Episodes

Do you ever wonder why you can’t trust your spouse? Especially when you think you should be able to? Before we start, we want to make it clear who this episode is for because it may not be immediately apparent from the title. We’re speaking to men and women who are struggling to trust their spouse and recognize that this trust issue lies primarily within themselves at this point. There may have been a past betrayal or not. If there was you might say something like, “I know in my head that I ca...

Even if you’re happily married you might find dates with your spouse kind of awkward sometimes. What do you talk about? I know we struggle at times to have an easy flow of conversation, too. I don’t know what it is about dates that make it difficult to know what to talk about. Sometimes we’re just distracted or exhausted but sometimes if you’re up to date with each other then you’re also not sure what to go over. Certainly, if there’s an ‘elephant’ in the room, that gets in the way too. This i...

Maybe your spouse has complained to you that he or she just doesn’t feel appreciated. Well, let’s just take that at face value today and work on this whole appreciation thing. It can only help, right? One of my favorite Bible verses is: “You must let no unwholesome word come out of your mouth, but only what is beneficial for the building up of the one in need, that it may give grace to those who hear.” If every word we spoke in our marriages was tested by this verse, we would see some vast im...

Making your marriage more intimate can seem like a daunting task. Until you understand that there are just four basic components. We help you identify each of them and show you what you can do to take your marriage to the next level.

What happens if your marriage really hasn’t been that great but you’ve been sticking it out for the kids, or for some other reason. Let’s say the reason you’ve been sticking it out is no longer relevant… Now what? If the purpose for staying married is no longer relevant, is your marriage toast? Or can you do something to redeem and reconfigure your relationship so that new life is breathed into it? Barriers and Rewards in Marriage Why do people stay married? In 2003, two researchers set out t...

Here’s today’s question: “Background: I grew up in an abusive home (my father is an addict and a bully, but my mother never reported his abuse to authorities or tried to explain that what he was doing was wrong- we just pretended that nothing had happened afterwards) and my husband grew up in a home with not much affection or healthy communication. I am a newly trained mediator and I know we have issues (small issues but after 11 years they have grown to cause serious problems) but when I try ...

A listener wrote in with the question: “How do you set boundaries with social media? What’s acceptable to keep the marriage from the pressures of the world. For example: One spouse doesn’t like revealing pictures put out and the other is getting physically fit and feeling the need to parade?” Listen to the podcast for Caleb’s answer!

This week, we have a question from one of our audience members who wanted clarity on her expectations around side effects of her husband’s testosterone therapy. “What experience do you have with testosterone therapy for men? I believe part of the cause of my husband’s infidelity is due to much testosterone pellets and an excessive need for sex. I do not excuse him for one minute for the devastation he caused. think If that is going to be an available treatment for a medical condition some kind ...

This week, Caleb answers a very touching question from Betty*, one of our email subscribers. She asked, “I responded a few months ago, rather aggressively, may I add, to your husband’s question. And of course, he graciously responded with a question that pierced through my pain and frustration and found my heart. He asked,” Do you still want to be married?” I thought about it for weeks!! Please let him know that we found a local counselor, who is also our pastor, and have been progressing, to s...

Caleb answers a question from a listener about sexual addiction and its consequences in marriage.

Today we have a question from one of our audience members who is asking for help to overcome some significant mental barriers around her husband’s sexual history. Hi, I have a question. I got married just recently and much later in life…around 40 years old. I was a virgin when I got married. My husband was not. However he shared with me that he had not had any sexual partners for at least three years prior to our being married, because of his renewed commitment to Christ. I’ve been a Christian...

One of our listeners asked for help with his situation. His wife is in an ongoing affair but also wants to keep the family unit intact. As you might imagine, despite his willingness to forgive and move on, he is wondering how to handle this very difficult situation.

A listener wrote in asking how he could help his wife trust him after his infidelity in their marriage. Caleb gives him lots to think about!

This is episode #114 and we are going to be talking about whether or not it is possible to have a hectic life AND be happily married. So in this episode, you will find out if you need to change your career and lifestyle, or if you’re all good to go. No pressure.

Jealousy. This can drive some people absolutely nuts – and their spouse feels completely justified. It’s a real conundrum. And it’s particularly worse when the jealous spouse has had prior reason to become jealous — a betrayal has occurred. What does a person do? Healthy And Unhealthy Forms of Jealousy. Research shows that jealousy can have positive or negative effects on a relationship, depending on the type of jealousy that is being displayed. There are three kinds of jealousy: Reactive ...

Learn more about the problems, symptoms and deeper issues that are present in sexless marriages. If you’re in this situation, you can find hope and ideas for recovery.

We know for some of you, this episode is going to be a tough one. We’re going to speak the truth in love because we’re committed to integrity, but at the same time we want to give you hope because this IS hope, and recovery of your marriage IS possible. If you’re at the point where you think your marriage is fine, I hope you will take from this post the need to be proactive. Don’t want until you’re wondering if you can recover your marriage to take action – take action now! Personally, we don’...

A sexless marriage almost never starts in the bedroom. By the time a couple notices that sex has slowed to a stop, the disconnection that produced the gap has usually been growing for months or years in the rest of the relationship. The bedroom is the readout, not the cause. If you’ve found this page because physical intimacy in your marriage has gone quiet, or because one of you wants more and the other doesn’t and the gap keeps widening, what follows is the research on what actually drives se...

Life is super busy. We get that. Rather than focusing on the hopelessness of the ‘busy’ problem, why not take the time you do have and make the most of it? Here are 10 sure-fire ways to make time for each other in a crazy busy marriage. These are not things that will ADD to your busyness, but allow you to connect WITHIN the context you’re already in. It would be wrong for us not to challenge you at this point though, to look at your busyness objectively and ask yourself if there aren’t some ...

If you really want to build more intimacy in your marriage – and who wouldn’t??? – here are four ways to do that. Take the time to hear, and digest this. 1st Way to Build Intimacy: Intimacy is Built Through Disclosure and Responsiveness Given that intimacy itself is purely emotional, let’s put a nice, sterile definition on it… Intimacy is what happens through interactions of self-disclosure and partner responsiveness to disclosure. This process is believed to develop feelings of closeness bet...

You give and you give. You scan his mood before he walks in the door. You handle the things he forgot, smooth over the conversation his sister did not appreciate, manage the family calendar he never looks at. And somewhere along the way, you stopped knowing what you actually wanted, because the question got buried under the weight of keeping everyone else okay. If any of that lands, you might be looking at codependency in marriage. Not the meme version, the real one. Codependency in marriage i...

So, your spouse just blew it. Again! How can you move from the place of being offended – and maybe feeling like a victim – to feeling like you’ve moved the dial on your marriage in a positive direction? We’ve all been in that situation where we’ve been offended by our spouse – when what we heard hurt us. But, what is it that we hear and feel that hurts? Once you understand what’s coming at you, you can learn how to respond accurately. Some messages that we get from our spouse hurt more than ...

Talking to each other seems like a pretty obvious topic, right? But, how many times have I asked Caleb, about a couple we’re working with, “Do they not talk???” This is a really fundamental issue that we see in most marriages we help. Folks are simply not having the basic day-to-day conversations they need to, and as a result, there are misunderstandings, miscommunications, and then conflict! If we can just make sure we talk about these essential subjects, we can save ourselves a whole lot of p...

Betrayal is such a ground-shaking event. Probably because it so deeply challenges your beliefs about someone incredibly significant in your life, and that, in turn, challenges your beliefs about yourself. So: what does the road forward, after betrayal, look like? Unfortunately, betrayal is a journey that every couple goes through at one time or another. It is sometimes something as severe as an affair but other times, it can just be that we’ve let our spouse down in the every-day-living of life...