Feelin' It

In our third session of the Staying In Love small group series we talked about emotions and the impact they have on our marriages.  My wife had us start playing a game to think about the ways we show love to our spouses and what types of things make us upset.  It was interested to hear and learn about the perspectives of other men in my group as well as from our wives.

Andy Stanley talked about how a lot of what comes out in our emotions from our marriage comes from within us and not necessarily from our partner.  He encourages us that instead of monitoring our spouses behaviors or actions we should look inward.

Andy gave us four simple steps that we could apply to encounters in our relationships:

1. Before you speak, think about what you are actually feeling.
2. Identify the emotion by name.
3. The say it out loud.
4. If appropriate, tell your partner how you feel. 

As we do this, we will likely find that what we thought was a "marriage problem" may actually be a problem inside our own hearts.