It seems the new question everyone wants an answer to before they marry is whether they can share a home without strife. While it is an interesting question, it hardly seems worth two or three years of sharing a home before agreeing to marry. Learning to Find Third Alternatives can get you through sharing a home with almost anyone you respect and care about. Here are the three questions I...
This, in a nutshell, is the Assume Love philosophy: put on your own oxygen mask before assisting others. In other words, don’t work on your relationship. Help yourself enjoy being married. What you do for your relationship when you enjoy it will never feel like work. Save your ideas for making your spouse a better husband or wife until you have fully opened yourself to receive the love...
If you are trying to answer this question, I can help. This is how to tell if the person you married is the right one for you. Stop expecting anything but love. Watch who emerges. If you are with the wrong person, it is not likely some right person awaits your desertion of the wrong one. If this is the wrong one, all the chores, all the bills, all the parenting responsibilities, all the social...
Enjoy a tip from the widow’s handbook. For the next 48 hours, try this. Whatever you remember and whatever happens, imagine it will never happen again. Good or bad, past or present, it will never happen again. As the two of you take a walk together, imagine this is your last chance. You will never be able to walk together again. What sort of walk will you want to remember for the rest of...
Positive psychology researchers have shown that feeling and expressing gratitude are two sure ways to feel happier. If you got too tied up in food preparation, cleanup, or family squabbles to do much Thanksgiving on Thursday, you still have two days left before you head back to work on Monday. What about your spouse and your relationship do you give thanks for?
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.
