This has been a strange week on the blog and social media, with a bunch of new male commenters flooding this space complaining about women. The complaints were prompted by two things: our continued discussion about the Psychology Today article and the fact that women are developing higher standards for husbands (which we also talked about in our podcast this week); and this Fixed It For You: No, Kevin Leman, her period is not a difficult time “for her husband.” It is a difficult time for her. And if he has difficulty, it’s nothing in comparison to what she is experiencing. This inability t ..read more

What if there’s something super simple you could do that could improve your mood and your marriage? I talked on Monday about rhythms in our lives–how to honor our bodies’ rhythms, with the need for work and rest; for feasting and fasting. And I thought today we could talk about one of the biggest rhythms we have–sleep. Can we honor the transition time between work and rest? Here’s what happens in many households: You’re just desperate from some down time, so after the kids go to bed you collapse in front of the TV, streaming some shows, or playing some video games, until you’re exhausted. And ..read more

What if men are finding it hard to find a mate because women are getting higher standards? That’s the claim in a new article in Psychology Today that’s going crazy on social media right now:  And I checked out the references the post uses, and they appear to hold up! A peer reviewed study does show that single men are lonelier than single women, and that loneliness among men is increasing. Another study shows that men are more likely to be unpartnered long term than women, and that unpartnered men are faring worse than unpartnered women–and faring worse than unpartnered men did thirt ..read more

What is the story that Christian marriage books are writing?  We know what they’re telling–it’s right there in the pages! But what if the books we read are also a part of writing our own stories?  It’s Rebecca here today (Sheila’s down with COVID, she’s doing fine but is quite miserable and is taking it easy) and I wanted to share this amazing short film that was made about evangelical books about sex and marriage–and they feature our research!  Watching the video, I’ve been thinking a lot about the weeds in the parable of the sower and the seeds. Matthew 13 includes Jesus’ p ..read more

Did you know that 45,000 receive an email from me every Friday with a round-up of things from the blog and social media that week? To make sure you don’t miss anything? And that email is usually written by Rebecca, with an extra insight or thought into where the conversation has gone. I thought last week’s email was especially good, and wanted to share it with you, since not everyone is signed up for my email list. And remember–you can sign up anytime, too, so you don’t miss anything, AND so you’ll get even more great content like this article! So here’s Rebecca: Sheila Wray Gregoire I (Re ..read more

Lots of people believe a lot of dumb things about marriage! I’m in the middle of moving our site to our new Bare Marriage domain (we should be up and running by the end of the month!), and we’re only taking posts from 2018 and forward with us, leaving over 1000 posts behind. So I’ve been combing the archives seeing if there are any older ones I’d like to save, and for July I’ll be tweaking them and rerunning them! Here’s one I originally wrote in 2017. Back then I had 13 things rather than 11, but i decided to leave 2 out of the rewrite! ? I asked on Facebook, “what are some dumb things peopl ..read more

Adults need bedtimes, too. Seriously. I have talked to thousands of couples over the last few years at marriage conferences and at events, and I keep hearing stories about how “we never talk”, or “we never do anything together”, or even, “our sex life is almost non-existent.” And when I start probing and asking questions, I often find a very similar story: We don’t go to bed at the same time. I would venture to say that in most homes today, after dinner is over various family members separate to their own screens–either the computer, or the TV, or the video game system.  She may be on ..read more

Do marriages need someone to be in charge?  And what does it mean if you assume that they do? Last week Alistair Begg, a big speaker and theologian, posted this on social media: I could say so much about what’s theologically wrong with this statement, but I’d encourage people to check out instead: Our Submission Series Marg Mowczko’s great work Our podcast with Bruce Fleming on Ephesians 5 I just want to look today at what this statement says about the person who is stating it. When someone says that every marriage needs a captain, I feel tremendous pity for them, because it’s clear ..read more

If you know you have an unhealthy attachment style, how can you grow and change? It’s the last day in May, and so I want to wrap up our posts about attachment styles. I’m so glad so many of you have found this concept helpful; it’s really changed how I see the main purpose of marriage advice for sure! We’ve talked about how we can have different attachment styles, some of which are secure and some which aren’t. And everything’s on a spectrum, too! You can have a mostly secure attachment style, but still have some things to work on. As we talked about in our podcast with Milan and Kay Yerkovi ..read more

How do our attachment styles–or love styles–affect our marriage? This month on the blog we’re talking all about attachment styles. So often we think that our marriage problems are about communication, or habits, or normal conflicts. But what if they’re rooted in how we learned to connect with people? And even more importantly–what if, by understanding our own love style, we can actually grow? Today on the Bare Marriage podcast I was thrilled to interview Milan and Kay Yerkovich, the authors of the book How We Love! Listen to the Podcast Here Browse all the Different Podcasts See the La ..read more