The easiest way to feel unloved is to expect the wrong things. You live in a time and place when you can marry for love. You don’t need a helpmeet to survive. You don’t need to bolster your family’s political position or status through marriage. You can choose to marry or not, and you can choose the person you marry.
So what should you expect when you marry for love? Love.
If you, your spouse, and your kids are the only ones who care if your marriage is a happy one, count your blessings. Over a third (35%) of women in a September 2007 Ladies Home Journal survey said their vote for president in 2008 would be influenced at least somewhat by how happy they thought the candidate’s marriage was. Coming in second in perceived marital happiness, right behind John...
Lots of folks say a good marriage requires a lot of hard work. I disagree. The hard work comes in when we struggle to provide a spouse with more love by stretching our abilitiies at loving and going beyond what we feel like giving. I applaud the effort, and it’s saved lots of marriages, but I think there’s an easier route. Those newly in love also stretch to do more, learn new ways to...
My friend Tammy from Creating Success Stories sent me some questions this week about my advice to Assume Love. I’m going to answer one at a time. What do you suggest for a couple where only one partner is willing to “assume love”? This is the marvelous thing about assuming love — it doesn’t take two. One person can change the marriage. And this approach most benefits...
Most relationship research, therapy, and coaching focuses on how to give love. It assumes if we give more love, more respect, more kind words, more of our undivided attention, more help, more nurturing, we will receive more in return. For most couples, this is true. However, giving more to get more can feel like work, hence the common wisdom that a good marriage requires hard work. Giving more...
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.
