get into difficult through a failure to understand this dynamic. He also applies the theory to parenting with some powerful insights.…
Read MoreWhen Desires Don’t Match
When couples marry they rightly expect that there will be a willing participation in a shared life together across a range of activities including sexual intimacy, intimate conversation and parenting for example. But what happens when there is a difference in the desire for the amount or style of one or more of these activities?…
Read MoreWeird Things All Couples Fight About
What do you argue about? Watch this funny video and see if there isn’t at least one conversation you recognise from your own relationship!
Read MoreEarly Action Can Make the Difference
Imagine if the only time we serviced our cars was when they broke-down. We could live like this but we don’t for obvious reasons. So why do we treat our marriages this way? In marriage, couples counselling is like road side assistance for cars… critically important when needed but not always able to solve the…
Read MoreVideo: Interpretation of the Traditional Parents Dance at a Wedding
This is a different interpretation of the traditional parents dance at a wedding. Enjoy!
Read MoreThe Disciplined Pursuit of Less
In a Stanford Business School talk, author Greg McKeown reflects on what holds capable, driven people from breaking through to the next level. He says that the answer to that question, surprisingly, is success. According to Greg, when executive teams focus on a few things, it leads to success. But success breeds more opportunities and…
Read MoreA Marriage to Remember
My mother, Pam White, has had a full life. In her 67 years she has raised three children, enjoyed a rewarding career as a social worker and been a devoted partner to my father, Ed. But as she puts it, “There’s just one little glitch”. In 2009, at age of 61, she was told that she had…
Read MoreSleeping with a different woman every night
Married life is many things but it is never boring! When we are talking about marriage to high school students invariably some guy at the back of the room asks me as the husband “but doesn’t it get boring sleeping with the same women every night?”. In today’s confused understanding of sexuality it’s perhaps not…
Read MoreMy Many Marriages
We all understand that our marriages go through their ups and downs, but we often don’t appreciate that they also go through fundamental changes over the years. We have come to realise that we have actually had several marriages already in our 26 years together. For example, there was the ‘newlywed marriage’ where we were…
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