Because sometimes, your marriage REALLY DOES suck.

Face it.

Life can have its moments.

And, those moments can try even the best of us.

Sure, there are some really trite sayings about life and relationships.

But unless you’ve been there, done that, and got the ratty, tattered tee-shirt to prove it, it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference.

And because divorce sucks and blows huge gnarly chunks.

—

Marriage Tips

But I Don’t Feel Like It

By Pam Farrel

I see it all the time as a counselor. We’ve all felt it: the “Hey, what about me?” syndrome. Sometimes it sneaks up on us when we feel that our emotional needs aren’t being met – and we resent it. Or maybe we have a hard-to-love spouse and we’re tired of trying to make things work. That’s when the “Hey, what about me?” syndrome hits. When does it come? It’s when we’re feeling sorry for ourselves – or just plain tired of trying – what can we do?

Choose.

Choose to make wise decisions.

Don’t rely on feelings or emotions when the going gets tough.

Our feelings don’t carry us to the right decisions; rather right decisions carry us to right emotions – and positive rewards. Here are a few ways you can exercise your will over your emotions:

Decide to take “divorce” out of your dictionary.

My husband, Bill, and I have counseled couples back to happiness from all kinds of crises: loss of a child, loss of a home, all kinds of addictions, affairs, and a whole lot

What to do those times when the “Big Bang” is only a whimper

Marriage Tips

Sometimes Sex is Just Sex

By Mark Gungor

Many married people are not having an active sex life for no other reason than they “don’t feel like it” – meaning they think they have to feel this great desire and/or a huge emotional connection at the front end or sex isn’t going to happen. Now, I’ll dispel this myth regarding the requirement of a huge emotional connection.

Women, more often than men, get hung up on this one and think they have to have all these warm and fuzzy emotions to feel like they can get physical with their husbands. I’m not saying that you always have sex with no emotion or connection – that would not be a healthy relationship. But what I am saying is that sometimes sex can just be sex. The joining together of a husband and wife to get close to each other, relieve stress, enjoy the release and just have a good time enjoying one another – no romance novel level of desire or surge of emotions required! Again, much of this comes from the media – with chick flicks being a huge culprit.

There are a couple of things that you must understand about Hollywood sex… First, it is not real; they are actors and they are being paid to act! Second, and probably most important,

Alabama Legislators do a “Deliverance” move on it’s Citizens

Readers may want to refer to an earlier entry entitled, “I won the Alabama Lottery!” in which I added that, “…and all I got was this lousy governor and inept Republican legislature.“

One must wonder if going to Montgomery is cause of intellectual deprivation, or if it is evidence of the same.

Either way, Alabama sucks hind teat. (That’s a colloquial farming aphorism referring to the suckling which finds itself in a very disadvantaged position.)

God help us.

The Republican legislature is doing a “Deliverance” move on its citizens. Only thing is, they’re not asking us to squeal like a pig.

It’s just what Alabama needs in the midst of 10.6% proration… more

First, it’s all about the sex. Then, you learn you gotta’ get along. Here’s some help on the getting along part.

It’s been said concerning marriage, that folks are attracted to each other because they make each other horny – if for no other reason.

Then, they get married – ’cause they think 0ne another other “hot.” And, that they are. It’s a case of pure, raging hormones. “Estrogen calling testosterone… come in testosterone. Oh… there you are!“

The sex comes easy. Then, to stay married, they figure out and learn how to live with each other.

And that requires a whole lotta’ work and forgiveness.

How do we treat one another?

How do we want to be treated?

How do we need to be loved?

Marriage Guide for Busy Couples

By Ellen Wachtel, JD, PhD

Marriages start out tender and loving… but demanding careers and the daily job of running a home and raising children turn too many relationships into cold, methodical business arrangements.

As a marital therapist for more than 25 years, I’ve found that most couples have little time or energy for the complicated “relationship exercises” that are frequently suggested by some therapists. So I’ve developed very simple strategies built on basic truths about what makes love last. These strategies can be integrated easily into everyday life to reverse negative relationship patterns and build on positive ones.

They are effective even if just one spouse starts practicing them.

* Make your spouse feel good about himself/herself – and then your spouse will feel good about you. In strong, loving relationships, couples make ego-boosting comments to each other every day.

* Look for admirable qualities in your partner. It becomes too easy to

Freud asked, “What does a woman want?” Here’s the answer.

Some years ago, a group named “The Association” had a popular song which lyric said in part,

“Cherish is the word I use to describe
“All the feeling that I have hiding here for you inside
“You don’t know how many times I’ve wished that I had told you
“You don’t know how many times I’ve wished that I could hold you
“You don’t know how many times I’ve wished that I could
“Mold you into someone who could
“Cherish me as much as I cherish you.”

Of course, the title of the song is – appropriately enough – Cherish, which was their first #1 song, which topped the charts in 1966.

They had other hit songs, among them “Never my love,” and “Along Comes Mary.” While it has been recorded by many other artists, “Cherish” remains perhaps their best-known work, which is also a BMI Award Winning song.

What Every Husband Should Know About His Wife

By Les Parrott

Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, said, “Despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, I have not yet been able to answer the great question: What does a woman want?“

Well, Freud, may not have been able to identify the deepest needs of women, but modern research has. A wife‘s most basic needs in marriage are:

The Practical Side to Commitment for Husbands & Wives

Periodically, in this blog I have shared tips for spouses – husbands & wives – to improve the quality of their marriage. Typically, those entries have been from other reputable sources, not merely my opinion, nor something from a popular consumer magazine that presents the relationship “flavor of the day.”

Love, it has been said, is a commitment – it is neither exclusively, nor merely a good feeling based upon a mutual attraction, sexual or otherwise. Because love is a commitment, there are certain things that one should do to honor and demonstrate the commitment. Oftentimes as well, those commitments have been unspoken – although they may occupy significant real estate silently in our imaginations. It is precisely those times that the unspoken should be spoken.

With an eye toward speaking the unspoken, I share with you the following.

List of 20 Absolute Face-to-Face Commitments

 By Paul D. Refior

Copyright 1994, 1998 and 2005

You will certainly agree that marriage is infinitely more than a list of do’s and don’ts.

Yet one of the problems these days is that so many couples fail or refuse to acknowledge important do’s and don’ts, and these couples do not make or fulfill important commitments and promises.

A: Gingrich, Bachmann, Santorum, Perry Q: Who’ll be crowned religious king, or queen of Iowa?

“We have determined that Michele Bachmann is Biblically qualified to be the president, to be a leader. She is capable. She is trustworthy. She fears God and she hates dishonest gain.”
- Danny Carroll, former Iowa State Representative, former board member, now lobbyist for The Family Leader at the Iowa statehouse

There you have it folks.

First, we have Constitutional qualification,

Is that clear enough?

The GOP is comprised almost exclusively of

In praise of John Shelby Spong

“John Shelby Spong… I recognized his face right off the bat.

“God bless him. He needs it – as we all do.”

That was how I started my response.

It wasn’t as if I went looking for something, and rather, had briefly

This is where I’m supposed to cobble together some title that clues you in to what you’re about to read. Just so happens, you’re SOL. ;-)

As a kid, I recollect lying in bed one evening and thinking that nothing was something… that there was absolutely no such thing as “no thing” because “thing” was something, and that a void, or chasm were things which also existed because there was something before and after, and which may have surrounded the same void or chasm. I reasoned further, that the existence of a void, or chasm could only be identified first by the presence of another thing which was opposite. Those thoughts I had long before I’d heard of the names of the world’s great philosophers, or even read any of their thoughts. My questioning led me to suppose that, when I met the Almighty – I still aspire to that Beatific Vision – I would ask Him, “Where did you come from?“

For quite some time, I have also shared that we understand the things we do not now understand by comparing them to the things we do understand. We analogize. It was fascinating – indeed exciting – to recently hear a scientific researcher – an astrophysicist – say almost verbatim the exact same thing.

In much the same way, we use our brains to understand.