A reader asks how to help a newlywed friend. She’s paying the bills, keeping careful track, budgeting for every predictable expense. He’s running up unexpected bills, failing to warn her what they will owe this month or to turn over needed paperwork on time. And it’s drowning her in distress. Can this marriage be saved? Can she live with a man like this? Of course she can. How...
I ask only because forgetting the answer got me into so much trouble, really made me miserable. Almost ended my marriage. Twice, I got married because I was really in love with someone who was really in love with me. I loved the feeling of being loved. And I especially liked how I felt about me when I was loving someone I really admired. I have hired painters, snow shovellers, trash removers...
Author and journalist Susan Gregory Thomas has a new memoir out. It looks like a great read. An excerpt appeared earlier this month in the Wall Street Journal as their Saturday Essay. It broke my heart to read this from this Generation X latchkey kid, part of the 50% of her generation from split families: “‘Whatever happens, we’re never going to get divorced.’ Over the...
Sarah posted a comment this morning on my Should I Stay Married for the Kids? post with a really great question. Here is what Sarah wrote: I love the idea that “An expectation is a premeditated resentment”; it has me thinking. On one hand I think it is a great idea, but on the other hand I feel that if we should “Never settle for being a doormat” then we have to have...
Did you, like so many others, grow up without the chance to observe a great marriage at close range for many years? Marriage books and blogs like this one can only go so far to fill this gap. We need role models, not just techniques. Lois Tschetter Hjelmstad offers us an intimate, close-up picture of her marriage to Les Hjelmstad in her new book, This Path We Share: Reflecting on 60 Years of...
I am a widow who got it right the second time. I have been sharing here since February 14, 2006 what I learned from that experience and from positive psychology, marriage research, and my training as a marriage educator.
