Marriage Series Archives | Marriage & Divorce

Marriage Series: It Is Surprisingly Easy to Improve a Marriage

It really is easy to improve a marriage, but there are obstacles. The obstacles are not what spouses think; it is what the spouse believe, summarized as follows: Spouses develop beliefs about why their marriage is not better than it is.Most of the time, those are negative beliefs about the other spouse. Spouses in a […]

Marriage Series: Changing Beliefs About Your Marriage

“Your Marriage Book is Very Interesting, but You Don’t Know my Spouse!” In our book, The Road to Marital Success is Unpaved: Seven Skills for Making Marriage Work, we introduce and describe nine important principles [Nine Essential Ingredients to a Successful Marriage] and seven essential skills [Seven Skills for resolving marital disagreements]. Our research indicates […]

Marriage Series: A Real Example of Our Lessons Learned Regarding Marriage Principles and Skills

Our book, The Road to Marital Success is Unpaved: Seven Skills for Making Marriage Work, lays out nine necessary principles and seven essential skills based on research for reaching a successful marriage. A successful marriage includes as many disagreements as an unsuccessful marriage, but the disagreements get resolved successfully, quickly and with less emotional damage. […]

Marriage Series: A Good Marriage is a Matter of Life and Death

Is this an exaggeration? It is a well-known fact that married people generally live longer than divorced or single people. Less known is that spouses who describe their marriage as satisfying live longer than spouses who describe their marriage as unsatisfying. These differences can contribute to better health and can add over five years to […]

Marriage Series: “vive la difference”

Translated accurately, vive la difference means “long live the difference,” but more to the point, it means to celebrate differences. This is especially true in marriages. Sadly, many young, and not so young, people in the market for marriage equate “differences” with “incompatible.” This could not be further from the truth. There are two reasons […]

Marriage Series: Winning the Marriage Game

Almost everyone likes to play games, like golf or tennis. Better yet, everyone likes to win! The enjoyment gets better and better as players learn and practice the skills to play well and win more often. Most people who do not learn the skills involved become discouraged with the game and often quit. One way […]

Marriage Series: Discussions and Decisions to Have After Your First Argument – Impeccable Honesty

Thinking of marriage as a game can make marriage sound a bit inconsequential, when for most married people, marriage is one of the most important parts of their lives. However, it can be helpful to view very serious situations as a game. In fact, applying the science of Game Theory in order to prevail, war […]

Marriage Series: Discussions and Decisions After Your First Argument – What was the Difference

Many people planning to marry or are recently married always have a first argument, and soon they recognize that arguments are an inevitable ingredient in marriage. Some people even “celebrate” the event, because it means “We really are married!” This assumption is not only true, but also a turning point. That first argument can be […]

Marriage Series: Crossing the Great Marital Barrier: What the Heck is Weltenschauung?

INTRODUCTION The greatest challenge in a marriage is for spouses to understand the world as seen by the other spouse. By “world” we mean the conscious and unconscious vision that the spouse has about what is important, how things work, expectations of what a marriage will be like, what is the desired end-product of relationships […]

Marriage Series: Narcissism and Marriage

Narcissism has gotten a really bad wrap. First of all, the word, narcissism, or calling someone narcissistic, has taken on a very nasty meaning. It used to be a simple psychological concept that, at the extreme, could be a disorder. Perhaps the concept moved into public awareness with the book, The Narcissism Epidemic: Living […]