BETTER TOOLS CREATE BETTER MARRIAGES

By Mike Peters

Suppose you and I were walking down a street and came across a man trying to build a house. We can see he's working very hard at his task. As we watch him, we notice that he is nailing together the frame of his house with a tool. The tool is a screwdriver. He's nailing the two-by-fours into the frame with the back of a screwdriver! His hand is all bloodied where the nail heads have slipped off the back of the screwdriver and continually scraped his skin. We can't stand watching this any longer. We approach the man and say, "you know, sir, there is this great tool that's very effective for driving nails into wood...it's called a hammer."

But what if, for some reason, the man had never heard of a hammer? What if he didn't know such a tool even existed? Imagine how much easier his life just became! Imagine how much more effective a house-builder he can now be.

I see couples all the time who want to build a better marriage. But their relationship is bruised and bloodied because the tools they are using only make things worse...

I see couples all the time who want to build a better marriage.  But their relationship is bruised and bloodied because the tools they are using only make things worse.  They are desparate to save their marriage, to avoid a divorce, but the tools they are using to resolve conflict, to deal with old hurts, to solve financial problems, and to create more intimacy aren't effective.  These couples are just like the man with the screwdriver who needed to know about a hammer.

Better tools create better marriages. Most couples in distressed marriages need a clearer picture of what it means to be in a healthy relationship. They need tools that actually work. And, of course, they need to use the better tools they discover. What would you and I think if we offered the man building a house a hammer and he said, "no thanks, I'll just stay with the screwdriver."

If you are trying to save your marriage, you need better tools than the ones you are currently using. That's why I encourage my readers to check out websites like Mort Fertel's Marriage Fitness. This website is full of practical tools provided by a relationship specialist who has years of experience in saving distressed marriages. It's time to drop the screwdriver and pick up the hammer, don't you think?