A Beautiful Adventure Marriage

5 Steps to Take When Making Hard Decisions Pause There are times when decisions must be made quickly, but this is not the norm. In most cases, we put unnecessary stress on ourselves and on our marriage by trying to make the decision as quickly as possible. Once you and your spouse have all the information and have had a chance to really talk about it, pause the conversation. Make an intentional de...

Hello friends and welcome to the A Beautiful Adventure Marriage podcast. On our last episode, we gave you 6 out of 12 things that every marriage should avoid to be healthy and happy. We discussed…  Constant Criticism and Belittling Being Secretive and Lying Silent Treatment Holding Grudges Confiding Too Much in Others Giving Ultimatums   These are in no order but they all are equally damaging to a...

12 Things to Avoid in Marriage Every marriage is different. Everyone has their own uniqueness that they bring into their marriage that makes it special. We should be thankful for this, how boring would life be if everyone and every marriage looked the same? Being different is a gift; however, there are certain things every marriage should avoid. As the years pass in marriage it's easy to get passi...

SMART Goals for Your Marriage In our last podcast, we gave you 5 ways to reconstruct your marriage if it was going through a hard season. However, your marriage could be in a really good place, but there are still things you and your spouse want to accomplish. When it comes to reconstructing your marriage or just continuing to make it better, you need to have a plan.  So join us for this episode w...

Statistics say that couples who pray together every day lower their divorce rate to under 1%. However, only 11% of couples are praying together. For this reason, Alex and I started the Greater than 11 Prayer Challenge, where we are encouraging couples to pray together for 31 days, in hopes that this will develop habits of prayer in their marriage, thereby lowering the divorce rate, by making the n...

  Hello friends, and welcome back! So if you are listening to us right now. I am assuming you have already listened to part 1 of 5 Ways to Reconstruct a Marriage where we gave you the first two ways to get your marriage out of a hard season. Even though there are a lot of ways you can invest in your marriage to get it out of a bad season, we believe these 5 ways work really well in the order we ar...

Hello Friends, Have you ever been in a season of marriage where nothing seems to be going your way? Does everything you do or say turns into an argument? Instead of your home being a safe place, do you find yourself walking on eggshells every day, trying to avoid conflict? If this sound familiar, the two next episode of our podcast can help. We are going to break down 5 ways you can rescontruct yo...

The Life-Giving Spouse Hello friends, So as Christians we all believe that Jesus is the Son of God however not every Christian culture is exactly the same. Some of you may be very familiar with the term life-giving but there is a possibility that you haven't heard those particular words, but you may have heard the same message it stands for. Although you will not find the term "life-giving" in the...

The No Complaining Rule Complaining is soomething everyone on the planet does. Although everyone may be doing it, this is something that can impact you, your marriage, and the people around you in a very negative way. The Problem With Complaining And at a glance, complaining appears harmless– it's just a way to vent.  However, complaining can do alot of damage. It makes you constantly aware of the...

Correcting Comparison On our last podcast, we talked about the dangers of comparing ourselves and our marriages to others. We explained that comparison never comes alone. It brings discontentment, resentment, and dishonesty with it. When all of these things are operating in our marriages, conflict, and dysfunction will happen, or at the very least it will be an extremely unhappy relationship. So a...

The Dangers of Comparison Comparison is something we have all found ourselves doing from time to time, especially in a social media world. With just a few clicks you are bombarded with the absolute best of everyone's seemingly perfect lives. We see "perfect" marriages, jobs, kids, spouses, and vacations, and it is easy to compare our lives to the lives of others and feel like we don't add up in so...

6 Ways We Keep Our Love Alive Being married and being happily married are two very different things. There are tons of couples out there who have not gotten a divorce, and may never intend to, but their love died a long time ago. You can see it in their faces and hear it in their words. The passion is gone. They are married but their love has been snuffed out by the demands of life. Love that was...

On our last podcast, we talked about  Boundaries in Marriage.  We broke down several definitions of boundaries and concluded that when used in a healthy way, boundaries can be beneficial to a marriage in multiple ways and in multiple areas. However, boundaries can be difficult in marriage for multiple reason. Join us on this episode as we share how to set boundaries in two easy steps. Biblical Ord...

Boundaries in Marriage Hello friends and welcome to the latest episode of the A  Beautiful Adventure Marriage Podcast. So in this episode, we are talking about "boundaries". Which can be a pretty hard topic to talk about with people because some people love them, some people hate them, while others just don't really care.    Boundaries in marriage can be difficult because typically someone who lov...

Spiritual intimacy is so important in a marriage, and one of the ways you can develop spiritual intimacy and make it strong is by praying together. Although we are firm believers in prayer, we also get that prayer is not always easy, even in a relationship where both of you pray individually.  It will be something you will have to intentionally work at, but the benefits of it will be worth the wor...

Spiritual Intimacy When it comes to marriage you hear the word, intimacy, a lot. Although our minds tend to only think about physical intimacy between a husband and a wife, there is another area in which we can become intimate with each other. Spiritual intimacy is something that is not talked about a lot, but it's something that can take your marriage to a level you never dreamed possible. Spirit...

Travel Tips from the Payne's Tip 1: Research the Area The first step on any adventure is picking your destination. Once you have done that the real work (and fun) begins. It is time to research the area to see what it has to offer. Alex is fantastic at this. We have traveled all over the lower 48. We always pack in as much as we can during our vacation time. The reason we are able to do so much is...

Summer is officially here. Although this is a great time to spend with your family, it can also be a time that cause strain on your marriage. With the kids out of school, and fun to be had by all, it's easy to fill your calendar to the absolute max. If you aren't careful your marriage can feel the effects of this. It can come to the point where you and your spouse are like two ships that pass in t...

Culture. This may or may not be a word that you are familiar with, especially in your marriage. Honestly, this was not a word used a lot in our household until the last few years; however, by being intentional about creating a healthy marriage culture, our relationship has thrived.   Four Ways to Co-Create the Marriage Culture You Want? A healthy culture does not happen organically. Effort and int...

We live in a technology driven society. Wherever you go, and anywhere you look you can find some form of technology. Although technology has brought us a ton of conveniences it has the power to destroy something that is far more precious, your intimacy and connection with your spouse and family.  Statistics Don't Lie So we recently when to a marriage conference where Jimmy Evans was speaking. He i...

 For the month of May, we have focused on communication. We have broken down communication and explained that it should be clear, calm, current, and constructive. Then we talked about how you could implement constructive communication in a Biblical and practical way.  We are wrapping this month up by talking about a form of communication that absolutely changes our marriage for the better. What Do...

On our last podcast, we talked about the breakdown in communication. We talked about how communication needs to be clear, calm, current, and constructive. On this episode, let's break down what constructive communication is, why it's important, and how we can use certain tools to help us communicate in a more constructive way. We are also going to give you Biblical and practical ways to apply it t...

Communication Breakdowns and Misunderstandings! Lack of Communication or the Silent Treatment! If you ask any couple to name one thing they struggle with the most in their marriage, they would probably say something about communication. Communication between any two people can be difficult, but in marriage lack of communication or communication breakdowns can bring a lot of unnecessary harm. Join...

The Power of Consistent Behavior   How would you like to be "the" couple? You probably know the couple I am talking about but if not, let me introduce you to them. This couple seems genuinely happy and optimistic about their life and marriage. They speak kindly to each other and about each other. Regardless of how long they have been together or what season they are going through; their marriage r...

Unpacking Emotional Baggage Emotional baggage, unfortunately, we all have it! Although some of us have never gone through an extremely traumatic experience, we have all been wounded in some way in our past. Even though we can learn a great deal from our past, sometimes there are certain experiences that impact our future in an ongoing negative way. If we don't deal with the emotional baggage from...