Care Archives ⋆ Mike and Susan Dawson

20 Ways to Cherish your Wife and make her Feel Amazing

michaeldawsonlpc@gmail.com2024-01-08T01:12:33+00:00Care, Cherish|

Do you ever wish you’d paid it forward just a little more with your wife? Given a little more attention to that conversation or request for some help? Sometimes life gives you just that opportunity to cherish your wife and if you’re running a little short on inspiration, here’s your cheat sheet. If you’re a wife and want your hubby to read this, print the list and just leave it lying around. Maybe he’ll take the hint. Better yet, check out this blog, “20 Ways to Make Your Hubby Feel Loved and Respected”. Implement a few of those ideas and maybe he’ll come up with some of his own… This [...]

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Removing Negative Things From Your Marriage: The Power Of One

michaeldawsonlpc@gmail.com2024-01-08T01:14:03+00:00Care, Control|

Have you ever noticed that you spend so much time putting good things back into your marriage that you forget to do anything about the bad stuff that was already there? Of course not! Putting positive things in — generosity, fun, love, respect, etc. — should cancel out the negative stuff. Right? Well, not exactly. As much as we preach putting positive things into your marriage, it’s not enough. For every good thing that goes in, something bad must come out. That's the Power of One - You have the ability to do this on your own. The good news is that we are here to help get you there [...]

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Putting good things into your marriage: Fondness and admiration, heart and emotional talk, meeting emotional needs

michaeldawsonlpc@gmail.com2024-01-08T01:14:04+00:00Care, Emotion|

As a counselor, I see love mainly through our actions and the words we use to show someone value and importance. In other words, it’s all about putting forth the effort — putting good things into your marriage. We can scream to the mountaintops that we love someone, but if the behaviors (fondness and admiration) don’t match or are non-existent, then their needs won’t be met. Our needs won’t be met, either. And if that happens, our sense of being in love diminishes. And, well, no one wants that, right? We started a blog conversation two weeks ago to share different ways to create and maintain healthy marriages. The [...]

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Know How to Maximize as a Couple when You have a Sprint Schedule

michaeldawsonlpc@gmail.com2024-01-08T01:14:55+00:00Care, Goals|

The tortoise and the hare children’s fable is familiar. The hare opens with a sprint and uses his speed and agility to race the tortoise believing that his unique ability will lead to sure victory. The tortoise’s abilities lie in moving through the race at the only pace he has, slow. Because the hare uses all his energy to get ahead in the beginning, it’s his required rest that ends up causing him to lose the race. The moral is “slow and steady wins the race”. Life in the 20th century seems to need both sprint and steady to accomplish the demands we have as couples. Mike and I find [...]

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Marriage: The How To Essentials for Relationship Safety

michaeldawsonlpc@gmail.com2024-01-08T01:14:59+00:00Care, Safety|

We examined what a safe marriage might look or sound like; and what skills we can learn and practice to help that most important relationship in our lives. What if we are going to thrive? Our marriages or other close relationships must remain a safe environment. We aren’t talking about physical, but emotional and relational safety. Evaluate Your Marriage If you haven’t done this yet, evaluate how your marriage stacks up to what we said emotional and relational safety sounds like. Such as: My feelings, ideas, and concerns matter to my spouse We honor one another. Anger is not out of control. I don’t feel judged but understood. Discover [...]

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Practical and Unparalleled Steps on How to Care for Your Spouse

michaeldawsonlpc@gmail.com2024-01-08T01:16:29+00:00Care, Communication|

Emotional disconnection or disengagement in relationships happens when there is an lack of positive actions, attitudes and affection toward the partners. In other words, caring is not there. It’s this gradual feeling of growing apart. A loss of the sense of closeness between the couple. And one or both don’t feel loved and appreciated. This sense of not feeling cared for by your spouse is usually a drift that happens when couples are unresponsive or emotionally unavailable to one another. They don’t seem, or act, like close friends and don’t make many moves toward their partner to “soothe” them when things are difficult. So, how do I take practical actions [...]

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The One Thing to Make Your Spouse Feel Cherished

michaeldawsonlpc@gmail.com2024-01-08T01:16:46+00:00Care, Heart|

Life seems so complicated. We live in a world of 35,000 advertising messages a day plus who knows how many verbal and text messages from friends and family. That doesn’t take into account email!!! It’s no wonder life seems complicated. We’re in a constant battle to pare down the “noise” in our world to what’s most important. And most times it takes multiple levels of paring to get to the root of important – Cherishing our Spouse! The other day I was just trying to confirm that backups were being done on our website. It had been a few months since I looked at the backup system and something inside [...]

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Three Real Differences in “Exceptional Couples”

michaeldawsonlpc@gmail.com2024-01-08T01:16:50+00:00Care, Communication|

Average couples wanting their relationship to be better have a very similar story. It goes something like this: “We don’t talk very well together, she says. The little things become bigger and bigger. I don’t even know what we fight about. I don’t feel like I’m very important to him. He doesn’t listen to me. So I get upset and try to get him to understand.” He says: “We just don’t communicate. I can’t seem to do anything right. She gets upset a lot, and so I shut down. We can hardly talk about anything without fighting”. “We are just so different,” they both say. How We Talk So many [...]

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20 Simple Ways to Make Your Wife Feel Cherished

michaeldawsonlpc@gmail.com2024-01-08T01:16:59+00:00Care, Cherish, Relationships|

Do you ever wish you had paid it forward just a little more with your wife? Given a little more attention to that conversation or request for some help. Sometimes life gives you just that opportunity to help your wife feel more cherished. If you’re running a little short on inspiration, here’s your cheat sheet to CHERISH YOUR WIFE! If you’re a wife and want your hubby to read this, print the list and just leave it lying around. Maybe he’ll take the hint. Better yet, check out the blog, “20 Ways to Make Your Hubby Feel Loved and Respected”. Implement a few of those ideas, and he might come [...]

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Creating a Mental Refuge (i.e. a Happy Place)

michaeldawsonlpc@gmail.com2024-01-08T01:17:52+00:00Care|

A few years ago we had the privilege of experiencing Alaska. Alaska is a beautiful refuge of unspoiled beauty and tranquility. You can gaze for hundreds of miles in any direction without seeing one highway, one office building, or even one other person. Truly paradise. Frankly, before this trip I would have said that I was more of a sand and ocean kind of a girl, but this place proved to exceed my every expectation and then some. I was overwhelmed by the vast sense of peacefulness and the untouched beauty that stretches in every direction. It quickly became one of my “happy places.” Unfortunately, when you live in Texas [...]

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