If you stop focusing on your marriage, it just won’t thrive. You can’t ‘frontload’ a marriage; you must constantly maintain it. You can’t put in tons in the beginning and hope it lasts a lifetime. You can’t live along the motto of “I told you ‘I love you’ and I’ll let you know if anything […]
Keep up the little things in your marriage. Read More »
Many times, the message gets lost in the choice of words or body language or other non verbals. The message itself can be rather innocuous or innocent. But the words used are not quite sensitive. Or the timing is off. Don’t throw out the message because it wasn’t packaged in the best way. Mostly, people
Focus on the message, not the exact choice of words. Read More »
Hmm. Is it possible that you are focusing more time on the areas that you disagree on than living the life that you do see eye to eye on? Some studies say we spend 90% of our time on the 10% that we disagree on. That’s grossly misusing our energy and time on the wrong
Do you spend most of your time on the few areas you disagree on? Read More »
Care-frontation, which is defined as “Confrontation done in a caring or loving manner.” The core of care-frontation is to approach the person from the heart: with compassion rather than recrimination. This is the best way to get anyone’s attention. Not only starting from heart, but also leading the conversation from the heart. A care-frontation makes
Care-frontation. Not confrontation. Read More »
How you frame the issue directly impacts how you will begin to address it. It all starts with your mindset and heartset. If you come at the issue from an angle of collaboration or from revenge, you will come up with very different ways of dealing with the situation. Before trying to address the underlying
Your mindset and heartset frame your thinking and problem solving. Read More »
Giving is what brings us true happiness. It’s in our Torah teachings. It is proven in studies. And when we are honest with ourselves, we know from our own lives. Yet, in this upside down world that we live in, somehow, some of us live as if our happiness is dependent on other people loving
Marriage is so much harder in today’s upside down world. Read More »
Your spouse is upset. By something you said or did. Even if you are not wrong. No matter how it happened. No matter the intention. And since you care so much about your spouse and the marriage, acknowledge that you did somehow contribute to their upset. Later you can ask what you did that upset
Say “I’m Sorry I upset you” even when you are not wrong Read More »
Your spouse is upset. By something you said or did. Even if you are not wrong. No matter how it happened. No matter the intention. And since you care so much about your spouse and the marriage, acknowledge that you did somehow contribute to their upset. Later you can ask what you did that upset
Say ‘I’m sorry I upset you” even when you are not wrong. Read More »
You grew up in two different families. With different normals. What is typical in your family can feel so foreign in your spouse’s. In your spouse’s family, at Sukkos time, everyone already had announced what they would bring to the Chanukah party. In your family, it was more ad hoc, and everyone just brought something.
You can’t know what you couldn’t possibly have known. Read More »
Ask from genuine curiosity, and make it a safe conversation so you will get an honest and useful response. You may have thought that the response would be about the expensive gift or long walk on the beach. But it might be something much smaller or less ‘typically’ romantic. It may be about the time
Ask: “What has been a time that you truly felt loved by me?” Read More »
