A great quote from Esther Perel, author of Mating in Captivity, in her article After the Storm in the Psychotherapy Networker about which marriages survive and which don’t after she helps them get beyond an act of infidelity. When we seek the gaze of another, it isn’t always our partner we’re turning away from, but the person we ourselves have become. We’re seeking not...
In today’s Dear Abby column, a reader writes: Every time I start to get over Guy, he comes around again. It’s like he has radar. In this case, Guy is a married man, but that’s the result, not the cause. If you are looking to get married and running into people like Guy, or if you are in Guy’s situation of being unable to choose, you need to know this. Some folks have a...
When do you feel most in love? When do you look into the eyes of your mate and melt? When do you feel so lucky to be loved by this man or woman that you could just float up off the ground? What floods you with warmth and a sense of security or a desire to protect this one special person? Is it when you are fed and pampered? When you receive an especially thoughtful gift? During lovemaking? After...
Better communication seems to occur in less stressful marriages. But are you sure which one causes which? Those couples who communicate better experience less stress (as measured by cortisol in their saliva) while discussing a difficult topic. But when you give randomly selected couples a squirt of oxytocin nasal spray in a relationship lab, they communicate better than the couples who...
An awful lot of complaints about the men in our lives start the same: I expect my husband to pick up after himself. I expect him to at least remember when our anniversary is! I expect that when I cook, he does the dishes. I did not expect that once we married, he would kiss me only when he’s looking for sex. And I did not expect he would make such a fuss about visiting my family. I expect...
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.
