Episodes

So you’ve taken the initial steps towards helping your spouse heal from your betrayal. You admitted your guilt. You demonstrated your remorse. You showed your willingness to make it right. And your spouse sees and understands this. But you still find yourselves caught in a cycle where you go back to the same thing over and over again. First, make sure you’ve already issued a sincere, thoughtful apology and have truly made an empathic acknowledgment of all the ways in which your betrayal impact...

It is a Tuesday afternoon. You are loading the dishwasher. Your phone buzzes on the counter. You glance at it. Nothing important, a coworker about a meeting. But you catch your wife’s face out of the corner of your eye. The muscles around her jaw tighten. Her eyes flick from the phone to you, then away. She does not say anything. She just goes quiet for the next twenty minutes. You betrayed her months ago. You confessed. You apologized. You changed the password on your phone, told her it would ...

These days, it’s difficult to have an open conversation about privilege because it has become such a hot button political issue. But if we can take a step back from political agendas, we can see that there is quite a lot of research that shows the reality of privilege and its impact on marriages. So here, there will be no accusatory fingers, no tearing down of the idea of being men. Taking a look at research-based observations on the reality of male privilege will help husbands empower both the...

Can you forgive betrayal in marriage? Yes. But not the way most people think. Forgiveness after betrayal is not a single decision you make and then feel better. It is a process that unfolds over weeks and months, often painfully, as you move from the grip of anger and grief toward something you might not be able to imagine right now: compassion for the person who hurt you most. If your spouse has betrayed you, whether through an affair, pornography use, emotional infidelity, or another deep bre...

So you’re trying to have a serious conversation with your spouse, but it doesn’t seem to be working. They aren’t answering the questions you ask. Instead, they seem to be ignoring you or shutting you out. And that just gets you even more upset. Don’t they care? It’s easy to take these situations personally, to assume that these actions are deliberate. But what if it wasn’t? When you conflict with your spouse, something interesting happens inside of both of you that inhibits your ability to hear...

There are few things more discouraging than coming to your spouse with something exciting to share and being met with a blank stare. Or saying what a disappointing day you’ve had and being told to be more positive. In relationships, you want to be understood. You want your spouse to feel what you feel, to validate the experiences that you’re having. It can be devastating when that doesn’t happen. But if you’re able to cultivate empathy, you will be able to find more stability and intimacy in yo...

So there you are, carrying on with your day as usual when for some reason, your spouse does something completely unexpected. You have two options at this point. You could make an assumption based on previous experience, or you can choose to investigate further to find out something new. Making an assumption is generally more comfortable, but it represents a missed opportunity to get closer to your spouse. When confronted with the unexpected, curiosity can push you into areas of discovery that w...

How can your marriage work when the two of you are so wildly different? At the start of your marriage, it’s easy to overlook those differences. But the more you get to know your spouse, the more you realize that they are a totally distinct person from you. While that can be overwhelming or even unexpected, this is an incredible step towards developing intimacy. Learning to appreciate and explore the mystery of the individual you are married to will help you grow closer to one another. Irreduci...

Intimacy is something that everyone wants for their marriage. But achieving that requires risk. Because to deepen intimacy in your marriage, you will need to open up to your spouse, to be vulnerable. Building Intimacy with Vulnerability Intimacy is complex. It is not something that happens passively; you must work with your spouse to put it together. Vulnerability is a crucial piece, one of the four primary aspects working in sync as parts of the whole[1]. 1. Irreducibility Your spouse is no...

The Internet floods us with ideas, tips, and tricks for couples to grow in their relationship with God. Sifting through it all can get overwhelming. Which works and which doesn’t? Let’s separate the wheat from the chaff and look at the ideas that truly work. Be Doers, Not Just Hearers Couples who share religious faith experience higher overall marital satisfaction (Perry, 2015). So yes, being married to a fellow believer is great! But that’s just the beginning. You need to go beyond passively ...

Cognitive biases are those sneaky little brain shortcuts that happen without us even realizing it. They make life more efficient and most of the time are helpful… but sometimes they can backfire too! Today we’ll look at three more of these biases so you know what they are, why they happen and how to stop them from messing with your marriage! Reactance Bias What Is This Cognitive Bias? Gotta love this one: when you feel like someone is trying to force you to do something, you react by doing th...

Cognitive biases are assumptions and judgments and error that our brains automatically make without us even knowing it’s happening. They are like automatic mental shortcuts. But the problem is: they could be messing with your marriage without either of you even realizing it! We have a brainy episode for you this week. We’re going to be talking about cognitive biases in marriage. This is about how your brain gets in the way of your connection with one another, and how to deal with that. What Is...

So what if you are in a marriage that you are totally committed to but really not enjoying or appreciating. You are unhappy but it is quite a stable situation. And you aren’t leaving. How can you make the most of this situation? We’ll look at how folks find themselves in a spot like this and how to make the most of it. Long Term Unhappy Marriages Let’s start by looking at what we mean by “unhappy” in this situation. Overall marital quality is a combination of marital satisfaction and marital s...

Most times when Christian podcasters take up a topic like this we tend to get preachy about not entering into an unequal yoke, where you have a Christian marrying a non-Christian. While we fully agree with the truth of Scripture on that subject, in this episode we want to look at this issue more from the perspective of how to best face this issue as a couple when you find yourselves in a marriage where you don’t share your religious values, or even don’t share convictions about your faith to nea...

If your spouse has let themselves go and you’re finding it harder to feel attracted, you’re probably carrying some guilt about that. You might be wondering if you’re shallow, if something is wrong with you, or if this is just what marriage looks like after a couple of decades. Here’s the clinical truth most people don’t expect: when a spouse lets themselves go physically, the lost attraction you’re feeling is almost never about their appearance alone. It’s a signal. And if you pay attention to ...

More than 1 in 6 people regularly work shifts outside of the normal Monday to Friday work week[i]. In today’s episode we want to look at some of the unique challenges that shiftwork can bring to marriage. And not only the challenges but how you can work together as a couple to make the most of life even when it is hard to see each other due to one or both of you being involved in shift work. About 17% of workers regularly work in shifts outside the regular work week[ii]. Lots of folks have lear...

Having a fight with your spouse is a stressful, upsetting experience that can leave you bewildered, frustrated and feeling stuck. In this episode, we want to give you a straightforward strategy that you can use to help break yourselves out of a downward spiral of increasing conflict and unhappiness. The Issue: Rumination and Negative Cycles A single argument is unlikely to have huge negative effects on a marriage. The problem is that after an argument couples tend to ruminate over it for a lon...

Today’s episode is on the lighter side. But did you know that researchers have actually done studies on the phenomenon of the man cold or man flu? You may be wondering if it’s really worse for a man to have a cold than for a woman? Well: like we say every time, we have the research, the truth and the answers you’re looking for! That’s right, today we’re going to be talking about the very serious and culturally under-acknowledged and deeply stigmatized issue of man colds. Do Men Suffer More Tha...

Thankfully, losing a child is a relatively rare event. However, this tragedy still happens to some in our world. And one of the common concerns I hear expressed is concern for the marriage of those who have lost a child. There seems to be a real perception that couples who lose a child are more likely to experience the failure of their marriage. We explore the research on this today and then turn towards helping each other through the grief. Many people and researchers describe losing a child a...

The classic domestic abuse scenario is a husband beating his wife. I think almost all of society gets that and understands it’s wrong. Then you have husbands that are emotionally and psychologically abusive: people are still struggling to accept this as a form of domestic violence, but more and more are understanding this is a severely devastating problem for a wife. But today we are going to cover the least well known and least understood situation: the abusive wife. As it turns out, women are ...

Who knew that something as generic as generosity could transform your marriage? It has the potential to increase marital quality, make conflict resolution easier, increase your own happiness, help you to see other people’s perspectives, decrease divorce risk… Basically, make everything better except for my poor finger… Today, we’re offering some variety! I (Caleb) injured my finger and while it is not exactly life threatening (like such horrors as a man cold), I am not supposed to type. Sooo, t...

When a spouse is being abused, one of the challenges they may have to face is that other people around them may not believe that they are being abused. When this happens, there are even fewer resources available to empower the person experiencing the abuse. Let’s look at how this happens and then what to do about it. We wanted to bring this topic forward today because social support is a vital support for helping women recover from all forms of abuse[i]. However, when a woman is in a genuinely ...

In today’s show, we’ll dive into the nitty gritty of victim mode: what’s really happening and why people even go there. If your spouse or if you yourself ever fall into victim mode you’ll also learn how to deal with it so that you can find healthier ways of relating to one another and overcoming the challenges that life brings. What is Victim Mode? Victim mode or victim mentality is where a person going through difficult situations views themselves as a helpless victim unable to do anything ab...

Did you know that one-third of all childbirths in the USA are as a result of unexpected pregnancies[i]? Now: that is not necessarily unexpected with regards to married couples — that’s just unexpected across the entire population so that’s in any relational context. Still, it’s a huge percentage. Unexpected Pregnancy Woes and Blessings There is quite a variety of ways unexpected pregnancy can affect a couple: both positive and negative[ii]: Reduced mental health (especially for the mother) L...