Marriage Archives - Page 8 of 10 -

028 Personal Growth: Domestic Abuse with Holly Ashley

SHOW NOTES

Our guest today, Holly Ashley, is a domestic violence victim advocate. Holly has worked in the domestic violence sphere for over 30 years, first starting as a victim of abuse. Today, she is an author, speaker, and Executive Director of Redemption, Restoration and Recovery.

She educates victims through Christ-centered domestic violence education, counseling, classes and training. She advocates the need to follow the biblical principles of a loving marriage, and the need to trust God.

Signs of domestic abuse

Research has shown that children brought up in an abusive home are 1500 times as likely to become victims of abuse or abusers when they grow up. It took decades for Holly to realize she was a victim of abuse.

Through a rocky childhood, Holly fell into abusive relationships: “If you come from chaos, you seek chaos, that’s all you know”. It can be hard to distinguish distorted thoughts from the past.

Abuse comes in many forms – physical and emotional. The victim’s thoughts are manipulated, and those close to the victim; so it’s easy to feel trapped.

“Domestic violence is not so much the lack of respect towards one another that causes the violence, but it is the ultimate breakdown of God’s design for marriage”

If you think you’re a victim, or suspect someone you know is, then check out the Danger Assessment and Safety Plan on Holly’s website.

Culture of ‘Man Up’ and ‘Minimize’

A big problem with domestic abuse is that it’s often brushed over by others. Both society and the Church need to change their attitude. Holly’s husband was a domestic abuse victim, and he was at first conditioned to ‘man up’.

For Holly, she was made to keep her abuse a secret. It’s a coping mechanism for others to keep the problem at bay – when on the contrary it catalyzes the problem even more. It’s Holly’s mission to raise awareness, and train churches how to best support victims.

“Stop praying for the right person – focus on God and you bringing glory to God”

Too often we are fixated on finding the perfect partner, which distracts us from putting God first. Holly’s a-ha moment was when she decided to stop seeking relationships as a way to deal with her past, and to focus on relationship with God and let his plan unravel.

The Bible teaches us to treat others as you wanted to be treated; a healthy relationship is the ultimate respect for another human being.

“Surround yourself with loving people”

It’s tempting to seek the love and approval of the abuser or a dysfunctional family, because it’s hard to fully recognize their negative impact. Holly’s advice is that you can still love people from afar. To fully grow and flourish, surround yourself with positive people.

Conflicting pasts echo in relationships as we seek ways to fill voids. In today’s secular world, it’s easy to neglect the biblical principles of relationships.

Holly shares her first hand experiences of domestic abuse, and how she came out on top with a happy marriage and an even stronger bond with God.

“To fully recover, it has to be in the heart, not just the head. You can know all the words from the Bible, but you need to truly commit to God”

Resources:

www.Redemption3.com
Danger Assessment
Safety Plan
National Coalition of Domestic Violence
End Violence Against Women International
Dr Henry Cloud ‘Changes That Heal’
Cross Strength Ministries

Why Do People Stay In Physically Abusive Relationships? Holly Ashley, domestic violence survivor and victim advocate shares her story along with helpful advice and resources to help those struggling with abuse. Includes danger assessment and safety plan.

026 Marriage: Disappointed in Your Spouse?

SHOW NOTES

Early in our marriage, I (Laura) was a terror. I was struggling with adjusting to my new living arrangement with someone who I was still getting to know AND I was trying to cope with some pretty severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

There were times where I would be home, depressed, and I would call Vincent at work. I would get frustrated. He did not make it better. I shutter at the thought that one time during one such calls, I threw my phone on the ground outside. Looking back, I can dissect the situation and understand where the breakdown occurred, but in the moment, I was an emotional mess.

Years of therapy would help me to see where my thinking was faulty and how to fix it. Now that I’m a therapist, this thing has come full circle.

As therapists we have come to expect an influx of new clients after Valentine’s Day. Without fail, one or both spouses are disappointed in the outcome of their Valentine’s experience.

The root of the issue really isn’t what was or wasn’t done, but an unspoken expectation that was not met. As a married couple, and as therapists, we’ve learned that this thing called marriage requires being direct – communicative.

It’s going to take a lot more time for your spouse to get to know you if you expect him to read your mind.

WHAT ARE THE MISTAKES WE MAKE THAT LEAD TO DISAPPOINTMENT AND HOW TO FIX THEM?

1.) HAVING UNSPOKEN EXPECTATIONS

Who’s fault is it really if your spouse does not do what you want him to do if you don’t tell him? Once you acknowledge that you’ve not fully voiced your expectation, let them know your expectation and give them grace for not knowing it to begin with.

2.) EXPECTING YOUR SPOUSE TO READ YOUR MIND

A kind of magical thinking that some people have is that their spouse should know how they feel about something, without discussion. Let go of the thinking that your spouse should know how you feel if you don’t tell them.

3.) USING THE WRONG LOVE LANGUAGE

By nature we use our own love language. As a married person, we have to shift our tendency to use our own love language and do the love language that our spouse has.

An example of this could be a wife who would love a piece of jewelry for Valentine’s Day (her love language is gifts), but her husband cuts the grass instead (he does it because he would love it if someone would cut the grass for him—his love language is acts of service.)

Check out Gary Chapman’s book “The Five Love Languages” and take his five love languages test to determine your love languages.

4.) UNCLEAR COMMUNICATION

Many people are not very assertive. Oftentimes they are passive due to a fear of confrontation, because of this, they drop hints and/or make passive-aggressive statements that are not direct. If you have a thought or feeling, express it without aggression or in passing.

5.) NOT LISTENING

Whether you believe men and women are from different planets, or not, it is indisputable that we don’t always communicate clearly with one another. A large part of communication is not the speaking part.

Don’t get caught up in what you’re going to say next. LISTEN! Listening means showing your spouse that you hear him.

To do so, your body language needs to reflect it. Crossed arms, looking away, dismissive eye rolls do not show that you are hearing that person out. Empathetic listening, however, shows your spouse that you care enough to understand him.

How does empathetic listening work? Your spouse may be a pointer (Please listen to our Podcast Episode 2 to learn about the difference between Painters and Pointers and how to improve your communication), if so, you need to focus on the specifics, rather than talking a lot about a lot of different things.

If you’re married to a pointer, you need to have a laser focus on what your pointer spouse says. If your spouse is a painter, you need to show your painter spouse that you are listening.

This means asking questions about what they are talking about. Don’t be afraid of correction, just do it. They would rather you ask questions than not say anything and show no indication that you are listening.

CONCLUSION:

Today we’ve talked about five different mistakes that can lead to disappointment. Of course there are more, but if you work diligently on these, there will be much less opportunity for misunderstanding. We hope that these suggestions get you off to a great start!

Are You In A Post-Valentine’s Day Slump? Learn 5 things spouses do to disappoint each other and how to stop from marriage therapists Vincent & Laura Ketchie.

025 Marriage: The Balance Between Home and Work Life

SHOW NOTES

Unless you are born with a lot of wealth, work is necessary for you to live. Even if you do have wealth, you have to manage it appropriately or it will be gone as well.

So what is the proper balance of work and home life? Both of these activities require your time. How much time should you devote to each one?

They not only need your time, but they need your attention and your thoughts as well. What is the best way to balance them all?

1.) Energy and time spent at each one is cumulative.

The more time and energy that you spend at work, the more successful you are there – to an extent. (We’ll talk more about this later on.) The more time and energy that you spend at home with your family, then usually the more satisfied your relationships are with your family – to an extent. Where you invest time and energy, you reap the benefits.

2.) You can spend too much time with your family.

Too much time with your kids is called helicopter parenting. They never get alone time or the opportunity to make their own decisions and deal with consequences.

Too much time with your spouse can be smothering. Each spouse needs some alone time and some time spent with friends.

3.) Some husbands feel like they are in the predicament of – “I have to work a lot to make the amount of money that makes my wife happy, but my wife is mad that I am not home enough.”

They feel like they can’t win.

For some, this undue pressure to make enough money may be mainly in their head. They mind-read. They assume that their wife demands so much money or such and such house.

They make these deductions from comments their wife has made, but they have not just sit her down and discussed it at length. They need to have a heart to heart talk with their wife.

For others, their wife does demand they make this amount of money, live in this house, and spend this amount of time with the family. The wife may have unrealistic expectations.

In this case, the husband needs to exercise the “Law of Responsibility”. In the Boundaries books, Dr. Townsend and Dr. Cloud describes the Law of Responsibility as “We are responsible to each other, but not for each other.”

In other words, the husband is responsible for his actions when he is at home and when he is at work, but he is not responsible for his wife’s feelings. He may have to work less hours and make less money so that he can spend more time with his family. The wife may be upset about the less money, but she needs to deal with her own feelings.

4.) What is the appropriate work week?

In the United States, the work week had been fought over since the 1860s. In 1890, the average work week for a manufacturing worker was 100 hours. In 1914, Henry Ford found that less than 40 hours per week of work boosted the productivity on his assembly line.

By 1940, the 8 hour day and 40 hour work week became standard in many industries. So for about 80 years, there was a debate about the appropriate work week. This was not an overnight decision.

In Genesis, God works for six days and on the seven he rests. The sabbath or day of rest is commanded. It is one of the ten commandments. Exodus 20:8 says, “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work…”

So I would say no more that 48 hours of work in a week is healthy and that it would be preferable 40 hours or less. The fact is that we need rest to be fully functional at work.

Studies have shown that we can do short bursts of extra work, but we need extra downtime to recover. After too much over time, our quality of work decreases.

5.). Couples that own their own businesses really struggle with the balance.

“When does the work stop?” – many spouses want to know. Because it doesn’t seem like it ever does.

Here are some guidelines to give balance to your home and work life.

1. Set a time that you do not answer the phone or emails after. For example, you may say that after 6pm you will not answer a business call or reply to an email. You will return the call or email the next day.

2. Set a time that you will stop talking about business. For example, you may implement a rule that you will not discuss business after 5pm or 7pm, depending on your type of business. The rest of the evening will be time to talk about family, relax, and play with the kids.

3. Schedule a block of time that you will discuss business/finances as a couple. This would be setting aside a certain time to plan business goals, adjust family budget, and plan how to spend money. For example, you may set Tuesdays between 7-8pm that you talk specifically about the business finances and family finances. And for the most part, it is not discussed at other times, especially in the evenings after the set time to stop business talk.

4. Setting aside a day during the week where you recharge and do not work on business, discuss business, or think about business. This is your sabbath.

5. Proactively, plan on your calendar mini-vacations and vacations. Look ahead and purposely schedule weekends where you know that you will need a break. Spread the times out appropriately. If possible, take a mini-vacations (2-3 days) every quarter.

How to Balance Work & Home Life Relationship Helpers Vincent & Laura Ketchie discuss the struggles of balancing life and how to make it work for you.

023 Marriage: Dr. Corey Allan on Marriage, Sex, and Liking Yourself

SHOW NOTES

Many partners strive for the ‘perfect marriage’ and to be the ‘perfect partner’. At its core, you grow up through marriage as you learn how to give, stand on your own two feet – and have children. Spiritually, we become better christians in a relationship.

Dr Corey Allan joins us in today’s interview, where we discuss what makes a happy marriage. With over 15 years experience as a marriage and family therapist, he holds a PhD in family therapy, runs his own private practice, and co-hosts Sexy Marriage Radio. He just finished his new book Naked Marriage.

Corey has set himself a goal: to reduce divorce rates to zero. It’s a big task, but he believes marriages and relationships cannot only survive, but thrive.

“Stress removes the barriers of how we really are”

For a healthy relationship to grow, you need to be yourself around your partner and allow stressful moments to happen. This is why dating is so important – test the waters and see how you handle things together.

Opportunities open through obstacles, and you grow closer. Equally, if there’s a conflict as a result, that’s when you address the issues.

Knowing that you can rely on each other’s strengths is important. When big changes happen like having children, you need to support each other.

Corey quotes Dr Schnarch, that ultimately “nothing prepares you for marriage but marriage”. Just be prepared for changes as you share responsibilities together.

“Marriage at its finest is two fully-functioning people together”

You need to like yourself to be comfortable in a relationship. People can be driven into a relationship for the wrong reasons: high expectations, fear of rejection, fear of failure.

Pay attention to your character and behaviour, and how it can affect your partner. Focus on nurturing yourself, work on your problems. If the partner does the same too – the bond strengths two individuals.

“Sex is a language – it’s not just an act.”

A big element in marriage is sex: it’s a way of connecting and it makes babies. It’s a deeply personal experience that can complicate things and often brings couples to therapy.

People have different needs, so it’s important to know that sex is not just an action. It’s a place to explore and think of each other.

“Everything in life is choice.”

Hold yourself accountable and don’t blame all the bad things on your partner; you have to own the choice you make. Corey highlights that by even allowing the ‘bad thing’ to happen from your partner, you are still involved – you could have addressed it.

“Marriage can be very empowering as you take ownership of your choices and actions.”

“A gridlocked marriage”

Corey often finds his clients reach to him when they are at ‘crisis-level’ – either they are about to or are filing for a divorce, or there’s been an affair. As such, going to therapy is seen as the final choice.

Why leave things so last-minute and suffer for so long? Feel comfortable to address issues and make a change. There’s no point communicating your point of view, instead explore what you can do to make a change if the relationship feels rocky.

Corey shares that life’s driving force is about growing up; and marriage does just that. In a happy, loving marriage, you become stronger individuals.

Explore what you both want, don’t bury things or put on an act – and it is better to seek help earlier on than too late.

Dr. Corey Allan, author of Naked Marriage and host of Sexy Marriage Radio

Purchase Dr. Allan’s new book below:

Resources

SMRNation.net
Sexy Marriage Radio
Bowen Family Systems Theory
Dr. David Schnarch

Struggling with conflict in your marriage? Improve your love life with tips from Dr. Corey Allan in “Marriage, Sex & Liking Yourself” from Relationship Helpers.

022 Marriage: Should I Snoop On My Spouse’s Phone?

SHOW NOTES

Vincent and Laura are snowed in today. They have closed their counseling office for the day, but that has not stopped them from thinking about a topic that comes up frequently in counseling.

Should I ‘snoop’ on my spouse’s phone? Ideally, you shouldn’t ‘snoop’ on your spouse’s phone because as a married couple you should have an agreement allowing both of you free access to other’s phones.

This means ANY time you look at your spouse’s phone you aren’t snooping. Snooping implies secrecy. But we know we do not live in an ideal world and most spouses have not discussed how to handle each other’s phones.

As marriage counselors, we see the destruction of secrecy. Hardly a day goes by without someone mentioning something about their phone. It is the rare occasion that we have a couple that comes to couple’s counseling that has an open policy about looking at each other’s phones.

Smartphones are a device of a younger generation, thus, many married couples were not raised with them. These couples are presented with the challenge of how their phones are used in their marriage, and many have not given much consideration as to creating boundaries with them.

Let’s say you do not have a phone policy in place with your spouse and you suspect your spouse is engaging in destructive activity. What do you do?

Pros and Cons of Snooping

Pros of snooping:

• You may learn that your spouse is looking at pornography.
• You may unearth an addiction.
• You may learn that your spouse is having an affair, whether physical or emotional.
• You may find that your spouse is lying to you about how he is spending his time, money, etc.

Although the suspicion of an affair is the number one concern for snooping mates, other serious issues may be discovered while sleuthing. A gambling, gaming or shopping addiction can be very damaging to a relationship and can destroy a family.

Cons of snooping:

• Snooping can be the result of unwarranted paranoia.
• Snooping can be an act of control.
• Snooping can be done out of codependency.
• There could be danger if you are in a physically abusive situation.

Sometimes the snooper is acting out of an unwarranted suspicion. Snooping at this point is very much sabotaging to the relationship.

Usually someone who snoops for irrational reasons has issues with codependency. If the relationship is physically abusive, at least one spouse behaves possessively and could physically threaten the snooper.

Many people do not understand why people stay in abusive relationships and may question why we bring up snooping on an abusive mate. Ideally spouses leave physically abusive relationships, but this is not reality. Some are wrapped up in such codependent relationships that they remain in these relationships and can land in dangerous situations, snooping on their mate.

Disclaimer: If you are in a physically abusive relationship, it is imperative that you do not place yourself in danger by snooping. If you need to learn something about your mate, it is important that you have others to support you in the process so you are not left alone in a dangerous situation. Having a therapist to guide you through developing a plan will be important.