For those who don’t get excited about receiving gifts, giving them can be a chore. Worse yet, gift-giving can become a no-win trap, one in which they are certain to disappoint someone who matters a lot to them. Here are seven ways to have more fun this month if you love giving and receiving gifts but your spouse doesn’t: Create a wish list and make it easy for your mate to find. Find...
Steven Stosny gets it. His take on resolving marriage battles changes everything, whether your marriage is abusive or just stressed out. In Dr. Stosny’s November 30th blog post, he looked at our two options for dealing with this pair of competing thoughts (cognitive dissonance), so common for us married folks: “I am a loving and compassionate person. Yet I am not loving and...
One of my favorite sayings (I think it comes from Alcoholics Anonymous) is this: “An expectation is a premeditated resentment.” December is a big month for mistaken expectations, especially for a new couple or for one whose circumstances have changed this year. Do you want to spend this month angry about the help you expected, the gifts you expected, the attendance at family or social...
I am a widow who got it right the second time. I have been sharing here since February 14, 2006 what I learned from that experience and from positive psychology, marriage research, and my training as a marriage educator.
