Your Marriage Matters

Are we excited about you getting married? Yes, we are! Are there reasons to hit the STOP Button on getting married? Absolutely! Are these "life sentences"? Now way! But, if not dealt with before you walk down that aisle and say "I DO" they will cause you a world of hurt. If not dealt with now they could very easily lead to a divorce at a later date.

What are good reasons to hit the STOP Button?

• Addiction
• Abuse
• Response to internal or external pressures
• Thinking marriage will fix your fiancee
• Not having a "non negotiable" met by your future spouse

In this podcast we go into each of these in detail and provide you with some options when it comes to dealing with them. Again, these are not life sentences. As a matter of fact, we have seen some of the strongest marriage we know come out of a couple's dedication to dealing with one or more of these marriage killers!

There are also a handful of reasons to hit the PAUSE Button on your nuptials as well. Meaning we are going to acknowledge these challenges and begin to address them now. The great thing about this approach is it helps us develop our communication and problem skills during our engagement which is a microcosm of what are married life is going to be like together!

There you have it! 5 Reasons To Absolutely Hit the STOP Button On Getting Married!

If you have any questions please let us know. We are always here to help! Here are a couple of things you can do to help us ...

• Click Here to download our Speaker Listener Checklist!
• Click Here to join our Your Marriage Matters Facebook Group!
• If you enjoyed the podcast we would appreciate your giving it a 5 star review! That will help others find it more easily.

Join us next week as we kick off a new series on The 4 Foundations of A Great Relationship!

Jim & Christie Jacobus

Why get married? That is a question we have been asking our seriously dating and engaged couples for years. Their answers are as varied as there are colors in a sunset!

Some of those reasons are clearly well thought through while some give reason for pause. The good reasons do not guarantee success nor do the not so good reasons mean certain failure. That said, it pays to have a serious conversation or two or three or (you get where we are coming from) about the most important decision either of you will make in your adult lives.

So, in this episode we walk you through what we feel like are great reasons for getting married. It isn't an exhaustive list but it is a pretty good place to start.

We have also provided you with some tools for this conversation in the form of a brainstorming process we like to use often when we are wanting to go deeper in a conversation. You can use this process for a lot of different decisions you will need to make together.

And, we have provided you with two of our PDF tools as resources for this conversation. You can ...

• Click Here to download our Reasons To Get Married exercise
• Click Here to download our speaker/Listener Checklist exercise. You can find the podcast for that tool at YMM

As always we appreciate it if you can share this podcast with your friends and family that you think might benefit! And, go join the Facebook group by Clicking Here!

We will see you next week when we will cover some really good reasons not to get married or at least think a little more about your decision!

Always here for you ...

Jim and Christie @TeamJacobus

We have two awesome things to share with you this week!!!

First, happy Valentine's Day!!! In this podcast we cover the 5 Love Languages and give you some ideas on how to use them to make Valentine's Day, or any day, very special this year!

And then we share with you a new direction we are taking with the YOUR Marriage Matters podcast! We have a new focus we are so excited about so check it out and let us know what you think!

We appreciate all of your support and are so excited about the new book and the plans we have for you moving forward!

Jim & Christie "Team Jacobus"

What's The One Thing You Can Do To Change the Trajectory of YOUR Marriage?

Well, when we started thinking about it we couldn't come up with just one ... we came up with four of them!!! Each of these in their own way can make a huge difference in your marriage. If you can, do it together even if you both choose a different one. If your spouse isn't on board then pick one and do it yourself! If either member of the relationship gets better then the marriage gets better!

The four are simple but not necessarily easy. As a matter of fact they can be downright hard. But, they are worth your investment of time and energy. Here are the options:

• #1 - fix your stuff! A lot of the marriages we see are struggling because of childhood trauma/experiences that one or both partners bring into the marriage! Time to grow up, deal with it and put it in the rear view mirror so you can move forward and experience all of the joy and happiness you deserve!!!
• #2 - let's get physical! We aren't challenging anyone to be an olympic athlete, unless of course you can then go for it! We are challenging everyone to commit to being as healthy as they can be! Time to get up off of the couch, put down the fork and invest in being healthy!
• #3 - exercise your brain! In #2 we talk about exercising your body. In this one we talk about how important it is to regularly exercise and stretch our brains! As long as we are learning we are living ... the moment we stop learning is the moment our marriage begins to die!!! Grab an article and read it! Read, or listen, to a book! Subscribe to a podcast ... there's an idea!!! Do something that regularly stimulates your brain to grow and get new ideas!
• #4 - find your tribe! Don't try and go this alone. It is so important for us all to find a group of friends that are in the same stage of life we are in so two wonderful things happen! First, we find out we are not alone and the struggles we have are not unique! Second, we learn from others, and they learn from us, how they have successfully navigated the rough waters we are currently in! Find a tribe you can lean on as you experience marriage together! PS ... we find our tribe at church. We highly recommend it!!!

So, there you have it! 4 powerful strategies you can implement to get grow both individually and as a couple! Let us know what you think and which one you choose!

When it comes to that last one we wanted to give you some simple and easy to use resources for investing in each other!!! From previous episodes:

• Take the time to learn what makes your spouse feel loved by taking our "Relationship Needs Survey"! This is a real eye opener and will give you the keys to your mates heart! Click Here to access that episode!
• One of the most powerful things a couple can do is to work on creating a "Shared Vision" for their life together! In our episode on the subject we offered a downloadable pdf workbook to help you in the process! Click Here to access that episode and download your own Bucket List Exercise! WARNING ... it could lead to living full time in a RV or some similar life adventure!!!
• One more simple thing you can do to access a great resource is to join our YOUR Marriage Matters Facebook Group where we share a ton of additional information for building a more vibrant, healthy marriage! Click Here to go to our Facebook Group and join in!!!
• Oooooooppppssss! Almost forgot you can grab our book 52 Great Conversations for Building A More Vibrant, Healthy Marriage! Click Here to grab your copy!

Rick Reynolds - The Affair Recovery Center

Last week we did our podcast on The 5 Early Warning Signs That Your Marriage Could Be In Trouble! A lot of the feedback was ... what can we do to get ahead of these early warning signs?!?

This week we are going to give every 3 strategies, or 3 Great Ways To Invest In Your Marriage! While they are simple, they are by no means easy! Here you go ...

• Invest in YOUR Marriage by ... being a student of yourself! Be open and honest about who you are and who you are not and make the commitment to become the best version of yourself possible. Then be open and honest with your spouse about it and trust they will love you, just as you are, unconditionally!
• Invest in YOUR Marriage by ... becoming a student of your spouse! Know their Love Languages, know their Relational Needs (we have a podcast dedicated to this subject HERE!), know their personality styles, know what is on their Bucket List (yet another podcast on this subject HERE!) and on and on and on! You can never know enough about your spouse!
• Invest in YOUR Marriage by ... becoming a student of marriage! There is so much to know about this subject that you can, and likely will, spend an entire lifetime dedicated to learning more about it! The cool news is that it is THE MOST WORTHWHILE pursuit you will ever undertake!

Understand YOUR Marriage Matters and it is in constant danger if we aren't vigilant in how we protect it!

We love you and appreciate you and we want to see you and your relationship succeed beyond your wildest dreams!

Here are a couple of additional ways you can be proactive!

One more simple thing you can do to access a great resource is to join our YOUR Marriage Matters Facebook Group where we share a ton of additional information for building a more vibrant, healthy marriage! Click Here to go to our Facebook Group and join in!!!

Oooooooppppssss! Almost forgot you can grab our book 52 Great Conversations for Building A More Vibrant, Healthy Marriage! Click Here to grab your copy!

YOUR Marriage, just like your health, has early warning signs when something isn't just right! Identifying what those signs are, looking to see if they are present in your marriage and then taking action to fix them can save you and your partner a whole lot of grief!!!

In this podcast we look at 5 specific warning signs we look for in the couples we work with. They are ...

• Losing our connection with each other!
• Avoiding spending time with each other!
• Not making our marriage a priority!
• Talking bad about our spouse, or marriage, to others!
• Not being intentional when it comes to investing in our marriage!

When it comes to that last one we wanted to give you some simple and easy to use resources for investing in each other!!! From previous episodes:

• Take the time to learn what makes your spouse feel loved by taking our "Relationship Needs Survey"! This is a real eye opener and will give you the keys to your mates heart! Click Here to access that episode!
• One of the most powerful things a couple can do is to work on creating a "Shared Vision" for their life together! In our episode on the subject we offered a downloadable pdf workbook to help you in the process! Click Here to access that episode and download your own Bucket List Exercise! WARNING ... it could lead to living full time in a RV or some similar life adventure!!!
• One more simple thing you can do to access a great resource is to join our YOUR Marriage Matters Facebook Group where we share a ton of additional information for building a more vibrant, healthy marriage! Click Here to go to our Facebook Group and join in!!!
• Oooooooppppssss! Almost forgot you can grab our book 52 Great Conversations for Building A More Vibrant, Healthy Marriage! Click Here to grab your copy!

So, make the commitment today to not allow any of these red flags to show up in your relationship without taking action in a proactive way! Obviously if we can help in any way let us know. E-mail us, message us or post your question on the Facebook Group! We are always here for you ...

Jim & Christie Jacobus

We are calling YOU out! But, we are calling ourselves out first!!!

We are frustrated, mostly Jim is frustrated, by what we perceive as a lack of interest people have in investing in their marriages! That is until they get into a crisis situation. That has made itself real to us many, many times through the years. That is why we began this podcast in the first place ... to keep couples out of Christie's counseling room and Jim's Divorce Care class!

It seems to us like people, you maybe, don't care!!! While the podcast gets solid numbers in the way of downloads it has very little engagement in the way of comments or feedback on any of our distribution channels like YouTube, Facebook, ITunes and the rest. So, we are doing 2 things ...

• Calling ourselves out to be more engaged ourselves and do a better job of providing resources and promoting the podcast.
• Calling you, our listeners, viewers, friends and family out to become more intentional in providing us your feedback and engagement in this process!

In the podcast we also speak to what we feel like are the most important elements to building the marriage you dreamed of when you said "I Do"!

So, there you have it! You have been called out and we have called ourselves out as well! Join us in helping to build a more vibrant, healthy marriage for yourselves and for others.

Thanks! We love and appreciate each of you. Let us know how we can help you ...

Jim & Christie Jacobus

To live the "life of your dreams" you are going to have to make some big decisions! You may also have to change direction sometimes ... even when the direction you are going is exciting and compelling!!! The question is how do you go about making these types of decisions and/or change direction?

For a while now we have been using, and teaching, a process we came up with called I D E A! It goes like this ...

• Inspiration - you have a compelling idea.
• Discussion - you talk about it together and examine the pluses and the minuses with an open mind.
• Education - you learn as much as you can about the decision you want to make.
• Action - when the time comes (don't go too fast, or wait too long) you have to take action to make it happen!

In this episode we walk you through our decision to become Park Hosts at Brazos Bend State Park near Houston, Texas! It was a bucket list item for the two of us yet there were a lot of things to consider. That said, we made the decision and we are so excited about our stay here!

Need to make a decision? Try I D E A out and let us know how it goes for you!!!

What is "travel day" like with Team Jacobus? What can we learn about marriage from how these two live out their full time RV'ing lifestyle?

It turns out, in this raw and uncut podcast, that there is a tone we can learn about the power of living out a dream and a shared vision! We can also learn a lot about how a ton of stuff has to get done and their approach to a shared workload!

Tune in and hear what "travel day" is like for Team Jacobus!

As we wrap up our "I Am Not the Enemy" series we look at what role do we play when it comes to dealing with conflict and struggles in a healthy and productive manner!

In this podcast we will share with you 6 positive roles we each play in the lives of our spouse and in the life of our marriage! Each of these roles lead to us successfully navigating the inevitable rough spots every relationship will experience!

Learning to embrace these strategies will not only help with problem solving but will absolutely lead to a marriage relationship each of you can count on!

Knowing you can trust your mate during tough times is a huge win and a part of why God created marriage in the first place!

We trust you will enjoy this episode. Let us know if we can help you and your marriage in any way ...