Snarky comments about your wife or husband never make a marriage happier or stronger…not even if you share them only with your friends.
AssumeLove.com – celebrating our 18th anniversary today. Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!
Snarky Comments
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Earning Respect
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Respect is just as important as love for a healthy marriage, and maybe even more important. Contempt (the opposite of respect, reflected in eye-rolling, a wrinkled nose, or a “yeah, right”) is a clear sign your marriage is in trouble, according to John Gottman, one of the best-known relationship researchers. When Jennifer R. Frei and Philip R. Shaver at the University of California...
I Respect You
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Join me in an experiment. Without any setup, without any extra words, tell your husband or wife, “I respect you.” In the comments below (or online if you get this by email), let us know (1) what sort of reaction it gets, and (2) how it felt to say this. It might help if you add whether this was woman to woman, man to woman, woman to man, or man to man. Our hormones predispose us to...
Nagging Your Husband or Wife
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For some people, taking care of a chore that matters to their spouse feels loving. It makes them feel warm and tingly and like a better person. Unless the opportunity to do it of their own free will is taken from them. Then it just feels like work. For other people, a chore is always a chore. If they’re feeling loving, they want to take the afternoon to do something fun with you. Or they...
3 Ways to Get Your Wife’s Respect
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Want more respect from the woman you married? These should help. Be you, at your best. Find more ways to use your greatest strengths (creativity, humility, generosity, gratitude, perseverance, curiosity, social intelligence, integrity, leadership, perspective, bravery, etc.) when you are with her. Show more affection. Without affection, women have a hard time paying attention to anything else...
