Marriage Coaching - The Generous Husband

We Need More Preventive Care

by The Generous Husband | Jul 3, 2022 | Big Deal Post, Communication, Good Marriage, Links to good stuff, Marriage Coaching, Marriage Killer, Spicy Quote

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The greatest medicine of all is teaching people how not to need it. ~ Hippocrates

I don’t recall where I saw that, but I immediately applied it to marriage.

I’ve mentioned how my yearly physical caught a blood disorder early. This meant it didn’t harm me and, with ongoing care, it should not shorten my life. Had it not been found till I had symptoms, I’d be far worse off and it would probably cause my death.

Marriages are the same way. Most of the things that cripple and kill marriages don’t just happen out of the blue without warning. A careful examination will show those things months or years before they produce symptoms.

Good ongoing communication is the first step. Go below the surface. Ask deep questions, including those you fear won’t get the answer you would like. Ask your wife if she is happy. Ask what she feels is missing from both your marriage and her life in general. Ask her how often she feels empty, hopeless, or depressed. Ask her if she has ever thought about divorce.

The next step is to meet with a skilled third party from time to time. This can be informal or not. It can be a friend if they are able to be honest and put your marriage ahead of your feelings. You need someone who can give you an honest outside view of your marriage.

If a problem is found too late, you may not be able to get past it. It could degrade the quality of your marriage or cause its death. Better to find marriage problems early when they are easily solved or mitigated.

A post worth reading:

Dr. Corey | Always more ◄ What’s next?

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The Liar: It’s Mostly Her Fault

by The Generous Husband | May 1, 2019 | Marriage Coaching, Mentor/Brother, TheLiar, ZIMAGE

One of the big lies we believe about our marriage is that the problems are more her fault than our fault.

It’s human nature to downplay our own faults and enlarge the faults of others. So if you and your wife are equally responsible, you will see her as being more than half of the problem. If the majority of the fault is yours you may see it as fifty/fifty, or even see it as mostly her.

The first step to dealing with this lie is to accept that you magnify her wrongs while excusing or ignoring your own wrongs. The second step it getting an outside view of the situation. A good friend can do this if they will be honest with you. Or find a counsellor.

Don’t let the very human bias behind this lie fool you, and don’t let it hurt your marriage!

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Your Help Needed!

by The Generous Husband | Dec 2, 2018 | Marriage Coaching, Mentor/Brother, ZIMAGE

I find myself increasingly moved by all the less than good marriages out there. I realise what I do puts me in contact with those who have more problems than most, but the truth is great marriages are rare and good marriages are not nearly as common as they should be. There’s a lot of marriage-related pain and suffering in the world.

So today I want to ask for your help in making marriages better. Which of the following could you do?:

Pray: I probably don’t talk about prayer enough. I know prayer is more than an exercise, I know prayer brings about changes. So pray for your marriage, and for the marriages of those around you.
Mentor: If your marriage is good, it’s better than what a lot of others have. You don’t need training or a degree to come alongside others and offer them wisdom and a place to talk. Lori and I did this before we had any training or a real clue, and at least one couple claims it saved their marriage.
Testify: So many couples think it’s just them. Telling others about your struggles, and how you got past them, gives hope.
Share Resources: Read blogs and books and share the good stuff with others.
Get Training: Find a lay counselling course, or ask someone who is ministering to couples to help you learn how to do the same. If you have a solid marriage and a bit of training you can do a lot for couples.
Hold Marriage In Honour: Heb 13:4 is a command “Let marriage be held in honor among all…” Make sure your words and actions show a reverence for marriage. And when others run marriage down, be ready to lovingly speak up.
Push Your Church: Make noise about the need for marriage teaching, marriage seminars, and marriage building programs in your church. If enough folks speak up, the church will listen.
Be Serious About Your Own Marriage: You can be a good example for others. Let them see you put real effort into your marriage. Show them just how good a marriage can be, and what a blessing that is.

The reality is we can all do things to help marriages as a whole. Please ask God what you should do!

On a personal note: We continue to raise support for what we do for marriages. You can give online here.

If you prefer to donate by check, make it out to The Marriage Bed and put “Paul & Lori” in the memo. Mail to:

The Marriage Bed
4641 Lyons Hill Road
Springdale, WA 99173

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What Do You Want?

by The Generous Husband | Jul 20, 2017 | BE THE CHANGE, Big Deal Post, Communication, Marriage Coaching, ZIMAGE

When I deal with a man or a couple in a troubled marriage, one of my go-to questions is “What do you want your marriage to look like?”

This is not about whatever issue is currently aggravating them, it’s a big-picture question. Sure, the current aggravation is going be part of that picture (or not in the picture, as the case may be) but it’s so much more. It’s asking what you think a good marriage would look like. It’s setting a goal.

I suggest you answer this question yourself. Then share your answer with your wife, and ask her what she wants your marriage to look like. Work towards a common goal, then get busy making it happen. If you can’t meet in the middle, start working on the parts on which you agree.

BTW, this is a high points picture you are making here. If you wrote it out it should 100 to 300 words.

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Argue With Yourself About Your Wife

by The Generous Husband | May 16, 2017 | Marriage Coaching, ZIMAGE

I’ve been talking to and arguing with myself all my life. I sometimes play “devil’s advocate” against myself to try to look at an idea in different ways.

I also use this as a marriage tool. When I have a less than charitable thought about my wife, I argue with myself about it. One of me “accuses her” and the other me defends her. Much of the defence is based on who I know her to be and what I know to be the truth about how she thinks and feels about me.

I suggest you give this a try in your marriage. Some possible examples:

Me: “That was rude!”
Other Me: “I doubt she meant it the way you took it.”

Me: “It’s been a week since we had sex!”
Other Me: “You know she doesn’t keep track of how long it’s been, and you haven’t asked in five days.”

Me: “She’s driving me crazy with _____.”
Other Me: “If you asked her to stop or do it elsewhere I bet she would.”

Me: “I love it when she bends over like that.”
Other Me: “And I’m pretty sure she’s doing it intentionally!”

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God Didn’t Give Us A Right to Privacy

by The Generous Husband | Apr 12, 2017 | 1 + 1 = 1, BE THE CHANGE, Beyond the Marriage, Marriage Coaching, ZIMAGE

Americans are very big on privacy. Unfortunately, I think we paint this onto God and believe He has given us the right to be private.

As I read the Bible, we are to live openly with other followers. We are to share everything, including our sins, with those we share life with. Secrets are dangerous; exposing our lives to those who can be trusted is safer.

I could take this all kinds of places. I could talk about accountability. I could write of hidden sins. But let me apply this to marriage in general. There are certainly parts of our marriage that should not be shared with others, but most of us are far more private about our marriages than we should be. We keep things hidden because we’re embarrassed. We know we fall short and we don’t want others to know. Our pride keeps us from opening up, and that cuts us off from God’s provision of wisdom and help through the body. We hide our marriage problems, concerns, and sins, and then we wonder why so many marriages fail.

Find some spiritually mature married men you can share with and be fast to admit your limitations and failures in your marriage. Tell them your sins, including the sexual ones, and ask them to hold you accountable. Tell them about being rude to your wife last Monday morning and selfish on Thursday night. Tell them when you blow it, and tell them you want to do better.

In addition to this, I suggest you and your wife find a couple you can do the same thing with. Be brutally honest about yourself and your failures, and give your wife time and space to choose to do the same with her failures.

Yes, some things are private. But we have expanded privacy far beyond what God says, and we suffer for it. Doing it His way is uncomfortable at first, but the benefits are massive!

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Know When to Get Help

by The Generous Husband | Nov 20, 2016 | Marriage Coaching, Seeing Clearly, ZIMAGE

I was riding along with a friend as he was spraying a field recently. (Hey, it’s Eastern Washington, don’t judge me!) We’ve had an insane amount of rain for this time of year, and while the surface of the field was dry enough to walk on without getting muddy, it was wetter below that. And so this happened:

Those tires are about 4 feet tall (over a meter) so yeah, we were way down. At first, he tried to “find the bottom” – where it was dry, so he could get out. When it became clear the bottom was too far down, he stopped and called for help. An hour, a track drive backhoe, and several broken chains later, deep ruts in the field were the only sign of the problem.

My friend knew to call for help before he was in too deep. I wish most of us were this wise about our marriages. We try to find the bottom and just keep going even when we’re in way too deep. Maybe it’s pride. Maybe it’s embarrassment or fear. Whatever it is, long after we have no hope of getting out without help we keep digging ourselves in deeper and deeper. At best this makes getting out when we do call for help a lot more work. At worst it means we get so stuck we give up.

If your marriage is in a bad place stop making it worse and get some help.

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How Important is Position? It matters more to the ladies, and men and women have different preferences.

Great tweet of the week:

Lobster & wine may be romantic, but so is a burger & coke from the $1 menu if that’s what you can afford. Date your spouse! @SongSix3

Friday Flashback: Who Speaks Into Your Marriage?

by The Generous Husband | May 20, 2016 | ~ list info, Good Marriage, Marriage Coaching, ZIMAGE

Seth Godin recently had some wisdom about “Critics that matter“:

“Some critics matter. (Your biggest customer, for example). Some are merely loud. Others are just difficult.

<snip>

The challenge is in figuring out which kind of critic is worth paying attention to as you create your product or service. In a business to business setting, pleasing the gatekeeper and the bill payer is essential. On the other hand, pleasing an angry blogger might not matter at all.

In our desire to please everyone, it’s very easy to end up being invisible or mediocre. Far better to please the right people.”

In life we have critics; people who judge what we do and tell us how they think we should do things. Who do we listen to? Who are the “right” people when it comes to matters of marriage?

It seems to me we should listen to those who have fruit we would like to have in our marriage and ignore those who have fruit we don’t want. When my wife and I were having trouble early in our marriage, one couple who wanted to help us had a marriage neither Lori nor I wanted to have. So we said, “no thank you”. Perhaps they could have helped us with some issues, but we were unwilling to risk trading our problems for the ones they had.

I’m not saying we should only receive from those who are perfect – if that’s your goal then you should certainly stop reading what I have to say! I think of it this way – does someone seem to be someplace I want to be? Have they been where I want to be, or are they well on their way to where I want to be? If the answer to any of those is yes, then they may well be able to help or guide me. If the answer to all of those questions is no, then they have nothing to offer me.

On the other side, is there anyplace the other person is living or going I know I don’t want to be? If the answer to either is yes then I need to be very careful if I choose to receive from them. It’s not as easy to pick and choose as we want to think; we pick up things both good and bad from those we spend time with. When we open ourselves to receive from someone it’s unlikely we’ll be able to filter out all the bad.

[This post first appeared September 3, 2009.]

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