End Of NFL Referee Strike Good For Marriages

Courtesy of Reuters

Now that the referee strike is over and football season kicks into high gear, it’s normally the time condolences are extended to football widows across America.  However, instead of wallowing in loneliness, it’s the prime season for wives to revitalize their marriage.

Wives have 50% of the power in a marriage and ‘alone’ time is one of the best times to take steps to improve the relationship.  This isn’t about putting on a sexy negligée and trying to distract your husband in-between touchdowns.  Instead, wives need to seize the opportunity football season provides to make points in ways that will enhance the relationship over the long term.

5 Marriage Tips For Football Widows

1. Get your own life.  Develop your own personal interests.  Long-married, happy couples say that having both independent and interdependent interests keeps the relationship lively.
2. Fill the refrigerator/freezer with delicious, healthy food.  There’s truth to the saying, “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.”  A husband adores a wife who looks out for his appetite and well being.
3. Send an “I love you” text when his team makes a touchdown.  Get a group together of four other football widows whose husbands are all watching the same football game, and assign each wife to follow one quarter of the game.  Text or call each other when the team scores, which should trigger you to send a quick hurrah cheer or “xoxo” text to your husband.  Your husband will be impressed!
4. Later, ask some questions about the football game experience.  The questions don’t need to be specific to the game, just general, such as “Did you have fun with the guys?”; “That’s great [fill in blank] won” or “Sorry [fill in blank] lost.”  You’ll likely just get responses in small sound bites (how men converse), but, be assured, they appreciate that you care about what’s important to them.
5. When your husband is home decompressing, occasionally give him a shoulder massage or back rub.  Watching all that football is exhausting, afterward.  He will love you all over again with your soothing affection.  But don’t act every time.  The element of surprise will make the stroking even more treasured.

Get Along Better provides you relationship tips with a twist of humor.  Want more?  4,000+ years’ worth of advice are documented in Everlasting Matrimony: Pearls Of Wisdom From Couples Married 50 Years Or More, a coffee-table book by Sheryl Kurland.  An excellent gift for weddings, anniversaries, engagements…or just because!

The One Thing A Man Wants Most – And It’s Not What You Think

What does a man want most?  Your first guess is wrong.  IT’S NOT SEX!  Think ABOVE the waist.

In today’s society, immense pressure is put on men.  They’re not allowed to be seen crying.  Why is it only women sob with grief at funerals?  And only women cry tears of happiness at weddings?

Men are ingrained to be fearful of showing their emotions.  They stuff their feelings way deep down.  Don’t want to be thought of as a wimp.  Or sissy.  Or weak.  Or unstable.

If you think women are objectified in the media, on TV and in the movies, to be skinny and gorgeous, pay attention to how men are treated.  It’s equally sexually abusive, maybe even worse.  Men have two choices: 1) either hunks and smoking hot, or 2) buffoons.  In the movies, the stud gets the voluptuous babe.  TV commercials often treat dads as buffoons, fools, clueless, a total putz.  Take Viagra or Cialis, and you return to #1.  Maybe this explains why the first instinctive answer to the question “What do men want most?” is “sex.”

Good guys will give the shirt off their back to anyone in need.  But they do it quietly, not seeking any attention or recognition.  Good husbands will drop everything in a heartbeat to come to the rescue of their spouse or partner.  Good dads slave to juggle bringing home a decent paycheck and having energy to make their kids feel like a million bucks.  Sex is nowhere in this picture.

What men want most is APPRECIATION.  They feel validated by a simple “thank you” from those they help.  They feel validated by the back rub their spouse or partner gives them after a hard day’s work.  They feel validated by the hugs their children give them.  They feel validated when they fix things and everyone raves over the outcome.  They feel validated by the sound of laughter they triggered by creating fun for others.

A wife called me not too long ago to talk about problems going on between her and her hubbie.  After some conversation, I asked her….

Sheryl: “What has your husband done lately that you ‘appreciated’?”

Wife: “He fixed our stove.  One of the burners wasn’t working and he did the repair work.  It works perfectly now.”

Sheryl: “Did you say to him something like ‘Thanks, Honey.  You did a great job.  I really appreciate it.’  And then give him a kiss on top of that?”

Wife: “No, it didn’t dawn on me.  He just fixes everything.  That’s what he always does.”

A few days later, the wife called me back……

Wife: “I told my husband how much I ‘appreciated’ him fixing the stove.  His eyes lit up.  It made him feel so good.  I think he was stunned that I thanked him. I had no idea that it would have such an impact on him.”

Yes, men like great sex.  And delicious food.  And snazzy cars.  And cool gizmos and gadgets.  But one thing supercedes everything else: APPRECIATION.

Get Along Better provides you relationship tips with a twist of humor.  Want more?  4,000+ years’ worth of advice are documented in Everlasting Matrimony: Pearls Of Wisdom From Couples Married 50 Years Or More, a coffee-table book by Sheryl Kurland.  An excellent gift for weddings, anniversaries, engagements…or just because!

Please Let Us See Prince Harry’s Crown Jewels

Come on.  Prince Harry — the guy is 27, single and filthy rich.  He serves his country honorably.  He does tons of community service.  He’s loyal and loving to his family, especially his brother and sister-in-law.  He just wrapped up his gig at the Olympics, and very dignified and handsomely represented England in the closing ceremonies.  And he knows how to party and live life.  Sounds like every mother’s dream son to me.

It’s making headlines all over the world, nude photos of Prince Harry partying in Las Vegas.  Playing strip billiards.  Cool.  (Where was his security team while the party was hopping???)

Today’s “worry” is whether the Queen is going to scold him.  If I was in her shoes, I would take him privately into a room, point my second finger at him, and say with a BIG smile, “You’re the bomb, Harry.  Such chutzpah I never had.  Luv ya, Harry.”

Our society is so dang hung up on nudity.  Like we don’t know what’s behind the blur and black stripe across the photographs.  It’s the Crown Jewels, and every breathing woman wants to see ‘em.  (And many men.)

So, it wasn’t the smartest thing for the chap to do.  What single, hormone driven, handsome lad hasn’t made a “mistake” or two?  (And woman, too, for that matter.)  Ask any grown man about his 20’s and he’ll get a glazed dreamy look in his eyes, that reminiscent glow scanning through that wild and crazy and wonderful decade.  The stories he can tell.  Endless.  Really steamy, indecent…and fun stories.  When he tells them, he beams with pride.  This is Harry’s story.  The one that will top all others.

I doubt Prince Harry is losing any sleep over this ordeal.  And I kind of think that he and “Wills” have had some good laughs together.  I can pretty well guarantee you that when Harry soon returns to serving in England’s armed forces, there’ll be lots of high fives when no one is looking.

So, Harry, keep living with gusto.  Perhaps be a little more discreet since you are a member of the Royal Family.  Have no regrets.  Learn from mistakes.  Make every day count, for as you know, it can all disappear in seconds.  And please, please continue to keep us commoners entertained.

Get Along Better provides you relationship tips with a twist of humor.  Want more?  4,000+ years’ worth of advice are documented in Everlasting Matrimony: Pearls Of Wisdom From Couples Married 50 Years Or More, a coffee-table book by Sheryl Kurland.  An excellent gift for weddings, anniversaries, engagements…or just because!

Midlife Marriage – Love It Or Leave It?

                                                                                                                                                           

Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones’s new movie “HopeSprings” is about a couple trying to spice up their marriage and reconnect after 31 years of marriage.  When I interviewed couples married 50-plus years for my Everlasting Matrimony book, Helen Tipton, married to Ross on September 25, 1937, advised “Be sure you choose someone you not only love but also will like after the first bloom has worn off.”  In many long-term marriages today, the bloom has died.  In fact, divorce at midlife has become far more prevalent than ever before.  According to a report by the National Center For Family and Marriage Research at Ohio’s Bowling GreenStateUniversity, the divorce rate doubled between 1990 and 2009 among adults 50 and older in the U.S.

What happened between “I do” and “I don’t anymore”? 

Reasons for higher divorce rates at midlife and beyond include:

• Verbal, physical or emotional abuse as well as alcohol or drug abuse.
• Differences in values and lifestyle choices.
• Shift in social attitude toward marriage and divorce.  Shedding one’s marriage has become easily accepted and easy.
• Increased longevity and attention to personal happiness.  At 45, people are now facing another 40 years with their spouse rather than 20 or so a few generations ago.  They don’t want to spend decades longer in an unloving relationship.
• Financial independence of women.  More women today have careers and are therefore more economically affluent than in previous decades.  Gain in financial security contributes to greater self-assurance and fewer fears about going it alone.
• Children have flown the coupe.  Couples who “stayed together for the sake of the kids” now have the freedom they’ve been waiting for to split.
• Onset of “double menopause.”  For both men and women, passage into midlife can stir an emotional rollercoaster.  Spouses simultaneously struggling with aging may take out their inner turmoil on each other in the form of resentment, frustration, and rejection.  Double menopause can wreak havoc on a relationship.

Resuscitation: 10 Tips To Help Save Your Marriage

Today’s mentality of “the couple next door got divorced, so it’s perfectly fine” leads many others to conclude that ditching their union is the only choice.  They think there’s no way back and overlook what might be needed to sustain their marriages.  Contrary to misconception, marriage resuscitation at midlife and later is a viable option.  For a couple whose marriage has hit this juncture, the following 10 pointers will help get the process underway:

1. Accept that neither of you are exactly the same person as when you married.  Experiences and events change us.  Attempting to recapture what once was is futile.  The relationship, much like a faltering business, has to be restructured to meet each other’s needs today.
2. Get to know each other again.  In the busyness of life, spouses forget to focus on each other.  Jobs, professional commitments, community activities, and other obligations can pull a couple apart.  Just as you schedule meetings for these responsibilities, make appointments to be together.  Whether you sit on the patio in the cool evening breeze, go for a walk or bike ride, or share a latté at the coffee shop every Friday evening, make time to re-connect.
3. Look in a mirror.  Would you marry you?  When a relationship hits the skids, natural inclination is to blame the other person.  Instead, takea good, hard look at yourself.  Do you still make an effort to look attractive (not to be confused with being skinny)?  Are you proud of who you are?  Do you have a healthy sense of self-worth?  If you can’t answer “yes” to these questions, there’s work to be done.
4. Notice what’s right, not wrong.  Jump start change by re-establishing relationship basics, such as communication, trust, respect, sharing, caring, humor and so forth.  Count the worth of your mate, not his/her faults.
5. Peel back arguments to identify their roots and modify interpretation.  When a dispute is stripped down to its core, it’s often discovered that the squabble was precipitated due to one spouse possessing a “strength” where the other has a “weakness.”  The person with the strength was more knowledgeable, informed, experienced, skilled, talented or educated than his/her mate on the subject of the disagreement.  A strength pit against a weakness turns into a fight.  Rather than function in opposition, a couple must re-program and “blend” differences.
6. Ditch the same old patterns, routines, and habits.  Predictability causes monotony.  Sit down together and discuss the boring “stuff” and brainstorm new ways to do them.  This gives you a plan of action to spice up the relationship.
7. Get out — together.  Going through the days, we come in contact with people and places that trigger “that would be so enjoyable for us to do together” ideas.  But later, upon trying to recall them, the mind draws a blank.  Capture these idea snippets by keying them into your phone’s notepad or keep pen and paper handy in your car, briefcase, drawer of your nightstand, etc.  Then, when you’re trying to think of something different to do as a couple, you’ve got a ready list.
8. Create a “couple” tradition.  Traditions add excitement to a relationship and help keep the two people connected.  They also serve as an anchor and provide “glue” for the union to remain sturdy when the going gets rough.  Establish one or more traditions that will make your relationship special year after year.
9. Love the one you’re with.  Observations at the office, gym, social outings, and elsewhere may lead you to believe that others are having all the fun.  Don’t be fooled.  How many times have you seen the couple who seemed to “have it all” wind up in divorce court?  Instead of wallowing or thinking the grass is greener on the other side, devote your mental energy to rekindling the romance between you and your mate.
10. Seek professional help with a positive attitude.  For marriage counseling or marriage education to have a chance of success, a couple must start with the proper outlook.  Think “How can we revitalize our marriage?” not “Should we get a divorce?”

Taking action to transform a marriage that has fizzled into a renewed source of joy and pleasure requires time and patience.  In the process, each spouse is likely to discover incredible strengths within themselves and the relationship.  With steadfastness and perseverance, there’s high probability that a couple will come out of the journey amazed to have opened a new world of opportunities with their marriage not only intact, but better than ever.

Get Along Better provides you relationship tips with a twist of humor.  Want more?  4,000+ years’ worth of advice are documented in Everlasting Matrimony: Pearls Of Wisdom From Couples Married 50 Years Or More, a coffee-table book by Sheryl Kurland.  An excellent gift for weddings, anniversaries, engagements…or just because!

Camp Get-Me-Outta-Here

Kumbaya my Lord, kumbaya, oh Lord, kumbaya.

100 bottles of beer on the wall.  100 bottles of beer.  Take one down, pass it around, 99 bottles of beer on the wall.  99 bottles of beer on the wall……..

Ah, those tunes we sang around the campfire.  As the school year winds down, parents prepare to gleefully embrace the next season, sending their children to summer camp.  Yipee!  Time to clip the apron strings.

I went away to overnight camp twice in my childhood, and there’s one thing I learned that stands out among all other lessons: I hate camp.

Learning survival skills in the wilderness with mosquitoes buzzing around my ears while I was trying to get some sleep was, well, sleepless.  Where do I plug in my hair blower?  You want me to dig a hole and do what in where?

We swam in a scummy lake and took timed swimming tests.  I excelled only in treading water…because there was no damn way I was going to let my feet touch the muck on the bottom.  Frankly I had been perfectly happy at home doing Weeki Wachee mermaid routines with my younger sister in our big swimming pool in our back yard.

At age 12, I was a junior counselor for a cabin of 6 year-olds.  It was the first day of horseback riding class.  Everybody mounted a horse and entered the ring.  The trainer announced, “If anyone feels afraid, you can just walk your horse to the center of the ring.”  The senior counselor and I did just that.

There was an Olympics day.  The entire camp, probably 500 kids, divided into two teams, blue and white, and competed in every sport imaginable.  I wanted to be on silver, as in the silver airplane to fly me home.

But lest I forget, I was a competitor…in playing jacks.  The game with the bouncing ball and metal spiked things.  You throw the ball up in the air and pick up as many jacks as you can while only allowing the ball to bounce once.  Hours upon hours I practiced.  I got so good I could pick up about 20 jacks in one toss.  What a remarkable accomplishment for my parents to have made such a huge investment in, unknowingly.

And, in trampoline class I got the “Most Likely To Succeed” award.

And, I won the “Neatest Cubbyhole” award (where we kept our clothes) for an entire month.

Since I hated those two camps, I decided to launch the best camp ever: Camp Sheryl.  I corralled the boys and girls in my neighborhood for one week.  Parents about kissed my feet as they plunked out $5 per kid.  At my house, from sun-up to sundown, I created a schedule that was a ton of fun.  The kids all laughed a lot, especially when Debbie R. fell into the swimming pool with her go-go boots on.

Looking back on my camp history, the moral of the story is when you’re not having fun, you have to create your own.

Get Along Better provides you relationship “tips” with a twist of humor.  Want more?  4,000+ years’ worth of advice from “real-life experts” are documented in Everlasting Matrimony: Pearls Of Wisdom From Couples Married 50 Years Or More, a coffee-table book by Sheryl Kurland.  Makes an excellent gift for weddings, anniversaries, engagements…or just because!

“I Do” and So Can You

Thank you, President Obama, for endorsing same-sex marriage this past week.  You unleashed the souls of many, allowing them to love freely.

Don announced to me, “I’m getting a divorce.”  Don worked for the printing company that printed the bank’s employee newsletter, which I was editor of.   In addition to our serious professional relationship we had a very fun, casual friendship.  He knew I was single and looking, and I knew he was married with three wonderful children.  His news caught me by complete surprise.

A few months passed, and based on where we were in the newsletter production process, Don continued to stop by.  I always inquired “How are you doing?” knowing that divorce is a nightmare.  He always showed his cheerful side but one day he was smiling from ear to ear.  “I met someone super special and I want to introduce you to each other,” he said.  We set a date and time and picked a restaurant.  When I arrived at the restaurant, Don was alone, sitting in a booth.

“So where is this she?” I asked.

“Have a seat,” said Don.  “‘She’ is a ‘he.’”

It took the wind out of my sails.  Not because he revealed he’s gay, but I lost my breath scanning through the decades in my mind in which he had had to live a lie.

Don moved in with his significant other shortly after.  In subsequent visits to the bank, he would always tell me he was happier than ever.

We lost touch over the years because I, too, found my special someone, married him exchanging “I do’s,” and we moved away.

This took place in the late 1980’s.

Some 20-plus years later, slowly but surely same-sex couples are finally making strides.  Obama’s banner for change is bittersweet; it should have happened a long time ago.

I am baffled by the anomoly in our society:  Straight people have the freedom to marry and fair pretty pitifully while gay couples desperately want to commit forever and, in most states, can’t.   Approximately 50% of heterosexual marriages end in divorce (and odds are worse for second and third marriages) and many more are miserably married.  Homosexual couples, despite the obstacles they face — prejudice, bullying, discrimination, harassment, and more — seem to have a true grasp of everlasting love.

Marriage is not for everyone but if you want to marry you should be able to.

Get Along Better provides you relationship “tips” with a twist of humor.  Want more?  4,000+ years’ worth of advice from “real-life experts” are documented in Everlasting Matrimony: Pearls Of Wisdom From Couples Married 50 Years Or More, a coffee-table book by Sheryl Kurland.  Makes an excellent gift for weddings, anniversaries, engagements…or just because!

The Other Side of ‘13’

Help can come from unexpected voices if you’re listening.

Theresa stopped the entire Zumba class.  Someone’s husband was talking to her so loudly she couldn’t function.  But he was nowhere to be seen.  She had to deliver his message to his wife.  She did.  Then class resumed like normal.

I was channel surfing last night when I came across TLC’s “Long Island Medium” starring Theresa Caputo.  She’s a mom, married with children, and possesses the gift of psychic medium.  Either you think she’s a nutcase or you want to invite her over for dinner so you can reconnect with loved ones who’ve passed away and, ultimately, find peace.

In the episode I watched, in the midst of everyone shaking their booties, a voice from beyond spoke to Theresa.  She apologetically introduced herself when she halted class and proceeded to provide the spirit’s very distinct and specific information.  The recipient it fit identified herself.   Theresa continued fluently.  The woman was stunned and tearful and comforted; everything made sense.

Last week I was cleaning out old files when I came across a booklet, “Southern Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp Meeting Association,” dated 1986-1987.  One day in that time frame I knocked on the door of Marie B. Lilla at 171 Lova Way, Cassadaga, without appointment.  (I kept her business card.)  The psychics welcome walk-ins because that way there’s no chance of you thinking they researched anything about you prior.  I have four pages of notes that I took during the reading and one line says, “gift of writing, published works, special message relating in form of a story touching people in need.”  Fast forward to 2007, I published my first book consisting of interviews with 75 couples married 50-plus years.  The secrets to successful relationships are revealed by the real-life experts.  Eeeeeeeeeeeery!

“13” is significant in my life and my mom and sisters, too.  My dad passed away on the 13^th of August in 1996.  Ever since then, he has “spoken” to us through the number 13.  I didn’t want to believe it for a long time because I was a total skeptic.  But way too many “13” things have happened over the years for me to question its validity.  My dad’s “visits” are comforting and reassuring and help me continue moving forward.  For example, several years ago one of my sisters called the fire department due to a potential gas leak at her home.  The firemen came from fire station #12.  Afterward, as a thank-you, my sister ordered a cookie cake with the #12 on it to take to the fire station.  When she picked up the cookie cake and opened the box to make sure it was engraved accurately, it read #13.  Another example, a couple of years ago, one evening, my mom and I were visiting a relative in the hospital.  Afterward, we exited the hospital to the wrong parking lot.  It was dark outside so we went back into the hospital and tried figuring the right way out of the maze.  We ended up leaving through the emergency room doors, and, at that moment, up drove ambulance #13.

Get Along Better provides you relationship “tips” with a twist of humor.  Want more?  4,000+ years’ worth of advice from “real-life experts” are documented in Everlasting Matrimony: Pearls Of Wisdom From Couples Married 50 Years Or More, a coffee-table book by Sheryl Kurland.  Makes an excellent gift for weddings, anniversaries, engagements…or just because!