Sheila Wray Gregoire's Blog, page 149

Churches: Can We Stop with the “Boys Will Be Boys” Already?

I am tired of the “boys will be boys” message that I hear from so many pastors and pulpits, talking about lust as if it’s normal and women as if we are always going to be objects of temptation to men.

And so I’d like to go on a little rant today, because I think that this message is seriously harming women’s hearts and putting roadblocks up to healthy marriages.

But first, a caveat.

I wholeheartedly believe the studies that show that men are far more visually stimulated than women. I know that when men are aroused the visual center of the brain lights up, whereas for women it’s the relationship center.

I know we approach sex differently.

I know that many men feel a far more urgent physical need for sex than women do.

I know that lust is more of a battle for men than it is for women.

I completely and totally believe that. But I also believe that God calls us to more, and by concentrating on temptation as if it’s normal, rather than pointing to what God wants for us, we are hurting real intimacy.

Part of the problem, I think, is that the conservative arms of the Christian church spend far too much time concentrating on “womanhood” and “manhood” and dividing us up by gender and seem to forget that we’re people first.

The married duo Priscilla and Aquila were Paul’s “fellow workers” in the gospel; Paul didn’t just hang out with Aquila. He partnered with Priscilla, too, who was the primary teacher of the two. In Philippians 4:3 Paul mentions two women who had labored with him in the gospel. Paul didn’t segregate; he, a single man, worked with women! Just read Romans 16 to see how women and men intermingled to spread the gospel.

And there’s no Christian side hug in the Bible, either. Paul wrote in multiple places, “Greet all God’s people with a holy kiss.” (1 Thessalonians 5:26).

There's no 'Christian side hug' in the Bible; It's 'Greet one another with a holy kiss.'
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Paul had perfectly platonic relationships with women, with whom he spread the kingdom of God. 

That was his normal. It was expected that you could hang out with women and just value them as people with gifts without sexualizing them.

Yet what do we do? We spend so much time talking about how men and women can’t work together without there being temptation, or how men and women can’t be friends, because we see ourselves as primarily sexual beings, not primarily children of God.

Paul believed that if you saw each other only as sexual beings that this was a sign that you weren’t saved. It was the secular world that did that.

And yet now we’ve turned that on its head! It’s in the church where we don’t believe that men and women can be together as friends and “fellow laborers”, and it’s in the secular workplace where it’s assumed that of course men and women can work together with no issues.

The secular world sees women as people; the church too often talks about women as objects of temptation.

The secular world sees women as people; the church frames women as objects of temptation.
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I have had so many women comment on this blog that they couldn’t marry anyone at their church because all the guys at their church were struggling with porn and always criticizing what these women wore in case they caused them to lust.

So these women looked elsewhere, to men who wanted to get to know them as people and to men who cared about their character. And they found that outside the church.

Pastors, are you listening? Do you know the damage that you are doing when you reduce male/female relationships to solely sexual ones, rather than redeemed, godly ones?

My son-in-law and my husband both came to Christ in their late teens, and did not grow up in anything resembling a typical evangelical church. They have never had trouble having female friends without “lusting” after them.

Outside of the church boys are not taught to see women as objects of temptation. They are taught to see women as people. 

In fact, porn use tends to be higher in states that are more Christian. Perhaps that’s not a coincidence, but a correlation. Reduce women to sexual beings, and it becomes easier to get caught up in lust.

I know that there is a crisis of women who don’t like sex and aren’t having very much sex in their marriage, leading to a huge struggle for many husbands.

I really do get this.

But have pastors ever thought that maybe one of the reasons that women have such issues with sex is because of the messages we hear about sexuality from the time that we are small children?

Do pastors realize that women have issues with sex because of the way the church talks about it?
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“Women need to be modest and cover up, so that they don’t cause men to stumble.”
“A man desires sex constantly, and if he doesn’t get sex every 72 hours, he’ll be tempted to look at porn or he’ll find the battle with lust so much worse.”
“Men struggle with lust so much, and most pastors struggle with being with a pretty woman.” 
“It’s normal for men to want to look–that’s how God created men! God made them to be the initiators, so of course they will notice a woman’s body. It’s hard-wired.”

I have read, to my horror, that mega pastor Mark Driscoll once wrote that women were created to be “penis homes”. Pastor Joe Helmes once opened a Nascar race talking about his “smokin’ hot wife”, as if it was appropriate to sexualize her in front of all those men. The masculine vibe that so many churches are trying to take on in order to seem relevant has pastors now bragging about their sexual prowess from the pulpit.

Do male pastors have any idea how absolutely creepy and disgusting that sounds to the women in their pews?

When a woman brings that up, the pastor (or writer) often responds, “you’ll never understand because you’re a woman, but this is what men go through.” 

That’s not good enough.

You’re right, I may never understand how hard the lust battle is for a guy, but do male pastors understand how very badly we women want to be cherished, and how very much we yearn for security? Do they understand the raw emotional devastation that a wife feels when she finds her husband looking at porn? Do they understand how difficult it is for a young woman to see sex as a positive thing when she has been sexually abused as a child, and then has grown up in a church which tells her that all men will lust after her and that she had better have sex with her husband or he’ll be tempted to cheat?

If men deserve understanding because of their battle with lust, then surely women deserve equal understanding for our battle with insecurity and our desperate need to be loved.

One woman wrote to me after being told that all Christian men will always struggle with lust, no matter what the wife does. She can make it easier, but he will always struggle. She said:

I feel that women are repeatedly asked to have empathy for men’s struggles but little help is provided for what to do with our broken hearts. I would ask men to have empathy as well. Do you have any idea the self sacrifice it takes to be intimate when we feel like we will never be enough for you?

Here’s how another woman put it:

His temptation does feel like rejection. And if the temptation is apparently non-stop, that’s a lot of feeling rejected.

Is that really the message that pastors want women to hear? You will never be enough for your husband, but you need to try super hard anyways, because at least maybe you’ll make it a little bit easier for the poor guy?

Can’t we call people towards much more? Don’t we believe that Jesus should actually make a difference in our lives? That it IS possible to live totally and completely crazy about your wife and your wife alone?

So may I suggest a way through towards a healthy message?
I will continue to encourage women to initiate sex.

I have tried so hard on this blog to teach women to get over sexual lies they’ve believed and know what it is to experience spiritual intimacy when they make love. I will continue to encourage frequent, fun, and interesting sex, including learning to be more adventurous in bed, because being vulnerable and a little our of control is part of “hot and holy” sex! I will try to point women towards a fulfilling and intimate sex life, because God created us for something amazing, and we don’t want to miss out! We were made for intimacy.

But I will never, ever tell women that the primary reason you need to have sex with your husband is because if you don’t he may lust after other women. I will never, ever  frame sex to be something that’s for him, and not something that is equally for both of them.

Now I am asking you, male pastors, can you do the same thing, and say “no more boys will be boys”?

Dear Pastors: Please, no more 'boys will be boys' excuses. Let's call men to more!
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Can you call men to love their wives? Can you tell them that, yes, you have temptations, but so does everybody. Jesus did not look at a woman and automatically undress her in His mind, and neither did Paul or the apostles. And so you need to stop doing that, too. No more excuses. No more “everybody struggles with this”.

No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. (1 Corinthians 10:13)

There is always a way out. So stop talking like lust is normal. “Be holy, as I am holy.” (1 Peter 1:16) No ifs, ands, or buts.

Yes, that’s a tall order. But that’s Jesus’ order, not mine.

And maybe, if men started acting like they respected women, then women would start seeing sex as something healthy again, too.

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Top 10 Trends About Divorce in Our Culture

 HBO is coming out with a new series–DIVORCE–that will run Sunday night at 10 pm (premiering October 9) depicting a couple aiming for divorce, and then realizing that it’s not as easy as they think. Here’s how they describe it:

After more than a decade of marriage and two children, Frances (Sarah Jessica Parker) has suddenly begun to reassess her life and her strained relationship with her husband Robert (Thomas Haden Church). But she soon discovers that making a clean break and a fresh start is harder than she thought. The story of a very, very long divorce, the show follows Frances and Robert as they grapple with the fallout from their failing marriage, not just for themselves, but also for their children and friends, ranging from awkward public encounters to difficult private therapy sessions.

I haven’t seen the show, but I do think it’s at least encouraging that they’re showing that divorce isn’t straightforward–and that perhaps we should pause and think again.

I remember when the movie Knocked Up with Katherine Heigl and Seth Rogen came out in 2007. I cheered that a completely secular movie had the theme it did: A single woman finds herself pregnant from a one-night stand–and she doesn’t get an abortion. In fact, she only considers it for about 3 minutes of the movie. It was a sign that our culture was thinking differently about abortion, because it wasn’t remotely a faith-based movie (it was actually rather crude). But even a movie made just for the wider culture said, “it’s normal for women to want to keep their babies, and to be horrified at the thought of abortion.”

That’s a big shift. I hope, perhaps, that this is a sign of the way our culture may be changing when it comes to divorce. From the information HBO sent me, it looks like that could be true. I’ve always been of the opinion that every divorce is a tragedy, even though some divorces are necessary.

And yet I also think that our perception of the decline in marriage is premature and the triumph of the divorce mentality is overblown. Marriage is actually doing far better than our media commonly portrays–in some circles. But it is also doing worse in others than Christians often admit. So I thought today I’d share 10 trends about divorce that are worth knowing. Some are hopeful, some are sobering. All are important. And I hope the media listen!

1. The divorce rate has been on a downward trajectory.

While divorce rates skyrocketed in the 1970s and 1980s, they’ve been falling ever since. In fact, Justin Wolfers, a University of Michigan economist, has found that those who married in the 2000s have the lowest rates of divorce. If current trends continue, he estimates that more than 2/3 of marriages will last.

2. The divorce rate is far lower than we think.

Shaunti Feldhahn has found the same thing in her in-depth look at the census research in her book, The Good News About Marriage. That whole “50% divorce rate” meme that we’ve been hearing for decades is a myth. The divorce rate never was 50%; that figure is based on an estimate, which looked at the divorce rates of the 1970s and 1980s and asked, “if it continues at this rate, what will it be?” But it didn’t continue. And so she places the divorce rate at closer to 28%–and about 15-25% lower for Christians.

The takeaway? The vast majority of marriages still make it. 

3. Young people still want a marriage for life

In a new Cardus Family research study from Canada, 72% of millennials still believe that marriage is a positive ideal for life.

4. Marriage is still people’s greatest source of joy in this life.

Shaunti also found that the vast majority people said that marriage brought them joy–and in fact it was their greatest source of joy. If this is so, then if the media wants to relate better to people, perhaps it should portray more happy marriages!

5. Marriage brings major benefits to our mental and physical health, and to our kids.

Linda Waite and Maggie Gallagher’s massive study on marriage found that marriage brought higher incomes, more happiness, fewer cases of mental illness, and greater personal and sexual satisfaction. And when people stay married, children are far more likely to do well in school and make good personal decisions, and far less likely to be abused or killed!

6. Children do better when parents stay together, even if that marriage is not necessarily a happy one.

Judith Wallerstein’s groundbreaking 25-year study found that children fare better if their parents stay married than if they get a divorce, unless that marriage is also a high conflict one. If parents are simply unhappy, children are better off in a stable home. Maybe HBO has read that study and is going to show that “staying together for the sake of the kids” does have some merit, if it’s just that parents have grown apart!

That’s the good (or at least interesting) news. Now for the sobering news:
7. Fewer people are choosing to marry.

While the majority still value marriage, and while marriages are getting more successful, the simple truth is that fewer people are choosing to marry. For the first time ever, in 2014 the majority of American adults were now single.

8. Marriage is rapidly becoming a middle class and upper class choice.

Charles Murray has done groundbreaking research in finding that the marriage rates of the upper classes and lower classes were diverging hugely. In the 1960s they were basically the same. By 2010, 83% of upper class 30-49 were married, compared with just 48% of lower class adults. And because married people are able to pass on their cultural money and education easier to their kids, their kids will also tend to marry. The thing that is most dividing the classes, then, is marriage, not money. And it becomes much harder to move up the class ladder since fewer people get married. It’s actually scary!

9. More people are choosing to cohabitate.

As fewer people marry, more just “live together”. But the problem is that when you choose to test a relationship, it ends up much more likely to fail than if you decide to choose a life partner and then commit. And children born to cohabiting parents don’t do as well as children born to married parents, says W. Bradford Wilcox of the Marriage Project.

10. Divorce is one of the biggest causes of lack of savings in one’s retirement.

Twice as many women as men live in poverty at retirement, and divorce is one of the largest causes of that. Divorce negatively impacts a woman’s savings and income far more than it does a man’s, on average, which has repercussions even into the senior years.

All in all? Researchers have repeatedly shown that marriage brings huge benefits, and divorce brings huge costs. Sometimes, as I’ve said, divorce is necessary. But we should never take divorce cavalierly.

Charles Murray has found that the “marriage is just a choice” mentality that started in the 1960s has largely been pushed by our cultural elites–our university professors, our media, our politicians. And yet, upper class people (those very elites) are still largely marrying and staying married. It is the lower classes that are not, and they are really suffering for it.

And so Murray ends his books urging that same cultural elite to “preach what you practice.” Start telling people that marriage is a cultural good, and it is worth it! I totally believe that.

And I hope that perhaps HBO’s new DIVORCE series may do that, by showing a couple finding that divorce isn’t as easy as they thought. We shall see, but I do hope that, for everyone’s sake, elites will start to preach what they practice and stop making it seem like just “following your heart” is the best ideal, when it so obviously is not.

Learn more about DIVORCE on HBO by visiting the official Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube pages.

What do you think the media could do to more realistically represent the reality of divorce? Tell me in the comments for a chance to win a $100 Visa gift card!

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5 Reasons Your Libido is Sub-Zero–and How to Bring it Out of Hibernation!

Feel like you have no libido–as if it’s in hibernation or something?

You’re not alone!

I love talking on the blog about how libido is so much more than just physical–how it’s spiritual and emotional, too. And I totally believe that! And over the years I’ve given tons of tips on how to keep your head in the game and how to feel more “in the mood”.

But this last week I’ve been devouring some information that’s new to me about how the problem may simply be a physical one–and that’s good news, because it means that there are things you may be able to do to fix it!

When we lose our libido, we often wonder if there’s something wrong with the marriage. Why don’t I get turned on by my husband anymore? But maybe it’s simply that your hormones aren’t working properly, or  you’re just too tired and achey. And that, my friends, has cures! Let’s take a look together.

Why Is Your Libido Sub-Zero?

I’ve been devouring the information in the Ultimate Healthy Living Bundle for the last few days. It’s a collection of 83 amazing resources, including ebooks, online courses, printables, and more, that can help you figure out how to live a healthier, more abundant life. It can teach you about real food, about making non-toxic cleaners, about making non-toxic beauty products, about going to a paleo diet if you want, or about how to start addressing food allergies.

But what I’ve been focusing on is all of the resources on hormones, because I never really understood this stuff.

Today I want to share with you what I’ve learned from three primary resources: Natural Hormone Balance Guide for Women, the Healing Hormones course, and the Perfect Periods course. They’re great–and I’m not even finished going through all the courses yet. I’m just taking notes like crazy!

The Healing Hormones course is subtitled, “No, you’re not crazy!” It’s for all those women who wonder why they’re so tired and stressed and achey and can’t figure it out. To you, today, I’d say: “No, you’re not frigid!” To all those of you who wonder why you have zero libido, there may be a simple answer. You may simply have an imbalance, and that’s good news. Because that can be fixed!

What is “Libido”?

Libido is the desire to have sex and the ability to enjoy it. For women, it’s highly dependent upon how we feel about our relationship, because brain studies have found that when women are aroused, the relationship and feeling centers of the brain light up (for men it’s different areas). But it’s not only that. It’s also largely hormonal. Our “sex” hormones (progesterone, testosterone, and, of course, estrogen) prepare the body to want and enjoy sex. Estrogen “lubricates” everything. Testosterone gives us desire. Progesterone regulates all of that. So when something is out of whack, you’re going to want chocolate more than sex. It’s that simple.

So let’s look at why!

Could you simply have poor nutrition?

Nutrition is everything. All of the cells in our bodies rely on the proper food to function at tip-top level. And if they don’t have what they need, they’ll be limping along, and they’ll often favour the vital things over the not-so-vital things (sex hormones).

Causes: Even people who look healthy can have poor nutrition! If you don’t get enough healthy fats, for instance (like coconut oil, avocados, fish, nuts), then your body will crave them. Even if you eat what looks like it’s healthy, like a vegan diet, your body could be crying out for things it’s missing, like protein. If you’re busy and you’re always grabbing food on the go, you could have some serious deficiencies.

Solutions: Eat lots of fiber! Add healthy fats to your diet. Eat more protein. Eat far fewer refined sugars, because they can cause “leaky gut”, which stops the intestine from absorbing nutrition.

In the Healthy Living Bundle you’ll find over 1400 healthy recipes to restore nutrition to your body! And the “Heal Your Gut” course can also teach you what to do if you just don’t absorb nutrients properly anymore.

Could you have adrenal fatigue?

Our adrenal glands work overtime in producing hormones. But the adrenals like to play triage: they look at certain deficiencies as “Defcon 5” and will work to fix those first. And one of the hormones our bodies really need is cortisol. It gives you energy, and regulates everything else in your body on sort of a time schedule (your bowels, your sleep, your energy, your digestion). But it depends on this 24 hour clock.

Causes: Our bodies work on a clock. So light=daytime. Eating protein=energy, it’s time to wake up! Eating carbs=it’s time to rest. That’s an oversimplification, but that’s roughly how it works.

Here’s something absolutely HILARIOUS I read in the Natural Hormone Balance Guide for Women.  Dr. Kellogg was a bit of a quack. In the 1800s he started a sanitorium to help people deal with lust and masturbation. And one of his main “cures” was this neat cereal that he had developed that you eat with milk. You see, this big carb intake would lull the body into a contented, placid state, and then you wouldn’t feel the urge for lust anymore.

Well, Dr. Kellogg found out that people LIKED eating this cereal, and soon it became the breakfast staple everywhere.

So let’s look at our modern lifestyles: we get up before it’s light in the winter, feed our bodies massive amounts of carbs in the morning, and then keep our bodies up at night with artificial light. And we confuse the heck out of them!

Again, there’s more to it than that. But if your body is working overtime to produce cortisol, then your adrenals will get tired and won’t produce sex hormones as much.

Did you know breakfast cereal was invented to kill libido? So why do we eat it?!?
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Solution: Eat protein for breakfast, and avoid heavy carbs (like cereal, toast, and bagels). Wake up to natural light, or get lightbulbs in the winter that mimic it. Stay away from blue light at night. Keep carbs for dinner time. Stay away from caffeine, which confuses everything.

Could you have low progesterone?

Progesterone balances estrogen and regulates the metabolism. It’s made primarily in the ovaries, but also in the adrenal gland (and if you’re perimenopausal or postmenopausal, then you’re REALLY relying on that adrenal gland!).

Causes: If your adrenal glands are working overtime, you’ll likely have less progesterone. Also, if you’re producing TOO MUCH estrogen, then you’ll likely produce less progesterone, leading to a real imbalance.

Solution: Do everything above to regulate nutrition and cortisol. Stay away from beauty products with lots of chemicals, especially shampoos and body washes. Choose things like the Diva cup or cloth sanitary pads instead of disposable ones, because they can artificially introduce a weird chemical that mimics estrogen and can mess everything up. Do some moderate exercise four times a week. Try some essential oils, especially clary sage (that one’s helped me a lot!)

Could you have low estrogen?

The Healing Hormones course lays out so well what low estrogen does to us sexually–we can have painful sex, very little lubrication, and low desire.

Causes: Age decreases estrogen, so being perimenopausal or menopausal can hurt us. Having other imbalances, as above, can also affect estrogen.

Solution: Have sex regularly! (the more you do it–the more hormones you produce! Libido is use it or lose it!). Avoid caffeine. Don’t overexercise. Add lots of ground flax seed to your diet. And add some supplements. There are so many creams and capsules that you can take to help with low estrogen that are really safe.

Could you have low thyroid function?

When your thyroid isn’t functioning really well, it tends to “bind up” the sex hormones, leaving them unable to be properly used. And then, when thyroid production is low, you start producing fewer sex hormones, too. It’s a vicious cycle.

And some studies have shown that MOST people have at least mild hypothyroidism.

Causes: When your cortisol levels have been out of whack for a LONG time, this eventually affects the thyroid.

Solution: Avoid soy. Throw seaweed into your soups and stews! Stay away from broccoli and kale, but throw in lots of Vitamin C and Vitamin E. And no smoking!

But how do I know what I have?

I know. When we start to read all this stuff, we think: “I’ve got EVERYTHING!” But don’t worry; that’s likely not true.

Here are two simple approaches:

Eat well, with good nutrition, avoiding processed foods, caffeine, and too much refined sugar. Try to eat properly to a 24-hour schedule. Do that, and no matter what the problem is, you’ll likely start to fix a lot of it.
Take the Perfect Periods self-assessment quiz (it’s in lesson 3). I found this super helpful. And it gives you a huge list of “action steps”, including lifestyle adjustments, food adjustments, and even supplements you can take depending on what your issue is. I’ve listed some solutions here for these issues, and most of them are found in the Perfect Periods course. But she’s got so much more in it!

I know this is a LOT of information, but I find it really empowering. If you can figure out what’s triggering some of the ill-effects in your body, then you can stop it!

And wouldn’t that be worth it?

I learned all of this from the Ultimate Healthy Living Bundle, which is on sale right now–but the sale ends TONIGHT at midnight!

It’s over $2400 worth of ebooks and courses, just like Healing Hormones and Perfect Periods, for just $29.97.

Plus you get bonuses valued at $250, including:

FREE Mrs. Meyers 64 load laundry detergent & fabric softener
FREE 8 ounce gelatinized Maca Powder (this stuff is GREAT for LIBIDO!)
FREE 1 ounce jar of tooth powder from Primal Life Organics (so excited about this one because I have such sensitive teeth!)
$15 towards Perfect Supplements
FREE eye shadow trio from Orglamix (I’m excited about this one, too!)
FREE 1 ounce bag of Kombucha tea

You don’t want to miss this! I’ve had so much fun reading through the materials and watching some of the videos, and it really can be life changing.

When I think of how many people write in to me saying, “I am just never in the mood. Do I have to just pretend?” And my heart breaks. But I think there’s an answer here which, for many of us, could give us back that marriage we always wanted!

Check it out here.

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Getting Real: Maybe It’s Time to Make a Major Change

Have you been putting off taking care of yourself for far too long?

My head is just spinning right now because I spent all day yesterday in an RV park with my husband in Kansas (I’m giving my Girl Talk in South Hutchinson tonight!) devouring so many of the awesome resources in the Ultimate Healthy Living Bundle. I’ve made major headways when it comes to switching to real food in the past, so I haven’t been reading those resources as much. Instead, I’ve been focusing on the ones on hormone health and gut health, and I’ve been blown away by how much I did wrong.

Remember how I told you on Wednesday that the MRI had found the beginnings of fatty liver disease? Well, I did the self-assessment test that’s part of the Perfect Periods course, and it focused on eight different systems that could be “off” in our body. And the #1 result I got? My liver is messed up.

Yep.

There seriously is something to this, and I’ve got to start making some major changes now, while I’m still relatively healthy, before it gets worse.

And I’m so psyched with all these resources to do it!

But today, in my Friday Marriage Moment (my 400-word inspirational thing to give you ONE thought to take with you over the weekend), I want to challenge you to seriously think about your health. We shy away from talking about health because we don’t want to “fat shame”–and that really isn’t my intention. But this stuff is important. We can’t afford to ignore it. And I believe it’s a marriage issue.

Sheila’s Marriage Moment: Maybe It’s Time to Make a Major Change

One day, either you will be the caregiver for your spouse, or your spouse will care for you.

If you intend to be married until death do you part (as I certainly do!), then one of you is going to fall apart first, and the stronger person is going to have to look after the weaker one.

I’m okay with that. I think it’s actually an honour to be able to care for the person who has stood beside you through so much in your life.

But while we know our bodies will eventually fall apart, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do something about keeping them healthy now. 

Some of the most highly shared posts on this blog are about how to show love to your husband—little things you can do to make him smile. But what if one of the best ways to show love is just to get yourself healthier–so that those caregiving days are very much ahead of us?

Now I am not talking about losing weight because you look bad. 

Please hear me on this.

I’m talking about taking care of yourself so that you can feel more energetic, feel more confident, and live a healthier life.

I had a woman comment a while back who was so depressed because her husband had lost his desire for her since she was about 80 pounds overweight. He was a great husband and a great dad, but they had no sex life.

I don’t think that’s a valid excuse on his part, by the way. I think we should love each other regardless. But I found her reaction really heartbreaking. She said she didn’t think she could live in a sexless marriage, but she also loved food too much. She concluded that divorce was her only option.

Ladies, getting healthy is not impossible. It’s a choice that we can make.

And that choice has NOTHING to do with going on a diet by restricting your calories. It has to do with learning what goes into a healthy lifestyle, and then changing your habits.

Our bodies are highly intricate, interrelated systems. But what happens if we start clogging that system with stuff that shouldn’t be there, and don’t give it what it needs? What would happen to your kitchen if you decided not to clean it for a year? Sure, you could still cook in there, but would you want to?

Many of us are absolute fanatics about keeping our homes clean. Maybe we need to start putting just as much effort into keeping our bodies in tip-top shape.

Yes, it’s hard. Yes, it will require major change. No, it won’t be easy. But it’s worth it. 

What is stopping you? Can you love your spouse enough to make a change?

What’s #1 at To Love, Honor and Vacuum?

Need some top tips?  I’ve got some for you in this week’s top posts!  #1’s and #2’s will have you adding some spice and excitement back into your marriage. Also, check out this week’s top post where I discuss weight issues and what might actually be at the root of the problem.

#1 NEW Post on the Blog: How To Lose Weight Without Burdening Your Family

#1 on the Blog Overall: Top 10 Tips For Initiating Sex With Your Husband

#2 from Facebook: Top 10 Ways To Be More Adventurous In Bed

#2 from Pinterest: 10 Simple Ways To Put Sexy Back In Your Marriage 

We’re Having So Much Fun on the Road!

In the last two weeks we’ve covered about 2,500 miles I think. And it is HOT in Kansas. We weren’t really expecting that!

But this weekend we have our last actual engagements, and then we have two weeks off before we fly home. We’re going to hang out in Arizona, I think, where we’ll go for hikes in the morning when it’s cool enough and we’ll work in the afternoon in the RV.

Here’s where we’ve been so far:

I Met Up with Some Winners–

My event in Sioux City, Iowa, was with the MOPS group that won me coming to speak at their church last year in MOMCon. And we’re working out the details of when I’ll be speaking in Colorado this spring with the group that won it last year in the Homemaking Bundle!

And then in California I’ll be meeting up with the woman who won me taking her out to dinner in the bundle a year ago. So it’s neat to see all these people!

We’ve got three events in California pretty much booked in January, but there’s room for more. So if you’re in New Mexico, Arizona, or California, I’d love to join you! Just email my assistant Tammy here.

Remember, the Ultimate Healthy Living Bundle is gone Monday at Midnight

And there really is some awesome stuff in there. Over $2400 worth of resources for just $29.97. And there are $250 in physical bonuses, too, including a FREE 64-load laundry detergent.

Check it out here!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

The post Getting Real: Maybe It’s Time to Make a Major Change appeared first on To Love, Honor and Vacuum.

8 Tips to Think About Weight Differently–And See Food As Your Friend

I shared yesterday about how we often approach losing weight the wrong way.

We decide to temporarily cut back on all the things that we love so that we can reach some magical weight, because we figure weight is the problem.

I’ve even heard people say that: “he has such a great metabolism he can eat anything and not gain weight!”, as if as long as you’re not gaining weight, anything goes.

Weight is not the problem. Eating the wrong things that don’t actually nourish your body properly is.

When we focus on weight, then we take a short-term approach. We’ll spend this year getting down to our ideal weight, everything will be fine and then we can go back to doing what we want to do.

What if that’s totally wrong? I was sharing about the Ultimate Healthy Living Bundle yesterday, which is on sale RIGHT NOW, but which will go away forever on Monday at midnight EST. It’s over $2400 worth of ebooks and courses to help you get healthy, and it’s only $29.97.

(Learn more here!)

I’ve been devouring the products over the last few weeks as Keith and I have been driving around in our RV, and I want to share a 8 tips I’ve learned that can help you!

1. You Don’t Have to Eat Less to Lose Weight and Feel Better

I love this intro to the ebook Creating Wealth–all about how to create nutritional wealth in the body. Maybe I like it because she used my name and sounded like she was talking exactly about me!

Sheila is a busy, working mom and she often neglects to take care of herself, as she is always tending to the needs of her husband and children. Because of this, she has been “borrowing” against her own nutritional bank account for years. Her body has even adapted to this by decreasing her appetite, which just perpetuates the problem. As a result, Sheila now has chronic bloating, is overweight, and has low energy. She restricts her food intake and counts calories to try to lose weight.

What is wrong with Sheila’s approach? She is trying to refill her bank account by restricting her intake of food, which restricts her body’s access to the very nutrients she most needs to heal. Something is fishy here.

When you’re trying to lose weight, you think in terms of “what foods won’t make me fat?” and “what foods are low calorie”? We don’t think in terms of “what foods are high in nutrients that my body needs?”

Your body DOES need food! Every single one of our cells depends on nutrients to function well, and if you’re not giving your body nutrients, then you’re going to feel lethargic, bloated, and achy all the time.

Tip: Stop working so hard on restricting calories and start working on eating foods that are good for you. 

Sheila’s soapbox here: That’s why asking “how do I not deprive my family when I need to lose weight” is the wrong question! EVERYBODY should be eating healthy, especially kids, because they need the nutrients to grow.

2. When You Crave Something–Eat Something!

Dieting is the worst thing you can do for your body. You’re always grumpy, always hungry, and you train your metabolism to store fat.

Here’s something important I’ve learned: when I crave chocolate and sugar, I’m usually just hungry. The craving is not bad; it’s my body’s way of saying “I need something!”

So now I just have seconds at lunch, even if it’s an hour after I had “first lunch” (I find I’m worst in the early afternoon!)

Nicole Jardim’s Ecourse “Fix Your Blood Sugar” talks about the importance of figuring out what to eat when and listening to your body. Too often we try to just punish our bodies and ignore them rather than listen to their cues. I’m not saying to eat every time you think of food; certainly make sure you’re not just stressed, sad, or bored. But if you are hungry? Eat!

Tip: When you’re hungry, eat! Eat more frequently, and eat a wider variety of things.

3. Healthy Food Totally Tastes Good

But that’s the hard part, isn’t it? What if the food that we love is really, really bad for you?

That doesn’t mean that healthy food tastes bad. No, it may not be a cheese-infused lasagna with grease pooling up on top that tastes so amazing. But a lasagna with less cheese, a better cut of meat, high quality ricotta cheese, and lots of real tomatoes and onions and garlic and even chopped up really small peppers, carrots and mushrooms can honestly taste amazing, too. And it’s so much better for you! The bundle has over 1,400 recipes that will help you see that eating well and giving your body what it needs isn’t about depriving yourself. It’s just about seeing food differently.

Tip: Don’t tell your family it’s healthy. Just start making real food recipes!

4. Don’t Eat Carbohydrates By Themselves

An apple sounds like a healthy snack, right? Well, it’s a lot better for you if you pair it with cottage cheese or peanut butter.

We need to stop thinking about calories and start thinking about body chemistry. My absolute favorite resource in the Ultimate Healthy Living Bundle is this great book: Secrets to a Healthy Metabolism. I learned so much about what to eat and when to eat it, and I’m starting to put it into practice now! Maria says,

So often we focus on calorie reduction for weight loss because we are told metabolism comes down to calories in, calories out. This is really only one piece of the puzzle. If you are eating 500 calories of carbohydrates at a meal you are going to be storing a lot more fat. However, if those 500 calories are a combination of protein, carbohydrates, and fat, you could actually burn fat!

5. Change the Oils You Use to Cook

This is the biggest change I made in my eating–and likely the most important one. I had learned in the 1990s that we were all supposed to move away from saturated fat and move towards “healthy” fats, like canola oil. So I dutifully started looking down on people who still bought butter and stocked up on canola oil.

But canola oil has so much processing involved. Pure canola oil actually smells horrible and is quite an awful colour. So they dye it and add stuff to it so it doesn’t smell terrible.

And it really isn’t good for you.

I only use four fats: coconut oil, butter, beef tallow, and olive oil. In The Healthy Home: Transform Your Home Room by Room, Erin Odom explains how these are the only fats you need–and she warns you why you shouldn’t cook with olive oil!

Tip: Get rid of the margarine. Bring back the butter!

6. Let’s Embrace Fat Again!

The 90s were oh, so wrong. They told us not to eat avocados and nuts and seeds because they were high in saturated fat. They told us not to eat full-fat dairy products. They told us to stay away from egg yolks and almost all animal meats.

Turns out our bodies need fat! Fat isn’t the problem. Refined sugar is. In Secrets to a Healthy Metabolism, Maria explains,

If heart disease results from the consumption of saturated fats, you would expect to find an increase in animal fat in the American diet. Actually, the reverse is true. From 1910 to 1970, the amount of animal fat in the American diet declined from 83% to 62% [of all fats], and butter consumption dropped from 18 pounds per person per year to 4. During the same period the percentage of vegetable oils in the form of margarine, shortening and refined oils increased about 400% while the consumption of sugar and processed foods increased about 60%. WOW! I think we found the problem!

Tip: Don’t be afraid to put butter back into your diet. But try to use healthy baking recipes instead of those that contain a lot of refined sugar!

7. You Don’t Have to Cut Out All Desserts

Chocolate is amazing. And dark chocolate is heaven.

And chocolate can actually be part of a healthy diet! One of my favourite resources in the Ultimate Healthy Living Bundle is Living Healthy with Chocolate, a book of 103 chocolate recipes that are actually good for you! I LOVE chocolate zucchini bread, and her recipe is amazing. But there are also chocolate peppermint sticks, chocolate truffles, chocolate chip cookie dough brownie, and so many more!

Seriously, it’s just about the QUALITY of foods you put into your body. Stay close to real foods with real nutrients and minerals, and steer clear of processed foods and refined sugars with nothing good in them, and you’re fine.

Here’s how Adriana Harlan explains it:

By allowing delicious, typically “forbidden”, foods to be a regular part of the diet, it prevents feelings of deprivation from undermining your efforts. Better yet, the “treats” are just as healthy as the regular food, so even picky eaters, such as a child diagnosed with Autism or Failure to Thrive or an adult suffering from Alzheimer’s, are sure to find something that tempts the appetite.

But what’s healthy about chocolate? Raw cacao is massively high in antioxidants–rating 95,500, compared to blueberries at 2,400.

Tip: Experiment with some yummy chocolate recipes and then make a ton ahead of time and freeze them, so when you have a craving for sweets you can eat “healthy” ones!

8. Don’t Have “Empty Calorie Foods” Around the House

The only thing my daughters remember about a cruise we took when they were 5 and 2 1/2 is that the cruise ship had Froot Loops. That was such a huge deal, because at our house we never had “sugar cereals”. In fact, I never bought bags of cookies (I did occasionally bake some), potato chips, pop, or traditional snack foods. And my kids grew up just fine.

When we went to a party the other night, the girls and I all enjoyed some potato chips. In fact, we probably ate too many! And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with eating stuff like that occasionally. But let it be “special occasion” food. Keep it out of your house. It’s not like you’re on a diet, so you’re depriving your kids of potato chips because you can’t have them in the house. Your kids shouldn’t have them anyway.

There are other snacks to eat! So just don’t buy the stuff. If you want to help your husband lose weight, this is one of the best things you can do, too.

Tip: Think of junk food as “special occasion” food, and keep it out of the cupboard!

There’s actually a ton more in the bundle that I’m so excited to learn more about that I haven’t told you here. There are a TON of resources on “gut health”, and how inflammation can really hurt nutrient absorption. There’s tons on hormones and how to use probiotics. And for parents, there are a ton of books on how to get your kids to eat healthier!

If you’ve had a constant struggle with food, then the Ultimate Healthy Living Bundle is for you! You get 83 accessible-right-away resources and 16 physical bonuses (worth $250 themselves!) for just $29.99. And if you buy before midnight tonight, you’ll get a free upgrade to an ereader version of your choice (instead of all .pdfs).

I guess for me the biggest change is that I’ve stopped seeing food as a constant struggle that I’m always fighting against, and I’m starting to see food as a choice that I make to make myself feel good. Food is not anything bad; my body needs food. So what am I going to do to take care of my body? It’s a mind shift change, and it’s really helped me feel more energetic (without the use of caffeine anymore!) and far less lethargic. I hope it can help you, too!

 

The post 8 Tips to Think About Weight Differently–And See Food As Your Friend appeared first on To Love, Honor and Vacuum.

How to Lose Weight Without Burdening Your Family

If you need to lose weight, how do you do it without making your family miserable in the process?

That’s what a reader recently asked me:

I feel like I have an addiction to food and I don’t want to constantly put my family on a special diet just because I want to lose  weight. I also don’t want them to go through my many ups and downs. I don’t want to make a facilitator of my husband by asking him to go buy me ice cream and I don’t want to be angry at him if he says no. It’s a struggle of mine and I feel like it’s one of the things that can hurt my family if I become to focused on my addiction.

I understand she has a food addiction. I understand that she is battling it and doesn’t want her family to suffer.

But let me ask you this: Could she be asking the wrong question? And if she is, could THAT be the actual root of her food addiction?

Here’s what I mean: we think “I’m overweight, so I have to watch what I eat to lose weight, whereas my family isn’t overweight, so they can eat whatever they want.”

What if that assumption is wrong? What if the problem is not weight at all?

Here’s a picture of me and my husband, taken on the Baltic cruise we took the family on this summer:

I look healthy, right? I’m not overweight.

But I’ve got a LOT of issues!

It started two summers ago. I’d get these horrible stomach pains, and they seemed like textbook gallbladder problems. The pain was worse than childbirth. I went to the hospital and they said it wasn’t gallbladder–but it was pancreatitis, which can be just as painful, and which doesn’t really have a cure.

But it does have a general cause for most people: alcoholism.

Only one problem. I’m not an alcoholic. Not even close.

Now my husband’s a physician and he works at our local hospital, so everybody knows us personally. And all the doctors are looking at me like I’m a closet alcoholic, when I’m not! It was super awkward. And I’m trying to assure everyone I don’t have vodka stashed behind random pieces of furniture.

But I do drink a glass of white wine when I’m making dinner.

That’s it. Just a glass of white wine occasionally.

I’m a light drinker by any standards, not a heavy one.

But that one glass of white wine was causing incredible strain on my system, because for whatever reason my body can’t process alcohol like other people’s bodies do.

Then I had an MRI to check on gallbladder issues and you know what they found? The beginning of fatty liver disease. For pity’s sake, I don’t eat fatty foods and I even make my own chicken stock! I don’t eat white bread. I don’t eat chips. But I’ve got the beginning of fatty liver!

Oh, and my cholesterol was high, too (it runs in the family.)

Keith’s levels are all a-okay. But me? Nope.

Plus I was having some major hormonal issues with perimenopause. A lot of pain, a lot of headaches, and a lot of anemia. And after reading a lot of material from the Ultimate Healthy Living Bundle two years ago, I realized that this wasn’t just a part of life I had to settle with. This was something I could do something about!

I had to really change the way we eat. We stopped going to restaurants very much. I had already quit Diet Pepsi a few years ago to get rid of some chemicals in my body (and my system did start to work much better after that). I went down to 1/2 a glass of wine occasionally, and the stomach pains stopped. And Keith’s getting healthier, too.

And I started addressing some of my hormonal issues with proper teas, some essential oils, and exercise at the right time of the month. It’s amazing how much it has helped!

Most of you probably don’t have issues like I do. But I still think that we’re missing the bigger picture.

It’s not about what we weigh. It’s about what we put into our bodies. It’s about being healthy, not just skinny.

And our whole family needs to be healthy.

Everyone. Not just the people who are overweight–everyone.

When your children grown up, if they are used to eating high calorie processed foods they will keep eating high calorie processed foods, and they will end up with a weight problem, too. But they will also end up far less healthy.

Too often we think of food as the enemy, and that we have to beat our bodies into submission.

Let me be clear about this: Trying to lose weight by limiting your calorie intake drastically will work in the short term. But you will quickly regain that weight back.

What I’ve realized over the last few years is that I need to stop eating to satisfy cravings and start eating deliberately because my body needs things. Food isn’t the enemy; food is actually fuel!

So it’s not about dieting on a temporary basis. It’s a life change that will make you feel so much better.

It’s about I never put a lot of stock in the all the “detoxify” things I’d hear friends talking about. It seemed like everyone was claiming that EVERYTHING caused cancer, and maybe we all just needed to calm down.

But after realizing I got migraines every time I cleaned my bathroom, and that my stomach problems went away when I stopped eating bad oils and stuck to good oils (while also stopping the white wine), I thought that maybe there was something to it.

A lot of the new habits I’ve learned came from The Ultimate Healthy Living Bundle, a bundle of ebooks, courses, and bonuses that are offered for just 5 days every year.

The 2016 bundle launched this morning, and it is the BEST one ever. It has resources on weight loss, balancing hormones, green cleaning, special diets (like gluten free!), making the real food switch painlessly–even beauty recipes! And this bundle has so many courses that walk you step-by-step into creating a healthy lifestyle for you and your family, so you don’t have to put up with migraines and feeling tired and feeling bloated and having low energy anymore.

The bundle’s value is over $2400–and it sells for just $29.97.

Here are just a very few of the products that will teach you how to make food your friend: (The book Secrets to a Healthy Metabolism especially is AWESOME. I’ll be talking about it more tomorrow because I think it would really help our reader with the original question)

Find out more about the bundle here!

I’m so excited about it I already bought a copy for my oldest daughter who has been struggling with hormonal issues for years. The courses on it look amazing!

Here’s what’s in the bundle (cause there’s lots that isn’t in the pictures):

Resources and courses on:

Fitness
Hormones
Real Food and Nutrition
Paleo Recipes
Gluten Free Recipes
Alternative Health
DIY Beauty and Skin Care
Essential Oils
Gardening & Homesteading
Healthy Kids
Healthy Lifestyle

The whole Bundle is worth $2,417.58.

58 ebooks & printables
25 ecourses, videos & audios


Plus you get $251.95 in bonuses

9 physical bonuses
2 digital bonuses
5 bonuses that ship internationally (plus one more to Canada)

There are 12 brand new products that have just launched

Plus another 12 that aren’t available for purchase outside of the bundle
The vast majority of these products have NEVER appeared in a bundle before

9 weeks worth of meal plans

1400+ recipes
Plus 280 health & beauty recipes


You don’t even need to work through all of the resources, really. What I do is I find the resources that I most need, and I devour them and actually live them out. And it has really changed how I think about food and how I feel.
And the Bundle is totally worth the $29.97 price tag.

8 products worth $97 or more (just one of these makes the bundle a no brainer!)
17 MORE worth $29.95 or more (any of these justify the purchase of the bundle!)
22 MORE worth $14.99 or more (two of these cost more than the bundle itself!)
*That’s almost 50 products that more than justify the purchase of the bundle!

What if our food addictions are mostly because we don’t THINK about food the right way? What if it’s not about food, but really about the whole picture of health?

And what if small, simple changes could actually change everything?

That’s what this Bundle can do for you. But it’s only available until Monday night at midnight!

And here’s a great bonus: If you buy the bundle TODAY or TOMORROW, you’ll get a free upgrade to the ereader format of your choice (so you can read the ebooks easier on Kindle, for instance). But even without the upgrade, all the resources can be read on a computer or tablet or even transferred to your Kindle as they are.

I don’t know if it’s because I’m in my 40s now and I feel like my body may be wearing out, or if I’ve just done things wrong for too many decades and it’s taking its toll. But over the last few years I’ve realized that I can’t ignore “health”, even if my weight is okay. It’s about so much more. And I want to be here to live a big life with my grandkids one day! So I’m a big fan of this resource, and I know that it will help you, too.

And tomorrow I want to talk more about how to help your family get healthy and get on board by rethinking the way we approach weight!

The post How to Lose Weight Without Burdening Your Family appeared first on To Love, Honor and Vacuum.

Top 10 Reasons Family Vacations Rock–And Why You Should Take More of Them

Family vacations rock.

There. I said it. Consider that my mea culpa! Because last week I wrote a post on 6 things it’s not worth scrimping on, and I said that family vacations can be overrated because people can have as much fun with cheap stuff.

And I got a lot of pushback.

And honestly, I think you all were right. Family vacations ARE worth it! I was just struggling with that post, because I didn’t want to make it sound like “you have to spend money to have a good life”, since that’s not what I believe. So what I was TRYING to say, rather clumsily, is that we can have a good time with our families without breaking the bank, and don’t go into debt going on vacations.

But I failed miserably!

So I’d like to write instead what I ACTUALLY think today, and talk about 10 ways family vacations do, indeed, rock. And why you should take some.

10 Reasons Family Vacations Rock! (And why you should take some):
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1. Vacations don’t have to be expensive

We started going camping in a tent trailer with the kids when they were little. Nothing could be cheaper–about $30 a night for the site, and then we make our own food. And we went with friends, so the kids created these vacation traditions. We adults had a great time together, too!

2001–Bon Echo Park, Ontario

Now, we’ve also taken some expensive vacations–we took the kids and my mom on a Baltic cruise this year, for instance. But just because you don’t have a lot of money doesn’t mean that  you can’t take a vacation! We even found renting an RV when we went to the Grand Canyon wasn’t that expensive, because we didn’t have to rent a car, and we could prepare all of our own food (since food is often what drives the price of vacations up!).

(And if you want to go the RV route, here are 10 things we learned last year about living in an RV while hubby & I were on the road!)

2. Kids learn about nature

We’ve always loved going places where nature is one of the big attractions–the Grand Canyon, the Bay of Fundy, even just camping. Wherever we go we like to take hikes and explore. My kids love being outdoors, and I think being up close and personal with nature teaches you so much about life and about God–and vacations are one of the best times to experience this.

2009–Bay of Fundy, New Brunswick (in our tent trailer!)
3. Kids learn about history and the rest of the world

When we’re driving, we always take detours whenever there’s something historical. I remember driving through Massachusetts once and coming upon a sign for the Louisa May Alcott home. That was cool, because we had just finished reading Little Women! And I find that kids naturally like museums, if you start them young. They enjoy discovering things. Even if you’re going to have a “stay-cation” near your home, it’s amazing how many things there likely are right around you to discover when you go looking for them.

2004–Scotland
4. You create so many memories

We tend to remember things that are out of the ordinary. That’s why taking a week or two out of our normal busy-ness and doing something completely different can be so precious for the family. And we tend to remember things more when we laugh as well! And laughter is much easier when you’re away from work, away from stress, and even away from the phone!

2010–The Grand Canyon
5. You have a shared experience

Vacations aren’t ONLY about creating memories–they’re about sharing something. When we went on our Baltic cruise we had two days in St. Petersburg, visiting the Hermitage and several palaces. But I think what made the whole thing even more special was the time we spent around the table at dinner debriefing and processing everything we had seen. The stark contrast between the immense wealth in the palaces and the buildings that were crumbling down all around us was jarring. And the feeling in the air was something I couldn’t really explain.

But as we all talked about it together, and shared what we had each thought, it crystallized more.

2016–St. Petersburg

Then there are the shared experiences when you accomplish something–like getting through the random searches in security or dealing with a crazy tour guide. You feel more like you’ve accomplished something together, sort of like you’re a victorious team!

Sometimes the accomplishment is a simple one–“Mommy and Daddy didn’t kill each other trying to put up the dining tent this year!” (seriously, that was a big accomplishment). But it’s good to celebrate these victories.

2001–Bon Echo, Ontario
6. You forge a new unit

One of the reasons we went on the cruise this summer was because we have a new member in our family, and we wanted to cement us as a NEW family unit. We wanted some family memories and experiences that we made together that included Connor, since all of our family shorthand and memories are totally new to him. And since Keith and I have never lived in the same city as Connor, it gave us a chance to get to know him better by spending two weeks straight with him.

2016–St. Petersburg

Whenever there’s a new member of the family, I think you need that time to make new memories, so that they’re not always feeling left out, and so that you have a chance to feel more like a team all together!

7. You get away from screens

At home we’re constantly wired. We watch Netflix, we check social media, we answer emails. On vacation we often deliberately don’t have access to wifi 24/7. When camping there often aren’t signals! And on the cruise internet is super expensive, so we only used it sporadically in cafes. So you get to actually enjoy being together and play games together, rather than just spend time with screens.

(Although, of course, we all had our phones with us this year. Katie still had to instagram!)

2016–Copenhagen
8. Kids spend time with each other, not with friends

When you’re on vacation as a family, you have to spend time together. Kids have to entertain themselves together, and not with friends. And if your kids are in different classes at school and different activities after school and have different groups of friends, vacations can be one of the times that they actually learn how to relate as siblings again!

2010–Grand Canyon
9. You can catch up on hobbies and reading

I get most of my novel reading done on vacations. If I read a novel at home, I can’t stop, and then I don’t get any work done. But when there’s no work to do? It’s bliss! And my kids have always loved knitting and reading on vacations, too.

2008–Charleston Lake Park, Ontario
10. Something always go wrong–and that’s funny!

Finally, some of our best memories and the things that we laugh about the most are when things go wrong while you’re on vacation. Daddy takes a wrong turn and we end up on a detour with the GPS to telling us to drive straight into a lake. We head camping for a week and it rains the majority of the time, so we teach someone how to play chess.

The weather wasn’t the best on our cruise this summer, but that’s okay. We just went with it! And sometimes it’s those less than perfect moments when you have to improvise and just choose to laugh anyway that end up sticking with you.

2016–Helsinki

We all need time to destress, and to laugh, and to just experience things together. And vacations are great times to do that!

You know, I appreciate you all taking the time and comment over the weekend and on last week’s post on what you think of family vacations. I like feeling like this blog is a little bit of a conversation–it’s not just me speaking, it’s  you all speaking, too. That’s why I like the reader questions on Mondays so much, because I get to address what you all are asking. And I like it when we can talk about things, too.

So let’s talk about this more: why do you love family vacations? And best of all, any tips on doing it cheaply? Leave those tips and thoughts in the comments and let’s help each other!

 

 

 

 

The post Top 10 Reasons Family Vacations Rock–And Why You Should Take More of Them appeared first on To Love, Honor and Vacuum.

Reader Question: My Husband Spends More Time with Friends Than with Me!

Do you feel like your husband would rather spend time with friends than with you?

Every Monday I like to pull a reader question out of the files and take a stab at answering it. Today two women are facing a similar problem–their husbands spend more time with friends than with them!

One woman writes:

My husband is home on permanent disability, I work full time, and our kids are in daycare all day. His best friend lives next door, so all day he goes over with him. When I get home with the kids to do dinner, bath, and bed time….he says bye I’m going next door for a while.

Then he comes back, eats dinner, then leaves to go back over there till I put the kids in bed. Then instead of spending time watching tv, playing a board game, talking, having sex he goes back next door…till I get tired of waiting up and go to bed alone. I’m getting really tired of this, and I’ve attacked, nagged, gotten on his case about not spending time with me and choosing to spend all his time next door with his friend and his whole family.

I don’t know what to do to get him to want to spend more time with me, I’ve even left the house to go out with my own friends after the kids go to bed to see if he likes sitting by himself all night, he gets mad then if I come home to late. We used to have an amazing friendship, marriage before we had kids, and now it’s crap.

Another woman writes:

My husband and I get along well. We were friends first, for many years. We barely argue, let alone fight. However, his idea of “date night” is to go over to his single friend’s place and watch sports and play pool. It is sometimes 3x a week. I know he works hard and deserves to let off steam, but it’s gotten to the point where I feel like I’m the last thing on his list and that my needs go unheard. I have calmly,without guilt tactics or sarcasm, tried to tell him so many times, but nothing changes.

Our last date was 8 months ago. It’s not even the money. We have gift cards to restaurants that have gone unused. I feel like I’m good enough to be his cook & housekeeper but not to be taken out in public. How is it that he’s too tired to do something with me, but not too tired to hang out with his friend? (It’s not that he gets more validation from the friend than from me; I work hard at building him up. Wish he’d do it for me!) After 5 years of this, I’m starting to shut down. Since talking doesn’t get through to him, what do I do? Thank you.

I can just imagine how lonely these women must feel!

So here goes!

When there’s time that isn’t accounted for, people tend to think, “I can do what I want.”

If there’s nothing else planned, then it’s human nature to fill up your time with what you want to be doing. And many of us get into ruts. How many nights have you watched TV when you know that in the long run you would rather that you organized old photos, read a book, or even went for a jog? We tend to turn to what is easy and readily available rather than something that seemingly requires work.

Does your husband run out with friends most nights? Some thoughts if hubby's never home!
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Plan more activities and put them on a monthly schedule on the wall

If you want him to spend more time with you, then, perhaps you can try planning activities ahead of time? What about joining a small group at church that meets every Wednesday? Or perhaps saying that every Tuesday you’ll go to the gym and play racquetball to get some exercise. Or maybe even join a bowling league? It sounds geeky, but people have a lot of fun doing stuff like that. My husband and I took ballroom dancing lessons for years and it was a riot (plus we learned to dance!).

It is much harder for him to get up and leave to spend time with friends if there is another activity planned.

So I’d suggest planning some volunteer time (maybe you help lead the junior high at church once a week or something) and then planning some couple time where you’re doing something specific and regular. Even plan regular get togethers with other couples! (My daughter and her husband have a group of two other couples who get together every week to do something fun). Then, if he wants to spend time with friends on another night, it’s okay because you’ve got that time together already.

Another idea is to sit down with him and ask ahead of time: “How much time do you think is reasonable for us to spend with friends, and how much time should we spend as a couple?” Ask when you’re not already tense and angry with each other. And if you agree that once a week with friends is good, then get out the calendar and schedule it in: he has his friends on Saturday and you have your friends (or knitting group, or women’s Bible study) on another night.

Talk about big picture goals.

Often people don’t realize the long term impact of how they’re acting. Eating one little cookie doesn’t seem like much, but make a list of all the sugar you’re eating in a day and you realize how much it adds up! It’s the same with any habit like this: you don’t realize the long term ramifications because you’re only thinking about the short term.

If you can have a planning meeting with your husband (again, when you’re not upset, but you’re just talking), maybe you can work through some of my “visioning” printables to talk about where you want your family to be in 5 years or 10 years. Then ask, “how are we going to get there?” How are we going to teach our kids the lessons we want them to learn? How are we going to build our relationship? Don’t lecture to him–just ask the questions. This may encourage him to want to be more proactive about scheduling some family time.

Look for underlying reasons for him spending time with friends away from you–a lack of purpose?

People who have a strong sense of where they’re going and what they’re called to in life tend to spend their free time intentionally. People who have no sense of purpose or responsibility tend to drift and waste time.

Do you and your husband share a sense of purpose? Does he have one at all? I’m wondering about the first letter writer, especially, whose husband is on long term disability. He may just be struggling with his worth as a man if he can’t even work. There may even be some underlying depression going on. Finding him a purpose where he can serve at church or be useful in some other capacity could be the key to unlocking the relational side of him again.

If spouses spend more time with friends than with each other, there's a problem.
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A warning about abandonment

I am really concerned about letter writer #1, though, and I want to take this one step further. Assuming that she has tried to help him find purpose and that there isn’t an underlying depression involved, then it certainly sounds as if she has all the responsibility in the family and he has none of it. From just what she has said, she provides the income; she gets the kids to childcare; she takes care of meals and bedtimes. He does whatever he wants, whenever he wants, and does not interact with his wife or his children.

That is the definition of abandonment.

In biblical times, abandonment meant not providing for your family. Women had no means of earning wages, so they needed men’s wages to live. Today it’s murkier because many women are the primary breadwinners. But regardless of who earns the income, both individuals need to be caring for the family. If he is not just shirking his responsibilities but also living off of her work (I assume she makes the meals and does the laundry and provides most income), then he has effectively abandoned his family, forcing his wife to care for the family alone. The only difference is that he is still living in the house.

In 9 Thoughts That Can Change Your Marriage I was very clear that failing to provide for the family or do any of the family’s work is a sin, and it’s one area that definitely warrants outside intervention. So here are the steps that I would take, in a nutshell:

Pray hard for a period of weeks and ask God to reveal any shortcomings on your end, and to work on your husband’s heart.
THEN talk to a mentor couple, by yourself. Discuss what boundaries you can put in place to stop doing everything for him.
Ask that mentor couple to talk to you as a couple.
Seek counselling as a couple, especially to make sure there isn’t an underlying depression.
Ask some men to come alongside your husband and hold him accountable.
Consider next steps if the marriage doesn’t change.

The first 5 items should take place over a series of months, not days. And if you work through them, assuming that you are not married to a cold-hearted narcissist but simply to someone who is immature or going through a hard time, things really should improve.

But Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 7:15-16 that we are not bound if a spouse chooses to leave. This husband (assuming that the conclusions I drew from the letter writer are true, and that any mental illness struggles have been addressed) has chosen to leave, even if he is still under the same roof.

I think we as a church do tremendous harm by recognizing the “shell” of a marriage as a real marriage, rather than calling it what it is and urging the sinning spouse towards better behaviour. Instead, we often burden the spouse who is trying to keep everything together to do even more. (And I have seen women abandon their families in the exact same way, too. This is not a gender issue).

If a friend of yours is going through this, can you and your husband step in and support her and urge her husband on to better behaviour? Can you help her set appropriate boundaries? This kind of behaviour should not be acceptable, but when we talk about divorce as if it is the only sin, then we often enable people to continue to be lazy and to effectively abandon their family with no consequences. Let’s come alongside couples and urge them to better behaviour before things get to this point. The precious children in the middle of this situation, especially, need someone to advocate for them. After all, that’s what the body of Christ should be for!

The post Reader Question: My Husband Spends More Time with Friends Than with Me! appeared first on To Love, Honor and Vacuum.

A Few Things I’ve Really Enjoyed Lately

On Mondays I try to answer Reader Questions, on Tuesday I try to do a Top 10 post, on Wednesdays I always post about marriage, and on Fridays I try to post a 400-word inspirational marriage post. That works wonderfully for planning, but it means that sometimes I have things to share that don’t really fit on any particular day!

So today I’d really like to tell you about a few things that I’ve really enjoyed lately, because maybe you’d enjoy them, too!

Here goes:

Netflix Series–Turn

I am totally hooked on this. It is amazing. My husband and I have always been history buffs, but this is just such a well-done series about Washington’s spy network during the American Revolution. My youngest daughter is absolutely hooked, too, and we’ve convinced my oldest daughter and her husband to watch it as soon as their exams are over.

Keith and I just finished watching Season 3 before we left, and let me just say–Mary in Episode 5 with the gun. SO FUNNY. And so amazing. And surprising.

CBC Series–X-Company

Here’s another historical spy series, but this time it’s about Canadian spies in France during World War II. I think this is probably my favourite TV show ever. Even beating out Call the Midwife. You can watch episodes on the CBC website, though their streaming isn’t the best.

Movie–The Intern

When we were staying with friends in Pennsylvania this week on the beginning of our RV tour, we watched The Intern with Anne Hathaway and Robert DeNiro.

Oh, my goodness, what a great movie! It’s about a retired widower who had a great career, and is now trying to keep himself busy, and failing miserably. Meanwhile, a new ecommerce fledgling business is hiring senior citizen interns. So he joins an internet startup company, and even though he looks totally out of his league, soon those around him start to imitate him because they realize that the older generation has something important that the rest of us have lost.

I just loved the father-daughter type of relationship that developed between the two main characters. It’s really beautiful. And I don’t know–I guess I just related to Anne Hathaway’s character. She built this business that took off beyond what she intended, and it had major ramifications for her family. And she was trying so hard to balance it all, and feeling guilty at every turn.

I kind of feel like that’s been my life over the last few years. My husband has actually cut back on work in the last year so that he can do more with me and encourage my speaking. And there’s a big part of me that feels guilty for that, especially since Keith really enjoyed his job. But we’re enjoying our life here, too. It seems, though, that when it’s the woman who has a business, there are always tensions that aren’t there in the same way when it’s a guy. Keith and I and the girls have had to navigate it, but I did feel for Anne’s character.

It was just a great movie.

Speaking of Father-Daughter Relationships…

The other series we just love is Blue Bloods. But Netflix did something terrible!!!!! They realized that 90% of Canadians were using a patch to convince Netflix they were actually in the U.S., because American Netflix offerings are way better than Canadian Netflix offerings. Anyway, I realize that this isn’t exactly good, but we were all doing it (somehow I don’t think that’s a good excuse!

6 Things It’s Worth Spending Money On–and Not Worth Being Frugal!

Sometimes it’s better to spend the money and not be frugal.

I totally believe in being responsible financially. I’m a complete Dave Ramsey fanatic, and I love encouraging people to get out of debt and start building wealth–so that we have more resources that we can then bless others with (because that’s what it’s all about).

But at the same time, there are some things that aren’t worth scrimping on, for one of two reasons:

Either because scrimping now means you’ll pay more later;
Or because spending a little extra will make such a tremendous difference in your life.

Now I also believe that some things are just never worth the money. Buying beverages, for instance, is always a waste, and it’s so much better to invest in high quality hot and cold beverage containers and take your own along, or just order water at restaurants. In fact, buying beverages in the grocery store isn’t really worth it, either. Juice has too much sugar in it, and pop is bad for you. Drink water or milk or make your own iced teas.

Restaurants aren’t worth it, either. They tend to be super expensive, the food isn’t healthy, and it’s cheaper to buy a ready-made meal at a grocery store if you need to and then enjoy eating in.

Vacations are also overrated. My kids had just as much fun with a week at a Christian Family Camp as they did getting on a plane and going somewhere interesting and staying in expensive hotels.

And we have never in our lives bought a new car. We always buy used and let someone else pay for the depreciation!

So I completely agree that we certainly need to watch what we spend!

But over the years, I’ve come to the conclusion that certain things aren’t worth scrimping on, and are worth the money. See if you’re with me!

3 Areas Where Quality Matters–and Frugality Can Cost You in the Long Run:

6 Areas Where It's Not Worth Being Frugal--spending more now will save you money!
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1. High Quality Kids’ Beds & Bedding

We bought our kids way too many beds–a total of seven between the two of them. We had toddler beds and then we had bunk beds and then we bought the single beds with those drawers underneath. I think they’re made of particle board–is that the right term?

Anyway, the toddler beds were a waste of money. We could have moved them directly into single beds and saved that expense. But the particle board beds were just really poor quality. We thought we were getting something that was made well, but every single one of them broke after a few years. And we have girls! I can’t imagine what would happen to beds if we had had boys!

(Although, to be fair, the girls did have a lot of hugging contests on the bed like this one):

Once Rebecca was about 15 and her second particle bed broke, we decided that we would just buy a decent bed. So we found an extremely simple bed that was real wood, with thick slats. Pretty much indestructible. Once Katie’s bed broke a year or two later we bought her a wooden one, too.

It went with Katie to school.

It will stand the test of time. And I firmly believe that if we had just bought those wooden beds when the girls were toddlers, they would still be here, indestructible. No more particle board beds! The wooden ones weren’t even that much more expensive–maybe $120 more than the particle board beds. We would have made that back many times over.

Speaking of beds, about six years ago we splurged and bought high quality duvets and pillows. I cannot believe how much better I sleep! And again, they’ve outlasted all the comforters that we ever bought by far. Instead of constantly replacing comforters, we simply have good duvets that last. I think that’s worth it.

2. Good Shoes

I’m not one of those people who has 40 pairs of shoes. I’d actually rather have 10 that fit well and that are really high quality.

When the girls were 13 I started them on a clothing allowance. They got a certain amount of money every year, and they had to pay for their clothes out of that money. I still remember one shopping trip with Katie when she was 14. There were these gorgeous, really well-made Italian sandals for $110. Katie wanted them, but $110 was a lot of money. I convinced her to buy them because they were such a good investment.

Here she is wearing them on her 18th birthday trip:

The insoles wore out this year on her nineteenth birthday, after wearing them everyday every summer for five years, but you can get the insoles replaced at a shoe repair place for about $20. So she’s going to pay for that. These are awesome shoes.

I have a pair of leather ankle boots that I love. They’re my go-to boots for spring and fall. I even wear them when I speak!

I bought them two years ago, and they’ve held up so well. But last spring the heels wore out. So I spent $20 to get the heels replaced, and voila–brand new boots!

I’d rather spend $120 on a pair of good shoes that lasts years then $30 on a bunch of shoes that don’t last and aren’t as comfortable.

3. Five Good Looking Outfits

It is less expensive to buy fewer outfits that you will actually wear and that you feel great in than to buy dozens of items from discount racks that you end up hating and that make you feel frumpy.

I cannot stress this enough. 

When women feel pretty, we’re more confident in the rest of our lives. We’re more confident sexually, we’re more confident with our husbands, we’re even better able to meet our goals.

But many of us feel guilty spending any money on ourselves, so we buy cheap clothes that don’t fit well and we end up feeling ugly. Go through my series on fighting the frump from a few years back and see why good quality clothes are worth it! Don’t go overboard, but buy a few outfits that will get you through the week. And then mix & match and feel great, instead of living in clothes that make you feel ugly.

3 Areas Where Time is of the Essence–and Sometimes It’s Worth Paying Extra to Get More Time

Sometimes it's worth spending the extra money to get more family time. Don't feel guilty!
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4. Food In a Pinch

How many times do you order pizza because you have no time to cook and you don’t know what to make anyway? Or maybe you get takeout on the way home (or even head to a restaurant with your family) because you didn’t have time to grocery shop?

I could tell you to make better meal plans and I could tell you to get more organized, but let’s face it: sometimes life just happens. And I think it’s important to have contingency plans, knowing that life can never be perfect.

Instead of ordering pizza, for instance, could you buy some healthy ready-made dinners and put them in the freezer, to use only in the case of emergency? I did this when the kids were little, and it saved me many nights!

5. Food Delivery

This one’s not for everybody, but it’s a GREAT idea for some people. Let me tell you about Chef’s Plate, a Canadian company that will send you all the ingredients you need to make a fresh, healthy home-cooked meal, with the recipe and all the instructions. It’s actually really cool! They contacted me to ask if I’d be interested, but since I’m on the road on a speaking tour, I asked them to send two sample meals to my daughter Rebecca and her husband Connor.

Every week you can choose from 7 recipes (for the 2-person plan) or 4 recipes (for the family plan). The meals run about $10.95 per person, which is cheaper than a restaurant. It arrives at your door in a refrigerated package, and then you just cook it when you want to. All the instructions are there!

The kids ordered grilled dijon chicken and steak fajitas. Rebecca said they tasted amazing! And it was super easy.

Rebecca has a friend who is a busy entrepeneur who has used Chef’s Plate for years. He got tired of eating out at restaurants, and was worried about his health with all the restaurant food, so he went to Chef’s Plate. They do the shopping and the thinking for you–you just have to cook. But the recipes are always super fast ones!

Again, it’s not for everyone, but I can definitely see the benefits of this if you’re a two-income family and time is your most precious resource. I know when the kids were little we ate out far too many times because I was just too busy to cook. If I had just admitted it to myself and said, “I know we’re going to go to a restaurant once a week anyway” and gotten Chef’s Plate instead, I would have ended up saving us some money and eating better.

Chef’s Plate is available in most regions of Canada, and if you sign up using the code #TOLOVEHONORANDVACUUM, you’ll get 3 plate credits off of your first order (which is awesome!).

Check it out here!

Not in Canada? There are likely similar services near you.

6. House Cleaning Service

My life got so much easier when I finally hired a housekeeper last year and stopped trying to do it all myself! If a housekeeper won’t break the bank, then sometimes it’s worth hiring out those jobs that take a lot of our time, so that we have more time for our families or just to have some down time. The same goes for lawn cutting services, snow shovelling services, or even mending clothes. If you’re chronically busy and chronically exhausted and you do have some extra money, then blessing someone who really needs the income can definitely be worth it.

So there you go–six areas where I definitely would invest extra money, while continuing to be responsible and frugal in other areas of your life. Now I’d love to know–do you agree with me? Or what would you add to the list? 

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