Marriage Counseling

How Your Upbringing Affects Your First Year of Marriage: Dividing Household Responsibilities

, 2025-09-05T07:04:40+00:00September 5th, 2025|Couples Counseling, Featured, Marriage Counseling, Relationship Issues|

Marriage is a beautiful journey filled with joy, love, and growth, but it also comes with its share of challenges, especially managing household responsibilities. For newlyweds, disagreements over chores can quickly overshadow the excitement of starting their life together. What these couples often overlook is that their differing expectations are not just about dishes and dusting – they are rooted in the ways they were raised. Understanding how upbringing shapes our views on household roles and learning to adjust to these differences in our spouse are crucial steps toward building a harmonious marriage and finally tackling the “to-do list.” Katie and Carson: A Case Study in Marital Expectations Katie and Carson were a young couple who had been happily married for three months. They had moved into a cozy new apartment, sparsely furnished and filled with thrifted items and hand-me-downs. Because neither of them had ever lived alone, neither had learned how to efficiently maintain a home. Soon, the dirty dishes were piled up in the sink, and the trash cans overflowed. Their love nest had turned into a pigsty, and neither was willing to do the household chores. Katie came from a single-dad household where her father had done most of the housework. Carson grew up in a house that had more traditional gender roles, where his mother took care of all the household responsibilities while his dad supported the family financially. Katie and Carson had opposite viewpoints as to who should be taking care of the household chores. Since Carson worked a full-time job, he felt that Katie should take on most of the household chores. Katie felt that the household chores should be equally shared, even though she did not contribute financially to the household. The Impact of Upbringing on Marriage Expectations The way we are raised [...]

Comments Off on How Your Upbringing Affects Your First Year of Marriage: Dividing Household Responsibilities

7 Signs of a Toxic Marriage

2025-08-22T07:26:10+00:00August 22nd, 2025|Couples Counseling, Featured, Marriage Counseling, Relationship Issues|

Do you feel like your marriage is in trouble? Marriage is hard work, and arguments and disagreements will happen. Hard times will come. However, a toxic marriage has to do with the breakdown of behavior in the relationship between both spouses to the degree that it is abusive or borderline abusive. Toxic Marriage Signs There are several signs of a toxic marriage to watch for. As you read through the following signs, remember that your relationship does not need to hit on all of them to be harmful. For example, if your spouse controls your movements, decisions, thoughts, work, finances, and clothing, you are in an unhealthy marriage. A toxic marriage typically ends in divorce unless a behavior change is apparent. Too many abusive spouses own up to their behavior and then “love bomb” their partner to get back into their good graces, only to revert to their bad behavior. Remember that you cannot change or “fix” your spouse. If you stay in a toxic marriage, eventually, your physical, mental, and emotional health will suffer. Your Spouse is Controlling If your spouse controls your actions, decisions, or thoughts, or if they control finances, food, and clothing to the degree that you have no say, you are in a toxic relationship. This person wants you to rely solely on them for basic needs. They will keep you from bettering yourself and scoffing at your opinions. You Feel on Edge A toxic marriage will make you walk on eggshells, afraid of the next disagreement. Your spouse may have anger outbursts over small things or give you the silent treatment. You are unsure of their response from one day to the next, so you live on the edge, constantly anxious. They may yell and insult you, find a way to punish you [...]

Comments Off on 7 Signs of a Toxic Marriage

Helping Your Depressed Husband: Finding Support in Rockwall, Texas

2025-08-12T08:34:56+00:00August 12th, 2025|Couples Counseling, Featured, Marriage Counseling, Relationship Issues|

Although more women suffer from depression than men, men are still at risk. Depression is a mental disorder that can range from mild to severe, and last several weeks, months, or years. It can disrupt the home, work, the relationship in the bedroom, and other areas of life. Helping your depressed husband is critical to maintaining a strong relationship while he receives treatment. How to Help Your Depressed Husband You can help your depressed husband with a few lifestyle changes and reprioritizing the relationship. Remember when you were dating? Most people would have walked miles to see the other person. They would run to the phone when it rang to see if it was them. Once married, we accept adult responsibilities, and sometimes these crowd out the excitement of the relationship. Work with your husband to rekindle the spark in your relationship. The feelings of love and acceptance trigger the release of serotonin and dopamine, counteracting stress hormones and alleviating depression. Consider a few of the tips for helping a depressed husband. Encourage couples counseling Let your husband know you are willing to attend couples counseling with him. He may be afraid to go alone or think it’s a waste of time, but he’ll be willing to go if you’re by his side. Impress upon him that the strategies and skills the counselor shares will help alleviate his depression symptoms. Couples counseling also provides you with an opportunity to share your concerns and learn how to support your husband. Help him with tasks when he’s overwhelmed If your husband is the primary breadwinner in the family or works a stressful job, he may feel overwhelmed by his responsibilities. If he’s out of work, the chronic stress may be contributing to his depression. Try to help him with tasks when you [...]

Comments Off on Helping Your Depressed Husband: Finding Support in Rockwall, Texas

Do Toxic Couples Know They’re Toxic?

, 2025-08-01T07:35:06+00:00August 1st, 2025|Couples Counseling, Featured, Marriage Counseling, Premarital Counseling, Relationship Issues|

Having healthy self-awareness can help you in many life situations. If you can tell that you’re getting angry, for example, you can remove yourself from the situation or otherwise take steps to manage your anger appropriately. Similarly, if you know your limits of patience, wisdom, time, and capacity, that will help you prevent overextending or overcommitting yourself, which can lead to chronic stress and burnout. Just as self-awareness can help you in these ways, it can also help you in your relationships. Not all relationships are made equal, as some are healthy and can contribute to you becoming the best version of yourself, while others can break you down and diminish you and your well-being. Being aware of what type of relationship you’re in, or better yet, knowing what sort of relationships to avoid, can help protect you and your well-being. What are toxic couples? Romantic relationships come in all kinds of packages, but despite these differences, at the heart of every healthy relationship should be love, respect, and care for one another. Healthy relationships make for better well-being, as people find the support they need to pursue their goals, and their relationships aren’t a source of stress and constant conflict. Having people around you who care for you makes a huge difference in your life. Toxic couples are those who aren’t loving, respectful, or caring in the way they relate to one another and the posture they take toward each other. This can happen in big, obvious ways that are plain to see, but it can happen in small ways that are no less impactful in undermining the health of the relationship. The couple may be completely oblivious to themselves, but the relationship will nonetheless still be toxic. When soil, water, or air is toxic, what we mean [...]

Comments Off on Do Toxic Couples Know They’re Toxic?

Why Go for Premarital Counseling?

, 2025-06-18T06:21:34+00:00June 18th, 2025|Couples Counseling, Featured, Marriage Counseling, Premarital Counseling, Relationship Issues|

Are you thinking of getting married? Or married again? Before you make that wonderful commitment in the presence of God, it would be wise to go for premarital counseling as a couple. Facilitated by a professional and experienced counselor, you and your future spouse will be able to talk through critical issues and obtain guidance on navigating conflict or potential obstacles to a successful relationship. Biblical premarital counseling in Texas will help you and your future spouse to prepare your hearts and minds for the type of marriage that God intended and in which you both can flourish and grow together. What does God say about marriage? Unlike other contractual arrangements made by human beings, marriage is God’s institution. It is His idea and His design. The primary purpose of marriage, like the purpose of our lives in general, is actually to glorify God. It is supposed to be a living picture of Christ’s relationship with the church – a relationship that is characterized by sacrificial love as each spouse seeks the good of the other above himself or herself. Our security, happiness, and other goals for marriage are still important but they are secondary and subject to this first goal. God has designed marriage to function best according to the rules He has established and laid out for us in His Word. He is clear that it is intended to last a lifetime. Therefore, we should take marriage seriously, and find out what it requires of us. We should not rush into it without careful consideration or counsel from other trustworthy and wise Christians. The Bible acknowledges that the world and our relationships have been marred by sin and that sometimes marriages are severed by death or divorce. God makes provision for people to remarry in certain cases; [...]

Comments Off on Why Go for Premarital Counseling?

How to Forgive in Marriage

, 2025-06-13T06:40:03+00:00June 13th, 2025|Couples Counseling, Featured, Marriage Counseling, Relationship Issues, Spiritual Development|

Forgiveness may be one of the hardest things you will ever do in your marriage, especially when you have been hurt deeply and feel betrayed by the one you love. It’s a whole lot easier to stay angry, to keep a mental tally of wrongdoings, and let that root of bitterness fester in your soul. But do you know what? That anger you’re feeling doesn’t help you in any way. It doesn’t help your health, physically or mentally. It doesn’t help your emotions, and it certainly doesn’t help your marriage. It only weighs down your heart, clouding your relationship and keeping you stuck. Forgiveness doesn’t mean that you pretend that you weren’t hurt by what happened or that it didn’t happen at all. Forgiveness is about moving forward, letting go of anger, and finding healing together. Take, for example, Anna and Luke. They had been married for almost ten years, and recently, their marriage had been on the rocks. The tipping point came when Luke made a comment at a family gathering that deeply hurt Anna. It wasn’t the first time he’d said something carelessly, but this time, it felt like too much. Anna was furious. For weeks, every time they talked, she brought it up, lashing out in anger, even when Luke tried to apologize. Anna wasn’t just angry about that one comment. It was the accumulation of years of hurt, misunderstandings, and unspoken resentment. As she worked through the complicated emotions, Anna realized something important. She realized that she had been holding onto her anger because she felt like it was the only way she could protect herself. The problem was that her anger was not just about building a wall to protect herself. It was building a wall between her and Luke. She had walls that he [...]

Comments Off on How to Forgive in Marriage

6 Keys to Improve Communication in a Relationship

, 2025-06-06T06:48:33+00:00June 6th, 2025|Couples Counseling, Featured, Marriage Counseling, Relationship Issues|

Is there anything simpler, and at the same time possibly more complicated than two people talking? Two people communicating with one another is the basis of a relationship, whether they are using their mouths or hands to express their meaning. The way the Lord designed us, we aren’t a race of mind readers. This necessitates finding ways to express our fears, hopes, needs, and expectations. We must improve communication – it is a vital skill to master in all areas of life. If you’re in a relationship with someone, knowing how to communicate your meaning to them is a boon for that relationship. You can avoid unnecessary misunderstandings, know how best to love your beloved, and quickly get to the heart of disagreements if your communication skills are on point. We all could use some brushing up and learning a few tips to help improve communication in our relationships. Obstacles to Good Communication It’s important to say from the start that people aren’t intentionally bad communicators. No one wants to be misunderstood and to cause avoidable friction in their relationships. No one wants to be unhappy or to make the people in their lives unhappy because of their words. Often, these things happen quite contrary to our desires. There are some obstacles to good communication that we may need greater awareness of. Some things that can stand in the way of good communication include unaddressed feelings like hurt, fear, or anger. These can prevent honest and open communication, leading instead to defensiveness, making assumptions about the other person and their state of mind, and leaning into our biases and prejudices. However, making assumptions and being biased can’t always be blamed on unaddressed feelings. Apart from these internal challenges, good communication can also be hindered by external factors. These include [...]

Comments Off on 6 Keys to Improve Communication in a Relationship

Understanding and Working Through a Sexless Marriage

2025-05-06T07:14:03+00:00May 6th, 2025|Couples Counseling, Featured, Individual Counseling, Marriage Counseling, Relationship Issues|

A marriage is a little bit like a tree. A tree takes root in soil of varying quality, and it gets exposed to the elements like sun, wind, and rain. Sometimes the tree gets too much sun, or it gets battered by fierce winds, it gets too much water in a flash flood, or too little of it during a drought. In the same way, the tree can get just the right amount of what it needs so that it flourishes. The story of a tree can be seen when you check the rings in its trunk. A marriage brings two people together, typically in happy circumstances, and the two want to spend their lives together making each other happy. The couple goes through any number of circumstances, like grief and loss of loved ones or cherished dreams, financial woes, health issues, disagreements, joyous celebrations, new beginnings, accomplishing goals like paying off the mortgage or traveling, etc. Some marriages come to the point where sexual intimacy has all but evaporated, and that in itself poses several challenges for the couple. How does a marriage become sexless, and is there a way to turn things around? The good news is that there are ways for a couple to flourish and strengthen their relationship, deepening their intimacy and sense of connection. What is a sexless marriage? It’s more than likely that when two people meet and decide to get married, they feel passion for each other. Often, the couple can’t keep their hands off each other, which can be problematic since they need to wait until after their nuptials to consummate the relationship. In ways that will be described shortly, a relationship can remain intact but with the sense of intimacy and connection lost. There are different ways to understand what [...]

Comments Off on Understanding and Working Through a Sexless Marriage

Can a Christian Marriage Survive Infidelity?

, 2025-04-15T06:54:28+00:00April 15th, 2025|Couples Counseling, Featured, Infidelity and Affairs, Marriage Counseling, Relationship Issues|

For many people, the discovery of infidelity marks the end of any happily ever after in their marriage. But Christians who are taught that marriage is for life and that divorce is wrong may find themselves in a difficult position when they discover that their partner has been unfaithful to them. Whichever path a person may choose, many challenges will lie ahead. It is important not to rush into big decisions without prayer and careful consideration of everything. What is infidelity? Infidelity is when one partner in a relationship is unfaithful to the other. Adultery is considered to be a serious breach of the marriage covenant and is seen as both a sin against the spouse and a sin against God. In the Bible, it is seen as a broader category than just the physical sexual act. It also includes an individual’s unfaithful desires and thoughts (Matthew 5:27-30). One of the challenges of talking about infidelity is that individual spouses and couples may have different understandings of infidelity. For instance, is it okay to watch pornography, or to reach out and connect with a former partner on social media? Some couples will have had these important conversations during premarital counseling or afterward to establish firm boundaries in their relationship. Infidelity can thus take the form of emotional or physical acts of infidelity that violate boundaries the couple has set for themselves. For a Christian couple, infidelity may include things that the couple may consider okay, but Scripture addresses and says otherwise. As such, from a Christian perspective, there is no such thing as an open marriage (Genesis 2:24; Matthew 19:3-6; Proverbs 5; 6:20-35; 1 Corinthians 6:12-20). What does the Bible say about infidelity? In the well-known Ten Commandments, the first laws given to the nation of Israel, we find [...]

Comments Off on Can a Christian Marriage Survive Infidelity?

5 Ways Infidelity Can Impact a Marriage

, 2025-03-26T12:01:30+00:00March 18th, 2025|Couples Counseling, Featured, Infidelity and Affairs, Marriage Counseling, Relationship Issues|

Infidelity can be devastating to marriage. Couples can have difficulty having a healthy relationship after cheating has occurred. This is because infidelity can inflict emotional, physical, and mental damage to the victim. Additionally, suppose a person is unrepentant or blames the other for the infidelity. In that case, it can cause additional problems because the victim may feel misplaced shame or guilt due to what happened. Infidelity’s Impact on a Marriage Although infidelity can be a deal breaker in a marriage, it doesn’t always have to be. However, infidelity can impact many areas of marriage. Here are five areas in which infidelity can affect a marriage: Finances One way infidelity can impact your marriage is the strain that financial issues can have if the marriage ends. If one spouse is the primary breadwinner and helps provide for the other spouse, the other spouse may find that they need to get a job quickly. However, if they’ve been out of the workforce due to having children or lacking skills, they may find it challenging to find a well-paying job that will help meet their needs like their partner did. Additionally, an unfaithful person may become bitter because the relationship ended. Because of the shame and guilt they feel about what they did, they may hesitate to want to provide financial compensation to the other spouse. The spouse who is caring for the children may find themselves struggling because the other person who was unfaithful doesn’t want to pay them because they feel they may not be responsible for the termination of their relationship. A spouse who struggles to make ends meet after infidelity may need the help and support of family and friends. They may also need the help and support of people who can come and help them get [...]

Comments Off on 5 Ways Infidelity Can Impact a Marriage
Go to Top