Search Results for: blog is your spouse stressing out

Making the Most Out of What You’ve Got

I was in a car accident on December 2nd, and I’m probably going to be under my doctor’s care for quite a while. Yesterday we started physical therapy. I’m grateful to be getting the care I need, but it’s taking so much time away from my family, and in particular, my husband. I see my kids during the day because we homeschool, but my husband is at work all day, and I’m starting to wonder if I’m even still married. I think I am, but sometimes, it is a question. He comes home and I’m gone, and then when I … Continue reading →

Is Your Spouse Stressing Out?

You know the signs—he’s staring at the computer screen, shooting little aliens or fighting off the zombies that are attacking his virtual front yard. You’ve been trying to talk to him, but you’re getting one-syllable answers. Or she’s immersed in a romance novel and won’t come up for air, or maybe she’s raiding the refrigerator. Whatever his or her coping mechanism might be, you recognize it because you’ve been there before. You know your spouse retreats into that behavior when life is pressing on them too hard. You want to help, but you can’t wave a magic wand and take … Continue reading →

Being Sensitive to Your Spouse’s Needs

My husband gets a little uptight on the freeway. He tenses up, changes lanes, and then says unkind things about the other drivers. Then he’ll calm down again, only to do it all over again a few minutes later. I can’t see what’s stressing him out, but something is. The driver can usually see more than the passenger anyway. This quirkiness of driving shouldn’t really annoy me, but it does. Sixteen years ago, I was in a car accident, and freeway driving makes me nervous in the first place. I’m glad it’s him driving, and not me—in fact, I have … Continue reading →

Marriage Blogger Desperately Seeking Solace

Over in Pets I wrote about how Murphy met the paramedics yesterday when my mom suffered a stroke during breakfast and I had to call 911. I spent all morning in the ER until they admitted my mom to the hospital, and then I stuck around until they got her situated in a room. Except for when I left for two hours from 4:15 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. to finally get some food (I hadn’t eaten all day) and to feed the fur kids and walk Murph, I was in the hospital from nine to nine. Wayne didn’t have time … Continue reading →

Stress and Your Immune System

I’ve been stressed lately. Really stressed. It’s a combination of a lot of things coming to a head all at once, and the end result is that I’m cranky and I’m having trouble sleeping. Then I noticed another weird thing. My hands are sporting quite a few nicks and scratches from my part time job at the cats-only boarding facility. And those little wounds are taking a long time to heal — much longer than normal. That got me wondering how stress affects the immune system. In the short term, stress can actually boost your immune system. That “fight or … Continue reading →

Why You and Your Spouse Should Create Your Own Traditions

We’ve been talking about the holidays and creating your own traditions for the holidays. That’s the great thing about having a family of your own. You can keep some of the traditions you grew up participating in and you can skip right over the traditions you didn’t care for. It doesn’t matter if you and your spouse have children, because holiday traditions are about building strong bonds. Our First Few Christmases The first few years we were together, we did not have children and I’ve told you some of the traditions we embraced in those years. When you have kids, … Continue reading →

The Harmful “Him” vs. “Her”

I know that men and women think differently. My first impulse is to examine how much of that is natural and how much is a result of cultural conditioning, but that’s a study for another time, and really another blog. What I want to focus on today is the sort of “us” vs. “them” mentality that arises sometimes, and how that might affect marriages. I had to read “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” for a high school health class. I found it abhorrent, and said as much in my paper on the book. I understand as much … Continue reading →

Responding Instead of Reacting

One of the hardest times to connect to your spouse is when they are acting unlovely. Yes, it is hard to love the unlovely. You almost get this sense of entitlement and say to yourself, “I don’t deserve this treatment.” No one deserves to be treated poorly. Yet not one of us could claim to be without fault in this area. We all slip from time to time and granted, it may last longer than other times but we are all guilty. I always know when things at work are stressing my husband out because he tends to take it … Continue reading →

To Leave or Not to Leave

In the early years of our marriage, the threat of leaving became our default position in a distressing number of our fights. For me, the devastation of feeling totally misunderstood, my efforts unappreciated, and my actions unfairly judged left me thinking that there was only one way out, and that way was out the door. Over the years, however, I have come to understand a few things: 1) There is hardly ever just one way out; 2) If you are truly committed to the marriage, leaving is not an option; and, 3) Control is at the root of most conflict. … Continue reading →

Christmas: What Happened to It?

As I have been tying up the final loose ends for Christmas Day, I am continuously running into frazzled women. Glassy eyed, tousled hair, they seem strained, forgetful, distracted and angry. And these are not my clients; they are women trying to prepare for Christmas Day! Something has gone terribly wrong with Christmas and the festive season. High expectations, over-commercialization of Christmas – whatever it is — it is distressing grown, mature women and turning them into stressed, irritable zombies who are all repeating a surprisingly common mantra — “I just wish Christmas would be over!” Most of these women … Continue reading →