Things You Should NEVER Do To Save Your Marriage

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By Emma Audley

Getting married is easier than staying married. Ask any one who has tied the knot and you would hear the same thing being repeated. Tips and tricks to save your marriage can be as varied as the people themselves. There is no ‘magic formula’ to make it work. In fact, a better way to interpret it is that you keep on working on the formula till “death do you part”. This means that to save your marriage, flexibility is what the doctor ordered.

You will need to adapt to changing priorities, changing personalities and changing needs of the environment. The other key to save your marriage is perhaps to give each other space. Now, this is a critical area, as many do not know how much space is right. Too much of it can create irreversible distance and too little of it can create frequent collisions. Each marriage has its own formula of ‘space’ needed, and you have to decipher your own, as time goes by.

All that is fine but despite your working out a reasonably acceptable marriage formula, you might still find yourself in the unenviable position of facing an imminent break up. Not being used to such mental trauma, it is natural for you to make some critical errors that spoil your chances to save your marriage even further.

While you might deploy a thousand strategies to save your marriage here are some tips on some strategies which you should not deploy:

Mistake #1 is the instant outburst of emotions. Defeat in a relationship invites gender-specific reactions. A woman cries; a man might get aggressive. A woman may plead, while the man might just walk out of the situation. While such instant reflex reactions largely depend on individual personality traits, there are certain things which you should never do if you are serious to save your marriage. For example, never cry or plead with your partner to stay back. This does not mean that you get aggressive and start a tirade of accusations and abuses. You need to stay calm to think rationally about the steps you are going to take in future to save your marriage. Crying, pleading or throwing tantrums are pure waste of efforts.

Mistake #2 is to jump to conclusions as to why your marriage has failed. Though tough, keep an open mind about the situation, till you have got all the facts right in stead of groping in the dark or listening to other people’s views. Before trying to find the scapegoat, look at yourself in the mirror and analyze your faults and shortcomings. Chances are that you might find several aspects of your own personality that needs rectification, if you want to save your marriage.

Mistake #3 is to be fatalistic or pessimistic. You do not have to take everything that life has to offer, lying down. If you are a responsible adult, capable of thinking and acting rationally, you should not give in to ‘what fate has in store for me’, even if the situation hints towards a foregone conclusion. You need to know why, how and what you did wrong in the marriage, even before you try to make attempts to save your marriage. The only person to enlighten you in this matter is your spouse, if he or she is the one who has decided to walk out of the marriage. Even if what you hear surprises you, you should be able to communicate clearly to your spouse why it makes sense to save your marriage – provided there is still love and respect between the two of you. Getting defeated by the first blow is a sign of cowardice and by having a fatalistic attitude you can never save your marriage.

My name is Emma Audley. I am the author of “Loneliness to Happiness – the simple guide to getting your ex back” as well as numerous publications and articles about relationships and marriages in crises. I have a degree in psychology and almost a decade of experience as a therapist in couples and marriage counseling. I have treated about 3500 patients in face to face sessions in my life.

Join Ayize & Aiyana Ma’at At The 2013 Conference On Community, Family, & Marriage

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Join the Ma’at’s at the 2013 Conference on Community, Family, & Marriage. In an effort to continue forging the path to identify solutions and ways to heal the problems that effect African-American communities, families and marriages, Omo Oduduwa Radio (www.ooradio.com) will host the 2013 Conference on Community Family & Marriage. Scheduled to take place in Fayetteville North Carolina at the Metropolitan Room at 109 Green Street in Fayetteville, NC 28311 on April 5-7, 2013, this three day gathering was designed to serve as a platform for community healing; developing an avenue to usher in collective resolution, healthy dialogue between sexes, generations and cultures.

Grow Your Relationship Up! – An Effective Exercise To Guide Your Relationship To The Next Level

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By  MARIE HARTWELL-WALKER, ED.D

The items in the chart below are the characteristics most often identified in studies of happy long term couples. Although not all couples show all of these attributes all of the time, having strengths in a majority of them does seem to correlate with permanence and contentment.

Take a moment to reflect on each item. Check off the appropriate column.

In my relationship, each of us:

A
More important to me

B
More important to partner

C
Important to both of us

D
Important to neither of us.
  • willingly gives at  least 75% of the time. You each give because you want to make the relationship better, not because you expect to get something back.
  • sees the relationship as a “given”. You can count on each other’s love and trust. You are committed to the commitment you’ve made.
  • arranges to spend time with the other. You want and need to be together.
  • sees the other as their “best friend”. You’d rather share important things with each other than anyone else.
  • expresses love verbally. You don’t leave this to chance. You express your pride, appreciation, and caring.
  • expresses love through frequent physical contact. You sit close, touch when talking, hold hands, hug.
  • expresses interest in the other’s day.  You are genuinely interested in what’s going on in each other’s lives.
  • allows the other to be imperfect. You have a realistic vision of each other and keep each other anyway.
  • works on conflicts and stresses without blaming.  A problem is something to solve as a team, not a signal to fight.
  • refrains from pushing arguments into painful places. You don’t use known vulnerabilities to your own advantage.
  • works on own family of origin issues. You don’t take out on your partner negative issues that belong with mom and dad or stem from an unhappychildhood.

 

Look at the items you checked in Column B. Which do you feel comfortable offering to your partner as a “present”. Can you think of concrete and specific things you can do to make it occur more often in your relationship?

Now look at the issues you checked in Column A. Which to you feel comfortable asking for from your partner? Has something blocked you from asking or has it simply not occurred to you that you could? Take a moment to reflect on what you could do differently to invite more of these things into your life.

The items in Column C are things to celebrate together. These are the characteristics that make your relationship solid and strong.

You and your partner might want to examine the issues that show up in Column D. Why do you think that these issues aren’t important to either of you? It’s not necessarily a problem if you are in agreement. Some couples, for example, are not very verbally appreciative of each other. They agree that actions are more important than words and communicate their caring through mutual thoughtfulness. But if, for example, every conflict leads to painful blaming and fighting, it could undermine what otherwise has all the potential to be a happy relationship.  If the items you checked in Column D give either of you pain, it’s something to work on. Think about how your life together would be different if you decided to add these dimensions to your relationship. Consider giving each other the gift of practicing them in your relationship until they feel natural for you.

The above exercise is from psychcentral.com

T-Pain Says “Threesomes” Are A Part Of His Marriage

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Check out this recent interview T-Pain did with TT Torez.  He spoke very candidly about his music career and how people think he’s “fallen off”.  Additionally, he spoke about the connection he has with his wife Amber Najm and how he’s learned some real life lessons from some mistakes he’s made in his marriage (having a child with another woman). Check out the interview and let us know what you think.

             On having threesomes with his wife:

“Alot of people were saying me and my wife were swingers and that we had like a Will-and-Jada kinda open marriage and I was just telling them that me and my wife just sleep with other girls together. It’s not like we can just go off and have relationships with other people. People were assuming we got married for nothing. Just because we smash a every now and then doesn’t mean we have an open marriage.”

On being successfully married for ten years:

No, I mean it’s that mind frame that has us together, it’s things that we can agree on things like that. It’s not just the smashing of the women. Before any of y’all heard of me, I was married.

On rumors that he had a baby outside of his marriage:

Yeah. I mean there’s always mistakes happening. Me being famous, I’m getting left and right temptations. We all got things we need to work on.

Click below to peep the interview: 

Is Your Marriage Divorce Proof?

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By Amber Doty

By now, you’ve probably heard the widely touted statistic that the divorce rate in the U.S. is 50%. According to the Pew Research Center, though, the rate of divorce is on the decline (along with the rate of marriage). This success is likely due, in large part, to the fact that people are waiting longer than ever to walk down the aisle. On average, women and men are delaying marriage by 5-6 compared to people in 1950, leading some to conclude that getting married when you’re a little older means you’re both more stable and better prepared for the commitment.

While I agree that stability is certainly important, I don’t buy into the idea that age is a deciding factor in whether a marriage ends in divorce. It’s not the case at all with my marriage.

My husband and I met and began dating when I was a teenager and were married in our early twenties. More than eight years later, I am as confident as I was on our wedding day that our marriage will last a lifetime. In fact, I would go so far to say our union is divorce-proof. Here are 10 reasons why.

1. We wanted a marriage, not a wedding. Recently, I had coffee with a friend going through a divorce after only two years of marriage. When I asked what happened, she replied without pause, “I wanted a wedding, not a marriage.” She went on to explain that, after years of dating, getting married seemed like the next logical step in their relationship and the timing was right for them to fund the wedding of her dreams. From seating arrangements to color schemes and everything in between, there are many decisions to be made while planning a walk down the aisle. It can be easy to lose sight of the ultimate goal: to begin a lifelong relationship with the person you love. But the hard part isn’t in saying “I do,” it’s in choosing to say it again and again for the rest of your life. For my husband and I, the focus was always on the morning after (and every other morning after that) instead of the “big day.”

2. We didn’t wait until after the wedding to tackle important issues. It can be awkward when you’re dating to discuss things like the number and timing of children, personal approaches to finances, where you see yourself living down the road, or what religion your family will practice, but knowing the answers to these questions before you marry can mean the difference between a rocky start and a smooth transition into your new lives together. Everyone has their dealbreakers, but identifying ours before we gathered 100 of our closest friends and family members to pledge our lives together for all eternity cut down on surprises after they had all gone home. I am always shocked by the number of marriages that end in divorce because a couple never bothered to discuss their ideas for the future.  

3. We put each other and our marriage first. Our children come second.  I’ve written about it before …. I love my children, but I am in love with my husband and prioritizing our relationship is good for our family as a whole.

4. When it comes to our relationship, our in-laws are outlawed. Mother-in-laws are at the center of many a sitcom and romantic comedy shenanigan — and for good reason. They’re notorious for causing marital strife both on-screen and off. That’s why my husband and I have made it clear that while I can’t control his mother’s opinion on my cooking and he will never escape my mom’s incessant nagging on the upkeep of our yard, their thoughts on our relationship are unwelcome. When we need advice or just to vent, we seek out the listening ear of a friend, not a family member.

5. Our bedroom is a child-free zone. Nothing kills the mood faster than reaching under the sheets mid-romp to dislodge an uncomfortable object that turns out to be a half-empty sippy cup. 

6. We use our past to our advantage, not our detriment. My husband and I both come from divorced families, a fact that many studies agree puts couples at greater risk for divorce themselves. But history doesn’t have to repeat itself. We talk openly, both together and with therapists, about what went wrong in our parents’ marriages and how it affected our lives and our perception of matrimony.

7. We maintain common interests. One of the very first conversations my husband and I shared was a discussion of a book we had both recently read. It’s dorky, but we’re suckers for a good horror novel. While the differences in our personalities and our day-to-day are vast (he works long hours in law enforcement; I work from home as a freelance writer), we share reading material and talk about it regularly. A book club for two may not be the foundation on which our marriage is built, but it is a reminder of why we got together in the first place beyond the roles we have assumed since our relationship began.

CLICK HERE to read more:

 

A Brotha Proposes To His Lady While In The Water With A Whale…Wow!!!!!

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I’ve gotta say this was really unique.  This video alone debunks two myths about black men….#1 we don’t commit and # 2 we don’t swim.  Major props to Aaron Lockhart who sent this video to us where he’s proposing to his fiance’ with the assistance of a whale.  Yup a whale.  It wasn’t a Shamu type whale…but it was a whale nonetheless.  Enjoy!!! Oh….and she said Yes!!!

Congrats yall!!!

What’s Your Grade? ‘A’ as a Mom ‘F’ as a Wife?

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VIDEO:  Have you recently taken the time to ask yourself…”What’s my grade as a wife and as a mother?” If you take the time to do some self reflection and honest self examination you will discover your strengths and weaknesses in these roles. Far too often we are way out of balance and pay more attention to one area of our lives than the others and consequently something or someone suffers. We need to be balanced in life and in love. How do you measure up? Do you make the grade? Leave a comment with your thoughts or submit a video response. We want to hear from you.

8 Important Differences In The Male And Female Brain That Impact How We Engage In Relationships

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By Alex Matlock

The male brain is so different from the female brain, it’s no wonder they won’t ask for directions.

Many women find it incredibly difficult to understand men … and for good reason. Men and women are totally different from one another. Instead of burying our heads in the sand, we should aim to embrace our differences. But first, we must understand what they are and why they exist.

Fortunately, modern science has allowed us to reach some conclusions about why the sexes are so different, and it mainly boils down to how our brains are structured. Now, understanding the brain structures of the sexes may not make a man fall wildly in love with you. Still, it may just help you relate better to men.

1. Words versus cues Women communicate much more successfully than men. They focus on how to create solutions that work for everyone. They talk through issues and utilize non-verbal cues like tone, emotion and empathy.

Men, on the other hand, tend to be more task-oriented, less talkative and more isolated. Men have a hard time understanding emotions that are not spoken. These differences clearly explain why men and women sometimes have difficulty in communication and why men-to-men friendships look different from friendships between women.

So, when a man asks you if something is wrong and you say “Nothing,” unless you actually tell him what’s wrong, he won’t have the slightest clue. Sure, your best friends get you and maybe even your husband if you’ve been together for years, but the average guy — or even your two-year-long boyfriend — won’t.

2. Left brain versus both brain hemispheres. Experts have proven that men process better in the left hemisphere while women tend to process equally well between the two hemispheres, which is why men are stronger with left-brain activities and approach problem-solving from a task-oriented perspective while women typically solve problems more creatively. It also explains why men generally aren’t as good at multi-tasking.

3. Mathematical abilities. An area in the brain called the inferior-parietal lobule (IPL) is typically significantly larger in men than women, especially on the left side. This is the section responsible with mathematical ability, and it probably explains why men perform higher in mathematical tasks than women. What’s even more interesting is that this area of the brain was abnormally large in Einstein. The IPL also processes sensory information, and the larger right side in women allows them to focus on “specific stimuli” such as baby crying in the night.

4. Reactions to stress. In stressful situations, men have a response reaction that resembles “fight or flight” while women react with a “tend and befriend” strategy. Psychologist Shelly E. Taylor first came up with the phrase “tend an befriend” after noticing that during times of stress, women tend to take care of themselves and their children (tending) and form strong group bonds (befriending).

The reason behind these different reactions to stress comes down to hormones. When someone is under stress, the hormone oxytocin is released into the body. In men, testosterone reduces the effects of oxytocin as it is produced in high volumes during stress. This explains the reason for the “fight or flight” response. In women, estrogen amplifies the effects of oxytocin, resulting in calming and nurturing feelings.

5. Language. The two sections in the brain responsible for language have been found to be significantly larger in women than in men, suggesting one reason why women typically excel in language-based subjects and in language-associated thinking. It’s also important to mention that men typically process language in one hemisphere while women process it in both. This difference offers a bit of protection in case of a stroke, as women may be able to recover fully from a stroke affecting the language areas in the brain while men may not have this same advantage.

CLICK HERE to read more.

There’s Value In Being Serious. There’s Value In Being On Joke Time.

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Do you and your spouse occasionally seem like yall are from different planets?  When you want to go left ….she insists on going right.  When you suggest that “this” is important …..he is dismissive and considers “this” insignificant.  When you want to be serious….your spouse wants to be on joke time.  What we’ve found in working with couples is that difference is o.k.  Pause for a moment and really internalize that….difference is o.k.  It’s through the process of appreciating and understanding the contrast in your relationship that you open the way to achieve relational clarity.  In this video we talk about balance and how important it is to having relationship success. Check it out and let us know what you think.

What Would You Say In “The State Of Your Union” Address?

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By Ms. Nancy Philpott

If you were president and responsible for giving a “State of the Union” address about your relationship, what would you say?  Would you declare that you and your loved one are on the same page on all issues? Would you report that all of your issues are negotiated with ease and resolved without conflict? Would you be forced to reveal that “members of the house” are in opposition, filibuster frequently, refuse to cross party lines, are unwilling to reach a compromise, get angry and walk out when the going gets tough?

Is there a key issue that either party is unwilling to discuss because one of you has become so deeply entrenched in your position that you’ve lost the ability to see the issue from a different perspective? Does it feel as if one of you must hold your position to the bitter end, even if the cost of winning is the death of your love and relationship?

Here are three strategies designed to help you shift the state of your union and resolve some of the tension between party lines:

1. Choose your words wisely.  Remember that what you say and how you say it will set the stage for cooperation or confrontation. Avoid using the following phrases that are guaranteed to trigger a fight: you always; you never; you made me; you should; you shouldn’t; you won’t. In fact, just avoid using the word “you” unless it’s followed by a positive declaration of something wonderful about your loved one.

2. Focus on love. Don’t forget to remember that what you focus on determines how you feel. Focusing on what you don’t like feels bad. Shift your focus on what you love and appreciate about your relationship and your loved one. Doing so will enhance your chances of receiving love and appreciation in return. Focusing on what’s wrong with either one guarantees you’ll get a boomerang response back with a focus on what’s wrong with you.

CLICK HERE to read more.