Marriage is such hard work. We all would like an easy way to divorce-proof our relationship. None of us go into marriage thinking it won’t last but most of us also have no idea what it takes to keep the marriage from failing. Guest, Laura Taggart, author of the new book Making Love Last: Divorce-Proofing Your Young Marriage, answers Kathi’s hard questions about how we handle conflict, why marriage is difficult, and what we can do about it from the very beginning.
Early on in our marriages, differences can be scary and cause a lot of tension. Laura addresses the ebbs and flows of different stages of our marriage, how we can pursue happiness together, learning how to get through difficulties gracefully and how to deal with our own feelings.
If you are married, have a friend whose marriage is in a tough spot, listen in for some new insight in keeping marriages strong.
Giveaway!
We are giving away a copy of Laura’s new book! Comment below and tell us what is one thing about marriage that surprised you. One winner will be chosen. Open to US residents only.
With thirty years of experience as a licensed marriage and family therapist, Laura Taggart understands the unique struggles of newly married couples who find marriage much more difficult than they imagined. Failed expectations, unanticipated conflict, and disagreements about money, sex, children, and more have many young couples assuming they made a mistake, married the wrong person, or just weren’t ready. As a result, one-third of all married couples divorce before their ten-year anniversary.
In this practical and hopeful book, Taggart offers the wisdom and help she would share as a counselor with a couple beginning their marriage. She helps couples examine their true expectations for marriage, provides six action steps for improving the way couples relate, and gives couples a new picture of what it means to enjoy marriage for a lifetime.
Each chapter includes discussion questions for couples or small groups as well as additional questions for personal reflection.
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About the Guest
Laura Taggart
Laura Taggart has been a licensed marriage and family therapist for nearly thirty years. As director of marriage and family ministry at Community Presbyterian Church in Danville, California, she founded a highly successful marriage mentoring ministry to help young couples develop a solid foundation for their young and often struggling marriages. A popular speaker at conferences and retreats, she has also taught as an adjunct professor at Fuller Theological Seminary.
About Your Host
Kathi Lipp
Kathi Lipp is the author of 16 books including Overwhelmed, Clutter Free, The Get Yourself Organized Project, The Husband Project, and Happy Habits for Every Couple. She is the host of Clutter Free Academy the Podcast! with Kathi Lipp and speaks at conferences across the US. Kathi is also the creator of Communicator Academy and Leverage: The Speaker Conference, both designed to help writers and speakers become the communicator God has created them to be.
Even after almost after 20 years of marriage we still miscommunicate when speaking to each other!!! We still have so much to learn about & with each other!!! But we are willing & able!!!
In the first months of marriage I was surprised how quickly the soap in the shower was used up!
After 15 years of marriage I was surprised that those qualities that had attracted me to my husband: his interest and care of others, his loyalty to his friends, his dedication to work, these also were things that drove me crazy about him! We BOTH learned to live with our best & worst qualities and enjoy a great marriage of 43 years strong!
It shouldn’t surprise me, but the very characteristics I love about my husband are also the sources of keen frustration with him. For example, I love how social he is, with any and all people–but it drives me nuts how much time he spends on social media. Once I realized that these were two sides of the same coin, I had more room to accept and understand that this is part of his drive to connect. The more respect I can carry for his needs as a person, the more understanding I am, and the softer and kinder our relationship becomes.
After 40 years of marriage, I finally admitted I hadn’t really been ‘happy’ for the past 15+ years. It came as quite a shocker to my husband. I’ve been seeing a counselor for 6 months and have discovered that most of my issues really are just my issues—not ‘deal breakers’. I’ve learned I’ve got to be willing to share my feeling honestly (and regularly). I wish I had been doing that for the past 15 years instead of letting resentment build. Marriage is always a ‘work in progress’ but is soooooo worth it!
The one thing that I didn’t realize before we got married was our love languages were so different from each other.
What surprised me the most is that I am not as nice as I thought I was. It’s easy to be nice to people when you see them every now and then — even when you see them every day at work, but being with someone all the time and still being nice — that takes work.
The thing that surprised me the most was the amount of work that marriage takes. You think things will be the same but marriage requires a lot more than what we did while we were dating. We were married when I was 18 and he was 20 and have Been married almost 7 years, and we are just now realizing new things we need to work on!
Hi Emily,
Thank you for participating! Congratulations you won the book giveaway. I will be sending you an email for your mailing address. Thank you and have a great week!
All the Best,
Chere
The fact that marriage is harder after the kids leave, where I thought that would be another honeymoon.
We were married when I was 18 and have been married 36 years. The thing that initially surprised me was that he was “always there!” He was always there when I woke up, showered, put on make up and left for work. He was there after work, during dinner, when I was relaxing, on the (corded) phone, in the car, inside, outside, visiting and at church. LOL I don’t know where I thought he would be! Having someone “always there” was a huge adjustment, but now it is a great comfort. I am so blessed to have my husband at my side.
It’s been a journey since we’ve been married only 2 years but it’s been work. It’s been rocky
After 10 years of marriage to my first and only boyfriend since high school, what surprises me most to this day is how much we change. Life has changed dramatically for us so many times and likewise we have changed right along with it. Keeping “us” intact while everything around us changes is a challenge I thoroughly underestimated.
I have been friends with my husband for about 23 years. We have only been married for a year. It does not matter how long you know someone and how good you think you know them, you don’t. I learned a lot of things about my husband after we got married. The main thing that surprised me was how different our parenting is. We do not have children together, only separate. It is very difficult having a blended family, more so than I ever could have imagined.
That knowing my spouse is a forever ongoing process! After 31 years of marriage, I am still learning new and wonderful things about him. He is more interesting and sweet each day and season of life.
Oh yes, the difficulty with outside family and not always understanding one another.
I was surprised when I got married to realize that my husband doesn’t think like me and what makes him happy or angry is different from me.
I told my boys that marriage is the hardest job you will ever have but if you put God first in your marriage it will help. What surprised me in my marriage is my husband standing up for people who hurt me, instead of standing up for his wife.
The one thing that surprised me the most was the difficulty with family.
One thing that surprised me is how we have the SAME argument about the same thing, time after time after time. We think it gets resolved and then here it comes again!