Rapid Fire, Marriage Straight Talk: No Sugarcoating, No Protecting Egos, Just Man To Man

Sports fans are often more competitive than the athletes themselves, especially when it comes to defending their teams. Spouses can be just as competitive with each other, especially when defending their opinions.

When it comes to celebrating sports teams, people can get a bit crazy. When it comes to celebrating our marriages, we can get a bit crazy as well. An Estimated $18 billion was spent on Valentine’s Day in 2017. But unlike our passion for sports, too often our passion for our spouses is forced or mandated.

Have you ever made your wife cry? Do you know how to make your wife cry? In this episode, we discuss how to make your wife cry, in a good way.

How trustworthy are you? Studies found that you must follow through on 90% of your promises to be considered trustworthy. If you want to build or rebuild trust in your marriage or any relationship for that matter, take extra care to think through your ability to honor your word before you give it. Intending to do something, unfortunately, is not worth anything.

We have only 24 hours in a day and after sleep, work, kids activities, and chores we're lucky if we have even an hour remaining for our spouses. In reality, we typically have more pull on our time than we have to offer and it's our spouses that suffer the most. Learn how to avoid that cycle in this episode.

A puppy love marriage is built on short-lived interactions of affection toward each other. When our spouses give us their attention, we get excited, energetic, and much more affectionate. However, when their attention is consumed by something else, we can feel abandoned, lethargic, and unaffectionate toward them.

The original design for marriage is quite simple, leave your father and mother and become one with your wife. Even though that design was penned around 1446 BC, many couples today are still confused about what becoming one actually means. In this episode we break it down for you.

Within marriage, entrapment is when you set up a situation whereby your spouse is almost guaranteed to fail. In other words, you put your spouse in a situation where there is a high probability they will disappoint you.

Do you remember your wedding vow? Regardless of whether or not you remember exactly what you said, do you at least remember what the vow represented? The wedding vow is an important part of the marriage ceremony but to be honest, most couples don't really understand what the vow represents. In the episode we explain what the wedding vow actually represents and why both spouses are required to agree to it.

In this episode I discuss how the concept of a bellhop can be applied to your marriage by leaving your baggage at the back door.

What does lemonade have to do with Marriage? A lot, actually, since both have ingredients that are a bit sour. In the episode, learn how much sugar is needed for the sweet times to overpower the sour ones.

Resolutions are nothing more than a wish unless you have a plan. When it comes to putting together a plan, especially for a great marriage, the trick is to take baby steps and to be flexible.

The urban use of the term ‘Gold Standard’ identifies something as the model of excellence, the highest standard, and the best something can be. The ‘Gold Standard’ for the expression of love in marriage is found in the Bible in First Corinthians chapter 13.

The holiday season can bring with it a lot of stress. A 2011 study found that 1 in 5 couples who choose to split up, do so in the month of December. In this episode we discuss how to avoid stress and the arguments that come with it.

If we are going to get gifts this holiday season, we might as well get the gifts we really want. Learn how to get what you really want this year.

8 out of 10 Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, yet the average person will spend over $900 on gifts in the next couple of month. In the episode we discuss how to financially survive the next couple of months.

Communication is about emotions, not just the facts. This is true when sharing about a good time as well as when discussing an issue that’s placing a strain on the marriage. However, it is much more critical to understand this when dealing with the latter, meaning the issues.

When it comes to marriage, the concept of endurance training is somewhat applicable. Not in the sense of physical exercises, but in the sense of emotional exercises. Our lives get very hectic and if we don't incorporate some recovery time, we will burn out at the expense of our marriage.

General advice is very helpful. It gives you an idea of where you need to place your focus and what areas you should seek more personal advice. Personalizing general advice to can lead to very different applications. In this episode, we'll look at how being a doormat in one marriage was a good thing and how it was destructive in another one.

I really do have a picture perfect marriage. Not because my marriage is made up of nothing but perfect pictures, but because I’ve chosen to put just the perfect pictures in the album that I keep in my minds eye.