When’s the last time you and your spouse went away together? Now I’m not talking about a quick date night to the local pizza parlor, but actually hopped in the car and drove off to a distant land? Some people see vacation as a luxury, but I see vacation as a NECESSITY. Especially if it’s the chance to go somewhere with your significant other. The reason is simple, in order to thrive you must be continuously stimulated and you can’t be stimulated if you’re looking at the same things day in and day out. So in order to thrive in your relationship, you have to occasionally change your environment ..read more

We’ve all been there, we’ve all been so caught up in our emotions that our actions aren’t slow to follow. Sometimes we’ve gotten so upset that we throw things, yell at the top of our lungs, or worse… hurt someone we love. And sometimes when the dust has settled, we believe that we were in the right to act in such a way, using our feelings to justify our actions. But if you’re tired of that ceaseless cycle, there IS something YOU can do. Get yourself “out” of your feelings. It may be easier said than done, but everything comes easier with a little bit of practice! First, we need to learn the d ..read more

A few years ago, I visited my grandmother one afternoon after she had taken a weekend trip to New York. After asking her how her trip had been, hearing about how my family was doing in that neck of the woods, and just an overall report on New York itself, she  proceeded to reach over to her night stand and handed me a small container, about the size of my palm and in the shape of a guitar. Elvis’s face was painted on and Hard Rock Café’s logo was scrawled across the front. “Do you like this?” she asked me. I nodded and held my hand out to receive her gift. A pack of mints. That pack of m ..read more

Imagine you’re flying a plane. Now imagine you’re trying to land the plane. Regardless of whether or not you’ve ever flown a plane, there are some very basic things you need: direction and a place to land. That’s kind of how Family Strengthening and Gary Chapman’s 5 Love Languages work together for relationships… they’re directions and a place to land. The Family Strengthening principles, also known as the lessons put forth by Al Laws Jr. and Advice4Life  help couples navigate through the trials and tribulations of any relationship. Gary Chapman introduced The 5 Love Languages in order t ..read more

Everyone says they want quality. Everyone wants to get quality. But does everyone know how and what to do to achieve quality? When you go to a show, you take time to scour a seating map to get the best view. When you buy a product online, you take time to read the reviews to make sure the product will meet all of your expectations. When you buy a house, you take time to tour and ask questions to ensure you’re making the best possible investment. So what do you do when you want a quality relationship? You spend quality time. There’s a certain amount of investment that you have to do when you w ..read more

We all have them… expectations. As a public relations professional, I’ve been trained to deal a lot with images. So let’s think about the images we have of certain people. What’s the ideal image for a mother? What’s the ideal image for a husband? What’s the ideal image for ourselves? While we conjure these thoughts in our heads, something’s occurred that we may not have even noticed. We’ve created expectations. Now it’s up to us to decipher if they’re realistic or not. Realistic expectations start with you taking those images of those individuals… and throwing them away. While there is nothin ..read more

How many of us heard that relationships are 50/50? That’s what makes a relationship successful, right? But what if I told you that that’s not the case. When we are in a relationship with another person, we are called to love as God loves… not just 50/50, but wholly. Not just on some days, but every day. Not just when you are in love, but on the days when it feels like you can’t even look at one another. That is how God loves us, and that’s how we must love others. If you want your relationship to be 50/50… that means someone’s counting. And if someone’s counting, you’re not giving yourself fr ..read more

I recently happened upon an article in the Baltimore Sun that hit so close to home, my hand was pretty much on the front door knob. The article told the story of two photographers – a Baltimore couple, Liz and Ryan Bower – who spent years photographing brides’ and grooms’ special days, but then realized… there wasn’t much emphasis or excitement surrounding their lives after the wedding. So they set out across country to gather married couples’ stories and compiling them in a book entitled, “Amazing Life Together”. While reading this article, I couldn’t help but call to mind last Tuesday’s #Ad ..read more

You’ve probably heard this from your parents: “You are the company you keep.” We have probably found that these words ring true to this day. Our friends are a direct reflection of ourselves – our interests, our cares, our concerns, our joys, our sorrows, our thoughts, our feelings… a little of us is a little of them. But what we may not have realized is that our friends are also a reflection of how we treat them. When someone becomes our friend, they did not enter into a binding contract that states, “I will never hurt you.” Because if someone is your friend, sooner or later… they will. And w ..read more

There are no requirements in friendship… only rules, limits, and consequences. This is how we get confused and mistake certain relationships for friendships when they truly are not. When you enter into a friendship, these are things to remember: investment, humility, unresisting, considerate, and meekness. A friendship is a relationship you should want to invest in. It’s not something you let fall to the wayside, but something you give your time and attention. You must want to get to know the other person – their thoughts, their interests, their fears…and that takes effort.   It is ..read more