Episodes

Merry Christmas!! Or, at least, that’s the way it is supposed to be. But does it always work out that way? Read on and we’ll tell you why it might — or it might not! Christmas is a time for coming together as a family and celebrating. Right? While lots of people probably have very merry Christmases, many will also find the holiday season stressful and difficult. Having a merry Christmas as a couple doesn’t happen automatically— you have to be aware of a few things and work together at it. Do M...

Today is a difficult episode about the hardcore realities of the pornography industry. How is this marriage related? Well, pornography is a leading cause of divorce nowadays and one of the myths that we need to debunk as we fight this cancer is that viewing porn is a victimless activity. Around 1/2 of marriages have at least one pornography-using spouse. Objectification is a big part of using porn: seeing the actors as sex objects. We’ve looked before at how watching porn impacts your marriage,...

Families involving stepparents and step children are always tricky. And yet they’re a very common kind of family unit in today’s society. So how do the marriages look in these blended families? As we look into this we’ll see that a happy marriage and a happy blended family are very closely linked. How Common are Blended Marriages? Over half of marriages every year are second marriages for one or both spouses, and 65% of those are bringing kids from the previous relationship[i]. 80% of blended ...

One of the things I hear a lot of wives calling their husbands out on is spiritual leadership. Even in marriages that aren’t particularly distressed. This isn’t a subject we’ve tackled before so I thought it would be good to look at so that we can give husbands some help on how to move forward in this area of married life. This is a tricky topic for a lot of guys. I know in our marriage for the longest time the “spiritual leadership” would look more like Verlynda prodding and me obliging, which...

I’ve run across a number of couples lately — mainly younger couples — who are watching X-rated movies or pornography in order to “spice up their sex life”. It is not uncommon in our world to think that pornography has something to offer your marriage, but today, we’re going to take a look at what the research says porn really does for, or, more precisely, to your marriage. So I am going to come at this as if I was talking to a younger couple, maybe newlyweds, and they’ve watched some porn togeth...

You know the loop. You said something perfectly ordinary. Your husband (or your wife) heard something else entirely. You tried to clarify. He defended. You got more frustrated. He got more sure he was being attacked. By the time you came up for air, neither of you could remember what the original disagreement was about. You were just arguing about the arguing. If you keep finding yourself in this cycle, here is what is actually happening when your husband misinterprets everything you say. Two t...

A few days after this episode is released is Veteran’s Day or Memorial Day. We wanted to acknowledge our servicemen and women who serve our country and that of our neighbor, the USA, and to thank you for helping make it possible for us to live lives of freedom and meaning. If you’re not a veteran I would encourage you to take in today’s episode regardless to better understand some of the sacrifices and challenges our military members face on the home front. It’s hard to imagine a marriage with ...

Many studies place average preferred or helpful foreplay time somewhere in the 15 to 25 minute range, but there is wide variation from woman to woman. The number that actually matters is not minutes. It is the presence behind them. Research lands in that ballpark, and yet a lot of marriages with plenty of foreplay are still missing the connection that makes it work. Here is what the research says about how much foreplay your wife really needs, and here is what shifts when foreplay becomes connec...

What do you do when your family and/or friends do not approve of your spouse? As it turns out, there are a number of strategies to help with this, but the most important is just doing a good job of taking care of your marriage, regardless of what others think. It’s a tough situation to be in: you’re fully committed to your marriage and love your wife to bits, but her parent don’t think you’re good enough for her. Or your husband’s friends make it quite clear that they don’t like that you spend ...

Does your marriage involve one spouse working away from home? Or travelling a lot? Maybe you are a military family or you commute to another city for work or do camp work. Let’s talk about some of the challenges and also some ideas to make the most of this situation! It can be tough being separated from your spouse for long periods of time. And when this happens regularly, due to work or some other circumstance, your marriage is bound to be affected in some way. But that change doesn’t necessar...

At that moment the final child leaves the family home, you and your spouse go through a transition from parenting to empty nesters. For some, perhaps wives more than husbands, this is almost like postpartum depression as you are confronted with the grief that comes from a loss of a major stage in your life. So today we’re going to be talking about Empty Nest Syndrome: the impact, the causes and how to support your marriage through this transition. What Is Empty Nest Syndrome? It is more often...

This is not a very well known term: trauma bonding. But if you are in an abusive relationship, or are supporting someone else who is in one, or if you experienced abuse as a young person then you will find this information to be a vital key in unlocking your recovery journey. The issue of trauma bonding is a fascinating subject but also very difficult for those who are implicated in this kind of situation. Today we’re going to be looking at what it is, how it develops, how it can impact marriag...

I don’t know about you, but for me, it’s easy to fall into the “if…then” trap when it comes to money. If we had an extra 400 dollars a month, then dot dot dot. Or, If we had a 5 bedroom home instead of a 3 bedroom home then dot dot dot. And when we start doing this if…then thing, it begins to impact our marriage. Money is definitely top of the worry list for a lot of couples around the world. I know how hopeless it can feel about changing your financial situation, so I want to encourage you tha...

In today's marriage Q&A episode we'll be answering questions from our supporters and using them to shed insights that you can relate to any marriage. We'll be looking at the question o shared leisure activities, and rebuilding trust when you feel disconnected from your spouse. Join us for more insight into building a thriving, passionate marriage!

So what if you’re good friends with another couple and the wife there is a little too attentive to your husband? Or, another patron is asking: what if both my spouse and I are experiencing PISD (post infidelity stress disorder)? Today we’re going to be handling two questions from our much-valued listeners of our podcast. This first question from Chewy relates to boundaries with other married couples. Here’s the full question: Can you talk about boundaries with other married couples? My best fr...

This is a question that comes up more often than I would have expected. We’ll address this issue of shared interests but at the end of the post I am going to go a whole layer deeper and tell you what really matters for couples that are focusing on this issue. Some couples seem to spend all their time together and have exactly the same interests. Others seem to have nothing in common and their leisure time is a constant battle between their individual preferences. If you’re in the latter group y...

If you’re sitting across the dinner table from a spouse who is fifteen years older or younger than you, and tonight, again, you’re feeling that quiet pulse of distance that you can’t quite name, the question that keeps surfacing is some version of: is it the age? If you’ve been Googling some variation of coping with age gap in marriage at 11pm, you’re not alone. That search is one of the most common ways readers find this article. Here’s the short answer before we go any further: in our work wi...

The purpose of marriage, from a clinical perspective, is to build a shared meaning together that gives both of your lives more weight than either of you could carry alone. It is not the wedding, not the romantic feeling, not even the intimacy. Those are real, but they are downstream of something deeper. The purpose of marriage is the slow, sometimes invisible work of two people building a shared identity, a shared story, and a shared sense of impact on the world around them. That is why couples...

Remarriage after bereavement. Maybe I get a little selfish and hope that I’ll never have to face the loss of a spouse. When I’m feeling more noble and altruistic, I hope my spouse will never have to face it. But regardless, nearly 100% of couples face the loss of their significant other during their lifetime. And so if this reality is so common, it’s worth talking about. Losing your spouse is one of the hardest things any person can go through. Amidst the grief and sadness, you have the questio...

Perfectionism is not too far from any of our hearts. Certainly, anyone who is on Facebook or Instagram knows that we, just like everybody else, tend to present the perfect image of ourselves on these channels. But: we want to ask the question, how does this affect our marriage? The topic of perfectionism was suggested by one of our readers, and it’s certainly an interesting one. What is perfectionism? Is it a good thing? How can it impact marriage when one spouse is only satisfied with perfecti...

Join us for a special episode of the Marriage Podcast for Smart People as we take an in-depth look at sex addiction: What it is, how how it differs from normal, healthy sex, how it can be caused and what the options are for treatment.

In our previous show, we talked about the neuroscience of romantic love. Today we’re going to address the behavioral side of things to help you rekindle the passion in your marriage. Dating can be one of the most exciting times in any relationship: it’s when you’re constantly thinking about each other, finding out so much about each other and forming that deep connection. But what makes dating so awesome? How do men and women come at it differently? And how can a married couple make this come a...

Most couples do not wake up one day and decide the spark is gone. It fades quietly. You are still kind to each other. You still kiss goodbye. But somewhere along the way you notice you are living more like cooperative roommates than people who are actually in love. If you have wondered whether that shift is permanent, the neuroscience of love has something to say about it, and the answer is more hopeful than most of us have been led to believe. The short version: your brain is not designed to m...

Fear is a frightening thing. In marriage, it is usually an invisible force. Like the winds of a storm: invisible itself but threatening and destructive. However, fear is always extinguished by the steady flame of committed love. I think we all carry some fear in our hearts, at some level. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the more confidence you see in a person, the more likely they have fear issues. So this episode may be particularly relevant to those of us who feel that we really don...