February 17, 2023
top trending topics
💒 Newlyweds…Find your groove & know when to lead or follow your hunny!
🛠 Resentment builds & so does the tension… Work through it together!
🤪 If you don’t always vibe with your in-laws, read this real quick.
🙊 Here’s a little advice to help you stop assuming the worst about your spouse…
👉 If your spouse has disappointed you, check this out. And, if you’re the one doing the disappointing, you might wanna read this…
tips & tricks for growth
did they change or grow?
Navigating changes in your spouse can be difficult and serious. How serious?
If changes in your spouse cause you emotional or physical harm, consider reevaluating your relationship to determine if your situation is safe.
That serious. Short of that, even well-intentioned, positive changes in your spouse can still be distressing, frustrating, and confusing.
Change! = Adapting? = Distress!
On your wedding day, you knew that you, your spouse, and your marriage relationship wouldn’t remain exactly the same. Of course, there would be changes! The honeymoon phase passed. Seasons of life bring changes, and shifting circumstances like careers and children offer new challenges, too.
But maybe your spouse has really changed. Perhaps you’re feeling insecure, or like you’re being stretched beyond your ability to adapt in a relationship that feels unpredictable. That HURTS. That’s Change-Pain.
★ Heads Up! Your Change-Pain reflex might be to go for the “quick fix” and… change your spouse.
hard to hear, but it might actually be you
So you’re probably reading this because you have had issues in multiple relationships with your spouse, friends, family, and work… Let’s be real: those issues affect us all, but they can be frustrating and downright hard.
Personally, you may be wondering some things like:
- Why do friends and family keep ghosting me?
- Why can’t I seem to get along with anyone at my job?
- How do I get others to see that my way actually works better than theirs most of the time?
- Do I want to have all the control in my relationships?
There’s no easy way to say this, and it may be a painful thing to even think about, but…
The answer may be that your relationship issues are a “YOU” problem.
Self-examination is not always easy, and it rarely feels good, but it’s so worth it! With that in mind, here are 4 reasons which might signal that relationship issues are a “you” problem.
let’s get REALatable
It’s time to take things a step further & get a little intimate with a Q&A. What do you say?😉 Learn a little bit about the faces behind all of this relationship gold. This week we’re chatting with Chris Ownby, husband of 18 years to wife Kristen, #Girldad to two teenagers, outdoor enthusiast, and the Research Strategist here at First Things First. Let’s get REALatable💛 & learn a little bit about him:
Q: Most overrated dessert?
A: 🍮 Ok, probably an unpopular opinion: Flan. Hands down. I mean, what even is it? Pudding in the shape of a hockey puck? What flavor is flan? Is it mere coincidence that flan is one letter off from rhyming with bland? I mean, it might be better if you put chocolate syrup on it. Or caramel. Or M&M’s. Maybe…
Q: Biggest Pet Peeve?
A: 😡 Besides flan? Hmmm… So many to choose from, but at the moment I’m going to say shoppers with shopping carts at Walmart. They DO NOT follow the rules of the road. At all. When I am voted into office, my first act will be to establish lanes, red lights, turn signals on the buggies, and the like along the aisles. Maybe even a Walmart traffic cop to keep people on the up and up. “How’d you get a ticket, dear?” “Oh, I ran a stop sign in the produce section.” Justice.
Q: Do you like taking naps?
A: 😴Uh, yeah. I’m a firm believer that there is not a wrong time to take a nap. Just had breakfast and feeling a little drowsy? Boom: nap. On the couch watching a boring round of Jeopardy before bedtime? Nap it out. Never a wrong time. Never.
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