If you want to enjoy your marriage more, own your own needs. Don’t dump them on your husband or wife. Ask for what you want or need, but before you do, let go of any notion that your spouse is obliged to say yes out of fairness or marital obligation. Why? Well, first, it is only your own story that you are somehow entitled to what you ask for that can make you angry or hurt. It is not the...
Is this your first Thanksgiving as a couple? What goes without saying in your head on this holiday? Is preparing the meal and setting the table a joint project? Or should the non-cook stay out of the way? Does the football schedule dictate the flow of the day? Or is it your nieces’ and nephews’ schedules, as they try to fit in two divorced parents and three or four sets of...
Thanks to the two wonderful husbands who have given me their love, especially the current one, who goes with the flow on so many surprising changes in our lives. Thanks to my incredible son, who has given me a marvelous daughter-in-law and, with her, the wonderful experience of being a grandmother. Thanks to Barbara Sher for pushing me to do what I love. (This blog is a big part of it.) And these...
Make a list of the chores you’re waiting for your spouse to take care of. Now go down the list and ask yourself how you would take care of them while he or she is off in intensive care at the hospital. Feel that shudder? Sense yourself pulling away, wondering how long you could let it go until your beloved is back on the job? Are you telling yourself you’re not strong enough or...
I just received the sad news last night that infidelity support expert Peggy Vaughan has died after a four-year struggle with cancer. Before she left us, Peggy made sure her Extramarital Affairs Resource Center website, DearPeggy.com, would live on. Her great body of work is still there to help those hurt by an affair or heading for one. So is her Beyond Affairs Network (BAN), offering in-person...
