The Marriage Podcast for Smart People

Marriage can seem pretty complicated. There’s scores of websites, hundreds of books and thousands of research articles. And yet folks — perhaps even yourselves – are still struggling. Sticky Notes Are Simple Sometimes it’s nice just to back off from all that complexity. Think simple thoughts. Do simple things. But that make a difference. In this week’s shorter summer episode (still on holidays – yay!) we take a break from our usual research-based programming to remind you that simple still works. In this case, following the theme of using romantic text messages from our previous post, we want you to think about how you can use sticky notes to spice up your marriage. Sticky Notes = Happiness The thought behind this strategy is to engage in small activities that are easy to do but build fondness and admiration into your marriage. You need lots of that. According to Dr. John Gottman we need 5 positive moments for every negative moment in our marriage Sticky notes are an easy way to do that. You can court your spouse with them. You can add some fun to your marriage with them. And you can use them as little sparks to light the fire in your marriage. Generally, life is fairly stressful. You’re likely facing a lot of challenges. But these little moments of positivity create buffers against stress and its impact on your marriage. Romantic Sticky Notes We want you to be intentional about this. Sticky notes are inexpensive but they can add a lot of value to your marriage! You can use them to surprise your spouse. You can use them to remind your spouse. You can stick them anywhere. Try: * A lunch bag * In his or her vehicle * On the mirror in the washroom * In the kitchen sink * In a purse or briefcase * Under the pillow * In the underwear drawer * Out in the workshop Wondering what to write on them? Well, you don’t have a lot of space so it has got to be meaningful and pithy. How about: * Bible verses * Words of affirmation and praise * Gratitude and appreciation * 30 things you love about her (one per note; number them 1/30, 2/30 etc. and hide them all over) * Encouragement * “I love you!” * Suggestive comments. Just because you got married doesn’t mean you need to stop flirting with your spouse! * Coupons (“This sticky note is good for one 15 minute massage” is a good start!) Give it a shot. Let us know how it goes! Marriage can seem pretty complicated. There’s scores of websites, hundreds of books and thousands of research articles. And yet folks — perhaps even yourselves – are still struggling. Sticky Notes Are Simple Sometimes it’s nice just to back off from all that complexity. Think simple thoughts. Do simple things. But that make a difference. In this week’s shorter summer episode (still on holidays – yay!) we take a break from our usual research-based programming to remind you that simple still works. In this case, following the theme of using romantic text messages from our previous post, we want you to think about how you can use sticky notes to spice up your marriage.

I think that one of the lamest things to do is to break up a relationship by text message. Lame, lame, lame. But you’re married now and looking for a way to keep the flame alive, right? So, today as part of our mini-series of short summer episodes we’re looking at a redemptive use of text messages: romancing your spouse! Romantic Texts Help You Keep Connected Text messaging works great for this because it is so quick and easy. Not to make it sound cheap. Quite the opposite, actually. Marriage is a big deal. A very big deal. But even the simple, quick tokens of love that can be sent via text message go a long way to creating resilience and positivity in your marriage. And when you shoot a quick, heartfelt text to your wife or husband, it can be really touching because it shows that you are thinking of them. The unprompted spontaneity is heartwarming. Romantic Text Ideas We’ve got a PDF of great ideas you can download but first let me give you the general concept. The best text messages are going to be those that come from your own heart in your own words. So here’s some general ideas to work around: * Something you appreciate about your spouse * How about flirting? or be suggestive? * “I love you” out of the blue always hits the mark * Gratitude and appreciation. Simple is fine: thank him/her for making your lunch! * How about a Bible verse that is encouraging? * Share something you just discovered that speaks to a mutual interest * Strengthen him/her in some area where you know he/she doubts himself * Express your commitment and loyalty How Is This Helping? What this is doing is helping you develop your fondness and admiration system. That system is a core resiliency in thriving marriages that will help you weather the stress and challenges that life throws at you. It also helps buffer you against the conflict that we all experience in our marriages. We’d love to hear from you! What is the most romantic thing your spouse has ever texted you? I think that one of the lamest things to do is to break up a relationship by text message. Lame, lame, lame. But you’re married now and looking for a way to keep the flame alive, right? So, today as part of our mini-series of short summer episodes we’re looking at a redemptive use of text messages: romancing your spouse! Romantic Texts Help You Keep Connected Text messaging works great for this because it is so quick and easy. Not to make it sound cheap. Quite the opposite, actually. Marriage is a big deal. A very big deal. But even the simple, quick tokens of love that can be sent via text message go a long way to creating resilience and positivity in your marriage. And when you shoot a quick, heartfelt text to your wife or husband, it can be really touching because it shows that you are thinking of them. The unprompted spontaneity is heartwarming. Romantic Text Ideas We’ve got a PDF of great ideas you can download but first let me give you the general concept. The best text messages are going to be those that come from your own heart in your own words. So here’s some general ideas to work around: * Something you appreciate about your spouse * How about flirting? or be suggestive? * “I love you” out of the blue always hits the mark * Gratitude and appreciation. Simple is fine: thank him/her for making your lunch! * How about a Bible verse that is encouraging? * Share something you just discovered that speaks to a mutual interest * Strengthen him/her in some area where you know he/she doubts himself

Most wedding speeches are lame. There, I said it. Somebody needed to. We have a lot of listeners tuning into our podcast because they’re getting ready for marriage. If that is you, and if you are the groom in particular, I would like you to heed the advice herein. Epic Wedding Speech-making Your wedding speech is an opportunity to be legendary. The competition is nearly non-existent (think, “…and I’d like to thank Betsy for ALL the work she did on the center pieces…yawn). Most wedding speeches are just a tiresome list of thanks spieled off after a reception that has already gone on too long. My proposal is that you, the groom, think about how you can add a personal touch to your speech that will leave an impression that adds honour to the occasion. The Five Keys to a Brilliant Wedding Speech 1. What She Means to You Yes, She. She Who Must Be Obeyed. Lol. Seriously: I want you to provide heartfelt testimony to the incredible attractiveness of your spouse in front of all who are in attendance. If you can’t think of content for this testimony: think about how you can end the engagement as respectfully as possible. But, if you’re like me and you sincerely believe you’re one of those guys who just landed the gal of his dreams then you’ll have plenty of content. Tell them what she means to you. 2. How She Has Impacted You Already This builds on #1 by providing your audience with real examples of the impact that this incredible woman has already had for good in your life. Again, if she is the girl of your dreams you should be able to come up with some real examples and genuine commentary on what a blessing she has been to you. 3. Why You Cherish Her Now Your relationship will unfold over years to come. It’s a journey. But for where you are at today, your wedding day, I am calling on you to speak to why you cherish her at this moment. What are the values, attitudes, beliefs and character traits that make her so precious to you? 4. Why I Am Attracted To You If you have been speaking about your wife, this is the point you turn to her and speak from your heart. Tell her why you are so absolutely struck by her that there is nobody else in the world you would consider marrying. 5. Ice the Cake If she’s not in tears (the warm fuzzy feeling kind of tears) this is where you just put the finishing touches on the speech in your own words. Pause. “{Her name}, I love you. Thank you for marrying me.” Pause And Then The Rest of It Yes, you should do your thank you’s. But before that, turn to her parents for a moment and speak to them. Now, I don’t know what you think of your in-laws. But if it is all possible to honestly and authentically do so, you should thank them for their daughter. They’ve had a lot of influence on forming her character. They all say “We’re gaining a son today” but really, they’re losing their daughter. You’re setting up a new family unit with her and they know it’s going to be a new relationship for them. So thank them. And then, last, but not least, the sincere thank you’s for all the other folks who made the day special. Be authentic but also be methodical. What I Didn’t Do That I Wish I Had Looking back, there’s one thing I wish I had done. I wish I had paused to thank God for Verlynda, for our marriage, and for all of our loved ones and friends who came to celebrate the day with us. I’ve done it many times since, but if I could one thing differently that would be on the list for sure. Those are my thoughts. Now, it’s your turn! What is (or was) the favorite part of your wedding speech? Most wedding speeches are lame. There, I said it.

Have you ever been in that place? You know, you come home from work… the house is a mess… you don’t want to be there… you’re yelling at the kids… you’re yelling at your spouse because your environment is a mess but it’s like your inside is a mess and your emotions are a mess too. Nobody likes to live like that. Not only that – it’s not good for you either. That’s why we interviewed Marla Cilley, a housekeeping guru commonly known as FlyLady, for some tips on how to get out of this chaos. You’ll definitely want to listen to this interview from start to finish! First though, I was curious if there was any scientific research surrounding stress levels and home environments. It turns out there is. Wives who described their homes as more restorative (meaning they enjoyed their home environment) had lower stress levels and less depressed mood across the day. Conversely wives who described their homes as more stressful had indicators (a flatter slope of diurnal cortisol) of chronic stress. Those indicators are typically associated with adverse health outcomes. Apparently husbands are not affected so much by the home environment, as there was really a null result for them. The conclusion is that wives feel more responsibility for the home environment.[i] The same researcher found an association between wive’s marital satisfaction and the flatter slop of diurnal cortisol. We all know that correlation doesn’t imply causation, but we think it is reasonable to conclude that if you find your home environment stressful, particularly as a wife, you’ll likely to have decreased marital satisfaction. The converse is true as well.[ii] So, I think it is safe to say that taking care of your home is another way of taking care of your marriage. We are not asking wives to do this, but we want both of you to take this seriously and figure out how to divide up the responsibilities. Not only does the research show that home environments affect the diurnal cortisol which impacts marital satisfaction, but the same theme carries over to parenting. Findings show that maladaptive parenting styles and child emotionality both increase in cluttered homes. The researchers saw this as being mediated by maternal tenseness.[iii] The case we’re making here is that creating a home environment that is peaceful and has some sense of serenity and calm is a blessing to your marriage and your family. That’s why we interviewed FlyLady – to ask her how to help young couples get their homes organized and kept tidy. She gave us some awesome information including: * Where to start – especially if you’ve got company company * A different focus for each month of the year * How to build a routine * How to get rid of your perfectionism * How to break your home into zones so it’s not so overwhelming * How to create that relaxing environment you want to come home to * How to save money in the kitchen. Thanks again to Marla Cilley for providing such masterful content to us all! You can find more about her at www.flylady.net and be sure to follow her on Facebook and Twitter. For more great content on how to make your marriage thriving and passionate, be sure to sign up for our email list now. You only stand to benefit from it! References [i] Darby E. Saxbe and Rena Repetti, “No Place Like Home: Home Tours Correlate With Daily Patterns of Mood and Cortisol,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 36, no. 1 (2010): 71–81, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.

Even if it feels impossible at this moment, I want you to know that it is possible to rebuilt trust, to create safety and to restore intimacy to your marriage. I’m not saying it’s going to be easy or simple. I can’t even promise that your trust will never be broken again. But I am saying that it is possible. In every human relationship, probably without exception, there are moments of betrayal. This has been happening for millennia: think even of the words of King David in Psalm 41:9, “Even my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me.” Jesus Christ himself was betrayed, so know that you’re not alone. He understands, he’s been there. It happens to everyone. As common as it is though, there may be no blow as severe as a betrayal – we feel it keenly. The good news though, is that it doesn’t have to be fatal to your marriage. If you are the injured party, this post is especially for you. We hope it will be a comfort to you as well as help you figure out how to move forward after a betrayal. If you have been betrayed, there is a process you’re going to go through. Of course, your own journey is always unique but here’s typically what we see when working with couples in distress following the disclosure of an extramarital affair, perceived abandonment, disclosure of a pornography addiction, or even major changes of lifestyle and values and even religion. Generally there are three phases:[i] * Roller Coaster * Moratorium * Trust building Stage 1: Roller Coaster This is no surprise here. Researchers wrote that “initial responses to a partner’s disclosure of infidelity were often intensely emotionally charged” which makes perfect sense. We see folks swinging between severe grief and numbness to thoughts of murder and escape. There is often a lot of confrontation and anger being expressed and a flood of conflicting emotions going on. These conflictions emotions are wanting to get past the offense but at the same time refusing to. Or, wanting revenge by doing the same thing, but hating what has been done, etc. No matter what feelings are going on here, they are very strong. You can see why it is called the roller coaster stage. The important part here is being willing to express the strong emotions to trusted confidante’s: a counsellor, a church leader you can trust, and to your spouse who has injured you. He/she needs to see your pain. Stage 2: Moratorium When the emotional reactivity slows down and you find yourself trying to make meaning of the betrayal, you’ve moved into the moratorium stage. This period typically involves quite a bit of obsessing about details, retreating or pulling back from your spouse physically and emotionally, and recruiting the support of others to try to make meaning of the betrayal. As a cautionary note: If this was a sexual betrayal, obsessing about details is not always healthy. You need enough to make you feel safe, but if you start getting all sorts of voyeuristic details, they’ll create memories and images that will be very difficult for you to overcome. According to the researchers, here’s what you probably should know in the case of an affair:[ii] * Who the extramarital partner was * How long the affair lasted * How often they met * Where they met. If you find yourself on an endless search for facts, it may be because it is easier to talk about facts than feelings. When you feel yourself going down this pathway, as the betrayed spouse, stop and think about what you are feeling and what you need. You are probably needing reassurance that your spouse wants to work on the marriage and still finds you attractive and loveable. Learn to be more vocal about this and focus on feelings, not facts.

So, what if your parents didn’t have a great marriage? Or, maybe other folks who served as role models in your life haven’t modeled a healthy, thriving marriage? Are you hooped, or is there hope? Let’s figure out if there’s any hope. If you are in this situation of having poor role models, you are not alone. This is such a common, shared experience. We all try to do our best as a couple, but even then, I’m sure our kids can see things that they like and will adopt from our relationship, but also see other things they’re not going to want to carry forward. We all face this challenge of role models, to varying degrees, so be encouraged! The first thing we need to remember is that all role models are useful. We all think the positive ones are, but negative ones can be as well. What the research shows about human behavior is that when we want to add positive, beneficial activities to our lives we look for positive role models. For example, if I want to work out more often, I will choose a fit person as a role model. On the other hand, when we want to remove unhelpful behaviors, such as over-eating, we may consider a very obese person as a role model. That is an example of a useful negative role model.[i] We use positive role models to help us engage in beneficial activities and negative role models to sustain our motivation to refrain from negative activities. So, no matter what role models you had, they all are useful either as something you want to imitate or avoid. Another challenge when thinking about our role models is to remember that role models are very rarely ALL bad or ALL good. We want to be selective and wise and put things in the right buckets. It’s really about taking the good and leaving the bad, or as Caleb says, eating the meat and spitting out the bones! There is an interesting cultural difference too when it comes to role models. European descendants are far more inspired and motivated by positive role models who highlight a strategy of pursuing success. More collectivistic cultures however, such as Asian-American, are more motivated by negative role models with a strategy to avoid failure. Your cultural background is going to influence how much value or importance you place on each type of role model.[ii] Let’s take a moment to look at root causes. How do our early role models affect our ability to relate today? Caleb values attachment theory when looking at early childhood role models. “The basic tenet of attachment theory is that the accessibility and responsiveness of a trusted other leads to greater social and emotional adjustment at any age.”[iii] This is saying that our ability to relate to others is formed by our childhood caregivers. The kind of atmosphere our caregivers gave us for establishing relationships affects even how we relate to people today. If our caregivers did not provide a safe, secure environment, we may struggle in our relationships, as we grow older. The good news is that attachment can improve in the context of a secure relationship. Be that trusted other for your spouse! The first part in doing this is to create safety within your marriage. Make it a shared value to respect one another. Avoid name-calling, barbed comments, teasing sprinkled with sarcastic truth, and any forms of criticism or contempt. Agree to create a culture within your marriage where safety is a fundamental, inviolable principle. So, even if you didn’t have good role models, make a covenant with your spouse that you are committed to making the marriage safe. This doesn’t mean the absence of conflict, it just means you’re committed to growing the sense of security and repairing breaches when they are made. Abuse, of any kind, is so damaging to a marriage because the fundamental principles of an intimate emot...

Because debt reduction is fundamentally a mental issue, not a financial one, this may be a different take on debt reduction that what you might be used to hearing. We’ll give some practical strategies and tactics, but first let’s figure out HOW we think about debt. Finances are a major stressor for most marriages, so here is a check point for you personally. You might already know this, but if you’re not 100% sure, sit down with your spouse and ask them what meanings they assign to debt. Ask the questions: How does debt impact you or affect you? What do you feel when you think about the debt we have right now? I know that Caleb and I experience debt differently, but empathy comes from understanding. Caleb is more comfortable with debt, as long as he has a sense that his income will cover the payments to repay it, but because he knows that I am less comfortable with it (as in, totally-anxious, make-me-sick uncomfortable), he is very considerate and will not go into debt without me being totally on board with it first. How we think about debt is critical, so today, we start with the psychology that you need to wrap your mind around before you think about what you can wrap your income around. To give you a frame for a background, let’s look at some research. In 2011, 63 couples with great marriages were asked about their finances.[i] A few themes became clear showing that part of the success of great marriages is due to careful, effective reduction of debt. Happy couples were more likely to pay off debt as quickly as possible. They were less likely to use credit cards at all, or just used them as convenience and paid them off monthly. The couple shared the common goal of debt reduction. Common goals are critical, because if you can’t agree on this, it’s not going to be possible to move forward to debt reduction. If this is your situation, you’re either going to have to accept the reality that your spouse isn’t going to change, or find another way to have a conversation about debt that your spouse can relate to. When you do that, you’re giving them a choice whether they want to act out of a place of empathy or choose to disregard your concerns. All you can do it put it out there to start with. Another theme that showed up in this study was that some couples started with a debt-free philosophy and other came to it over time. This is helpful as you have to see yourself as creating a great marriage and get comfortable with the fact that you are in development together. Give it time – give your mutual commitment to debt reduction time to develop and shape itself in your marriage as part of your common goal settings. The questions arises though, if debt reduction is a critical part of a successful marriage, why is it so hard to actually get on the same page about it? There are actually predictors of debt found through some extensive research studies. For example, one study found that health status and levels of changes in income are very robust predictors of debt in general. In other words, if your health is poor and/or your income never changes over an extended period of time, you’re most likely to be in debt. The same study found that for intermittent and chronic debt, locus of control, family structure during adolescence, socioeconomic status, work effort and martial status are robust predictors. Self esteem also plays specifically into chronic debt. Anything considered to be a disadvantage in life generally is indeed a disadvantage with regards to debt reduction. Sounds discouraging… Let’s look at Locus of Control a little closer. Locus of Control (LOC) is a concept from personality psychology that puts your personal belief about whether you have control over life or not on a continuum from external to internal. If it’s external you believe that fate, or God, or chance really initiates all the things that hap...

Ever get nailed by a surprise bill? Yeah, you knew insurance was due for the year but you thought it wasn’t till next month? This episode is about pain relief! More specifically, relief from the impact of those bigger, occasional, or annual bills. Not only do we need to keep track of our everyday expenses and budget for them, we also need to set up the part of our budget that deals with mid and long term planning. Emergencies also arise, so being prepared for those is very important too. We often fall into the if-then trap of “If I won the lottery, then everything would be fine financially”. Ironically, most lottery winners totally train wreck their lives. The words of the Bible are so true, “Wealth gained hastily will dwindle, but whoever gathers little by little will increase it.” (Proverbs 13:11). Because this is so true, we need to step away from this if-then principle and start working on consistent strategies of gathering little by little. Another reason to start this is most of us are not going to win the lottery, have huge inheritances from our parents, or a windfall from the stock market! There is something called the family stress theory which predicts that improved communication about finances should decrease hostility and increases warmth and supportive behaviours. You need to talk through all this budgeting stuff with your spouse because not only is financial stewardship the right thing to do, but it is also a significant factor in improving the quality of your marriage relationship. The researchers cited that financial factors predict 15% of marital satisfaction. That’s a lot of satisfaction based on ONE factor! This means that the greater your financial problems, the lower the quality of your relationship. Financial issues create emotional distress and part of reducing that stress is not only budgeting month to month, but also making sure you have a plan for the larger bills and for creating long term savings for yourselves.[i] Long-Term or Retirement Savings One great strategy to creating wealth for the future is to find a financial advisor. The intentionality and the relationship you build with your advisor forms a kind of accountability and helps you get real and determined about your savings. People who use a financial advisor: * End up establishing long term goals and work towards filling them * Actually sit down and calculate their financial needs for retirement * Create savings accounts dedicated to retirement * Increase the amount of money they save regularly * Report greater retirement confidence * Accumulate significantly higher levels of emergency funds. If you want these things to be true of you, then you might seriously consider getting a financial advisor who is trained and qualified in helping you create your own retirement savings plan.[ii] Since we got ours, it has created useful discussion and helped us to be very clear, consistent and confident about our own savings. Another way to make wealth grow is by living within your means and saving. Here are four key concepts to think about: * Keep finances simple and live within your means. Get loans paid off: credit lines or equity loans, automobile loans and credit card debt. All these things enable you to live beyond your means. * Save and invest 10% of your earned income annually. This is especially critical if you are employed as a wage earning family. * Whatever proceeds come from your investments, that income should be reinvested, ideally, all of it. Interest income should be put back into the investments as a long-term strategy to multiply your wealth. * Exchange wealth-depreciating assets for wealth-creating assets. [For example, if you were to exchange the asset value of your 50k main vehicle,

Today we’re getting into the nitty-gritty of HOW to create a family budget. We’ve done budgets and had to revisit them. We haven’t always been consistent with keeping a budget with moves and job transitions. But when we are budgeting, the stress in our marriage is much lower! First, let’s clarify what we know from what we don’t know. We know: * That there are many sound, recommended financial practices * That these practices come from reliable sources * That following these financial practices actually works and produces greater net worth and increased life satisfaction * That only a minority of people uses them. Which leads us to what we don’t know: * We don’t know why we frequently do not use them * We don’t know why, when we do use these tools, we don’t always use them properly. This scenario is typical for most families.[i] So let’s talk about discussing your budget and the role that personal qualities play in the likelihood of your success in establishing a budget before turning to the steps by which you’ll create your own budget. Discussing Your Family Budget It’s difficult to have a productive discussion about the budget itself because most couples do not discuss the meanings they give to budgeting. So have a discussion with your spouse to get this stuff out on the table. Don’t fight about what to spend or attempt to talk each other into budgeting, just aim for understanding. Your spouse is not on board? This is not the time for hot debate. Rather, seek to understand WHY your spouse does not want to actually follow through with the budget. What is the meaning behind the resistance? It’s been my experience (Caleb) in working with couples that there is often a valid reason why resistance is present. You need to do this because it’s no fun banging out an awesome budget only to have your spouse say, “Good for you! Let me know how that goes!” That sucks… So make sure you’re on the same page by having a good discussion first. Often if you can get to a discussion at the meanings level, you’ll be able to connect and get on the same page. Listening to understand is a vital skill for this type of conversation. Remember, you’re not alone. If you can’t settle on this together, reach out for help and we’ll set up some coaching. Understand Personal Qualities So after you’ve discussed and understood the meanings you each ascribe to budgets, the next step is to grasp the impact your personal qualities have on budgeting. For example, discipline (as a quality) and knowledge (of financial matters) are qualities that impact one’s ability to establish and follow a budget. Possessing these qualities will help you make progress against your financial goals.[ii] If you don’t feel you have these qualities: don’t fret. It’s gonna be ok. What this means is that budgeting is possible for everyone who wants to do it because personal qualities can be developed and action is a result of choice. Anyone can make choices. So be encouraged! Have a good conversation to find out where each of you are at, then make decisions together and take action. Again, it’s not unrealistic to think that you might need to reach out for help. Creating Your Family Budget Caleb blended content from both the Australian government (ASIC)[iii] and Dave Ramsey to provide a robust description of how to create your budget in this episode.[iv] Both resources are really valuable, and we’re taking the best of both of them and blending them because they really get along well.

Negotiating a family budget can be a real fire-starter for some couples. We may know we need a budget, and want to live within our means, but the fights that the discussions cause can be so painful, that it’s easier to avoid them. We want to change that today. For Caleb and I, a lot of our own frustration about money in the past has been because we never got ourselves on the same page. He would get a raise and think he had more spending power – I thought we’d have more to save. Then we’d both be frustrated! We’ve psycho-analyzed ourselves and have figured this out somewhat: * Caleb had little to no visibility into our budget. It wasn’t because I was hiding it, but we had never made a point of really talking it through and figuring it out. * We have different saving philosophies. Caleb believes he’ll create wealth through his career and end up ahead. I believe wealth is created by saving money regularly. * On the budget we let the discussion be more about what you wanted vs. what I wanted instead of starting with the reality of what we could and couldn’t afford. Good financial management is not about winning certain arguments – it’s about making sure your outflows are less than your inflows. In our case, instead of going to the numbers, we’d just go to frustration between us. * Our personalities: I feel best/most satisfied around finances when we’re saving. Caleb feels best when he is spending. He claims he’s a therapist and part of his self-care is retail therapy! * It has taken us a while to be together on our money. It was never a critical issue but it’s been stressful more than most other issues so I think we’re typical. Given that we understand how stressful negotiating finances can be, we want to give you some skills to negotiate this with your spouse. The Psychology and Psychiatry Journal published some research by Capital One, a major North American credit card provider (which may be more than slightly biased!). Some quick facts from their research: * 93% of those surveyed believe their spouse is open to discussing money issues * 25% disagree with their spouse about money at least once a month * Younger people are more prone o conflicts with their spouse about money * 76% believe they share the same philosophy as their spouse when it comes to managing money, such as saving vs. spending. The younger the couple, the more this figure drops * 65% of couples report having the recommended 3 to 6 months emergency savings fund. (We don’t believe this…) * Most spouses spend independently of each other and only consult if it’s over a certain dollar amount.[i] There are no real horror-stats around family budgeting except for the following from the Federal Reserve, a US government insitutation. As of Feburary 2015 there were: * $4.5 billion in outstanding car loans * $12 billion in consumer credit card debt * Just under $10 billion in 24 month consumer debt loans.[ii] Given these statistics, we can see that there must be more financial stress in marriages than Capital One is reporting. Remember there are also gender differences when it comes to managing money. In 2002, 62% of households reported that savings and investment decisions were made jointly. Men were the primary decision makers for 26% of households and in 12% of households the female was the primary decision maker.[iii] Bernasek & Bajtelsmit also found that women’s involvement in household financial decisions increased with their share of household income and their formal financial education implying that women are more likely to have an influence on financial decisions when they contribute a larger income share to the household.

Budgeting can feel like such a ball and chain. Why is it such a pain point for so many of us? This is the first article in a mini series on Family Budgeting. Today we make a case for WHY you need to budget. Usually, every relationship has a spender and a saver. Caleb is our spender, and I am our saver/budgeter! It has taken us a while to negotiate that. For example, we both want a retirement fund. However, Caleb wants to create that wealth by generating revenue, and I want to create that wealth by saving. There’s a big difference there! One that has caused a bit of friction in our relationship… Caleb and I also get stressed about different things. He stresses most about making an income and always wants more than he has. I get stressed about balancing our budget. Believe me, we’re still figuring this out as we go. We’ve learned a lot along our fifteen years of marriage that is really helpful for us, and we want to see also what the research has to say so that you can really be together on this part of your marriage as well. In 2000, Kerkmann conducted a study of young married couples that were students with modest financial resources. He found that “financial management behaviors (defined as budgeting expenses against income) and the perception of how well finances were managed were both significantly related to satisfaction with their marriages. Financial problems (mismatch between financial resources and demands) as well as the perceived magnitude of financial problems showed a statistically significant correlation with how satisfied the chief financial manager was with his/her marriage.” As a result of a regression analysis, Kerkmann found that 13-15% of marital satisfaction was explained by perceived quality of financial management and financial problems.[i] It is interesting to note that perception is more important than reality. You have to believe you’re doing a good job. It is not you compared to others, it is just you that needs to be satisfied with how your finances are handled. I questioned the fact that it was ok to have debt as long as both spouses were ok with it, so Caleb explained that all the research was saying was if the perception of the couple is that they were managing their debt well, they would be more satisfied. BUT, we need to look at more research to get the big picture. Here is some background information about debt that Dew assembled in 2008: * the average American household has consumer debt equal to 20% of their yearly income * recently married couples typically have high levels of debt and take on debt as they establish their new household (go out and buy a bunch of stuff using debt) * debt generally predicts increases in marital conflict and that newlyweds rated debt as their second highest marital concern. Dew wanted to find out how change in debt predicted change in marital satisfaction for newlyweds. He found that as couples assumed debt, they were more likely to: * spend less time together * argue more about their finances, and * feel that their marriage was unfair. He points out that all of these findings suggest that consumer debt (debt incurred on the purchase of consumable goods/goods that do not appreciate[ii]) may inhibit recently married couple’s attempts to form a new family unit.[iii] Right at the point you’re trying to create this new happy, blissful experience, you go buy a bunch of things you think you need in order to support that happiness but you actually end up sabotaging the whole thing. So, even if you’re both good with the debt you’re incurring, and believe it’s OK, there are other factors undermining the happiness you’re aiming for. Later on, Dew looked at the relationship between debt and divorce.

Life is busy. So busy. But so often we let other people and other things run our schedules and in the process of allowing this to happen: what really matters to us gets bumped. Like time with our spouse…Date nights…Fun nights…Just time to hang out. What can we do to change that? We all hit phases in life that are busy. It is totally normal! If this is you right now, don’t worry, it doesn’t mean your marriage is done – you’ve done well just to recognize the stage you’re in. I like the phrase from the Bible verse from Ecclesiastes 9:9 which says “Enjoy life with your wife”! Sometimes we get so serious about life that we forget to create good times together, but marriage researchers have known for a long time that happily married couples enjoy leisure activities together. This is evident in the research as far back as 1951 – married people have been having fun for quite a while! A particular pair of researchers way back then, wanted to look particularly at the crowd of married folk who were transitioning to parenthood for the first time. They found that initially, leisure time dropped but then started to go back up after the first several weeks of new parenting had passed. However, here’s what is interesting. They looked at the leisure before marriage as well. If there was SHARED leisure prenatally, there was more marital love and less conflict one year later. If there was only independent leisure prenatally, there was less love and more conflict 1 year later. SO: creating shared leisure time is good! Build positivity into your marriage as a buffer against future stress.[i] The good news is that in marriages today, more married couples are sharing leisure time than was happening in 2003, 1975, or back in 1965. In this study, the researchers found that dual-earner couples spent less time in the presence of their spouse than single-earner couples. If you’re a dual-earner couple, this is tougher for you. They also found, not surprisingly, that the presence of children equated to a drop in the amount of joint leisure time with a spouse.[ii] Again, this is a normal situation to find yourself in. Many folks feel that they’re the only ones struggling, but they’re not. You are not alone. We all face these challenges! So, what can we do about all of this? First thing – drop the idea of time management. You can’t manage time. Time happens whether you think you’re managing it or not. Thinking too hard about trying to force time to do something for you means that you’re giving he power over to something outside your control. You can’t stop time or make it go slower! What you can manage is your SELF! Forget about time management and think about self-management. So, how can we bring this into our daily lives? First, think about WHAT you do when you are together. How do you manage yourself during the time you have together? Here are some things for you to think about: 1. Most couple’s time together is meal times, the evening and night. 2. Do not cut back on sleep. As Shawn Stevenson told us in episode 38, sleep impacts the quality of your marriage. Again, do not cut back on sleep! 3. Think about the role of TV and movies in your life. Caleb and I do not own a TV, nor do we subscribe to Netflix or any such streaming service. We do breath oxygen and put our pants on one leg at a time, so we’re not totally weird! The decision to live free from all sources of streaming media is a huge blessing to our family because we have WAY more time together, and when we’re together we’re not distracted by the TV or watching a movie. Think seriously about how much time you spend watching TV and video. Have you heard the saying, “We’re all in this together – alone”?

So, we’ve had some listeners reach out with some questions about sex, and more specifically, questions about female orgasm. For most young couples getting married you know that while sex is awesome, it takes a while to develop sexual competence. To give you some great help, we interviewed an expert in the field of sexuality – Shannon Ethridge. She is an awesome resource, one we highly recommend, and we encourage you to reach out to her. The links to find her are at the bottom of this post.   Shannon Ethridge’s Story I’d like to share this with you to give you hope! Even if you began your sexual history in ways you are not proud of, you can be an overcomer and be a great sex partner in your marriage. As an adolescent, Shannon had a very promiscuous sex life. The root cause being she felt so disconnected from her Dad and brother. When Shannon was 4, her 8 year old sister died. Her family seemed to shut down at that time, so she grew up very hungry for attention and affection. When she turned 11-12 and started to develop hips and breasts, she had some uncles who taught her how to get attention and affection by playing inappropriate games. That groomed her until she was 14, when she gave her virginity away looking for love, as she says, “in all the wrong places” and starting her on a trajectory of promiscuity for the next 5 or 6 years. In her early 20’s, she met a 6’7” spiritual giant of a man who was still a virgin. Assuming he wouldn’t want anything to do with a girl like her, she told him a bit about her past. He replied, “Shannon, I don’t love you because of your past, I love you for who you are now and who God created you to be and I want to help you become who God created you to be.” Unfortunately, as Shannon noted, putting a wedding band on her finger did not transform her sexuality and fix all her problems. It was a few short years into their marriage when Shannon realized she needed to sift through and sort out all her sexual baggage. She had stopped the promiscuity, but in the process had stopped her sexuality for her husband as well. Shannon had to find the happy medium where she was an active, interested sex partner, but only with her husband. Now, given that they just celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary, I’d say they are a success story! Another neat thing I found with Shannon is that she and I are both passionate about helping others create their own success story and in this episode, we want to do just that with you, our reader/listener. Given that part of a successful marriage is a healthy sex life, Shannon and I talked about sex, and more specifically female orgasm. What I’ve written below reads more as a blog post, but credit for this great content goes to Shannon! Question: Why is it that men are usually always ready to go, and for women, well, it takes some work to have an orgasm? Men are usually ready at the drop of a hat to have sex, but for them sex is also finished at the drop of a hat. Women take much longer to reach orgasm, sometimes ten times longer, but it means that she gets to enjoy the pleasure for that much longer. Sex is not a race. Just because it takes a wife longer, does not mean that she shouldn’t expect her husband to do this for her. If your husband is a good lover, he will enjoy what he is doing for you and have all the patience in the world for you to reach that climactic point. It takes the average couple 18 years to settle into a really smooth sexual groove together. It may feel like a headache in the first few years of marriage that you’re wired so differently and that you start so differently and that you finish so differently, but work at it and it will become smoother, more enjoyable, and more euphoric. If you’re a young wife, in those first few years of marriage where you’re trying to find your sexual groove, here are some suggestions for helping your husband help you ...

We’ve noticed that a lot of marriages take a very traditional approach where all the work HE does is money-earning, and all the work SHE does in unpaid – and usually unacknowledged. So we ask, is this a good thing, or is it a problem? What happens for those wives who take on more and more, and might even do all the housework AND are employed full time? How does that work? If you are a wife that is struggling because you are overloaded with employment and housework – or a husband in the same situation – what is reasonable? What should your expectations be? How can you work together to create a better balance in your marriage? First: some personal insight into how this plays out in our own marriage: For most of our marriage, Caleb has worked in the labour market and I’ve worked at keeping the home. We both like that best, although we have had periods of both of us working too. During this time, Caleb let me do the dishes and would pitch in the odd time when things were really bad or he felt guilty, or whatever. He realized recently, that he carried an unspoken belief that dishes were part of my job description, not his. Then he saw an uncle with a similar marriage to ours (she stayed at home, he worked outside the home) that had no concept of the dishes being on her job list and not his. After each meal, he just pitched in… and, so did she… and, so did all of their children. They had some great family mojo going on, and were all together in the kitchen after supper. This got Caleb reflecting on his own values, and at the end of the day he realized he was just being prideful – like dishes weren’t worth his time and he had more valuable things to do. He also realized it was a power imbalance; that there wasn’t anything intrinsically special or valuable about him over me that means I should do lesser work than he. The Bible talks about the husband nourishing and cherishing his wife, and about sacrificing himself for her benefit so that she feels loved.[i] He realized he needed to change how he thought about our dishes. Now, most of the time, we do dishes together! What is really neat is our kids join us and we all do this together without us having to beg or bribe them, turning a chore into some great family time. What’s more, if Caleb or I have something on in the evening, we don’t mind the other not helping with dishes that night. It has given us more freedom and less of a martyr attitude. So that’s how this has played out in our lives, but what does the research say? In all industrialized countries, the division of household labour remains unbalanced and gender dependent. Women are still left with the major responsibility for housework and childcare, and wives perform two to three times more family work than their husbands do.[ii] Here’s what happens that influences perceptions of fairness. * Spouses who have employment reduce their participation in housework. (No surprises there) * Most marriages assume that the spouse who creates less (or no) household income should assume a larger share of household work. * Traditional women are socialized to accept an unbalanced division of household labour and are cool with this. They believe it’s legitimate. * About 45% of women in this worldwide study believed the distribution of household labour was fair. * The most influential factor on whether you think the share of housework you do is fair or not is gender ideology (#3 above). Your belief about what is fair is most significant. Which is why in marriage it’s really important to figure how/if these beliefs align, and if not, how you’re going to reconcile them.[iii] * Couple more points. If a wife held a full time job (and low time availability) she felt more injustice if she still did the majority of the ho...

OK. So you had ANOTHER fight – another disagreement. It’s like, man, are we ever going to stop fighting? Remember, the goal is not achieving zero disagreements, it’s learning to disagree productively!   Caleb and I recently had a disagreement. Caleb told the story in our podcast episode: “So I remember a recent disagreement we had. We were actually talking about a Sunday school lesson you were doing in the Old Testament. And you really wanted to emphasize the holiness of God as was expressed in that passage – how we need to revere God and not be flippant or casual about how we approach him. And I was like, “Well, I think you just want to intimidate these kids so you can force them to behave in a certain way and that isn’t going to create genuine transformation” Which created a long, awkward silence… Then, you completely went around my harshness and came back with this very gracious response that totally opened a window into my own issues. And you framed it in the context of how certain values from my own FOO (Family of Origin) conflicted with values from yours, and without worrying about who was right or wrong, how those values influenced how we emphasize differently certain attributes of God’s character. The irony, of course, is that I was calling you to be more gracious in a very harsh way, but you responded graciously to show me how I was being harsh about being gracious. LOL.” How this relates to our topic today is, we could have had a long argument about theology and why each other was wrong, and probably never would have come to any agreement. This highlights a critical point which Olson et al., pointed out – “the way we handle problems, more than the problems themselves, often can be the problem”.[i] Let’s look at our example more closely. “The surface problem was theology and how to interpret it. But the real problem was my harshness and I was responding or reacting out of my own junk. Rather than reacting superficially, you pointed out how I was coming to it and why, and did so softly, in a way I could receive it. That totally topped us from derailing but more than that, it created insight, understanding and growth.” So, how can we disagree without sinking our love boat? Think of it as diffusing a bomb – it’s a much better day for both of you if the conflict is resolved rather than escalated! #1 – Make sure your spouse feels understood. This comes from giving them the space and time to share their feelings and ideas during the disagreement. Take their disagreement seriously. Don’t discount or dismiss your spouse’s concerns. If it means enough to him or her that she/he has raised something negative or of concern, you have to pay attention. This is all part of making them feel understood. Remember, this is not about the content matter of the disagreement; it’s about HOW you are handling the disagreement.[ii] This is part of what is called person-centeredness.[iii] Person-centeredness is the idea of taking information that you’re hearing from your spouse and incorporating that into the discussion you’re having by referring to it in subsequent comments or questions. In doing so, you’re sending a very signal that you’re listening, absorbing, taking this in, and processing it. You still haven’t agreed with anything so you haven’t had to give up your own beliefs but what is really awesome is you are sending your spouse a very clear, simple message. That message is, “I am not shutting you out. I am hearing you. I get you. Your input matters to me.” That is such a different signal than completely ignoring or dismissing their input! Have you ever had a disagreement with a person and by the end you’re not even sure if they’ve heard one thing you’ve said? That. Drives. Me.