The other day I was sitting in my office with an enraged couple and I could not get a word in edgewise. They were locked nose to nose in a mudslinging, vitriol-induced confrontation. I silently asked myself, what are they really fighting about? It can’t be about what she did fifteen years ago at a
So I’m driving to work the other day (which feels like years ago, but has only been a few weeks) and I feel something come over me, like a wet blanket. It’s a mood alright and it feels like an odorless tasteless gas has completely enveloped me. I hear myself saying “So what’s the point
Most everyone has a myriad of expectations. We expect good manners, we want people to call us back when we call them, we expect our family to give us presents at holidays and birthdays, or we expect our mate will love us unconditionally. We may expect ourselves to be perfect or expect that our mate
“Shame is the most powerful master emotion. It’s the fear that we’re not good enough.” Brene Brown. The challenge for Jake was to unravel his shame cycle, not only to ease his personal pain but to neutralize the toxic nature of it so his anxiety and depression could be alleviated. We started with self-criticism because
After being married for over 30 years, what seems apparent to me is that it’s not so much what we can see about what is going on between us but what we cannot. My wife asks me to do something and I snap at her. Why? I try to tell her something that is important to
We pan in on a newly married couple gazing lovingly at each other on the dance floor dressed in white and aglow with happiness and sweet expectation for a life together. They read their vows professing love sublime with misty-eyed friends and family looking on. It’s a happy time for all, maybe one of the
My wife of 26 years and I were making dinner the other night and between shifts of chopping and mixing I was waxing philosophical about what women want. So, naturally I sort of put the question to her in my typically male off-handed way, so what is it that woman want? The answer was not
Biology explains why men stray, but reason and affection hold the keys to happy, monogamous marriages between women and men. It is necessary to the happiness of men that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing or disbelieving it consists in professing to believing what he does not believe.” Thomas
The liar’s punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else. -George Bernard Shaw Where did this spate of liars and lying begin? Perhaps with the Stone Age but in our current climate it appears that the truth and lies are so blurred that we cannot
We fade in on a couple sitting quietly at Sunday morning breakfast. Suddenly, a seemingly innocuous comment swiftly shifts the peaceful mood into prodigious conflict. She: Could you be more careful when you take out the trash? Yesterday you left a total mess. He: (stung) Well, excuse me. I didn’t know I was getting the