Marriage Myths
Found this today on AOL News: 10 Myths About Marriage – Marlo Thomas and found it to be full of wisdom.
Marriage is hard. We probably need all those myths (and estrogen and testosterone) or we would never get married, and the human race might fizzle! It helps to know that no matter what a marriage looks like on the outside, on the inside, each and every marriage has its own struggles.
Our moms passed down a lot of old “rules” about marriage. But ask anyone who’s been there and she’ll probably tell you that some of them just don’t apply to her marriage… me included. So I asked relationship expert Dr. Dale Atkins what she thinks about those bits of marital conventional wisdom. Read what she had to say – it turns out the knight in shining armor isn’t the only marriage myth!
Hi Marlo, and thanks for asking about the “rules” of marriage, or, as I call them, the myths! Really, so many of them are just that – they raise unrealistic expectations and can lead to disappointment and frustration.
I encounter people in my practice who think that a good marriage is built on romantic love and luck. One woman recently told me that she thinks a couple shouldn’t have to work at marriage if they are truly in love. The reality is that most successful marriages are built on commitment, respect, and companionship – and, of course, a shared history and a desire to support each other.
Coming to a better understanding of each other is the real key to a successful marriage. Now, let’s debunk some of those marriage myths:
MYTH #1: Your spouse is your other half, and now you are complete.
REALITY: A healthy person is complete in herself. Couples don’t complete each other, they complement each other (and they need to compliment each other, too!)
MYTH #2: Marriage is filled with romance and love.
REALITY: It is – but it’s also filled with anger and frustration, disappointment and confusion. It’s filled with lots of emotions, and couples should expect to experience peaks and valleys. The everyday problems and challenges of married life can often obscure romantic, loving, tender feelings, which is why couples need to remember the commitment that’s at the core of their marriage and realize there are full times and empty times.
MYTH #3: Your marriage should make you happy.
REALITY: You need to make yourself happy! Your spouse is not your source of happiness – that must come from within yourself. Marriage can and should augment a person’s individual happiness, but it’s not what makes you happy.
MYTH #4: You should never go to bed angry.
REALITY: That’s unrealistic – there are times you will go to bed with an unresolved issue, one that still has you fired up at day’s end. It’s not great to be lying next to someone while seething in anger, but it does happen. The best strategy is to table things so you don’t feel like you want to murder him! Remind yourself of all the positive things about him; ideally, you’ll have a fresh eye in the morning. By the way, one of you sleeping on the couch for a night is not the end of the world if you need time to think. If that one night turns into days or weeks at a time, that’s a problem. But taking a break for a night to have a calmer conversation the next day just might be more productive.
MYTH #5: A baby will bring you closer.
REALITY: Parenting together is a wonderfully intimate experience that can indeed make a couple feel closer. But it’s so hard on the body, mind, and emotions! New parents are exhausted and constantly questioning whether they are doing things right. Often the woman feels she is doing waaay more than her fair share and is resentful and disappointed in her partner. Then there are the hormones – a woman’s body goes nuts during and after pregnancy! A couple would be wise to recognize that these are all just normal feelings after having a child, and they shouldn’t feel let down that they’re not head-over-heels in love with each other: Take a deep breath, reserve some baby-free time for one another, and know that this is simply a new stage in your long-term relationship.
MYTH #6: Your husband should be your best friend.
REALITY: If you think this way, you’ll be in for a big disappointment. Over the years, you definitely develop an amazing friendship with your spouse. But it doesn’t necessarily start off that way, and it doesn’t replace the need for friends in your life. A best friend is someone you go to the movies with, someone you have a lot in common with, someone you can talk to. A spouse is the one you can go through life with, depend on forever – that takes time, so don’t expect to be girlfriend-close with him right away. And you may not tell him everything – for some things you want a friend’s help. It doesn’t mean you are not close to your spouse.
MYTH #7: You shouldn’t fight in front of the kids.
REALITY: If you don’t teach your children how to disagree respectfully, who will? I feel strongly about this – it can be frightening for children to observe parents going at it, but it’s instructive for them to see you work out differences in a civil manner. Most people don’t fight fair – they call each other names and diminish each other. Children don’t know what to do and they mimic it – and then what have you accomplished? If you fight fair in front of the kids, then make up in front of them, they’ll see that this is a process. You have a responsibility to teach your children how to interact with others in both good times and difficult ones. As a bonus, if you learn how to fight civilly, you’ll probably fight less – you’ll learn how to come to solutions rather than argue.
MYTH #8: You shouldn’t worry if you’re not having sex.
REALITY: It’s true that people can be so busy, and so tired, that sex becomes just one more thing they have to do. Sometimes in every relationship the couple’s sex life goes on hold for a while. And every couple is different – some make love a lot, some less. But most people who have really good marriages do have a sex life. So if you’re not having sex, it is something to examine. The frequency and intensity may change as you get older, but you still need to get what you need. You don’t want to fall into a boring pattern in which you are no longer interested in your mate or want to share your life with him.
MYTH #9: Your spouse should know what you need without your having to say it.
REALITY: Nobody is a mind reader, and it’s unrealistic (and unkind) to expect someone to know your every thought and feeling. It is imperative to communicate what is going on regarding your thoughts, feelings, and your needs.
MYTH #10: You shouldn’t take your spouse for granted.
REALITY: Well, this is partially true – you don’t want to treat each other like old shoes! But you should be able to take certain things for granted – that’s what trust is all about. After all, if you can’t rely on your spouse, who can you rely on? Just remember that it works both ways: If you want to let your guard down and walk around in sweats, that’s okay – you can take for granted that he’ll still think you’re beautiful. But be sure to keep that in mind when you see him in the dirty T-shirt!
Dale V. Atkins, PhD, has more than 25 years of expertise as a relationship specialist helping couples and families. She runs a private practice in New York City.
“I’m The Present!”
As we were puffing away in one of the partners-exercises in Water Aerobics, my friend mentioned he would be heading up to Atlanta for the next couple weeks to visit children and grandchildren.
“Are you driving?” I asked between huffing and puffing.
“Nope, flying.” His answers were a lot shorter.
“You taking presents?” I asked, trying to keep my mind off my aching limbs.
“I AM the present!” he responded, and we both laughed.
When I was a kid, my favorite present was getting the small wrapped hotel soaps my Dad would bring back from his trips. To this day, I still like soaps!
Truths For Mature Humans
The woman who forwarded these ‘truths’ to me is ageless. She never hesitated to master the newest technology and the newest systems if it would make her more efficient. She never complains about aging and still has a great sense of humor. ๐
Truths For Mature Humans
1. I think part of a best friend’s job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.
2. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you’re wrong.
3. I totally take back all those times I didn’t want to nap when I was younger.
4. There is great need for a sarcasm font.
5. How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?
6. Was learning cursive really necessary?
7. Map Quest really needs to start their directions on # 5. I’m pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.
8. Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.
9. I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t at least kind of tired.
10. Bad decisions make good stories.
11. You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you know that you just aren’t going to do anything productive for the rest of the day.
12. Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after Blue Ray? I don’t want to have to restart my
collection…again.
13. I’m always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten-page technical report that I swear I did not make any changes to.
14. I keep some people’s phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.
15. I think the freezer deserves a light as well.
16. I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Bud Light than Kay.
17. I wish Google Maps had an “Avoid Ghetto” routing option.
18. I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.
19. How many times is it appropriate to say “What?” before you just nod and smile because you still didn’t hear or understand a word they said?
20. I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars team up to prevent a jerk from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers and sisters!
21. Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.
22. Sometimes I’ll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.
23. Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket, finding their cell phone, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey – but I’d bet everyone can find and push the snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time, every time!
24. The first testicular guard, the “Cup,” was used in Hockey in 1874 and the first helmet was used in 1974. That means it only took 100 years for men to realize that their brain is also important.
What Mormons Do Right
Today, after church, AdventureMan took me to my very favorite place in Pensacola, Tudo’s (Vietnamese) and as we were waiting for our food, and our take out order (the Happy Baby has a bad cold so we are also taking lunch to his Mom and Dad) I notice the guys in the next booth are speaking in a foreign language, and because I don’t speak it, I can only guess, it was perhaps Maylay.
I think they had to be Mormons. They were in their twenties, and very clean cut. Two were probably foreign students, and two were in white shirts with ties, and dark pants, what I think of as Mormon-boys-on-their-mission dress, and it carries over into post-mission life. We saw them often, two by two, in Germany and in France, sometimes singing, sometimes going door to door, sometimes passing out pamphlets. They always spoke the language of the country they were in, maybe not so well at the beginning, but at the end of their two year mission, they spoke it pretty well.
From time to time, at the next table, they were all four speaking the same language, and it was not English.
So lets say, from a strategic point of view, that our goal is to spread the ‘good news’ (which, oh by the way, it is.) Doesn’t it just make sense that you make an effort to speak the language of your target nationality?
You would be amazed at how few of the other denominations who send ministers and evangelists overseas, how very few of them have much training in the language of the people they will be serving, or ministering to, or trying to share the good news with. You would not be amazed that when you are trying to communicate, especially big ideas, it really helps to be able to communicate. It also shows respect for another country and another culture, and humility to learn other languages and other ways. I can imagine that much of their success comes from an ability to build a personal relationship, and that is more likely to happen if you speak their language.
I am not Mormon, as you know, and I admire much of what they do right – I admire their neighborliness, their obligation to reach out and help where help is needed, and their stewardship of resources, built right into practicing the religion. I especially admire their ability to teach languages to the young missionaries they send out, and their vast library of genealogical resources.
Pensacola Symphony a WOW!
When I was just out of university, and not making much money, my one big splurge was season tickets to the Seattle Symphony with my best friend, and oh, what joy we had with those tickets. We were there for the first ever performance of Hovaness’ And God Created Great Whales among other thrills.
AdventureMan and I love music. We have tried season tickets over the years, but at the end of a long work day, we found ourselves dragging, and when you are dragging, you can’t enjoy the performances so much. Many an opera we departed at the intermission, delighted to have seen the sets, but needing our sleep. Now, as ‘retired’ people (there are reasons for those quote marks), we can attend a symphony, stay awake, and have the great luxury of time.
Father Harry Hill at Christs Church told us about the Pensacola Symphony Orchestra at our first meeting, and just in time to call and order season tickets. We’ve been waiting months for our first concert, and what a thrill it was.
The theatre was packed. As a huge surprise to us, once the conductor, Peter Rubardt, entered, the orchestra went directly into a rousing rendition of ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ and all the audience sang lustily along! I’ve never seen this happen at a symphony before, but it was great fun, and gave us a chance to re-arrange our clothes. (The one downside is that the seats at the Saenger theatre are narrow, and I was sitting between two broad-shouldered men, it’s kind of like being in the middle seat in economy class for a three hour flight).
Rubart engages the audience right up front, explaining the context of the music (I was not familiar with any of the three pieces last night), foreshadowing curious elements in the pieces, spots to listen for – his explanations greatly increased my appreciation of the concert. These were the pieces:
Dvoลรกk โ Carnival Overture
BRAHMS โ Double Concerto
SIBELIUS โ Symphony No. 1
We discovered people we are sitting next to go to our church, and even though we are still new in Pensacola, we knew several people attending. That makes it more fun, too.
The orchestra is fine, amazing for a smaller town like Pensacola. Their timing and execution of the pieces seemed spot-on (I say that it ‘seemed’ because I am not an expert, but there were not obvious missed notes or timings, and some of the timings were deliberately not what I would expect). The audience is warm and enthusiastic.
There is plenty of parking. I know that doesn’t sound relevant, but in Seattle, parking could sometimes be a problem, especially when there is another event at the Seattle Center on the same evening. Finding a place to park and then walking to the theatre is easy and relaxing and you don’t have to do a big transition to enjoy the music.
The orchestra has a busy season coming up. You can learn more by visiting The Pensacola Symphony online. We can hardly wait for the next concert. ๐
A Change in the Weather
Last night I woke up, startled, and realized how quiet it was. I could hear a tiny ‘click – click – click’ of the overhead fan, but no air conditioning. It was so quiet, I kept listening for it to come on again, but I fell asleep again while I was waiting. I still haven’t heard it come on yet this morning.
The weather in Pensacola right now is heaven. ๐
No waking up at night feeling too hot and breathless. No sweating first thing in the morning when you go out to pick up your newspaper, or to water the tomatoes.
Actually, I cleaned out a lot of the containers this week, as the tomatoes have stopped producing and while I still have peppers, I don’t see any new ones coming.
We do have a garden full of birds, butterflies and squirrels. Whoever owned this house before we did, put in the perfect garden for attracting them all, a variety of lantana, something with loads of golden yellow berries, a red vine the hummingbirds love. Our favorites are the hummingbirds and the cardinals, with their flashy plumage, but every bird coming gives us joy.
This morning, I was able to sit outside with my coffee and watch. One of the squirrels sent out a warning to all the other squirrels, and scolded me for sitting outside, but the birds and butterflies didn’t mind me one bit.
AdventureMan had a real adventure this week as he was working in the garden; he was stung by a wasp, and then just a short time later, stung by another. At the second sting, he realized there must be a nest forming somewhere nearby, so he found it – hidden in the back gate – and quickly took care of it.
I also got our RainBird working this week, after months of living here. Every so often I went out and fiddled with it, but could not get it working. Finally, I followed the connection until I found a swtich box where the circuit was the only switch marked ‘off.’ Turning it to ‘on’ was the magic cure; the RainBird is operational just in time for the coming dry season. Woo Hooo on me. ๐
You can take a look at this wonderful beach weather yourself by clicking here on Pensacola Beach Cams.
Anti Poverty Team Needs You in Escambia County
Volunteers Needed for Bridges to Circles poverty initiative!
If you are committed to making our community better by countering poverty or its impact on people and businesses in our community, come explore the innovative concepts from the trainers of Bridges to Circles. We believe this training will have a significant impact on how individuals relate to one another and to those living in poverty.
The Bridges to Circles poverty initiative, in collaboration with Unite Escambiaโs Poverty Solutions Team, is actively working with families who desire to move from living below the poverty line to self-sufficiency. We are in need of community volunteers who are willing to serve as allies for these families.
If you are interested in volunteering please attend the Bridges Out of Poverty workshop on Thursday, October 14, 2010 and Hands-On ally training, Thursday, October 28, 2010. All training is conducted from 6-8 pm at the Catholic Charities Outreach Center, 1815 N. Sixth Avenue. For more information, contact Haley Richards, Bridges to Circles community organizer, at 429-7296, ext. 17 or email richardsh@cc.ptdiocese.org.
Thank you for supporting our efforts to reduce poverty in Escambia County!
Haley Richards
Bridges to Circles Community Organizer
Catholic Charities of NWFL
Office: (850)429-7296, ext 17 or (850)293-9565
Join us on Facebook!
Learn more at http://www.uniteescambia.com/
Lying Prompts Need for Cleansing!
Lying makes you want to wash your mouth out, LOL! Who thinks up these studies?? I found this on AOL News:
Parents who punished their fibbing children by washing their mouths out with soap may have been onto something.
Researchers at the University of Michigan found that people who lie have the urge to wash their “dirty” mouths afterwards, apparently in an effort to wipe themselves clean of their bad behavior.
“Not only do people want to clean after a dirty deed, they want to clean the specific body part involved,” study author Norbert Schwarz, a psychologist at the university’s Institute for Social Research, said in a statement.
Schwarz and co-author Spike W.S. Lee asked 87 students to pretend they were lawyers who were competing with an imaginary coworker, “Chris,” for a promotion. They were told to picture finding an important document Chris had misplaced. If they gave it back to him, it would help his career and harm theirs.
Participants were instructed to send Chris an e-mail or leave him a voicemail message in which they either told him the truth — that they’d discovered the lost report — or lied to him, saying they couldn’t find the missing paper.
The subjects then had to rate how much they wanted certain products, including mouthwash and hand sanitizer, and what they were willing to pay for them. They were told the items were the focus of a market research survey.
The students who had lied on the phone felt a stronger desire for mouthwash and were willing to pay more for it than those who hadn’t told the truth over e-mail, the authors said. But those who lied over e-mail had a greater wish for hand sanitizer and were willing to pay more for it than those who’d fibbed on the phone, according to the research.
Those who had been truthful had less of an urge to buy either product.
In other words, the scientists concluded, verbal lies compelled the liars to want to buy mouthwash; lying with their hands by typing an untruthful e-mail made them more drawn to hand sanitizer.
“The references to ‘dirty hands’ or ‘dirty mouths’ in everyday language suggest that people think about abstract issues of moral purity in terms of more concrete experiences with physical purity,” Lee, a Michigan doctoral candidate in psychology, said in a statement.
University of Pennsylvania psychiatrist Dr. Christos Ballas told AOL Health that the compulsion to buy hand sanitizer may have been for another reason entirely.
“The preference for hand sanitizer may well be related to the fact that they were typing on someone else’s computer keyboard,” he joked.
He said the scientists should have examined whether the the cleaning products had any impact on the liars’ future behavior.
“An even better study to conduct would be whether the availability of mouthwash/sanitizer reduces ‘guilt’ feelings, or makes it more likely they’ll lie the next time,” Ballas said.
In the end, he believes the findings, which appear in the October issue of Psychological Science, tell us more about the relationship between language and our subconscious than they do about the desire to wash ourselves clean of our sins.
“We interpret this as ‘lies make you feel dirty.’ And so the resultant mouthwash makes sense,” said Ballas. “But this is a purely semantic relationship. What if lies made you feel … small? Would you reach for platform shoes? Thus, the real insight here wouldn’t be that lies make us feel dirty, but that our unconscious is entirely dependent on our language.”
What Women Did For Fun
Several weeks ago, AdventureMan presented me with two (large) piles of files, saying that they were mine and needed to be gone through. I spent the day today tossing out old term papers, old manuscripts, old resumes – lots and lots of things that were worth saving, and now, not so much.
One thing I came across was a file with copies of work my departed aunt Helen had done to gain entrance into the DAR, Daughters of the American Revolution (Revolutionary War for America’s Independence). It was like a game, only when she started playing, there was no e-mail, only snail mail. Long distance telephone calls were expensive, and she was a Navy wife, so it was all done by hand.
Genealogy work, too, was painstakingly done, and family histories, cemetery records, lists of people arriving and departing on ships and who married who – all lovingly compiled and typed on manual typewriters by people with a passion for making connections, solving the mysteries of who married whom and for how long:
(“no need to mention the divorce” one correspondent wrote, “it happened in my family, too, and it isn’t relevant so we just won’t mention it” she wrote about a marriage that ceased to exist over a hundred years before)
My aunt had a sure thing, and she had a unique entry, so she was tracking three entries at the same time, trying to prove a new connection, while knowing she had in her pocket an already proven entry.
I lost a couple hours of my life, reading through all the correspondence, trying to decipher her notes and the arcane charts of relationships stretching back to 1690, when one line of the family arrived on these shores. I grinned, thinking how we document our bloodlines, leaving out the pirates and the horse thieves, and (legend has it) the French aristocrat who left his first family in France and started our branch here, without having divorced his first family, LOL.
My aunt must have been a little younger than I am when she started on this search, and I know that she served proudly in the DAR for many years, along with several civic committees, library committees and planning commissions in Santa Barbara, California. I still miss her.
Idiot Awards 2009
After posting the story today about the suspect who tried to drown the police officer AND the police dog, I Googled “Idiot Awards 2009” and found these on the blog Daily Funny Jokes.
Idiot Number Six of 2009
A pair of Michigan robbers entered a record shop nervously waving revolvers.
The first one shouted, โNobody move!โ When his partner moved, the startled first bandit shot him This guy doesnโt need an award, he probably figured it out himself.
Number Five Idiot of 2009
A guy walked into a little corner store with a shotgun and demanded all of the cash from the cash drawer. After the cashier put the cash in a bag,the robber saw a bottle of Scotch that he wanted behind the counter on the shelf. He told the cashier to put it in the bag as well, but the cashier refused and said, โBecause I donโt believe you are over 21. The robber said he was, but the clerk still refused to give it to him because he didnโt believe him. At this point, the robber took his driverโs license out of his wallet and gave it to the clerk. The clerk looked it over and agreed that the man was in fact over 21 and he put the Scotch in the bag. The robber then ran from the store with his loot. The cashier promptly called the police and gave the name and address of the robber that he got off the license. They arrested the robber two hours later.
This guy definitely needs an award!
Number Four Idiot of 2009
Arkansas: Seems this guy wanted some beer pretty badly. He decided that heโd just throw a brick through a liquor store window, grab some booze, and run. So he lifted the brick and heaved it over his head at the window. The brick bounced back and hit the would-be thief on the head, knocking him unconscious. It seems the liquor store window was made of Flexi-Glass. The whole event was caught on videotape.
Oh, thatโs smart. Give him his award.
Number Three Idiot of 2009
A true story out of San Francisco : A man, wanting to rob a downtown Bank of America , walked into the branch and wrote โthis iz a stikkup. Put all your muny in this bagโ While standing in line, waiting to give his note to the teller, he began to worry that someone had seen him write the note and might call the police before he reached the tellerโs window. So he left the Bank of America and crossed the street to Wells Fargo . After waiting a Few minutes in line, he handed his note to the Wells Fargo teller.
She read it and, surmising from his spelling errors that he wasnโt the brightest light in the street told him that she could not accept his stickup note because it was written on a Bank of America deposit slip and that he would either have to fill out a Wells Fargo deposit slip or go back to Bank of America. Looking somewhat defeated, the man said, โOKโ and left. He was Arrested a few minutes later, as he was waiting in line back at Bank of America .
Donโt bother with this guyโs award. He probably couldnโt read it anyway.
Number Two Idiot of 2009
Early this year, some airline employees on the airfield decided to steal a life raft from one of the 747s. They were successful in getting it out of the plane and home. Shortly after they took it for a float on the river, they noticed a Coast Guard helicopter coming towards them. It turned out that the chopper was homing in on the emergency locator beacon that activated when the raft was inflated. They are no longer employed with the airline.
Hereโs your award, guys. Donโt get it wet; the paint might run.
Number One Idiot of 2009
I am a medical student currently doing a rotation in toxicology at the poison control center. Today, this woman called in very upset because she caught her little daughter eating ants. I quickly reassured her that the ants are not harmful and there would be no need to bring her daughter into the hospital. She calmed down and at the end of the conversation happened to mention that she gave her daughter some ant poison to eat in order to kill the ants.
I told her that she better bring her daughter into the emergency room right away.
Hereโs your award, lady. Wear it with pride.
I hope you find these as hilarious as I do, I laugh every time I think of the Wells Fargo bank teller telling the robber she can’t give him the money because the note is written on a Bank of American form, LLLLOOOOLLLLLLLL!
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