When you are looking for Third Alternatives (win-win endings to your disagreements), you must let go of the how to find the why. Let me show you what I mean. One wants to go by car. The other wants to go by plane. Why? One wants to go by car to see the countryside between points A and B. The other wants to go by plane to avoid being the driver on such a long drive. Third Alternatives? Ask a...
We all have both explicit and implicit memories. The explicit ones we can generally retrieve on demand: who taught our 9th grade Algebra class, what the weather was on our wedding day, what we ate for breakfast this morning. Alzheimer’s erodes these memories, and we have none from our earliest years because our brains could not form them yet. The implicit ones are the hidden influences on...
I learned this the hard way. My first husband dropped dead with no warning when he was just 35, making it quite clear how few of the problems affecting the two of us were marriage problems. What’s the difference? The marriage problems go away when your marriage partner dies or after all the dust settles from your divorce. The others, the ones that remain, were never about your marriage. Not...
Have you ever had one of those discussions where you just know you’re right and your wife or husband is wrong? Not the sort where you debate whether Bigfoot exists or not, but the sort where you think it makes sense to buy a bigger lawn mower or to stay away from Aunt Zelda’s third wedding and you’re getting an argument. There are two ways to handle these. The most common seems...
What’s your favorite? What sort of morning, afternoon, or evening with your partner in life helps strengthen your bond or increase your desire for each other? What gets you excited to be together again? What makes you happy you chose the person you’re with? How do you take the ordinary out of being together for so many years?
