Focussing on the Positives!
David and I have been based at home for a number of years after David took early retirement. They have been busy years, where the focus has been on pursuing our callings in a number of directions rather than earning money. So when lockdown came, life didn’t change as much as it did for many […]
“How can we have a ‘Naked Wedding’?”
During Marriage Week 2021, the 10 – 16 May, celebrate your relationship by making a definite decision about the future and proposing to your partner! Let us know if you do and to help you on your way, we’ve come up with some thoughts on how to have a simple, stripped back ‘Naked Wedding’. I’m […]
Forgiveness – Why it’s Both Good and Challenging
Mark Twain wrote that forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it. While this is an achingly beautiful description, the reality is that for many, reaching any form of forgiveness can seem as impossible to reach as the stars. Hurt can run very deep when it is perceived […]
Marriage Week 2020 Update: Online Launch of UK National Marriage Week – The Forever Conversation
For months, I’ve been preparing for the annual, national celebration that is Marriage Week. At the early stages of planning for 2020, I was considering what the theme should be this year, having development meetings with the many excellent organisations who partner with the campaign, smaller team meetings, and countless conversations with my husband too! […]
Commit or Quit – The Two Year Rule and Other Rules for Romance, by Harry Benson, published 11 May
Attitudes to sex, relationships, and marriage have changed enormously over the last fifty years. We have undergone a sexual revolution. Society is less stuffy, less rigid, and less patriarchal. There is more individual choice, freedom, and sex. It has been an unmitigated improvement to human development, hasn’t it? Well, there’s a problem. Birth control changed […]
3 Dates that Shaped a Future
Friday the 9th of August 2019 feels like a lifetime ago. It was a time before the terms ‘quarantine’, ‘social-distancing’ and ‘furlough’ were on the tips of even the most pessimistic tongues (back then I definitely wouldn’t have even known what ‘furloughing’ meant). Although it feels like an era has passed since then, in reality […]
Renovating our home and renovating our marriage
For the past few months my wife and I have been living in a different space as our family home has been undergoing significant restoration. Just as we sifted through the contents of our home prior to our departure into a different place, touching on memories both good and bad, we are now doing the […]
The best help we can give each other right now
The experience of being in ‘lockdown’ is tough on relationships. Fault lines that may have always been there may now widen under the stress. Distractions that we used to keep difficult feelings at bay have now gone. I wonder if you, like me have found the wisdom of grief and trauma experts is incredibly insightful […]
10 Top Tips for managing Sex and Intimacy during the Covid-19 Crisis
In these difficult times we will be looking for ways to make ourselves feel better and that might mean we struggle to engage with negativity from our partner. If we are too quick to encourage them to ‘look on the bright side’ we risk ‘discounting’ their feelings and this can leave them feeling unheard and […]
What’s a wedding for? Love, expectations, obstacles and values in a time of Coronavirus.
In a few weeks’ time I will be getting married to my wonderful fiancée Lizzie. When we got engaged last year there was no way we could have predicted the spanner in the works that Coronavirus has been to our wedding plans. In many ways the last few months has been defined by uncertainty. Uncertainty […]
