Sustaining Good Sex: How to Want What You Already Have

February 14, 2013 by Amber


Meatloaf told us we should love the one we’re with … but that’s uninspiring. How do you not just love the one you’re with, but DESIRE him, long term, in a committed and intimate way? How do you WANT him? Not just today, but for the decades to come?

It seems like Valentine’s Day is as good a day as any to tackle this topic. I encourage you to watch this TED Talk, featuring Esther Perel.

Perel reminds us that we demand a lot of marriage: comfort and familiarity, intimacy and excitement. It’s only in the last century or so that we’ve expected so much from a single relationship … and we’re living longer these days, meaning “happily ever after” can be decades more than your great grandma might have expected.

Perel is honest: toys and lingerie can’t save us from the predictability of married sex. In desire, she says, you tend not to want to go back to where you’ve already been.

As a researcher, Perel asks people (across culture, religion, and gender), “When are you most drawn to your partner?”

Many people say they are most drawn to their partner when she is away: absence and longing are major components of desire. Others say they are drawn to their partners when they are on stage, or talking animatedly to others: in other words, they are drawn to their partners when they see them behaving confidently, when others are attracted to their personality.

“Mystery,” she says, quoting Proust, “is about seeing the same with new eyes.” It is finding the mysteries that are living right next to you.

The final group of people says they are drawn to their partners in novel situations: when he’s wearing a tux, when she breaks out an old pair of cowboy boots. Novelty isn’t about new positions or new toys: it’s about creativity and attraction.

So how do you take advantage of this research? Create anticipation. It’s something you can cultivate through absence,playfulness,  imagination, creativity, novelty. Turn yourself on. Figure out what makes you feel alive and maybe a little mischievous: generate healthy desire within yourself, and your partner will likely find it too.

Also - best line from the video: Foreplay doesn’t start five minutes before sex. It pretty much starts at the end of the last orgasm.

Chocolate candies in a heart shaped box may make her smile … they are unlikely to make her toes curl. Good luck with that tonight.

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There Is A Storm Coming

January 31, 2013 by Cliff

Take ShelterDid you know that before Jessica Chastain captured Osama Bin Laden or learned to cook from her maid, she was just another small town resident with a small business, a daughter who had special needs and a husband that believed an apocalyptic storm was getting closer by the day? While Ms. Chastain has captured Oscar attention this year for Zero Dark Thirty, I’m still slightly obsessed with a film that the Academy snubbed last year: Take Shelter.

Take Shelter is writer/director Jeff Nichols’ second film, and it’s typically classified as a “thriller.” Nichols decided to explore anxiety with this particular movie, and audience members most certainly experiences just that. From the very first moment, you are thrust into the protagonist’s (Curtis) increasingly frightening and urgent dreams about a terrible storm that changes people and threatens his family. As a result of these dreams, Curtis slowly loses control of his seemingly idyllic life, making decisions and taking actions that isolate himself more and more.

The first time I saw this film, I was riveted by Michael Shannon’s amazing performance as Curtis and the filmmaker’s great knack for storytelling. But the second time I was riveted by something else entirely: the two main characters’ marriage. During an interview with the Independent Film Channel, someone asked Nichols about the role of marriage in the film. Here’s how he responded:

To be very serious about it, I set out this tone or emotion of anxiety, but while I was writing I quickly realized that’s not enough. Anxiety is an effect, it’s not a cause. I needed the cause of all this stuff. As I built the character, I needed to give him a life that he loved and valued and arguably was respected by other people. Curtis begins this film in a good place. He’s kind of a guy that has his shit together. And as you start to dismantle that, that’s where the fear and anxiety comes from. I didn’t even know it but as I started writing, I was setting myself on a course to write a film about marriage, because separately from the film I’d been thinking about my marriage. How marriages work, why most marriages fail and what I have to do to be one of the ones that make it work. What do I have to do? The conclusion I came to was, I think it’s a lot about communication. We all carry these fears and doubts. They will always be there, whether it’s fear of the government collapsing, or the environment, or you can’t pay your bills, whatever. We’ll always have something to worry about. And I think where marriages maybe get damaged is in people not sharing those fears with their significant others.

Readers of this blog know that “most marriages end in divorce” is actually inaccurate (read more here), but I want to focus on the marriage that Nichols ended up portraying in this film. Without spoiling anything about this movie’s plot, I think it’s fair to say that Curtis’ obsession with the coming storm wreaks havoc on his home and marriage. There’s a moment when his wife approaches him outside and things seem to have reached an all-time low. The audience is waiting for her to scream or walk away, but she doesn’t…she lays out a plan for how they can fix everything together. I found myself asking if I could find that sort of strength in a similar situation. When faced with my partner’s overwhelming fears and doubts, could I stand with her? That may seem like an easy question, but at some point or another our anxieties will feel bigger than life itself. In those moments, we need to give voice to those deep seated fears…and then we need the person who hears them to stick around.

So you want some advice based on Take Shelter? Well, if your spouse starts sleeping in your storm shelter, ask what’s going on. Also, sometimes the Oscars get it very wrong.

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Thirty by 30

January 28, 2013 by Amber

Lauren

My friend Lauren (pictured here with her husband, Alex) is guest posting this week. Check out Lauren’s blog at www.handmaden.com.

Every newlywed learns this lesson – usually pretty fast: marriage doesn’t make you happy. In this guest post, blogger Lauren Wilgus (of www.handmaden.com) shares her own reminder that contentment is a never-ending pursuit that starts mostly with your own attitude.

 

 

I’ve always struggled to know the line between contentment and ambition.

I want to travel and eat good foods and push myself at work and make new friends and take on challenges and be involved at church and learn new crafts and write letters and take meals to people who need them and exercise and have a welcoming home and do special things with Alex. All great things. And all things that take effort and planning and some amount of wanting things to be different than how they are right now.

So the question is how do I keep that desire — for change and challenge and newness — while being content with who I am now and the things I have now?

I’ve been married for just over a year now. The most significant thing I’ve realized is that my attitude is always my choice. I choose to be annoyed and resentful at a teasing comment or I choose to laugh along. I choose to talk about something or I choose to give the silent treatment. I choose to smile in the morning or I choose to stomp around and brood about running late. Living with someone else suddenly makes my choices much more visible.

This year I will turn 30. I’ve thought for the last 6 months about compiling a “30 by 30″ list of things I want to accomplish before June 20. But I decided that it might be more helpful for me to compile a different sort of list. Still a “30 by 30.” But in a spirit of gratitude and contentment, this list will celebrate the opportunities I have already had. This year I want to look back on the last 30 and simply say, “Wow. Thank you Lord.”

Perhaps the answer is that simple: choose thanks.

Perhaps contentment, thanks for the gifts and opportunities we’ve already been given, is the very attitude that spurs us on toward a full life of creativity and newness, as we live with gratitude toward the Giver of all good things.

Psalm 103

 

More on marriage, happiness and contentment: The Myth of the Happy Marriage.

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Reports of Our Divorce are Greatly Exaggerated

January 22, 2013 by Amber

Last Monday morning Cliff took Maggie to daycare, as he does most days. He gave her a kissing hand (cutest book ever) and said goodbye. Shortly after that he took the Blue Line to O’Hare and flew off for a week of work meetings in Virginia.

That night I picked Maggie at school. Her teacher, Ms. Griselda, delicately pulled me aside and said, in a tone that made it clear her sentence was a question, despite its structure, “So today Maggie told us her dad was going far away, and now she was just going to live with her mom.” Ms. Griselda looked up at me, waiting for me to break the bad news of our divorce.

At first I laughed heartily. But later I was struck by how possible a reality this probably seemed to Ms. Griselda. She rarely sees Cliff and me together, and when I mention him to her, I say things like, “Maggie’s father will pick her up tomorrow,” instead of “My husband will pick her up.” It would be easy to construct a reality where our home life doesn’t operate as smoothly as our “you drop her off/I’ll pick her up” routine appears.

I’m happy to say that I was able to quickly put Ms. Griselda at ease. We have no announcements to make. (And my exceptionally verbal, barely three year-old daughter has been reminded that Dad always comes home from his work trips.) But for the last week I’ve thought often of how easy it would be, from Ms. Griselda’s perspective, to believe the rumors, because on the outside looking in, you never really know what a marriage is like.

A century ago, when multiple newspapers, believing rumors, published Mark Twain’s obituary, Twain fired back, “Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” While Maggie and Ms. Griselda were spreading rumors, I was being reminded of how fragile strong relationships can appear, and how strong a weak relationship may seem to others. Reports of our divorce are greatly exaggerated.

***

Somewhat related: for more on marriage and work travel, see our earlier post, How to Leave Your Wife.

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The Myth of the Happy Marriage

January 8, 2013 by Amber

Phantom Desires | Photo via Flickr by Andrew.Beebe.

We are constantly in pursuit of happiness. And our desires can overshadow reality.

Sometimes, before we find that long-awaited spouse, we tell ourselves that marriage will make us happy. That you will feel complete (thanks, Jerry Maguire, for that one). We tell ourselves this about other things as well – the perfect new job, a new pair of boots, the baby you’ve been longing for, a victorious season in Fantasy Football – but somehow we really believe it about marriage.

In light of this very human habit, here are some relevant observations.

Three Truths about Happiness and Marriage

Side note – these observations are totally cribbed from Peter Rollins, a theologian and philosopher who spoke at my church recently. He wasn’t talking explicitly about marriage, but about life in general. So these observations could technically read:

Three Truths about Happiness and Life

1. You will never get what you think will make you complete. Either you never get what you want, or you get it and realize it didn’t work.

2. Not only can you not get it, you will think others have it.

3. Sometimes we pretend we have the thing that will make us happy, because we take pleasure from people thinking you have that happiness.

This makes sense in marriage, right? The mental process goes something like this: You think a partner will make you complete. And a few days or weeks or months into marriage, you realize you still have gray days. But your friend’s Facebook posts seem so rosy – she has the perfect marriage, the perfect family. Something must be fundamentally wrong with yours. It would be too embarrassing to admit things aren’t always perfect – so let’s pretend they are. Quick, post a photo from last week’s date night.  Continue Reading »

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45 years…and counting

January 3, 2013 by Cliff

Mom & DadYou may have noticed that this blog has been pretty quiet lately. Ever since December 9, I’ve been searching for words…and peace, honestly. You see, that Sunday morning, my mother passed away unexpectedly. It’s pretty tough to offer insights about marriage when your greatest example of lasting relationship suddenly vanishes. My folks were married for 45 years, and I learned almost everything I know from watching them. I watched them talk and argue and encourage and dream and explore and grow. Together. When people ask why I believe in the power of relationships and commitment, my folks are one very big reason.

I cried a lot that week. I wept so hard and so long that my stomach began to ache and my sides began to hurt. Mom left this gaping hole in our life, and there’s really no filling it. We’ll build around it. We’ll rise above it. We’ll stare into it occasionally. But we will have to find a new normal. Because the old normal will never return.

At some point, I started writing her letters, and Dad started writing her letters too. It’s a coping mechanism and a farewell all at once, I suppose. One of those letters captures what I learned from Mom and Dad pretty well, so I’m sharing it below. This is what 45 years of marriage looks like, I think…at least, it’s what their 45 years of marriage looked like. After reading Dad’s note, a colleague of mine said, “When I read that letter, I couldn’t help but think about my own life, my own relationships – it made me think about the kind of relationship I will always aspire to have. If it could do that much for me, I can’t imagine the impact your parents’ marriage and love has had on you, and will have on Maggie and Sam. I am so sorry for your loss, but I hope you can find comfort in the fact that your father’s message of love to your mother made many people who never had the chance to meet her think, ‘I want what she had.’”

I hope Dad’s note impacts you also; I know their marriage continues to impact me everyday.

My Dearest Darlene,

You caught my eye some 45 years ago on the day I cleaned your car windows at the Enco gas station in the Chicago suburb of Maywood, IL.  I admit that I thought you were a very beautiful woman, but what really caused me to take that second look and then ask the owner to introduce me to you was your unbelievable smile.  I know you always worried that your smile was a bit too big and especially when your one crown would show.  Not me, I actually loved to see that crown peeking out.

It was not long before I realized that your smile was not something someone taught you how to do, but rather a smile that came all the way from your heart that not only showed up on your pretty face but completely consumed every part of you.  Everyone we met fell in love with the woman with a winning personality and a huge heart matched only by the size of her smile.

I remember the day we were getting ready to go someplace and you could not stop crying for what you said was for no reason other than that you were very pregnant with our second child.  That’s when I decided I was going to take your picture which you protested but soon just gave in and started to smile.  There you were, tears running down both cheeks and a big smile besides.

Thanks for believing in me.  I could not understand why a beautiful college educated Wheaton big city girl would take me to see her parents, let alone agree to marry a country boy from a dairy farm who could not even pronounce his words correctly.  But you did and you did so with pride and including meeting with all your other relatives who seemed to me to be so accomplished.  Then the time came when I realized I needed more education but was afraid to try as I had not been much of a student in high school. You had gotten straight A’s whereas I just got by.  It was only because of your confidence in me that I eventually tried and then to my surprise learned that I too could get A’s.

At work, they used to tease me that the only reason I was married to you was because you met me at the state hospital and felt sorry for me.  Of course, I knew they were only teasing, but it made me pretty pleased because I knew what they were really saying.  What they were saying was that they felt I was one lucky man to be married to such a wonderful woman.  How true, and thanks for everything from believing in me to being such a great Mom to our children and Grandmother to the grandkids.

I will miss having you next to me in the mornings while you journal and read God’s word before we prayed together.  Also, I am sure I will have to do a lot of apologizing to others because you will not be there to caution me.  You helped me be a better man of God with your example that I hope to be able to remember until we meet again.

I have no idea how I will get by without you at my side, but I will do my best to make you proud.  Our 45 years together went by to quickly and I already want to just hold your hand one more time. Mostly, I want to have you look at me with those loving eyes that told me how much you loved me and believed in me.  You know, that farm boy who’s still not sure how to dress or what to say.  Whenever I think of you it will always include remembering that big, big smile that made me take that second look so many years ago. 

Love you and see you soon,

Your loving husband and best friend
Teddy

 

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Reading Our Way to Christmas (Our First Guest Blog!)

November 28, 2012 by Amber

My friend Shelly started a blog a few weeks ago, and she already has more regular readers than we do. But ’tis the season to be jolly, so I won’t be jealous. Instead, I’ll introduce you to her writing. Here Shelly shares a holiday tradition that’s become important to her family.

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Reading Our Way to Christmas

I love traditions. Maybe it’s because unlike flossing your teeth or doing stomach crunches, traditions seem like fun habits to create.

Every Thursday evening, we have Backward Dinner night at our house, where we start with dessert and work our way backward through our meal: dessert, entrées, and then onto salads or starters if I’ve managed something that elaborate for dinner.

Mostly, my kids love to observe Backward Dinner Night when their friends come over to our house. Or, if we’re eating out, they get to explain to our server why we need our desserts first.

Another more recent tradition is to plan a tourist day in our own city on Veterans’ Day, which we’ll be doing again this Monday. We’ve taken the elevators to the observation deck of the Columbia Tower; had lunch at the Fairmont Olympic; gone glass blowing or cupcake tasting. In the evening, we set up our artificial Christmas tree and decorate it. No sense in waiting until December to enjoy the lights and ornaments. (Yeah, sometimes the kids talk me into a real tree as well in December.)

On Veteran’s day, we’ll also wrap our advent Christmas books. Starting on Dec. 1, we open one wrapped book (the kids rotate who gets to choose which present to unwrap) and read a Christmas bedtime story each night. The stories range from silly (Santa’s Eleven Months Off) to sweet (Redheaded Robbie’s Christmas Story); Sentimental (The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree: An Appalachian Story) to iconic (How the Grinch Stole Christmas).

On Christmas Eve, we read the Nativity story.

I’ve change out a few books each year as the kids have advanced from infants to toddlers to grade school and middle school. The scratch and sniff book, The Sweet Smell of Christmas gave way to Pearl Buck’s, Christmas Day in the Morning. And the list is a blend of Christian and secular.

It’s been years of scouring bookstores and book lists and libraries to find some favorites. In case you need to purchase holiday presents for small people or want to start your own Advent book tradition, I thought I’d share my list with you—25 because it’s a nice number even if it means you’ll have to figure out which book you’ll exclude leading up to Christmas!

In random order:

  1. Redheaded Robbie’s Christmas Story, by Bill Luttrell
  2. The Polar Express, by Chris Van Allsburg
  3. Gift of the Magi, by O. Henry
  4. Snowmen at Night, by Mark Buehner
  5. Auntie Claus, by Elise Primavera (The three Auntie Claus books are my kids’ favorites at the moment!)
  6. Auntie Claus and the Key to Christmas, by Elise Primavera
  7. Auntie Claus, Home for the Holidays, by Elise Primavera
  8. Penny’s Christmas Jar, by Jason F. Wright
  9. How Murray Saved Christmas, by Mike Reiss
  10. Merry UnChristmas, by Mike Reiss
  11. Olive, the Other Reindeer, by J. Otto Seibold and Vivian Walsh
  12. Mooseltoe, by Margie Palatini
  13. Christmas Day in the Morning, by Pearl S. Buck
  14. The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree: An Appalachian Story, by Gloria Houston
  15. Legend of the Christmas Stocking*, by Rick Osborne
  16. A Wish to be a Christmas Tree, by Colleen Monroe
  17. The Legend of the Candy Cane*, by Lori Walburg VandenBosch
  18. A Wish for Wings That Work: An Opus Christmas Story, by Berkeley Breathed
  19. Santa’s Eleven Months Off, by Mike Reiss
  20. How Santa Got His Job, by Stephen Krensky
  21. There Was a Cold Lady Who Swallowed Some Snow, by Lucille Colandro
  22. The Little Shepherd Girl: A Christmas Story*, by Julianne Henry, Jim Madsen
  23. Humphrey’s First Christmas*, by Carol Heyer
  24. My Dad Cancelled Christmas, by Sean Casey
  25. How the Grinch Stole Christmas, by Dr. Seuss

(I’ve noted specific Christian-themed books with an ‘*‘ so you can tailor your list in case you want to focus on or avoid the religious books suggested. I’ve also bolded my own personal favorites!)

***

Read more great stuff from Shelly on her blog, This Much iNgo.

Our family’s favorite Christmas book is Little Drummer Boy by Ezra Jack Keats. Gorgeous illustrations, and it’s adorable to hear my two year-old try to do the ba-rum-ba-bum-bum part. Also, hat tip to my friend Rebecca, who published a post very similar to this about Interfaith holiday celebrations on her WildRumpus blog.

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Contractual obligations

November 26, 2012 by Cliff

This last Saturday, Ohio State defeated Michigan by a score of 26-21. As OSU fans will surely point out, that makes it 366 days since the Wolverines last beat the Buckeyes in football (such counters were particularly popular around Columbus during Ohio State’s 7 straight victories from 2004-2010). The Game is an annual tradition well-known by Midwestern sports fans, but Saturday represented Urban Meyer’s first participation as head coach. Just 23 months before, he had walked away from coaching because he needed more time with family…twelve months before that, he had considered quitting because of health concerns. In other words, Mr. Meyer has had a very interesting couple of years: from two national championships to a total lack of personal-professional alignment to a year off working in television and then back to high level coaching again. Which begs the question: what exactly changed between December 9, 2010 and November 28, 2011? In less than a year, Urban Meyer went from believing resignation was the only way to place family first to believing that he could effectively prioritize both his career and his family.

This editorial by Nicki Meyer offers one perspective, the perspective of the head coach’s daughter. Here’s her take on Urban Meyer pre-2011 and post-2011:

(My dad) has proved the impossible to be very possible this season. You can win, and you can live a family life when you step out of the office. There is such thing as balance, and it has been working very well.

I didn’t think he knew free time existed until his year away from coaching, but it also was apparent that he was restless and needed something more. He missed coaching. He missed the relationships with his players, and he missed the competitive rush that he had felt for 25 years in the game.

Ms. Meyer writes that the family did not want to deny Urban Meyer the joy/fulfillment of coaching, but they also needed to know that certain basic expectations would be met. The solution? She drew up a contract along with her sister and her mother…and the coach had to sign that contract before he could sign “The” Ohio State contract. Here are some of the parameters they came up with:

  • Eat 3 meals per day
  • Sleep with your cell phone on silent
  • Answer your daughter’s phone calls no matter what

There were 10 lifestyle rules altogether, 10 basic things that needed to be true for Urban Meyer to effectively return to work without de-prioritizing his health and his family. While they knew those rules would only go so far, they also knew it was a starting point, at least.

Honestly, I think a family contract is kinda brilliant. We have written here before about maintaining personal energy and balance; a family contract essentially just translates those principles into a more formal structure. My guess is that every spouse and partner would have a slightly different list of contractual obligations…and those lists are probably worth writing down. When a young lawyer starts working for a firm where 80 hours per week is normal, her husband might want to keep smart phones away from family dinner. And when a dad prepares to take on graduate school and full-time work simultaneously, his kids might expect breakfasts together as a family. Let’s be honest: we’re all under contract anyway…that’s what marriage is. But there are probably expectations beyond staying faithful through sickness and poverty, even if we haven’t written them down just yet.

Urban Meyer’s family wrote them down, and he only misses his daughters’ phone calls occasionally. Regardless of Saturday’s score, his family feels like there’s been a miraculous comeback here. Sometimes a Hail Mary is not even necessary; all you need is some fresh perspective and an honest conversation.

 

 

 

 

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Stitched

November 20, 2012 by Cliff

When you live with a 2 year-old and a 5 year-old, arriving home to the sound of tears is actually pretty common, but I usually can’t hear said tears from several houses down. This particular Thursday evening was different. When my daughter Maggie and I approached our front gate, we found quite a scene. My son Sam was bleeding and crying, his grandfather was sitting beside him and our neighbor Isaac was using hydrogen peroxide to clean Sam’s forehead. Before I could even process the moment, Isaac said, “I think he needs stitches.”

At this point, the wails and screams grew deafening: “Noooooooooooooooo! I don’t want stitches! I don’t want stitches!” I patted Sam’s back, brought him inside and placed a warm washrag on his forehead. We gradually calmed down while the grown-ups recounted everything. Sam and Isaac’s son had been “cleaning up leaves” when Sam was accidentally struck by a broom handle. Next time, he will probably duck…this time, he had a pretty bad gash in his eyebrow. And while his screaming had subsided, the tears and gasps continued, “I don’t want stitches, daddy. Just don’t make me get stitches.” He was simply terrified. As we rode over to the ER, Sam held my hand, regained his composure and asked the following question:

“Daddy, what are stitches?”

We’ve all been there, right? We’re desperately afraid…we’re just not sure why. There’s probably nothing more scary than the unknown, after all. A violent mid-morning thunderstorm? No big deal. A small unfamiliar creaking sound late at night? Absolutely terrifying. There are plenty more examples, obviously. When we’re confused or uncertain, our fears seem perfectly capable of filling in the blanks. And relationships are obviously influenced both by uncertainty and the fear that comes along with it. Every marriage faces uncertainties from the very beginning:

  • What happens when we run out of conversation topics?
  • What if one of us gets sick?
  • How would having kids change things?
  • Could our relationship end like theirs did?
The unknown is a scary thing, and we can pretty easily find ourselves crying in the back seat. Sam did calm down eventually, though. I explained what stitches were: Just like mom sometimes stitched together his stuffed animals’ holes, we need doctors to stitch together our skin every once in a while. Once he got that, he moved on to fearing the next unknown:  Novocaine.
And there will always be another unknown. There will always be something else to fear. Still, it helps to ask the question, just like Sam did. It helps to know why exactly we’re scared. The bullet pointed list above is just a start. When we’re honest, we could list many more uncertainties and many more fears. And you know what? We should. We should list them, and we should talk about them. Together.

 

 

 

 

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The Generosity Challenge

November 13, 2012 by Amber

Photo from Flickr, Stewardship – Transforming Generosity.

The work day had not gone quite as planned. I though I’d leave the suburbs in time to pick my daughter up at daycare, grab Sam from the neighbor’s, and have supper started before Cliff walked in the door. But my meetings went long and the traffic on the Eisenhower was particularly hellish. And I, of course, was feeling guilty for leaving stuff undone at work and at home.

I pulled into the garage and noticed Cliff had turned the back porch light on me. Once inside I saw not only had he picked up both kids, but he’d started supper as well. And, most importantly, he acted like it was no big deal.

I might not have noticed these acts of generosity on Cliff’s part if we weren’t in the middle of a one-week exercise to intentionally be generous, and to catalog each other’s generosity. But last week was different: I was keeping score, Cliff was winning, and I was okay with that.

The idea for this exercise came as part of a small group we’ve hosted the last few weeks, with several friends from church who are new or soon-to-be parents. That’s a transition that can take its toll on a marriage’s happiness. And so we’ve spent a few weeks, as a group, talking about the three characteristics research says are predictors of a happy marriage among parents: generosity, commitment, and intimacy.

Generosity has been linked, in research, to gratitude. When we are thankful, it spurs acts of generosity, creating a network of kind acts that extends beyond your family to  your community as well. I personally believe generosity and gratitude are spiritual disciplines as well.

You can take the generosity challenge too, just in time for Thanksgiving. Here’s the assignment: Keep a list of the ways your spouse has been generous to you this week. Go beyond the obvious to include things like listening well, having a positive attitude, or meeting your needs before his/her own. And try to find a few extra ways to be generous to your spouse each day. Share your lists at the end of the week.

A few other couples did the same exercise last week, and they wrote to say it made them more aware of the little things. That’s worth doing.

 

 

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