Couples often live out years of falsehood trying to protect and save a relationship, all the while destroying any chance of real relationship.

For someone's character to grow, it has to be free from internal attack. Falling down never stopped children from developing. But getting yelled at, criticized, and put down can stop them for life.

Leave your pride, ego, and narcissism somewhere else. Reactions from those parts of you will reinforce your children's most primitive fears.

Because dating is a human exercise, it can be a tightrope fraught with danger. You will be dating imperfect people, and some of them are more imperfect than others. In addition, you are not perfect either, so that complicates the picture.

When we can't hold back, or set boundaries, on what comes from our lips, our words are in charge-not us. But we are still responsible for those words. Our words do not come from somewhere outside of us, as if we were a ventriloquist's dummy. They are the product of our hearts. Our saying, "I didn't mean that," is probably better translated, "I didn't want you to know I thought that about you." We need to take responsibility for our words. "But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken" (Matt. 12:36).

We have our own thoughts, and if we want others to know them, we must tell them.

It is true that you get what you tolerate.