Dealing With “I Love You, But…”

On this episode of Intentional Marriage, co-hosts and married couple – Justin and Cresta Burt – talk about how we sometimes let emotions dictate the course of our lives and how it’s important to try not to.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Just look at our political spectrum, whatever side you’re on there’s good people and bad people. So many people are letting their emotions dictate their responses to things. One of the things you really need to pay attention to in your marriage is not to get caught up in your emotions. That’s not to say emotions are bad, but we too often get caught up in our emotions.
• In marriage we get stuck in ruts, good, bad or otherwise and we become friends, roommates, “I love this person but I’m not in love with them anymore.” What they’re saying in reality is that they still love you, there are still feelings there, but there’s no longer that emotion high, that lust for desire or adventure, there’s not that spark that we get when relationships are new. If that’s something you’re feeling in your marriage it’s not a bad thing, it’s a good thing, because now you know there’s something you can go work on to rekindle that.
• Sometimes as men when we mess up our wives have a right to be angry with us and lash out at us. It’s our job to stay strong and realise that we’ve made mistakes. The same is true for wives if the wife is in the wrong. Don’t get upset if your spouse gets angry at you after you’re trying to repair this, that is a natural human reaction to you doing something wrong. If they’re showing some emotion they care about you and the relationship still, you may have hurt them or lost a little bit of trust but they care and you’ve got to let them go through that healing process. Sometimes that means being lashed out at.
• There are things you can do like go on date nights to repair some of the brokenness in the relationship. If you’re repairing a marriage you may not experience that physical intimacy as far as lovemaking is concerned, but you’ll get the emotional intimacy and you’ll start laying the framework to rebuilding. You need to get that emotional connection back.

BEST MOMENTS
‘You can’t be emotional and logical at the same time, your brain just doesn’t work that way.’
‘A marriage is in trouble if there’s zero emotion. When there’s zero reaction to anything, I don’t know that there’s a turning back.’
‘Be careful what you say, there should not be any “nuts” in “I love you”, it should be “I love you AND this is where my mind is”. The “but” says “I don’t love you”.’
‘One thing that I recommend people don’t say is: “I love you, but you need to calm down”! I was a 911 dispatcher and the words “calm down” it’s going to make it so much worse. Tell them they need to take a deep breath, but don’t tell them to calm down.’

ABOUT THE HOSTS
Justin and Cresta Burt are marriage coaches who specialise in helping couples regain their intimacy inside and outside the bedroom. They share how their Intentional Marriage principles can help couples find their "Happily Ever After."
Though they have a great sense of humour and enjoy making people laugh, Justin and Cresta take their work seriously. They know that marriages can be healed and relationships can be restored when both partners are intentional about making things better.

CONTACT METHOD
Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/intentionalmarriagecoaching
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/intentionalmarriagecoaching/  

marriage,counselling,support,improvement,relationshi