Episodes

Emotional labour is a significant part of a couple’s relationship. Emotional labour was first coined by the sociologist Arlie Hochschild in her book, The Managed Heart (1983)[1]. She defined it as the work of managing your own emotions, but the term has been expanded to looking at the overall burden of managing or carrying emotions in a marriage and/or family context. You’ll probably be aware in your own marriage, one spouse often takes most of the responsibility for worrying about a particular ...

Secure attachment is foundational for strong marriages where both partners feel safe and secure. In the past three episodes, we’ve been looking at different styles of attachment that are born out of difficult childhood experiences. Today, we are considering the fourth style, secure attachment, which is really the goal that those of us with these other styles are striving for. Only about 46% of the population has secure attachment as their primary attachment style. We want to explore this one and...

If your spouse seems to want you close one moment and pushes you away the next, you are not imagining things. That confusing pattern of reaching for connection and then retreating from it is one of the clearest signs of disorganized attachment in marriage. It leaves you wondering which version of your partner is the real one, and whether you are doing something wrong. You are not. What you are seeing is the result of something that started long before you entered the picture. Disorganized attac...

If you find yourself checking your phone constantly when your spouse is out, replaying conversations for signs of emotional distance, or feeling a wave of anxiety the moment they seem even slightly withdrawn, you are not being “too much.” You may be experiencing anxious attachment in marriage, and it is one of the most common patterns we see in our practice. Anxious attachment in marriage is a relational pattern rooted in early life experiences where closeness feels essential but never quite se...

Often, people see tension between spirituality and the field of psychology. Academics seem to look down on matters of belief as unintellectual, and the faithful sometimes think that scientists are secular opponents to all religion. However, research is continuing to indicate that expressions of faith have tangible, measurable benefits. This holds particularly true about prayer. Marriage Affects Cardiovascular Health Marital strain and conflict can have a direct effect on your heart. In fact, ...

How Common Is Clergy Sexual Misconduct? When people search for ‘pastor adultery,’ they are usually looking for one of two things: evidence that the problem is real, or help understanding why it happens. What the research reveals is that this kind of behavior is both more common and more clinically complex than most people expect — and that calling it ‘adultery’ often misses something important. Research on clergy sexual misconduct in the church paints a troubling picture. In an anonymous surve...

The road to discovering your spouse’s sexual addiction takes many forms. Sometimes, compulsive sexual behavior can be completely hidden for years before it is found out. It may happen as a single, devastating revelation or as a series of smaller discoveries. Perhaps you already knew about their sexual compulsivity but hoped that marriage would somehow temper this behavior. But each promise that your spouse makes to change becomes yet another broken commitment. Sexual addiction can have devasta...

Everyone knows the “fairy-tale ending.” The prince and the princess get married, and they live happily ever after. While you will be able to find happiness in marriage, it’s common to experience hardships that fairy tales never address. Sometimes, you will experience rocky times for a few days, months, or even years. The reality of two very different people living as a single unit is very challenging. But at the end of the day, it’s worth the effort. Studies show that married people are, on ave...

Shame is such a powerful emotion. The problem is, it can lead to seemingly contradictory behavior, particularly in the context of addiction. Shame’s close relationship with pornography consumption can cause porn addicts to fall into cycles of shame over their addiction, followed by giving into their addiction, followed by more shame. As with most addictions, porn addiction typically has roots in other deficits. Because you are hurt, lack something, or desire something, you might turn to porn as...

Most people have heard of boundaries and understand that it’s good to have healthy boundaries in marriage. But as with any psychological concept that enters the public sphere, its application can be quite twisted from its intended form. Sometimes people will cut off members of their family, labeling that action as “setting a boundary”. Or others will use boundaries as a way to manipulate friends into doing what they want. By applying the term “boundaries” to these actions, people often are just...

In the Book of Revelation, the Bible talks about Four Horsemen that will herald the apocalypse. Symbolizing pestilence, war, famine, and death, these Horsemen are meant to be the signs that indicate that the end of the world is imminent. Borrowing from this Biblical illustration, Dr. John Gottman identified the four most critical indicators of marital separation: criticism, defensiveness, contempt, and stonewalling. Based on his study of over 2,000 couples for more than twenty years, he was abl...

You know something is wrong. Your chest feels tight, your jaw is clenched, and the conversation with your spouse that ended twenty minutes ago is still looping in your head. But if someone asked you right now what you actually feel, you might say “fine” or “frustrated” or just shrug. This is where most people live. And if you have ever wondered how to identify your emotions past the surface level, you are not alone. The short answer: to identify your emotions, pause long enough to notice what ...

Marriages can be strange. You slog through the daily grind, but at least you’ve got your partner. You think that everything’s fine, but then one day you wake up and realize that you don’t feel close to your spouse anymore. This is a common event in any marriage. Sometimes it’s because of normal life transitions. Sometimes it’s something drastic, like the death of a parent, or a traumatic accident. Or maybe the excitement you once felt has just gradually disappeared until you’re just… bored. Is...

It might seem strange to be focusing on the betraying spouse. After all, they weren’t the ones who were victimized. However, if the betraying spouse does not grow as a result of the wrong they did, that leaves their betrayed spouse vulnerable. So yes, it is vital for you, the betraying spouse, to help your partner cope with the fallout of your betrayal. But in the aftermath, you too must focus on your own healing process as well. In this way, you take tangible steps to safeguard your spouse fro...

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...