Whether you or your mate brings up an issue, how useful a conversation will be to the health of your marriage can be determined within the first five seconds of engagement. A harsh start up will likely go south. If you approach your mate with a soft, calm, appreciative tone, the possibility of having a beneficial conversation is significantly improved. Check out these guidelines for engaging your mate in a productive way.

Have you ever found yourself reacting so strongly you even surprised yourself? What might your own reactivity have to teach you? Truth is, if we stop and pay attention, if we let ourselves get curious about our reactions, we can learn to manage our conflict with our mate in a much more self-aware way. Here’s a few steps you can take to identify what’s going on inside you.

We come to marriage with expectations- ideas about how our mate will be, how they will treat us, what married life will be like. Inevitably, we will experience some disappointment. What do we when we are disappointed? Here are a few tips on how can you deal with your disappointment and enjoy a growing marriage.

When you got married, you likely thought the ways in which your spouse was different from you were attractive, interesting or endearing. Enter marriage and many of those difference can become annoying, irritating and downright painful. Here’s a few thoughts that will help you embrace your differences and make them work for you and your marriage!