Welcome

"If you could change just one thing in your lives over the past forty years, what would it be?" one of our daughters asked us on our anniversary. She was surprised at what minor issues we picked, because we've been through some very hard times. "The thing is," Dawna told her, "we learned important things from all those awful experiences. We would be different people, in a different marriage, if we changed them." How do you tell the story of your marriage? How do you connect t

Some years ago we listened to a recording by a relationship expert who proposed something we found a little controversial: thank your spouse for doing the things they're supposed to do. Dawna was supposed to that Mark for taking out the garbage when that was a chore he's agreed to do? Mark was supposed to thank Dawna for doing the laundry when that was the chore she'd agreed to do every week? The answer was yes, for two reasons. First, whether it's an agreed upon household ta

At the end of our most recent State of Our Union meeting, Mark asked Dawna: "What's one thing I can do this week that would help you in your vocation?" Her answer: "Communicate. Communicate. Communicate." It had been a rough week. Mark was finishing the last week of his summer online course, and the grading was absorbing most of his time. He was also working with a church in Oregon, 2000 miles away, to organize his father's funeral mass. The problem was that as Mark's stress