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)

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.

Back to kids and cash.  In the past I thought I was spending too much money on Captain Morgan, so I switched to the knock off brand Admiral Nelson which is a little cheaper, then to the generic brand Heritage which is the most generic brand I could find.  Now the savings come out to basically nothing because the $25 Captain money goes to diapers, the $20 Admiral goes to baby wipes, and I’m stuck with the $9 worst hangover ever, Heritage.  Your cost of the weekly 1.75 liters of booze now goes to purchasing Baby Einstein DVD’s to keep your child from screaming, since muzzling children is illegal.  You may wonder how different can the videos really be?  Not much, but you need to keep buying $20 DVD’s until you get one that gets your infant to quietly stare at the TV and drool all over your lap, that’s heaven, much better than ten cent wing night and dollar drafts.

When you go out for dinner after kids you’ll still have a $70 restaurant bill, except it will be spent a little different.  The food/drinks bill be $30 at the buy one get one free night at Ponderosa (if they still exist) and $40 to babysitting.

Here’s a tip on how to save money with children, mainly infants.  Change the infants diaper only two or three times a day versus the typical two dozen or so. Also, buy expired formula, don’t worry the date is only a recommendation by the FDA (please don’t take that one serious).

Some of you will struggle to adapt to the financial adjustment and that’s normal. Some of you will love being a parent and realize kids are the greatest thing, despite how much they can run and ruin your life.  After my little raisins were able to hold their heads up, crawl, walk, then talk, I wouldn’t exchange them for any amount of money.  If you have that attitude then you won’t mind the lack of money.  You have to have that attitude because as the kids grow the saying is, “bigger kids, bigger issues and bigger costs.”  If you can, secretly stash a few dollars a week so after your newborn goes to bed (for a couple hours only), you can go to your local watering hole to cry over the lack of sleep and stress. You’ll need to use the stashed money because the last thing you need is to go home and have your partner doing the online banking and already know you ran up a huge bar tab.  The bottom line, go have fun with your partner, but don’t get yourselves into debt, that will come after kids.

Keith Makenas

Contributes receding hairline to two beautiful daughters.

“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)

“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)

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.

But I’m also interested in how the male mind relates to relationships, and there are many, many guys out there who are on paths toward healthy, honest, fulfilling relationships – dating, marriage or otherwise.  How we approach relationship and sex cannot be separated from our values about children, marriage and family (considering one primary unconscious drive is to procreate). Having stated the obvious, it’s what isn’t so obvious that I would like to help illuminate with my next book, Investing Your Family Jewels. It’s an attempt to help folks heal and educate themselves so we as a culture are better equipped to raise healthy, thriving children, rather than continue the cycle of dysfunction we each in our own way struggle to be free of.

Okay, men, it’s your turn to tell your version, your truth – in your life and in your relationships. And here are a few questions to help you get started (if you’re so inclined, feel free to email your answers – or your story, or both! – to info at maryannelive dot com. We read and respond personally to each email and I may feature you in upcoming work!)

1) Do you respect women?

2) How do you respect them?

3) At the end of the day, do you feel it’s ultimately a woman’s job to make sure she doesn’t get pregnant?

4) If someone you have sex with does get pregnant and decides to keep the baby, what responsibility do you have to this child and to the mother?

5) What do you think a father’s responsibilities are?

6) What qualities should a woman look for in a man they want to have children with?

7) Why do you feel we have such an epidemic of “absent“fathers in our culture?

What makes a great father?

9) What sacrifices are men generally unwilling to make to be a great father?

10) What will you never give up to be a great husband and father?

As you ponder these questions – and these are only a few of the ones I’ve been asking the men in MY life! – here’s a little feedback from men I’ve worked with who are asking the big questions about how they relate to the opposite sex.

The guys’ in my first guy’s relationship class talk about how to be honest about what you want out of a relationship!

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.

My plan with buying a house was to find roommates to help with the mortgage payments.  I had done this in Virginia.  I had two roommates which made my mortgage payments quite low.  In Dallas I convinced Kent to move in one of the two spare bedrooms I had.  I had bought a large three-bedroom house with two living areas on the west side of the Dallas/ Ft. Worth Airport.

Shortly after Kent moved in we stayed up late one night talking about our different upbringings. We sat up literally for hours in a tête-à-tête; each of us trying to prove who had the more difficult childhood.  The only problem with my argument was that every time Kent mentioned his problem he ended by saying he still loved his father.  And the point of his comment was that his father had to be more difficult than mine because it was written in the article in the pool house.  Plus, except for my dad’s many prejudices he is really a nice guy, which is the best way to describe him.  Today my dad gets along with everybody even my mom.  When he is not mad he is like a big teddy bear.

Just like my conversations with Laurie I went through the litany of complaints about my bad parents.  I started out by saying my parents did “this”, explaining one of the many faults I had found with my parents, and he would respond by saying that “my dad sent me to military school, and I still love him”.  And I would say, “but my parents did something else”, and he would say his father never showed any love for him, and he still loved his father.  I would bring up something else my parents did that destroyed my childhood, and he would respond with “my father never had the time to attend any of my school events because he was so busy at work, but I still love him”.  This one really hit home because my dad never missed any sporting event I had ever played in.  He loved his sports and seeing his kids involved in them.  Like I said, this went on for hours.  He broke me down.  I ran out of arguments, and for probably the first time in my life I admitted I was wrong.

The conversation brought me to tears.  Ten years would pass before I would cry again.  What Kent taught me that wonderful night was the pain I had as a child didn’t matter.  They were my parents and they taught me what I needed to know about life to be successful. They did the best that they could with their limited resources and we turned out to be pretty good kids.  I actually got on the phone with them in tears telling them how much I loved them and thanked them for being such great parents.  I even called up Laurie in tears telling her of my epiphany about my parents.

This was important to me because it opened up my mind to my future.  I no longer had the anger of my childhood clouding up my conscious and unconscious mind.  I could look at life objectively.  I learned what is probably the most important lesson in life.  I believe that maturity actually begins when you come to this realization.  Mental growth really begins when you let go of the painful memories of the past.  The difference between a truly healthy positive mind and an unhealthy negative mind is the healthy one has forgiven his or her parents for being parents.  There have been no rulebooks on raising kids.  My parents thought the best way was with the belt, but they did it in love.

The reality is most parents love their children, they just might not be able to show it but you cannot live the rest of your life blaming your parents or anyone else for the problems in life.  If you think about your parents from their perspective you would probably have to understand that your parents love you, regardless of how they treated you, they brought you into this world.  Think about that!!!

I have looked back at that lesson for many years and have been forever grateful for the lesson Kent taught me.  This lesson brings me to the point of this book.  I have learned the most important thing you can teach yourself to have a healthy mind, which is an absolute necessity for a healthy relationship.  If you can forgive your parents for the way they brought you up then you can get over the past and begin to live for the future.

Again, it is faultfinding vs. problem solving.  Faultfinding is having those negative experiences of the past and then having you interpret that they may occur in the future, except this time it is not by your parents but by someone else, your partner.  If you want a happy and healthy relationship then it is absolutely essential that you look at your partner for who he or she is, not by who your parents are.  Your partner is obviously not your parent.

Problem solving is looking at each problem as it occurs objectively, with an open mind, without the painful experiences caused by someone else.  Life is actually quite simple today; we are the ones who make it more difficult.  We can eat.  We have houses over our heads.  We have cars, cellular telephones, all of the trappings in life.  But getting along with our partner is actually easier than not getting along.  We don’t need to make life more difficult than it really is.

Since that conversation with Kent I have never found fault in anything my parents have ever done to me.  I have actually looked at all of the good things they have taught me.  I am not a bad person, and it is thanks to them.  I like to joke that my goal in life is to simply stay out of jail, though seriously speaking my parents have taught me how to live a morally good life.

If you can get over your past you can live your future!!!

by Tim Kellis

http://HappyRelationships.com/

http://HappyMarriages.com/

When the kids are older, it might be easier to talk to them and let them know what is going on. When they are younger, they don’t always understand things and will ask why and sometimes they might even put the blame on themselves because they don’t understand the way that adults do. The older the kids get, the more they learn to understand what problems the adults have to deal with.

If you just don’t want to have a part in your spouse’s life anymore, maybe divorce is the best way to handle it. If you aren’t getting along with them, or you have issues with them such as abuse or other issues like drinking and such, then it’s just best to get out of that situation as fast as you can. You shouldn’t have to deal with things like that and neither should your children. I have been through some rough times as both a mother and a wife. I have been abused when I was little and then when I first got married, my husband thought that he could get away with physically and mentally abusing me as well. I turned the tables on him and learned to stand up for myself and one day when he got up in my face, I got right back up in his! I am not saying doing that with your spouse, but it worked for me. And ever since then when or if he thinks that he can get up in my face, I am right there back up in his and so that it hasn’t been an issue for us. When we were first married, not only did I have to deal with the abuse, but he went out drinking too and which led into the abuse. Before we were even 5 weeks into the marriage, he left and we separated for a year and then got back together shortly after the birth of our first son together, my second child/son. We have been married 14 ½ years now. Things aren’t easy by any means. You have to believe in yourself and ask yourself if you are happy and if you are not do something to get out of the situation even if it takes a few months or a year, get yourself together not only for you but for your children and make things better for all of you.

About the Author: Hi, my name is Lisa, I am a stay at home and work at home mom of 4 children. I live in Oklahoma, married for over 14 years. I have been writing for years and also blogging for a few years. I enjoy spending time with my kids, I love listening to music. I enjoy chatting and emailing friends online. I love writing and someday hope to publish a book. Blogging is part of my daily life, it’s a great stress reliever and it helps get my opinions about things out there.

Welcome to the third article in my ongoing series that looks at how the human animal has evolved and how evolutionary pressures continue to influence how men and women relate to each other. People like to think that we’ve moved beyond our evolutionary history but nothing could be further from the truth. Our bodies may inhabit themodern world but our brains still inhabit the primordial jungles and savannas of our evolutionary youth.

Today, I’m going to explain how the seeds of conflict are built into the fabric of our closest relationships. Home Sweet Home is a sweet myth but the truth is that home life is rife with built-in opportunities for strife. The common notion that humans are becoming more violent thanks to TV, declining morals, etc. is pure myth. The truth is that humans today are far less violent today than at any time in our 5-million year history. The difference is that mass media feeds us horror stories in an ongoing ratings war using the maxim “if it bleeds, it leads.” I am certainly not advocating child or spousal abuse and I am just as horrified by some of the news reports I see as anyone else. Understanding how and why the potential for these conflicts are hardwired into our existence is a critical first step to making conscious changes in how we choose to live our lives… because as much as we are slaves to our evolutionary history, we are also capable of making deliberate choices.

Here are just a few examples of the built-in domestic conflict humans can face at home.

In The Womb

Conflict may begin in the womb. A fetus has its own interests to protect and is therefore more interested in its own survival than the mother’s, even if its own survival depends on its mother. Meanwhile, the mother is evaluating the fetus’s reproductive potential and may spontaneously abort the pregnancy if the fetus is found lacking. Far from uncommon, miscarriages (spontaneous abortions) occur about half the time.

Once born, the baby may still face infanticide at the hands of a rival male or even its own mother. Mothers who kill their babies tend to be young, poor and unmarried. In other words, they lack the experience, resources and help normally needed to raise a healthy child that is capable of passing along the mother’s genes. The mother’s own reproductive potential has been proven by virtue of a successful pregnancy; the child represents a huge gamble that could result in both mother and child losing the ability to reproduce. From an evolutionary standpoint, individuals who fail to reproduce have missed the entire point of living. As horrible as infanticide is, it is nonetheless justifiable when seen from the evolutionary point of view. I am certainly not advocating or defending infanticide; I am merely saying that I understand it.

Medical technology has enabled women to consciously make the same evaluations their bodies have been making automatically for millions of years and opt to terminate the pregnancy through an abortion procedure. The only difference between spontaneous abortion (miscarriage) and deliberate abortion is the deliberateness of the action. Either way, a failed pregnancy is the natural result of a decision process that finds the fetus lacking.

Weaning And Walking

The next major conflict occurs around weaning as the child is increasingly expected to fend for itself instead of simply nursing. Around this time, the child’s increasing mobility and natural curiosity foster a growing need for independence while at the same time needing the reassurance of parental presence and involvement.

Sibling Rivalry

Siblings are another source of conflict. Every sibling carries some percentage of each other’s genetic material but only an identical twin is 100% genetically identical to the other. Here again, the competing needs of each individual to pass along her or his genes comes into play as each sibling vies for food and status within the family. Helping parents raise siblings is a good way to help ensure that at least some of one’s genes get passed on but that fractional benefit can come at the expense of delaying the ability to reproduce on one’s own. Siblings also tax parental resources such the amount of time and attention that can be lavished on any one child. Firstborn children are often accorded special privileges and attention. The youngest sibling often receives extra attention such as diapering and feeding while older children take care of themselves. Middle children are the ones who usually receive the least attention because they lack both the firstborn’s status and the last-born’s needs. This can result in a middle child making extra efforts to gain attention. I’ve witnessed this firsthand in several families, including some very close friends of mine. One of these friends once expounded at length about an argument he was having with his older (firstborn) brother and his frustration at feeling unheard and misunderstood. He wanted his older brother to sit down and listen to his side in exquisite detail. I remember advising my friend repeatedly to just let it go only to realize much later that he couldn’t for all of the reasons I’ve just described.

Parents vs. Children

Conflict between parents and children is also part of the scheme of things. Think about this: Every resource that goes into feeding and raising a child is one less resource that the parents have for themselves. This is a fine line to walk. Allocate too many resources to the children and the parents’ own fitness will be reduced, potentially impacting their ability to care for their young and thus pass on their genes. Too few resources and the children will suffer, with consequences for the parents. It really is a fine line. It is even possible that some child and parent attributes might have evolved to compete with each other.

The analogy of loaning increasing resources to someone with the potential for payback versus cutting one’s losses applies here as well. The lifeboat adage “women and children first” makes evolutionary sense because one man can impregnate many women while each woman can only experience one pregnancy at a time. Sacrificing men to save women therefore makes sense because it has the least long-term impact on the population. One could argue that making an adult consumes far more resources than making a child and thus the children should be sacrificed. This argument ignores the fact that children carry their parents’ genes, which means that the parents have already won the great game of life. From an evolutionary perspective, saving the women and children is the best thing to do. Thank goodness that modern ships are required to carry enough lifeboats for all!

Spousal Conflict

Few comedic routines are complete without at least a few lines devoted to marital strife. Untold thousands of articles discuss the most common topics of conflict between spouses and advice columns routinely offer advice to people who are at odds with their significant others. These address the stated cause of the problem (such as money) and some even delve into the feelings and motives behind the scenes. Few sources designed for mass consumption approach marital conflict from an evolutionary perspective.

Couples with children share the goal of successfully raising their young and passing along their combined genetic material. There’s just one problem: The mates themselves share no genetic material under normal circumstances and a child carries 50% of either parent’s genes at best. Each mate’s investment in the couple’s children confers a fitness benefit on the other mate. This paves the way for one or both mates to take undue advantage of the other. The male’s natural instinct is to seek out as many mates as possible to pass on as much of his genes as possible. The woman’s incentive is to throw all she has into raising her current child because she can’t hope to compete with the male in sheer numbers and must therefore focus on every child. It’s the old quantity versus quality conundrum. Even the most monogamous male has thought about investing some resources in an extramarital encounter. Any male reading this who hasn’t just did.

It doesn’t end there. Under normal circumstances, each partner in a couple has their own family of blood relatives. Devoting all of one’s attention to one’s own child helps a non-relation (the other parent) pass along her or his genes while possibly limiting the ability of other family members to pass along at least some of one’s own genes. Strife over the amount of time and energy spent on family is a common refrain in many, many marriages. If you’ve ever argued about your in-laws or seen or otherwise know about such an argument then you know exactly what I’m talking about.

I just purchased a new laptop computer. I did my homework, researching brands, prices and value before placing my order. Nevertheless, I found myself eying a competing model longingly within moments of clicking the “Place Order” button on the seller’s Web site because it suddenly occurred to me that I may have missed out on an even better value. This buyer’s remorse isn’t limited to consumer electronics. One or both parties in a marriage or other pairing may become convinced that they can get a better value for what she or he has to offer by leaving the relationship. Cases where both parties want out have the best chance for peaceful resolution. My former wife and I both decided to end our marriage and we’re better friends today than we’ve been in many years. Cases where one party wants out are where problems arise. A man I know decided to leave his marriage. The cost in time, energy and money spent on the divorce proceedings themselves could literally have purchased a comfortable house and that’s not including the division of marital property. Women who decide to end a relationship risk violence or other pressure not to go through with the breakup.

Power is another huge source of conflict. The woman invests more in child-rearing but most societies recognize the man as the head of the household. Women even give up their family names when married and the typical Western family wedding ceremony has the woman’s father “giving away” the bride in a procedure not unlike handing off a piece of property.

No discussion about spousal conflict would be complete without at least mentioning sexual infidelity. I’ll cover sexuality in depth in future articles.

As if this wasn’t enough, one or more parents may also have children from a previous partner. Children born from the current relationship reflect a mutual investment and more than one couple has remained together “for the kid’s sake”. Children born from past relationships only carry one parent’s genes and the other parent has no evolutionary incentive to invest anything in them. In fact, the stepparent has every evolutionary reason to prevent resources from going to the stepchild for the same reason that male lions kill cubs they haven’t sired: to increase their odds of passing on their own genes. Tales about children doomed to live with rotten stepparents abound all over the world and are based in real-world truth. Several studies have shown that stepchildren are far more likely to be abused than biological children regardless of external factors such as socioeconomic status. Stepchildren are a large source of conflict.

I must take care to distinguish stepchildren and adopted children where both parents opt to rear a child that is not related to either of them. Adopted children fare very well overall. Adoptive parents allegedly commit child abuse in 1% of reported cases while comprising 2 to 4 percent of the general population according to the United States Census Bureau. According to the United States Department of Health and Human Services, 12 children out of every 1,000 aged 18 or younger were abused in 2005. The figure for adopted children is therefore 12 out of 100,000.

Most people have a strong aversion to violence against genetic relatives. That aversion does not extend to spouses, who normally aren’t genetically related to each other. Approximately 7% of married people experience spousal abuse (Statistics Canada, 2004).

So let’s start with our kids. What are we afraid of them knowing? Why do we dodge their questions, or dance around them? Why don’t we encourage our children to come to us, and be open and honest with them? I have a question for all parents: If you’re not teaching your kids about sex, who is?

My hunch is they are learning from their friends, and who are they? What do they know? What parents need to know is that kids, regardless of how we feel or how we grew up, are faced with sexual social pressure nearly every day of their lives. Studies show that not only are more teens having sex, but they are starting younger.

The reality is if they don’t know something, they believe what their friends tell them. Don’t assume your kids are different unless you really talk to them. I read one study where teenage girls, 13-16 years old, were performing oral sex regularly. Why? They were pressured by the boys they liked, and they felt at least this way you can’t get pregnant.

Is this how you want your children to react? What are we afraid to tell our kids? Sex is nothing to be embarrassed about, or shy about. I’m not in any way suggesting we encourage sexual promiscuity from our children, but by all means, educate them the best you can and if your best falls short, or you still feel uncomfortable, get them to trust their physician. Your family doctor can be there to educate them. Perhaps they’ll even feel less embarrassed than talking with you.

Then we grow older, and what changes? We still learn from our friends and the problem with that is when sexual stories are embellished dramatically. For men, they’ll beat their chest about how long they last in bed, how much they satisfy their woman, how many chicks they’ve been with, and how big their hammer is. For women….well I can’t speak for you, but I can say that you are overwhelmingly more graphic when you talk about sex than men are. I don’t know how much is true or exaggerated, but you are very graphic.

So we try really hard to sexually satisfy our significant other, and we are always wondering if we are. Why are we wondering? Because we don’t know! The reason is because we rarely take the time, or we are just too shy and afraid, to ask our partner what they like and dislike.
I don’t mean turn and ask, “was that good for you?” I mean, ask our partner where they like to be touched, what they like and don’t like. Do you like your hair pulled, like to be spanked, like to talk dirty, or do you prefer to say nothing at all? What positions do you like? How do they make you feel? What’s your fantasy?

These are important conversations to have in order to develop intimacy with your partner. If you can’t talk about sex with your partner, than who can you talk about it with? Don’t go bragging to your guy friends, or complaining to your girlfriends. Say it to your partner.

From the time we’re young, sex is a dirty little secret. Even masturbation, although very natural, is frowned upon. You’re told you’re not normal and you’re laughed at. Masturbation is how we experiment with our bodies to understand where and how we like to be touched and yet we’re so afraid of the consequences if we get caught. We never really allow ourselves to learn, therefore, we can never share what we like and don’t like, and then we’re too afraid to tell our partner we’d like to try something new.

Sex is not a dirty little secret, it is sacred, it is special and it should be shared not with the entire world, but with our partners, and by all means, educate your children before their friends do.

“Who was that?” I asked, filling up my glass with water from the tap.

“I just got laid off,” S. said.

“Shut up.  Did you get the day off?” I laughed.

“No really, they laid me off,” he said again.

We knew it was coming.  They had been laying people off for a couple of months.  S. watched the work orders dwindle, his hours decreased from 48 to 30 per week.  He was one of only two employees left on his shift, besides the foreman and the shift supervisor.  We were finally feeling safe that we could “ride this out” until things picked back up.  Unfortunately, there was no bail-out package or rabbit-up-a-sleeve in the cards for us.  We were stuck face to face with the plain hard truth of reality stinking like a dead fish in the middle of our kitchen.

“We’ll be okay,” I tried to stay optimistic.  “It’s a gorgeous day.  We’ll enjoy the long weekend, come up with a plan, update your resume, and deal with it Monday.  You wanna pick up some hamburger and charcoal and grill tonight?”

Despite our agreement to sleep on it until Monday, the truth hung like a gray thundercloud over our heads.  We could feel the charge in the air between our glances, and though silent, the truth was screaming in our heads.  It seeped out in the cereal aisle, at the swings, around the table as we set out the plates -  “I can talk to F. tomorrow, he might know of some work;” “Do you know where the papers for child support is so I can get that adjusted?” “Will you get unemployment?”  “Have you seen the classifieds lately, there’s not enough out there to paper train a dog much less find work;”  “How much do we have in savings?”

That same night the phone rang again.  We were offered the house we had looked at earlier that week.

“Do we take it?” my husband asked.

“Yes, we need a place to live and we have to come up with the rent one way or the other – unless you plan on moving us in with my mother,” I have joked as I prayed to myself it won’t come to that.

Over the weekend, as the children slept, we pulled out our budget and bank statements, and figured out how long we could make it with just my income… July for sure, August maybe September depending on unemployment and any other payment adjustments we can arrange.  Sitting up in bed, we talked about our hopes for the future – my desire to write full time and raise the children, his desire to turn his home-brewing hobby into a career.  We were glad we decided to rent again and not to buy, leaving us open to relocate if the right opportunity came along once we weathered this latest storm.   Together, we formulated a rough vision of a five year plan – a reason to keep saving, living frugally, and improving our credit – a big picture to work towards.

“We’ve been through times like this before.  We’ll do what we have to do.  We’ll be fine,” I nudged him.  It was the first nights in almost two years we had gone to bed at the same time for two years because we work different shifts.

“Unemployment does have some perk benefits…” I giggled and slipped under the covers.

Monday, I explained to our oldest son who is eight why dad wasn’t going to work.  I let him know there was no work for dad to do now, so he would be looking for another job, and until then money would be tight.  We all had to pool together and make some sacrifices – no eating out, no new toys, we had to be very careful about spending and saving money.  He could help by cleaning his room and going through his clothes and old toys to get ready for the rummage sale before we move.  I told him to remember to be grateful for the things we do have – our house, our dog, favorite toys, each other.  He took it well.

So it’s on to the job search, and preparing to move.  At least we have the time to clean and pack and get ready.  For each door that closes, another door opens, right?  And if you can’t find the door, try the window instead.

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About the Author: At age six, Emily Bertholf wrote her first book The Big Sweep Up, a tale about how a neighborhood could work together to push a broom big enough to clean the streets and parks and make their whole city shine. Although never published outside of Mrs. Green’s classroom, it got rave reviews from her classmates and parents and so began her journey as a writer. Since then she has written fiction, poetry and memoir, about struggling characters trying to find love, success and that elusive happiness.

When not writing, you can find her handing out lattes and cheer at the local coffee shop where she works . “Some of our regulars, I’m the first person they see each day except maybe their husband or wife or children – so there’s a cool strange familiarity there that’s pretty special.” Emily is married, has three young children and lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.