stories on Marriage

Ray Johnston, in The Hope Quotient , shares a remarkable insight from a leading psychologist who had spent his career helping deeply troubled married couples rebuild their relationships after yea...

George Matheson was just entering the bewildering teenage years when doctors informed him he was going blind. Undeterred, he pressed on with his education and graduated from the University of Glasgow ...

A classic mission dilemma: The chief of a village in a remote area, whose people practice a tribal religion, becomes a believer and declares the whole village is now Christian. Most of the leading m...

Where do you turn for marriage advice when you aren’t religious? This is becoming an ever-increasing question as western cultures become more and more secular. One option is to turn to the London-base...

I once asked a psychologist who had been in practice for over forty years what is the most common regret his clients felt. Without hesitation, he said, “Selfishness.” Why was I not the spouse or paren...

The daily e-newsletter 1440, tries to share regular stories of human kindness. This one, from Carl G. in Noblesville, Indiana, is quite touching:  My daughter just got married and was on Southwest...

Famed scientist Albert Einstein once delivered an ultimatum to his first wife, Mileva Maric. True to his scientific nature, Einstein expressed his demands without any trace of kindness or empathy, ins...

When Elizabeth Dole was appointed Secretary of Transportation by President Reagan in 1985, the media focused on the Dole marriage—her as a cabinet member, and him as a powerful senator. After a photo ...

During an interview that took place during the 1976 presidential election, Rosalynn Carter was asked what her husband, Jimmy Carter, had that his opponent, Gerald Ford, didn’t. She responded simply, “...

If you’ve ever watched a war movie, or a film that takes place in the military, you’re likely to have encountered a specific scene, in which a subordinate will have something to tell a senior officer ...

Too many young guys are waiting for writing in the sky before they make a relational commitment. It doesn’t have to be that complicated. My grandpa DeYoung met my grandma on his paper route. Then they...

Years ago, a friend gave me this counsel: “Make a list of all the lives you would affect by your sexual immorality.” I did. Every so often I reread it. “Denalyn. My three daughters. My son-in-law. My ...

Francis Chan tells the story of Domingo and Irene Garcia: He’s a mechanic. She’s a hairdresser. They have been foster parents to thirty-two children and have adopted sixteen. Domingo and Irene are in...

At one point in his career, Themistocles was overheard saying that his young son ruled all of Greece. When his talking companion asked him to explain, he said, “Athens holds sway over all Greece; I do...

Not too long ago, there was a CEO of a Fortune 500 company who pulled into a service station to get gas. He went inside to pay, and when he came out, he noticed his wife engaged in a deep discussion w...

Once, while on vacation, on our way to church, Terri and I got into a disagreement over something. When I felt I was losing, to make my point, I stopped the car and got out. We were on a country road....

One of the most compelling love stories in our time involves a couple who, in the beginning, lived an ocean apart. He was a scruffy old Oxford bachelor, a Christian apologist and an author of bestsell...

Had it not been for a confident wife, Sophia, we might not have listed among the great names of literature the great name of Nathaniel Hawthorne. When Nathaniel, a heartbroken man, went home to tell h...

My husband says my ability to talk is what first attracted him to me. He loved how I could work a room, making the shy ones feel included. I could converse with the college president and yuck it up wi...

Years ago Wendy and I were out to dinner and she observed that something was different about our marriage in recent years, something good. She asked me if I had any insight into what it was. After ref...

In his celebrated book The Five Love Languages, Gary Chapman tells a story about a husband and wife struggling to relate. When the husband asked his wife, “On a scale of zero to ten, how’s your love t...

One summer I spoke at a church in Pennsylvania, and a young woman came up to me afterward. She and her boyfriend were talking about marriage. She asked my advice, and we discussed her boyfriend’s stre...

One day we were out running errands. The radio in my car was playing in the background, and between songs there was an advertisement for an online dating service. The spokesman-doctor-expert guy was d...

Their first night home after their honeymoon, Paul set his alarm clock, turned off the lamp, fell onto the pillow, and said to his wife of six days, Rachel, “I’ve got to leave for work at six, so can ...

When my friend Wayne and his wife, Diane, were expecting their first child, they started praying for their baby. They believed prayer was their primary parental responsibility, so why wait till their ...

One day the fair was in town and a father of five children decided it was a good opportunity to give his wife a break. When they arrived, the father, who was quite the shot, knew instantly what game h...

R. Paul Stevens, Professor Emeritus at Regent College, was visiting the Wedding Church in Cana of Galilee with his wife Gail when a hilarious event took place. After introducing himself to the residen...

A man was dying and he called his wife to his bedside. He affectionately told her he loved her but he also had to confess something to her. “I haven’t been 100% faithful to you in our marriage. I’m so...

In Thornton Wilder’s play The Skin of Our Teeth the character Mrs. Antrobus says to her spouse, ‘I didn’t marry you because you were perfect. I married you because you gave me a promise.’ She takes ...

A few years ago Christian friends of ours, after several years of marriage, came to see Esther and me to explain that their relationship had reached an impasse and that they could see no alternative b...