messymotherhood2

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Putting effort in your marriage

Marriage is difficult. Like anything else, a relationship is work. What happens when you feel like you’re the only one putting in the effort? All marriages hit rough patches, but sometimes it feels like you’re trying harder than your spouse. In those periods of life, take a step back and consider a couple of things What is the temperature of your heart? This means checking for resentment,…

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Communication in Military Marriages

As a military spouse of almost six years, I do not pretend to know everything about military life or marriage as a whole. I do know, however, that one of the major problems tends to be communication. This week, I will break down the different communication styles and techniques that might be involved with military relationships starting with boot camp. Boot camp is anywhere from 8 to 13 weeks,…

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Welcome Back

After a five month break, I am returning to writing with the topic this summer being military marriages!

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Seasons in Marriage

The past few posts have looked at marriage killers, communication, building a strong foundation, and managing expectations of real-life love and social media expectations. These are important areas, but there’s more involved in marriage outside of these important basics. You can have a strong foundation, communicate well, avoid the trap of marriage killers, and be realistic with expectations but…

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Building a Foundation

As any architect or construction person knows, to build anything correctly, you need a firm foundation. This often looks like a slab of concrete, but that slab is the first step of building someone’s dream of a home or a business. This is true in marriage. To have a strong marriage, two people must lay the foundation. I asked Mark once if you could give our marriage a mission statement. What…

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Unwinding my Anxious Heart

I took a break from writing between school and the holidays so I could refresh with my family. I needed to take a little time to continue some old traditions and start a few new. As New Years came and went, I noticed that the past couple of months, something was missing. The normal anxiety I feel, the doubts I have in myself, was somewhat stronger. I found myself being short with my children,…

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Rebuilding Trust: Overcoming Marriage Killers

Before forgiveness, an action breaks trust and can hurt the marriage. Although various actions can fall into this category, we will look at a couple major marriage killers. I want to clearly state that I do not condone domestic violence. I do not encourage it, nor do I endorse it. If you are experiencing domestic violence, please seek help. Addiction can kill a marriage, whether drugs, alcohol,…

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Understanding Forgiveness: A Guide for Couples

In the last post, we discussed how to argue in a productive way. Every argument comes with the opportunity to forgive and agree to move forward or to hold onto anger and hurt, often replaying the transgression in your mind over and over. Forgiveness is a hard pill to swallow sometimes because many see it as giving the person who hurt you a free pass. Forgiveness is a show of strength rather than…

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Transforming Arguments: Marital Collaboration Tips

Yesterday we looked at what happens when we share our private arguments with people outside of the marriage and the result of taking sides. Today, we look at how to fight the problem rather than your partner. Fighting a problem looks a lot different because of the tactical approach. Fighting a problem requires collaboration and compromise instead of focusing on wins and losses. My husband and I…

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Fixing Misunderstandings: A Guide for Couples

In looking at social media, we covered how big gestures are not always the real love we are looking for. Another thing that social media has made us very comfortable with is opening our lives for others to see. Our parents and grandparents called it “airing out your dirty laundry” but we call it telling the truth, but that has consequences. I am all for telling people about problems in marriages…

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Real Love Gestures vs. Social Media Pressure

Is social media causing you to wonder if your marriage is solid? Are you comparing your relationship to what you see on tiktok? This article is for you

You see the reels, TikTok videos, and Facebook montages about men and women who make the effort. The effort, as defined by the video, is a large display of affection that costs hundreds of dollars. Usually, these videos are followed up with the phrase “if he or she wanted to, they would”. This can be unrealistic for a variety of reasons and ultimately shames couples who cannot commit to large…

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Addressing Unrealistic Expectations in Marriage

Is social media making you wonder if your marriage is perfect? Is there such a thing as a perfect marriage? Find out the answers in messymotherhood's new series on marriage

I have been away from my blog for a little while due to being busy with classes. I am currently working on a masters in marriage and family therapy, which has led me to understand the conflicts in marriage a little more. Many problems with marriage start with unrealistic expectations and, possibly a misunderstanding of very important topics. These topics that are usually relationship killers are…

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Multitasking Mama

I tend to be very busy lately. In fact, I have been so busy that I have made excuses to stop doing what I love because I rationalize that I am too tired, have too much to do, and can’t do what I want because I have commitments. This morning, I woke up telling myself that today is the day that I go back to what makes me happy. I have a pile of books I have been meaning to read, and I wanted to go…

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Moments in marriage

My husband and I have been married for five years as of this past weekend. When I look at those five years, I see a lot of change in both of us individually and who we are as a couple. Marriage is not easy. To me, it means waking up and going to bed each day, making the decision to love the person you married even when they make you crazy. Neither of us is the easiest people to live with. We both…

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Back from a break

As the title has indicated, I took a break from writing for a little while because I did something (in my mind) pretty amazing, I graduated with my first master’s on May 10th. Before that, I took a break to recover from surgery. The surgery I had was the same one I had before we had our baby girl. Polyps regrew and unfortunately, I lost multiple pregnancies in the past year. So now that I have…

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Whose child is this?

I gave birth to two children who appear to be less like me than I expected. Our sweet girl seems to have some of my super villain tendencies; however, our son is just like his father. Our baby walks like him, smiles like him, and frankly has the same I love you even though you’re annoyed at me face. (Believe me, I see that face from both of them often). My husband seems terribly amused at having…

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Falling apart together

I started praying every hour. I thought it was a great way to put God first in all the moments of life and it has been. However, there has been some pain in the praying. It is one thing to say that all is well, even in the painful moments, however it is even harder to actually feel that way. How can we say all is well in times of loss? How can we say all is well when everything is falling apart?…