A commitment to healing marriage can include this simple exercise:
Imagine you are standing on the edge of a small forest, and you can faintly see your partner through the trees, standing on the other side. Imagine the trees as the issues, hurts, and irritations that currently stand between you both, the ones that you argue about or that keep you silently fuming or withdrawn from one another. 
You want to come back together as a couple, but the forest of issues and disagreements seems too thick. Your first instinct might be to pull out the axes and begin attacking the trees, chopping at them, working to resolve dozens of seemingly big relationship issues. But you quickly discover there seem to be too many, and more trees/issues are growing all the time. What to do?
Perhaps we can learn something from a ranger tasked with keeping a real forest environment healthy. The ranger will evaluate the the trees in a given area and place a bright ribbon or splash of paint on those designated for removal. Those trees are then removed and the entire forest benefits as light and nutrients are better distributed.
I don’t want to take the analogy too far, but ask that you note a couple of parallels with your relationship management. Can you identify those issues/trees that lie between you that are truly sucking the light and life out of the marriage? Now, as a couple, “mark” those trees and commit that your problem solving energies are going to be directed only toward those issues. Make certain the problems designated for attention are true issues that lie between you, not just sapling misunderstandings, irritants, or idiosyncrasies that you wish your partner didn’t have.
Work together on the big trees:
- Clearly define the problem
- Use a formal communication technique to keep things under control and on track (we teach some great ones at LIFE Marriage Retreats)
- Commit to seeing and understanding one another’s perspective
- Both partners make meaningful, written commitments to one another, including promises to change when appropriate
- Follow through on your commitments
After working with hundreds of couples in a marriage healing retreat setting we have found that most really have only 2-4 significant trees that are damaging the relationship ecosystem. As couples focus on those issues they invariably discover that many of the other relationship-blocking issues were related to the few major issues, and fade away.
Now, what about those remaining seemingly irritating trees? Certainly some of those will be naturally taken care of in a healthier marriage environment and as both partners commit to ongoing growth and change. But it is essential that you realize that NEVER will they all go away. You will have the choice to see remaining differences as twisted sun-blocking trees, or simply as part of a fascinating and beautiful garden. You will either continue to be endlessly and uselessly frustrated by them or you will learn to appreciate your partner’s different perspectives and ways of doing things. It is your choice.
So if you are committed to a healing marriage, start with some careful but committed pruning of real problems, but also be willing to sit back and simply enjoy some of the natural and exhilarating differences between the gardeners! And if the forest seems too thick, don’t hesitate to contact LIFE Marriage Retreats.
An Important Step in Healing Marriage
/by Gerry DyeA commitment to healing marriage can include this simple exercise:
Imagine you are standing on the edge of a small forest, and you can faintly see your partner through the trees, standing on the other side. Imagine the trees as the issues, hurts, and irritations that currently stand between you both, the ones that you argue about or that keep you silently fuming or withdrawn from one another.
You want to come back together as a couple, but the forest of issues and disagreements seems too thick. Your first instinct might be to pull out the axes and begin attacking the trees, chopping at them, working to resolve dozens of seemingly big relationship issues. But you quickly discover there seem to be too many, and more trees/issues are growing all the time. What to do?
Perhaps we can learn something from a ranger tasked with keeping a real forest environment healthy. The ranger will evaluate the the trees in a given area and place a bright ribbon or splash of paint on those designated for removal. Those trees are then removed and the entire forest benefits as light and nutrients are better distributed.
I don’t want to take the analogy too far, but ask that you note a couple of parallels with your relationship management. Can you identify those issues/trees that lie between you that are truly sucking the light and life out of the marriage? Now, as a couple, “mark” those trees and commit that your problem solving energies are going to be directed only toward those issues. Make certain the problems designated for attention are true issues that lie between you, not just sapling misunderstandings, irritants, or idiosyncrasies that you wish your partner didn’t have.
Work together on the big trees:
After working with hundreds of couples in a marriage healing retreat setting we have found that most really have only 2-4 significant trees that are damaging the relationship ecosystem. As couples focus on those issues they invariably discover that many of the other relationship-blocking issues were related to the few major issues, and fade away.
Now, what about those remaining seemingly irritating trees? Certainly some of those will be naturally taken care of in a healthier marriage environment and as both partners commit to ongoing growth and change. But it is essential that you realize that NEVER will they all go away. You will have the choice to see remaining differences as twisted sun-blocking trees, or simply as part of a fascinating and beautiful garden. You will either continue to be endlessly and uselessly frustrated by them or you will learn to appreciate your partner’s different perspectives and ways of doing things. It is your choice.
So if you are committed to a healing marriage, start with some careful but committed pruning of real problems, but also be willing to sit back and simply enjoy some of the natural and exhilarating differences between the gardeners! And if the forest seems too thick, don’t hesitate to contact LIFE Marriage Retreats.
Peace in Marriage: A Gift Beyond Measure
/by Gerry DyeI recently saw a peace lily that reminded me of a deeply held belief: to experience true peace in our lives we must first have peace in marriage and family relationships.
At our LIFE Marriage Retreats as couples discuss issues of trust in marriage or problems with their marital communication, the ultimate result they are seeking is simply peace. When a person gets caught up in pride, contention, hurt, or disappointment their heart “goes to war” with their partner, and their peace, and the peace of the relationship, is destroyed.
Since everyone is in relationship with fallible humans, a consistent necessity will be your willingness and ability to work through conflict and real issues that confront you and your marriage without sacrificing your peace of heart and mind. Here are a few of the key principles that will help you to face the inevitable storms of life while still maintaining a personal space of calm:
These and other efforts will build an emotional bank account that even in times of stress and challenge will retain a sufficient positive balance to give us a sense of confidence that we can find healthy resolution of issues and differences. At a LIFE Marriage Retreat we will help you to find balance and inner relationship peace.
Trials and challenges are simply a part of our relationship experience, don’t allow them to significantly erode your internal peace or that of your relationship. Peace in marriage is too precious to squander.
Forgiveness in Marriage
/by Gerry DyeHow important is forgiveness in marriage? It has been said that “a good marriage is simply the union of two good forgivers.”
The fact is that we fallible humans make mistakes and poor choices, hurting not only ourselves but other people as well. If we do not figure out how to clear away the inevitable debris and toxic air that build up in our relationships they will eventually crush and poison us.
Dr. Robert Enright is widely recognized as the leader in research into forgiveness in relationships. He distills all of his research and experience down into a beautiful sentence:
“Interpersonal forgiveness is a willingness to abandon ones right to resentment, negative judgment, and indifferent behavior toward one who unjustly injured us, while fostering the undeserved qualities of compassion, generosity, and even love to him or her.”
This statement implies some effort in offering true forgiveness in marriage that goes beyond words and even outward actions, indicating a healing of hearts and souls. This leads to an astonishing result: As we forgive others, the natural byproduct will be growing compassion, generosity, and love! This means that even though we as married couples should never intentionally inflict pain on one another, when we do slip up, opportunities are created to refine ourselves and our marriage as we communicate, explore perspectives and forgive.
At LIFE Marriage Retreats we often work with couples who are filled with resentments and mistrust. As they embrace and practice the principles and skills they are learning, they are able to speak about past hurts and disappointments in safe, healthy, and accountable ways. We worked recently with Jay and Emily, a couple with three children and busy work schedules. Over time they had allowed the busyness of their lives to get between them and spending quality time together; this led to loneliness and emotional disconnect between them, and eventually to feelings of hurt and blame for one another.
It was marvelous to work with Jay and Emily as they resolved their issues. They could feel past resentments melting away as they found their way to frank and honest forgiveness. Margo had shared with them the analogy of a broken bone representing a damaged relationship. When a broken bone is cleaned out and set properly it heals and the old break actually becomes stronger than the surrounding bone. That is the case with Jay and Emily today, their relationship is stronger because they took the time to cleanse and heal it.
They discovered this wonderful truth about forgiveness in marriage: those who forgive are less angry, more hopeful and happy, and less anxious and stressed. They found that forgiveness is a liberating gift they were able to give themselves and one another.
A True Marriage Retreat–The LIFE Marriage Retreats Way
/by Gerry DyeWhen thinking about a Marriage Retreat most couples have a certain vision of their expectations. They imagine the perfect location of natural beauty and ambiance; an environment of peace and harmony, and in the company of a few other supportive and caring couples. We applaud and support those expectations.
For years as I have written this blog my main intent has been to deliver immediate value to your relationship through offering proven relationship principles and skills that you can use right now. Please scroll through the blog messages and you will find dozens of such tips and principles. But today, while certainly wanting to deliver value, I must admit to having a small “burr under my saddle.”
I often wonder why so many couples, who set out looking for the ideal experience, settle for something less than a true Marriage Retreat? Why do they end up traveling to a location, finding their own hotel, eating at fast food restaurants, and meeting in a counselor’s office for a predetermined amount of time each day? Or why do they settle for a “boot camp” experience at a busy hotel, packed into a meeting room with dozens of other couples, feeling like a number with little connection to facilitators or counselors?
While marriage boot camps or glorified counseling sessions might hold some value for some couples, they simply are not true marriage retreats. LIFE believes in a true retreat setting and culture. See if this might better match what you are really looking for:
If you are looking for a boot camp environment, then, by all means, go to a boot camp. If you are looking for traditional counseling that is just farther away from home, then find such a service.
But if you are looking for a true retreat experience that will exceed all your expectations, then consider the elite LIFE Retreat, the best marriage retreats available.
Next posting-back to the principles and skills of this magical relationship called marriage!
The New Year and Quantum Leaps
/by Gerry DyeIf you are like me your history of New Years Resolutions is spotty at best. Our ability to successfully follow through on a resolution or the forming of new habits will always be dependent on something more than just self discipline. It’s as if we cannot force such changes on ourselves, but instead must absorb them or, to put it a different way, we must allow the change we are seeking to happen from the inside out.
At a LIFE Marriage Retreat we help individuals and couples to build a strong internal foundation of unchanging principles and proven skills. One key to our success is in introducing what we refer to as Quantum Leaps which help our couples to take huge steps in their progress in just a few days.
For example, Stephen R. Covey, the renowned author and consultant, describes being on a train with just a few other passengers and enjoying the relaxed and peaceful atmosphere as he travels toward his destination. Then at a stop, a father and three children get on the train and everything changes. The man sits next to Covey and stares at the floor as the children run wild in the train, screaming and roughhousing, climbing over seats, falling into other passenger’s laps and generally ruining the ride for everyone. Covey sits there growing frustrated and angry over this terrible family, wondering why the father does not do something about it.
Read more
Compassion and Mercy at Christmas
/by Gerry DyeOne of my annual traditions for the Christmas Season is to read Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” or to watch a filmed version of it (my personal favorite is the one starring George C. Scott). My Christmas spirit is always touched and enhanced by this great story of redemption.
In the story Scrooge’s nephew is visiting him and Scrooge is belittling Christmas and his nephew’s devotion to it. The nephew answers his uncle’s anti-Christmas tirade saying, ” I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!”
It is a tradition in some cultures around the world to at certain times forgive others of offenses, obligations, and even financial debts. These cultures see such charitable compassion as beneficial not only to the receiver, but also to the person granting the forgiveness and, by extension, the benefit is felt through the entire community.
How would it be if we took stock of the grudges we carry, the emotional ‘promissory notes’ we hold over others, and rather than demanding our pound of flesh, instead granted forgiveness and compassion? How would it feel to us and our loved ones if we cleansed the toxic air and cleared away the inevitable debris that builds up in any relationship? Such compassion and mercy would be a gift beyond measure.
Such compassion can begin with the understanding that it is difficult for all of us to change old patterns and ways of behaving, and to realize that we are in this life and relationship together and that support and acceptance will always lead to positive change more effectively than blame and condemnation.
So give yourself and your partners on this journey the gift of compassion, mercy, and forgiveness and feel the marvelous results of such an offering!
Love Languages and Christmas Gifts
/by Gerry DyePerhaps, like me, you have received some extra-special Christmas gifts: A favorite doll, the perfect bike, or the fashionable jeans you wore until they were ragged. When I was 9 and everything I held dear was about army and battle Mom and Dad gave me a toy machine gun mounted on a tripod that I still remember in every detail. It had a red plastic “flame” cylinder that popped in and out of the muzzle when I pulled the trigger, and made a machine gun sound that was music to my ears, but apparently was not as pleasing to my mom as she insisted that I play with it outside.
While it is customary at Christmas to give gifts wrapped in shiny paper and exotic bows, and while all of us appreciate tangible gifts, remember that your loved ones have a variety of so-called “love languages,” or favorite ways to be shown love and appreciation. Dr. Gary Chapman has defined what he refers to as the Five Love Languages:
1. Expressing gratitude for others and acknowledging the simple as well as important things they do.
2. Offering your undivided attention to a person and spending meaningful time with them.
3. Giving gifts and other tangible expressions of love.
4. Helping someone through service, such as assisting them with errands or household chores.
5. Expressing love through physical contact such as a hug or holding hands.
While we enjoy and appreciate all of these expressions of love and caring, we also tend to have a particular favorite. For me it is feeling acknowledged and appreciated. For Margo it is receiving the gift of meaningful time from others.
Take a moment and rank the love languages in the order of importance to you. You might ask your partner to do the same. It is a fun exercise and you might learn some things about one another. There is nothing wrong with giving your loved one the perfect gift with ribbons and bows, but also remember other offerings of time, attention, service, acknowledgment, and touch that will help make this Christmas Season especially merry and bright for you and your relationship.
Merry Christmas from LIFE Marriage Retreats!
Common Threads: What Every Couple Wants (Part 2- Repair of Eroded Trust)
/by Gerry DyeAs mentioned in our last posting, while every struggling couple is unique, they do seem to share several common yearnings. We wrote last time of every person’s desire for emotional connection. In this posting we will briefly consider the challenge and opportunity of repairing eroded trust.
Trust is one of the cornerstones of any successful relationship, yet virtually every marriage will experience periods of ebbing trust, not necessarily due to significant betrayals or breaking of vows, but often a result of the build up of little things such as not spending quality time together, chronic faultfinding and criticizing, or not following through on commitments.
We sometimes ask at our Retreats, “What do you think would be the fastest way to build trust with another person?” We always get some great answers that come from the hearts of people yearning for trust:
Clearly these are all key elements to building trust with your partner. These and other elements of trust are woven throughout the Retreat experience. We always point out another simple but effective process in building trust: Make and Keep Promises.
Simply consistently being our word can quickly develop trust with others. Many people make promises to others with little actual commitment to follow through, then find themselves constantly making excuses for why they forgot to pick up the cleaning or how they could not get to that project they promised to complete, and a hundred other promises that are delayed or forgotten. While these seem like small slips, broken promises and forgotten commitments can add up over time, slowly but surely eroding trust.
If you want to build trust with your partner, making and keeping promises can be a clearly “trackable” place to start. A few hints to help in the process:
This concept of consciously making and following through with promises might seem somewhat contrived at first, something of an ‘exercise;’ but the building of any new habit will involve some conscious thought and planning, and this trust building process will bear some wonderful fruit for you and your relationship.
Common Threads: What Every Couple Wants (Part 1- Emotional Connection)
/by Gerry DyeCouples who call LIFE Marriage Retreats looking for help for their struggling family relationships are all unique in the details of their marital and family obstacles, yet virtually all of them share some common yearnings for their desired ideal relationship:
Our next several postings will deal, one at a time, with these indispensable relationship ideals.
Emotional Connection
Dr. Sue Johnson in her book, “Hold Me Tight” writes, “Distressed partners may use different words but they are always asking the same basic questions: ‘Are you there for me? Do I matter to you? Will you come when I need you, when I call’?”
In this world that is so quick to wound and marginalize we are all looking for sanctuary, that safe place of acceptance and understanding where our hearts can knit to that of another, and we can feel a part of a shared past, present, and future. We are looking for connection.
When we miss that union we tend to panic and in our need we often prod, and demand, usually pushing our partner even farther away. Or we might retreat into emotional isolation in an attempt to protect ourselves from more pain and disappointment.
Sometimes the world makes the mistake of believing that men have little need for emotional bonding, that it is a feminine thing. The truth is that every man and woman wants a healthy and fulfilling connection with the people they love, but many of us are clumsy in asking and giving such connection and most of us carry some fear of rejection that holds us back.
Take the time (and even the risk) of seeking and offering those sweet emotional ties to those you love. Much of the negative behavior we see in relationships springs from the unmet need to feel connected. Be patient with one another and seek to understand the pain and loneliness your partner might be feeling; move beyond defensiveness and attack and instead lovingly explore together connection needs and possibilities.
Together you will find sanctuary.
“Just the Facts, Ma’am” (or, Would You Rather be Right or be Happy?)
/by Gerry DyeIn the old television series (and later a movie) Dragnet, Detective Joe Friday was always demanding that witnesses cut through the fluff, feelings, and speculation in their statements and just “stick to the facts.”
Do your conversations with your partner often turn into competitions over who has the most facts and data to support their point of view? Does it sometimes feel like an endless defending of your respective turfs and proving yourselves right? Sometimes in my own relationship conversations I am distracted from what is truly important, the feelings of the other person, and instead find myself keeping score of points made and defending my perspective.
To be successful in our communication and problem solving efforts with our partner we must show that we care about their feelings and understanding their point of view. We won’t always agree with their perspective, but as long as they sense that we are open to listening and seeking the best solution, whether theirs, ours, or something in between, the relationship trust and safety will continue to grow.
The next time you are tempted to argue with your partner or point out an errant fact, instead take a moment and listen more deeply, more empathetically. See if you can better understand why they might feel the way they do, and work to see the positive aspects of their perspective. When your partner believes that you care about their feelings, they will be more open to your point of view.
If we are in the habit of fighting to be right and prove the other person wrong, we will do well to ask ourselves the question, “Do I want to be right, or do I want to be happy?”