• Marriage & Keeping Intimacy

    This Is a Football: Why the Fundamentals Matter in Marriage

    Back to Basics: What Football Taught Me About Love In July of 1961, the Green Bay Packers showed up for the first day of training camp. The previous season had ended in heartbreak—they blew a late lead and lost the NFL Championship to the Philadelphia Eagles. The off-season was brutal, and the players were eager to learn new strategies, new plays, new ways to win. Their coach, Vince Lombardi, had other plans. He walked into camp holding a football and said, “Gentlemen, this is a football. That’s it. No fancy speech. No secret playbook. Just a ball in his hand and a reminder that greatness starts with the basics. These…

  • Marriage & Keeping Intimacy

    Dear Younger Me

    Today, Bobby and I celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary. According to statistics, we have entered a unique, exclusive club: one for couples whose marriages have not only lasted longer than most, but have become even stronger as the years went by. Through every single year of our marriage, people have commented on our strong physical connection and affection toward one another. In the earlier years of our marriage, after people would tell us to get a room (yep, that’s where the blog name comes from), they inevitably would follow it up with “Well, just wait until you’ve been married  ___  years.” Wow…thanks for the insight.  It was truly disconcerting to hear this over…

  • Marriage & Keeping Intimacy

    D E P E N D E N T

    This article is reprinted with the permission of the author and a dear friend of mine, Hayley Decker. Enjoy!  I’ve always prided myself on being a self-sufficient and independent woman. I AM WOMAN – HEAR ME ROAR, you know? And though this mindset has in some ways gotten me through horribly difficult seasons, like a divorce when I felt that being “self sufficient” was a necessity, it also created a dangerous form of pride in me that has been a hard one to shake. Unfortunately, I don’t think that I’m alone amongst my fellow women. Let’s talk about being self-sufficient. We “can” do most things on our own, can’t we?…

  • Marriage & Keeping Intimacy

    It’s the Little Things

    I love my car – except for one thing. The warning alarm – namely the one that sounds when you don’t yet have your seat belt on – is the most shrill and annoying sound ev-er. Oh no. She doesn’t make a pleasing tone like other American cars. She’s a 2008 Crossfire, and while her body and interior were styled by Chrysler, the rest of the car is European. And unlike American engineers, the German ones are all business. They want us to really, really hear it. Take a quick listen. One morning, my hubby and I were leaving for work and he had backed my car out of the…