What is love? Many think love is that euphoric feeling you get when everything seems perfect between the two of you and you know you want to spend your lives together. Some folks will tell you this feeling we call love is fleeting and will not last. They offer two solutions. One group says move on and fall in love again with someone new: split up, divorce, have an affair. The other says forget...
Someone who has participated in my Enjoy Being Married teleclasses – we will call her Joan – wrote me last week with a long-running problem. I think it may sound pretty familiar to a lot of us. Her husband – we will call him John – is a serious man, quiet, hard to read, off in his own world at times, and not very good at telling a story. He’s not a people person...
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...
“The kids are grown. They have their own car. One’s in college. The other is going next year. Why don’t you get a job? We could really use the money.” “I want to. But not just any job. I can’t go back to what I was doing. I need coworkers I can stand being around. And I need to keep doing something meaningful. I am not sure I could stand working in an insurance...
What you expect from your marriage has a lot to do with how much you will enjoy it. Expect your personal mind-picture of the perfect marriage and find yourself frequently and sorely disappointed. Expect “growth” from the person you actually married into the person you think your mate could become and find yourself in a non-stop battle. Expect supportive words from a gift-giver, acts...
