couples therapy
How to Practice Listening, Part 2
Part two of the listening series offers concrete practices, from validating emotions to removing distractions, that help couples turn the intention to listen into a daily habit.
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couples therapy
The Power of Listening, Part 1
Part one of a two-part series on active listening, showing how Gottman's 'turning toward' concept and research on great listeners can build lasting emotional safety in marriage.
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couples therapy
Healing Insecure Attachment and Communicating Needs
Part two of the attachment series looks at how couples can heal insecure attachment patterns by creating emotional safety and learning to voice the vulnerable needs beneath their conflicts.
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couples therapy
Understanding Attachment Styles in Marriage
The first in a two-part series on attachment theory in marriage, exploring the secure, anxious, and avoidant attachment styles and how each shapes the way spouses connect and argue.
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couples therapy
Building Connection Through Gentle Communication
A practical look at how gentle start-ups, the SYMBIS communication framework, and everyday appreciation can turn hard conversations into opportunities for deeper connection.
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couples therapy
How Criticism Damages a Marriage: Gottman's Four Horsemen
Drawing on Dr. John Gottman's research, this piece explains how criticism differs from a healthy complaint, why it is one of the strongest predictors of divorce, and how couples can replace it with gentler communication.
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marriage
The Role of Friendship in Marriage
Why the healthiest marriages balance romantic passion with genuine friendship, and how couples can build the trust, rituals, and partnership that keep both alive.
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couples therapy
The Five Love Languages: Learning to Speak Love Fluently
An overview of Dr. Gary Chapman's Five Love Languages and practical, everyday examples of how couples can learn to give and receive love in ways their partner truly understands.
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couples therapy
Maintaining Boundaries in Marriage and Modeling Them for Our Children
Part two of our boundaries series looks at how couples keep healthy limits alive day to day, and how the way spouses treat each other quietly teaches children what respect and self-control look like.
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couples therapy
Understanding and Establishing Boundaries in Marriage
Boundaries aren't walls that divide a marriage — they're frameworks that protect trust, honesty, and individuality. Part one of a two-part series on setting healthy boundaries with your spouse.
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couples therapy
SYMBIS 5.0: Roles, Parenting Expectations, and Social Support
The final installment in our SYMBIS series covers how couples divide responsibilities, align parenting values, and set healthy boundaries with the people around their marriage.
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couples therapy
SYMBIS 4.0: Money, Sexual Expectations, and Spirituality
The fourth installment in our SYMBIS series tackles the topics couples avoid most — money, intimacy, and faith — and why naming them early builds trust instead of tension.
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couples therapy
SYMBIS 3.0: Love Style, Communication, and Conflict Resolution
The third installment in our SYMBIS series explores how your love style, communication style, and conflict style shape the emotional climate of your relationship.
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couples therapy
SYMBIS 2.0: Marriage Mindset, Well-Being, and Personality
The second installment in our SYMBIS series looks at how your marriage mindset, personal well-being, and personality type shape expectations, conflict, and connection before you say 'I do.'
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couples therapy
Emotionally Focused Therapy: Building Emotional Safety
Part two on Emotionally Focused Therapy covers Dr. Sue Johnson's A.R.E. framework — Accessibility, Responsiveness, and Engagement — and how small, repeated moments of presence repair and deepen a marriage.
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Emotionally Focused Therapy: Why Emotional Safety Matters
Emotional safety, not the absence of conflict, is what allows couples to stay connected. An introduction to Dr. Sue Johnson's Emotionally Focused Therapy and the 'demon dialogues' that quietly disconnect couples.
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SYMBIS: Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts
An introduction to SYMBIS, the research-based premarital assessment created by Drs. Les and Leslie Parrott, and why intentional preparation lowers a couple's risk of divorce.
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couples therapy
Love, Conflict, and Forgiveness: Deepening Connection with Dr. John Lund
Part two of our look at Dr. John Lund's work covers how men and women give and receive love differently, practical tools for de-escalating conflict, and why forgiveness is a requirement rather than an option.
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Communication, Clarity, and Connection: Lessons from Dr. John Lund
Dr. John Lund's decades of teaching on marriage communication reveal why couples miscommunicate even with good intentions, and how shifting from hinting to asking transforms a relationship.
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marriage
Writing a Marriage Mission Statement
A marriage mission statement works like a compass — it clarifies shared values, spiritual priorities, and long-term goals so a couple can navigate life's seasons with intention instead of drifting.
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couples therapy
The Six Pillars of Intimacy in Marriage
Intimacy is more than physical closeness — a look at the six pillars (emotional, physical, financial, spiritual, recreational, and sexual) that hold a marriage together, drawing on Tony and Alisa DiLorenzo's 'The 6 Pillars of Intimacy.'
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marriage
A Second Chance at Love—Done Differently
Remarriage isn't a repeat of your first marriage—it's a rebuild. Five lessons from Les and Leslie Parrott's Saving Your Second Marriage Before It Starts on beating the odds the second time around.
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Is It Too Late to Fix Your Marriage?
SYMBIS isn't just for engaged couples. The SYMBIS+ Assessment gives already-married couples a reset button, a fresh roadmap to their spouse's inner world, and constructive tools for turning conflict into connection.
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couples therapy
Love Smart, Not Fast
How Dr. John Van Epp's RAM (Relationship Attachment Model) keeps your head and heart in balance while dating, so you avoid mistaking chemistry for compatibility and rushing toward the wrong partner.
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marriage
Is Your Engagement Built to Last?
Most couples spend 99% of their energy on the wedding and 1% on the marriage. Here's how the SYMBIS Assessment flips that ratio—and why, for some couples, it can reveal that ending the engagement is the healthiest choice.
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couples therapy
Deepen Your Intimacy and Love Life
Beyond avoiding divorce, the SYMBIS Assessment's dynamics section is built to help couples thrive—tackling hot topics, building emotional safety, and cultivating the kind of intimacy that lasts a lifetime.
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marriage
Deepen Your Love: A Look Inside the SYMBIS Deep Personality & Compatibility Profile
The Deep Personality & Compatibility Profile is one of the most powerful sections of the SYMBIS Assessment—here's how its 'pinwheel' model, marriage mindsets, and fight-type analysis help couples understand each other at a deeper level.
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marriage
Are You Really Ready for Forever?
The SYMBIS Assessment doesn't just confirm you're a good match—it can also reveal caution flags and unresolved baggage worth addressing before the wedding. Here's how it separates true readiness from romantic autopilot.
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marriage
Spiritual Beliefs in Marriage
Five ways shared spiritual beliefs act as fuel that keeps a marriage steady through every season, from forgiveness and resilience through trials to the protective power of a faith community.
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marriage
Money & Marriage: How the SYMBIS Assessment Sets You Up for Financial Success
Money is a leading cause of stress in new marriages. Here's how the SYMBIS Assessment's financial section helps couples uncover their money habits, spot hot topics, and build a joint plan before conflict sets in.
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marriage
Plan the Marriage—Not Just the Wedding
Why the SYMBIS Assessment—a research-based premarital tool used by over a million couples—deserves as much attention as the wedding day, and five ways it helps engaged couples build a foundation that lasts.
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Cohabitation and Commitment: What Couples Should Know
Living together before marriage is more common than ever, but research suggests it doesn't necessarily build the same closeness or commitment as marriage itself. What couples should think through before moving in together.
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The Power of Pausing: Patience in Marriage
Patience is what turns disagreements into understanding instead of battles. A look at why pausing before reacting, and accepting your spouse's imperfections, builds the trust that lasting marriages are built on.
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9 Healthy Boundaries in a Marriage
Boundaries don't create distance in marriage — they build the trust and predictability that let two people stay close. A look at emotional, personal, financial, and outside-relationship boundaries every couple needs.
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The Healing Power of Forgiveness in Marriage
Forgiveness in marriage isn't about letting your spouse off the hook — it's a gift you give yourself. A look at why forgiveness takes practice, why some wounds are harder to move past than others, and when it's time to bring in outside help.
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couples therapy
Unpacking Baggage in Marriage
Every marriage comes with two people's histories built in. This piece looks at how unexamined past hurts resurface in everyday conflict — and how naming them together turns old wounds into deeper connection.
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Strengthening Marriage Through Spirituality and Prayer
Shared faith and the practice of praying for one's spouse can build resilience and deepen commitment, helping couples find perspective and connection through life's hardest seasons.
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Growth Mindset in Marriage: Choosing Growth Over Compatibility
Rather than assuming conflict means you married the wrong person, a growth mindset—paired with 'I' statements and Gottman's research on perpetual problems—helps couples manage differences and grow together.
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Cultivating Intimacy: How Effort Shapes a Strong Marriage
Like a garden, physical and emotional intimacy in marriage doesn't thrive on autopilot—it takes ongoing attention to passion, connection, and commitment to keep a relationship flourishing.
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Beginning Your Financial Journey in Marriage
Money disagreements are a leading factor in divorce, so honest conversations about debt, budgeting, and financial goals before and during marriage can protect a couple's future together.
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Preparing Your Marriage for Life with Children
Becoming a parent reshapes every part of a marriage, and building a strong relational foundation beforehand—free of common myths—helps couples weather the transition together.
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marriage
Roles and Expectations in Marriage: What We Assume vs. What We Say
Unspoken assumptions about who does what at home—often inherited from our own parents—can quietly breed resentment unless couples learn to name and discuss them directly.
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Is Gen Z Afraid of Marriage—Or Just Afraid of Choosing Wrong?
Gen Z's cautious approach to dating and commitment reflects real generational shifts in relationships, and premarital tools like the SYMBIS Assessment can help couples build confidence before saying "I do."
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Components of a Sincere Apology
It's more than just saying 'I'm sorry': a breakdown of the five apology languages from Dr. Gary Chapman and Jennifer Thomas, and why each one matters for making an apology land as sincere.
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Ask Culture vs. Guess Culture
Why you and your partner might be miscommunicating: a look at two opposite, unspoken styles of making requests, and how couples can blend them into a shared language.
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couples therapy
SYMBIS Personality Traits
An inside look at the DISC-based personality model behind the SYMBIS premarital assessment, and how understanding your and your partner's personality type can turn friction into teamwork.
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Are You Arguing Right?
Healthy couples don't avoid conflict — they handle it well. Practical guidance for turning arguments into opportunities for growth instead of moments that erode trust.
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Say It With Heart: The Role of Warmth, Genuineness, and Empathy in Relationships
Warmth, genuineness, and empathy aren't just nice extras in a conversation — they're the foundation that makes real communication and connection possible in a relationship.
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marriage
Don't Stop Dating, Don't Stop Playing
Married life gets busy, and it's easy to drift from partners into roommates. A look at why regular, low-pressure date nights matter and simple ways to keep having fun together.
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Understanding Report Talk vs. Rapport Talk in Relationships
Men and women often communicate for different reasons — one seeking connection, the other seeking solutions. Learning to ask whether a conversation is a 'feelings talk' or a 'fixing talk' can prevent a lot of unnecessary friction.
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The Danger of Venting About Your Spouse to Everyone Else
Where does healthy processing end and harmful venting begin? A look at emotional loyalty, boundaries, and how habitually venting about your spouse to friends and family can quietly erode trust.
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The Power of Knowing Your Personal History Before Saying "I Do"
Understanding how your family of origin, childhood experiences, and learned relationship patterns shape the habits you bring into marriage — and why SYMBIS premarital training treats self-awareness as foundational.
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couples therapy
Marriage Matters: The Anatomy of Peace Pt. 2
Marriage Matters: The Anatomy of Peace Pt. 2 A book review blog series to strengthen your marriage relationship! “We can each find our way to a place where we have no need for justification at all. We can find our way to peace- deep, lasting, authentic peace- even when war…
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Staying Close with your Spouse through the Years
Staying Close with your Spouse through the Years How small choices and simple moments strengthen your bond. Dating vs. Married Life Recently, I came across a comedic sketch titled Dating vs. Marriage, and it resonated with me in how it depicts a couple’s relationship when they are dating vs. married.…
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marriage
Through small and simple things.... the greatest of love is grown!
"WE CAN DO NO GREAT THINGS; ONLY SMALL THINGS WITH GREAT LOVE." Mother Teresa Through Small and Simple Things: The Power of Love in Everyday Acts In a world that often celebrates grand gestures—expensive gifts, big events, and public displays of affection—it’s easy to forget the quiet, simple moments that…
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couples therapy
Marriage Matters: Crucial Conversations Pt. 2
A book review blog series to strengthen your marriage relationship! Have you ever wanted your spouse to change? Have you ever felt stuck, arguing about the same old issues over and over again? Did you know there’s something you can do today to fundamentally, qualitatively change the way you communicate…
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Marriage Matters: The Anatomy of Peace Pt. 1
A book review blog series to strengthen your marriage relationship!Any relationship between two or more honest people will eventually involve some degree of conflict because no two people see everything alike. But how these conflicts are dealt with can make or break the relationship. Nowhere is this more true than…
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couples therapy
Marriage Matters: Crucial Conversations Pt. 1
There’s a reason why developing communication skills and strengthening marriage relationships go hand in hand. Marriage involves hard work. And communicating well is a skill that takes repeated practice to master. Here’s why Crucial Conversations is a great marriage resource: If ever there’s a relationship with lots of discussions “where…
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Understanding the Five Love Languages and What Each Says About Your Spouse’s Emotional Needs
Everyone has the same core needs, but different people have different needs that go filled and unfulfilled. Therefore, every person has different deep and unmet needs. A person’s primary love languages are good indicators of their underlying emotional needs. This article will suggest the emotional needs communicated by each love…
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5 Ways You Can Choose to Be Refined by Your Trials
Empathy is a powerful thing, it can literally change the world and the lives of those who are touched by it. Something that every person on Earth has in common is the desire to be loved, to be seen, and to feel understood. Humans thrive on connection, it's in our nature, we need it to survive.
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14 Marriage Inventory Topics
Regardless of how long you’ve been together, marriage inventories help you and your partner connect, discuss, change, and love.
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couples therapy
Changing States: Negative to Positive Mindsets
Changing mindsets is difficult, and it takes a lot of energy. But your influence can make a big difference.
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couples therapy
Forgiveness
Forgiveness is a key element for peace, joy, and happiness in a relationship. How do you know if you've fully forgiven?
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Similarities and Differences in Relationships
How is it that “opposites attract” yet “birds of a feather flock together”? Are we supposed to be more different or more the same?
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The Creeping Zero of Expectations
Our expectations determine our level of satisfaction. The creeping zero is an unhealthy perspective people have for expectations.
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couples therapy
How to Create Open Communication
How you communicate with your spouse makes a difference in all areas of your life. Here are the 3 things you need for open communication.
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couples therapy
Shake It Up with These Dating Ideas
If you've been in a relationship for a long time, you’ll probably find yourself going on the same kind of date. Shake it up and add variety!
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couples therapy
The Good and Bad in Each of Us
Each of us has a good wolf and a bad wolf inside of us. If you will starve the bad wolf and feed the good wolf, then your relationship will get better and better.
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The Win-Win and Equal Partnership
Sometimes we give up what we want to create peace and do what the other person wants. When we give up things that are important to us, we miss out on peace anyway. The idea going forward is to never settle for any of this.
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couples therapy
How Do I Know If I Married the Right Person?
Marrying the right person comes down to commitment to the choice and the relationship. However, affairs and abuse should be considered.
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couples therapy
Going "DEEP" to Make Changes
If you want to change yourself or your relationship, you need the right desire, education, encouragement, and practice.
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Safe Communication Environments
In order to successfully communicate and open up, we need to feel that the environment is safe. Here are three principles of a safe communication environment.
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couples therapy
Speaking Their Love Language
You need to communicate love in the way that your spouse feels it. The problem is, people usually try to give out the same love language they want to receive. You may be working really hard to help your spouse feel loved, but if it’s not their love language, it won’t do much!
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couples therapy
Why Marriage Matters
With a marriage, you're building a stronger nation: greater wealth, health, and happiness for yourself and others. Studies show all kinds of benefits behind good marriages. Marriage is a valuable commitment! %
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couples therapy
Communication in Relationships: 10 Listening Skills
10 Listening Skills. Communication is the most important skill in any relationship — updated live via the Posts CMS (Phase B live-edit proof).
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couples therapy
Going Beyond Good Intentions - Meeting the Needs of your Spouse
When a couple gets married, they have great intentions for the future and for their marriage. They make promises and commitments to each other. A few years or even only months after the ceremony, they might realize that keeping those commitments might be harder than they thought. This is normal. People are not born with the skills to have a good marriage. They have to learn them.
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couples therapy
Marriage: A Team Sport
When two people get married, they bring together distinct backgrounds and rules on the family and what it should look like. Coming together, you and your spouse have different ways that you see marriage and different rules that you learned growing up.
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couples therapy
Why Do Marriages Get into Trouble?
Each person is unique and each marriage is unique. There are characteristics present in almost every bad marriage: criticism, contempt, defensiveness, stonewalling.
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