Dr. Gary & Barb Rosberg are award-winning authors and marriage experts from the U.S. Here in Singapore recently to unveil the 6 secrets for a strong marital intimacy during The Great Marriage Experience Conference, they specifically coached couples on guarding the marriage and family relationship against the lures of status and stuff, success, passivity and control, career and family with remarkable insight and timeless principles.
Married since 1975, Gary & Barb have two married daughters and seven grandchildren.
Why ‘The Great Marriage Experience’? What does it mean?
‘The Great Marriage Experience’ happened when Barb and I identified 6 different secrets to a lasting love a few years ago. We really believe that we want every marriage to go from good to great, hence the name. Who doesn’t want a great marriage? We all do.
What do you see as key challenges facing couples today?
Couples today face many challenges – some of which are hardness of hearts, difficulty on resolving conflicts and busyness with work. For most couples, they do not anticipate problems in their marriage and when it happens they are at wit’s end on what to do about it. That’s why in our programme, we show couples how to turn to one another and strengthen their marriage by having a plan in resolving the challenges in their marriage.
Can you briefly share the 6 secrets to a lasting love?
The six secrets are:
- Forgiving love
- Serving love
- Preserving love
- Guarding love
- Celebrating love
- Renewing love
Why do you think it’s important? What’s the impact?
These six secrets were created from years of research and findings that we’ve done and if couples diligently apply these principles that we coach with families on all around the world, it would really help encourage and strengthen their marriage.
The most fundamental secret is Forgiving Love which is heart of the matter. If couples cannot apply the first principle, it will be hard to proceed with the rest.
Serving and Guarding Love are also crucial to protect our marriage from the harm, distractions and pain that can seep into the marriage such as adultery, anger.
Renewing and Celebrating love is when we take time to enjoy one another and remind ourselves of our commitment and honouring the covenant we made to one another.
Can you share some personal experience and how the 6 secrets have applied to your lives?
Dr Gary:
My personal favourite is serving love because everyone tends to be selfish with our goals, self centred with our lives and what we want to do. And that’s the reason why we coach couples to serve the other side. When we are serving our spouse, think for the other person, we actually become a better person. And I find I become a better man when I learn to serve my spouse.
Barbara: I think persevering love is important because when we preserve through the trials we end up as best friends. We don’t realise that when we are going through challenges something bigger and better is waiting for us on the other side but we need to get through this from the other side. We become better and stronger as couple.
What are some things you enjoy together as a couple?
One of the things we do every evening is we sit down in two chairs and connect. Barb and I work together and we are busy just like the couples in Singapore but for a moment, we put our busyness aside and take some time off to share with each other what we learned for the day and encourage each another when things are not looking so pretty.
We also enjoy our family time when our children and grandchildren come over in the afternoon or evening. When we laugh and giggle together, we become energised as a couple.
Most of all, we ensure that we practise what we teach and our family truly bring us joy and energy to our marriage together.
How do you cope working together as a couple?
Dr Gary: That’s an interesting question. We have been married for 36 years and for me, I know that I need male friendships and I have 3 friends whom I meet every Tuesday. We have done that for the past 30 years. They are good encouragers and they help me find
the balance I need and that’s how I learn to love and appreciate my wife more.
Barbara: I work with my husband, we parent together, we grandparent together and that is a whole lot of time spent together. I love my husband but I also need time alone or with my girl friends where we can spend some time apart so I can learn to practise what we teach.
And I know that when I take this time away from my husband, it will help me to be quiet in my spirit. Take the time to walk quietly in the garden and make time to think. After I take the time to do that, I can become a better wife and parent to my family.
Share with us a little about your children…What do they do?
Our daughters, Sarah and Missy, are both in their 30s. Sarah has 4 children and lives near to us in Iowa. Missy has 3 children and lives in Chicago. They are very gifted, articulate and talented. They both have college degrees and yet what they have decided to do is to stay home to teach their young children. We know it takes courage to do that. They make sacrifices to live modestly so that they can be there for their children especially when they are so young. And we do what we can to support them, be by their sides and to encourage them by being good grandparents to their kids.
