I don’t know if I asked the question “What If?” a lot when I was a child but I know that I certainly thought it. “What if I sneak a cookie and nobody notices?” “What if I light a firecracker that I have placed under a brick?” Or, one of my favorites was when the…
“And they lived happily ever after.” Whether we have read that line in storybooks or heard it in movies, if you have been married for any length of time, your “happy ever after bubble” probably burst a long time ago. But Why? What happened? You may have felt that you were the luckiest person on…
A recently read quote – “If you want to kill a relationship outright, have an affair. But if you want to bludgeon it to death slowly, use criticism.” Ongoing criticism causes people to feel unloved, attacked, disrespected, and many other feelings that you could add to the list. If I were to ask an audience,…
“How come David gets a bigger piece of cake than I do. That’s not fair.” “It’s her turn. I had to unload the dish washer last time. That’s not fair.” We have all heard our children make these kind of statements because they think everything should be fair. We often just chalk up their complaining…
It has been a long week and you are looking forward to Friday night. Between work, the kids, and your parents – you are exhausted. You are in dire need of rejuvenation; of an energy boost. So, you approach your spouse to discuss what the two of you might want to do with, what has…
She came into my office loaded for bear. The previous weekend she and her husband had gone to his company Christmas party. While there, one of her husband’s co-workers began to talk with him. She giggled as they recounted “inside” jokes and stories regarding customers. In the course of the conversation, she even touched his…
A couple recently sat in my office – intense, unhappy, and bearing down on their marriage with the same exertion required to open a very tight jar. In other words, they were working really really hard but were not having success. The marriage was no longer fulfilling and they both felt unable to meet the…
Now you may read that title and think, “Well, it sure isn’t her,” or “I let him think he is.” The reality is this – most of us don’t like to be told what to do. While we may like to be in control, rarely do we like to be controlled. I sat with a…
You get up to go into the kitchen to get a glass of water. Your spouse asks. “When you come back would you bring that small container of ice cream?” Inside your head (maybe outside of your head too) you say, “What am I, your slave?” We have all thought it and most of us…
We all get into routines. Sometimes they are good ones – like brushing your teeth. Other times, not so good, such as yelling when you are frustrated. As a result, there are certainly those routines that we want to hang on to while others we need to jettison as quickly as possible. For example, a…