A week ago, we had the chance to get away from the kids for a night. We already had plans to take part in a Couples’ Café (the primary purpose of this post), and then afterwards we picked up some Chipotle dinner since it seemed everything we really wanted around the area was already closed at a little past 10pm.
Anyway, the Couples Café was quite an awesome time. It was an event by a local ministry called Peace in the Home (FYI – I’m on their Board of Directors) and hosted by our church, New Venture. The purpose is to discuss topics surrounding marriage, and the topic du-jour was ‘non-stick disagreements’.
I won’t go into all of everything that was talked about (because there was a lot of good stuff along with a bunch of really good discussion and conversation…), but that in a marriage there will be disagreements; there will be conflicts. Most of us marry someone who is quite the opposite of us, and we almost always have a lot of things we don’t agree with… a big take-away was the four [bad] patterns to recognize and minimize in your marriage:
- a disagreement that starts on one issue (usually small and inconsequential) but becomes something much more…
- putting down thoughts or feelings of your spouse
- believing no matter what that the motive of your spouse is negative regardless of the reality
- when one spouse withdraws or avoids from the other emotionally and/or physically
Keep in mind a good starting point is to recognize these patterns in your marriage; from there, you can try to reduce them.
I had intended to write about this a week ago, but like many things as of late, I’m fairly behind on my intentions. But just tonight I read How to Spot and Defeat the Four Marriage Killers (from the Simple Marriage blog – which I highly recommend) which if you read, is heavily similar in its points.
Chris,
When is the next Couples Cafe?
Good question… I’m not sure for a New Venture Couples Cafe, but if you want to know about any other upcoming events they have at other churches, join their mailing list: http://peaceinthehome.org/contact_us.php
I’m hoping though that this is the first of more… I so wanted to invite you guys to it but when it was announced a few Sundays ago, it filled up (25 couples) solid that day…
How about a sand and watermill tower. Of course it is much easier to get into the habit of putting a toy away when it is obvious where it goes on the shelf, when every toy has a place where it belongs. And you don’t have to wander around the shops looking for what might be good.