After 15 years of working with couples at our LIFE Marriage Retreats and through our AfterCare program, we have come to recognize some commonalities among those couples who take their relationships to the highest and happiest ground. Certainly all those couples followed crucial principles and practices to work through the often daunting issues that had […]
In our previous post we described the rewards of making regular deposits into our partner’s Emotional Trust Bank Account. In fact research by Dr. John Gottman and our own personal experience suggests that what really separates healthy and thriving couples from those in marital misery is a specific balance between the negative and positive feelings […]
(We are celebrating the release of LIFE’s new online course, “Rescuing Trust,” focusing our blog posts on ways to build trust in our blog posts.) In our previous blog we focused on building trust through making and keeping promises. What you are really doing as you make and keep a promise to another person is […]
At our LIFE Marriage Retreats we place great focus on the couples making and keeping promises to their partner. Some of these promises are made for the duration of the Retreat and might include offer of some service, such as giving their partner a backrub each night of the Retreat. Other promises focus on conflict […]
LIFE will soon be releasing a new online course focused on Rescuing Trust. This blog series on trust gives a taste of some areas the course will explore. At our LIFE Retreats we sometimes ask our couples, “What is the fastest way to build Trust with another person?” This is always a remarkable experience for […]
Real change or “pretend” change? In the previous post I introduced you to Matt and Cindy, an actual couple that was grappling with maintaining hope in building relationship trust even as they worked to resolve the negative realities of the past. Their so-called marriage dance had turned to something awkward and disconnected with plenty of […]
Invite and Inspire Your Partner to Join in the Relationship Dance If you have worked with LIFE Marriage Retreats before, or read some of our blog posts and other materials over the years, you will note that the accountability to create positive results and grow the trust in your relationship starts with YOU. You don’t […]
A Craving for Trust We often instruct our couples to ask themselves a couple of questions: I invite you to ask yourself and answer these same questions. They will give you a sense of direction in your quest to build a trustworthy and trusting marriage. The two questions are, “What do I want to be […]
(In anticipation of LIFE’s upcoming online course, Rescuing Trust, we are dedicating some of the next few weeks blog posts to the principles of restoring marital trust. This is part 2) Martin and Bonny We had the opportunity at a LIFE Marriage Retreat to work with Martin and Bonnie, a down to earth couple from […]