how StrongerMarriage.org helped a marriage + a giveaway {closed}

i have known Laura for a while in the blogging community and always knew what an awesome person she was and talented. i have enjoyed reading her blog and hearing her stories. so when i got the chance to work with her more one-on-one i was really excited to get to know her better. and of course, she has totally blown me away by her kindness, generosity, and honesty. 

when i read the following guest post, i got completely emotional. first of all, i'm so incredibly grateful to her for what she wrote and for willingness to share her story. and second, i think her post is so important because most people deal with conflict and arguments in marriage than they would like to admit. it seems too taboo to ever say we don't like our spouses sometimes. but the truth is that happens to the best of us and there are great tools out there to help us get through the tough times. 

i hope you enjoy Laura's post and it can help you have a happier marriage as well! 

{and be sure to check out the great giveaway at the end! :)}

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I've never told Megan this, but she really helped my marriage.

If you know Simon and I, you would know we are pretty tight. We do almost everything together, we laugh at each other's jokes, we seem to have almost identical life goals, and I count myself incredibly blessed every day to have married someone I am so in tune with. So from the outside, it could never have looked like our marriage needed any help at all.

But it did. Simon and I would get on great, apart from when we fought. When we fought, we fought dirty. And I would get angrier and angrier and Simon got more and more defensive, until a huge wall of silence crashed down beneath us. We would go to bed, backs turned on each other, and I would lay there seething whilst he snored softly. And the next day we would paper over the cracks we had made in our marriage the night before and carry on as if everything was okay.

This would happen every three or so months. Words that should never be used in a "loving" argument were used. Doors were slammed. Until one night I ran out of the room and I lay on my bed and I sobbed and sobbed. It felt like we just kept hitting the same brick wall again and again. And randomly, Megan popped into my head.

Now that's a bit weird, I know. But suddenly I remembered that last year she had blogged for a site called strongermarriage.org - and I had liked what she had had to say. A lot. And I thought, maybe if I looked on that website, I could find some of the answers to this problem that had somehow, along the way, turned into a something that seemed insurmountable. 

I looked at Stronger Marriage and I realised it wasn't just us (which was a relief!). Other people had the same problems and they had written extensively on what to do when you felt angry with your spouse. So I read this article and I sat down with Simon and we made an agreement, on how we would argue (sounds funny, but true!). We based it on this acronym:

A is for admitting your anger to your spouse.
R is the desire to restrain your anger and not let it get out of hand by blaming or belittling.
E stands for explaining in a very calm manner why you are angry.
A stands for action planning or doing something about the cause of the anger.

Now, our marriage is so much happier. Not perfect, but happier. There has been much less standing up and yelling, but more sitting down and talking. No more insurmountable issues because we sit down and action plan what to do next when one of us is unhappy. And progress has been slow, and we've taken a few steps backwards at times, but I really believe that through all of this, we are making a strong, lasting marriage.

So thank you, Megan, for pointing to a great marriage resource. And thank you, strongermarriage.org for providing one.

If you managed to get through that essay, well done! As a prize I am giving away one free custom blog design from my Etsy shop, and for all other readers 10% off with the code "HERESTOYOUMRSR".

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