Seems weird to wish everyone a happy quarantine/lockdown, but these are the times we live in right now! It seems everyone is affected one way or another from the COVID-19 global pandemic. Some people are affected financially with job loss or revenue. Some people are affected with loss of loved ones or even just the loss of a social life. Some people are missing out on important milestones and celebrated events like weddings and even prom.

Every card game and board game comes with instructions or a manual so that every player can understand how to play the game. Many games have options or different sets of rules for the kind of game you want to play, based on how many players, how competitive you want it, or even desiring a more simple version. Why am I explaining something you probably already know? Because I’m about to relate it to marriage, of course!

I don’t know any married couple that doesn’t struggle with sexual intimacy problems at SOME point in their marriage. While there are a variety of reasons why problems occur in this department, I believe there are three big areas that contribute to problems: safety, communication, and the influences around us. SAFETY In order to have a healthy sexual communication between you and your spouse, there needs to be strong feelings of safety in the marriage.

The learning curve I think one of the biggest learning curves of newlyweds is decision-making. Of course, you had to make decisions before when you were dating and engaged, but it can be different because the stakes are different. And I think when a person is so smitten with someone, they are more likely to bend to the other person, haha. The biggest difference when it comes to decision making in marriage is that you now have so many things you’re making decisions about, all involving and affecting the other person.

Most people don’t know the underlying reason for Freshly Married being here. It’s because relationship education is important! And yet so many people have either never heard of it before, are intimidated by it, scared of it, or assume it means you have relationship problems you need help with. WELL NEWSFLASH, WE ALL HAVE PROBLEMS! haha. But really. Because I believe passionately that relationship education is a helpful tool for all relationships, not just marriage, I want to explain what relationship education is while addressing some misunderstandings so that you can feel more comfortable with seeking help.

We are all well aware that while the holiday season can be a wonderful time of year spent with loved ones, it can also bring with it some stress. Just a few examples: spending hours trying to make your house look festive; thinking of the perfect gifts for family, friends, neighbors, and coworkers, then having to go get those gifts and wrap them, while trying to not spend a fortune; making special food for the celebrations; and feeling pressure to make special memories.

I was recently reading an old interview with actress Jennifer Garner in Vanity Fair on her marriage to Ben Affleck. As you probably know, they split up after ten years of marriage, sadly. It’s something that I can tell she really wanted to work out, especially already having a previous divorce under her belt. She said some very mature and admirable things about their marriage and their divorce, but her overall statement made my heart break with confusion.

A divorce is an event that affects so many people and for years to come. It’s something very common, yet it’s very scary to talk about for many people. It’s a topic I’ve been wanting to tackle for awhile, but contains so many aspects to cover. I’ve always been curious about how children, adolescents, and adult children have been affected by their parents’ divorce. So I’ve enlisted the help of some amazing women who are kind enough to share their experiences with you, to give you better insight into this particular family situation.

If you didn’t catch part 1 reading some great insight and advice from both Brooke and Kristin, you should go read that! I asked them to share what their parents’ divorce was like on them at age 13, and how they navigate the effects of that divorce currently, now that they are married themselves. This Spotlight Part 2 perspective is getting some insight from two women who were adults and married or almost married when their parents got a divorce.

*This post contains affiliate links. A very common complaint among married couples, especially couples that have sexual intimacy problems, is that one spouse seems to want or enjoy sex more than their spouse does. This scenario is a difficult one to provide a one-size-fits-all answer to because there are two different perspectives, with a variety of possible reasons or causes of this gap, and a variety of ideas on how to tackle this situation!

The times when I think marriage can get the toughest is when spouses are not sharing the same viewpoint, or when one spouse is struggling physically or mentally. Both of these tough situations are prevalent in a marriage that has one or both spouses struggling with mental illness. As I’ve shared in a few articles on depression, it’s not easy for either spouse to handle, and it truly can affect your marriage in the short-term AND long-term of your relationship.

It’s not easy to see your friends go through hard struggles, especially when it comes to such an important relationship like marriage. It’s also not easy to be the confidant, the person they choose to share their marital struggles with. Though I think you should try avoiding involving your friends in the personal details of your marriage, it’s a reality that friends will confide in you and you will confide in them.

When you’re in the middle of a fight or disagreement and things get heated, uncomfortable, or you just can’t find a mutual solution, what do you do? Some spouses let their frustrations escalate to the point where they say things they later regret. Sometimes one spouse completely shuts down and stops talking altogether. Sometimes the conflict never gets discussed again because the issue caused so much stress and problems. What’s interesting, about that, is this IMPORTANT thing to remember:

Last month, I read an article about parents needing to be their child’s “first responder” in a crisis. What they meant is that the first reaction shouldn’t be to yell at them for the situation, but instead, you should first help them. I can absolutely attest that this concept works because my parents did this for me as a teenager. Since I have always loved this concept, I applied this idea to marriage, of course!

One day I was flipping through an article on long-lasting celebrity couples, and each couple said something that has helped them be successful in their marriage. Some of the reasons were good, but this one by actor Bryan Cranston (from TV shows Malcolm in the Middle, and Breaking Bad) and his wife of 27 years stuck out to me. Whether or not couples therapy is successful for them (it seems like it is since they are still married), this statement is so powerful!

To say there are so many stereotypes and stigmas out there associated with therapists and therapy is an understatement. Therapists are often portrayed in movies and TV shows as jokes, and I’m not sure why, because seeking help for your mental and emotional state of mind is not a casual or comical thing! It’s also just as important to keep yourself emotionally healthy as it is to keep yourself physically healthy!

I am sharing my experiences because I believe that the more positively we talk about therapy, the less stigma attached to it, and the more likely people are to seek help and actually get the help they need. I have seen a therapist at two different times in my life, and each time was for emotionally difficult situations. I ask for your sensitivity as I get very vulnerable here! (Just to preface this, I’ll refer to both counseling and therapy as one sometimes, just so it’s more simple to read, but the two professions are slightly different.

My heart hurts every time I hear my friends, neighbors, etc. tell me that their parents still don’t approve of their spouse. It’s hard to listen to them tell me things like, “They think he isn’t good enough for me” or “They tried to break us up.” These kinds of family situations frustrate me primarily because HELLO PARENTS, IT’S AFTER-THE-FACT! THEY HAVE BEEN MARRIED FOR YEARS NOW, SO PUT ASIDE YOUR OWN FEELINGS AND SUPPORT THEM INSTEAD OF DISCOURAGE THEM!

I don’t think I’ll ever stop getting inspired by quotes that remind me to look for the lesson through hard times! If we apply this to marriage, I think the opportunity that #alberteinstein is talking about here are the opportunities to learn something about yourself, your spouse, or the issue. If our difficulty is disagreeing on something important, I get the chance to see another perspective I didn’t see before. I also get the chance to analyze myself and how I can improve.

Today is a special day :) Four years ago on October 25th, Trevor and I made our relationship official. See, it was declared on facebook so it was official … haha This morning I went through my old journal from that time we were first dating and it was so special to go back and read all of that. I obviously knew our timeline and the words we said but there was something so tender about reading about it all, and especially my feelings during the rise of our relationship.

It’s no secret that this upcoming presidential election has got everyone on the edge of their seats, whether they strongly are for a candidate, are so against any candidates, or just don’t know what to think. Even people that like to stay away from politics are forming opinions. It’s been … interesting… right? One sad thing I’ve seen so far is all of the contention and even malice towards people with different political views.

This quote below is great to remember in times of disconnection and conflict. We try to look on their surface for any emotion to provide us with answers, but what’s showing on the outside might not be how they actually feel or think. You may think “He looks like he could care less right now! He’s stone-cold to me and doesn’t care about a resolution OR ME!” That might be what it looks like on the surface.

Actor Chris Pratt just did and said some things about marriage and family that are too good not to share! Two things spoke out to me in this short article and I wanted to share those! (If you are short on time, go to #2, though!) TWO THINGS I LOVE ABOUT THIS: I love seeing couples make sacrifices for their marriage and family, whether small or large. To the rest of us middle class couples, taking 6 months off work to spend with your family is a BIG sacrifice, one that so few could afford to do anyways!

After about a month of plotting, pinteresting, sketching, researching, purchasing, ironing, cutting, pinning, sewing, unpicking, and sewing again, I FINISHED MY HUSBAND’S QUILT! It turned out so well, and best of all, he loved it and appreciated it so much when I surprised him with it! WHY Last year my MIL made me a beautiful triangle quilt, and it’s been so comfy and matches our color scheme so well! I’ve been wanting Trev to have a specially-made blanket as well.

[sc name=“soundcloud” id=“282755491” ] Back in the dating life, I knew a few girls who would shy away from dating guys who played video games, simply because they instantly thought of it associated with a lazy, preoccupied husband. I have to admit that I dated a guy who played video games and at times I felt second to him because of it. So I can see where they got their judgements.

I want to gear this #freshfridays quote towards our emotions. No one is in control of our emotions except for ourselves. So when we react terribly towards something our spouse says or does, we have to own that. That’s why I love this quote, reminding me that I get to choose how I react to a situation, but that my choice is also important. There’s a few types of choices, I believe.

“The truth is, Rarely can a response make something better. What makes something better is connection.” - brene brown There’s this amazing video depicting empathy by Brene Brown that changed my life when I watched it. She talks about the difference between empathy and sympathy, the mistakes we tend to make when attempting to give empathy, and what we should be doing instead. It’s super short, yet super powerful! The animation helps you understand well, too.

The smoke detectors in our house have slowly been going off over the past few months, needing a replacement battery. And boy was that fun in the beginning :) I remember the first one that starting chirping during the day while it was just me at home, and I couldn’t replace the battery because I wasn’t tall enough to reach it, haha. So I had to wait until Trevor got home because he could reach it.

The use of techniques are found in our everyday activities; at your job, in your hobbies, cleaning your house, cooking, or driving a car. Each one of these requires the use of a skill or ability that you have learned that has helped you perform better in these various activities. Guess what? This idea can also be applied to your personal roles, such as being a spouse. It’s naive to think that knowing how to be married should come naturally.

One dilemma all marriages find themselves in is how to best tell their partner how they are feeling. What I mean by this is that sometimes when we try bringing up an issue with our spouse, we start it off with blaming or obvious anger. Think of the last time you started off a conversation like this. How did it work out for you?? If a conversation starts off like this, it will most likely end like this too.

Arguments, fights, tiffs, quarrels, disagreements, misunderstandings, whatever you call them, are bound to happen here and there in marriage. If a couple says they have never even disagreed before, they are lying to you and themselves! haha. Whether it’s a large or small matter, and consistent or rare. Trevor and I have our tiffs just like everybody else. We have moments when our minds are not in sync with each other.

If you’ve been following along from the beginning, you’ll remember that I wrote about the following married milestones: being married for three weeks, and then three months. So naturally, I felt like doing a milestone post on being married for THREE YEARS! That’s such a small number, but I believe every year is an accomplishment! And we’ve experienced so much together in this short time, so it gets me excited about what we’ll experience at our 30-year mark!

This is a common catchphrase in religions, even though it might not be a guarantee. While I believe praying is a powerful tool in marriage, it doesn’t necessarily guarantee a couple won’t get divorced. However, it does pull a large weight when it comes to feeling high marital quality. I came across a recent article not too long ago from the Institute of Family Studies about how influential religion is in a couple’s marital satisfaction.

There are many things in the beginning of marriage that we don’t know about or fully understand until we have been married for at least a few years. I’m sure you guys have specific situations you ran into that you stressed too much over, or maybe an aspect that you underestimated. Maybe knowing your spouse for longer has helped you know how to handle certain situations better. So for my #freshfridays question I asked:

So here’s that part two video about the marriage advice we received on our wedding day! The first video was me going through pieces of “bad” (cliche, not the best to follow) advice and why I think it’s not the best to follow. For this video, however, I wanted to keep it more positive and focused on all the GOOD advice we received on our wedding day because there truly were some great things said to us that stuck with us!

“…That is good news because no matter how flat your relationship may be at present, if you keep adding pebbles of kindness, compassion, listening, sacrifice, understanding, and selflessness, eventually a mighty pyramid will begin to grow.” This weekend I watched Latter-Day Saint General Conference and heard some great spiritual messages! I also heard great messages about marriage, too! I especially found one particular talk I wanted to share that was so “nailed on the head” and relatable to all marriages, not just religious ones.

The past few months I have found out more and more people that I knew or am still friends with have gotten divorced. The shocked part of me thinks: “I swear they all just got married yesterday!” And then the realistic part of me remembers that high school was 7 years ago and a lot can happen whether people got married right out of high school or more recently. Because I’m in this same grouping, it gives me mixed feelings, realizing that divorce truly is a possibility, but that I’m glad I have the strong marriage I have.

I am religious and rely on God and his son, Jesus Christ, in nearly all aspects of my marriage. So I have been wanting to write about how religion influences my marriage. This week as I have been thinking about Easter and Jesus Christ’s Atonement, I have been focused on his actions from his time walking among us on earth: the examples he set of kindness, righteousness, and love. These qualities he displayed have become known as “Christlike attributes” and although there are many attributes that I could apply in my life, there are a few specifically that have been most applicable to my marriage that I wanted to point out.

Choose to have learning experiences rather than fights, rather than ruts, rather than mistakes. Each of these IS an experience that teaches us something we didn’t know before. Choose to let that new information improve your relationship. For More see the blog post, “The Inevitable Storms in Marriage.”

Letters of Forgiveness Imagine that every morning after you got dressed you put a stuffed envelope in your back pocket. You consciously open the drawer to your nightstand and grab a worn letter inside an envelope, fold it in half, and put it inside the back pocket of your jeans. That might seem like a small little difference to your normal routine, because I don’t know anyone who does this, haha.

I know it can be very hard to let little things go, or to let big things go. Overcoming your variety of feelings, is not easy. Forgiveness is not easy! Forgetting is not easy. I know that it’s easier to sing it than to do it (sorry not sorry if the song got stuck in your head lol) but once you do let it go, you also have let go of resentment and can move forward with a clearer heart and mind.

In my previous post, I talked about not holding onto mistakes you have made, or mistakes your spouse has made – Basically letting go of grudges you have with yourself or your spouse. Since avoiding grudges is a topic that seems to have many webs stemming from it, I wanted to elaborate on one idea right now that can be very helpful in moving forward from mistakes made in marriage: Looking for the good in the bad.

FACT: We have all made mistakes in marriage, whether they be big or small. I know when I make mistakes in my marriage I tend to be hard on myself for it, especially if it’s something I am continually working on but don’t seem to be getting better at quite yet. The feeling lasts for a few days while I still feel bad for whatever I did or said, and as I consider ways to become better.

Last year I wrote a series of posts on how social media can get the best of us and how it can affect our marriages. I now want to discuss another aspect of social media that can affect our marriages. THINK ABOUT YOUR SOCIAL CONNECTIONS I didn’t think there was a problem having tons of friends when I first started facebook back in high school. It was neat to be able to connect, but then I realized how it can make me feel envious or inadequate when I spend a lot of time on it and am involved in other people’s lives so much.

*This post contains affiliate links. I am a huge believer in love languages! Gary Chapman is most well-known for this idea in his book: “The Five Love Languages.” There are other interpretations when it comes to understanding how people feel loved but this seems to hit it on the head for me! I honestly could say I have a testimony on how important this concept is to marriages because I utilize it repeatedly in my marriage and in other relationships!

Story time When we were living in an apartment still, there was a new family that moved in below us; a wife, husband, and a few kids. Since they moved in, almost every day we heard them yelling. The parents would yell at each other, the parents yelled at the kids, and the kids yelled at the parents. I absolutely hated it; I cringed every time. Yes, I cringed because it is annoying, but mainly because it shows that they are were not loving each other and instead were hurting each other.

I just read an article about a national study that found 73% of Americans have given advice to a friend or family member about their relationships. Source is at the bottom because I don’t want to bore you like a class lecture. However, I do want to address this important role of being a confidant to others on their relationships, because these people can be a very influential lifeline to your marriage success, whether it’s positive or negative.

Isn’t it hard sometimes to be thankful in the midst of your trials? It’s not easy trying to see the positive in every situation. That’s why I felt like this new decor in our kitchen would be a helpful reminder to us that there is always something to be thankful, no matter what we experienced in the day! It helped even more to have pictures up representing things we are thankful for too.

I love Dr. Seuss. And not just because we have the same birthday :) When he says things, it has a way of making you think differently. My perspectives change and sometimes it results with a smack to the forehead like I should have known it all along, haha. Well this quote is one of those moments for me. Appearances can be deceiving A lot of times we look at a complex question and think that finding the answer is also complex.

We all know that being kind can change someone’s entire day around, or maybe someone’s act of kindness has changed YOUR entire day. Kindness is so powerful, if you didn’t know that already! Throughout my marriage I’ve definitely been shown and taught how powerful it can be. When Trevor and I first experienced tiffs with each other, our process of being upset and also working through it was something new to me.

I’m excited to say that this guy is starting a new job at DOMO tomorrow and I’m pretty proud of him! Getting this job is kind of a bittersweet story for us, and I want to share it because I think it’s something every marriage will face on some level. “There is so much more of happiness to be had when we can rejoice in another’s successes and not just in our own.

You may not have needed me to tell you that but there are 39 million people in the world and I’m sure millions more, who needed to be told that this week. I’m always thinking about how current events are affecting marriages, so of course I have been thinking about this whole Ashley Madison hack recently. Call me naive but I didn’t really know there were website services for cheating until a few years ago, when I saw a billboard advertisement for one.

I know we are all used to seeing celebrity couples splitting up, but gosh has anybody else noticed it’s been like one or two every week?! This happens all the time, sadly so I didn’t expect myself to post on this. However, I saw a headline that got me thinking about it more. The headline said, “First Ben and Jennifer, now Blake and Miranda? Is anyone else losing faith in marriage, too?

Marriage has gone down in history this week with the legalization of same-sex marriages throughout the nation. The past few days I’ve been thinking about two things: 1) We are all human and we all have rights, despite our sexual orientation or religious beliefs. 2) How this is an opportune moment for us to increase our appreciation for marriage in general (traditional or non-traditional). Recognizing the responsibilities Marriage is a big deal to me.

This is the last post in a series of three posts on this subject. It would be beneficial to read part 1 and part 2 before or after reading this post :) How social media has affected my marriage Trevor and I differ on our level of social interaction. I have a stronger need for it than he does, and it’s OK :)Being different in this way set a good example to me, that I’m grateful for.

This is part 2 of 3. If you haven’t read part 1 yet, reading it would probably be to your benefit. :) All the world’s a stage I think each of us are on a stage. We give a public presentation of ourselves to an audience – the people walking by us on the streets, our co-workers, friends, family, and our virtual friends on social media. When we go out on stage, we pick the parts of ourselves that we want people to see.

From about September to December, I really struggled emotionally with social media. I fell into some common pitfalls of comparing my life to other people’s lives, questioning how “real” people were, and spending more time being involved in it than I should have (though I wouldn’t say I was addicted). These things were lowering my self-worth, and making me feel ungrateful. I snapped out of this phase and realized some important things that have made me and my marriage happier.

I’m suuuuuper excited to announce that I am now a PREP trained facilitator! PREP stands for Preventative Relationship Enhancement Program. This accredited program is taught internationally to anyone wanting to strengthen their marital relationship! I have been training so I can teach this curricula to large audiences in the community, and I am happy to announce my first one! I will be partnered with three co-facilitators to teach a slightly condensed version of the program.

Click the play button to LISTEN to this blog post! [sc name=“soundcloud” id=“273872657” ] Back in college I had to do an assignment relating marriage and relationships to something. It could be an object or an action, we just had to explain why. I found a lot of similarities between hiking and marriage so I wrote all those down here for you! :) It’s a crazy, fun, stressful, scary, beautiful adventure together.

So remember how I am working on a degree in Family Studies, studying all relationships that come with that, and becoming an expert on how to have a good marriage? Yeah, well just because I’m gaining knowledge, it doesn’t mean it’s easy to apply to my own marriage ;) On a daily basis I find myself learning something neat about normal family functioning, and how to handle relationships. And of course, when I’m learning all of it, I think of the various relationships I have that apply to that idea, and it helps me understand and remember the concept better.

When you think about a typical honeymoon (or look back on your own honeymoon), it’s a pretty great experience :) This picture is of us on our honeymoon to Park City; a.k.a Our best vacation ever! Honeymoons are full of fun, low-stress, and are fairly worry-free because the happiness of being together outweighs everything. That happiness continues on after the vacation is over. Hence, the “honeymoon phase” phrase, haha. It was such a simple time.

*This post contains affiliate links. A research team under John Gottman, a well-known expert in couples research, found that, “the success or failure of a marriage depends not on whether there is conflict, but on how conflict is handled when it does occur (Walsh, 2012).” Because of that, Gottman has addressed the mistakes we make while in the middle of marital conflict, in hopes that we can correct our mistakes and live happier marriages.

Pregnancy. It either happens when you want it, don’t want it, were not expecting it, or couldn’t wait soon enough for. It’s usually pretty great news to hear, right? Whether the news is for yourself or for someone else, it is really exciting to see one of God’s greatest miracles happening to someone you know, and someone you care about. One of my friends and past roommates recently found out she is pregnant :) I’m so happy for her to be a mom because I know without a doubt, that is her mission in life.

For more than 11 years I have kept a quote book, where I have written down any intuitive thoughts, quotes, lyrics, speeches, movie lines, or any other words that I have found meaningful. I’m very passionate about finding them, as they inspire, and encourage, me. I love relating some of these to my own life, and so I wanted to share this one I love relating some of these to my own life, and so I wanted to share this one that is very significant to Trevor and I.

I currently work at a desk job, answering emails and phone calls from customers. Sometimes I work with awesome, fun, and happy customers, and other times I get to work with … other customers. Let’s face it, most people do not take the time to contact a company unless they are unsatisfied with a product. So I’m the front man that gets to handle all of that. For the most part I love it, but some days I feel the weight of the negativity that comes from being surrounded by complaints on a daily basis.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the way our blog is viewed. I wonder how our experiences are responded to. I wonder if we’re too bold in some of our marriage ideals. And sometimes I wonder if our life comes off as this airy fantasy of what marriage really is like. After I have written something, I think back at the reasons we established this blog and ask myself if the particular post can be beneficial to our readers.

This new year has already been eventful for us. We’ve been blessed with a few opportunities and things to look forward to, and now our lives are going in a different direction, and we are very happy about it. Exciting news to share Trevor has chosen to start his career earlier than we planned, with a job offer from his dream job! He will be a Web Developer for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

The idea of sharing finances in marriage has been on my mind a lot recently. It’s possibly because I have had a few conversations with different couples the past month on how they run their finances. I found out that not every couple puts all of their earnings in one pot to pull from, and I found out how different this idea of combining money in marriage, can mean to everyone.

Pornography is one of the biggest threats to marriages and families. Sex is the number 1 topic searched on the Internet (NCPCE Online, “Current Statistics,” Internet, http://www.nationalcoalition.org/stat.html). The American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers reported the biggest factors in divorce cases: – 68% of the divorces involved one party meeting a new lover over the Internet. – 56% involved one party having “an obsessive interest in pornographic websites.” These statistics are disgusting and sad.

It’s November, which means most of us express extra gratitude for all of the blessings we have in our lives. As I’m very thankful for many things, the biggest blessing of all has been to have the love of my dear husband, Trevor. I have several moments where I have so much gratitude for my spouse that I want to shout to the world, “I have the cutest husband!” However, I’m realizing that a better, more respectful thing to say, would be something along the lines of, “My husband is perfect for me” or “I’m so thankful for my husband.

Do you and your significant other have different likes and dislikes? Yeah, we do too. We have had some since the beginning, but are starting to know a lot more, lately! We are so glad that we have those differences, because they provide a little variety in our relationship (haha). And if we were the exact same person, we might get bored after awhile. I think some of those differences have started to get to us a little more, recently.

I love the word, “family.” There are so many emotions and meanings that encircle this word: The feelings of love, comfort, home, dependability, kindness, humor, and humility, are just a few to name. I have learned a few things in my life about families, especially recently. Every family is different Every family has some sort of challenge, obstacle, or trial to overcome. Growing up, I quickly learned the first part. My family and I have experienced certain trials that I know many of my friends and their families were not experiencing, at the time.

Our dear, dear parents have paid for full insurances on our health, dental, and vision care all our lives… Until now. We’ve been getting our dental work in this summer, while we have insurance through Trevor’s company, and WOW! What a confusing puzzle insurance is. I never knew everything that goes into making sure you don’t pay a million dollars for small medical services. I mean, just in choosing a dentist, you have to carefully choose a great dentist, while also double-checking that they carry your insurance.