Two Years in Moments
Tomorrow my husband and I will celebrate two years. Two years since we said “I do,” and embarked on the greatest, most gloriously difficult adventure of our lives.
Marriage.
These past two years have been made of moments that were laugh out loud good, scream in pain hard, and breathtakingly beautiful:
Does Your Relationship Need a Boost?
There are two kinds of comfortable in a romantic relationship.
Good:The pressure to impress that other person has subsided and you’re finally at ease enough in the relationship to be all of you, from the put-together to the emotionally unhinged.
Not so Good: You are no longer excited by this person or the relationship, routine has become the rut you’re stuck in and you’ve lost that spark that first got this whole train started.
We aim for the first, knowing it’s a rare thing indeed to actually find that sort of comfortable in a romantic relationship.
Preparing Your Kid to Be Different
Today I’m guest posting over at Roo Magazine with an article for parents entitled, “Preparing Your Kid to Be Different.”
Here’s a snippet:
Being a teenager is tough. Really tough.
There’s the daily rollercoaster of emotions, the struggle to subdue your hormones lest they dominate you…
The War Between Men & Women: Guest Post at Verily
In case you missed it, this week I guest posted over at Verily Magazine, a fabulous new venture that is written by young women, for young women.
Here’s a teaser of what I said on the Battle of the Sexes:
As the song from Annie Get Your Gun says, “Anything you can do, I can do better.”
Personally, I’ve found that a little competition can be healthy; it drives me to push further, try harder and endure longer. But if I take my competitive spirit to an extreme, especially in a relationship, it can be grating, hurtful and exhausting; if I’m not careful, I can cause distance between those closest to me. Although I want to be a strong, successful woman, I’ve learned that I need to reevaluate what that really means for me.
3 Tips to Instantly Improve Relationships
There are some great articles out this week that I highly recommend checking out.
Over at Verily Magazine, Kara Eschbach and Monica Gabriel respond to an article in The Atlantic that touted “Boys on the Side,” as a good strategy for women seeking to pursue career first, love second. Sheila Gregoire, Courtney, Jennifer, and Darlene Schacht have collectively focused this week on helping women revamp their marriages by speaking words of praise towards their husbands.
What does this have to do with us who are young adults, many who are single and not yet married?
Jane Austen on Hooking-up
I was watching Pride and Prejudice this past weekend, which I do every time my husband goes out of town. It has to be the BBC 8 hour version with Colin Firth. If you’re a real fan, you’ll understand. You simply cannot scrimp on Jane Austen’s dialogue or on Mr. Firth. But I digress.
Aside from the intrigue, the scandals, the depth of characters, and the biting wit delivered in refined prose, Austen has an ability to talk about sex, relationships and the male/female dynamic in a manner that is timeless. Take this little gem for instance:
Parents, Why You Need to Talk About Sex.
A couple of weeks ago I had a guest post on RooMag.com urging parents to add “Sex Talks with my Teen” to their Back-To-School List. It was a real hit. All of zero people commented on the post.
Perhaps it was a bit premature. Here I am urging parents to talk about this with their kids without addressing one of the underlying questions: “Why?”
Why as parents do you need to have these talks with your children? Yes, plural, not singular. This is not a one time monologue to be delivered with sock puppets and catchy slogans like, “Just say no!” It is an ongoing conversation that begins when they’re young and ends when…they get married.
You’re going to be doing this a lot. Sometimes it will go great, and other times you will be left wondering why in the world you said what you did.
What Habits Are You Forming?
It’s unatural, restricting and goes against our natural instincts, which is why people get restless in marriage,” argued my friend as we sat discussing relationships and sexual fidelity. My line of work has a tendency to bring up these sort of conversations.
He’s not alone in thinking that. It’s a line of thought that gets used to rationalize a myriad of behavior in marriages, such as the one I addressed here .
But this looks at divorce only as the sum of the marriage experience and nothing before.
Newsflash: When the city records office hands you your marriage license, it doesn’t come with a giant reset button for all your habits, attitudes and expectations about relationships.
9/11: Never Forget
Today is 9/11.
It has been 11 years since:
Two planes crashed into the World Trade Centers,
One plane crashed into the Pentagon,
One plane crashed into a field in Pennsylvania, and
2, 792 people died.
Until that day, we didn’t know most of their names.
Hope Springs: 3 Important Truths for Marriage
When my husband and I went to see Hope Springs, we were the youngest in the theater by at least 20 years. Clearly, we were not the target demographic.
The movie centers around Kay (Meryl Streep) and Arthur (Tommy Lee Jones), a couple who have just celebrated their 31st wedding anniversary. Theirs is a painfully hollow relationship where the passion is as dried up as a mummy, with husband and wife sleeping in separate rooms.
While this may be a movie geared towards our parents, there are 3 Important Truths to be gleaned for our own marriages, whether just starting out or yet to begin.