Financial issues can place enormous pressure on a relationship. We tend to think that they only play a role when there’s no money to spend. We see relationships go into freefall when one partner loses their job and the financial future is in jeopardy. However, it’s not only a lack of money that can put the strain on a relationship. Your money management styles can cause conflict. The way you react to having additional money can also result in a lengthy argument. Many of our fiscal habits come from our own upbringing. We either choose to emulate our parents’ habits, or we choose to be the complete opposite of what…

A partner who cannot express his/her feelings can be a source of great frustration. It feels like they expect you to read their minds and know what they’re feeling. They wear an impenetrable mask, and you never know what’s going on in their minds and hearts. You express your feelings and expect to get something in return, but it’s like talking to a brick wall. Getting your partner to open up and share their emotions is like trying to get the proverbial blood out of a stone. Often, this is a characteristic that stems from childhood. Your partner was taught that expressing emotions is not acceptable. After that, the damage…

Hollywood tends to paint a really skew picture of what marriage is like. I mean, how much of an actual marriage can you honestly fit into a two-hour movie? Any married couple will be able to tell you that it is much harder work to keep a marriage healthy than they could have thought. Living in this day and age doesn’t make it any easier. On the contrary, couples today are faced with more challenges than ever before. The elephant in the room With the invention of the smartphone, came the invention of the digital divide. Most people go to bed with their smartphones. It is that third wheel that…

Your relationship with your significant other is supposed to be built on love and trust. When it is built on manipulation, it is doomed to failure. It may last a while, but manipulation and deceit are not the bedrock of a solid relationship. Manipulation can take many forms. Don’t always cast yourself as a potential victim of manipulation. Honestly assess yourself and make sure you’re not the manipulator. Many people resort to manipulation for a variety of reasons. It may be to get what they want, to keep a relationship alive, or to hurt their significant other. They may have manipulative tendencies they don’t even consciously recognize. Don’t confuse manipulation…

Finding out that your spouse has an addiction is devastating. There is a feeling of betrayal because often the addiction was kept a secret. You might feel intense anger, especially if you perceive addiction to be a weakness. Addiction has an impact on your financial security. Your spouse might have been raiding your savings account or going into debt to finance their addiction. This places you at a significant economic risk. For an instant, you can’t see how the future will work now that this disaster has befallen your family unit. Here are the steps to begin to plot a new path forward when your spouse is recovering from an…

Many have tried to define the role of a wife – from feminists to liberals, conservatives and the media. The role has changed considerably from what it was in the past to what it is today. Progress has come in the sense that wives now have choices to make that they never had before. They can choose to stay at home and care for their children, have a career or do both. However, stereotypes are hard to break, and not all women manage to find the “I” in wife or even believe there should be one. The historical role of a wife Historically women could not vote, hold jobs or…