Have you ever made that statement or felt that way? If you are human, then you probably have. As I sat with a client yesterday, I was reminded of this very tendency. You see, we don’t like being in the hot-seat, feeling attacked or unfairly accused. Therefore, when we do, our first reaction is usually…
You come home from work and find your wife despondent. You ask “What’s the matter?” and she unloads on you about what one of your grown children said to her that left her feeling rejected. Wanting to help, you indicate that you will call that child and get this straightened out. But to your surprise,…
I still recall being at a Parent-Student dinner when I was working as a school counselor in California 30 years ago. I worked with some great students and one in particular who I was anxious to brag on to his parents. As I greeted his father, I began to speak of the tremendous strides his…
Recently my wife and I took a weekend to reorganize our office and the work spaces at home. As a guy who still wears some shirts from 20 years ago, I didn’t feel a strong compulsion to need to change things in our offices. However, I can’t tell you how invigorated my wife was by…
Relationship Tips Tuesdays Let’s face it – we all want to be viewed as caring and empathetic. And sometimes it is easy while other times it is an uphill battle. Perhaps your spouse or your kiddos have taken advantage of you. Or perhaps they continue to contribute to their own troublesome situations in ways that…
We have all heard so much in the news and on social media about how great it is to be done with all of the calamities of 2020 and how much better 2021 will be. While 2020 was without a doubt a difficult year, here we are in February of 2021 and not a lot…
Relationships Tip Tuesdays March 9, 2021 Do You Have a Windshield Wiper Marriage? – Part 2 Last time we began to examine whether or not we might be in a “Windshield Wiper Marriage.” This was defined as a marriage that gets the job (of raising kids) done but without necessarily interacting as spouses. Just as…
Without a doubt 2020 was one for the books. If you were anything like our family and so many others, normal didn’t seem to exist. Traditional holiday gatherings didn’t happen, at least not quite the same; yearly trips that you look forward to were cancelled; and friends you regularly get together with you went for…
I’ve got a friend who seems to be a perpetual bachelor. He has been single, following a divorce, for nearly 20 years. Over the years he has dated numerous women, not usually very seriously, but he always seems to have 4 or 5 ladies that he is interacting with. One of his favorite lines to…
Now this may sound like a strange question. But think about it – what do windshield wipers do? You may be thinking, “Isn’t it obvious? They get the rain off of the windshield.” While that is certainly correct, I want you to visualize how they operate. “Hmm, well they are synchronized and operate together to…