| The Grit and Grace Project

Ask Dr. Zoe – How Can We Restore the Trust in Our Relationship?

By Dr. Zoe Shaw / Ask Dr. Zoe, Relationships

‘Troubled Wife’ Asked: I continue to have heated exchanges with my spouse. I am finally realizing that it’s about a lack of trust. Dr. Zoe, when the trust is gone from a relationship, is it truly over or is there any way to salvage it? Dr. Zoe Answered: Not necessarily. Trust can be re-gained if both of you are determined and the foundation of the relationship is strong enough. Without trust, a relationship can hobble along, but it won’t be a healthy one. Only you two decide when it is truly over. Rebuilding Trust Requires 3 Things These 3 things must be present if trust has a chance to be restored: 1. Remorse and an ability to convince you of it. If […]

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This Is How to Balance Money and Marriage Like a Pro

7 Tips to Balance Money and Marriage Like a Pro

By Sylvia Smith / Relationships

When you made vows “for richer or poorer” to your sweetheart, you probably didn’t realize the role that money would play in your marriage. Yes, money and marriage go hand-in-hand once a couple says, “I do,” but that doesn’t make the topic any easier for partners to talk about. Communication is key to a healthy marriage, especially when it comes to financial matters. The sooner you learn to discuss your debts, income, and financial plans with your partner, the better. But what happens if you and your spouse don’t see eye-to-eye about how to spend or save your money? This can put tension and stress on the marriage. Don’t let money matters complicate your happy marriage. You can learn to talk about

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You, Your Man, and His Baby Mama All Need Grit and Grace

By Dr. Zoe Shaw / Relationships

So your man is a pretty wonderful guy. Things are going so well. You might have even married him. What in the world could mess this up? Oh, the mother of his kids! Baby mama drama began with the start of civilization—think Abraham from the Bible. Sparks were going off between Sarah (his wife) and Hagar (baby mama). Abraham couldn’t deal with the drama and finally shipped Hagar off with their child—never to be seen again. Even if that is your fantasy, it isn’t going to happen—nor should it. The modern reality is that almost half (46%) of marriages involve a step-parent situation.1 When your relationship first started, dreams of the Brady Bunch may have been circling in your head. But reality

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Ask Dr. Zoe – My Husband Is a Strict Stepfather

By Dr. Zoe Shaw / Ask Dr. Zoe

‘Stuck in the Middle’ Asked: I have four children from a previous marriage and I recently got married to a wonderful man with no children. He’s very strict with my kids. They liked him at first, but now that we’re married and have been living together for 4 months, they don’t like him anymore and there is a lot of conflicts. We argue mostly about kid stuff. His controlling behavior comes from a good heart and he just wants to take over the father role with my kids. He has very clear ideas about how the kids should behave and how they should dress. He’s very big on respect. I’m feeling very torn between my children and my husband. Where do I

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The Warrior Wives Club: How to Fight for Your Marriage

By Ashby Duval / Faith

Once upon a time, three years and many prayers ago, I started a little group for women who wanted to pray for their marriages. Every month we would get together in person, but every Monday, I sent out an encouraging email on marriage. There were only three rules: 1. What happens in Warrior Wives Club stays in Warrior Wives Club. 2. No husband bashing. Although transparency is encouraged, you want to speak about your husband the way you would want him to speak about you. 3. Commit to praying not only for your spouse but the other marriages in the group. Prayer Works The group grew over time to dozens of women in 11 states and three countries. Prayer works (#obvi) and

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Ask Dr. Zoe – How Do I Recover From My Spouse’s Affair?

By Dr. Zoe Shaw / Ask Dr. Zoe

‘Betrayed’ Asked: I found out last year my husband of 25 years had been having an affair. He was a pastor when we first got married and we were teaching a Sunday-school class at the time he was having the affair. I’m just trying to figure out how to deal with the betrayal of someone who supposedly claimed to be such a wonderful Christian person? Dr. Zoe Answered: Dealing with betrayal is devastating no matter what the circumstances. The gut-wrenching blows to marriage and your psyche created by infidelity can only be understood by someone who has been through it. To be honest, when we are struggling to understand something, we hang our hats on the lowest hook, whether it is the

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Grit and Grace for All the Other Women in Your Man’s Life – 068

By This Grit & Grace Life Podcast / Podcast

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Android | Email | TuneIn | RSS | More Your man has a lot of other women in his life who require attention and often demand his interaction. It could be his mom, coworkers, a daughter, an ex, friends, or a baby mama to name a few. If this relationship requires his attention, it might need yours too! Because we love our men, we want great relationships with them, but it’s impractical (and unhealthy!) to try to keep them all to ourselves. So, can you find the grit and grace to give him space to have healthy relationships with these women? Darlene and Julie share how to navigate all the other women in

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Ask Dr. Zoe – How Do I Set Boundaries with My Invasive Mother-in-Law?

By Dr. Zoe Shaw / Ask Dr. Zoe

‘Weighed Down Wife’ Asked: How do you converse with your husband about your invasive mother-in-law? I found her one day in our bedroom changing our sheets, she has “cleaned” our bedroom without being asked, and puts things in our house where she feels they need to be. When brought up to my husband he gets extremely defensive and says she does so much for us, she watches our son and saves us money and our son loves her. How can I relay the invasive behavior and lack of privacy without making him feel like I am ungrateful? This is a constant issue in our marriage since I was pregnant and had our son. Prior to that, there was zero issue. Dr. Zoe

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You Didn’t Marry a Grown Up Husband

By Kitti Murray / Faith

You probably didn’t marry a grown-up husband. Neither did I. Somewhere along our marriage timeline, though, he became one. A while back at church we served in the nursery. We don’t particularly love this gig (don’t tell anyone), but we do it once a month for a lot of compelling reasons. Bill surprised me by choosing the “large group teacher” option when we signed up. This is something he has never done. I guess he thought he knew all about teaching, all about groups, and all about large. He was a pastor for over 25 years, after all. But teaching a large group of children ranging from kindergarten to sixth grade? All in one room together? I had a vague sense of foreboding

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Why It’s No Good to Keep Score in Your Marriage

By Whitney Hsu / Relationships

My husband has one big rule for our marriage. Babe, if you’re reading this, I know you’d say it’s not a rule—perhaps more of a guideline. But for me, it’s a rule. If I don’t follow it, I go down an extremely unhealthy path, and I know it. So here’s the best “rule” or “guideline” I’ve ever heard for a husband-wife relationship: don’t keep score. No healthy relationship is seen as a game. The only reason you’d keep score is if it’s a game of some sort, and if you’re serious about it, you’d better not call it a game. Right? You might follow up with the fact that keeping a record of rights or wrongs is just not a good idea.

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5 Ways You Can Revive a Stale Marriage

By Lydia McIntosh / Relationships

The other day I admitted to myself and my husband that I was not happy with our marriage. Saying the words out loud was difficult, and I was embarrassed for them to pass through my lips as I felt failure and disappointment weighing on me. The busy schedules, juggling parenting and marriage, as well as the feelings of neglect and uselessness drove my passionate love from firey to lukewarm in mere weeks. My relationship with my husband had become monotonous, selfish, and dull. A lack of stirred affections left me stale. I didn’t feel like a young, 20-something woman who garnered this crazy, undying love for her husband. I felt like a live-in nanny whose sole purpose was to take care of

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When to Leave an Unhealthy Relationship with Your Man with Dr. Zoe Shaw – 024

By This Grit & Grace Life Podcast / Podcast

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Android | Email | TuneIn | RSS | MoreSo, men can be pretty great, until they are not. Has the man in your life crossed a line that you just cannot live with? Are you dating and seeing signs that he’s not the guy you thought he was? Or are you married, and at an impasse, disagreeing at every turn? When you find yourself compromising your principals, your morals, your self-esteem perhaps it’s time to tell him “enough is enough?” To discuss this difficult situation, we brought in trusted friend and Licensed Psychotherapist and Relationship Expert, Dr. Zoe Shaw to help you determine when and how it’s time to step away from an

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When Opposites Stop Being So Attractive

By Ashby Duval / Faith

My husband was moving his shop and showroom to a different location the last couple weeks. I am not quite a minimalist, but I hate clutter and I am constantly getting rid of things (sometimes before I should have!). So much so that I have been known to sneak things out of the house in the middle of the night to the garbage just so I won’t get caught for throwing away a giant stuffed penguin that no one should need. Ever. Only to be caught the next day because his stuffed head snuck its way out the top of the garbage can (traitor). Long story short, my spouse is not a minimalist. He needs #allthethings. His mindset is that someday he

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How to Make a Happy Marriage, From a Divorced Single Mom

By Christi Anderson / Relationships

I was laying on the massage table chuckling instead of relaxing. I was chuckling at the fact that I had to pay someone to touch me. I mean, I sometimes pay my kids five bucks for a back massage, but that’s different. They don’t really want to do it and they don’t really care. They’ve never walked around looking and feeling as stiff as a 4×4, so how could they understand the necessity of a little back massage? As I got over my giggles and finally succumed to the relaxation, I had all these ideas running through my head about advice I needed to share ASAP. My first order of business is to share my thoughts on marriage (I’ll share my thoughts

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When Your Friends and Family Can’t Get Over the Affair

By Dr. Zoe Shaw / Relationships

Objectivity within the Affair No one knows for sure, but it is estimated that affairs affect 40-70% of all marriages. Most affairs are eventually discovered. During this devastating time, people often disclose the affair to friends and family in search of necessary support. So what happens when it’s you? Your partner cheated. You are devastated. You run out and tell your friends and family. This is okay because you do need the support, but you are surprised once your relationship is on the mend that your friends and family are the ones who haven’t gotten over it. First things first: if you have any inclination that your relationship may stay intact, only disclose to people who aren’t too emotionally invested in the relationship. The

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Marriage Trouble