This post was first published on June 27, 2011, and it’s every bit as true as it was then. In fact, it’s been good for me to reread it.

I admit: It was a glorious, beautiful thing we had going on in Austin. We lived near grandparents for the first time in years, and they knew as well as we did that it wouldn’t last forever. Because of this, they were willing to watch the kids regularly so that Kyle and I could have Date Nights.

Oh, so sacrificial were they as they spent time spraying the kids with the backyard water hose, making more cupcakes than any one family could possibly eat, sewing purses and doll dresses, and watching Saturday morning cartoons. Woe to them that they got to feed our kids things they never get to eat with Boring Ol’ Parents, and that they ate up story time, funny one-liners, and slobbery kisses.

It was rough for the grandparents.

Yep, they watched our three kids every other Friday night for more than a year. Well, it was two kids at first, but then Finn came along. And once he started sleeping through the night, he joined his big brother and sister and got to spend the night at Hot Rod and Nana’s.

That’s right. We picked up the kids by lunchtime Saturday. Glorious, indeed.

But we’re no strangers to Date Nights. We enjoyed them years ago, when it was just Tate and my parents watched her, and then later when we lived in the Middle East, we tag-teamed with neighbors as we watched each other’s kids. Every Thursday, we’d switch off — one family would watch all the kids while the other couple went on a date; the roles would switch the following week.

Date Nights are essential to our marriage and our sanity.

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Written by relationships columnist Corey Allan of Simple Marriage.

Sex is an important aspect in most every marriage. It’s what differentiates your relationship with your spouse from all others. It’s powerful, chaotic, and wild. Full of all types of energy—spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical. Everyone who ventures into the world of sex does so with some level of anxiousness, nervousness, excitement, and perhaps even fear.

Sex is also everywhere. Stand in line at the grocery store and see if you can avoid seeing the word sex on a magazine cover. I bet you can’t.

It seems that everyone is doing it.

Talking about sex however, is possibly one of the more difficult conversations in life. Having a conversation about sex with your children is one thing. But what about with your spouse?

Did you realize that for many people, it’s easier to talk about sex with friends than it is with their sexual partner? It’s because of the anxiety this most intimate subject and act creates.

Remember how nervous you were during your first sexual encounter? Filled with uncertainty, the exploration of the unknown, being vulnerable with someone else, sharing new parts of yourself with another person?

After a while, the nervousness subsides, confidence increases, but … routine takes over.

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Written by relationships columnist Corey Allan of Simple Marriage.

If you’ve been married beyond the honeymoon phase, then you’re familiar with the ups and downs of married life.

Morning breath, bad hair, and the no make-up, feeling completely unsexy mornings.

What’s interesting is that even when you’ve felt the furthest thing from sexy, your husband likely was still interested in sex. I know, shocker.

I know I am, although I do prefer brushed teeth, to get rid of morning breath.

This is not a stop-the-presses type of comment – but guys are just wired differently.

And even though this may mean there are times when you have to fend off his advances with weapons and “headaches,” the fact that men and women are wired differently is actually a great thing.

You see, it’s not what we don’t have in common that creates the problems – our differences actually create the energy and tension necessary for growth into something better and more meaningful.

It’s all in how you look at it.

Men and women are just different.

They’re designed that way.
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Last month, Kyle and I went away for a week to celebrate ten years of marriage. TEN YEARS. Not long in the big picture, but you know, long for certain animal species. We feel blessed and bewildered and in awe of it all, really—I remember on our first anniversary feeling like we had already been married forever, but then I blinked, and years two through ten whooshed by.

Ten years does not a marital expert make, certainly, but when I think back on those children that said “I do” ten years ago this Friday, I’m rather floored by how much we’ve learned. Here are ten of those things.
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Good marriages create good families. Good families create good neighborhoods. Good neighborhoods create good communities. Good communities create … you get the idea.

But creating a good marriage depends on more than just your interactions with your spouse … it also depends on how you view marriage in general.

Marriage is not just the sum of the personal interactions that you find either satisfying or distressing, marriage is more a social status and a shared ideal — a story you have about your own life, your family, your spouse, and your love.

Stated another way, the attitudes and values we have about marriage and divorce affect how satisfying we find being married. In communities where marriage is highly valued, husbands and wives get more from marriage than they would in a community where marriage is seen as a more private matter or even temporary.

People who are deeply committed to marriage as a lifelong vow have happier marriages not only because of what they do in their relationships, but because of what they think about being married in general.

This also holds true in how you conduct yourself within the marriage. [Read more...]