Marriage 18 | Bret Legg

Doing the Right Thing is Never the Wrong Thing

April 16, 2018January 18, 2016 by Bret Legg

There are times when doing the right thing seems to make matters worse.

You try to defend your friend on the playground and you’re the one who gets beat up. An employer asks for an honest opinion then makes your life miserable because they didn’t like what you said. You stop to help a stranded motorist and miss your reservation at the restaurant you’ve been waiting so long to get into. The more you try to be kind and cooperative with your ex the more they take advantage of you.

Likewise, it can be difficult in marriage when you try to do the right thing and it doesn’t seem to get you anywhere.

How To Deal With Interrup…

April 16, 2018January 15, 2016 by Bret Legg

Everyone gets interrupted. It happens every day.

You start to do something and you get a call from that telemarketer you’re so fond of. You sit down at your computer to begin working and your email begins to ding as if you’ve just hit the jackpot on a slot machine in Vegas. You’re getting one child ready for school when the other decides that the syrup on their pancakes would be a good medium for finger painting.

Interruptions are also a part of marriage.

When You Can’t Find the Merry in Christmas

November 29, 2017December 22, 2015 by Bret Legg

We just put our Christmas decorations up…five days before Christmas! No, we’re not Scrooges and no, this is not typical for us.

We were going to have the decorations up three weeks before Christmas, but that week turned out to be more demanding than we expected. (Don’t they all?) We did stick a naked tree in a stand that week, but that’s as far as we got. Then my wife got sick a few days after that and has been sick ever since. So all we had was a naked tree in a stand five days before Christmas.

How Do You Decorate Your Marriage?

November 29, 2017December 15, 2015 by Bret Legg

I have to admit, I have never decorated the outside of our house or our the yard for Christmas. I’m not against it, and I don’t have anything against those that do.

It’s just seems like a lot of work for something you’re going to have to take down in 30 days. Yes – we decorate the inside of the house, and no – I don’t know what the difference is. I could tell you that growing up we never decorated outside, but that sounds like I’m blaming my parents for my laziness and I’m sure there’s probably something wrong with that.

Did I Marry the Right One?

April 16, 2018November 27, 2015 by Bret Legg

Did I marry “the right one?” There can be times in marriage when that question races across your mind like a streaker running across a football field. It can happen when you’re having that same old fight for the umpteenth time. It can happen when the two of you disagree on what’s fun and what’s boring. It can happen when your goals for the future don’t line up. It can happen when the differences between you and your spouse has you grinding your teeth.

It’s during these out-of-sync-times that spouses begin to wonder, “Did I marry the right one?” For some couples, the longer they’re married the more the question pops up. They try to beat the question back, as if they were playing a game of marital whack-a-mole, but no matter what they do, the question keeps coming up.

Thank You

April 16, 2018November 26, 2015 by Bret Legg

“Thank you.” Two simple words that cost us nothing in time or energy, yet they can change the outlook and life of those who hear them.

We all love to hear these words. We can all remember life-changing moments when someone sent us a note or looked us in the eye and said, “Thank you.” In that moment, those words were powerful. They stuck with us, soothed us, and sent us off to be a better person.

4 Things You Can Do When Things Don’t Go As You Planned

April 16, 2018November 16, 2015 by Bret Legg

“I think we better go to the ER.” I could barely hear the words over the voices in my head saying, “This can’t be happening! Not to me! I’m too young! This can’t be a heart attack!”

On the way to the ER, I convinced myself that since I wasn’t having the typical heart attack symptoms it probably wasn’t a heart attack. I was feeling pretty confident of that when I walked into the ER, but that confidence started to scatter when the guy at the desk immediately moved me to the head of the line and insisted that I go from one room to the next via a wheel chair.

So there I am… in an emergency room, connected to machines, pain in my chest, and alarms going off because my blood pressure was going for an all time record.

Monogam-ish? Really?

April 16, 2018October 30, 2015 by Bret Legg

There is an idea related to marriage that is slowly gaining traction in our culture. It is the idea that you can be monogamous maritally, without being exclusive sexually. The term for this is “monogam-ish.”

When I first encountered this term, I was doing some web research and it came up in a Google search. My first thought was, “Monogam-ish? Really?” Curious, I clicked on a video explaining the concept of being monogram-ish. My reaction went from “you’ve got to be kidding” to “I can’t believe we’re even having this discussion!”

The rationale behind being monogam-ish goes like this…

Funny How Things Can Take You Back

April 16, 2018October 28, 2015 by Bret Legg

It’s funny how things can take you back. It could be a song, or a smell. It could be a phrase, or a scene from a movie. Whatever it is, you know it when it happens, because you’re suddenly transported back to a better time (hopefully.)

Have you ever come across something that took you back to an earlier time in your marriage? Maybe it was a time where you were younger, more carefree, more energetic, or more idealistic. It happened to me early one morning as I was leaving for work.