November 18, 2008 at 5:33 am
· Filed under Marriage, love ·Tagged friends, love, Marriage, husband, wife, spiritual, family, partner, relationship, wife consider, husband consider, marriage relationship, temperament, characteristic
Most of us would prefer to be understood, rather than to understand, for real understanding requires hard work, determination and patience — and it is a never-ending task.
When intimate communication dies, the relationship dies — and when the relationship dies, we too die, as individuals. For instance, case histories have shown that infants who had all their physical needs met, but who were deprived of interpersonal contact, developed serious physical illnesses, and even died — simply because they were unable to “communicate” with another person. Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
November 17, 2008 at 2:14 am
· Filed under Marriage, love ·Tagged approach, children, communication, conflict, courtship, decline, decline in communication, family, level, level of communication, life, longer, love, love battle, love life, Marriage, opinion, other, partners, people, really, romance, share, she, spiritual, time, truth, years
Time and again I have had a distraught husband or wife tell me that they no longer communicate with their partners. What they mean is that they no longer take the time to share their hopes and fears, their joys and their frustrations. Two days ago Beverley sat in my study and cried, because after 9 years of marriage she could no longer get through to her husband. Every time she pleaded with him to “talk things over” he would promise her that he would do so, “but not right now”. Yet this same couple used to share so much together in the early years of their marriage. Now they only communicate frustration, resentment and blame. Their experience is fairly typical of a great number of marriages. Somehow the high level of communication that characterises the courtship begins to decline — for some more rapidly than for others. Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
November 17, 2008 at 2:05 am
· Filed under Marriage, love ·Tagged life, people, work, love, she, women, Marriage, romance, family, personal, other, jesus, bible, emotional, relationship, couple, fear of upsetting, partners, own, self-centredness, truth
Sometimes we refrain from communicating what we really feel because we’re afraid it may hurt or upset our partners. We think that its heroic to “suffer in silence”. Sometimes it is confused with the biblical injunction to “bear your own burdens” or “to be the least”. A wife may feel that she’s expected to keep quiet when she doesn’t agree with her husband’s plan of action, because she doesn’t want to upset him. But that is not submission at all. The Bible tells us clearly to “speak the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15). Keeping silent for fear of upsetting our partners can be very harmful. Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
November 17, 2008 at 2:04 am
· Filed under Marriage, love ·Tagged life, Marriage, personal, communication, relationship, share, leadership, couple, family battle
If it is true that 86% of broken marriages fail because of a lack of intimate communication, why don’t we all do something about it? Why don’t we all make a greater effort to communicate with each other at a level that would deepen our relationship? The problem is that even if we make the effort, set the time aside and avoid negative ways of handling conflict, we still come up against several psychological barriers that make it very hard for us to share our deepest emotions in spite of the fact that we want to. It is therefore important that we recognize these barriers and actively seek to overcome them. Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
November 15, 2008 at 12:32 am
· Filed under health ·Tagged smoking, diet, food, people, milk, sweetener, stop smoking, diet breakfast menus, fl oz 225m1, bowl of cornflakes, slices of rye, marmalade or jam, juice and half, half pineapple juice, slices of whole, whole wheat bread, slices of white, basic coffee, black coffee, fl oz, oz 225m1, skimmed milk, pat margarine, juice half, pineapple juice, whole wheat, wheat bread, breakfast, menus, basic, coffee, black, fl, oz, 225m1, juice, bowl, cereal, skimmed, slices, bread, toasted, pat, margarine, marmalade, jam, half, wheat
The Stop Smoking Diet begins with a week’s worth of Stop Smoking Diet Breakfast menus. Each of the meals is planned in such a way that it can help you start your day on the alkaline side. All the menus are interchangeable. This means you can switch them around any way you like. You can, for instance, have the Tuesday breakfast on Friday or the Saturday breakfast on Wednesday. Or, if you prefer, you can choose one particular menu that you feel especially comfortable with and have that meal for breakfast each day. Many people are creatures of habit when it comes to breakfast, and they look forward to having the same thing every day. You may be one of them.
Each of the Stop Smoking Diet Breakfast menus has a choice of Basic Coffee or black coffee. The reason for this is that the caffeine present in coffee can help keep off pounds in much the same way that nicotine does. And you want to do all you can to keep your weight in check after you have begun to cut down on cigarettes. If you do not like to drink coffee, have tea instead. Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
November 15, 2008 at 12:16 am
· Filed under herbal ·Tagged diet, food, tea, herbal, herbs, sage, rosemary, water, standard brew tea, include the following, tea using either, herbal remedies, comfrey, include, remedies, apply, leaves, herbal formula, pepper and lemons, leaves and scald, raw grated beetroot, leaves and flowers, standard brew, brew tea, raw grated, grated beetroot, brown rice, following, lemons, yarrow, standard, brew, used, thyme, raw, grated, green
Include the following in the diet: comfrey, sunflower seeds, parsley, bananas, cayenne pepper and lemons.
Yarrow
Bruise leaves and scald with hot water. Apply as a local compress. Alternatively, make a standard
Include the following in the diet: comfrey, sunflower seeds, parsley, bananas, cayenne pepper and lemons.
Yarrow
Bruise leaves and scald with hot water. Apply as a local compress. Alternatively, make a standard brew tea, dip a clean cloth into it and apply. The same tea can be used as a drink — sip frequently until the bleeding stops. Nettle tea can be used in the same way. Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
November 15, 2008 at 12:04 am
· Filed under health, herbal ·Tagged apple cider, apple cider vinegar, apply, area, bind in place, cider vinegar, comfrey, compress, daily, diet, herbal, herbal formula, herbal remedies, herbs, home, home herbal, home herbal remedies, include, include the following, leaf, leaves, remedies, rinse the mouth, sage, seeds, standard brew tea, tea, tea using either, warmed and bruised, water
Permalink
November 13, 2008 at 8:55 pm
· Filed under Marriage, love ·Tagged communication, family, justify your behaviour, level of communication, love, Marriage, partner, relationship, she, things, words
Be specific — avoid generalisations
Words like “never” and “always” are usually not true (I was tempted to say “are never true”). When a wife says to her husband, “You never show me any affection,” she is leaving herself wide open to being proved incorrect, because the husband will probably remind her that several weeks ago he had given her an affectionate hug. It would be much more effective to say something like, “I know that you love me, but I’d like you to remind me of it more often — especially by putting your arms around me more frequently.” Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
November 13, 2008 at 8:52 pm
· Filed under Marriage, love ·Tagged work, children, love, she, Marriage, husband, wife, romance, joy, family, personal, other, partner, reason for asking, report, emotions, thing, cause, why, asking
Our emotional problems do not stem from the fact that we experience them, but from the fact that we act on them. It is one thing to feel disappointed, quite another to walk round the house sulking for several days. It’s one thing to experience anxiety about the safety of your school-going children, but it’s another thing to keep them indoors at all times.
When we act on emotions, especially the negative ones, it can be very detrimental to marriage. No jealous wife has ever kept her husband faithful with nagging accusations — in fact it may be the very thing to alienate him. Nor must emotions be suppressed, for they will find an outlet of some kind — usually a more harmful one, like physical illness. Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
November 13, 2008 at 8:49 pm
· Filed under Marriage, love ·Tagged back, children, communication, daily, events, food, friends, husband, joy, listening, love, Marriage, partner, really, romance, she, something, time, tv, wife, work
How much do you want to?
Margot had walked out on her husband even though they had been married for less than a year. She was convinced that he no longer loved her, that he didn’t really care for her. When she asked me what she should do, I advised her to tell him that she would like to go back, but only if he was willing to see a marriage counsellor with her. When he ‘phoned her and asked her to come back because he “couldn’t live without her”, she told him that she would, but on condition that they attended regular counselling sessions. He was not prepared to do this and one wonders how much he really loved her and whether he wanted their marriage to succeed.
We would all like to enrich our marriages, to improve our ways of handling conflict, to raise the level of our communication. The question is how much do we really want it? Are we serious enough and determined enough to work at it, or will we only try if we can find some short-cut method? Unfortunately there are no magic formulae, no quick remedies, no instant solutions. If we are going to improve our communication it will require effort, patience and courage. Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
« Previous entries
