If you have been in a long term relationship long enough (and since you are reading a parenting blog, it is likely you have been), you can probably come up with quite a few examples of things “the other person” says to you on a regular basis, which you find infuriating. In fact, saying them is just like pressing some invisible button in your mind and triggering anger and resentment.
Read Seeing I to I »
The current vibe around marriage and likely divorce has caused many people to stay single for a lot longer than they ever would have in the past. The upside of this is more personal development, more independence and an improved financial situation. The downside is getting used to making decisions alone, looking for potential partners and keeping a clear personal space.
Is this a problem? It can be.
You see, having kids is something that cannot wait and should not wait. The quality and quantity of eggs in women goes down over time, which makes having a baby more and more complicated. Women’s physical fitness and flexibility also goes down with age, making matters worse.
From a family planning point of view, having kids over 5 years provides fewer options than having them over 10 years. The age difference between kids is a very important factor in healthy emotional development, but if there is not time, you can only have them close together, which can be challenging.
Being single for a long time causes many people to continue living as two singles sharing a home, instead of a married couple. This gets messy very quickly. In extreme circumstances, the two singles keep things ready for separation, which only makes separation more likely.
After “hunting” for a partner for a long time, the habit of collecting and evaluating potential mates is harder to shake and having affairs does not seem like such a big deal. Why invest in making your marriage interesting if you can just “refresh” your life with someone else from time to time? Alas, the way back is hard and most couples cannot make it.
And there are other economical and social reasons, which is why marriage was invented in the first place.
Read Marriage of Singles »
Angela’s welcome party was a happy event for many of her parents’ friends and family. While everyone was celebrating her arrival into the world, Angela was asleep in her baby carriage, wearing the most beautiful angel outfit.The pile of presents next to her baby carriage was huge and at the end of the evening, Sam, the old manager at the event hall, helped her dad, Ian, put all the gifts in the car.
“Bless her. She has so many gifts”, the old manager said to Angela’s dad while helping him to load a big pink box with curly ribbons.
“Yes, she does”, said Ian excitedly.
Ian had been a bit worried before Angela’s arrival. He had been looking forward to the delivery day but at the same time worried about providing for his family. The list of things a baby needs had been so big that during the party, he kept looking at the gifts and was happy to see them piling high.
“We really need all the gifts”, Ian said to the old manager.
“Not really”, smiled Sam, “What you need is something that can’t be packed with ribbons”, and he held up a toy that made a funny noise.
Ian looked at the old man, not really understanding. He stopped and looked at him in surprise, “What do you mean? What do we need?”
“One more toy, another nice dress or furniture will make you happy, but she needs something that cannot be bought with money”, said Sam and handed Ian an envelope with a greeting card.
“This is your invoice. Thank you for choosing our venue”, he shook Ian’s hand, smiled and went back into the building, passing by Angela’s mom, Louise, at the entrance.
Ian opened the envelope and took out a greeting card with a photo of a large golden gift box. He opened the card. The invoice was folded inside it. Ian took out the invoice and read the greeting, which was written in pink.
Congratulations!
Being single is no fun when people around you nag. Many times, family members believe that all people should get married and that nagging will “encourage” singles to find a partner. In fact, this is the same whatever you nag your kids to do.
Many couples in crisis get to this situation because they do not know each other well. Knowing each other is the first step in overcoming conflicts. In this part of “Save Your Marriage”, I am going to write about the importance of knowing your partner and teach you how to learn all there is to know about your partner. Getting to know your partner’s fears, joys, history and attitude are the first step of any relationship.
Think of marriage as a relationship between two onions. For a couple to get closer, they have to peel the layers of the onion one by one. In the beginning, when you meet a potential partner, you peel the thin external layers. As the relationship deepens, you need to peel more and more layers to discover the beautiful person hiding inside.
To understand, respect and love each other in our marriage, we must truly get to know the person sharing out life. Sometimes, just knowing what their fears are or their joys can change a whole life. I remember the first time Gal gave me his list of “50 things that make me happy” and I was surprised to find out he was happy about very little things. It was surprising, because we had lived together for over 15 years.
Assuming that if you live together you know everything is a bad idea. Even if we knew out partner well at some point, we still need to update ourselves and keep learning about them because, just like us, our partner changes with every event in their life.
If you ever go on a TV show of the “best married couple” type, they will ask how much you know about each other.
Why?
Because everyone assumes that knowing things about each other is essential to your success as a married couple.
True friends are forever. It is amazing how long we keep true friendships. From primary school age and across oceans, we take a feeling of belonging and connectedness with us and maintain friendships.
Divorcing is actually the end of a very special friendship. It is a friendship between partners and lovers. If we remember to treat our partners like we treat those special friends, it would probably make life much easier.
Friends are God’s way of taking care of us
We may have misunderstandings, disagreements and conflicts with friends, but we never forget the bond we have between us and we are always willing to work out our problems. Just like any friendship, marriage is a way for two people to complete each other.
In order for marriage to work, the couple needs to master the three functions of marriage: partnership, love and friendship. These three functions are fundamental to the success of every marriage. We talk a lot about sharing responsibilities, we talk about increasing the love, but it seems that often, the friendship is a little neglected. In fact, surveys reveal that if there is one thing that will enable a couple to weather even the toughest of times, it is friendship.
If you want to stay married for a long time, find a way to be your partner’s best friend.
The first step to success of the friendship in any marriage is to make sure you align your definitions with your partner’s. Here are some questions couples should ask themselves and then discuss with each other if they want to grow their relationship.
Believe it or not, arguing about money is one of three main causes of divorce. Difference in priorities are a main cause of arguments in marriage and when divorce is considered an option, it is more likely that the couple will waste much of their energy on their biggest argument ever about money.
Chances are that partners in marriage have their own ways of spending and saving money. They bring their perception about money from their life before the marriage and many of them find it hard to strike a balance between what he wants and what she want, between what she thinks it is best and what he thinks it is best for the family’s future.
Here are some of the common conflicts around money:
1. What is necessary (food, clothes, jewelry, big screen TV…)?
2. Who needs to contribute more money (many high expectation from men and sometimes too high expectation by men themselves)?
3. Should homemaking be considered equal to financial contribution (try hiring a nanny, a chef, a cleaner, etc)?
4. Should we save for the future or enjoy life today?
When getting married, it is hard for a couple to estimate what their financial requirements will be. Every time they face a financial challenge, it hits them straight in the face and many couples, having poor money management skills, feel that there is just never enough money for what they want in life. Financially, the difference between single life and married life are huge.
Yes, if both husband and wife earned similar salaries, agreed on every cent they spent and the ways to save, many of them would not consider divorce so easily. There is a slim chance for you both to agree on every financial decision. Therefore, in marriage, it is wise to choose your financial battles.
Read Marriage and Money »
In previous parts of the “Save Your Marriage” series, I discussed some of the problems that arise in relationships. This week, I will cover another one of the disturbing conflicts in any relationship – being trapped by stereotypes about gender.
In married life, there will always be obstacles threatening the stability of the marriage. Working through personal perceptions and interpretations is the key to overcoming such challenges.
Shortcut to divorce
Men and women perceive emotions, communication, sex, fidelity, work and money differently. They think the way they do because of the way they have been socialized and because of the way they have been shaped by their parents’ perceptions. From a very early age, we are “programmed” to believe that there are such things as “typical male” and “typical female” behavior. If you want a demonstration of how early this starts, look at your kids playing “shop” and consider how you choose baby clothes. Is it true that all baby girls love pink and baby boys love blue? No. Yet, most parents, when buying clothes, do not want to risk going against the grain by swapping colors.
Endless messages such as these are received during childhood and turn into beliefs and values that couples take into their marriage later on in life. Each party to a couple has his or her own “programmed” definition of what is typical, what is acceptable, what is tolerable and what is intolerable in a marriage relationship. Each of them may think that there is a particular way to show love to men that is different from the way you show love to women or that all men love sports and all women love jewelry and, without knowing, such gender beliefs can become a shortcut to divorce.
Read All Men Are… All Women Are… »
In “Save Your Marriage (part 6)”, I described a common communication problem couples have (the story about the jack). Today, I will outline 10 ways you can get things wrong in any relationship. I hope you will be able to recognize yourself in some of them and find ways to work on that miscommunication. Remember, it is just miscommunication and there is no need to give up something as special as your marriage because of something that can be fixed so easily.
Many arguments start from a simple misunderstanding of the meaning of what one or the other has said. Many times, one party will give a meaning to something the other one has said that was actually not the intended meaning at all. So if you think about it, if it is you who attaches the wrong meaning to your partner’s words or actions, then when you argue, in a sense, you argue with yourself.
A study of expert communicators has found that in any given interaction, we have a tendency to see what we want to see and hear what we want to hear. The study has found that in any communication, we:
1. Interpret
2. Distort
3. Delete
We change the information we receive subconsciously by the interplay of our beliefs, values and rules that we already have in our heads. Thus our emotions can alter the interpretation of any message sent our way. If we are afraid of something, we tend to think the messenger was aggressive. If we feel confused, we tend to think the messenger was unclear with his or her message. If some information is missing, the way we fill in the gaps can be very subtle but may have a very strong impact.
Two weeks ago, in part 6 of “Save Your Marriage”, I explained the influence of negative self-talk on relationships. Last week, in part 7, I gave an example of Sally talking to herself about her frustrations regarding her weight. In every relationship, when people talk to themselves about their problem with others in a negative way, things can easily be blown out of proportion.
Self-talk is a natural way of dealing with what happens to us in life and it is typical for men and women alike. It is when the self-talk turns all dark that things start going wrong.
This week, I want to let you in on Allan’s self-talk when planning to hang out with the guys.
Hanging out with the guys
Sally packed her bag and rushed to pick up the kids from music school. The phone rang and Dave was on the other end of the line.
“Hi Sally, I can’t get hold of Allan. Is he home already?”
“No”, said Sally, “He has a meeting till 6”.
“Can you please let him know we are planning to hang out with the guys on Friday?”
“Sure”, said Sally and hurried to her car. The thought of not having to cook on Friday was pleasing. She could take the kids out for a pizza, she thought happily.
Read More About Self Talk »
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