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.

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.

“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 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.

For those of you who don’t know John Gottman, he’s basically the number one guy in understanding couples and marriages. He’s also really fun to listen to! I respect him for his many theories in marriage, but this one is one of my favs because it’s fairly easy to remember AND it makes a daily impact on your marriage! It’s called the 5 to 1 ratio for healthier marriages. How it works For every 1 negative thing we do in our relationship, it should be accompanied by 5 positive things**.

“…There would be far less of divorce, much less of infidelity, much less of anger and rancor and quarreling. There would be more of forgiveness, more of love, more of peace, more of happiness.” Looking for the good in your spouse daily — YES that’s DEFINITELY a smart technique to use in marriage! Look for the good, look for the positive, and look for the reasons why you fell in love with them in the first place.

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.

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!

*You will get the most out of this post if you read Love Languages Part 1: Understanding* We’re talking about this best-selling book, “The Five Love Languages” by Gary Chapman! (affiliate link) So hopefully you have taken the assessments to know what your spouse’s love languages are, as well as your own. And hopefully you have discussed it with your spouse as well. (If you haven’t taken it yet, no worries, still important to know all this!

*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!

I wanted to help you understand why I always sign my posts with ‘Keepin’ marriage fresh," and stress how cool this idea is to marriages. A while ago I was looking at the definitions of “fresh” and “freshening,” and “freshen.” I really loved some of the definitions Webster’s dictionary provided. These are the definitions that I found for FRESH, and FRESHEN, and I’m going to tell you how I interrupt and apply this to marriages.

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.

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.

One of my favorite things about getting married, was that I received another awesome family in addition to my own awesome family :) There are so many great things that come with having another set of parents to count on, another set of siblings to have fun with, and of course, don’t forget those nieces and nephews! One of the difficulties, however, in gaining another family, is having to split your time between them for holidays and other events.

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.

*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.

In my marriage and relationship skills class that I took over the summer, my professor was making fun of his cousin who just got married and started a blog about marriage, as if his cousin was an expert on it. Apparently they would write in a way that the things they were suggesting were wrong. With my professor being an actual expert on marriage in being a couples therapist, I could see why he would get annoyed of people like that.

You’ve probably noticed a decrease in posts the past few weeks. (I’m sorry for that!) I love our blog, and I love writing posts, but I’ve just had my hands busy with school. Yep! After being out of the academic loop for two years, I am back in the game! It’s been a slight adjustment with getting back into my nerdy, studious habits, but it’s been more of an adjustment with how face-paced summer blocks are.