HOW DO YOU KNOW WHEN IT’S TIME TO LEAVE A MARRIAGE?

25 Jul 2014 Leave a comment

by askdalimama in Love & Relationships Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

DEAR DALI MAMA:

My wife and I have been married for 27 years. She is a wonderful woman but I feel so bored with my life and with my marriage. How do I know when it is time to go?

–Trying (United States)

DEAR TRYING:

Well, first you might want to have a conversation with her and maybe try couples counseling. If you’re feeling bored with your marriage, it’s quite likely she might be feeling the same way.

Talk together and see what you can both do to cultivate passion, excitement, and a fresh perspective on your marriage and on each other. Try dating each other too. Do fun things neither of you have done before. Take a class together, visit a new place, or buy a tandem bike that you can ride together to explore new places while staying healthy. You may come to know each other in a whole new way when you give yourselves a chance by giving yourself fresh situations, new environments, and novel stuff to do and discuss together. You both have probably evolved in ways you don’t even recognize and this is a great chance to get to know your new selves with fresh eyes.

Also, keep in mind that when you were first dating, you worked to get to know each other and you made plans to do fun things together. That’s got to continue. Every relationship needs work to maintain it and to help it grow and thrive.

Finally, if you feel bored with your life, you’ve got to start by addressing that. Once you feel stimulated in your own life (your hobbies, interests, learning new things, pursuing your dreams), that stimulation and enthusiasm will likely spread into your marriage.

I wish you much enjoyment of the rediscovery of both who you are and who your wife is and who you are as a couple in the present moment.

MY CHILD IS REPEATING NEGATIVE THINGS ABOUT ME THAT MY EX SAYS ABOUT ME. HOW DO I HANDLE THIS?

28 May 2014 2 Comments

by askdalimama in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

 

DEAR DALI MAMA:

I have been divorced for a year. I have two small children for whom I share custody with my ex-wife. Sometimes my daughter who is four will say bad things about me, which I believe she is repeating, like “That’s because you’re a bad daddy and you don’t care about any of us.” My wife says things like that on the phone to me and I think she is parroting what she has heard, but it hurts me a lot. How do I handle this?

–Hurting Dad (Australia)

DEAR HURTING DAD:

I would start by having a neutral conversation with your ex-wife, possibly with a family therapist, and emphasizing the importance for each of you to speak with respect to each other. Even though your daughter is probably parroting what she has heard her mother say to you, this will impact her thinking, possibly for years to come or for the rest of her life if this is not addressed as soon as possible.

You might want to go with the whole family as well to therapy so you can all start building a new and positive way of relating to each other in the context of the new family structure.

No matter what your ex says to your children, never say anything negative about her. If you are defending yourself, I suggest not saying things like that she was wrong or whatever, but just stating the positives as related to your own self. For example, if your daughter says that you don’t care about any of them, simply state with love that you will always love her and her sibling. Maybe you could even say that you will always love her mother because she gave birth to her and her sibling and that you’ll always be thankful for that. Talk to the family therapist, though, and get some specifics guidelines on what would be appropriate for the ages of children you have and for the particular family dynamics you’re working through.

I applaud your courage in working through this and for finding a way to improve this situation with positivity and love. In the end, love is the only thing that matters.

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