Episodes

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...

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?