Mark DeYoung - DeYoung Consulting Inc.

Listening

Mark DeYoung on September 11, 2023

Listening is an essential skill in marriage, but it is also challenging. When we listen well to our spouse, we enhance the connection and overall well-being of the marriage. Unfortunately, we will likely need help with some bad habits in our listening. I want to identify six bad habits and offer you some antidotes to the bad habits.

Interrupting
This habit is self-explanatory. We cut off the statement or thought of our partner to share our thoughts or feelings. This makes our partner feel we don’t care what they say. We place more importance on our position.

Story-Topping
Story-topping is the choice to connect what your partner is saying with something about you. It often comes with the message that what you have experienced or think is more important than what your spouse says. It can create a one-up environment where you compete for importance.

Bright-Siding
When you are “bright-side,” you are trying to get your partner to move off the negative and focus on the good parts of their story. You might think this optimism is encouraging. But the truth is it can be invalidating of your spouse. It can make them feel like they are exaggerating their negative response and their feelings are unimportant.

Being Right
You can quickly escalate conflict when you must point out your position on a problem. This is a confrontation with what your spouse is saying and implies there is one correct position or perspective.

Being All-Knowing
The popular term for this tactic is “mansplaining.” This attitude of having an answer for everything can be off-putting. It can make a spouse feel like you think they are stupid or incapable.

Advice-Giving
Giving advice is another way to invalidate your partner. This behavior wraps up being right and all-knowing into one. It is an almost guaranteed way to create conflict. I think it is best to offer advice when directly asked.

Remedies for lousy listening habits

Patience
Listening cannot be done with speed. It takes time. The agenda needs to be set by your partner and their story. When you interrupt, you often rush a process that takes time. Before you respond or interrupt what your partner is saying – pause and take a breath. Could you slow the process down?

Prioritize your Partner
When your partner shares something with you, whether small or very significant, they are the most critical thing. They are your priority. Connecting their story to something about yourself elevates you when they should be the focus. Don’t be Penelope from SNL.

Presence over positivity
This is probably the biggest struggle for someone like myself who sees the world in a “glass half-full” way. What our partners need is our presence. They need us to be with them and validate their feelings and concerns rather than just trying to put a positive spin on the situation. Sometimes, our response is unnecessary; they need us to say I am here and will stay with you.

Permit their perspective
Listening to our spouse often involves discussing a problem or potential conflict. We need to permit their perspective rather than engaging in a point-counterpoint debate. This usually means we must take ownership of our contribution to the problem. Once we have validated their experience and taken ownership, we can share our perspective on the problem more successfully.

Practice Humility
Whether we are “mansplaining” or need an ego boost by trying to show how much we know, these behaviors are unnecessary in marriage. We should all know that we don’t “know it all.” And even if we are very knowledgeable about a topic, we need to have the humility to recognize that sharing our supposed wisdom negates the benefits of our spouse feeling heard.

Promote their needs
The most important result of good listening must be meeting our partner’s needs. Sometimes, they will directly state their needs, but we might have to infer their need by listening well. We should always check and promote whatever our spouse needs. Giving advice does not meet their need. It is rather dismissive and can make a person feel as if you are blowing them off. When our spouse is hurting, they don’t need advice. Your spouse needs your ear, understanding, and intentional actions to meet their needs in the moment.

How Comparison Damages Marriage

Mark DeYoung on August 1, 2023

The digital information age has its upsides, but like most anything, it creates some problems. We are constantly bombarded with information. This comes through our televisions, streaming services, social media, email inboxes, etc. Imagine 100 years ago, before television, when your sources of information were limited to the newspaper and the stories from your neighbors, family, or friends. Go even further back another 100 years. You may be working the family farm, and your information is limited to those in your household, the occasional letter/telegram, or a visit from a friend or family member.

The rapid rise of the flow of information has bombarded us with details, insights, facts, figures, and probably too much misinformation. It becomes hard to sort and retain the information and separate truth from fiction.

This information onslaught impacts our marriages. We are offered any number of blogs (this being one), articles, and videos to help. There is no limit to the tabloid offerings to tell us the latest about celebrity and royal marriages. Our social media feeds let us know what our family, friends, and acquaintances are doing in their marital bliss (or blues). All this data on all these marriages can lead us into the dangerous territory of comparison.

Why do they get to go to the Bahamas?
How did their kid make the varsity team?
At least we are not struggling, fighting, or having their problems.
One expert gives this advice, while another shares the exact opposite opinion. Which one is right?

You get the idea. Whether we say these comparisons out loud or speak them in our minds, the large amounts of data we have about others opens this door too quickly. Can you imagine 200 years ago knowing nothing about the royals or your 500 friends on Facebook? All you would have known is those in your immediate circle. In terms of marriage, you may have had a significant awareness of the goings on in your marriage and one to two other marriages. This would have severely limited the data pool for comparison.

So what is it about the comparison to other marriages that would damage my own? It erodes commitment and can lead to broken trust.

Bluma Zeigarnik was a young psychologist in 1922. One day she was eating in a Vienna cafe when she observed an interesting phenomenon. Wait staff had excellent memory recall for the orders of various tables they served. Still, once the orders to any table were fulfilled, they could no longer accurately recall the information about the orders. These observations and future studies led to the concept named after her – Zeigarnik Effect. It is that we have better recall for uncompleted tasks/events than those tasks/events that we have finished or processed. Our memory recall can be up to 90% higher for unfinished business.
When you are overloaded with too much information or tidbits of information you cannot process, you tend to hold onto those things. And Dr. Gottman, in his research with couples, found it was the negative tidbits that we kept in the front of our minds. This is how comparison erodes the connections and commitments in your marriage.

Like all marriages, yours deals with conflicts and disconnections. And if no consistent repair is made to those ruptures, you are open to the impacts of comparison. In all the flow of information in your world, you start to notice what you don’t have, how your marriage feels distant and disappointing compared to others. You wish you had their trips, their money, their happiness. You have no space to process these feelings of discontent or grief properly. The people you use for comparison are not readily available to process, and talking to them about these feelings would be inappropriate. Isolation and disconnection increase, and the list of irritations and hurts in the marriage grows. This only makes the gap between the reality of the marriage and the greener grass outside the marriage grow. At this point, the real danger exists in considering alternatives outside the marriage.

Maybe my spouse is not my “true love.”
I could be happier on my own.
My friend/coworker cares about me more than my spouse.
I feel more attracted to my neighbor than my spouse.

The list could go on, but if we start to act on any of these thoughts, we open the door to broken trust in the marriage. The foundations of commitment become shaky, and our choices to act cut deep wounds of betrayal. This all starts with comparison.

The solution to comparison is proactive prevention. All marriages deal with injuries and disconnections, but healthy couples consistently repair those hurts. The diligent effort to minimize the impacts of minor injuries offers a protective safe space to process hurts before the dangers of comparison can enter the marriage. These preventative efforts help maintain a strong commitment and trust in the union. So as information enters our world that could be used for comparison, it can be easily dismissed or processed with our spouse because there is confidence and safety in the marriage. Here are a few ideas to help consistently repair and avoid the dangers of comparison.

Cherish your partner – It is essential to validate, compliment, and honor the best parts of your spouse. Though it can be easy to fall into noticing and remembering the things that annoy you, you must be consistently focused on what you value. Share those compliments. There needs to be a 5 to 1 ratio of compliments to complaints in your marriage. We can all do better in this area.
Choose gratitude – Make a list of things to be thankful for each day in your marriage. Share at least one thing you are grateful for daily with your spouse.
Listen with empathy and understanding – When your spouse shares strong feelings or complaints, it can often be upsetting and escalating. Maintain a space of calm to truly hear your spouse and choose to validate their experience and feelings before offering any advice or suggestions. Haim Ginott, a psychologist, once said, “…advice is always more effective when words of understanding precede words of advice.” And often, words of advice are unnecessary.
Limit your intake of information – The information age is here to stay. But we can set boundaries on media and technology to limit the flow of information into our minds.

These are a few strategies to help avoid the dangers of comparison and hopefully protect the essential ingredients of commitment and trust in your marriage.

Mental Health and Gun Violence

Mark DeYoung on June 6, 2023

In May 2023, there was another horrific act of evil in Allen, TX, when a gunman opened fire in a crowded mall parking lot. This was nearly one year after the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, TX. In Allen, eight were killed, including three young children; in Uvalde, 19 children, and two teachers were killed. Two evil men committed these acts of violence. The result has been too many destroyed lives.

Following these events, Texas Governor Abbott spoke to the communities involved and said similar things in both cases. Here are his words:
In Uvalde, Governor Abbott said the shooter had “a mental health challenge.” “Anybody who shoots somebody else has a mental health challenge…We as a state, we as a society, need to do a better job with mental health.”
In Frisco, he echoed a similar refrain. “What Texas is doing in a big-time way, we are working to address that anger and violence but going to its root cause, which is addressing the mental health problems behind it…People want a quick solution. The long-term solution here is to address the mental health issue.”

The governor has it entirely backward. His words conflate evil with mental illness. This sends all the wrong messages. Mental illness is not evil. Mental illness is not the primary cause of violence. Numerous complex systemic factors contribute to violent acts, and to singularly blame mental illness and blindly ignore all the other potential contributors to violence is dismissive, neglectful, and irresponsible.

This makes the governor’s response backward because I believe the rise in gun violence contributes to a surge in mental health challenges. It is not the other way around. This is because mental illness has been with us since the dawn of time. It ebbs and flows with the impacts of life stresses and traumas. We know that mass events like famines, pandemics, wars, and other tragedies can have far-reaching implications for the mental health of nations. In other words, our mental health suffers as external stresses pile up. And these impacts can last for years. Gun violence is no exception, and it is one of those stresses.

With the advent of the Information Age in the later 1900s, we have increasingly faster access to information. We have gone from the 24-hour news cycle of newspapers to instant news at any second we want to access. This has led to living in a culture of fear. With a world of information in our hands, we have no time to process or digest all the information that floods our minds. As a result, our mental health suffers.

And with the threat of constant gun violence in our faces, our fear escalates. We avoid public spaces, including what should be one of our safest public spaces–church. So isolation increases along with our fear. And to think our children have remained unaffected is naive. Our children are intensely aware of the dangers in their world and schools. As I wrote in the May 2023 blog, “Teenage Mental Health Crisis,” regular lockdown drills in our schools are practiced trauma.
We should make mental health resources available and eliminate stigma from seeking mental health support. We need to increase mental health support to help us cope with the threats of violence in our neighborhoods. But, more importantly, we need to restore a sense of order and peace in our communities.

Here are a few suggestions for accomplishing some of those goals.

Set limits on the amount of information you consume. None of us needs a constant feed of news from our phones or televisions. We also need to limit how much we scroll on social media. We know that higher levels of information input only increase our anxiety and distract us from what is most important right in front of us — our family, friends, and neighbors, which leads me to my second suggestion.
Focus on those closest to you. Spend conversation and face-to-face contact with your immediate family and friends. Notice their needs and work to meet those needs. Provide service and support. None of us can solve the world’s big problems, but we can do something about the people right before us. Love those close to you.
Please do what you can to stop supporting our violent subculture. Examine your life and world. Do you do things or say things that explicitly or implicitly support violence? Do you use violent language when you talk about topics? When talking about political adversaries or those you disagree with, you use fighting-oriented language, like “going to battle” or “we are at war.” Do you need to advertise guns on your bumper stickers, flags, or living room wall if you own guns? Do you play violent video games? Maybe we could all curb our connections to these words, images, or activities.
We need to stop responding to gun violence as if it is a zero-sum game. If we keep responding like the goal is to beat the “bad guys,” then disagreement, conflict, and violence will only increase. Our goal should be to find ways to create safer, more peaceful communities for all of us, including the “bad guys.” If we do that, they may not be bad guys anymore. The focus is then on helping the community flourish and feel safe. Church leaders have many opportunities to implement programs, messages, and collaboration in this area, leading to my last point.
We must make more significant strides in unifying with those different from us. Sadly, we often won’t share a meal or resources with the church down the street, let alone another community of faith. All faith communities can rally together around a message of peace and cooperation. We need to passionately pursue cooperative efforts with every faith community to find solutions for reducing violence in our streets and neighborhoods.

Forgiveness in a Flash

Mark DeYoung on May 23, 2023

My work with couples involves frequent discussions of forgiveness. Forgiveness is the “decision not to make the offender pay for the offense.” It is a decision made in a moment but lived out over time by treating the offender as having no debt. There are volumes of books written on this topic, and this little blog cannot address all the facets of this challenging choice. But I want to focus on a little moment in the forgiveness process. I want to look at the initial moment of the decision. I want to zoom in microscopically on the brief microseconds in which the decision is made.

There are a few assumptions I am making when writing about this process.

There are two types of forgiveness: one where reconciliation is impossible and one where we work toward reconciliation. Reconciliation is the restoration of the relationship and the granting of mutual trust. When this cannot happen, the decision to forgive is personal and only for the benefit of the person experiencing the injury. Therefore, we will focus on scenarios where reconciliation is the goal, which can only occur where…
The offender has taken complete responsibility for the offense. We cannot offer trust where the offender has not accepted ownership for the injury or betrayal.
Both parties commit to making sacrifices to make the relationship work and function in new ways—protecting the relationship from future injury.

Now I want to zoom into the brief microsecond time in which the injured person decides to forgive and move into the stages of reconnection and reconciliation. It is a moment of birth and new life being given to something approaching death.

I want to use a relatively minor injury as an example. I use this example because it occurs in most relationships. So we can all easily understand, I am also using gender-neutral language in the model so we don’t get distracted by our gender biases.

The forgotten commitment.
The weekend is approaching, and this married couple is discussing their schedules and expectations for the weekend on a Thursday evening. Unfortunately, this Saturday is not looking to be very restful for either of them. One agrees to take the children to their soccer games in the morning, while the other plans to run shopping errands after mowing the grass early. One of the kiddos has a friend’s birthday party that afternoon while the other younger child needs to nap. The parent who agreed to stay home needed the parent to pick up an essential gift for their evening plans. This spouse (staying home) was responsible for organizing the retirement gift for their boss, who was retiring after 20 years. The gift was ready for pickup this Saturday, and the partner out at the party agreed to pick up the gift. As the couple was getting ready to leave for the retirement party that evening, they both realized the gift pickup had been forgotten. A massive argument ensued.
“You are always forgetting…you never seem to care about what is important to me.”
“You never reminded me…I never wanted to go to this stupid party because I hate your boss and coworkers.”
Feelings of hurt and betrayal lingered through the night and into the next day.

Imagine being a fly on the wall as this couple attempts to process the argument from the night before. In an ideal world, the hurt spouse would share their feelings and experiences. The offending spouse would validate and take ownership of the injury and offer a corrective action plan for future events. But these discussions could be better, and I want us to recognize that it is most likely related to what happens in a fraction of a second decision. In those twinkling moments, we need to decide–what will we do with POWER?

In the case of our story above, the spouse whose important gift was forgotten has gained the leverage of power. Their partner needed to remember. This created a debt that needed to be repaid. Obligations create power differences. This spouse holds power over their partner and now must decide what to do. There are many ways to make the perpetrator pay–Rejection, criticism, shaming, reminding them of this, and past failures. The list could go on. But the decision in the blink of an eye is whether to sentence the offender or surrender the right. Forgiveness is a surrender that takes the tension out of the room. Power becomes peace.

In my book, Revolutionary Marriage, I share how experiencing moments of forgiveness is like staring into the vastness of eternity. Living in the burdens of this world and time constraints, we often feel pressured. There is tension. Forgiveness releases these weights for even a moment, and we can experience the breath of an eternal, truly free reality. There is no freedom when power is applied. Obligations pile on top of each other, and we keep score.

So when the offended spouse says, “I forgive you. It is all right that you forgot, and we will solve this problem.” They sacrifice their power, offering freedom to their partner. Freedom breeds new life.

But what does the offender do with that freedom? They also have a decision to make in a flash. Do they use their new life to usurp power and continue to take advantage? Should the perpetrator use this gift to their advantage? Maybe they feel entitled, “You need to forgive me because of all the things you have done recently.” Perhaps they feel defensive, “You need to forgive me because you are always making too big a deal of things.” Freedom creates the opportunity to have power over others. But just like their offended partner, they must sacrifice their power. They must submit.

So the offender says, “I am thankful for your forgiveness. You are my priority, and I should not have forgotten. Next time you need me to remember, I will write myself a reminder to help ensure I don’t forget.”

By abandoning power, both partners take a significant risk. The offended spouse risks future injury. Forgiveness loosens the chains of control and contempt, and by offering freedom, their partner may hurt or fail them again—the perpetrator of the injury risks failing in the future. Through submission, they make themselves accountable for change.

It is in freedom and change that new life is born. In a flash of forgiveness, a breath of life-sustaining air is given to the marriage.

Postscript — This reminds us of our assumptions earlier in this blog post. This risk of forgiveness and submission only works in the context of a marriage where there is a commitment by both partners to maintain trust and reconcile their commitments to each other. There have to have been patterns of reciprocal sacrifice. Suppose there is long-standing contempt, threats of divorce, substance abuse, violence, ongoing affairs, and any other significant betrayal. In that case, getting those addressed in a safe therapeutic environment is essential. Seek counsel with a qualified mental health professional. Allow the hard work in that context to create fertile soil for healthier practices like the one described above.

Teen Mental Health Crisis

Mark DeYoung on May 3, 2023

May is mental health awareness month. And to contribute to our collective awareness of mental health, I want to discuss a current crisis. I honestly don’t use those words flippantly. The mental health of our preadolescent and teenage students in our country is in severe decline. I want to share with you some statistics that show this drastic decline and challenge us to rise as a community to support our most fragile groups.

In February 2023, the CDC released a shockingreport about teenage suicide in America. Suicide rates reached an all-time high in 2018, and though there was a slight decline in the next couple of years, in 2021, rates jumped again to reach an all-time high. Of particular concern is the level of hopelessness among our younger generations. Just a few statistics from that report:

60% of teenage girls reported feeling persistently hopeless in 2021
1 in 3 teen girls had seriously considered suicide
1 in 5 teen girls had experienced sexual violence in the past year.
14% reported being forced to have sex. Please stop and ponder that number. Over 1 in 10 girls reported being sexually assaulted. Remember, the vast majority of sexual assaults go unreported. Also, boys are the perpetrators of these assaults. What is going on with our young men that this seems to be more of normal behavior and expectation for them?
In a global survey of over 400,000 teens, only 22% reported being close to their family.

When we see statistics like that, many want to jump to conclusions about the cause. Please don’t be too quick to blame COVID or social media. Most experts in this area say COVID was a stressor that split open cracks already well formed in our society. However, some fair blame can be directed toward smartphones, screens, and social media.

Jonothan Haidt, a psychologist, has begun publishing data that strongly implicates social media with the rise of anxiety and depression in teenagers, specifically teen girls. His work is extensive, and I would point you to this website for a deeper review. But, the most significant conclusion from his work is a definitive turn in mental health among our teenagers with the introduction of the front-facing camera on smartphones (we can now take endless selfies) and the rise of Instagram. These both happened around 2012. The data is obvious, and though Dr. Haidt has faced pushback on his data analysis (this is part of science), the skeptics need more stable ground in their arguments.

So, we can put some blame on screens and social media. But from my perspective as a therapist, we continue to mishandle this problem. Our first mistake has been that we adults have drowned ourselves in social media as adults. We could have been better examples. Our kids witness us scrolling, posting, and commenting as frequently or even more than they are engaged with their social media apps. Children learn from watching their parents. No child development expert would disagree with that statement. And we need to be honest. We have been bad examples. We should work on setting better boundaries with our use of social media. I would love for such a cultural movement to abandon social media so dramatically that the billions these companies are raking in from selling us as a product dries up. It is a bit of a pipe dream, but I can dream, can’t I?

Secondly, as parents, we have attempted to manage the phone, screen time, and social media through a punishment/reward system. My bias is that punishments/rewards as a primary form of parenting are ineffective. They can have short-term value, but there are far more effective ways to parent. We need to stop taking phones or relying on router parental controls as the sole means to manage our child’s screen time. Instead, we need to be having conversations about screen time. It starts with a relationship. Why does your kid like TikTok? What videos do they enjoy on social media? Do you watch them together? Do you have a relationship with your child outside of TV and other screens? Do you go on walks or eat meals without screens? Do you play games (not video games) together? If you want to read a classic about this kind of relational parenting, read Dr. Haim Ginott’s Between Parent and Child.

Let me suggest a bit more controversial source of this mental health crisis. GUNS. School shootings have significantly increased.* In the 1970s, there were approximately 60s deaths nationwide from school-related shooting incidents. We are currently on track to have over 400 school-related shooting deaths this decade. These numbers have only increased since the 1970s. Lockdown drills are common practice for all ages in public schools. Young elementary children know that lockdown drills are designed to keep them safe from an active shooter on their campus. Many express significant fears and anxiety, knowing this is a constant reality.

My wife is a public school teacher. If I had the time and space to explain the procedures, rules, and expectations they must keep in mind for these lockdown drills, it would overwhelm all of us. Teachers are evaluated in their handling of lockdown drills. During drills, people go around wiggling locked doors. Children hear what it will sound like if a gunman is walking the halls. This is practiced stress and trauma. Now look, we used to have fire drills in school. The fire alarm would go off, and we would celebrate a break from our work while we walked outside. But during those drills, we were not walking through simulated smoke, seeing fire trucks, or feeling the heat of an actual fire. But in gunman lockdown drills, children are pressed to “remain silent” so they are not heard, and then in the silence, a door is wiggled, attempted to open. For all children, this is stressful, but for a sensitive child, this repeated lived-out terror.

As I write this blog, I feel inclined to write a much longer blog about guns and mental health. That will come in July 2023. But let me say for this post that our cultural obsession with firearms harms us. The late game theorist Anatol Rapoport illustrated that conflict will always escalate in games where there must be a winner and loser (we call them zero-sum games). We are witnessing this before our very eyes. Exercising your right of gun ownership to keep an arsenal of weapons in your home only contributes to the cultural escalation of violence. Weaponry reduction and inviting whole communities into conversations for creating safe and peaceful spaces in our cities is the right direction.

Our children witness this escalation. They genuinely fear that their school is next. I fear that the school down the street is next. This is not a far-off problem we can dismiss as “their problem.” Our children see it, and their mental health is suffering.

So what do we need to do?

We need to stop doubling down on solutions of the past. Stop saying this worked for me in my family or growing up. The world has fundamentally changed. It is time for new and creative solutions, even if they make us uncomfortable.
Stop pointing fingers of blame. Instead, engage in dialogue with those in your community. Talk to people who look different from you, are in another generation than you, vote differently, and go to another church of faith. We are better united than divided.
Connect with a young person. Love them. Please support them. Encourage them. Listen to them. Don’t worry about correcting or fixing it.
If you want a Christian faith view of mental health. Check out this YouTube channel from The Hills Church. Pastor Rick Atchley is doing a multi-week series on mental health. It started a few weeks back, but all the messages are titled “Let’s Talk about Mental Health.”
I did a podcast for The Hills Children and Youth Next Gen program on Mind Body connection and mental health. You can find that on this link.

Data from
*Naval Postgraduate School Center for Homeland Defense and Security, https://www.chds.us/sssc/charts-graphs/

Blossoming New Life Into Your Marriage

Mark DeYoung on April 6, 2023

April is spring and more importantly it is the season of Easter. This is the time we celebrate new life and the new life given through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We see grass, plants, and trees blossoming as they waken from their sleep. And as part of this season of resurrection, I want to share some connections with marriage.

One of the most “revolutionary” ideas in my book, Revolutionary Marriage, was the idea that resurrection is part of marriage.

Marriages unfortunately experience death. Not only do partners die, we grow apart. We injure each other and even kill the marriage through divorce.

But I suggested a primary goal for marriage was to bring new life – resurrection. The most obvious way this occurs is through conception and childbirth. But spouses also bring new life to each other by our actions and how we live together. In this blog I am wanting to identify some specific ways you can bring resurrected new life to your spouse.

In my book I wrote the following:
I have often struggled with those marriage retreat weekends that seem to offer quick fixes for marriages. Their recommended solutions present often illusory experiences that offer emotional highs but don’t resolve the underlying disconnection and relationship decay. They too often feed the myth that excitement and joy are signposts of a successful and vibrant marriage. For example, most retreats suggest the importance of regular date nights. I support that idea, but too often they are superficial acts that cover over a lack of grace and goodwill in the marriage. Date nights are nice, but the small and ordinary acts of grace will keep love alive.
The veneer of financial success, great vacations, and well-behaved children can be very thin. It does not help the husband and wife who are celebrating their 25th anniversary, but haven’t slept in the same room for 10 years. Wives promote the success of their children, but secretly resent their husband and his work. Husbands earn sales awards and build huge retirement funds, while having no desire to share retirement years with their wives.

Those examples are marriages where the interior of the relationship is rotten and dying. Our goal in marriage needs to develop a rich, fertile and vibrant interior of the relationship. It is from that space each partner can grow and flourish.

Today I want to recommend four ways to bring new life into your marriage and your spouse.

Speak words of life.

I address this topic in Revolutionary Marriage. The wisdom of Proverbs tells us that “the tongue can bring life or death”, Proverbs 18:21. Or in Proverbs 15:4a, “The words of the godly are a life giving fountain.” Your words either brings life to your spouse or in the worst of circumstances your can speak death. Our words are powerful and we should be careful with them. Above all we should avoid criticism. Let’s spend far less time correcting each other pointing out what we did wrong. We should validate. We should compliment, and speak words of admiration to our spouse. We need to express our gratitude for our spouse’s gifts (skills). Our spoken thankfulness is like watering the garden of our spouses spirit.

Listen in ways that makes your spouse feel understood.

Listening empathically is a core ingredient of intimacy and connection in relationships. From a mechanical standpoint this means being able to parrot or repeat what our spouse says. This is a good start but it will never be enough. Listening must be a matter of our heart where we give ourselves over to hearing what our partner is saying. It means putting aside your own personal agenda. It means hearing and accepting your spouse’s feelings even if you don’t agree. It means asking them questions so you can expand your understanding. You should have a heart of curiosity. It means hearing what is not being said and reading between the lines. It means connecting with something in your own experience that shows you can identify with what they are describing. There are so many tools and ideas for being a more empathic listener. Google “empathic listening” and find a few articles. They will all be of help. This is the fertilizer that sustains healthy growth.

Serve them in small sacrifices.

We want to do the big stuff in marriage that makes the big splash. Fancy dates, big vacations, and extravagant gifts. But a happy marriage is not built on these things. If you are hoping for more of these things to make you happy, your are setting yourself up for disappointment. Because the thrill will be so short lived and it will never be enough. You need to find joy in providing and receiving the small sacrifices. What little chores can you do to help around the house? Can you take care of bath time? Can you be the one to get up and do night time feedings? Can you fix that broken appliance that you promised to take care of six months ago? It is doing these little things, without looking for rewards that brings life to marriage. These things are the seeds of new growth.

Eliminate contempt from your marriage.

I mention this idea in Revolutionary Marriage. But I speak at length about this topic in my marriage conference for couples (It is available online here). Contempt according to Dr.’s John and Julie Gottman, is “fueled by long-simmering negative thoughts about one’s partner, and it arises in the form of an attack on someone’s sense of self. Contempt, simply put, says, ‘I’m better than you. And you are lesser than me.'” Contempt is fatal assault on the identity of your spouse. Contempt has no place in marriage. Expressing contempt is committing an evil against your partner. Why? Because you are denying their image bearing goodness. Love builds up – it never tears down. You will bring life to your spouse when you help them be their best image representation of Christ. Encourage and support them in this endeavor. This is the process of pruning for fruitful growth. It must be done with tenderness and love. Contempt condemns the plant as worthless. Love prunes the plant to produce its life-giving best.

Therapy vs. Coaching

Mark DeYoung on February 28, 2023

Professional Life Coaching is considered one of the fastest growing industries in North America. According to the International Coaching Federation (ICF) there are more than 26,000 professional coaches in North America. Revenue in the coaching industry during 2022 was approximately 1.5 billion dollars and is expected to grow to be 2.1 billion in 2030. According to Zip Recruiter the average salary for a Life Coach is $62,000 per year. The top 2% of Life coaches can make between 180K-240K per year. At current growth rates published by the ICF there are likely to be an additional 12,000 professional coaches in the next 10 years.

In comparison there are approximately 110,000 licensed Master’s level therapist’s in the United States. Revenue in the mental health market for 2022 was 76 billion in 2021 and is expected to exceed 100 billion in 2029. The average licensed mental health counselor/therapist makes $72,000 a year. The top 2% of licensed therapist can make 135K or more. In the next ten years there are expected to be 13,000 more licensed mental health counselor jobs added to the job market.

Though the share of the market is much larger for mental health providers, at the individual provider level there is little difference. A Life Coach and a Therapist can make a similar income. But is the service they are providing the community the same? As a licensed professional I have grown concerned with a number of clients who have sought service with a professional life coach and as a result of a bad experience were shocked to learn of the vast differences between the two types of provider.

I do believe that Life Coaching serves a place in our communities. As a service to individuals it can provide tools and supports that are extremely beneficial. But the consumer of Life Coaching services needs to be aware of what they are purchasing. Information is power to help the consumer make the best choices.

Let’s look at some Key differences between Life Coaches and Therapist/Counselors.

Education
There are significant education differences between Life Coaches and Therapists. To be a licensed Therapist/Counselor in any state in the United States you must have the minimum of a Master’s Degree from an accredited University. According to the ICF there are no minimum education requirements to be a Life Coach. It appears that an individual can work towards and complete a Life Coach credentialing process with a high school diploma or GED.

This means a Therapist/Counselor has completed at least 6 years of college work — their four year undergraduate degree and a two years Master’s degree program. This means that therapist/counselors have far exceeded the education of many Life Coaches before ever beginning a certification/license process. Most coaching programs are approximately 60 hours of online course work as a one time class. A typical 3 hour college class meets 48 hours not counting all the outside reading and assignments. So one college class exceeds the one course for coaching certification.

The type of education is also critical. Life coaches do not necessarily have a background in mental health. They may have a degree in finance, or interior design, but may be offering coaching for parenting or mental health issues.

Many life coaches may have advanced degrees, but it would benefit the consumer to inquire about the actual training and education a life coach has received.

Training/Certification
Most counselor training programs in graduate school have rigorous training components. They will require several hundred hours of client therapy services (mine required 500) as necessary for graduation. Graduate counseling students are also required to meet with a clinical supervisor and review their work with clients. This usually is dozens of hours during the two years of course work. My graduate program required 100 hours of meetings with supervisors. Once graduated a therapist cannot practice independently. They must also complete hundreds more hours of therapy (my license required 2000 hours) and dozens more hours of supervised evaluation of their work (mine required 200 hours) before being fully licensed.

As a comparison, the most basic coaching certification requires only 100 hours of coaching experience and 10 hours meeting with a supervisor. For the ICF to give you their highest certification you must have 200 hours of coaching education, 2500 hours of coaching experience and meet with a mentor coach for 10 hours.

There are significant differences here, specifically in the level of supervision of a providers early work. Life coaches only need to meet with a mentor for 10 hours (per ICF website). But therapist/counselors must meet with a supervisor for over 300 hours prior to being licensed. The experiences gained from a relationship with a trusted supervisor are invaluable and the licensure process for counselors is set up to honor that important relationship.

Regulation
All mental health providers are licensed in their state of residence. This includes Psychologists, LPC, LMFT, and LMSW. In Texas, these licenses are regulated by the Behavioral Health Executive Council (BHEC) and that council functions under the state laws of Texas. All mental health providers must meet rigorous licensure requirements and ongoing continuing education as mandated by law. The public is able to file complaints with the BHEC. The BHEC has the right by law to sanction and punish licensed practitioners in Texas. Texas (and any other state) has a strict codes of ethics that guide a counselors practice and if a therapist/counselor breaks that code they can be disciplined, including losing their license to practice. This level of ethics and regulation helps keep therapist/counselors accountable to the community that they serve.

Life coaches are not regulated by state law. The public has no recourse if a coach behaves inappropriately or unethically. There is no state board to file a complaint. The ICF does have a code of ethics for coaches, but the code is not enforceable. There is no ICF board to file a complaint against a member coach. This means there is no accountability for the coach to anyone other than to themselves. As a therapist this is my biggest concern for the community regarding Life Coaching – there is no accountability to protect the consumer and public trust.

For the consumer seeking support services or mental health services, it is important to understand what they are getting. Most therapists are prepared to answer questions about their education, training, and licensure. It is important to ask questions of both life coaches or therapists. Certifications can seem very significant, but don’t be shy to ask a therapist or coach to explain what went into achieving a certain designation. Therapy and Life Coaching both have important purposes and the more informed you are as a consumer, the better choices you can make regarding what services you plan to utilize.

Should a Christian Marriage Have Roles?

Mark DeYoung on February 28, 2023

What is a man and a woman? The definitions of gender have changed over the centuries and have been shaped by myths, culture, economics, religion and families. And these definitions shape how we view and live in marriages right now. In recent decades there has been a frequent debate among Christian communities over Complementarian and Egalitarian views of marriage.

I address this debate in my book Revolutionary Marriage. The complementarian camp believes there are scripturally ordained roles for males and females in marriage and church structure. They believe there is a created order. This order places men in greater importance than women, and men by virtue of being male, are designated leaders in both the home and church. The Egalitarian camp emphasizes equal value between the genders and there are no ordained roles for men and women in the church and home. In the egalitarian view, women or men can hold any role equally effectively.

The debate between these two camps sets up a dichotomy or either/or choices. But the world functions in gray more than black and white. We need to get more comfortable with this diverse uncertainty. Paul uses the idea of “mystery” to describe marriage and I think this reflects the complex “grays” that are experienced in most marriage relationships.

I discuss the weaknesses of both of these positions in my book Revolutionary Marriage and propose a third way that works outside the dichotomous debate. It was my hope to suggest a view for marriage that helps us navigate mystery in marriage. When we settle for the certainty of either the Complementarian or Egalitarian views, we miss out of the rich diversity that can bless us in marriage. I want to focus on one idea that I suggested in my book to help move past this debate.

We need to stop thinking about genders having specific roles, and be more concerned with what gifts, skills, talents, or abilities a particular partner brings to a marriage. When we focus on roles we create a context where people often feel shamed or less than. The constraint of a specific role can lead them to feel stuck, unfulfilled or even a failure.

The number of conflicts I have seen in Christian marriages over disappointment with roles and expectations are too numerous. A wife might feel like her husband needs to live up to his role as spiritual leader of the household and the husband feels inadequate to the task. A husband may be hypercritical because his wife does not manage the household like he expected. I have seen husbands feel inadequate because their wife has a larger salary. Wives can feel insecure over their abilities to nurture their children, as their husband might be more skilled at soothing an upset child.

So if we stop insisting on specific gender “roles” then how does my solution of focusing on gifts, skills, or abilities work?

God created males and females in His image. This means both genders represent God and reflect his glory to all of creation. God is so vast, the diversity of reflecting his image is immeasurable. Roles are far too limiting. Marriage, the joining of two distinct representations of the Creator, is but one way God allows humanity to reflect His glory. A husband and wife both bring unique gifts and skills to the marriage. It is the responsibility of the couple to capitalize and utilize those gifts to best reflect God’s image to those around them. Teaming together, the couple becomes a witness of God’s identity to their community. Let me give you an example from our marriage.

Early in our marriage I attempted to manage the budget, bills, and money. And honestly I was not good at it. After a few bounced check fees, my wife took over the duties with our money. Patricia is strongly gifted in organization, planning, and scheduling. She can visualize future challenges and creates structure to best avoid those problems. These are gifts of administration, and often in complementarian marriages associated with a male type role. But she skillfully managed this part of our home and family with great success. She created a budget structure that we follow today. She also created a system for managing our money and paying our bills that I have since taken over and it works seamlessly. Even though I currently manage it, all the underlying processes were set in place because of her gifts. As a result her gifts have allowed us to be good stewards of our blessings.

This is just one example, and I could give many others with more space and time. So should a Christian marriage have roles? The answer is No. As a couple you should identify and capitalize on the gifts that each of you bring to the marriage. So what steps can you take to escape roles and better reflect God’s image?

1. Identify your gifts, talents and abilities. This is a fun discussion. What are you good at? What talents has God blessed you with? Let your spouse tell you what they see as skills and abilities in you. These talents may be nontraditional for your gender. That is wonderful. List them because God made you that way.

2. Start planning as a couple how to implement each of your gifts. One of you may be a more natural caregiver so you might be the person who takes kids to the doctor. One of you might be a better teacher, so you might be helping with homework more. There needs to be some balance here, so that the total workload is shared. Remember you are a team and staying in unity with your spouse is a central goal of a Christian marriage.

3. Humbly accept that your spouse’s gifts can teach you. You can learn from your partner. My wife has taught me much about organization and administration. I am a better therapist because of her. Allow the things you learn from your partner to grow you, change you, and benefit your family and others.

This work is hard. Don’t be deceived by the notion that you can find the right partner and it become easy from that point on. Diligently pursuing bringing the best out of each other is ultimately rewarding because you get to enjoy the intimacy of your spouse’s best. So commit to the effort and work together.

Remember the goal is for your marriage to be a reflection of God’s glory. Your marriage should reflect God’s image. The goal should never be to squeeze into a box of a certain predefined role. Rather, how the two of you work together to show God to others and the community is what is most important.

50 Ways to Say ‘I Love You’

Mark DeYoung on February 8, 2023

February is the month of Valentine’s Day. You may love this day or have some dislike for the greeting card industry creation, but it is a reality that it can put some tension in even the best of marriages. What are we going to do – eating out or staying home? Are we buying a gift, exchanging cards, or will a handwritten note be the most meaningful? Regardless of what happens in your home, this day reminds us of the diversity of ways to say ‘I Love You!’

I would sure encourage everyone reading this blog to not go into the day of Valentine’s blindly. Discuss it early. And I am sure what you decide to do will be good for your relationship. But, we need to be saying ‘I love you’ on more days and in more ways than what we do on Valentine’s day. Expressing love is a way of life in marriage and it should be there air that we breathe. So I want to offer you a list of 50 ways to say ‘I Love You’.

Give a hug (for at least a minute).
Kiss your spouse good morning.
Compliment your spouse.
Mail a card to your spouse’s work.
Make your spouse’s favorite meal.
Write a poem for your spouse.
Initiate sex.
Unload the dishwasher.
Fold and put away the laundry.
Go to your spouse’s favorite restaurant.
Look at the stars while laying on a blanket
Sit by the fire together.
Make them a playlist of favorite songs.
Empathy.
Take a road trip to find a new place to eat.
Serve them breakfast in bed.
Email them a video telling them 10 things you love about them.
Go for a long walk.
Take a class together.
Watch their favorite movie.
Draw them a picture.
Massage their neck and back.
Chocolate.
Make a video of telling a joke and send it to them by text.
Frame a favorite picture of the two of you together.
Send a romantic GIF.
Practice and become a great listener.
Forgive your spouse when they disappoint you. Tell them you forgive them.
Write them a note (handwritten).
Give them their favorite snack.
Tell them about your favorite memories that you have shared.
Pray for them (with them).
Cuddle in bed in the morning.
Make them a favorite dessert.
Hold hands.
Tell them something about them that you are proud of.
Care for them when they are sick.
Give your spouse a foot massage.
Plan a weekend away together.
Take ownership when you have hurt them.
Exercise together – go to the gym.
Ask them about their day? – Listen.
Look at their eyes for more than five seconds – say ‘I love you’ just with your eyes.
Share a dream about your future with them – ask them to share a dream with you.
Go to the store with $10 each. Buy a gift for each other that is less than $10. Go home and exchange your gifts.
Massage their scalp.
Scratch their back.
Brag about your spouse to others/friends.
Put loving messages on sticky notes throughout the house.
Speak life into them by encouraging them.

Mental Health and Technology

Mark DeYoung on January 21, 2021

The statistics are quite staggering. The rapid rise in depression, anxiety and suicide are evident when we look at changes of mental heaIth in the past 20 years.

Between 2009 and 2017 rates of depression among 14 to 17 year olds increase 60%
The suicide rate per 100,000 people has risen steadily from 11.75 in 2009 to 14.2 in 2018.
Suicide is now the 2nd leading cause of death for individuals aged 10-34
The suicide rate has increased 35% since 1999.
Nearly one-third of adolescents will meet the criteria for anxiety disorder before the age of 18.
Teens today are twice as likely to see a mental health professional than in the 1980s.

We need to respond to these changes with careful evaluation and realistic adjustments. Technology is here to stay. We can’t throw out our iPhones and return to simpler forms of communication. We need to learn to adapt and help our youth develop adaptive skills. There is even some evidence that younger generations are already adapting and demonstrating better boundaries with technology that those much older. There is hope.

There seems to be two significant factors that contribute to increased mood disorders when it comes to technology.

1. Increased information and therefore social comparison.

Social media and the internet gives us access to vast amounts of information with easy access. This information can come so quickly that we struggle with processing and testing it truthfulness. This is an obvious problem with conspiracy theories that abound on the internet, but it is also a problem when we read of our neighbor’s party down the street. Seeing pictures of neighbors gathered together at an event that we were not invited to can lead to all manner of assumptions and reactions. Without social media we would not have even been aware of the gathering other than maybe seeing a few cars. Now we see their smiling faces and can’t help but think everybody has more fun and is more likable than ourselves. There is some information that it is better not to have.

2. False sense of connection/relationship and limited use of social graces in expression.

Engaging in comments on a social media post gives us a false sense of having a true dialogue. We have to infer tone of voice and meaning of certain words without the facial expression behind them. Research shows that all of us are far more prone to type things that we would never say to someone’s face. These two limits on social interaction just lead to escalating conflicts. Rather than being more connected, we feel increasingly polarized.

We can improve our management of technology and eventually our personal mental health if we learn to set some limits and change our use of technology. Here are just a few recommendations that might offer some help.

Recommendations
Set time limits on your use of social media and devices. All of the social media companies have admitted that they are designed to get and keep your attention so that you will keep scrolling and clicking. Take back your power over the app by setting clear time limits for your use. Notice your emotions as your scroll. The moment your shift into a negative space, stop. Leave the app. Allow yourself time to recover. Never reply to someone’s post in anger. Keep that off the internet.

Intentionally create opportunities for meaningful face to face contact. Remove technology from those spaces. Be present. Listen. Be vulnerable. Real face to face engagement is necessary for our overall health.

Intentionally have times to quiet your mind. Meditate. Allow your mind to process all the information you are having to manage. Don’t feel pressured to make immediate decisions. You need at least 15 minutes of quiet a day. That is a minimum.

Set boundaries around the people you engage on social media. You have the option to “hide” or even block certain individuals. Boundaries on social media apps can help you filter the type of information that is presented to you. Don’t let the social media companies be the filter. You take charge of filtering your own exposure.

That being said, engage with people that are diverse and different from you. If at all possible make those engagements personal and face to face. Don’t block or set limits to the point that you are only hearing and seeing a narrow part of the world. Social media has a way of funneling us that direction. The world is a beautiful place that you can only discover if you open yourself to its diversity of humanity. Do not engage across a distant screen where assumptions are easily made. Engage someone different from you in a real face-to-face relationship.