Years of counseling experience have taught me that marriage plans can either be good or bad, depending on the couple’s reasons for getting married. My initial conversations with engaged couples are full of questions designed to help me understand why they have decided to say “I do.” Here are some examples of good reasons and not-so-good reasons for getting married…
Whether it was pushing boundaries with your significant other, or making the decision to look at that website you know you shouldn’t be on, you messed up. So what’s next? How do you not partner with shame? How do you move forward in a healthy way? We totally understand, check out our 3 step guide to cleaning up your mess.
People love giving unsolicited marriage advice. Especially when they interact with newlyweds. But the problem is, so much of it is really terrible. Horrible. Bad advice. So bad, that if my husband and I would have actually applied it to our lives, I’m certain we wouldn’t be standing here today. Here are 5 bits of really bad marriage advice…
Dating is a beautiful and ever-changing process that has unique challenges. Throw in the added element of physically not being able to be together, and you have a whole new level of challenges added into the mix. Many people wonder if it’s possible to do it and do it well? The answer is yes and yes!
As a survivor of sexual exploitation in prostitution and porn, I can definitively say that it is not a job like any other. The sex industry—prostitution, porn, and stripping—is an industry run primarily by men. Men are the exploiters and sex buyers. Women/girls are the exploited and the purchased commodities. It was a man, my father, who thrust me into exploitation in prostitution and porn when I was 11. Here is my story…
When pain from the past goes unresolved and unhealed, it leads to self-protective measures and often bitterness. We make accusations and judgments against the other gender and consciously or subconsciously create walls and space between us. While we both have fallen into this trap, this is how your actions are affecting the men that you’re hoping will pursue you.
Over centuries the stigma and shame associated with sex has caused a lot of destruction inside and outside churches. From abortion to divorce to gender transition, shame around sexuality has impacted America. Our self-made effort to bring resolution, the Sexual Revolution, has hardly been the salve we had hoped. Its fruit is the whole-scale breakdown of family and sexual accountability that we see today in our Tinder and porn driven culture. Yet the silver lining of the Sexual Revolution may very well be our willingness to see and say all things sexual utterly shamelessly. In the end, our ability to be transparent and vulnerable about our sexuality and its formation could very well be an answer to prayer.
I’ve always been the woman who’s not afraid to ask a guy out. In my early twenties, my social prowess felt like a gift. But just beneath my cool exterior was a self-conscious girl who believed the right guy would never find me, that I had to make it happen. Last year, I encountered the harsh reality that I was thirty, still single, and stuck in a toxic relationship cycle. I’ve discovered that not giving men the opportunity to pursue us wholeheartedly can potentially shipwreck our relationships.
Most of us have had our heart broken at some point in our life. Most of us have felt rejected or discarded by someone. It’s extremely painful and no one enjoys the feeling of “not being chosen.” So how do we deal with that rejection? How do we not believe the lie that we are “less than” or “not as good as” that other girl or guy who was chosen? I know this pain more than I’d like to admit. I faced one of the biggest rejections of my life when my husband chose to give his heart to somebody else…
Sexual addiction is very complex. There are several underlying issues that contribute to this problem. There are also unique issues that a spouse faces when sexual addiction is suspected and/or revealed. As a spouse of a sex addict, it is imperative that you understand your role in the recovery process. Here are 7 helpful things every spouse should know about sex addiction.