Mark: I love woodworking. It’s a hobby and a skill I’ve enjoyed my entire life. When it comes to fixing houses, I am a natural craftsman. I know what to do and I usually know what tool I need. Jill: Mark is amazing as a handyman and builder. I usually...
As marriage coaches, we have the opportunity to help healthy marriages stay healthy and struggling marriages get back on track. Sometimes, however, we run into toxic and even abusive relationships. To better understand the difference between healthy, struggling, and...
Mark: Several years ago, Jill and I and our son Austin traveled to Yellowstone National Park. On our way there, we stopped at a historical site where you can actually see the Oregon Trail. You see, so many wagons traveled the Oregon Trail that it indented the land and...
In the Spring of 2020 I had the opportunity to share three programs on Family Life radio. We talked about three different subject on the three days of programming: empty nest, marriage, and loving your LGBTQ+ kids. If you’d like more information about any of...
Mark: I confess that praying together is not something Jill and I have always done well. As a pastor, I could pray with just about anyone except my wife. Why is that? Fear of judgment. My own lies in my head. My fear of disappointing and not doing it right. Those are...
Jill: Over the past few months we have coached quite a few young couples that have felt their hearts are miles apart. As we dug into each of their stories, it became evident that parenting had taken over their lives, leaving their marriages on autopilot. Mark: In our...
Mark: Conflict handled without care can bring out the worst in us. Unless we’re intentional about responding rather than reacting, we can end up with a mess to clean up. Jill: It’s rare that we both haven’t contributed to the mess in some way. So we...
Mark: I have been working on changing my view of the conflicts within marriage. To be honest, I am not someone who likes conflict at all. There was too much of it when I was growing up so I wanted my own family to be conflict free (can you say “unrealistic...
Jill: It was 2011 and proving to be the darkest year of our then 27 years of marriage. Mark: The slow fades of unrealistic expectations, avoiding emotion, defensiveness, and minimizing had been eroding the foundation of our marriage for years, but we didn’t know it. ...
Mark: We recently did a Dive Deep Interview with Beth and Jeff McCord for our No More Perfect Date Night members. It was such a fabulous interview that we decided to ask Beth if she would provide a Marriage Monday blog post about the enneagram and how it can help your...
Today’s #MarriageMonday is brought to us by Sharon Jaynes, author of the new book Lovestruck: Discovering God’s Design for Romance, Marriage, and Sexual Intimacy. Not only that but we’re giving away a copy of one of her books! Want to enter the giveaway,...
I lifted the phone out of my husband’s hands. He was so tired lately and had fallen asleep in bed while texting. I’d been out of town for the day and had come home late to find him already in bed. As I went to plug it in for the night, I saw a conversation on the...
It doesn’t take much effort at all to destroy a relationship. In fact, it’s quite easy. Just follow your feelings and give energy to every little negative thought in your head and you won’t just be sauntering down the road of destruction, you’ll be running down it....
Mark: Last Tuesday, June 25, was our 36th wedding anniversary. If you’ve been hanging around her for very long, you KNOW that’s a BIG DEAL! (If you haven’t been hanging around here very long, you can read our story here.) Jill: We had plans for...
Jill: The last two Saturdays were the first Saturdays we’ve had home in months. Our speaking schedule keeps us traveling on the weekends in the spring and the fall. However, summer brings a change of pace and we’re home more on the weekends. Mark: Jill...
