By Lavern Nissley, Tuesday@10:10 blog post

You've heard it many times. "Practice makes perfect". That may be true for certain technical or physical skills like welding, sewing, diving, gymnastics, etc.

But in relationships there is no such thing as perfection. Even couples who have been married and "practicing" for over half a century . . . perfection is quite elusive. In fact, the longer the relationship, the more realistic the expectation that perfection is simply not attainable.

Ron and Cathy Tijerina, co-directors of The Ridge Project in McClure, Ohio, emphasize in their relationship trainings that "practice makes permanent". So while there is no "perfection status" payoff to practicing various skills, couples who keep working on those skills will see increased health, vitality and permanence.

The Tijerina's story of Ron's 15 year incarceration for a crime he didn't commit is chronicled in their book High Five, which includes 5 solid principles for building a forever family:

• Friendship
• Faithfulness
• Forgiveness
• Fairness
• Fortitude

Check out this helpful resource and experience the inspiration of this couple's story of putting into practice 5 principles that not only left their own marriage intact, but that has touched hundreds of other marriages as well.

With perfection out of reach (for you or your partner), you can relax and simply work together on building permanence.

By Lavern Nissley for Tuesday@10:10 blogpost

Our 37th anniversary dinner on December 29 kind of ended in a train wreck. Somehow we got into a tangle about expectations surrounding finances. Emotion. Escalation. Exasperation. Things said that we regretted. If you've been married any length of time, you get the picture. More on how it worked out later.

February 7-14 is National Marriage Week, timed to coincide with Valentine's Day. "Love" is a big thing this time of year with all kinds of nice flowers, hearts, candies and items that say "love is in the air". And marriage, of all human relationships, should reflect the presence of love, right?

But is love ALL we need?

No.

Love IS an important ingredient in any human relationship. But, talking marriages now . . . it sure isn't the ONLY thing we need. We also need SKILLS on how to communicate and how to resolve conflicts productively. Without those skills love has a way of "cooling off" and damaging relationships.

The 8 hour RINGS Experience for couples is a way to learn, practice and implement habits and skills that really keep the love "hot". Here's what several people had to say about the class:

• "This class brought us an intimacy level that we had been lacking for about a year."
• "Thank you so much! I had a very negative opinion of this course and marriage prior to today, but WOW, what 8 hours will do!"
• "Great experience! I now feel if we use these tools, our marriage can be saved."

Back to our ill-fated anniversary dinner. We still struggle and have to work hard in our marriage, even after 37 years. But we're so glad for the tools/skills we've acquired along the way to help us navigate the inevitable train wrecks. We were able to talk through our conflict productively in about 30 minutes and end our 37th anniversary on a positive note.

​Love wasn't the only thing we needed. Several simple relationship skills quickly got us back on track after the derailment.

Guest testimonial by Emily and Carl Wilson for Tuesday@10:10 blog post

Before mentoring we had trouble talking about issues and differences. We weren't very open about feelings. Frustration would build until it couldn't anymore. Our relationship was good, but not what it could be. We chose to pursue mentoring as a decision together.

We had taken RINGS to learn more about ourselves and how to better our relationship. It went so well we wanted to continue in mentoring. It was to bring a new meaning into our lives. Mentoring made our marriage stronger. It improved us as parents and as people. We forget sometimes to use tools for things we learned that will better our relationship, but always bounce back how we should. No matter how hard a situation becomes, we are able to figure it out instead of giving up.

Renewal mentoring by David and Tina Cotto

By Lavern Nissley for Tuesday@10:10 blogpost

You are going to love what I came across this past week! A website of exceptional love stories. Good, heartfelt, sometimes painful love stories. Here is a description:

"At I Believe in Love, we invite ordinary young adults to share their hopes and their worries, their triumphs and their struggles on the journey to marriage and family life. We believe that through writing we can better understand our personal stories and re-write a better story about lasting love and marriage in America." --ibelieveinlove.com

The video below provides a quick look at the scope and impact of these love stories.

And get this, the I believe in love Facebook page currently has 28,506 likes! That's a lot of love!

Here at Marriage Resource Center of Miami Valley we are all about love stories. Especially if we can get to "lasting love and marriage in America."

​Please take a few minutes to explore this inspiring website. And maybe write/submit your own love story.

Guest testimonial by Leiah and Justin Abshear
for Tuesday@10:10 blog post

My husband, Justin, and I decided to pursue mentoring because we wanted to get married and we wanted to be better prepared for that. Not only did our mentor couple meet with us multiple times before our wedding, we also met throughout the first year of marriage! This was extremely helpful because they gave us so many tools to prepare for marriage and then helped us utilize them correctly in order to get through that crazy first year of married life. 

We felt so comfortable with our mentors and often sought their advice. They gave helpful hints and shared personal experiences which made us feel normal and connected. Upon learning that we were Christians, they gave us some amazing and practical verses to use and helped keep our focus on God. They were two of the kindest people and helped make our first year of marriage spectacular!

Premarital mentoring by Brian and Lisa Case​

CLICK for more info on marriage mentoring

By Lavern and Ronda Nissley
How we were forever affected by a marriage retreat and home invasion in March, 1990 - 11 years into our marriage.
 
In March of 1990 we were invited to attend a weekend Marriage Seminar by a friend of ours. At that time, we had been married for 11 years, had 3 kids (1, 7 and 10 years of age) and were well immersed in our respective careers – Lavern as a Pastor, Ronda as a Financial Analyst. We didn’t really feel like OUR marriage needed help, but we agreed to go to find resources for “the other couples” in our church.

That weekend changed the course of our marriage in two important ways. (1) We made a commitment to pray together on a daily basis;  (2) We became intentional about developing a “one-flesh” marriage where we worked side-by-side – completing each other instead of competing with each other.

That weekend also birthed within us a calling and heart passion for marriage ministry. We envisioned the rest of our lives invested in other marriages as we ourselves lived out God’s original blueprint for marriages from Genesis 2:21-25.
At the end of the weekend we gathered our children around us and let them know that things would be different – that we were committing to pray with each other and for our family on a daily basis. Little did we know how important that commitment would become in the days and weeks ahead.

Two days later we woke up to discover the incomprehensible. While we were sleeping, our home was invaded and an unknown male entered through a basement window and victimized our 10-year old daughter.  Ronda found our daughter in her bedroom – pale and trembling uncontrollably.  It took us days to comprehend fully what had happened.

In the aftermath – the trip to the ER, the interviews, the detectives, the counselors, the reactions of family and friends, the investigation, the suspects – we sought to make sense of the senseless. We were scared. We were angry – angry at God; angry at the offender (whoever he was); angry at the police; angry at insensitive comments. The next night we all slept in one room with the door barricaded and a baseball bat nearby – the man had threatened to come back and kill her if she told anyone. A friend offered us a handgun. We were ready to do anything to protect our family.

Out of our hurt, we prayed. Within a month we launched a marriage group in our living room. We taught our first marriage class, and we shared openly about our journey while attempting to practice what we were teaching. In hindsight, we believe the principles and skills we learned kept our marriage from blowing apart during that traumatic and stressful time in our lives. Gradually, the healing came, and we began to put our lives back together. The offender was apprehended 18 months later in Florida.

We continued to lead marriage groups and retreats within our church and around the country, while continuing with our “day jobs” – dreaming about some day working together exclusively in marriage ministry. That “some day” opportunity arrived in 2005 with an invitation to assume directorship of the fledgling Marriage Savers of Clark County – the predecessor of Marriage Resource Center of Miami Valley.
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We believe there is another type of home invasion experienced all too often by far too many families across this country – DIVORCE. It tears apart families and destroys the innocence of children.  We commit ourselves with the same intensity with which we defend our own family to supporting other marriages and equipping couples with the tools to go the distance. We commit to walking the journey with couples - not having arrived ourselves, but always learning. We commit to encourage, inspire, support and raise up other champions for the cause of healthy marriages.
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What we do is not just a job….it’s our life.