Is your husband more interested in video games, work, or sports than you?
Do you feel like he’s checked-out? Has he stopped caring about your marriage?
Are you trying to think of ways to convince him to go to therapy?
Do you wonder why he doesn’t seem to care about your happiness or your marriage?
Do you ever feel rejected, hurt, sad, abandoned, afraid for the future of your marriage?
If so, you’re not alone.
Last year my wife had tears in her eyes as she watched The Mandalorian season one finale with me.
We just found out we had a miscarriage.
We’d been trying to have a baby for a while, and the heartbreak of losing what we expected to be our first child was especially hard on my wife.
She was never a Star Wars fan, but she seemed to get a profound sense of comfort on a weekly basis watching “Baby Yoda” appear on our TV screen.
She grew attached to the little guy. He seemed to fill part of the hole our unborn child left in my wife’s heart.
All she wanted for Christmas was to hold her own Baby Yoda.
About once a week I get a message from someone asking what to do about porn...
Here's how it usually plays out. (Not always... but usually.)
He's been doing it off-and-on for a while. Often times it's when he's feeling lonely, stressed, overwhelmed, or depressed...
He hates himself for it because it's against his values...
He feels like he can't stop...
And he's afraid that if his wife finds out, she'll divorce him and he'll lose everything.
Sometimes her husband confesses...
Sometimes she discovers it...
Most of the time she feels hurt. Even betrayed.
She has lots of unanswered questions.
"Why did you keep it a secret?"
"What else are you hiding?"
"Do I even know you?"
"Am I not enough for you?"
"How long has this been going on?"
The immediate question for most people is "How can we make the behavior stop?"
They reach out to therapists, religious leaders, maybe even friends and family.
They start doing research online.
They want answers. Help. Support. Direction. ANYTHING...
Some people join Facebook groups.
Others go to a treatment program for "porn addiction," or therapy for "sex addiction."
Others try to figure it out on their own.
One partner (the wife) is turned into the monitor. She doesn't want to get hurt again. She doesn't want to lose her marriage...
So, she starts monitoring his internet and phone use. She asks for his passwords. Takes him to therapy/treatment. Checks in with him regularly...
And she does all this with the hope that her husband won't have another "slip up"... while hating the fact that will probably happen.
While all this is happening with the wife, we turn the other partner (the husband) into a selfish, immature perpetrator without self-control, or a moral compass. He is constantly fed the message he is unworthy of trust, and will always (eventually) disappoint his partner.
He walks around in constant fear that he could make one mistake and lose everything.
Nobody hates himself more than he does... and that's saying something.
How is a couple supposed to thrive under these conditions?
There has to be a better way to overcome this struggle...
A way that will create space for intimacy and trust to be rebuilt, while still allowing for accountability and shared values to be explored.
And that's why I decided to participate in the Rethinking Porn Addiction conversations.
Every week I get together with a group of friends, therapists, and sometimes our wives.
And we show what it's like to have healthy, shame-free, productive conversations about porn.
We examine our upbringings, our stories, our judgments, and experiences with curiosity.
And we explore the principles and values of sexual health: shared values, honesty, consent, non-exploitation, shared pleasure, and prevention of STI's and unwanted pregnancy.
This is the first of those conversations.
I want to invite you to check it out. (And share it with a friend who might need it.)
And if you want more, check out Rethinking Porn Addiction.
My wife and I recently celebrated our wedding anniversary.
We have a tradition where every year, she and I alternate between planning something for our anniversary, and planning Valentine’s Day.
This year it was my turn to make anniversary plans… and I cheated.
I reached out to the Growth Marriage audience, and asked them to share their favorite, or most creative anniversary gift ideas.
The responses I got back were phenomenal, so I thought I’d share them here.
This idea embraces the scrapbooking approach…
It’s thoughtful, sentimental, romantic, and not over-the-top (which I love).
Here’s what you do:
Step 1) Get an empty pretty journal.
Step 2) Dedicate one page of the journal to one year of your marriage. (Make sure you write the year on the page.)
Step 3) Write about a few memorable moments during that year. Or, how you felt about your partner. Or something special that occurred.
This year might be a photo of your pregnant wife.
Next year, would be your new child.
Four years ago would be your beautiful wedding photo.
Step 4) Every year from this day forward, you will add a page. Maybe you have two pages and one has a special photo that year.
Throughout the year, keep a notepad and write down memorable things that you might write about on anniversary day because when life gets stressful, we tend to forget what occurred during a given year.
Bonus Points: Go back through the past years of your marriage and add them to the book retroactively.
Have you done a favorite things?
Try going out of your way to do some things that are her favorites.
It can be such a meaningful experience!
Here’s an example of a husband surprising his wife with some of her favorite things… just to give you an idea of how awesome it can be. Watching this totally made me smile:
The Sticklers (@mikeandkat) has created a short video on TikTok with music original sound. | I love this woman so much lol #justforfun #couplegoals #coupleschallenge #4u #momsoftiktok #wifeprank | Asking my wife if she wants to do her favorite things🥰😂 | "Hey babe" | "Good" | ...
One person said, “When I was pregnant like your wife, my favorite gift was a prenatal massage!”
Someone else said, “Get a pedicure together! Pick each other’s color polish for your toes (yes, you too Nate) and have fun sitting relaxing in a massage chair....this is WONDERFUL for any pregnant woman.”
(We totally did this, by the way! My wife and I went and got pedicures together. I had a massage scheduled for her a day or two later… but she went into labor the day before the massage, so she didn’t get to experience that.)
Someone else wrote me and shared this great idea:
One thing I do is we write each other a letter every year. I put them in a file and each anniversary we read some of them.
It’s a good reminder when we’re struggling, and it’s fun to see the changes and reference how much we love each other.
Put together a scavenger hunt with 10 to 12 clues based on memories and milestones of your relationship, like:
How you met,
Where your first date was,
Your first meal together,
The first time you said I love you,
How you proposed, etc.
Let's say your first date was at a pizza restaurant that no longer exists, the clue can be related to pizza and you can even order a pizza. Present the clues on pretty paper in a cute box or attach them to her favorite flowers, then go re-live the memories!
Photo by freestocks.org from Pexels
I would highly suggest doing a little baby moon/anniversary getaway if you can both get away from work for a weekend!
Go on a fun road trip, and/or stay at a quaint bed and breakfast or a romantic Airbnb and just enjoy being together!
Seeing as how your wife has been so busy, she may appreciate a quiet night where she has no responsibilities and can just relax. Maybe a nice dinner brought in.
I’ve been buying gold tipped roses from a jeweler in our town so she has a keepsake that will last longer than a week.
This one I got from Darren Hardy and it takes a year to do.
What you do is write something in a notebook every day that you appreciate/love about Ang. Then in a year's time you give it to her.
She'll cry.
If you can't do it every day, do it every week and have 52 weeks of love.
Photo by Maddog 229 from Pexels
For our 10th anniversary, I had breakfast with my wife in the morning at her favorite breakfast spot.
I had her meet me for lunch at another good restaurant near where I worked at the time and when I had to go back to work, I sent her off to the spa for an hour or two.
After work, we went to our hotel, before heading to a large park in St. Louis, where I had arranged ahead of time to have my friends set a picnic blanket, basket and all the trimmings.
Once we arrived at the park, we took a walk in the direction of the picnic setting, which my wife did not know was set up for us. We had to eat between raindrops but we had a great and memorable evening.
I think your wife would be blessed by being pampered—buy her a gorgeous nighty or sexy lingerie to give her that night—maybe take her to a beautiful hotel with a spa for a massage—especially for those beautiful feet—a lovely dinner—roses—a scented oil massage from you— That sounds special and beautiful to me.
Decorate 4 corners of your house with a milestone or memory from each of your 4 years. Make it sensory! An activity, song, or food. The final activity can be what memory you want to create for this year.
Every week I post a new video on my Youtube Channel that’s packed full of tips, tools, and principles you can use to create deeper connection, have better communication, develop deeper trust, and spice up the chemistry.
The days between Christmas and the new year are some of my FAVORITE days of the year.
I’ve spend a lot of time thinking about what I want 2019 to look like, what I want to accomplish, and how I want to change and evolve.
There’s something exciting about the whole world choosing a day to give themselves a fresh start, and an opportunity to change.
In today’s post I’m going to give you a look into how I set my personal and professional goals for my year. Feel free to steal some of my ideas, share some of your own, and let me know in the comments what your plans are to level up next year!
It doesn’t take too many “shocks” to teach your partner that something isn’t safe.
Sometimes you shock our partner with an eye-roll. Sometimes you shock them with a critical comment, “You’re not doing that right!” or “You’ve got to be kidding me…” Sometimes it’s a loud, irritated sigh, or an emotional outburst.
When you shock your partner, you tell them “You’re not safe if you keep doing what you’re doing. You’d better not do it again, or you’ll get zapped.”
I’ve helped a lot of incredible people fix frustrating problems in their marriage, and learn the skills to create a relationship more incredible than they thought was possible. Here’s what just a few of them have said:
