Episodes

This one should be fun to look at as Verlynda and I personally sit on opposite sides of the field on this issue! But, as it turns out, there may even be some hope for folks like us! It’s a classic scenario: you’ve got a free evening and one of you wants to go and hang out with friends and the other would rather curl up on the couch and watch Netflix. Or one of you is having the time of their life at a party and the other is secretly gritting their teeth through the entire thing. When you have ...

Now menopause isn’t something that I’m likely to experience but it is something that half of you are going to go through, or have gone through, and the other half will observe. And since it’s going to impact your marriage, we might as well be smart people and make sure we’re prepared for it! Menopause can be a tricky time for marriages. Wives have to come to terms with changes in their body while dealing with all the hot flushes and night sweats life can throw at them. And husbands can often fe...

Suggesting that it is possible to porn-proof your marriage may appear to be preposterous. Porn is so prevalent in our culture that it may be simply impossible to prevent yourself from seeing and coming into contact with pornography. However, what if you could build a marriage relationship and a shared worldview where pornography was not even attractive? To begin with I want to clarify what we’re proposing, and who this is for. You cannot walk through a mall, drive on a major highway, watch TV ...

Marriage can have some really, really tough times — maybe you’re in that mode right now — and have been for a while. You wonder: is this all there is? Does anyone really enjoy this? Or maybe your marriage is not horrible but it’s only just tolerable. Maybe steady but dull. You’re wondering if there’s more. Or perhaps you’re contemplating marriage but what you witnessed of your parents’ marriage leads you to continue to wonder: is it even possible to have a very happy marriage? There is a mixed p...

One of the benefits of being a patron of The Marriage Podcast for Smart People is that you’re given the opportunity to request topics. One of our patrons asked us to address cross-cultural or inter-racial marriages. It’s an interesting area, with research showing that there are some common difficulties inter-racial couples face, as well as some real strengths they can draw from their different backgrounds and perspectives. We should acknowledge at the start that we do address this issue from a ...

This is a great question! Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just leave all the past behind, turn over a new leaf, and start afresh? Most couples have problems and difficulties that they’ve been through and are trying to put behind them. Some of you might even have serious issues in your past that are still causing you pain and affecting your marriage today. And so you may be wondering if it’s possible to move on from difficulties in your marriage without bringing up all these issues again. Is it ...

You probably already know whether you are the kind of couple that holds hands in public or the kind that keeps a careful distance. What you might not know is how much that gap, when it exists between spouses, can quietly shape the emotional temperature of a marriage over time. PDA, or public display of affection, covers any physical or verbal expression of love that others can witness: holding hands, a kiss goodbye, an arm around the shoulder, a look that communicates something private in a pub...

Well, this should be a fun subject! There are a lot of factors that go into how household chores get divided up between husband and wife, and today we want to give you guidance as to how to do that without creating any unnecessary conflict or resentment. Have you and your spouse ever had an argument over whose turn it is to do the dishes? Or do you ever resent your spouse for doing less around the house than you? Issues around the division of labor are common in most marriages and there’s a lot ...

The busyness of life can often have an impact on your marriage, and few stages of life are as hectic as raising toddlers. Balancing the never ending demands of looking after young children with a full time job and caring for elderly parents can seem impossible, and this stress is bound to have an affect on the amount of time you have for your spouse. So what can you do?

What do you do when your marriage is absolutely at the end of the road? Is divorce your only option? Does separation ever help couples reconcile? And is there ever such a thing as a marriage that’s beyond recovery? I’ve had a number of individuals reach out to me lately through our website saying that they are absolutely at the end of their rope as far as their marriage goes. They aren’t just whining or complaining. Some have been married for decades and the marriage has been very difficult for ...

If I had a dollar every time a husband told me he wasn’t a very emotional guy, I’d be retired by now. But hey, I’m not judging. I used to think the same thing. Turns out: it’s pure bunkum. And it’s messing up your marriage too. It’s definitely a very commonly held view that women are more emotional than men. The stereotypical view is that women’s emotions are all over the place and they’re only too happy to let you know about it, while men are more muted; less extreme in their emotions and les...

So for a long time, I thought praying together was just a nice thing to do. It was one of those optional, lets-do-this-if-we-remember kind of things. But with time, my perspective on this has shifted. A lot. Regular readers of the blog will know that we offer sound, research-based advice, as well as speaking from a Christian worldview. Even today when we’re looking at the effect of prayer on your marriage we’re referring to what we can learn from Scripture and from secular research because we b...

This week we’re hitting a very specific moment that is occurring in many marriages; that moment when you discover your husband’s porn habit. The revelation that your husband is addicted to some form of pornography is obviously a huge problem and a real shock to your marriage. But we’re going to look at what the research says is the best way to deal with it in the immediate aftermath and how to look towards getting through it. We’re going to help you see what’s going on in his world, and then go...

Did you know that 89% of veterans experiencing PTSD report one or more kinds of sexual dysfunction? And that survivors of childhood sexual abuse have a very common set of negative feelings and beliefs about sex? That’s the bad news. The good news: your marriage can become a place to help heal trauma — even through what happens in your most intimate moments. In our previous post we asked whether trauma might be having an unseen impact on your marriage, and how you can identify and begin to heal...

Do you ever get the sense that an unseen force is at work in your marriage? I’m not going all woo-woo on you here, but what if you could identify that force, understand it, and then use your marriage as a place of healing? If you’ve been through some kind of deeply traumatic experience then it’s perfectly reasonable to expect that it will have had some effect on you as a person. But trauma can also have a big impact on your marriage, often without you even knowing. How big of a deal is trauma?...

Is this just a Christian myth? Is the idea that the best sex occurs within marriage something that is only believed by church-going people? What does the research say? If you’re struggling with your sex life we offer sound, research-based advice, and today, hope for a constantly improving sex life too. Today we’re going to be looking at why the best sex happens inside marriage. Actually, it’s hard to believe that going through a bunch of research might be arousing but today we’re going to take ...

I was originally thinking of coming up with an inflammatory title for this post like “Chapman’s Love Languages Debunked” because that makes for good clickbait on the internet! But this is The Marriage Podcast for Smart People and I figured, well, smart people are going to see that I’m just trying to create hype. And my mission is to help marriages, not create hype. So we’re actually going to look at research that examines the validity of the 5 Love Languages Concept and challenge you on how you...

Three weeks after she found out, a client told me she was writing a grocery list on the back of an envelope when she noticed her hands were shaking so badly she could not read her own handwriting. She had not been thinking about her husband. Her body had. That is what post infidelity stress disorder looks like in real life. It is the persistent stress response that often follows the discovery of a partner’s infidelity, and it can look a lot like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD): intrusive ...

Today’s episode is twice the challenge: we’re dealing with the difficult subject of abuse in marriage but we’re also talking about when to leave a marriage too, which, under normal circumstances, is contrary to our personal values and our mission to help save marriages. So read carefully and thoughtfully as we navigate this very difficult topic. Today we’re going to be guiding you through this subject of when to leave or stay in an abusive marriage. If you missed last weeks’ post we discussed ...

Will the abuse get better? Or is it going to stay the same? Abuse is deeply rooted in belief systems and so we want to talk about recovery rates and how to figure out if you might consider sticking things out or if there is no hope for your husband. Today we’re going to be looking at what the research says about trajectories of abuse. Meaning: if you learned from the last episode that you are in an abusive relationship, what hope is there for change? So last week we looked into how to know i...

Abuse is such a tough situation. We want to speak to all the brave wives out there who are putting on the mask every Sunday and acting like things are OK when every week you live through a cycle of walking on eggshells, explosions, the honeymoon stage and then starting all over again. But abuse isn’t always as obvious as physical threats or violence; there are lots of subtler— but equally damaging— forms abuse can take. We have a sad but necessary topic for you this week. For the next few episo...

I find it’s pretty easy to avoid conflict. I kind of stockpile the issues until it gets really big and then I feel like I’m ready to talk. But the irony is: that’s actually when I’m least ready to talk. As soon as I open my mouth I know it’s not going to go well. So if avoiding conflict and bottling everything up until I burst isn’t the answer, is there a better way of approaching conflict? We have an intriguing topic for you this week. Today we’re going to be looking at one of those things we ...

What do you do when you want to spice up your sex life? We usually start thinking about new positions, or lingerie or maybe traveling to some exotic location with our spouse. Physical things. But what if the key to great sex was found in a completely different dimension? Sexual Experience Types & Attachment The research we’re looking at today will actually have a profound impact on the whole scope of your married life. So this is definitely going to be a pivotal topic for many couples who are ...

Has infidelity impacted your marriage? Do you feel like you need guidance through recovery and rebuilding your marriage? A few months ago we ran a 15 Day Marriage Challenge and were absolutely stunned by the number of people going through that process who were dealing with betrayal in the form of an affair or infidelity. Caleb created the 30 Day Betrayal Devotional set as a response to this need. This is a very unique product in the marketplace and in this podcast episode Caleb answers some qu...