What’s wrong with you?
Why are you so mad?
Have you ever noticed the difference in what the response is to those questions versus coming to your spouse and saying, “Are you all right? Can I help with something? Are you okay?”
There’s a ton of difference in how you pose a question.
Your husband, your wife—they’re going to feel loved.
They’re going to feel cared for when you just simply say, “Are you all right? I’m concerned about you. I see something’s off. How can I help?”
Do you think you two need to agree on everything to have a great marriage?
Here’s a myth buster: you don’t.
What matters is that you can share your core values while you respect each other’s differences.
Disagreement doesn’t equal disconnection.
You can let your differences sharpen you instead of separating the two of you.
I’m here to tell you that it is possible.
Here’s a marriage strategy that no one wants to admit that still works.
If love feels distant for you two right now, here’s what you do.
Love isn’t just a feeling.
It’s what you do.
Love is a verb.
You show up.
Speak kindly.
Listen fully.
When you act in love in all the ways, the feeling often follows.
Start with the verb.
Start with remembering that love is a verb.
This other couple—every time that they would fight, he would shut down.
He’d leave the room.
He would get quiet.
He would shut her out.
But one night, in the middle of a really hard conversation, for whatever reason, he stayed.
He didn’t walk away.
He didn’t check out.
And He sat.
He stayed.
He listened.
And that night, she said to him, “For the first time in a really long time, I felt that you were really here.”
That’s when everything started to shift.
My worst date night led to my biggest breakthrough.
This is what a couple came and told me.
“We argued over dinner,” they said.
Nothing was going right.
But we didn’t leave.
We sat through the tension.
We ended up talking about the real stuff.
And we got underneath the surface.
It wasn’t pretty, necessarily.
But it was honest.
It was real.
And that alone changed everything for them.
You want to protect your marriage for life?
Burn the ships.
Burn the ships.
My husband and I—we haven’t joked about divorce, ever.
We don’t use the word.
We don’t threaten with it.
And we don’t toss it around when we’re angry.
Why?
Because it’s not an option.
When you remove divorce from the table, you stop looking for exits and you start looking for solutions.
Try it on.
Comment “ride or die” if you’re in.
