How do you spice up your marriage? Years and years ago, I had an older friend, Harry, who became a bit of a mentor. We’d met through our respective consulting businesses. He’d been around the block more times than I had, and he possessed something I lacked -- wisdom. Harry had a way of distilling… Continue reading The Thursday Jar
No other success can compensate for failure in the home." J. E. McCulloch After discovering I work with distressed couples, people sometimes ask me what I consider the leading cause of marital breakdown. Great question. I’m sure every counsellor or therapist has an opinion on this. Get ten of us in a room, and you’ll… Continue reading Who’s Orbiting Who?
What do you remember about your first kiss? I’d speculate it wasn’t as traumatic as mine. The Hurley sisters lived right across Winston Road from our house. I vaguely remember them as twins or at least close in age, and a year or two older than my seven years. Adele Hurley and her sister had… Continue reading First Kiss
How emotionally connected are you to your husband or wife? To help answer this important question, I’m reposting a popular article from 2019, hoping it will be beneficial today for your marriage. Sometimes timing is everything. Enjoy. + + + + + + + I met my wife, Melissa, on a cycling trip on the… Continue reading Sustainable Marriage
I'm noticing a growing trend of wives "throwing in the towel", leaving passive husbands. Initially, I was shocked by what I thought I was seeing: women, married* to nice, easy-going guys, were bailing on their marriages. Believers and non-believers alike. At first, it didn’t make sense. But then it did. Every aspect of the family… Continue reading Up the Down Escalator
June remains the most popular month of the year for weddings. To honour God’s amazing design for gender, marriage and healthy sexuality, I'm reposting an article from two and a half years ago, celebrating gender uniqueness. What better month to do that? Call me crazy, but one of the ways I like to express my… Continue reading Bigger Than Pronouns … Again
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others better than yourselves.” Philippians 2:3 A week or so before our wedding, Melissa moved 700 miles south, giving up her cool Chicago apartment and a fun group of close friends. The day we wed at a small Moravian church in rural North… Continue reading What She Gave Up
There's no straight lines make up my life,All my roads have bends."from "Circle" by Harry Chapin When acquaintances ask about my backstory, I often laugh and say that I’ve taken a “scenic route” through life. “Scenic” denotes a leisurely drive along picturesque backroads, taking in breathtaking vistas or pastoral landscapes. But such a romantic picture… Continue reading No Straight Lines
Helping them change their marriage was like untangling a ball of yarn that had been played with by a mischievous cat for a very long time." Napier & Whitaker -- The Family Crucible In 1943, American psychologist, Abraham Maslow, published a paper entitled, “A Theory of Human Motivation”. In it he described a hierarchy of… Continue reading A Worthwhile Climb
(The following true story occurred about two years after my house fire incident recounted in “Dogs Can’t Talk”.) How is it that you meet someone just momentarily in life, but her name becomes permanently etched in your memory? When I was thirteen, my Southern Ontario town built an arena at the end our our street. … Continue reading Girl-Crazy #1
I’d do almost anything to help save or strengthen a marriage. From my experience, most distressed husbands and wives who seek marital therapy confess communication challenges. It’s pretty much ubiquitous. All of us are broken, and our brokenness has no better stage upon which to play than in a marriage. Naturally, men and women who… Continue reading Round and Round the Barn
My wife, Melissa, is a fabulous dancer. In describing what I do on the dance floor, she probably wouldn't use that same adjective. But we have fun. I liken the emotional life of a married couple to a "dance" -- ideally with a husband leading his wife, moving in unison around the floor. When it’s done… Continue reading You Make Me Feel Like Dancing
(This is Part II of teaching children responsibility through consequences. This post will make more sense if you first read Part I entitled, “Dogs Can’t Talk”) At the end of our last episode, we left our hero standing on his suburban front lawn, waiting for “the shoe to drop”. Actually, there was no hero —… Continue reading Stewing in Juice
At one time, I thought I’d written the book on romance. I packed picnic baskets, composed poetry, cooked meals extracted from Food & Wine magazine, spent hours in greeting card shops, arranged flowers, lit fires, collected bronzes and vintage wines, preferred "chick-flicks" to “blow-‘em-ups", and I knew all the best city vantage points and restaurants.… Continue reading As Time Goes By
Call me crazy, but one of the ways I like to express my thankfulness to God is to write and speak gender-specifically. Not all “gender-inclusive” style books published within the past twenty years agree with my zeal for gender specificity, but that doesn’t dampen my resolve. I prefer words that celebrate the layers of differences… Continue reading Bigger Than Pronouns
An interesting piece, written by a young single woman living in NYC, recently grabbed my attention. One of her friends dropped a bomb that a bunch of guys were wanting to ask her out, but her “lifestyle choices” were getting in the way. He was referring to her Christian faith. The author confessed she felt… Continue reading Three Game Changers for Singles
When I founded a marriage and family organisation while still at seminary, I struggled with what to name it. Many of the cool biblical phrases were already taken. A colleague with Family Life suggested a variation on a wedding vow, “Til death do us Partington”. That didn’t fly. Around that same time I discovered the… Continue reading Building Your Dream Home
I met my wife, Melissa, on a cycling trip on the Oregon coast. I obviously caught her by surprise on our group’s last night together at a Portland restaurant, when I asked for her number. I used some line that made her smile. Before the evening was out, she shared her info, and so we… Continue reading Sustainable Marriage
Either write something worth reading, or do something worth writing." Benjamin Franklin Welcome! For me, this blog is flinging back the curtain for “Act Two”, after a six year intermission. Thanks to kind encouragement and generous help from friends, I am thrilled to be writing again. Six years later A lot happens in six years. … Continue reading The Road Ahead
Peace in the Home 