Productive marital conflict can help you work through complex challenges and compromise on important issues. But it’s easy to get reactive during conflicts and feel the survival urge to fight, flee or freeze. If reactivity becomes the norm, you could also become...
Intentional validation in marriage is the act of validating your spouse’s feelings and expressions intentionally to ensure they feel like their feelings are valid. Have you ever felt like your husband or wife wasn’t really “getting” what you were trying to say?...
Behavior among grieving men and women typically differs dramatically. Women usually embrace the gut-wrenching feeling of bereavement, allowing themselves to cry and show vulnerability. It’s more common for men to become detached and/or shut down emotionally and...
Sometimes there just isn’t enough time in the day to all the things you planned on, but you always have time to spend 5 minutes of quality time with your spouse to reconnect. After getting the kids ready and off to school in the morning, the mad dash to get yourself...
As spouses, we sometimes do seemingly innocuous things that end up being much more harmful to our marriage than we realize, especially if we do them repeatedly over time. In other instances, what might look like “normal” behaviors can actually be a warning...
Each of our personalities are as unique as fingerprints but each person’s distinct behavior and feelings when faced with similar situations is deeply affected by our underlying personality traits. Psychologists and sociologists have conducted dozens of studies since...