A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.

-Mignon McLaughlin

I can’t believe we’ve been married for NINE years (and together for nearly fifteen).  It really does get better every day because we choose to love each other the best that we can.

Happy Anniversary, Bethany!  Thanks for keeping me around.

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Check out the original post and leave a comment on the blog here: Nine Years

Tags: My Story

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I am excited to share with you the winners of our Get Rich Slowly giveaways this week!  I chose each one based on how many entries they had using a random selection from Random.org.  Here’s the rundown:

Michelle won a copy of You Need A Budget which will help her and her husband meet their financial goal of “staying out of debt as they start adding to their family.”  If you haven’t read my review of YNAB, please take a minute to do so and check this software out for yourself.  I truly love it!

Lesley won a copy of Your Money: The Missing Manual by leaving a comment on our Facebook page.  If you haven’t joined us there yet, please come over and see what 415+ folks are doing as an engaged Facebook community!

Amy won a copy of The Total Money Makeover as part of our first (of many) exclusive giveaways for those signed up for the Marriage Time newsletter.  Join us there for some unique content, personal interaction and of course some Marriage Mojo!

I really want to thank everyone who participated in these giveaways all week.  It has been an incredible week as many friends from Get Rich Slowly have joined our community after clicking over from my guest post there.  I also really enjoyed hearing all of your financial goals on the YNAB post, and all of the kind comments left on the Facebook page and sent via email really made my week special.

The 7 Days of Sex Challenge from ONE Extraordinary Marriage

I also wanted to call your attention to an awesome challenge being put together by my friends and partners in marriage improvement Tony and Alisa DiLorenzo at ONE Extraordinary Marriage.  Please check out their announcement post and consider signing up for the 7 Days of Sex Challenge!

Tony and I recently had a fun discussion about date nights, and he recorded it to share as a prize for one of the many giveaways they’re doing for the challenge.  I was honored to add my time and thoughts as a sponsor of this great challenge where they seek to help couples fire up the intimacy in their marriages.

Check it out…and Go Cards!

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Check out the original post and leave a comment on the blog here: Announcing the Giveaway Winners & A Sex Challenge!

Tags: Blog Progress, Free Stuff

Related posts:

1. Announcing “Improve Yourself! 2010″
2. Book Review & Giveaway! “Improve Your Marriage” by Russell A. Irving
3. Check This Out: ONE Extraordinary Marriage

With growth comes new readers, so I put together this post (which will become a permanent “tab” at the top of site) to give a quick overview of what we do here at Engaged Marriage.

Who Is Writing This and What’s This Site All About?

First of all, my name is Dustin Riechmann and I created Engaged Marriage.  That’s me pretending to be strong in the picture.  That’s actually not a photo of Illinois where I live.  It’s Cancun, Mexico where we vacationed for a week in August 2009.

This is sort of relevant because it was during that vacation that the idea for this site started stirring in my mind.  My wife thought it was just some sort of delirium brought on by too much cheap tequila, but it turns out that the idea stuck.

I would really encourage you to spend a few minutes reading the About page since it provides the best overview of what this site is, well, all about.

In a nutshell, a central theme of the posts here at Engaged Marriage is candid and practical advice that you can learn and put into action without a huge time commitment.  Alongside the “action items,” you’ll find healthy doses of motivation in the form of humor, personal stories and spiritual reflections.

This site is not a “typical” marriage resource like many books and even some other blogs.  I’m not a PhD or a counselor. And I’m not here to fix serious problems or provide therapy.  This site is for those that have good (or at least pretty good) marriages and want to make the most of it.

I’m living the crazy life of a husband and father with all of the demands that come with it.  I understand it’s a very real struggle to find time to devote to improving your married life.  I know how it feels to struggle to even keep up with the everyday requirements that we face as couples in the earlier years of our marriage. I know it’s hard.  But I also know that it’s totally worth it.

Here Is Some Suggested Reading

The best way to see if Engaged Marriage resonates with you is to read some of the posts here.  You can browse all of the posts if you’d like, but I’d suggest you begin by checking out a few of these:

Fight Fair! 6 Simple Conflict Resolution Skills for Your Marriage

Take 15 Minutes Each Day to Just Be a Couple

I Love My Wife Enough to Shop at Wal-Mart

Help! What Are Your Top Parenting Tips?

How Does Natural Family Planning Benefit Marriage?

Write an Awesome Romantic Love Letter: The Simple “5R” Approach

Should Married Couples Have Joint or Separate Bank Accounts?

How Marriage Helped Make Me a Christian

Love Everyday: Thoughts On Loving Amidst the Chaos of Life (an awesome and totally FREE collaborative e-book)

I’m Digging This Place, Now What?

If you think you’d fit in here and enjoy reading more stuff from me and some talented guest-posters, I’d strongly encourage you to sign up to have new posts sent to you (for free) to read at your convenience.  You can have these delivered right to your Email or RSS news feed reader.  You can read more about these options at our Don’t Miss a Thing page.

Aside from the blog, you can connect with me and other great members of our community on the Engaged Marriage Facebook page and on Twitter.

And always feel free to contact me at any time.  I love to receive feedback, suggestions, questions and proposals for high-quality and original guest posts.

Welcome to our community!  We are happy you are here.

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Check out the original post and leave a comment on the blog here: New Here? Welcome to Engaged Marriage!

Related posts:

1. I Need Your Help! Help Engaged Marriage “Grow Up” the Right Way.
2. New Header for Engaged Marriage (I Hope You Can See It!)
3. Engaged Marriage has a Facebook Page!

I am excited to announce that Corey at Simple Marriage has graciously asked me to join his team as a monthly columnist. Simple Marriage is one of my favorite sites, and I’m confident it’s a place Engaged Marriage readers will enjoy and feel at home.  Corey is an excellent writer, a devout Christian and an all-around awesome proponent of great marriages…through simplicity.

I will providing monthly posts on the topic of Careers & Money.  This is an area where I have a lot of interest and passion, and I am thrilled to have the opportunity to spread the word about the power of pursuing work that you love, living with a plan and achieving family financial freedom.  It’s a vital part of having an extraordinary marriage.

I would really appreciate it if you could take a minute to visit Simple Marriage and read the announcement post. It would mean a great deal to me if you could show your support in this way, and we would both love to hear from you in the comments section.  Feel free to share your thoughts here or there about topics you’d like to see covered in the area of Careers & Money (I have two places to write about it now).  While you’re there, also check out the rest of the Simple Marriage writing team.

Welcome to the Readers of Simple Marriage !

If you are a visitor from Simple Marriage, I would like to welcome you to Engaged Marriage and say Thank You for taking the time to come over for a look.  While you are here, I’d encourage you to check out the “About” page to get a feel for the motivation behind the site, and please take a look around and check out some posts.

If you like what you see, please Don’t Miss a Thing! and take a moment to sign up to get updates by email or subscribe via RSS. I also love to interact with new friends through the Engaged Marriage Facebook Page.

The mission of Engaged Marriage basically boils down to this: I want to help good people achieve the extraordinary in marriage and in life!

As a starting point, I recommend checking out these posts to get a flavor for the content here:

Take 15 Minutes Each Day to Just be a Couple

Write an Awesome Romantic Love Letter: The Simple “5R” Approach

37 Family Things to Do at Home on a Rainy Sunday

Fight Fair! 6 Simple Conflict Resolution Skills for Your Marriage

How Does Natural Family Planning Benefit Marriage?

Thanks again to Corey for this opportunity, and thank you all for your continued support of Engaged Marriage and the pursuit of Extraordinary Marriages.

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Check out the original post and leave a comment on the blog here: Guess Who’s a New Monthly Columnist at Simple Marriage?

Tags: Blog Progress, Career, Finances, Guest Post, Welcome

Related posts:

1. I Need Your Help! Help Engaged Marriage “Grow Up” the Right Way.
2. Review of A Simple Marriage by Dr. Corey Allan

Well, please accept my sincere thanks once again because you have been such a vital part of spreading the message that Extraordinary Marriages are possible, and we shouldn’t settle for “normal” when it comes to the most important relationship in our life.  Many of you have become my friends, and I am confident that you’ve imparted more wisdom on me than I’ve shared in return.  Thank you!

A Few of My Favorite Posts

As we start unfolding the New Year, I thought it would be fun to take a few minutes and look back through the 63 posts I have published since my initial Welcome message back on August 21st along with the nearly 620 comments you’ve shared in return.  By the way, you can do the same at anytime by clicking on the “Browse Posts” tab at the top of the page, which lists every post by category and the number of comments you’ve graced it with.

Of course, the Top Ten (most viewed) posts are always highlighted under the “Greatest Hits” at the bottom of the page.  While these are the most popular posts, they aren’t necessarily my personal favorites.  Some of my earliest posts didn’t get any attention, but I still think they’re pretty cool.

So, here’s my list of the lesser-read but still my favorite posts from 2009 (all four months of it ):

• Take 15 Minutes Each Day to Just be a Couple
• Attention Ladies: Your Husband Cannot Read Your Mind!
• Dave Ramsey’s Baby Steps: A Real Path to Family Financial Freedom
• How Does Natural Family Planning Benefit Marriage?
• 7 Ways Children Teach Us About God
• Go Sit in a Tree! (and Improve Your Marriage)
• Write an Awesome Romantic Love Letter: The Simple “5R” Approach
• Get Fit & Have a Healthy Marriage, Part 3-Where Do I Find the Time?
• Announcing “Improve Yourself! 2010″ (OK, this isn’t really an old post but I love it…join before Jan. 5th!)

Here’s wishing everyone an incredible, marriage-building 2010!

I’d love to hear from you in the comments to this post.  What was your favorite post(s) from Engaged Marriage in 2009?

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Check out the original post and leave a comment on the blog here: Some Old Posts for the New Year

Tags: Blog Progress, Link Round Up

Related posts:

1. What is Your Favorite Time of the Year?
2. Big News for Our Family & A Happy New Year’s Link Round-Up
3. Top 10 Posts of 2010 (so far)