ExpectingWords.com - Helping expecting couples find the right words at the right times

I’ve noticed in my mediation practice that it’s quite common for a spouse to tell me that the relationship was fine until they had kids, and then….”my husband’s flaws blew up in my face!”    I usually tell people that those flaws existed before you had children, but you didn’t notice them because forgetting to buy a tape measure doesn’t compare to the impending disaster of forgetting to buy diapers, and being tired and uninterested in cooking dinner is much less harmful than being too tired to bother giving your kid a bath or being too lazy to buy babyproof covers for the outlets.  The flaws always existed, but the consequences are much worse when children are affected.

Where does this insight lead us?  Since I’m in the same boat as everyone else when it comes to having discovered these new, but old flaws in my mate and myself, I’ll tell you how I handle the dilemma.  First,  I am Continue reading »

Yesterday, I returned from an amazing three day Smart Marriages conference in Orlando.  (Check out their perspective on the Number 1 Predictor of Divorce and their Relationship IQ Quiz).  While I was there to speak on a panel, I also had the unique opportunity to listen to the leading researchers in the field of relationship education.  I was stunned by the strength of the empirical data showing the harm of divorce and the benefit of lasting marriages.

The California Healthy Marriages Coalition collected some of the new research and organized it into pamphlets (with sourced footnotes) here.  Some of the highlights are:

1. Girls with divorced parents are at particularly high risk for developing depressive symptoms during adolescence.
2. Almost 50% of households with children undergoing divorce move into poverty following the divorce.
3. In surveying 3,828 adolescents ages 14-16, Continue reading »

When I started a Facebook fan page for my upcoming book, Fight Less, Love More (Rodale, Oct. 2010), I wasn’t sure whether I’d use it to announce book events or share advice.  Turns out a third and better purpose evolved on its own.  The fans themselves turned it into a forum to share their experiences with relationships.  I’ve been stunned by their honesty, and some of the recent fan discussions about the ups and downs of marriage struck me as a topic that expecting couples and new parents could relate to.

I posted this status update as a question:

“Couples often have phases in their relationships, good years, and then not-so perfect years and back to more good years.  If your relationship is going through a rough spell, don’t give up!  Has anyone experienced the phases and survived?”

In response, Heather commented, “4 years ago we did…we actually separated for 3 months. We were in our worst financial state. very stressful. We just realized we loved each other regardless and we pulled through! We learned to better communicate our feelings from that experience! It has been uphill and going strong since!”   Continue reading »

I was going to write a post about how little time I spend reading the week-by-week pregnancy updates, as compared to the immense amount of time I devoted to that during my first pregnancy.  I was going to write about how this second child is already getting less attention than my first, but, I can’t even write about that right now, because I am totally sidetracked by lack of AC!  It was in the 90s today.  It’s 85 degrees right now, and a high of 98 tomorrow.

We have AC working on the first floor, but it broke down today on the second floor where the bedrooms are. If it was only my husband and me at home, we’d live, but with Blake, my sweet little 2-year old?  Poor thing!  His crib is upstairs and we’ve debated all options.  It’s too late to go to my parents’ house, his crib is too heavy to carry downstairs, so we put on our little fan and my husband is out running to Walmart to buy an industrial strength fan.  We have an emergency AC guy coming sometime before midnight, but who knows if he can fix it?  And in terms of stressful marital moments, lack of AC certainly creates one.

I guess I am back to my original topic.  There is so much going on in life and so much of my energy is taken up by Blake that I just don’t have the time to devote to the wonder and excitement of my pregnancy.  (Just checked the baby monitor, thank goodness Blake fell asleep!).

A while ago I wrote a post about the affect of birth order on personality. The first-born is Continue reading »

We moved to a new house a few weeks ago and the other day a good friend asked me how I like it here.  “I don’t know.  The house makes me nauseous,” I answered.

“Oh, and my car also makes me nauseous, so do the streets and my backyard.”  There really was no other way to answer the question.  I think I love it here, but I need to wait another few weeks before I can know for sure.

First trimester is icky.  Thankfully, I haven’t thrown up (yet), but the head spinning in pretty frequent.  If I think too deeply about something like my house or where to go out to dinner on Friday, I might gag.  My morning sickness wasn’t this bad during my first pregnancy (and I’m hoping that a different experience of pregnancy might mean that I’m having a girl.  I know, it’s delusional, but let me hope.)  One more complaint to add before I change the topic – I’m also extremely tired.  “How tired?” asked my father.  “Well, on some days, it’s as if I woke up in the morning and took NyQuil and then tried to go about my day.”

My new neighbor told me that during her first Continue reading »