Getting Reel About Marriage
Watch a movie, save a marriage? Maybe. According to the results of a recent study from the University of Rochester, watching and discussing movies about relationships with your spouse is as effective in lowering divorce rates as more intensive marriage counseling programs. While the study was done with couples married 1-3 years – one of...
Divorce: Property Division 101
Dividing up property that was accrued during marriage is one more difficult issue that has to be dealt with during divorce. Understanding how the judge would do it and what your options are for doing it without the judge’s intervention can make a difficult task a little less difficult. In spite of the fact that...
Five More With Broken Pieces
The previous post addressed how although a marriage may be cracked or fragmented, it still has potential to evolve into sea glass. Weathered, polished pieces of glass that are used to create enduring beauty. Several friends and readers noted that same analogy applies in our other relationships: parents, siblings, friends – even with ourselves! Today’s...
Marriage: Troubled Waters or Sea Glass?
Have you ever experienced troubled waters in your marriage? Periods of time when you felt it was broken? Or had events occur that caused so much damage it seemed like the marriage was beyond repair? If you have been married any length of time, odds are good you’ve experienced some hurts, challenges, or obstacles to...
Visiting With Jill Weatherholt
I’m not exactly taking the day off today. I’m over at Jill Weatherholt’s blog, Pursuing a Passion for Writing, fielding questions I don’t generally deal with here. Which result in answers – like how I dealt with the nude peeping tom and why I enjoyed spending time with both Jimmy Carter and Barbara Bush – that...
10 Car Habits That Make Your Mate a Defensive Driver
In spite of being told over and over that we ‘shouldn’t sweat the small stuff,’ that’s exactly what what many of us do. And it’s those petty things that seem to cause the biggest rifts between spouses. Having previously discussed annoying bathroom habits that can drain a marriage and obnoxious kitchen habits that can bring...
Deadhead Your Marriage
First of all, to spare potential disappointment, I want you to know from the get-go this has nothing to do with the Grateful Dead. So if you thought I was going to help you talk your spouse into taking a retro adventure, uh . . . sorry. Let’s talk about my backyard. I took a...
The Perfect Marriage – Bacon and Us!
There’s a reason bacon sizzles – it’s the food of love! In honor of National Bacon Day, here’s bacon five ways to get you and your mate sizzling, too! 1. Cheesy bacon bombs. Exploding with the passion of gooey cheese and crispy bacon. Is this a picture or what?! [Click for recipe] 2. Sizzle...
Destruction That’s Good for Marriage
Competition between spouses can be fun, energizing and healthy for the marriage. Keeping score to determine who won at golf, racquetball, scrabble, or a favorite video game makes absolute sense. Keeping score in other areas of marriage does not. But isn’t that just what we do? I’ve taken out the trash the last three times!...
5 Ways to Help Your Child Through Divorce
Divorce affects children in a myriad of ways. Just because they don’t seem depressed or their grades don’t crash doesn’t mean they are unscathed by what is going on around them. As a matter of fact, more than one psychologist I consulted with when representing children (whose parents are going through divorce) has told me...