Status Updates From Us: A User's Guide

The best way to gauge how we are communicating is to see how our spouse is receiving our message. Meaning, what they hear is really what we are saying. By exploring our spouse’s experience instead of justifying our words, behaviors, and actions with our intentions, we can then experience how they are relating to the conversation.

HIGHLIGHTS:
Reinventing our relationships happens in the broken places, where conflict exists because of broken promises. The sacrifice Jesus made of His own life for humankind made it so our lives can likewise involve a ministry of reconciliation, especially in our marriages. We engage in this ministry by continually ransoming ourselves for the sake of God and our marriage.

"When we feel entitled to particular things in our marriage that we don't get, we use self-protective strategies to protect ourselves: We hide from, blame, or attack our spouse." Breaking the consumer-driven mindset is not easy, but we must develop learn the art of "othering" if we want to have a kingdom-centered marriage.

We are always engaged in conversations in our heads that can bring either death or life in our marriage. This monologue can destroy a relationship because of suspicion and unfounded beliefs. It takes realizing that there could be something unknown and yet to be discovered about your spouse and a simple dialog between you two could be all it takes to destroy the deadly assumptions and the story created in our mind.

The most damaging thoughts about our spouse are the ones we create based on an assumption without any dialog.