The best way to handle a disagreement is to avoid it. If your spouse steals the covers or if you tend to move around a lot in your sleep: Put one bottom sheet on the bed. Put two top sheets on, one on each half. Fold two large ones into rectangles or triangles, depending on how you two share the bed. Or get two twin sheets. Do the same with blankets or comforters or duvets. If you worry about...
When you’re in a marriage, you cannot ever win a fight with your husband or wife by shouting louder, being tricky, offering more rational explanations of your side, or marshaling friends and relatives to agree with your point of view. You cannot win by causing the person you married to lose. The only way to win is to make sure both of you come out the other side pleased with the outcome...
A good life includes frequent periods of what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls flow. One goal. Each step just slightly more than you were capable of yesterday. No awareness of time or even emotions. No distraction from other goals. Just you, fully engaged in art, music, sport, sex, troubleshooting, analyzing, creating. Overwhelm happens when the goal requires a lot more than you are currently...
If your otherwise loving marriage has been a bit disappointing lately, try this: share wishes, not complaints. A wish is an opportunity for your spouse to earn that delicious feeling of acting lovingly, knowing it will be received well. You get no guarantee that they’ll notice the opportunity or act on it, because you might not be the only partner nursing a disappointment. But it’s...
There are many reasons to marry. Beware of scope creep. I need to remind myself sometimes that I married for love, not for a better place to live or help paying the bills or higher status or more sex. I didn’t need or want citizenship in another country. I didn’t want another child. I love having someone cook for me or keep the house clean or think of interesting new things to do and...
