This woman was talking to me about her daughter's atrocious acting-out behavior. "True," she said, "my husband was verbally abusive to her. But it didn't happen every day. She should move on!" I was in shock for a moment.  Then I came to myself, and asked her...

Really. I'm not kidding. Self-control is that gritting your teeth, tightening your fist kind of thing. It's that pushing down of all your feelings until you don't have them. Or at least don't know what happened to them. That numb kind of thing. Or else that...

 "We could never have a peaceful discussion." "Every time I want to talk about my feelings, I get accused of picking on him/her"  "No matter how many pleasant requests I've made to stop [ X ] it doesn't stop. I get no respect." "We haven't slept together in [ Y ]...

 Okay. Take a comfortable seat. Imagine the "part" of you that - - feels like a victim - is angry - or depressed - or anxious - or nervous - or full of shame and guilt . . . imagine whichever one of those you might feel right now moving over, giving you some space....

It's not you. Really. And it's not them, either, actually. I mean it. So whose fault is it? It's not a fault. It just is. Communication breaks down because two people who have already suffered some hurt in their lives find each other, fall in love, and then…. ….then...

 The first time I heard about this crazy method of changing our moods, almost automatically, I had flown across the ocean to see one son, his wife and his children - my grandchildren. I hadn't seen them in two years, shame on me, and I couldn't wait. But COVID said I...

 Jill was exasperated. "Trust me," she said, "I tried everything so that I don't start screaming. Believe me, I don't want to be that kind of person!" she exclaimed emphatically. "Just so you know, I'm doing meditation for 5 years. It's great - when I'm meditating....

 To be successful, you've got to think. Well, yeah….So what?  Here's the problem with thinking: Thinking's great. I do it myself, lol. I couldn't have written a dissertation and gotten through grad school without it. But… When it comes to marriage -...

 I love, love, love that you guys - my wonderful readers in this group - have absorbed the main point that I've been pushing all along - You're not broken! You're not sick! You're not evil! But….. You (and I) are human!! So how, exactly, are human beings put together,...

   Day after day, everything remains the same. They make promises they don't keep - because they can't. They don't know how. They don't know what a "good" life feels like.  Or they ignore your pleas, your tears, your sharing of how you feel. And it just drags on...