Bits & Pieces

"Mauwidge...is what brings us together, today."



Marriage is also what took me to Houston.

The National Association of Marriage and Relationship Education (NARME) conference was a great one. It’s always refreshing to be around professionals who are passionate about their job and the impact of their job on the lives of others.

Not only did my mind start spinning about ways to improve what I do at work, but my mind was spinning about ways to improve what I do in the rest of my life—the more important life, the wife and momma life. 

Here are some bits and pieces of some of the presentations I attended. Even though these are mostly just one-liners taken without context, they still provide some great insight.

• There is no equivalent to prayer. In faith-based communities, educators/counselors teach couples how to pray for the well-being of their partner. These same educators have not yet found an equivalent to prayer in secular communities. Nothing does it like prayer.

• “Your love life is not neutral.” By relationships author Marline Pearson

• “It’s easier to add positives than to eliminate the negatives” and “It is easier to be in a great marriage than a “good-enough” marriage. (Pat Love)

• Many of us say two words when we get married “I do.” We vow to ourselves, to our partner and to God to do so many things in our marriage relationship. A fabulous presenter stated that when he dies, he wants to hold a sign that says “I did.”

• Most people would rather complain than change.

• Who wants to be around an emotionally demanding person? Who is the person in your extended family that nobody wants to hang out with for a long period of time? If you can’t think of anyone, maybe that someone is you. (Yikes!)

• It took Nintendo to figure out the right way to spell we--that is--“wii”—with two i’s. That is how a marriage should be—two distinct individuals working together.

• Most conflict in relationships is deciding not between the good and the bad, but about what we want most versus what we want right now. When we take what we want right now, that is when we fail.

• Distressed couples have no less communication skills than a healthy/happy couple, but they do have more negative communication.

• Over the course of time within a marriage, it is normal to become imbalanced. Imbalances are normal—we just have to balance our imbalances.