As someone who specializes in marital communication and interactions, I often talk to people about how important voice tone is in terms of a marriage’s overall tone. But I recently realized that there’s another way to improve the tone of a marriage. And that’s through music. I came to this realization while out for supper… Read More
Saving a Marriage
Can You Save Your Marriage Alone? Yes – Try These 5 Tips
Can one spouse save a marriage? The short answer is yes. It can happen. It happens all the time. In fact, the reason that I take a “one spouse” approach in my practice is because I believe saving a marriage almost always starts with just one spouse. Why? Because when a couple is in conflict… Read More
How to Handle the Holidays and Family that You Wish Wasn’t
Every year as Christmas approaches, the inevitable questions begin to arise in households not just across the country, but around the world. “Do we really need to go to your mother’s house?” “How long do we have to stay?” “What if your uncle gets drunk?” “What if your sister says something rude to me?” Or… Read More
Fair, but Aware – The Marriage-Saving Approach You Should Know About
After I graduated from law school, I thought I had all the answers. I was trained to be an adversarial thinker – I mean, just think of any legal case. So-and-So “versus” So-and-So. The “versus” says it all. When you’re faced with marriage problems, the same kind of adversarial tone can easily set in –… Read More
Do You Need Non-Religious Marriage Help?
When I started my Marriage SOS practice decades ago, I did so with the firm belief that people who are looking for marriage help should have a choice. That doesn’t just mean a choice between psychotherapy or mediation-based help or coaching, it also means a choice between religious or non-religious help. While my practice is… Read More
Couples Counseling vs. Other Approaches to Marriage Help
Couples counseling, the traditional go-to remedy for couples with marriage problems, isn’t always effective or successful. It may be that the couple waited too long to get help or that only one of them wants to be there. On top of that, counseling is a practice that inherently focuses on the self — on past… Read More
Thinking of Divorce? Challenge These Eight Assumptions First
As a former divorce mediator and a current marital mediator, I know that people tend to make a lot of assumptions about how divorce will and won’t change their lives. Here, I’ve presented eight of the most common assumptions that, if you’re considering divorce, you might be making. Yes, they’re blunt. But so is divorce… Read More
How to Save Your Marriage in Sixty Seconds
Got a minute? Good. Let’s see how you can start to improve the dynamics in your marriage right now. It’s like this: there are sixty seconds in your day that are absolutely pivotal in terms of how you and your spouse will relate to each other for the entire day and night. These sixty seconds… Read More
