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...
I received an interesting comment on my When Your Spouse Won’t Use Your Love Language post. So one spouse should just accept that their spouse is so self absorbed and narcissistic that they won’t treat them, they are supposedly in love with, the way they need to be treated. Oh, and don’t treat your spouse the way they are treating you. Stay in a marriage where you are being...
I spent over an hour reading comments this weekend on Facebook, about a letter to Miss Manners in the Washington Post. Never saw her column, and none of the commenters even touched on etiquette. They opined on what everyone involved should do. I got sucked into this should show. I couldn’t stop reading. I just kept hoping for someone to stop looking in all the wrong places for what to do...
In a comment on my last post, The Easiest Way to a Happier Marriage, Clover asked a great question: I agree that we shouldn’t expect our partners to act exactly the way we want them to – they’re not robots. And no one really owes us anything.But sometimes it’s really hard to maintain this mindset. With my friends and family, I care about their feelings more than my own. For example, if they don’t...
The easiest way to a happier marriage does not include changing your spouse. Spouses are hard to change. Even when they know what you want from them, it can be hard for them to give it. Accusations about their failures to provide what you expect will get you defensiveness from all but the most self-aware spouses, because it’s a threat to their core relationship. Defensiveness is not pretty...
