Blog

I love my wife Lainey more than words could ever describe. To me she is the most important thing on His earth. "He who finds a wife finds a good thing" springs to mind. What we have in our relationship between us is so precious: that connection, the understanding, the mutual support and encouragement, the companionship and of course the love and passion.

Our marriage, our life together, is so important that I should be careful to never neglect this relationship. To do so would disable me so drastically, the emotional harm I would cause for myself or for Lainey would result in us limiting our potential to do the thing we are called to do.

Yet every day I do neglect the precious gift that God has given me, and I do this just because of some fleeting selfish desire to do my own thing. I understand that preferring myself over my Lainey because of selfishness (especially when presented with an opportunity to bless her) is damaging to our marriage relationship. However it is something that is done.

We all do it, we all can recognize these times and feel ashamed of the way we willingly sabotage our relationship. Our enemy would have us crippled with remorse for the way we neglect each other. The better thing however is to repent and ask God to help us to love our spouse as he loves us and to continue on in His strength loving our wives fiercely.

It does me good to remember to prefer my wife more than myself!

In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
(Ephesians 5:28 NIV)

Invest in your marriage.

Happily ever after doesn't have to be limited to fairytales. Simply invest in your marriage by joining one of our "Married for Life" Bible-based marriage courses to learn the tools and principles needed beat the statistics. Either join a group in your neighborhood or join one of our popular on line groups.

 Click here to register interest in 'Married for Life' our Christian marriage course!

When we live and work in a fast moving society it is easy to neglect the important things. People who skip breakfast don’t realise the negative impact on their metabolism or the increased temptation to snack during the day. So what has that got to do with marriage?

Many marriages are unhealthy because the couple live as “married singles”. Their lives go in two different directions and are so fast paced that it can be difficult to find time for one another. They skip “breakfast” by rushing off to work without acknowledging the presence of their spouse.

• 
  Try getting up 10 minutes earlier and spending time talking over breakfast. (Try not to make this a list of complaints about everything you have to do that day).
• 
  You might be a bit bleary eyed but investing time praying for the day ahead is an even better way launch into the working day.
• 
  Don’t leave home without giving each other a hug and a kiss.
• 
  Make it a daily habit to express your love. Instead of “Bye, see you later” try telling your spouse you love them and will miss them.

Ever felt that parenting is difficult? That some how you are just on a treadmill with no end in sight and no clearly defined destination? I do, often. But then I remind myself of a key point that I discovered when Lainey and I trained to teach the "Parents for Life" course. A key point that helped me keep parenting in context and helped me to decide which, of all the many, spinning plates is important to keep spinning. The key point is simple, as parents we are not called to raise godly children, we are called to raise godly adults.

The key point is simple, as parents we are not called to raise godly children! We called to raise godly adults.With this in mind I have been able to understand my goal in parenting. I'm not just here to provide a roof and food for my kids, but also an education that develops their character so that eventually they will be godly, trustworthy, moral individuals in this world. Through my parenting I can see that I have an opportunity to change some of what I see as being wrong in this world. I can affect bad moral principals and reduce the injustice I see around me by raising my children in a way that they become part of the solution rather than part of the problem for the next generation.

All of a sudden my parenting has gone beyond providing a better childhood for my children than I had, to developing my children into being better people than I ever was. Now I have a goal and a context for my parenting. I also have a measure to see if I have succeed as a parent.

My last blog defined a naked marriage as one which had been stripped of its support network, a marriage without embellishments. Taking a closer look at your marriage can help you see where you need to concentrate your efforts.

“Can you pinch more than an inch”?

All diets usually start out with some sort of measuring system. People either stand on scales and weigh themselves or their grab a tape measure. Some people even go to the extreme of using callipers to measure their fat ratio. This is a much better and more scientific approach than the method I used to use. I remember drawing myself but the result was not an accurate reflection it was an exaggerated caricature of all my faults.

Men and women can approach marriage in a similar fashion. Rather than taking an accurate measurement of the condition of the marriage they resort to the old and unreliable self-portrait method. When you use this method you take one of two approaches. You either look at yourself too optimistically or too pessimistically. That is why couples who go for marriage counselling often answer questions about their marriage so differently that you wonder if they are actually married to each other. Are you exaggerating the flaws or ignoring them?  Are you placing all the blame on your spouse?

I recently read an article that quoted Anouk Turksma as saying, “Being abroad shows people their “naked” marriage without the web of family, long-time friends and a known place in society around it”. All the other expats out there would probably agree. The question is ... What do we do about what we see?

Roy and I have been married over 22 years, we were married at the respective ages of 21 and 20. 22 years later we have piled on a few pounds and don’t look like we used to when we were first wed. Last year we stopped ignoring the problem and started investigating the best way to do something about it. We ignored the fact that many people thought we should just live with the way we were and accept that we would get flabbier the older we get. We are still a long way from having the figures we want but certainly are happy with the improvements. The progress we have seen has given us the incentive to keep going.

Many people treat marriage the same way. People expect the relationship to sour a little to get a little flabby around the middle the longer it lasts. The lie is that we can do nothing about it. Thankfully our “naked” marriage doesn’t have to look terrible! For Roy and I our marriage has improved greatly over the years, that is because we have deliberately kept it in trim.

Naked Marriage Diet Tip 1

Some fellow dieters might remember the phrase “A moment on the lips a lifetime on the hips”. It is a good principle to follow in marriage if you don’t want to see curves in the wrong places. What you say has a powerful effect. We often speak words we expect our partner to digest but we would struggle if they said the same things to us. It is important to build your spouse up with encouraging words (not sickly sweet flattery or bitter name calling).

Proverbs 18:21 The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.

I remember the first time I tried to follow a set of instructions in Hungarian on a packet mix I almost cried. Hours later and I still wasn’t sure what to do with it and I resorted to guess work.

A few days ago I filled in a form and resorted to guess work for the fields I wasn’t quite sure about. This probably isn’t the wisest strategy if it is a very important document but I thought it was okay on the one I was filling in. I only realised when my son was filling in forms for his exams here in Hungary that “F” is for “férfi” which is male not for “female”! This is where guess work doesn’t work well!

In marriage we can struggle with communication. You think you understand what your spouse is communicating and might fully understand 40%, 60% or even 80% but guess work fills in the gaps. The guess work is what often gets us into relationship difficulties.

Somewhere between the man and woman I am sure there is an invisible wall. The wall absorbs sounds, twists and warps them a little and sends them in the direction of your spouse. What you said and what they hear are now two entirely different things.

It might be easy for those who remember the game Chinese Whispers to call this wall the Wall of Whispers. We hear words in our hearts which were never spoken but we are convinced they came from our spouse.

Our spouse says, “The dress is expensive” the words pass through the Wall of Whispers and distorts the message to say “you aren’t worth it”.  Your spouse says, “You aren’t home often enough” they mean “I would like to spend more time with you” but the Wall
of Whispers distorts the message and says, “You are a disappointment”.

Tear down the Wall of Whispers today by clarifying what you mean and removing the guess work.

Proverbs 2:2 So that you incline your ear to wisdom, and apply your heart to understanding.

I am happy that marriage is a covenant. I enjoy the security that we have within our marriage. I like that both Lainey and I are committed to each other and to making our life together work. I am happy that there can be no situation or circumstance that is so bad that it would cause us to abandon each other. I am glad that when Lainey and I said our vows to each other we both understood that this was a lifelong commitment.

For some couples however, marriage is entered with small print secretly stashed away inside the heart. “Yes I mean these vows, but if circumstances change then I reserve the right to leave, to move on”. I find it hard to understand why so many couples want to treat marriage as a contract when doing so brings instability to their relationship. All marriages have periods of marital trouble and strife from time to time. At these times the relationship needs commitment to work through the issues together. If one or both has access to their “fine print” conditions then the commitment to the relationship that is needed does not exist and all too often divorce is the result. Self-fulfilling prophecy - the decision to reserve the option to divorce often brings the fruit of that decision.

If you or your spouse entered marriage with a get-out clause in the back of your mind then there is only one way to gain security and peace of mind in your relationship. Take time to discuss the fine print and decide to rip up the get-out clause. Stop treating your marriage like a contract and instead start protecting your marriage covenant together. The benefits will be security in your relationship which far outweighs the responsibility of honouring your marriage covenant.

We have had on-going heating problems for quite a while. As the temperature began to fall we found it was increasingly difficult to
cope.  It turned out that not only did we need our heating fixed but we needed a serious upgrade.

How many couples find that their love grows cold over time? When our heating wasn’t working it was physically very difficult to get through
the normal things we had to do every day. Everything was much more difficult. I found I was getting quite self-centred as I would sit with my blanket wrapped protectively around me.

We can do the same thing emotionally when something goes wrong in our relationship. The protective blanket comes out and we start to
focus on ourselves and our own needs rather than the needs of others. When you find yourself in that position don’t just allow yourself to become colder and colder do something! Get your heating system
fixed.

• Check you are plugged in. You need to maintain your relationship with God. Expat or otherwise if our relationship with God grows cold it impacts all other relationships.
• Check for leaks. Are there areas in your life that are causing damage to your relationship? It may be that you are not investing enough time in each other.
• Get an upgrade. Perhaps you need to boost your relationship by upgrading your communication. Consider doing a marriage course like the Married for Life course to learn how to put heat back in your relationship or raise the temperature!

Now we are in a warm cosy home with the heating working well. It is amazing how different our emotional environment has become as a
result.  I trust you will experience the same thing in your home as a result of God bringing the heat back into your marriage.

Matthew 24:12-13

And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. But he who endures to the end shall be saved.

When a married couple’s relationship goes bad the desire to get out can be tempting. When your husband or wife is the source of your unhappiness it seems obvious that getting away from them will improve your quality of life. This conclusion often leads to separation and separation often leads to divorce, but divorce seldom leads to the happiness that was desired.

The most unhappy of these marriages reported the most dramatic turnarounds: among those who rated their marriages as very unhappy, almost eight out of 10 who avoided divorce were happily married five years later.

Call it the "divorce assumption." Most people assume that a person stuck in a bad marriage has two choices: stay married and miserable or get a divorce and become happier. A team of leading family scholars headed by University of Chicago sociologist Linda Waite found no evidence that unhappily married adults who divorced were typically any happier than unhappily married people who stayed married. In fact for two-thirds of the unhappily married spouses who stayed married their marriages improved reporting that their marriages were happy five years later. The most unhappy of these marriages reported the most dramatic turnarounds: among those who rated their marriages as very unhappy, almost eight out of 10 who avoided divorce were happily married five years later.

It seems the divorce assumption is incorrect. Unhappily married spouses are not condemned to stay married and miserable. If they stay committed to their relationship, whatever their present level of unhappiness, in time the result will be that they become happy in their marriage relationship. If however they choose to divorce the study suggests they have placed themselves on path that will not result in happiness.

When a marriage turns bad the best advice we can give is to stay committed to the relationship and seek a way to work through the problems. Attending a Married for Life class, either in person or via video conferencing, would be a good first step to helping you get your relationship back on track. Over a period of 12 weeks you will be taught christian principles that will strengthen your relationship, help you avoid behaviors that are damaging, and establish your marriage on the right path.

 Click here to register interest in 'Married for Life' our Christian marriage course!

You may think I am going to write about the principle of resisting the temptation to retaliate (Matthew 5) but instead of being hit on both cheeks in Hungary you are more likely to be kissed on both cheeks.

The double kiss is a greeting for family, friends and acquaintances. As an expat family the familiarity of greeting someone (including relative strangers) with a kiss never mind a double kiss was a little daunting.

Each culture has its own space bubble. This circle defines our boundaries and our level of discomfort increases when anyone violates the bubble.

Accepting the new culture is a matter of choice. In my case I offered one cheek and then thought “okay turn the other cheek”.  Now turning the other cheek is within my comfort zone, in fact I find myself a little concerned if someone does not greet me in this way.

Even in marriage we can create our own “space bubble”. Our “bubble” is the area surrounding us that we consider to be ours. We have a wide circle which is public space, the next is social space, closer still is personal space and then we have what is termed as “intimate space”.

While each relationship does need boundaries not all boundaries are healthy. It may be that some of the walls we have built to keep us safe are detrimental to our relationship. Often we are happy for our spouse to come closer to us physically but we shy away from being emotionally intimate. We need to step outside our comfort zone to talk about issues we would usually avoid.

Moving abroad can cause couples to become distant with each other and a couple will need to work harder to keep communication lines open. Don’t be tempted to shut each other out because life is more stressful or complicated.

So when your spouse wants to kiss your cheek turn the other cheek too … allow them into your space bubble!