Here are five great ways to screw up a family holiday: Overschedule yourselves, leaving no time to savor together the family gathering you worked so hard to create Fail to notice your mate’s Love Language, whether it’s bringing something extra from the store as a gift, obsessing over the turkey as an act of service, or spending precious bonus time off from work trying to talk or do...
A number of marriage therapists suggest couples pay attention to their marriage like a bank account. Don’t make a withdrawal if you have not made enough deposits. The intention is good. The score-keeping seems all wrong. And so does the idea of withdrawals. Is watching football when your wife wants to go furniture shopping together a withdrawal? Or is it just a conflict of interest better...
Alcohol abuse and alcoholism harm a lot of marriages. When we take those wedding vows, pledging to stick together in sickness or in health, do we also accept the drunken rages, lost wages, and self-inflicted depression? If staying and leaving were our only options, I would say no, we do not vow to accept all this harm. Fortunately, staying and leaving are usually not our only two options. Al...
My husband does not often suggest subjects for this blog. However, when he read this quote from Kim Kardashian’s blog, he said, “You have to write about this.” And so I will. About her very brief marriage to Kris Humphries, Kim Kardashian wrote: It just didn’t turn out to be the fairy tale I had so badly hoped for. Fairy tales entertain, and they teach. And still some...
If your marriage is like most, there are things about your spouse that upset you. Because they upset you, you spend more time thinking about them. Guess what this does to the quality of your time together? Want better? Mentally go through the next 24 hours of your life. What would you miss if your spouse were suddenly no longer in it? No divorce. No splitting up your assets. You have full custody...
