Expect love. It’s beautiful and surprising and nothing like you thought it would be. No one’s going to put in this sort of effort for a guy who has been whining he expected his wife would serve dinner on time (or pick up his dry cleaning or stop working when the baby came) if she really loved him… Your spouse wants to love you. It’s a lot harder when you want to dictate...
At the end of my post The Strength of Strengths, I wrote: Just being aware of our different strengths lets me see two virtues clashing. It gives me a chance to look beyond my own strength and ask how I might be an even better (and happier) person with both our strengths at my disposal. Recently, a kind reader, Lindsey, left a comment on that post: I get, and really identify with, these sorts of...
I received two great suggestions for blog posts in the past 24 hours. Let’s start with how to handle chronic depression in a spouse. I just saw stats yesterday saying depressed people end up divorced in even greater percentages than those with narcissistic personality disorder. It has to be pretty difficult to be married to someone suffering from depression. Here was the request: I...
Usually, I write for people becoming distressed over their marriage. Recently, though, I have had an unusual number of comments from folks blindsided by a spouse who wants out. In this post and the one before it, I tackle the question of how to avoid being blindsided. About twice as many divorces are initiated by wives as by husbands, but even men sometimes say, “I love you, but I am no...
Usually, I write for people becoming distressed over their marriage. Recently, though, I have had an unusual number of comments from folks blindsided by a spouse who wants out. In this post and the one to follow, I tackle the question of how to avoid being blindsided. If your wife is saying, “I love you, but I am no longer ‘in love’ with you,” your marriage is not over...
