Claudia and David Arp, MSW
David and Claudia Arp, MSW, founders of Marriage Alive Seminars, are marriage educators, columnists and authors of numerous books and small group video curriculum including "The Second Half of Marriage and 10 Great Dates" (Zondervan). You can visit their website: www.marriagealive.com
How Much Do You Know About Your Mate?
How much do you really know about your mate? Most couples tend to talk about everything except themselves, so you may be surprised to discover how much you don’t know about your mate’s personal likes and dislikes — no matter how long you’ve been married. To discover what your mate is thinking and to find […] Read More >
Letting Go and Moving On
Entering the empty nest for us was a benchmark in our lives. Some things changed forever. For instance, from this time on we would catalogue our lives as BC (before children) and AC (after children). Faced with so many life changes, we did what we often do – we made a list. For us, making […] Read More >
Loving Your In-laws
Judging from all the in-law jokes, in-law relationships may be the most neglected and abused of all family relationships. How can you build healthy relationships with your spouse’s parents? The more mutual respect and enjoyment you experience with your in-laws, the more security and stability you and your spouse will enjoy in your marriage. So […] Read More >
Marriage: Follow the Golden Rules
At a recent wedding reception we met a delightful couple who had just celebrated their 54th wedding anniversary. They were in their eighties, but you could have fooled us! Articulate. Charming. And the way they smiled at each other was more like the bridal pair than an older married couple. They had just finished reading […] Read More >
Overcome the Winter Blahs
It’s still a couple of weeks until spring and the weather can still sometimes be depressing. The kids may be bored and your relationships may be suffering. What can you do to beat the winter blahs and energize your marriage and family? Consider the following: 1. Go fitness walking at a local mall before the […] Read More >
Put the Kids to Bed!
We love what Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “There never was a child so lovely but his [parents] were glad to get him asleep.” Getting the kids to bed can be a challenge – especially with challenging kids. We still remember how our first child had us trained at age 20 months to sit in the […] Read More >
Take a Parenting Check-up
One scary thing about parenting is it’s a temporary job. Our active parenting days are numbered and we need to count them. How many parenting days do you still have? If your youngest child is five years old, you can assume he will be leaving the nest at around age eighteen, so that gives you […] Read More >
Tell Him Why You Love Him
How can you spur your mate toward love and good deeds? By accentuating the positive and minimizing the negative! Then you can do a better job of affirming each other. Before marriage, it’s easy to look for the positive. But once we say “I do” the stars in our eyes begin to fade and we […] Read More >
What Makes A Great Date?
A prerequisite for a great date is that little four-letter-word, T-I-M-E! Time is our most precious commodity. Really, when you think about it, time is more valuable to a marriage than money. And we each have twenty-four hours a day, no more, no less. But we know first hand how hard it is to find […] Read More >
Why Don’t You Throw a Party!
In our fast-paced world, hospitality is a much needed gift. And it can be a gift to our neighbours as well as a gift to our marriage. We can get so busy that we don’t really spend time with others, have few couple friendships, and sometimes hardly know our neighbours. But if we are to […] Read More >