Today, someone shared with me that her #1 fear is this: I will risk my relationship with my fiancé to benefit my career — or that I will take tradeoffs in my career to benefit my fiancé’s career and be bitter later. So many of us have been trained well in techniques to help us choose between Thing 1 and Thing 2, which is fine when you’re by your lonesome. But once you are part...
This is part three of my mini-series that began on Sunday on how to tell if you’re correctly using my three favorite techniques for a happier marriage: Assume Love Expect Love Find Third Alternatives Today we look at Find Third Alternatives. This is a very handy technique when a disagreement puts you on the defensive or when you still want what you have decided you cannot really expect your...
A while back, a reader asked for some perspectives on her sex life with her husband. Not exactly my area of expertise, I thought, but as I read her story, I realized it wasn’t sex that was the problem. Let me share her tale but preserve her privacy. She wrote: I was wondering what your opinion is on exploring sexually within marriage. I am interested in [some more adventurous practices]...
On Tuesday, I revealed a problem sent in by a reader and asked for suggestions from all of you. As she sees it, and I must agree, the problem is how they address their disagreements. Neither is happy with their approach. As an example of the sort of disagreements they are addressing, she offered one spouse asking the other not to interrupt when the other is speaking slowly. As it turns out, this...
Third Alternatives almost always exist, even when it looks like there are just two options and each of you can stand only one of them. And to discover them, you let go of the how to find the why. For example, think of Gary Chapman’s Five Love Languages. One thrives on Quality Time together, especially time spent in meaningful, soul-revealing conversation. When they first met, there was...
