Greg Smalley

Your daughter’s boyfriend has asked you for her hand in marriage. What questions should you ask him before giving your blessing? Dr. Greg Smalley offers practical guidance covering a variety of topics including communication styles, handling conflict, finances, and more.

When you say, “Just relax,” the person you’re talking to hears something quite different: “I’m not taking you seriously.” So they raise the intensity level a notch or two to make sure you do.

To determine marriage health, couples need to monitor their relational fitness to catch problems they might miss. Here are some questions to help you.

Active listening is important when you’re talking to your spouse. Here’s how to focus on your spouse’s feelings and deepen your relationship.

What questions should you ask a young man who wants to marry your daughter? Answers to these 12 big, important, overarching questions might hold the key to your daughter’s future happiness.

Authors Greg and Erin Smalley offer engaged couples practical advice in a discussion based on their new book, Ready to Wed: 12 Ways to Start a Marriage You’ll Love. (Part 2 of 2)

Authors Greg and Erin Smalley offer engaged couples practical advice in a discussion based on their new book, Ready to Wed: 12 Ways to Start a Marriage You’ll Love. (Part 1 of 2)

We need the encouragement of friends and family — not just when a marriage begins, but to keep it from ending. Our loved ones can make the difference between relationship life and death.

Our kids are constantly watching us, and how we treat our spouse is probably how our children will treat their own spouse someday. Your marriage is your child’s blueprint for intimacy and relationships.

Authors Greg and Erin Smalley describe how couples can develop spiritual and relational intimacy.

Building a shared spiritual relationship can feel like a roller coaster ride. But Dr. Greg and Erin Smalley have discovered three key experiences to help strengthen a couple’s spiritual connection.

Our guests address the common concerns of moms- and dads-to-be, and explain how a couple can be intentional about their marriage – both during pregnancy and after the birth of their baby.

Kim and Randy learned to live independently while Randy was traveling for work, but they lost the sense of unity that’s critical for a marriage. Here are tips to fix the troubles caused by travels.

The goal of a great marriage conversation is to affirm what your spouse is doing right, to exchange ideas and to offer suggestions for the future. Use these questions to get that process started.

One of every six boys is sexually abused. And men carry the impact of abuse with them long afterward. Without a safe space to process his story, a man may simply shut down and lock away his memories.

God has placed passions in your heart—and also in your spouse’s. Encourage each other in following dreams, even if you have to step out of your comfort zone to do it. You’ll enjoy a richer marriage.

Why do couples struggle? How can you repair your broken relationship and find contentment? It’s possible to identify problems and find healing through commitment, communication and Jesus Christ.

Being a better husband doesn’t mean that you can fix everything, it means being emotionally responsive. And there are three components to that: accessibility, responsiveness and engagement.

Taking time to rest—physically, emotionally, spiritually and mentally—is in the best interest of you and your marriage. God doesn’t want you to be an empty, exhausted person with nothing to give.

About a third to a half of all marriages will end in divorce. But by following seven straightforward guidelines most marriages can thrive. Investing in your spouse can produce a happy union.

Dr. Greg Smalley and his wife, Erin, offer advice and encouragement to wives in a discussion based on their new book, The Wholehearted Wife: 10 Keys to a More Loving Relationship. (Part 2 of 2)

Dr. Greg Smalley and his wife, Erin, offer advice and encouragement to wives in a discussion based on their new book, The Wholehearted Wife: 10 Keys to a More Loving Relationship. (Part 1 of 2)

Is your husband moody, angry or fearful? He may have difficulties at work. Dr. Greg Smalley offers practical methods that his wife, Erin, has used to help him navigate these work-related challenges.

We’re too busy. Instead of waiting for long, uninterrupted blocks of time to strengthen your marriage, take advantage of key moments that happen every day.

All couples fight. And it feels as if we’re fighting about something. But when we look at our conflicts, they can sound pretty insignificant. Big things don’t ensnare us as often as the little things.

Maybe you never learned teamwork. Maybe you came from a broken home. Or the dynamics of your marriage may make it difficult to connect. Whatever the reason, loneliness in marriage can be overcome.

Just as a flavors can spice up a dish, differences improve our marriage. While differences bring variety, they also create challenges. So how can a couple use their differences to strengthen their marriage?

Painful wounds can cause us to forget who God made us to be, and we start believing lies that affect what we think about ourselves and how we relate. That’s especially true in how we relate to our spouse.

Greg Smalley and John Trent explain how spouses and parents can avoid miscommunication and conflict by using “word pictures,” which are simple metaphors to help clarify thoughts and feelings. The discussion is based on a book by John and Greg’s father, Gary Smalley, titled The Language of Love: The Secret to Being Instantly Understood.

A serious illness or the death of a loved one can shake a Christian’s faith to the foundation. So when your spouse has a crisis of faith and stops praying, what can you do to encourage him or her?

Health scares can test the strongest of marriages. So, when someone — or everyone — in the family becomes sick, what are the best ways to manage the marriage relationship and remain a strong team?

Family and friends have an active role to play in marriages. What can you do to build a community that encourages healthy relationships for husbands and wives?

Every popular romance story portrays a loving bond so special it comes just once in a lifetime. How can you ensure that your own romance has a lifetime filled with those happy-ever-after endings?

True romance is more about being captivated by your spouse than buying flowers or chocolate. And captivation is all about curiosity and interest — being allured by your spouse.

We’d be wise to listen to those who have been married for a long time. They have important information for us. These five lessons can help us build a strong foundation for a life-long marriage.

When pressure to have the perfect holiday builds relationship tension, we need to change our unrealistic expectations. Then we can better appreciate the time spent connecting with family members.

Although he wasn’t willing to admit it at first, Dr. Greg Smalley felt that God was making him aware of how selfishness causes issues in his marriage. Greg shares some of the things he’s learned.

Complacency and routine can push out the small, but important, acts of kindness in a marriage. But it’s not too late. You can start showing kindness to your husband or wife today.

Dr. Greg and Mrs. Erin Smalley explain how conflict, if handled well, can actually strengthen a marriage, and offer practical advice for navigating disagreements, so that they lead to relational intimacy, rather than division.

So many marriages end in divorce because husbands and wives simply give up. They lack grit. Couples who wish to succeed in marriage need passion and perseverance.

Our expressions of sincere thankfulness can bless our wife or husband and strengthen our relationship. We are to rejoice in our spouse. But how can we bless our spouse by rejoicing in him or her? 

I wasn’t fully on board with my wife’s dreams to adopt. But we finally found ourselves on the same page. We have some suggestions for aligning your dreams so that you’re headed toward the same goal.

Lying is almost always about protecting self.  When we’re tempted to lie, we can ask ourselves, What does this fib do for me? Then we can ask, What are the personal and relational costs of this lie?

Once conflict begins, it’s hard to defuse. Before you can begin to talk over the conflict like reasonable, loving adults, you have to pry your closed hearts open again.

After years or even decades of marriage, how can you pursue your spouse? Three things — understanding, action and serving — can help you get on the right track.

When we find the love of our lives, we don’t want her or him to get away. We woo. We chase. We cleave. But we often stop our pursuit when we get married.

Communication can be tricky to define, much less do well. It involves four different types of interactions we use, and each type is critical to a high-functioning relationship.

When your wife says there’s something wrong with your marriage, guess what, there’s probably something wrong with your marriage. And for the sake of that marriage, a husband would do well to listen.

Celebrating an anniversary shows that marriage is a priority in our life. It gives us a chance to pull back from the daily grind and relive a moment that changed our life forever.

God wants us to have friends — to be in relationship with one another. And that can include having friends of the opposite sex. But those friendships should come with some pretty important stipulations.

It’s time to look at some of the real-world issues that may be preventing you from reaching your full sexual potential as a couple.

Marriage is designed to be a place of trust, security and commitment, and nowhere is this more critical than in the sexual relationship between husband and wife.

For a husband and wife, the sexual act is the focal point, the symbol, and the physical expression of the leaving, the cleaving, and the becoming one flesh that define the very essence of marriage.

The bottom line is this: physical intimacy is an incredibly important component of any marriage.

The phrase “yada, yada, yada” is used to indicate that something was predictable, repetitive or boring. But the Bible intended to communicate something very different through the Hebrew word yada.

Dr. Greg and Mrs. Erin Smalley examine the various types of intimacy in marriage – physical, emotional, relational and spiritual – and offer advice for how a husband and wife can cultivate closeness.

The smartphone has become a “third wheel” in many marriages, causing husbands and wives to feel they are competing with their spouse’s phone for time and attention.

What do you do when you’re stressed out? When you deal with stressful events in unhealthy ways, you create new problems in your relationships. But there are ways to constructively deal with stress.

God created us to be in relationship — with Him and with others. This is why we need to be intentional about regularly connecting with other like-minded couples. We need a strong community surrounding us.

Good communication is the lifeblood of a successful marriage, so when spouses stop talking at a deep level, their marriages slowly die. A marriage will only be as good as a couple’s communication.

When you share the chores with a teammate mentality and when your goal is to out-serve each other, you can bring an end to the chore wars in your home.

Date night is a fantastic way to make sure you and your wife are connecting positively and enjoying each other’s company on a regular basis. It doesn’t have to be expensive or elaborate.

Grace believes the best about your spouse. It fights through the messiness of a particular moment or behavior and remembers that your spouse is a son or daughter of the Most High King.

It’s true that emotional connection doesn’t come easily for many men. But God desires that we engage our families wholeheartedly — with all our heart, soul, mind and strength!

A successful marriage requires two mature individuals who are committed to personal growth and development. You won’t reach perfection in this life, but you can continue to pursue Christlikeness.

This date idea will give you the opportunity to invest as a couple in the well-being of someone else. You’ll likely experience a deeper marital bond and sense of intimacy through serving together.

What are their rights vs. your responsibility?

There are many culturally perpetuated stereotypes about men: They’re tough, highly competitive and obsessed with sex and sports. But what does Scripture teach about true masculinity?

One of the most sacred times in a marriage relationship is from the time that you and your spouse get into bed until you fall asleep. You can be intentional with this time at the end of each day.

With personal stories and humor, Dr. Greg and Mrs. Erin Smalley reflect on the importance of marital commitment and offer insights on how you and your spouse can strengthen your relational endurance and conflict resolution skills.

Dr. Greg Smalley hated making the bed but realized his resistance had become selfish. Read how he decided to serve and sacrifice for his wife.

It’s not only possible to survive a crisis, but difficult times can also be redeemed by God and transformed into experiences that will help make your marriage stronger. 

Dr. Greg Smalley offers encouragement to parents who are struggling with the challenges of raising teens.

Sex is a wonderful gift given by God to a married couple as a means of experiencing a sacred union.

When we express contempt, we can become truly mean and disrespectful. But the antidote for contempt is to see the positive — what is true about your spouse.

The way we tell our past story reflects how we feel about our present marriage relationship.

Pornography — whether used infrequently or as an addiction — is a big deal. And it can have a major impact on a marriage.

It takes intentionality to overcome the tendency for talk with your spouse to morph from meaningful to administrative. Deep, meaningful conversation is a must for couples hoping to stay connected.

Planning for “the day” or for a lifetime? Dr. Greg and Erin Smalley discuss the benefits of preparing for marriage and the beauty of God’s design for marriage.

What does spiritual leadership mean to you? When preconceived notions are inaccurate.

In marriage, honor involves recognizing the worth of your relationship and putting that appreciation into action.

Commitment is a passionate decision to be with your spouse for a lifetime and to proactively build a future. A husband and wife must decide to love each other for a lifetime.

Every marriage has a mortal enemy, a mighty nemesis named selfishness. Dr. Greg Smalley offers insights on how to win the battle in your marriage without fighting each other.

Dr. Smalley encourages couples to find a cause that they’re both passionate about, and then trust the Lord to use them and their marriage in the new year

Pride leads to conflict in marriage, so what are you doing to nurture humility in your own heart?

Some marriage advice is helpful and given with the best of intentions. Unfortunately, other well-meaning counsel is misguided and useless. Here’s a summary of the worst marriage advice I’ve heard.

Of all the seasons of the year, Christmas is the best time to set our “Me-and-God” theology aside and discover afresh what it means to participate in the Global Brotherhood of the Redeemed.

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The word cherish implies a specific attitude and means that you recognize your mate’s incredible value. You have the opportunity every day to choose to see how incredibly valuable your spouse is.

The best way to understand how you can nourish your marriage is to ask your spouse to finish this statement: “I feel loved when …”   The answers are a gold mine of  information.

When we feel threatened, we build emotional walls that don’t allow our spouse into the deepest parts of our hearts and minds. The emotional distance can cause marital problems.

Infidelity is a pain that’s far too common to far too many. If you’re dealing with a cheating spouse or admitting that you are a cheating spouse, there’s still hope for restoration in your marriage.

Maybe you’re thinking, How did I get here? Or maybe you deliberately sought comfort outside your marriage. Here are tips to help you pursue healing in your marriage after being unfaithful to your spouse.

A husband should care for his wife with the same intensity he nourishes his own body. So husbands must spend time every day doing things that help a wife feel loved. 

It’s that time of year again — changing leaves and cooler temperatures. Football season is here. Does your spouse feel like a football widow?

Forgiveness is vital in marriage. The key is to seek an apology after we truly understand our spouse’s heart. Here’s a four-part process to a sincere apology.

True listening requires you to be fully present — clearly and intentionally focused on your spouse. Intent focus shows that your whole heart, soul, mind and body are present.

Focus on the Family’s marriage experts have found that genuinely thriving couples typically excel in twelve key areas of marital life.  One of those areas is mutual nourishing.

Empathy is more than feeling sorry that your spouse is burdened or troubled. Empathy takes place as you carry your spouse’s burdens.

Instead of judging or ignoring your spouse’s emotions, you have the opportunity to be curious about his or her feelings. Curiosity leads to understanding.

Validation is safely allowing your spouse to share his or her thoughts and feelings. The message is that it’s OK to think and feel the way he or she does.

Healthy conflict can facilitate communication, understanding, trust and respect if we choose to manage our differences and disagreements in nourishing ways.

The great commandment teaches that self-care is not selfish — it’s actually foundational to a healthy marriage.

In John 5, Jesus heals a crippled man and then tells him to pick up his mat and walk. Can our “mats” help us be grateful to and dependent on God—even in marriage?

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Working together as a couple to conquer back-to-school stress.

Have you heard about the other way of writing the word “intimacy”?—”INTO ME, SEE.” There’s a valuable piece of marital wisdom embedded in this clever play on words.

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When conflict arises in a thriving marriage, both partners win when they remember that, ultimately, they’re on the same team.

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How can a couple keep the fires of sexual passion alive in the middle of the humdrum, day-to-day routine of the average marriage? Believe it or not, this is a fairly common question. If it’s come up recently between you and your spouse, take heart. You’re not alone.

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Your spouse’s heart will open only when it feels safe. But what does feeling safe really mean?

How will I know that I’m ready to wed? Dr. Greg Smalley is often asked this question by engaged couples, so he offers his personal insights on how couples can better understand loving and being loved.

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What is a marriage? It’s a question well worth pondering.

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The parallel between romantic love and God’s relationship with His people is a theme that runs all the way through Scripture, and it has a great deal to teach us about the spiritual dimension of marriage.

Spiritual intimacy can be a confusing issue for many couples. Dr. Greg Smalley offers personal insights on how husbands can be spiritual leaders and wives can see beyond basic spiritual disciplines for intimacy at home.

If you’ve been unfaithful in your marriage and you’re wondering what to do now, Dr. Greg Smalley explains 10 reasons to have a talk with your spouse.

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The best research indicates that healthy marriages are always built around a solid core of open, honest, and empathetic person-to-person conversation.

Sex should always join two people together in love — it should always strengthen a relationship and not weaken it. Sure, sex involving bondage, dominance, sadism and masochism might be legal as long as both people give their full consent — but it is anything but beneficial for a marriage.

Dr. Greg Smalley encourages couples to look beyond chocolates and flowers to pursue true romance this Valentine’s Day.

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The way to stay excited about being together is to sprinkle in a judicious pinch of spice now and then.  It’s all about “getting outside the box” every once in a while.

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We live in a culture that has either forgotten or rejected the idea of marriage as a covenant.  Couples who want to go the distance in their relationship need to rediscover it.

What is the key to surviving the holiday family road trip with your spouse?

Ecclesiastes says that there is a time and a season for everything.  December is the season for singing.

If cherishing is to be pushed to an even higher level in a couple’s present experience of marriage, it will happen because they find ways not only to keep in touch with the past, but to project the past into the future.

Authors Greg and Erin Smalley encourage spouses to embrace each other’s differences, focusing on their good qualities instead of their faults.

In a marriage there is no such thing as a win/lose scenario when you are on the same team.

Spiritual friendship is eagerly helping each other know, serve, love, and resemble God in deeper and deeper ways.

Whether you realize it or not, you are living every day of your life in the presence of a precious hidden treasure.

When was the last time you and your spouse truly viewed yourselves as a team?

“To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with.‚” Mark Twain

Is it possible to keep a healthy sense of mystery alive in a familiar, long-term relationship?

Counseling team Greg and Erin Smalley discuss the common traits that build strong families and encourage parents to establish and strengthen their family’s unique identity.

10 keys to help make your relationship with your spouse more loving.

Every couple knows that sexual intimacy, celebrated regularly and passionately, is vital to any healthy marriage. What many don’t understand is that sex is more than just sex.

NFL coach Mike Shanahan has said, “Individual commitment to a group effort—that’s what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.”

God, the grand Creator par excellence, is inviting the creatures who bear His image to join Him in the ongoing work of creation.  And He’s asking them to do this together.

Studies show that the average couple spends only four minutes per day engaged in meaningful conversation. Four minutes! Can couples really expect to foster intimacy with so little time devoted to positive communication?

Sometimes, the sweetest, most tender memories are those that happened during moments that were unplanned and that may seem unremarkable to the casual observer.

“When two people always agree, one of them is unnecessary.‚”

Looking for ideas to use when getting to know another couple? Take a look at these double date tips.

Thriving couples need to be intentional about treasuring, honoring and cherishing one another. Do these things characterize your relationship with your spouse?

Did you know that making it a priority to regularly go on dates with your spouse can lead to increased satisfaction in your marriage?

The blessing is what we all long for – acceptance and affirmation.

Couples with thriving relationships make it their goal to function as a team, because the most important thing is how they work together, not what other people think.

Since our mate is always growing and changing, we need to maintain the mindset of a lifetime learner.

Healthy conflict can actually take your marriage to deeper levels of intimacy.

When you treat your spouse with compassion, it creates a safe environment to share your deepest thoughts and feelings.

Cultivating romance and fostering spiritual growth with your beloved takes discipline and intentionality

With the mindset of marriage being an adventure in which husbands and wives stick together through thick and thin, the words “until death do us part” take on a whole new meaning.

A marriage that can ascend to the heights of intimacy requires careful navigation and routine maintenance.

Rather than making it our goal to resolve arguments, we must learn how to manage our conflicts.

Relationships change over time. In the context of marriage, this means that there will always be something new for you to learn about your spouse

Thriving couples cultivate common hobbies and undertake shared adventures through regular Date Nights!

As the weather cools and the seasons change, we couldn’t pass up talking about a critical component of your thriving marriage — mutually satisfying physical intimacy.

Marriage encompasses the spiritual and physical act of two lives becoming one. But can that union truly thrive if one or both of the individuals involved is feeling unfulfilled?

Conflict doesn’t guarantee intimacy, but it is an open door to discover our spouse’s most important feelings and needs.

Healthy conflict can actually be a pathway to deeper intimacy in your marriage.

Developing common interests and hobbies can decrease conflict in marriage and strengthen the idea that you and your spouse are a team.

This month’s Date Night will give you the opportunity to take a break from the holiday grind—the stress, the worries, the overcrowded schedules, the race to find the perfect gift, and other stressors—and invest as a couple in the well-being of someone else.

It’s important that you take time alone with your spouse to tell him or her directly why you’re thankful. This should involve not only thanking God, but also thanking your partner—directly and specifically—for the things he or she does that bless and enrich your life. Not only at Thanksgiving but throughout the year, we should make a concerted effort to express gratitude for our spouse and to our spouse!

Honor isn’t based on behavior or subject to emotion. You grant your spouse value whether they want it or deserve it. Honor is a decision you make and a gift you give. This is exactly what the apostle Paul encouraged the early Christians to do when he wrote, “Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor” (Romans 12:10).

If we avoid conflict or pretend it doesn’t exist, the greater the problem will become.

Deliberately call to mind the highlights of your life together.

Whether we’re talking about Date Night, or any other time that you and your spouse have time together in the car . . . it’s not just about the destination, it’s about the journey!

This date’s focus on community affords you the perfect opportunity to phone up another couple — or couples — and enjoy a group date.

A working definition of nourishing is demonstrating your love. It involves a conscious resolution to identify your spouse’s strengths and find creative ways to stimulate them.

Avoid power struggles by getting on the same team as your teen.