This blog is a way for couples to improve their marriage through improved intimacy, communication, and love. There are links and a search bar on the left to help you navigate the blog easier. Since this blog is about improving marital intimacy all of the post will discuss some aspect of marital intimacy; however, some posts will cover more than one topic. The tabs on the top of the page are there to help you learn more about our intimacy workshop. This workshop can help couples recover from poor marital intimacy caused by an assortment of problems.
Please feel free to leave feedback and enjoy the adventure.
Stress definitely has a way of getting into people’s lives,
whether for the good or for the bad! There are many different understandings of
stress, and through these different understandings (whether it is good, bad,
both, or neither) you are in charge of your life, therefore the most you can do
is learn about stress and figure out what works for you and your spouse.
National Geographic has created an excellent video concerning
stress. Many studies were done and show in this video. Take some time to watch
this video and you will be able to learn a great deal about stress and how it
may impact your life. Along with that, don’t forget that when you are married,
the things that affect your life affect many other people, including your
spouse and children (just to name a few). See how stress may affect your life
as well as the lives of those around you.
Activity:
1.Follow
the link and watch the following:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyBsy5SQxqU, or watch the video above (It is about one hour
long, so it is a great date night with your spouse!).
2.Discuss
with your spouse the aspects of positive and negative aspects of stress in your
marriage.
3.Go
through the following questions:
a.What
connections can you see between stress and the fight/flight reaction?
b.Why does
the body release different stress hormones when the situation is not life
threatening.
c.How
does stress and weight gain have in common? Does one lead to another?
d.Do
you think the studies done on monkeys can be used for our benefit on learning
about stress?
e.What
is your perception of stress after watching the video?
4.Discuss
how you and your spouse can support each other in stress and come up with comes
ways you can, as a couple and individually, cope with stress.
As I have mentioned in previous posts, going to
college has been a major stress in my life. There are those days when you just
feel like you can’t go on anymore, and something has to change. One time in
particular I decided I was done with school and I was going to just quit. It
was bringing too much stress into my life which caused me to snap at my
husband, get upset with my baby, and not only that but the house was a mess,
and I hadn’t gotten my exercise that day (which is a must for me!). I then
found, that I didn’t feel any better, but I still had stress in my life. I just
had to learn to cope with it instead of trying to get rid of it.
Stress
can cause difficult times in a marriage. But overall, stress can be a good
thing, it is all learning about how to deal with it. And since men and women
deal with stress differently (It’s Not About the Nail video posted on the
fourth blog post is a perfect example) you and your spouse must figure out how
you can deal with it and what ways are best for you.
Stritof (2014) mentioned the following ways of
how some people may deal with stress:
Ways to Cope:
-“Eat healthy foods.
-“Get enough sleep.
-“Drink water throughout the day.
-“Make time for exercise.
-“Have some fun and laugh more.
-“As a couple, try to spend some time alone together.
-“Be supportive of one another” (Stritof, p. 1).
I
have found that eating healthy foods and exercise really help me. But in a marriage,
it is also important to be supportive to one another! Each person has personal
stresses and there are usually stresses as a couple. The above ideas bring some
great and simply ideas that can help those personal stresses as well as the
stresses that may be as a couple. Spend that time together, be supportive, and
together you can exercise as well as eat healthily. You will see that taking
care of your body will definitely help those stresses easier to deal with.
“Communicating effectively, managing conflict,
expressing empathy: all of these
processes are central to lasting intimacy, but none is easy. All else being
equal, more time spent dealing with stress leaves less time to spend on a
relationship” (Karney, p. 1). Learning about one another, communication, and
just being together can help your relationship to be strong and lasting. All of
these can also help with stress in your marriage, and the following ideas from
Petural (no date) can also help you and your spouse to learn more about each
other, strengthen your marriage, and cope with the stress in you individual and
married life.
What can you do to relieve stress in your marriage?
Amy Peturel (no date) mentions eight ways that can help stress in your marriage
to diminish:
1.“Have more sex. ‘Sex actually relieves stress and
makes you feel more energized," says sex therapist Ian Kerner, author of
Love in the Time of Colic. "Couples that have regular sex feel better
about their lives, better about their relationships, and they're less stressed.’”
(Paturel, p. 1).
2. “Start canoodling.
If sex isn't an option, cuddle up on the couch instead. Studies show that
couples who spend more time hugging and kissing have lower levels of stress
hormones in their bodies. For one week, researchers from the University of
Zurich in Switzerland studied 51 couples who were either married or living
together and found that those who reported more physical contact – from holding
hands to having sex – had lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol in their
saliva” (Paturel, p. 1).
3. “Work together as a team.
‘When you have different opinions, don't focus on who's right or wrong.
Instead, focus on what will work,’ says Tessina. Successful couples try to
solve the problem by identifying it, brainstorming ideas, and coming up with a
solution – together” (Paturel, p. 1).
4. “Prioritize your relationship. When you have kids, relationship satisfaction usually starts
to decline. You have to be dependable, responsible, and scheduled – and routine
can kill sexual attraction. To reconnect, make sure you have a regular date
night and find ways to bring newness into your lives. ‘Protecting your marriage
should be at the top of your priority list as a parent,’ says Kerner. ‘It's
important to your child's well-being to see that his parents are happy and
connected’” (Paturel, p. 1).
5. “Show gratitude. Research shows that it's important
to hear five positive statements for every negative one from your partner.
‘Happy couples know how to express their gratitude and appreciation. They
celebrate their love,’ says Tessina” (Paturel, p. 1).
6. “Tune in. Listening is critical to reducing stress
in a marriage. ‘A big percentage of arguments are caused by getting louder in a
futile effort to be heard,’ says Tessina” (Paturel, p. 1).
7. “Take some time off. Sure, you spend most of your downtime with your partner and kids,
but it's important to get solo time (or time with your girlfriends). ‘Couples
need to do things apart that they can talk about later, says Tessina. It
refreshes the relationship and helps you miss each other a bit, too” (Paturel,
p. 1).
8. “Have fun. Make sure you do things as a couple that
don't involve paying bills, cleaning house, and raising the kids. ‘Doing
something together that you enjoy gives you shared experiences and reminds you
that life isn't all about responsibility,’ says Kerner. Go for a hike, take a
dance class, or hit the tennis court with your partner, and you'll get an
exercise boost to boot” (Paturel, p. 1).
Activity
1.Choose one of the above activities (by Paturel),
2.Make a date!
3.Invite your spouse in a romantic way (note, roses, a treasure hunt,
etc. Be creative!).
4.Really put time and effort in making the activity a fun and
memorable one.
5.Talk with your spouse about how together you can manage the stress
in your lives.
Sometimes stress comes and it seems hard to
deal with. Sometimes the stress is something that you can’t figure out as a
couple. My husband and I often deal with our stresses separately, depending on
the situation. For me, I love taking walks and working in the yard. For my
husband he likes to get away and go to somewhere where he can just leave the
stress for a bit.
“The take-away for couples is simple — each
individual needs to learn to deal with stress in positive ways outside of the
relationship (through activities to minimize the buildup of stress in the first
place, regular exercise, and other stress-relief activities)” (Grohol, p. 1).
Overall, stress will be in your life and
marriage no matter what. Depending on the stress and the level of that stress
can determine whether or not it can be a good or bad stress in your marriage.
Each marriage has different stresses that may affect the marriage. Depending on the people and the situations in the marriage, each person is affected by stress differently.
When my husband and I had our first child, we found that there was a lot of new stress that occurred in the relationship. We were learning to take care of another human, our child, and it was something different than we have ever experience. We dealt with this stress differently. Being the mother, I was extremely responsive to the needs and wants as our child grew, though it did bring stress into my life. I felt overwhelmed at tired all the time. I talked with my husband about this stress I was feeling in my life. I shared that it was tiring, exhausting, and I didn’t have time to do all the things I needed to get done (we were both in school during the time). My husband was not only dealing with the stress of a new child but also his wife was spending a lot of time with their child (which is how it is suppose to be, but it is a difficult change for many men). He closed off a bit, reacting to the stress in a different way. He did his homework, quietly, and would watch our child when I needed to do homework. We dealt with stress differently, and while it’s not a bad thing to deal with stress differently, I am sure there were ways we could have worked together to better understand one another and our stress.
Simply put, men and women deal with situation, especially stress, differently. Women want to talk things out, and through that they are relieved of stress, while men want to figure it out and find an answer immediately.
After
my husband and I moved from a loved town, we left our families and moved to a
house a few hours away. Though I didn’t feel like I was stressed, I felt the
results of stress! Since moving to the house about three weeks ago, I have been
sick. Runny nose, extreme fatigue, and just plain short tempered. The house
hadn’t been lived in for a while, and there was a lot of work to do on the
outside. We had family coming to stay with us in three weeks, so we knew we had
a lot of work that had to get done before they came to stay with us. We worked
and worked, and all of my symptoms of the cold persisted. Having the stress of
sickness (which was a result of stress) made me too tired to really spend time
with my husband, who was also very tired and sick from the job he had just
started (with very long hours) and the stress of not being able to help out on
the house.
