A good marriage can make tough times a lot easier. Tough times can make a marriage better or worse. I was thinking about this question yesterday, listening to John Michael Montgomery sing, "Do you remember the times of nickels and dimes...and love?"

Almost all of us can remember such times, when we pulled together to get through difficult times. We felt close. We felt loved. We felt blessed to have this person we share a lifelong commitment with.

Reminds me of that marvelous form of happiness Aristotle called Eudaimonia, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls Flow, and Martin Seligman calls Engagement. It's a quiet sort of happiness, one where we don't even notice whether we're happy or not. We're content, but engaged with something other than how we feel. Time flies by. When we notice how we are again, it's just sort of a warm glow.

The "times of nickels and dimes...and love" are Flow for Two. We don't have to check how our relationship is going, because we're just in it, engaged in what we're doing together. When we come up for air, we just notice we feel very close to this other human being.

Csikszentmihalyi set out some criteria for Flow. They include working at something that's just a bit of a stretch for our current abilities, not routine and not so hard we can't go on. Making do, managing limited cash and time, sharing tasks -- those are stretches, exactly the sort of challenges for which we need a life partner, a spouse.

His criteria also include working at something where we have a way to tell, from moment to moment, whether we're succeeding or not. For a couple, a limited budget provides such a measure. So does a tight schedule and a shared to do list. Even if we forget to congratulate each other on our progress, we both know how we're doing.

So, if we "remember those times of nickels and dimes...and love" together, perhaps whatever problems pull us apart later are not flaws in our mates.

• If we are overwhelmed, as a couple might be after a fire or a cancer diagnosis or stricken child, maybe we need to bring in some outside help, to take the challenge down to the level where it's just a stretch for us as a couple.


• If we are fighting over money or parenting, perhaps what we need is to stop and find the same measure for success, so we can work on the problem together again.


• If we are drifting apart, maybe all we need is a new, shared goal, one that's just a little beyond our current abilities.

Posted by patty at 7:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Following up on my July 29th blog post, my Enjoy Being Married teleclass on Wednesday, August 20, 2008 will be When Marriage Gets Boring. We will look at what we can learn by assuming love when we feel bored, how expecting love can bring back excitement, and tips to help us look for third alternatives to the choice between boredom together vs. pursuing our own interests separately.

The teleclass is free for all subscribers to my Enjoy Being Married mailing list. I hope you can join us.

Posted by patty at 12:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Divorces are mainly caused by too many expectations from the spouse."

Shabana Azmi, actress, activist, and Member of the Indian Parliament's upper house (the Rajya Sabha), said this Monday at the opening of a premartial counseling center in India's capital.

Although Azmi spoke of Delhi's mostly arranged marriages, she could have been talking about marriages in the U.S., too.

We fear lowering our expectations. None of us wants to be taken advantage of. However, marriage succeeds best when we expect love and little more. Our laundry lists of how we ought to be loved just get in the way of being loved.

Posted by patty at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This morning, I read a newspaper columnist's response to a woman who's become bored with her 19-year marriage. The woman can't see any way out of her boredom except to divorce. Unfortunately (or perhaps very fortunately), she could afford to divorce only if she wins the lottery or lands a rich boyfriend, because they are in debt.

The columnist suggested she talk to her husband, so she can discover he's bored, too. I was flabbergasted. Talking about boredom is BORING! And it seldom leads to excitement.

She could, instead, assume love. Why would someone terrific who loves you fiercely bore you? Here are some possibilities:

• You've put the job of keeping your life interesting on his shoulders, and he hasn't any better idea than you do what might entertain you. Take back this job. Try new things. Get excited about life, and your husband will almost certainly look a lot more exciting.


• He's tried to regain your interest, but you've been unreceptive, perhaps complaining about the cost or the time it takes. You never noticed the love you were being offered, and he felt you rejected it.


• He's trying his best to interact with you in the way he believes you like best. Perhaps your tastes have changed, but you haven't let him know this.


• He's struggling way too hard at something else, like getting out of debt or banking enough for retirement or winning some competition. Once you figure out what it is, you may be able to inject excitement and closeness by pitching in on his project.


• Somewhere along the way, he handed you responsibility for keeping your sex life interesting, and you have run out of ideas. There are lots of people to ask and books to read for more suggestions. Or you could simply ask him to come up with one and give it a willing try.


• You have stopped asking the interested questions you asked while you were dating, so he's stopped looking interesting. You may think you already know all about him, but he has been changing and growing and might seem utterly fascinating if you met him today. Pretend you just met and see what happens.

While assuming love, you can imagine the most saintly spouse in the universe loving the world's most loveable person in the same way your spouse is loving you. Just explain how this could happen.

Keep adding to the list until you suddenly get the "aha!" that jogs your memory and points the way toward a fix for the two of you. Or keep going until you realize there are more OK explanations than bad ones for what is happening, and you get the "Ahhh" that makes everything fine again. Only if you come up empty handed should you even consider ending your marriage.

Nineteen years of shared history offers more richness than any new relationship could. As long as you two still harbor some love for each other, a really great marriage remains within your reach.

Posted by patty at 10:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

In today's Seattle Times, marriage advice from seven siblings, all of whom have been married to the same husband or wife for fifty years.

• Faith


• Eat together


• A lot of give and take


• Family time


• Stay in touch with close relatives


• Humor


• Good cooking


• Accept each other's idiosyncrasies

Posted by patty at 11:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

On Saturday evening, I watched the CBS made-for-TV movie, Vinegar Hill. I found myself yelling "Assume Love" at the screen many times.

The movie's based on an Oprah Book Club selection by A. Manette Ansay. It opens with a close-knit and cheery family of four packing up in Chicago to move in with his parents on their farm. Ellen and Jake have lost their jobs, and she'll be able to teach at their hometown school while he looks for something to let them get a place of their own again.

Almost instantly, their marriage and family start to crumble under the weight of his parents' unhappy marriage and their grief over his brother's recent death. Jake reverts to his childhood role as his father ridicules him and compares him to his dead brother. He fails to stand up for his wife against his mother's whining demands and his father's constant disapproval.

Ellen's in a mighty uncomfortable spot: no money, her kids exposed to their grandparents' awful role models, her husband withdrawing from her and behaving like a child. So what does she do? Does she Assume Love and recognize that the husband whose character was so upbeat, strong, cooperative, and loving a few days ago in Chicago must be under fierce pressure to change so much in just a day? No, she appears to assume he must not care much for her if he won't protect her from them, and so she turns to the old high school flame who still carries a torch for her.

When she realizes staying with his parents is tearing them apart, does she Expect Love, instead of one particular way of showing it? Does she recognize the situation is hers to deal with, whether he's there or not? Does she look for a way to get the four of them to a safer place if he can't make this one safe? Does she ask any of the old friends she's reconnecting with to help them find some other place to stay? Does she ask her mother, who lives in the area, but further from the school, to help them out? No. She makes it pretty clear this is her husband's problem to solve, and if he loves her, he'd better get on it.

When he's upset by her obvious dismay, does he Assume Love and see it's just the best she can do in the face of his bossy but timid mother and his angry father? Does he suggest they try to find a Third Alternative together? No, he takes off with their car for a make-believe sales job requiring he be on the road. When he stops to buy her a lingerie gift out of guilt, he ends up in a motel room with the sales clerk. When this makes him feel even more guilty, he hurries home, only to find she's with her old flame, his long-ago rival.

By now, I should not have been surprised neither of them could Assume Love and at least try to explain how a loving spouse could turn to someone else for comfort during a crisis like this. Instead, both seemed to leap to the conclusion everything they knew and loved about the other at the start of the movie had all been fake and what they saw now was the real Jake or Ellen. She leaves. He stays.

In the end, they come back together again, but it takes an incredible plot twist to get them there. In real life, they would have been on their way to divorce, even worse financial stresses for them and their kids, and perhaps, for him, a lifetime of replaying an unhappy childhood role.

If they told their stories later, anyone would have believed there was nothing else they could have done in such a stressful situation except divorce. But just maybe, if either of them would just Assume Love and try to explain their spouse's behavior as if it's possible the love and the admirable qualities seen as they packed their car were still there, they could have found their strength in each other and created a very different ending for this tale without all that dying and revelation of past crimes.

We're into another period with the possibility of severe financial stresses for lots of us. If it forces you and your loved ones into a really rotten situation, try to remember to Assume Love. And try to remember to draw on each others' strengths and love, instead of pretending they never really existed.

Posted by patty at 2:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The folks at Gallup released a poll on Monday about Values and Beliefs. Topping the list of moral acceptability: divorce. Seventy percent rated it morally acceptable. Only twenty-two percent said it was morally unacceptable.

But it would be a mistake, I think, to jump to the conclusion that divorce has become no big deal for most of us.

At the opposite end of the spectrum of sixteen morality issues, the likely reason for why so many accept it: only seven percent find affairs between married men and women acceptable. A full ninety-one percent say such affairs are morally wrong. More of the people they surveyed found extramarital affairs unacceptable than found polygamy, human cloning, or suicide wrong.

So, let's look back at a Gallup poll from March for a qualification on what we Americans really think about divorce. We know affairs happen. There is plenty of evidence many of the ninety-one percent who find affairs morally wrong have them anyway.

How would you react if your husband or wife committed what you and almost everyone else feels is an immoral act? The March poll revealed sixty-two percent of Americans believe they would definitely or probably divorce a spouse who had an affair.

Would they divorce because they see nothing wrong with divorce? Or do they view divorce as acceptable in some circumstances, because they simply cannot imagine staying together after an immoral act against them and would not demand anyone else tolerate this?

I believe it is the second of these. In the May poll on moral issues, sixty-one percent said sex outside of marriage is morally acceptable for those who are unmarried. Only seven percent said it's acceptable for those who are married. The only difference between the sixty-one percent and seven percent is wedding vows. They still matter to us. We still find it morally wrong to ignore them. But we don't demand one side honor them when the other side does not.

By the way, you can count me among the thirty-seven percent of married Americans who probably would forgive an affair and remain married, if my husband sought my forgiveness. I know he considers cheating on me immoral and trust it could only happen under extraordinary and temporary circumstances. He's way too good a man to let go over anything temporary.

Posted by patty at 11:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The U.S. and Saudi governments are both rolling out Healthy Marriage initiatives. But what a difference!

Here in the U.S., a healthy marriage is defined as a mutually beneficial and satisfying relationship between two people with deep respect for each other and the skills to communicate and handle conflict. The initiative involves supporting and strengthening secular and faith-based marriage education programs and using the media and the internet to motivate couples to learn relationship skills.

In Saudi Arabia, a healthy marriage is one without hepatitis B or genes likely to lead to unhealthy children. They are making it easier to get pre-marital blood and genetic tests.

In both cases, the reason for the initiative is the well-being of the nation's children. May both succeed.

Posted by patty at 9:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Today is the 35th anniversary of the day I got married. It was a gorgeous Spring day, and we married, surrounded by lilacs in bloom and our closest friends and relatives, in the garden behind Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Cambridge home.

Would we still be married now, if I knew then to Assume Love, Expect Love, and Find Third Alternatives? If we had been able to stay close through those tough times twelve and thirteen years after that happy day, would Rod still be alive? Did the stress contribute to his death?

I miss him, and I miss the model he would have continued to provide for our son and now for our daughter-in-law and grandchildren. He was an exceedingly gentle and peaceful man, and a man of exceptional intellect. He loved mathematics and understood it as few people do. He greatly valued learning and would surely have encouraged our son to complete his Ph.D. and not follow in my footsteps of leaving grad school. They would have spent many hours discussing philosophy together. I wonder if he would have taught our son and grandkids the poker strategies he wrote about as a master of the branch of mathematics known as game theory.

But it's hard to reflect on this great loss without immediately feeling the great love of my second husband, Ed. We've used what I learned in Rod's death to build the sort of marriage that helps both of us to thrive, to grow, and to feel wonderfully loved. I would not want to imagine life without Ed. He, too, is a great model, a smart, brave, generous man with a strong sense of craftsmanship in everything he does, and the ability to be totally present in whatever he does, without distraction. I can't imagine my life, or that of my son and his wife and children, without Ed in it.

I wish you much love in your life. If you're having trouble finding it, please write to me and let me help. You can use the Comments link. If it's personal, and you don't want it to appear here, just say so in your comment. Either way, I will write back.

Posted by patty at 12:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sometimes, it seems it must be awfully difficult to keep a marriage going for very long. After all, for every two couples marrying in the U.S. each year, another couple gets divorced. But it's really not true caring for each other as long as we vow rests on anything as random as a coin toss.

Saturday, in London's Westminster Cathedral, 700 couples married for ten years or more renewed their vows. These 1,400 people have been married for 43,000 years. They didn't beat Pittsburgh's recent record, but that's a lot of marriages going well.

Posted by patty at 12:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Another upside to being married: It's the rational thing to do.

In MIT Professor Dan Ariely's new book, Predictably Irrational, he shows how irrationally we'll behave to keep our options open, whether it's TV surfing, paying extra for features we don't even know if we have any use for, or pursuing interesting opportunities that distract us from our goals.

Professor Ariely teaches behavioral economics. When he labels this irrational, he means we'll do things to keep our options open that cost us what we value. We'll hand over our money, squander our time, or damage our relationships just to keep a door open.

So what can be done? One answer, Dr. Ariely said, is to develop more social checks on overbooking. He points to marriage as an example: “In marriage, we create a situation where we promise ourselves not to keep options open. We close doors and announce to others we’ve closed doors.”

Source: John Tierney, New York Times, February 26, 2008 - www.nytimes.com/2008/02/26/science/26tier.html

Posted by patty at 1:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From time to time, I watch the Dr. Phil Show to see what sorts of problems married couples bring him. Yesterday, his guests wanted him to make their spouses get rid of junk cluttering the house. The accused spouses, of course, did not see it as junk.

Dr. Phil made the mistake I've heard so many therapists and marriage counselors make: he served as arbitrator. He took sides. He encouraged the collectors to make more room for their spouses. He missed a chance to actually strengthen their marriages.

What could he have done? He could have walked them through finding a third alternative together. That's an alternative that both spouses like at least as much as the one they're defending. Finding one is like giving your husband or wife an incredible gift that costs you nothing. Your spouse wins. You win. Your marriage wins.

Continue reading "Married to a Collector of Stuff? Don't Ask Dr. Phil to Set Him Straight" »

Posted by patty at 5:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Want to look your most attractive? Smile and look into your sweetie's eyes.

That's the word today from the Face Research Laboratory in Aberdeen. The report appears in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, the UK's national academy of science.

Here's what they found. First, people look more attractive to others with a smile on their face than with a disgusted look. But you knew that. Second, in general, people look more attractive to the opposite sex. You knew this, too, I'm sure.

So, what's new? Whether you're male or female, and whether you're smiling or looking disgusted, you're more attractive if you're looking directly at the other person. The extra attractiveness is small but real with a look of disgust. It's much greater when you're smiling.

If you're a woman smiling at a man, you get the biggest boost in attractiveness when you also look directly at him. However, even men get a significant boost, just by remembering to look at her.

So, assume love to turn your distressed looks into smiles, then stop what you're doing and really look at the person you married. It will make you more attractive than you already are.

Posted by patty at 7:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Howard Markman, marriage guru from the University of Denver and one of the creators of the very popular PREP marriage education program, noticed something interesting about Major League Baseball.

When Denver was hoping to lure a major league team ten years ago, he found that cities with a major league team had a divorce rate 28% lower than cities seeking one. Seven years after the Colorado Rockies played their first game, Denver's divorce rate has dropped by 20% to 4.2 divorces for every 1,000 people. Phoenix and Miami added major league teams, too, and their divorce rates dropped by 30%. Tampa's dropped by 17%, which is still above the 15% average drop nationwide.

I checked out our local stats. Pennsylvania, with two MLB teams, has one of the lowest divorce rates in the country, 43% lower than Colorado's.

Markman suspects baseball is providing the sort of shared fun that keeps couples together. Here in the Philadelphia area, where the Phillies are in the playoffs against Markman's Rockies, baseball's a shared passion for lots of couples.

Posted by patty at 9:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday's local headline sure got our attention. Our county Register of Wills, who also handles marriage licenses, issued a warning. My husband and I might not be married.

When I told a friend today, she said, "But I saw you two get married with my own eyes!"

A judge in York County handed down a ruling earlier this month. So far, it applies only in that one county, but it leaves things rather murky in all the rest. Ordained ministers without a congregation that meets regularly, the judge says, don't have that "power vested in me by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania" they claimed at the wedding. Even though the county took our money and issued us a marriage certificate, the existence of our marriage could be contested -- by either of us to avoid a divorce settlement, by a relative coveting an inheritance if we didn't have wills, or by a district attorney hoping to force one of us to testify against the other, just for starters.

So we'll be counting on the friend who saw it with her own eyes and all the rest of our wedding guests if we ever need to call on Pennsylvania's Common Law Marriage provision. It was still in effect when we married. Because they heard us say our vows back then, we're still legally married.

A lot of other Pennsylvanians who got married more recently will need to start over with a new marriage license and a different officiant or face the possibility of seeing their married status vanish into thin air right when they most need it.

Posted by patty at 11:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

While the story circulating on the internet may well be a hoax, it points to something so very true about marriage. According to the news item, Prince of Joy fell for Sweetie and she fell for him during online chats. Both lived in Zenica, Bosnia, and each was unhappily married and delighted to meet someone so good to them.

They decided to meet. Sana Klaric (27), aka Sweetie, showed up at the designated meeting place, where she first saw Prince of Joy. He turned out to be her husband Adnan (32). Both were stunned to learn the person who said such sweet things online and offered such sympathy about their marriage problems was the same person who had nothing sweet to say at home. And now they knew they were being cheated on. They plan to divorce.

It's not just the story of the Sana and Adnan's marriage. It's the story of so many marriages. Online or dating, we assume love. We gather up and hold dear every sign of love. We feel loved, so we feed back love to this person we're just getting to know. We look for the best possible explanation of everything we learn about this person, and we feed back heaps of respect, and it feels great. Then we marry.

At the first sign things won't be all sweetness and light, we start assuming there's some risk to this partnership. We gather up and grab onto every sign of threat to our independence, self-esteem, financial well-being, or sense of power. We feed back our fears and our indignation, and these become more evidence of risk for our spouses.

Sana and Adnan proved to themselves there was still much to love about each other. They proved they still could see the best in each other and reflect it back as love and respect. They demonstrated what a different response they'd get if they did this at home. But they chalked it all up to bad judgement, because they've already assumed trouble and treated everything they could as evidence of trouble.

I'm sure they think things will be different if they just find the right person. There is no right person when you operate with the wrong assumption. To enjoy being married, assume love.

Posted by patty at 4:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Are there things you need but aren't getting from your spouse? More encouragement? A bigger bank account? A little private time? Someone to really listen when you talk? Before you let needs ruin your marriage, try this little test.

1. If you wake up tomorrow to learn your spouse died overnight, will you still need it?

2. If so, must you remarry in order to get it?

3. If so, will you be willing to marry someone who doesn't love you just to get it?

If your spouse isn't the one responsible for your need, if it's not something you can get only from your spouse, and if it's not worth a loveless marriage, the best way to keep the love alive in your marriage is to stop blaming your spouse and start involving him or her.

What's the difference? Blaming starts with "You don't..." or "You won't..." Involving starts with "Will you help me think of some ways I can..."

Posted by patty at 10:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I saw the movie Away from Her this week. Based on an Alice Munro short story, written and directed by Sarah Polley, it's the story of a marriage and the value of assuming love -- or at least that's what I saw.

Continue reading "Away from Her" »

Posted by patty at 8:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today, I want to tackle another of Tammy Blankenship's challenging questions about assuming love.

My husband has gotten better in the past 10 years, but I can't seem to forget about what an ass he was when we first got married. How do I know he won't revert back into the jackass he was?

You don't. You can't. You can Assume Love and verify for yourself that he's behaving like a loving spouse today, thereby opening your heart to receive all the love he has to offer you and reflecting back to him gratitude, caring, and respect -- or you can refuse to receive all of the love you're offered today and reflect back suspicion and distrust.

Assuming love doesn't mean pretending you're loved, so you'll instantly spot a non-loving act and know what to do with it. In the meantime, why deny yourself the joy of being loved?

Posted by patty at 12:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thanks again to Tammy from Creating Success Stories for this great question.

When we were married, my husband and I agreed that I would take care of the inside of the house and he would take care of the outside…he is lazy and does nothing and I want you to help me do something about it! What should I do to make him do what he promised to?

Continue reading "Broken Promises" »

Posted by patty at 10:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Diane Sollee, author of the marvelous Smart Marriages newsletter, recently asked marriage educators on her mailing list to address a complaint from a husband contemplating divorce.

As he put it, "You end up thinking you are marrying a Ferrari and you get a Mini Van." He'd lost his libido as his thin, sexy wife became an overweight soccer mom, and he wanted out. But first, "I am writing to you because my divorce isn¹t final and I want answers."

In most cases where a spouse complains of an unmet need, I'd suggest first trying to find a way to get that need met outside the marriage. But sexual attraction is one of those needs that must be met within the marriage. And for that, we need a Third Alternative.

Continue reading "Weight Gain and Divorce" »

Posted by patty at 1:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

You will change your spouse. But you won't get to choose how.

Allow yourself to be loved by the person you married.

Posted by patty at 2:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas and hoping you'll remember to Assume Love when your husband or wife fails to

• Join you for caroling (some folks don't enjoying singing for others)
  
• Carve the turkey correctly (unless he's CEO of Butterball)


• Try your bread pudding (she really could be full)


• Give you any presents (Gary Chapman says there are four other Love Languages)


• Keep your mother entertained while you and your dad visit (need I explain?)


• Vacuum, dust, or replace the nearly empty roll of toilet paper


• Stay cheery


• Get serious


• Read your mind

Continue reading "Merry Christmas" »

Posted by patty at 3:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

What does it take to get married and stay married if you're not earning much or can't find work? More than it does otherwise. The US Government provides a Marriage Calculator to help parents who receive public assistance (and state and federal legislators who determine the rules) determine how much more assistance they and their kids will get if they're divorced and living apart or lying about living together.

Continue reading "The Marriage Calculator" »

Posted by patty at 1:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

How often do your fears keep you from seeing what's really going on in your marriage? Fear of debt can turn your husband's generosity or normal risk-taking into a sign you're unloved or unsafe. Fear of being alone can force the two of you into activities neither of you has any real enthusiasm for, until you're both married to low-energy, unenthusiastic people. Fear of abandonment can lead you to minimize your spouse's accomplishments, even though your support and encouragement is the real glue that will hold you together. Fear of doing the wrong thing can keep you from selecting any gift for a wife who sees gifts as proof of your feelings for her.

When you feel the fear, assume love immediately. Ask yourself how you'd see the situation if you knew for certain that the wonderful person who committed his or her life to you remains every bit as wonderful, in love, and committed to your wellbeing.

Posted by patty at 12:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Vanessa reached her front door as her two preteen kids gathered their beach gear from the backseat of the car. She put the key in the lock. As she turned it, she knew her marriage was over. John hadn't changed the lock.

Continue reading "The Good for Nothing Husband" »

Posted by patty at 8:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The question of the day in Compuserve's Family Forum was addressed to those who have divorced. It asked whether changing expectations in your marriage led to the divorce. I want to share my reply here.

Yes, my changing expectations led to divorce, or darn close to it. When my husband died very unexpectedly just a day after I told him my long list of unmet expectations led me to believe divorce would be best, I became a widow instead. And I woke up to some very painful recognitions about expectations.

Continue reading "Expectations" »

Posted by patty at 12:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mike's watching a baseball game on TV. Melanie wants him to go with her to the nursery to pick out some flowers for the garden. Melanie knows if they don't go soon, they won't be able to plant tomorrow. Recently, gardening's been the one activity they actually enjoy together. She walks into the family room and asks Mike when he'll be ready to go. He doesn't even answer, just waves her off. Melanie seems uncertain whether she'll cry or heave the bowl of chips across the room. This would be a very good time to Assume Love.

Continue reading "Disrupting His Baseball Game" »

Posted by patty at 11:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My advice to Assume Love applies only in a marriage or another relationship in which both partners have made a commitment to the longevity of the relationship. Until then, it might be wise to Assume the Worst.

When you assume love, you deliberately seek out evidence of your mate's love for you. Any actions with an ambiguous cause you can safely attribute to love because you have a partner committed to sustaining the relationship, even if that commitment sometimes wavers. You can view any hurtful behavior in the context of years of loving behavior and an intimate knowledge of who you're dealing with. To do so, you must repeatedly draw on that memory of when you knew without a doubt you had found a wonderful person.

None of these will help you determine whether you've found a wonderful person. In fact, they may well obscure the truth about people you date. You will fare much better if you repeatedly assume a deceitful, untrustworthy person who seeks to manipulate and exploit you, and try to explain the actions you've observed from that what-if picture. The more often this fails, the more likely you've got the sort of person to whom you can commit yourself for the rest of your life.

Continue reading "Dating? Don't Assume Love" »

Posted by patty at 10:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Recently, my husband and I attended a weekend event with speakers' presentations in several of the ballrooms and a hospitality suite on the top floor for eating, drinking, and mingling. We've both gone to these before and know lots of the other folks who show up. So why did my worrying mind go into overdrive when I noticed he'd vanished from the seat next to mine at one of the presentations?

He'd been right there for over an hour. Now he was gone. And he'd said nothing, given no signal of his departure. I could see him at the back of the room, heading for the exit. My first thoughts ran along the lines of I'm invisible, he can sit right next to me and forget I exist, I deserve an explanation, he should tell me before leaving, I've been wronged. Really. Even after years of Assuming Love. There's a little switch in my brain that lets loose wild demons when anything smacks of abandonment.

But I quickly switched from Assume Abandonment to Assume Love. What would lead a good, loving husband to silently slip away from his wife during such a presentation? A bathroom break came to mind first. After all these years, I know that my husband will never, ever reveal that he's headed there. Then it occurred to me that he might be bored by the presenter but way too well-mannered to add insult to injury by talking before he walked out. He might even have noticed that I was quite interested -- and among friends -- and decided not to disturb me.

Once those thoughts had brought me back to a calmer state, I enjoyed the rest of the talk and caught up with my husband, who was, indeed, trying to be polite to me and to the speaker by leaving silently. We were back in the hospitality suite, where I could appreciate just how funny and sociable this terrific man is. If I'd come back feeling mistreated by his silent departure, I might have missed that.

Posted by patty at 1:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Recently, my husband and I attended a weekend event with speakers' presentations in several of the ballrooms and a hospitality suite on the top floor for eating, drinking, and mingling. We've both gone to these before and know lots of the other folks who show up. So why did my worrying mind go into overdrive when I noticed he'd vanished from the seat next to mine at one of the presentations?

He'd been right there for over an hour. Now he was gone. And he'd said nothing, given no signal of his departure. I could see him at the back of the room, heading for the exit. My first thoughts ran along the lines of I'm invisible, he can sit right next to me and forget I exist, I deserve an explanation, he should tell me before leaving, I've been wronged. Really. Even after years of Assuming Love. There's a little switch in my brain that lets loose wild demons when anything smacks of abandonment.

But I quickly switched from Assume Abandonment to Assume Love. What would lead a good, loving husband to silently slip away from his wife during such a presentation? A bathroom break came to mind first. After all these years, I know that my husband will never, ever reveal that he's headed there. Then it occurred to me that he might be bored by the presenter but way too well-mannered to add insult to injury by talking before he walked out. He might even have noticed that I was quite interested -- and among friends -- and decided not to disturb me.

Once those thoughts had brought me back to a calmer state, I enjoyed the rest of the talk and caught up with my husband, who was, indeed, trying to be polite to me and to the speaker by leaving silently. We were back in the hospitality suite, where I could appreciate just how funny and sociable this terrific man is. If I'd come back feeling mistreated by his silent departure, I might have missed that.

Posted by patty at 1:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When KT married Ben last year, she loved to get a call from him during her workday. She'd look forward to 5:30, when she'd arrive home to a big hug and a huge smile. With her new job, she can't count on leaving as early. She's often rushing to get out of the office, then racing through traffic only to get home closer to 6:00, when she gets only Ben's icy greeting from the sofa.

Today, she returned from lunch to an urgent request from her boss. She's offered to take KT to lunch tomorrow if she completes the task by the close of business, a first in her two months here. KT's in a mad rush to finish in time when Ben calls.

As she reaches for the phone and sees his number, KT's asking herself, "Is he checking up on me again? Why can't he see that it's the job that makes me late? Why does this matter so much to him? Why is he so insecure and childish? Why can't he be happy to see me whenever I come home? I feel like he's got me on a short leash, and so does my job. He's wrecking my career chances!" No matter what Ben says now, KT will not hear any love in it.

Continue reading "When Will You Be Home?" »

Posted by patty at 3:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We've all got our pet peeves when living with someone else, and spouses get a special break only for the first few months. What should you do when you encounter dirty dishes in the sink, an open toothpaste tube on the sink, wet bathroom floors, sweat socks in the dining room, spice bottles lined up alphabetically instead of by height and all the rest of the annoying things that real people do?

Continue reading "Dirty Dishes and Open Toothpaste Tubes" »

Posted by patty at 6:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This website is for anyone who's ever wondered if their husband, wife, or life partner really meant that "I do" or whether they are still loved today. It's for everyone who's found a partner but still battles with unmet needs, unresolved conflicts, and questions of what's fair and what's not.

I learned a few things when I lost my first husband. First, marriage does not require hard work. Second, it seldom benefits from compromise. Third, knowing how to communicate is not enough. I hope to explain myself more over the coming months.

My goals: happier marriages, fewer divorces. For all of us, even the folks who can't or won't get a marriage license. One partner we can count on for the rest of our lives. One family our kids can count on for the rest of their lives.

Posted by patty at 12:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Here's how you Assume Love. Consider doing it every time your spouse does something or fails to do something and you feel anger, resentment, hurt, fear, shame, frustration, or superiority taking hold of your emotions:

1. Assume you are completely loved by a wonderful person.


2. Attempt to explain how such a person might come to do what just happened.


3. If you can think of one or more explanations that might possibly apply to your real life situation, too, decide whether you choose to react to the negative explanation or to one of these positive possibilities.


4. If you choose one of the positive ones, check whether it teaches you something new about how your spouse loves you.

Here's an example...

Continue reading "Four Steps to Assume Love" »

Posted by patty at 12:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)