GPS to a Joyful Marriage

Social Media: Hazardous to Your Marriage “ Social media can help you keep in touch with loved ones near and far, but it can also damage your closest relationships.  Like your marriage.      According to research commissioned by family law specialists, social media is so hazardous to relationships that one in seven married people said he or she would consider divorce based on a spouse’s behavior on sites such as Facebook, Snapchat and T witter .  Nearly one in four couples said they argue at least once a week over social media, and 17 percent reported fighting every day because of it.      Plenty of folks who don’t quarrel over social media use are still suspicious about it:  Nearly 50 percent of the people surveyed admitted they secretly check their spouse’s Facebook account, and 14 percent said they were specifically looking for evidence of marital infidelity.      An earlier survey of U.S. divorce la...

The niece of a family friend recently died of a drug overdose - such a tragedy for any family to deal with.   Even worse, she left behind four small children, an ex-husband in another state and an estranged relationship with her mother whom she hadn’t talked to in a while.   What will happen to those children? I can’t seem to stop thinking about what the mother of this young woman must be going through right now.   There must be lots of guilt and “if onlys”.   I know of too many people who have cut off ties with family members.   Granted, family can be the most difficult people to deal with.   We tolerate much more from them than we would with non-family friends.   But to remove them completely from our lives is not what God intends for us. 1Timothy 5:8 – “If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”   I believe this goes beyond a f...

You have the power to improve your marriage relationship – on your own.   That’s right.   All by yourself.   You have to start somewhere, right?   Something needs to be done.   It’s time to take the step.   You need to be aware of a few obstacles, though, that may hinder your success. Most marriages go through a difficult time.   We all go through a fire experience in order to refine the relationship, make it better.   The ones that don’t make it are the ones that don’t commit to it.   They jump out of the fire before the job is finished.   It is very difficult to make a marriage succeed when one of the spouses doesn’t have the desire to do so.   They won’t commit. Another hindrance is abuse.   Physical, mental, and drug and alcohol abuse are all a huge stumbling block to healing a marriage on your own.   While everyone deserves a chance to make necessary changes, there comes a time where you may have to walk ...

Commitment:  The state of being bound emotionally or intellectually to a course of action or to another person or persons: a deep commitment to liberal policies; a profound commitment to the family.   Commitment seems to be a dying value.  I don’t know about you, but inevitably, when I have to take care of the business of living, one roadblock after another causes me great frustration due to the lack of commitment in someone supposedly doing their job.   For example:  We own a condo in Orlando and the rental management company recently stopped their work in Orlando.  It took me a month just to talk to a person (after no one answered emails and voicemails) to find out how we would make the transfer and to confirm that we would be getting all the money owed us.  (We didn’t see that for another month.)  It took a few more weeks after that (again, with multiple emails and voicemails) just to get the name of the renter and another week to get ...