Dear Neil: Help me with what I should do. I’m 29, and my wife of three years is unemployed and only occasionally interested in looking for work. In the meantime, I am needing to support both of us, pay the mortgage and pay for her health care and prescription drugs. That leaves me very little […]
We know that for the past 30 or so years, the divorce rate has been stuck between 40 and 50 percent of marriages. We also know that some people who elect to stay together are not happy together. They remain with each other because of children, religious beliefs, economic necessity or fear they won’t do […]
Dear Neil: Given that you are a marriage and family therapist, I am surprised that you seem to know so little about post-menopausal women. Western post-menopausal women—due to stressful lives, bad diet and lack of exercise—end up with endocrine degeneration, which in turn leads to a significant loss of sexual urge. Foreplay doesn’t work, and […]
Note: This is the first of a two-part series. Click here for part two Have you ever had a huge argument over something completely trivial and minor? Remember the feeling you had afterwards: embarrassed that you let something so insignificant completely take you over? Think again. Your argument may not have been so minor after […]
Note: This is the second of a two-part series. Click here for part one Think for a moment. What triggers the fights in your relationship? Do minor things build up until they explode? Do ongoing conflicts erupt from time to time? Are there rude little jabs or sarcastic responses? Or perhaps it is name calling, […]
Note: This is the first of a two-part series. Click here for part two It has been almost 17 years since my house burned to the ground, destroying everything I owned. The trauma, so vivid when it occurred—and it remained vivid for years—has faded into a more distant memory. Whatever I lost has been replaced, […]
Note: This is the second of a two-part series. Click here for part one It’s the end and the beginning. It’s the end of the year, and it’s the beginning of a new year, and all of us have a choice: we can look backwards and dwell on the triumphs and tragedies, the victories and […]
Dear Neil: What chemical changes occur when we enter a new relationship and then fall in love? I remember reading an article saying the changes that occur in the brain when we begin a new relationship are like a continuous feeling of euphoria. Curious in Wellington, New Zealand Dear Wellington: There is no experience more […]
Dear Neil: I spend a fair amount of time angry at my husband. When I’m alone, I silently say to myself that my husband has hurt me, or disappointed me or angered me—and I think of all the things he has done in our 17 years together that fit those emotions. I then started sharing […]
Dear Neil: How do I get over an ex that I am still in love with? I was in a relationship with a woman for about two years before we broke up. We have tried to remain friends, and we meet for coffee from time to time. I am still in love with her, but […]