Episodes

When life is hard, Holidays can feel heavy. When there is a marriage crisis, it can be tough to muster the energy to even move forward — especially when all the commercials and movies push the “merry and bright” of a mythic holiday. And here we are, on the cusp of the Holiday season! It cuts across nations and beliefs. The season is here. A client recently told me, “I just want to crawl into bed and get up on January 2nd." What a loss! No chance to find the deeper meaning of the Holidays. No cha...

"I just outgrew you," he said to her in my office. But as we talked, I was not convinced that he had actually "outgrown" her. But it was clear that neither felt supported in their own personal growth. He said, "You stifle me," and she answered, "You never care about my interests." And both were right. But both missed the opportunity -- self-expansion as a part of the relationship. They could both grow, both explore, and still stay married. Recent research has shown that one of the leading contri...

Sometimes, people tell me that as they are trying to save their marriage, they actually feel like they are trying to earn back the love of a spouse. They want to know if that is what it really is -- earning back the love (and even trust). The short answer is NO, that is not the goal. A slightly longer answer is that if you are working to earn back love, you are also working on building a unsustainable and not-very-healthy relationship. That is my topic for this week's Save The Marriage Podcast: ...

Here we are, right at Thanksgiving Day in the United States. The day we are supposed to be filled with gratitude, feeling thankful for those around us. Which may feel like a tall order if your marriage is in the middle of a crisis (or if you are in any sort of crisis for that matter!). What, gratitude when life stinks? Yep. In fact, gratitude is even MORE important when we are in the midst of a crisis. Yes, it is important every day. But when your life is upside-down, gratitude can help you get ...

Maybe your spouse has been saying, "This is ALL YOUR FAULT!" Or maybe it is just you... wondering... torturing yourself... about whether this marriage crisis is your fault. Are you the problem? Let me reassure you that you are not the first person to wonder that. People search about that on my blog. People write me to ask that same question. Many people start our coaching sessions with the same question. So, what is the truth? Are you the problem? Did you cause the problem? Does that even help t...

People hear me talk about forgiving (I wrote a book on it). Then they ask, "why should I have to forgive?" Ironically, my point was that forgiving frees the forgiver. I tackle forgiveness in-depth for this week's podcast. In fact, I give you a 6 step process of how to forgive. But of course, this is only helpful if you think you want to forgive. I start the podcast by clarifying what I mean by forgiveness, and why I think it is so important. (Hint: not forgiving is like having a systemic infecti...

You want to save your marriage. Your spouse seems to only want to destroy it. That is a pretty common scenario for people who visit my website. And so, I often have the question asked, "Should we separate? Will a separation save my marriage?" Can a separation save a marriage? Short answer: yes, it can. Longer answer: a separation can save a marriage, but it is statistically unlikely. And in my experience, a separation is a step in the wrong direction. Some recent statistics show that around 79% ...

Is your marriage infected by the "zombie virus?" Do you find your relationship to be the "walking dead?" Are emotions lost and connections missing? Do you and your spouse respond to each other with "zombie grunts?" The infection can be stopped. You can fight the infection and heal the relationship. Don't allow the big 4 symptoms of a zombie infection to overtake your relationship's immune system. Fight back and restore your relationship to the living and the healthy. Okay, to be fair, this is a ...