Search Results for: marriage outside influences

How the Jones Can Hurt Your Marriage

Sometimes outside influences can have a negative impact on your marriage. Just think of relationships with extended family, for example. Sometimes people who aren’t even close to you can be harmful to your marriage. Neighbors and even friends of friends can put stress on your marriage. You probably have heard the expression, “Keeping up with the Jones.” This basically means trying to maintain the same lifestyle or level of possessions as those around you, whether you can afford it or not. It may also include social, political and spiritual choices as well. There are several problems with trying to keep … Continue reading →

Why You Need to Build a Hedge Around Your Marriage

If you have read my previous posts about building a hedge around your marriage, then forgive me. I think it is just such an important subject in this day and age that more needs to be said. Our marriages can be made vulnerable by outside influences. Building a hedge around your marriage means that although you can look over and see what is going on in the world, you still maintain an active form of protection that keeps those negative influences and temptations away. The hedge encompasses yourself and your spouse. Think of this hedge as an investment that will … Continue reading →

The Marriage Blog Week in Review for January 14-20

In case anything kept you from reading the Marriage Blog everyday last week, here’s a recap of what Lyn and I wrote on: Monday, January 14 When You Do Not Care for Your Friend’s Partner Lyn discussed something I think we’ve all experienced at one time or another, either being the person to not like a friend’s choice of mate or being the one not liked. She gave some suggestions for how to handle such a situation when it arises. Do Fairy Tales Exist in the Congo? I wondered what kind of fairy tales (if any) the women of the … Continue reading →

Your Marriage: Cycles and Patterns

Do things seem to run in cycles in your relationship? I’m not talking about actual cycles, like PMS for example, I’m talking about something a bit more difficult to pinpoint. Do you see patterns in your marriage, such as times when you feel that you and your spouse are really on the same page, followed by days or even weeks of feeling distant? I have noticed certain patterns or cycles in different relationships, including my own, and I think it helps to identify them. It took me a long time to figure it out, but my parents were always impatient … Continue reading →

Can Your Husband Trust You?

Let me ask you a question…can your husband trust you? I’m not talking about in the sense that you won’t cheat on him. Of course, I hope he can trust you in that way. But I’m talking about the “little” stuff, or the stuff that we categorize as being little. Can your husband trust you with the finances? Do you spend without making sure you have the money? Do you spend even when you know you don’t have the money? Do you hide purchases? These are all ways that might demonstrate you can’t be trusted with the finances. Can your … Continue reading →

Parent, Spouse, Mentor

I listened to a very inspirational lecture from Rabbi Manis Friedman about the necessity of having various influences in our lives. To be complete, a person needs a spouse, a mentor and parents. None of these roles can be filled by another person. For instance, a parent cannot double as a mentor, although we do need to guide and instruct our children when necessary. Children need influences outside of the parents, according to Rabbi Friedman, to feel truly secure (this is why the role of a teacher is so important and selecting the right school is so essential.) A person … Continue reading →

Who Am I to Judge?

It seems to be human nature to judge—whether we are judging other people, situations or events. As a single parent, sometime our jugmentalism comes from a place of feeling defensive or self-conscious. I know that I wrestle with catching myself judging other people and often it is somehow a reflection of my own feeling about myself. I have to remind myself that I definitely do not like being on the receiving end and feeling so judged, so who am I to judge others? I think it is incredibly typical for us as single parents to develop a thick shell and … Continue reading →

Married to a Ghost Hunter: My Interview with Mrs. Hawes – The Answers

If you’ve been following this three part series, you’ve been with me as we progressed from Making Marriages Last: What’s It Going to Take? My Interview with Mrs. Hawes to Married to a Ghost Hunter: My Interview with Mrs. Hawes – The Questions. Now we’ve reached the end, the part where we get some answers. Acknowledgment But before you read Mrs. Hawes’ response, bear this in mind: all relationships encounter outside influences. Some are small, some are large, some don’t make much impact, some can be catastrophic. Mrs. Hawes is an amazing, ultra-supportive wife who should be applauded. In the … Continue reading →

Spencer and Heidi: A Case Study in Living Together

A couple weeks back I wrote about a show I watch on MTV called The Hills. It follows the lives of four girls as they deal with friends, careers, dating, and all the other stuff life throws at you in your early twenties. One of the girls is Heidi. Last season she hooked up with a guy named Spencer. They had a tumultuous beginning. He seemed to be two-timing her with one of her good friends, Audrina. (Someone else the show follows.) Then when Heidi was supposed to go out of town but a last minute change kept her in … Continue reading →

Will This Couple Stay Together?

When we go to a wedding or hear about an engagement, we all wonder will they make it? Will that couple stay together? We’ll think about all the things they’ve done together and all the things they’ve shared and we think about it. We can’t help it, especially those of us who have grown up seeing our parents, parents of our friends divorcing. I, myself, grew up raised by a single mother and my grandmother. My grandfather died before I was born and I never knew my father. A study was discussed recently in Psychology Today that found many a … Continue reading →