Art Asked:

“my wife hates her new daughter in law and her family. my wife thinks her sons wife is just a user and want him to work while she stays at home. my wifes son moved to iowa and her family lives about 4 hours away from them so they spend all the holidays and visit her family atleast once a month but my wife only gets to see her son about once a year if they come visit. before he got married my wife and her son did everything together and after he moved (for a job) he called her everyday but that has stopped since he got married and when my wife calls her son all he talks about is his wife and now shes going to have a baby and my wife is very upset because she never gets any time with just her son and she will be luck if she gets to see her soon to be grandchild once a year and she knows that the other grandparents will get to see the grandchild atleast once a month and plan on selling their house so they can move in with their daughter and son in law. last week my wife told her son she never wants to see or speak to him again that she no longer knows who her son is etc. my wife is depressed and very sad cuz she loves her son she just hates his wife and his inlaws cuz they are a big part of her sons family and we have very little contact with them. Every time my wife would see her daughter in law post somthing on facebook it would just make her mad so she has since deleted them from her facebook account. I tried to explain to my wife that her son is now married and needs to live his life with his new wife and if he wants to let her stay home while he works that is his choice and it’s none of our business. it’s been a week since she told her son not to speak to her ever again and i don’t know what to do so my wife can have a relationship with her son and not hate her daughter in law.”

- Art (53, Las Vegas, NV)

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If you and your partner are careful with your finances and you don’t have kids yet, you better relax and enjoy yourselves while you can.  I know my wife and I went down the path of turning things down or not purchasing things we wanted, claiming we didn’t have money.  Five years later and two daughters we wish we had a fraction of the cash we did back then.  The only time we get out to dinner is when a family member can watch our kids for free and I find a decent place on restaurant.com to get a twenty five dollar certificate for four dollars.

Experts will tell you that money is the root of most couples’s problems.  Since I’m not an expert, I didn’t say that.  Bills pile up when you get married, and when you have kids, the bills octopuple, or however you say that, eight times more.  If you have friends inviting you to a Caribbean all-inclusive trip and you already told them you can’t afford it, call them back up and tell them you’re going.  You can find decent deals, including airfare, which will be cheaper than the hospital bills for delivering a baby.  Once you have a baby you ain’t going anywhere for a long time anyway.  Ha ha ha ha! Sorry, I can laugh because I’ve already been through the sleepless nights and currently in the lack of communication phase, which I’ve realized is very similar to talking to my spouse, “I don’t understand you, what the hell do you want?!”  Just kidding honey, I love you!  For the record, I don’t say “hell” in that quote to my child, I say “F__K” instead.

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Emma Asked:

“My son is a well respected physician, whose work consumes him. I have noticed and today his eldest son expressed to me that his dad, “puts him down”; doesn’t care about him; calls him names; I believe this is true, but perhaps not as regular as his son is telling me. (I hope) I would like advice about whether I should talk to my son. Am I likely to do more harm than good?”

- Emma (60, Andrews Farm, Australia)

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Bryan Asked:

“My father and mother divorced 30 years ago. My Mom has struggled to survive while my Dad has accumulated 12 million in assets. My Mom just had a bypass surgery and is unemployed. I am her only extra source of extra income. Don’t you think my Dad is somewhat responsible for leaving my Mom and should have a link to her as long as I am around? The divorce was because my Dad cheated on my Mom.”

- Bryan (36)

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Guys, this one’s for you – and ladies, you should feel free to pass it on to any guy you know in your life who’s on a path toward thinking holistically about love, relationships and family.

In my work over the past two-plus decades, I’ve focused on relationships of many different types – dating, casual, serious, engagement, marriage, divorce, post-divorce … and in my most recent book, “Hindsight: What you need to know before you drop your drawers” I present the relationship toolbelt. Although applicable for just about anyone, the book – and my subsequent teaching on it – is primarily geared toward women.

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Here is an excerpt from the book “Equality: The Quest for the Happy Marriage”

A life-altering conversation

Only about a month later I would have a conversation with my friend Kent that would change my life forever. I call this day the most important day of my life.  I had an epiphany.

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When you are married and you are looking into either separate or to actually divorce, that’s a big step, not only for you, but for the rest of the family as well. When you have kids together, it’s even a bigger decision then if you are just married without children. You have to take look at how it will effect the kids and if they are close with both parents and such. Then you still have to talk about custody and visitation. In some cases, the other parent might not matter as much as some. Sometimes one of the parents will give in and just let the one have the kids and see them whenever they can or not at all. Other times there are going to be ugly custody hearings. Sometimes parents should agree to disagree on things and each should give a little. Either way with a divorce or a separation it’s going to be hardest on the kids. So make sure that you talk to your kids and somewhat let them know what is going on and that things will be changing and let them know that the both of you still love them unconditionally but that you two just need a break.

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Traditional psychology thinks of functional families as lacking conflict. A traditional psychologist might label familial strife as dysfunctional but evolution actually predicts- if not demands- a certain level of conflict within families. Every individual in a family has her or his own reproductive interests that have to interact with the reproductive interests of everyone else. A child that helps raise a younger sibling may be passing on part of her or his genes at the expense of being able to mate and pass on the whole package.

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This has been on my mind, and it’s time to start asking why. From the time we’re pre-teens, all the way till today, sex is like a dirty little secret that we’re not supposed to talk about. Yet, like most other things, the less we talk about it, the less we learn about it. It’s no wonder why so many couples are sexually unsatisfied, why children are having sex younger and younger, pregnancy and sexual disease are on the rise, and why more and more marriages are ending in divorce.

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The telephone ring pierced through the quiet afternoon air.  It was Friday, just moments after clearing up the lunch dishes and laying our youngest child down for his nap.  The other two children scattered off to play.  I settled into my computer chair, S. brought his work clothes up from the dryer.   Honestly, I expected them to say there was no work – take the day off, and though we need the money, I was starting to plan how we would spend the sunny afternoon together… go to the park, pick up some groceries and fire up the grill… I was not expecting them to say there was no work – period.  Like so many others in recent months, S. was laid off.

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