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What is ‘trust’ in a marriage?

Glenn Kimball2024-01-08T01:14:45-06:00Safety, Trust|

My wife, Susan, and I trust each other. Granted, she may not always be able to trust me to take out the trash, and maybe I can’t necessarily trust her to pick out a television show we both want to watch on a chill Friday night at home. But when it comes to the important stuff in our marriage — what makes us both feel safe, connected, honored, valued, and loved — we trust each other implicitly. I trust that she’s there for me, and she trusts that I’m always there for her. This is a small snippet of what counselors like me mean when we talk about trust in [...]

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Boundaries and Safe People: How they go together

Glenn Kimball2024-01-08T01:14:46-06:00boundaries, Safety|

Now that we have learned what boundaries are, how to set them, and their importance in terms of helping us feel safe and connected in our marriage, there’s one more thing to discuss: knowing the difference between safe and unsafe people and how boundaries and safe people go together. We’re betting you read that sentence and said, “Well, Mike and Susan, I think I can tell the difference between a safe person and an unsafe one pretty easily.” We bet you can, too! But true character discernment — knowing who is good for us and who isn’t — can only be accomplished after you’ve established boundaries. It is then, [...]

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Relationship Boundaries and Safety: How they go together

Glenn Kimball2024-01-08T01:14:46-06:00boundaries, Safety|

So, you’ve been reading our recent blog posts on boundaries and finally worked up the courage to pull your spouse aside to set a few long-overdue guard-rails. You were calm but firm, you were specific, you expressed why these limits are important to you as an individual, and the best part — your spouse was 100% receptive. Congrats!! Now the big question: have you noticed how safe your marriage is because you set those boundaries? How do Boundaries and Safety Criss Cross? God created us to be open and intimate with each other, so our focus is always on creating safe environments for ourselves and our spouse. But until [...]

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6 Healthy Tips To Establish Boundaries In Your Marriage

Glenn Kimball2024-01-08T01:14:47-06:00boundaries, Relationships|

Having to sit with someone and finally get what’s been bothering us off our chest is never easy, especially when that person is our spouse. It’s funny because, in the back of our mind, we know darn right that all healthy relationships have boundaries. Boundaries keep the good in and the bad out. Yet, we agonize over what the best way is to establish boundaries in our marriage. “Should I be assertive? But I also don’t want to offend my husband.” “How will my wife react?” “How will my words be perceived?” “I shouldn’t say anything. Maybe I should just leave well enough alone!” Boundaries are characterized by [...]

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What’s your personal philosophy – Peace or Panic?

Glenn Kimball2024-01-08T01:14:47-06:00Fear, Hope|

Do you have a philosophy for dealing with hard times, adverse circumstances, stressful situations? All of us face these things in our lives. But I'm afraid most people just wait until hard things proverbially smack us right upside the face before we have a plan. We are in the midst of a "pandemic." The word itself sounds scary, and I talk to many people who just don't know what to believe. Just how bad is it? How horrible is it going to become? No human knows for sure. There are so many differing opinions. So, what in the world are we going to do about it? Some people will [...]

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Boundaries and why they are essential for your marriage

Glenn Kimball2024-01-08T01:14:48-06:00Communication, Safety|

I didn’t realize before I became a marriage counselor how many couples don’t have boundaries. Don’t get me wrong; everyone has boundaries. But in marriage, we tend to overlook their importance. We think our spouse is supposed to know our needs and wants already, or we feel having boundaries creates unhealthy walls in our marriage. On the contrary, all healthy relationships have boundaries. And it is our ability to communicate what those boundaries are — and our spouse’s ability to respect them — that keep us from allowing unhealthy feelings or actions into our relationships. Boundaries keep the good in and the bad out This is the first in a [...]

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Doing the ‘little things’ to express your love really adds up

Glenn Kimball2024-01-08T01:14:48-06:00Appreciation, Generosity|

When you first get married, you shower your spouse with expensive gifts. Sure, doing the little things to express your love is good, too, but you focus more on cruises, buying jewelry, and even doing a weekend getaway twice a month. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take long to realize how expensive everything is getting, right? So you stop — or at least slow down a lot. The question now becomes, “what have you been doing instead to express your love? If your answer is nothing or not a lot, you’re overlooking all those little things that make us feel loved every day. Admit it … it’s the little things that make [...]

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What does every heart really desire?

Glenn Kimball2024-01-08T01:14:49-06:00Heart, Intimacy, Uncategorized|

If you’ve been following our blog, especially over the past month, you’ve probably noticed we’ve written a lot about the heart. Not the physical, pumping organ inside your chest but more about how couples need to treat each other’s heart as a treasure that must be honored and protected. The heart is at the center of everything we feel, think, and desire deep down — and what condition it’s in determines the quality of every marriage. So what does every heart really desire? “Our lives are shaped by the things we desire.” — Thomas Merton In their book, The Seven Desires of Every Heart, Mark and Debra Laaser [...]

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Work Talk vs. Heart Talk: Avoiding Miscommunication In Your Marriage

Glenn Kimball2024-01-08T01:14:49-06:00Communication, Heart|

A husband and his wife are sitting on the couch talking about their day when the wife says, “You wouldn’t believe what my boss did to me today!” She continues explaining her horrible experience, and, wanting to help, he rattles off solution after solution. He thinks that he’s hubby of the year right now, but to his surprise, she gets more upset. “You don’t get it,” she says. “Quit trying to fix things!” Sound familiar? This is a classic case of work talk vs. heart talk. Work talk and heart talk are the two languages we as couples speak. Each is important to ensure great communication in a marriage, but [...]

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Do you listen to your spouse’s heart when it’s talking to you?

Glenn Kimball2024-01-08T01:14:50-06:00Heart, Relationships, Uncategorized|

Couples come to me regularly to discuss issues where they don’t see eye to eye — their finances or children or, you name it. Yuck! All of us can relate to that, right? It’s all too common for us to not see situations in the same light. Our heart on that matter is not the same. We have different movies playing in our heads. We all make meaning according to our own personality and our own circumstances we have been through. Examples of the Heart of the Matter The wife says to her husband that he spends money too frivolously, and their conflict was dragging on because he insisted that [...]

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Tools, tips and practical advice on building the relationships that matter most.