Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Continually Working on the Marriage

I listen to a couple of great marriage podcasts* every week.  It helps me to gain insight about my marriage and what I can do to help improve our marriage.  As Tony & Alisa DiLorenzo from ONE Extraordinary Marriage say, marriage is not 50/50: it's 110/110!  

I have been contemplating starting a book series and discussion related to marriage beginning January 2012 as one of my “New Year’s Aspirations,” but I feel like this is something that shouldn’t wait.   I am continually looking for ways to work on my part of the relationship with my husband, and I would like to start this series and discussion fairly soon (beginning of November.)  In my opinion, improving on a marriage shouldn’t be put on the backburner because it will just create friction, tension and eventually a blow up if you are not communicating together. 

That being said, I am considering starting a message board where others can join in on the discussion of the particular book/topic that is being discussed at the moment.  My thoughts are that anyone who is interested in this could sign up as an anonymous user and we could chat openly about our marriages with a certain level of security and anonymity for those who feel more comfortable doing so that way.  No one would be able to gain access to the discussion board without my approval before-hand. 

Would anyone be interested in starting a book series and message board discussion with me to help improve and grow in our marriages?  If so, please shoot me an email at SparingChange@gmail.com . 
Otherwise, I will be reading these books on my own and possibly posting on the blog.

Some of the books I’d like to read/discuss:

The 5 Love Languages (I’ve read it before, but I think it is worth going over again)
The Love Dare
The Surrendered Wife
Stripped Down
Fit to be Tied
Boundaries
Changes that Heal

I would love to hear your thoughts and opinions.


*Links to podcasts:
One Extraordinary Marriage
Beyond Your Wedding Day

11 comments:

  1. I think the message board is a great idea! I'm going to talk to hubby tonight about listening to the podcasts with me.

    ReplyDelete
  2. OK. It looks like I better start working on a message board for the two of us at least! I will post something on this blog when I have the address.

    First Book: The 5 Love Languages

    ReplyDelete
  3. I have a messageboard that we will use, but I've been thinking alot about how to keep this annonymous. Do NOT email me that you are interested in doing this. I will post the link sometime within the next two weeks to the messageboard, and you can sign up with whatever annonymous username/tag that you'd like.

    I'm working on figuring out how to lock the messageboard so that no one can read it unless they are members.

    ReplyDelete
  4. (same anonymous as above)- Sounds good! Should we go ahead and start reading the book? How fast are you planning on working through them?

    ReplyDelete
  5. To be honest, I dont remember how big the 5 Love Languages is. I was thinking maybe 3-4 chapters a week with a check-in every Saturday?

    I'm not sure if this works with your schedule or not. Let me know. :-) I am going to go put the book on hold at the library right now. We can start the 15th if you'd like (assuming I get the book by then.)

    Thanks for your eagerness to start and go through this journey with me! :-) I cant wait!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I got the book from the library so I'm ready to start whenever you are. The chapters seem pretty short so 4 chapters a week seems very do-able. :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. I dont know what is taking our library so long, I'm still waiting for the book. I am hoping to have it by Thursday.

    The link to the forum is as follows:
    http://sparing-change.your-talk.com/login

    Nothing has been updated or posted to this point.

    Thank you again for your interest! I'm excited!!

    ReplyDelete
  8. The book finally came in today! I am going to start reading and will have the first post on the messageboard posted by Saturday morning. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  9. Yay! I'm pretty excited about this. I've registered for the forum and if it's just b/c you're still working on the forum, ignore this. It also could be that I'm using mobile devices (blackberry and nook) but I can't reply to the one post that you've made in welcome.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Hmmm...were you able to see "post reply" at the bottom of the screen?
    Or you could post "new topic" if you wanted to add anything.

    Let me know if you were able to post something. If not, I will have to look into it a little further. Thank you for the heads up!

    ReplyDelete
  11. I'm not seeing either button. Someone else replied to a post so it must be the mobile devices. My computer is down so this is all I have for now..hopefully only till sometime next week.

    ReplyDelete