Looking for some good news?
You can have a better relationship starting today.
While there are no quick-fix solutions, the effort you put into improving your relationship will pay off.
Maybe your relationship just needs a tune-up. Maybe it’s time for a major overhaul. Either way, change occurs in small steps, taken and sustained over time.
With that in mind, here are 52 practical to-dos—one for each week of the year—to get you started. Continue reading
Wedding experts say that the three-month stretch between Thanksgiving and Valentine’s Day is prime time for proposals. With the sparkle of Christmas and the promise of the new year lending an air of romance, nearly forty percent of couples choose this time to get engaged. To my delight, this year, my son and his fiancée are among them.
While the coming months will be taken up with writing guest lists and weighing the pros and cons of a winter wedding (with its possibility of ice storms) or a wedding in June (with its guarantee of mosquitoes) I’m keeping in mind the many years that will follow.
How many people do you know who would wholeheartedly say that their marriage is great?
How many would say that they’re happier now than when they first got together, that their marriage is one of the most satisfying parts of their life?
Five? Ten? None? Continue reading
A few years ago a client gave me a refrigerator magnet that reads:
Yep. I agree.
Especially when one of the chores involves the word garage. That’s how our garage ended up looking like a scene from the reality show where they bring in five guys in hazmat suits while a team of kind social workers comforts the hoarder. Continue reading
One of the best parts of my job as a couples therapist is that I get to deliver good news.
Couples come in fearing that their marriage is too far gone to fix, and I get to tell them it’s not.
Yes, some people are in serious trouble and if they keep going in the direction they’re headed, their worst fears will come true.
Still, most couples are simply facing normal and ordinary relationship challenges that they lack the tools to address. Continue reading
It’s that time again — Valentine’s Day. The holiday of romantic love, chocolate hearts, and passionate feelings about whether Valentine’s Day should be celebrated, or banned.
Yes, a dozen red roses, plus dinner, will cost as much as your car payment. And yes, love is as sweet on February 15th and every day after that (and should, indeed, be expressed all year long.)
And it’s true, Valentine’s Day is a red ribbon sales day for Hallmark and Hershey and a host of others who peddle “romance” for profit, creating enough hype and hoopla to turn even the ultra-romantic among us into a Valentine’s Day Grinch.
Still there are those of us who like to make the most of the day. Continue reading
Every day we hear yet another bit of advice about what it takes to have a marriage that lasts. The latest: Find a spouse who can be your best friend.
Seems pretty obvious, doesn’t it?
Kindness, companionship, a special someone to come home to…
For many of us, the friendship we have with our spouse is what we value the most in our relationship. And according to recent research, friendship plays a key role in what makes a good marriage even better.
Mind you, the researchers aren’t saying that you have to start out as best friends. Continue reading
January 1st. The day of fresh starts and new beginnings. The day we vow to eat more green vegetables, actually use our gym membership, and try, once again, to lose those hard to lose pounds.
As we look to the new year, we often focus on ways to be “better” — resolving to do more of what’s good for us and less of what’s not. To (at least most of the time) come from our best.
For a good many of us, finding ways to have a more satisfying marriage is high on our list.
But in our rush for improvement, we overlook this key fact: Continue reading
Next week, my husband and I will celebrate our 36th anniversary.
Some years we’ve gotten dressed-up and gone out to dinner. Other years we’ve simply marked the day with a kiss.
Once, we were both sick with the flu and I vaguely remember clinking our glasses of orange juice together and then sleeping right through the day.
Then there was the year when we were so embroiled in struggle that we let the day pass without even a word.
That’s what marriage is: richer, poorer, good times and bad. Each year with its surprises and challenges, its hard fought lessons, its moments of sweetness.
To honor our many years together, here are 36 lessons I’ve found most valuable: Continue reading
Ask ten happily married people, “What’s your key to success?” and you’ll get fifteen answers — many of which contradict each other.
Some will say couples should never to go to bed angry. Others will say it’s fine to sleep on your arguments. For them, World War III or not, it’s lights out at 11.
Many will say, “don’t sweat the small stuff,” while an equal number will tout the virtues of talking things out.
Do opposites attract or should we be birds of a feather?
Are we better off lowering our expectations, or setting a high bar?
And do couples really need to be each other’s best friend?
The truth is, many of the widely-dispensed bits of marriage advice are more fiction than fact. Continue reading
There are a hundred paths through the
world that are easier than loving…
But who needs easier?
— Mary Oliver
Raise your hand if you’ve heard this before:
Marriage is not a noun, it’s a verb.
It’s hard to dispute, isn’t it?
Anyone who’s been married longer than, say, a week, knows that marriage requires effort. Not back-breaking-drudgery kind of effort, but make-it-count, put-your-heart-into-it effort.
We build a marriage the way we build a house: day by day, brick by brick, from the ground up. Continue reading
Whether you’ve been married five weeks, five years, or even five decades, date night is a ritual you should regularly observe.
I know. This is hardly a news flash. Read any advice column about how to keep the spark alive in your marriage and you’ll find date night near the top of the list.
Yet, if you’re like most couples, Continue reading
Most of us step into marriage hoping for a lifetime of love and happiness, knowing far too little about what might give us our best shot at getting there. Many of us assume that because we’re in love, because we have common values and compatible dreams we’ve got everything we need to have a marriage that lasts.
Sure, lots of couples divorce. “But, honestly…” we think, “how hard could it be?”
The answer: Continue reading
So much in life is about the little things, isn’t it? The smell of fresh coffee. A cardinal on the bird feeder. The first crocus in spring.
Even so, most of us assume that our greatest happiness comes from life’s big events, like landing our dream job, getting married, or giving birth to a child. While these extraordinary moments create a brief spike in happiness, current research confirms that sustained happiness is derived from life’s ordinary, everyday stuff. Continue reading
“Chew with your mouth closed!”
“Don’t hit your sister!”
So much of childhood is about learning the rules and then striving to follow them — at least occasionally.
While some rules are unreasonable — like being told to sit perfectly still at age five or made to skip recess, as I was, for doodling on my homework — the basic relationship skills that we learned as children were, in fact, of great value. Continue reading
Speaking of Marriage 