You don’t need to match his pain points with your own (“I know exactly how you feel. You don’t need to fix the problem or find a solution. (But be aware that it’s easy to develop “compassion fatigue.” Make sure that you’re not the only person assisting your friend during this challenging season.)īe a great listener. You will need to reassure your friend that she isn’t an annoyance and that it’s an honour to journey with her. Offer practical help with child care, school pickups, errands or meals. Provide emotional support by making yourself available for phone calls, text messages and face-to-face meetings. Your friend needs someone willing to take the time necessary to join her on a difficult journey. You can be a great friend if you follow these tips:īe available. How can you help friends keep their marriage strong? A marriage can survive off of someone else’s hope for a season. A marriage encourager needs to embrace the real message of Hebrews 3:13 (NASB) - “encourage one another day after day” - to breathe courage into their weary friend and instill hope. I want you to be a marriage encourager.Ī marriage encourager isn’t a professional relationship expert it’s someone who’s passionate about marriage, prioritises listening over advice-giving, is willing to be real about his or her own marriage and is committed to walking out this journey with his or her hurting friend. I want to help you feel confident that you will know what to say, how to say it and, even more importantly, when not to say a thing the next time a friend tells you about a problem in his or her marriage. Perhaps we feel inadequate or overwhelmed because we’re not quite sure how to respond. Maybe we feel saddened by our friend’s pain or annoyed at her husband’s lack of trying. Most of us feel pretty uncomfortable when this happens. Research shows that about 73 percent of adults have served as a confidant to a friend or family member about a marriage problem. Many of us have had a close friend or family member share that he or she is struggling in his or her marriage. She says she feels discouraged, hopeless and helpless. She confides how disconnected she and her husband have been for months. Imagine you’re catching up with a friend over coffee, when suddenly she starts to vent about her struggling marriage. What is a marriage encourager?īut how do we, as background singers of a marriage, carry the necessary tune? Our loved ones can make the difference between relationship life and death. Ted Cunningham, my friend who is a pastor and comedian, says, “Marriage is a duet in need of background singers.” We need the encouragement of friends and family - not just when a marriage begins, but to keep it from ending. … We don’t have communities to rally around us when our marriages are hurting.” That is, we know little about the interior of one another’s marriages. As marriage expert Bill Doherty says, “We generally launch marriages with public fanfare and then we live in solitary marriages. Truth is, a successful marriage requires support from friends and family.īut we forget that all those people we invite to the wedding to throw rose petals are meant to be a part of the marriage that follows. doi:10.4103/psychiatry.One of our culture’s greatest lies is that marriage is only about two people. Relationships and boundaries: Learning needs and preferences in clerkship medical environments. doi:10.1111/jomf.12301ĪlMahmoud T, Hashim MJ, Naeem N, Almahmoud R, Branicki F, Elzubeir M. Does couples' communication predict marital satisfaction, or does marital satisfaction predict communication?. Qualitatively derived definitions of emotional infidelity among professional women in cross-gender relationships. Women’s experiences with feelings and attractions for someone outside their primary relationship. Mullinax M, Barnhart KJ, Mark K, Herbenick D. Influence of lack of trust on romantic relationship problems: The mediating role of partner cell phone snooping. Secretive and close? How sharing secrets may impact perceptions of distance. Happy couples: How to keep your relationship healthy. doi:10.1111/famp.12483Īmerican Psychological Association. What are the marital problems of happy couples? A multimethod, two-sample investigation. Rauer A, Sabey AK, Proulx CM, Volling BL. A review of marital intimacy-enhancing interventions among married individuals. Kardan-Souraki M, Hamzehgardeshi Z, Asadpour I, Mohammadpour RA, Khani S. Sex differences in associations of hostile and non-hostile criticism with relationship quality.
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