Marriage Retreat

This past weekend Dave and I attended one of the marriage retreats put on by the Guard. This is our 3rd one and I just love them. Basically they pay for your hotel for the weekend, during the day you go to little marriage classes and then you go play at night. Love it! There are different seminars and this was our second time going to the Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage by Mark Gungor. Click on the name to visit his web site. He is a Christian pastor and is great! He has such great advise for married couples and spends a long time explain how men and women think differently. So many times these differences cause problems in our marriages but if we understand each other better, we can avoid a lot of these problems. Here are a few random things that stood out to me:

• Men cannot multi-task well, make sure he is listening to you when talking, don't try to talk while he is doing something else
• For most women, the key to sex is through heart-so be nice to the girl!
• Need to balance give and take in relationship
• Don't get messed up by Hollywood's version of love and romance
• Don't get upset if you need to ask a man more than once for things, it is how their brain works
• 1.Ask more than once
• 2. Ask him in the right way-don't insult
• 3. Train him with positive reinforcement-appreciate what he does
• 4. Barter with him
• Men find confidence attractive-take his compliments
• Assume the best of each other
• Don't set spouse up for failure
• Give her unexpected kindness
• Avoid  bitterness and resentment
• Keep "reset" button handy-be quick to forgive (If you are still talking about it, you haven't forgiven them)
• 4 steps to ruin your marriage:
• 1. Withdraw-pulling away from each other when upset, not having important conversations
• 2. Invalidation- putting down throughts or feelings of partner
• 3. escalation-start talking and get more and more upset, make things worse than they are
• 4. Negative interpretation- thinking the worst of each other 
• Take turns talking, make sure you clarify what other person is saying, If needed take 24-48 hr break from conversation then come back. 

These are just some of the notes I took and they might not make sense to you. Let me know if you want clarification. I believe he might have videos on You Tube or you can buy stuff from his sight. Most importantly, just take the time to take care of your marriage. A lot of marriage don't work out because one or both spouses just aren't trying anymore. The grass is greenest where you WATER it.