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Category: Blog
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Video: Inspiring True Story
A true Ironman story of perseverance, strength and above all; love.
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Two of Us: Decisions in Marriage
A couple exercise to explore your
relationship and the decisions you makeReflect
Separately, say the prayer and spend some time reflecting on the questions.
Write some notes so that you can share more fully with your spouse.Prayer
I just want to be close to You, at this moment,
just taking a some time simply to be in Your presence.
I don’t do this enough Father, so let me make the most of this.
You are here with me and I see You smiling.
Imbed this moment in my memory. I ask this in the name of Jesus.
Amen.Questions:
1. Relationship to each other:
a. How much does your enjoyment enter into my daily thoughts?
b. If we have different ideas, how do we usually decide?
c. Compared to my spouse, how often am I the first to say: ” I am sorry.”? How does my answer make me feel?2. Relationship to others:
a. What is my/your relationship with your parents?
b. What is my/your relationship with my parents?
c. Where do I/you stand with our children? Am I, are you, equally involved?
d. Am I open to more life? Are You?
e. Our friends: yours, mine, ours?3. Relationship to God:
a. Describe the times you have led me closer to God. Explain.
b. When do I pray best?
c. How involved am I in the Church?
d. When do you pray best?
e. How involved are you in the Church?4. Everyday life together:
a. Make out a schedule of how I spend my waking hours.
b. Make out a schedule of how your spouse spends his/ her waking hours.
c. Look at the schedules each of you have made out and talk over the different perceptions each of you has.
d. How much of our time is for us?
e. Do the same for weekends
f. If both of us work, what does it cost in “us” time?
g. If I/you cut down work hours, what would it do for us?
h. List six expenditures we could eliminate. If we did, could we work less hours?
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Daily Strongest Emotion
“Honey we need to talk!” Those five words strike unparalleled fear into a man’s heart. They usually mean an unpleasant message or a very long and arduous interaction. No wonder men dread these words!
While women are marathon runners in the endurance conversation; men are optimised for the sprint encounter – fast, focussed, effective communication is his preferred style.
Like most couples, we spend a good deal of our day apart. In the early days of our marriage, we were diligent in updating each other on our experiences. We spent a good portion of the evening sharing our day and the practice kept us intimate as we both grew and changed.
After a time, and especially once children came along, increasingly, there just wasn’t the time to share everything that we individually experienced each day. Yet we were still growing and changing just as much. Even as our relationship stagnated, our individual development continued. Over time, this lack of shared life experiences created the sense that we barely knew each other anymore; we had each changed so much that we felt like married strangers.
Stop. Revive. Share…
This ‘drifting’ apart is often felt more acutely by women as their need for intimate conversation is typically stronger than it is for men. One very effective habit is sharing our Daily Strongest Emotion.
In our fast-paced culture, it’s impractical to share all our encounters in a typical day apart. However if we share the strongest emotion we experience each day, then we are at least keeping in touch with the most significant experiences. It’s the strongest emotions that are associated with the most powerful experiences, the encounters that impact us deeply; these are the ones that really matter.
And it needn’t take an inordinate amount of time to do this; five minutes is usually sufficient. This is not only achievable for the ‘conversation-wary’ husband, it actually helps focus the conversation for the woman, so that she becomes more efficient in communicating what really matters.
Moreover, the practice helps us process those intense emotions. As a regular habit, the Daily Strongest Emotion is not only achievable, it has the added benefit of preventing the backlog that leads to her pressure-cooker demand of “needing to talk!” It’s a simple daily ritual with big pay-offs for us both.
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Two of Us: Our Commitment
A couple exercise to explore
your level of commitmentReflect
Separately, say the prayer and spend some time reflecting on the questions.
Write some notes so that you can share more fully with your spouse. Answer the following questions in terms of your spouse.Prayer
What a wonderful Father You are.
It is so good to be free to come to You, at any time,
and to know that You care and are completely open to me.
How secure I feel when I think of being with You
and how You are always wanting the best for me.
Let Your Son express this better for me.
Amen.Questions:
1. How intense is my commitment to you, today?
2. How does my answer make me feel?
3. What does the thought of completely dedicating myself to you, do to me?
4. When I am not fully involved with you, the reason is: ….
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Spiritual Intimacy
It is often difficult for a couple to share their personal faith experiences with each other. This is so for couples of different faith traditions, but is also true even if they are of the same religion.
We are trained to avoid talking about religion and politics in polite company because these topics are laden with strong feelings. Precisely for this reason, it is very important, for a couple who wants to be close, to trust one another with these feelings and to be open and accepting of the other’s deeply held beliefs and personal experiences.
Sometimes, people think that faith does not really matter to them because they are not overly religious. But even if they have no formal religious training, their concept of God and how they view themself in relationship to God, is central to their personhood and powerfully impacts their behaviour and attitudes. If they simply avoid sharing that which is so central and foundational, they run the risk of their relationship becoming shallow and vulnerable to a great deal of misunderstanding.
Tension can arise because couples have sometimes been taught different things about what is right or wrong. They may even hold deeply seated misconceptions about the other’s faith traditions or experiences. Sharing faith can overcome this formation and draw a couple closer together whether or not they choose to practice their faith in the same way.
It is a great act of generosity to free the other to be themselves by sincerely encouraging them to reveal their feelings and experiences in their relationship with God.
Questions for Reflection
- What does ‘spirituality’ mean to you? How do you express your spirituality?
- What are some of the times in your life when you have felt deeply spiritual?
- How do you see your spirituality affecting your relationships, especially your marriage?
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Two of Us: Sex and Sexuality
A couple exercise to explore
love making and sexual atmosphereReflect
Separately, say the prayer and spend some time reflecting on the questions.
Write some notes so that you can share more fully with your spouse.Prayer
What an incredible gift my sexuality is, Father.
Though at times, it puzzles and confuses me.
I’m not always comfortable with my sexuality and that of my husband/wife.
I don’t even know why, all the time. Put me at ease Father.
Jesus asks You this in my name.
Amen.Questions:
1. Describe what specifically about my spouse I find most physically attractive?
2. Do I have fears and frustrations about sex?
3. What would I find unacceptable in our sexual experience?
4. How frequently do I want to make love? How frequently do you want to make love?
If there is a difference, what will we do?5. When is our love making most enjoyable? Describe.
6. When sex doesn’t click for us on occasion, what do I do?
7. The sexual atmosphere I most respond to is:
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Video: A Tale of Two Brains
Listen to Mark Gungor explain the differences between
the male and female brains in this hilarious talkClick here for the full 72min presentation
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The Language of Love
Natural fertility methods promote an attitude of shared responsibility for your fertility management and family planning decisions.
The process of learning about your fertility and how to apply your knowledge will provide an opportunity for you as a couple to grow in your mutual appreciation of each other and your sexuality.
Sexual intercourse is not just a celebration of the intimacy and love between a husband and wife; it is also a means to create it. The sacred language of sexual intercourse, allows you, as husband and wife, to use your entire body to say: “I share myself with you totally, and I accept you unconditionally in all your masculine/feminine uniqueness”. By using a natural method, you can confidently plan your family without compromising the sacred meaning of sexual intercourse – you can avoid any notion of rejection and make each and every act of love one of total self-giving and unconditional acceptance.
“After ten years on the pill it was starting to have a bad effect our marriage. I felt irritable and generally unsexy most of the time. Sex became infrequent and when we did make love, it was a shallow experience for us both. I resented being on the pill and I blamed my husband and thought he was selfish. We grew further apart and then one day Greg confessed to almost having an affair. Thank God he didn’t but it gave us a wakeup call.
We heard about natural fertility methods at a retreat and decided to give it a go, though at the time, we still didn’t want any more children. When I stopped the pill and we began relying on a natural fertility method the first shock was how sexy and passionate towards Greg I started to feel. We had slipped into using sex for personal recreation.
When we started tracking my fertility and reading about the theology behind the method we experienced an amazing rejuvenation in our marriage. I felt healthier and more confident as a woman. We were more together as a couple, making the decisions about our family planning jointly, instead of me carrying the burden alone. And there was a freedom in our lovemaking –it took on new depth and is now a deeply spiritual thing for us; not just a physical act but an emotional connection as well. The irony is, we have less abstinence using natural fertility methods than we did when I was on the pill” – Beth.
Posts in this series
- Natural Fertility methods: here
- Avoiding Pregnancy – Confidently: here
- Achieving Pregnancy – Naturally: here
- Intentional Intercourse: here
- A Vision for Life and Love: here
- The Language of Love: here
- Natural Method Effectiveness: here
- Learning Natural Fertility – Links: here
- Buy the Series here
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Two of Us: Patterns Between Us
Understanding and working with
our imperfect relationship.Reflect
Separately, say the prayer and spend some time reflecting on the questions.
Write some notes so that you can share more fully with your spouse.Prayer
Here I am again, Your beloved child.
My need, right at this time, Father, is to be honest and gentle at the same time.
This is difficult for me and I need You to help me so that I can be more than I would ever be by myself.
Give me Your tenderness in which to wrap my openness.
I send my brother Christ to bring You my petition.
Amen.Questions:
1. Do we fight? About what?
2. Do I lie?
3. Does he/she lie to me? Why?
4. Am I jealous? Of what?
5. Is he/she jealous of me? Of what?
6. Am I a nagger?
7. Does he/she nag?
8. Am I impolite?
9. Is she/he impolite?
10. How often am I bored?
11. Do I trust someone else more than he/she, at least, in some areas?
12. Am I indifferent?
13. Take the answer that reveals the greatest friction between the two of you and talk about what to do.