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So I my wife and I started having problems recently. This may or may not be a big D word thing again. I hope not, but she is pretty upset right now.
I believe we’ve just entered another valley; and there is a hill just beyond the horizon,  but apparently I still need some more lessons from the big man. It came as sort of a surprise again, but I’m going to share what I learned so far. The point of this post is to further emphasize that this is a life long process. Don’t treat it like just a passing storm. Once you get into the safe zone, keep going to the counselling once in awhile, if it helped the first time. When you first make it into the safe zone, it will feel like a new relationship all over again, but then after awhile it becomes easy to settle back into the status quo. We forget. Why do we forget? Dunno. Something about being human.
The wife did seem to be happy quite a bit over the last year, but recently due to what her folks have been going through and another relative she has had to deal with a number of external issues to our family. Our marriage went into a down swing. I’ve tried to support her in this, however, found myself fumbling in the dark again. I’ve been asking if I can help in any way with it, etc. but that is annoying her. Let’s call this a Post Near Divorce Experience After Shock. Right.
This one snuck up on me.
Here are some mistakes that were made. I have a bad habit of asking how everything is going between us. She’ll say fine, but then sometimes due to everything we went through I’ll get doubts. Then I may get insecure and start to look really creepy probably ask too many times how are we doing. This make me look like I’m not exactly protecting her, and in addition, it seems to be received as saying I’m not being a good wife. Then an argument would start. Not my intent, but there it is. I spoke to one counselor about it and she suggests that I knock this part off. Her words were “It’s not attractive”.
What I’ve learned so far, is not to ask so often. It is pandora’s box. What it does is to stir up doubt. It plants a nasty seed. Not a good idea to do that.

The other part is how to control back sliding. Once you get back into status quo mode you may tend to forget some things and old habits creep back in.  I’ve now made a pact with one of my buddies for each of us to call each other if one of us approaches the anger zone. Kind of like an “anger buddy”. It is to calm the nerves.
Anyway, I talked to a counsellor about it and what they said was though I may be doing a lot better with the glass gloves, at the end of the day, there is also some fall out in that she will still not be completely honest about all her feelings so as to not push buttons that may start an argument. She was trained by me to not respond or talk when she is feeling down on something, that is why it came as a surprise. I hadn’t changed as much as I thought I had or the effect wore off a bit. Great!
She has left to her mother’s for the weekend to get some space. Keep the prayers coming folks, I was warned that it would take at least a couple years to get everything completely on the right track and that advice and warning was sound. I also think there are some things that I had neglected during my spiritual quest to try and relate to Yahweh aka God through the Messiah even more.

What happened is that I was focused on trying to understand the difference between the law and grace and where do you draw the line. I’ll come to the point at the end of the next paragraph, but first I wanted to discuss the questions I was asking of myself and scripture.
I was trying to better understand heaven, hell, purgatory, Sheol, eternal death, mostly universal salvation, etc. The thought was, if I really and truly believe there is some place called hell with burning fire, etc. then I really don’t even have time for my own family. Too many souls to reach. Think of it this way, if I truly believe that lots of folks are going to burn in hell, then wouldn’t it be my mission to reach as many as I could? If that is the belief, then everything else is almost nill in comparison. I mean think of it – as long as you could take a spoon to dig up Mount Everest and transplant it to Antartica even then eternity would not have began. Anyway, I looked into it more and more, and though I can’t prove it scripturally at this point, I suspect that eventually there will be a lot more people redeemed than was originally anticipated. This is really based on one fundamental precept – a just and all loving God could not punish infinitely for a finite crime. Now granted, this is based on my personal bias so don’t go taking my gut instincts as any sort of truth. This is what my gut has always told me, but you have to be careful with not deluding yourself. Oh dear brother, maybe that’s what was meant by being reborn. We have to taste death / destruction before He can let us into the door. Sounds like purgatory eh? Again, I can’t confirm it yet as there is only one verse or so that scripturally supports this idea, and the source to this is in Macabees which was never considered part of the canon, but instead a historical book. Yeah yeah, they say the same thing about Acts sometimes. Grace seems to be what saves, but I think of the law as a guide or the “walk” with God. See here for an interesting walk through some of the law: http://theownersmanual.net/ (159 hits)Now make no mistake, my personal belief is that the law is a “guide” and I don’t worry so much about breaking the law, but rather not following the guide.
Anyway, what all of this have to do with anything? Well, when someone tells me something that my gut instinct doesn’t trust, then I go out and do my best to find the “real truth”, not what I’ve been told. Anyway, I spent a great deal of time looking into these matters and in the process of trying to bring my family closer to God, I found that instead I had become a bit obsessive with this, resulting in alienating my family sometimes. People started to call me “religious”. Oh no – stones getting tossed at me.  Weird how that works, eh? I think what is happening here is that He is now working on “humbling” me a bit. Gently reminding me, that there was nothing I did to deserve what I’ve been given. When I started down this path, it used to confuse me about what was so hard for folks to understand about this. Doofus, I didn’t understand either at one time so shame on me.
I can sometimes be a pretty intimidating person when it comes to these matters and I think this may be a way of saying, you are not skilled enough nor do you know enough of the truth to be thinking yourself as knowledgable in this area so sit tight tiger while I teach you some more. Or something like that. Probably just deluding myself again! Christians are often blasted for being “hypocritical”. That is probably one of the worst things to have affected His kingdom, but I honestly think He did it just to show everyone what he was up to, and that in the end it will be finally understood by possibly all or most. Me thinking I was knowledgable was in a way, having too much pride and it was coming off as self-righteous at times. Not a good personality trait to have. Now I wasn’t trying to act  this way, but it was sometimes being received that way. The raw “unabashed” truth could be difficult for me to deliver since I still don’t know enough. Preparation breeds confidence and I’m still not fully prepared. Anyway, this started to affect my family as well so I’ve got some recovery work to do. Irony how I got here eh?
How do I solve this then? Here is a clue – I can’t by myself, that is why it is called a “walk”. The greater more experienced ox (Jesus/ Yeshua / Yahshua, etc.) is yoked with me. I carry some of the burden, but He carries the majority.
I’ve been praying for God to touch my wife’s heart the way I suspect He has touched mine. It is such a powerful thing. I wanted her to experience it for herself, but she hasn’t overly interested in studying scripture, etc. but I guess everyone does it differently. I’ve gone on and on this site about how good it is, but the wife seems to hit or miss at times.  Maybe this is the path for her to get that special gift and yet another lesson for me. I think that I may even have to accept the reality, that this sort of gift may not be for her – not unlike Mother Theresa. I’d like her to feel that. When she returns, I may give her some money and tell her to just go give it to someone who looks needy. It is quite a feeling.
Now I truly think that some of this may be preventing us from taking the marriage to the next level, but I was rushing it again. I need to take mor of my own advice eh? So, she asked for some space. She’s got it. Great, how do I go about not violating her space and making sure I’m good to go when I talk to her?

Well, I’ve decided that I’ll watch sad movies to “emotionally” train myself to not seem like a loser that desperately misses her.  If I can handle a real sad movie when my wife is mad at me, then hopefully that will give me “practice” to not look all puppy dog style when we interact. She should be back in a couple of days and I need to be prepared.
That was the rant for today.

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I thought I’d take a moment to explain one of the core concepts of resurrecting a marriage with an angry spouse. I’m just getting my thoughts out for now, but this stuff should be going into the promised “free save the marriage” manual I’ve been writing about for a bit. I’ve almost settled on a platform if I can get it to integrate with WordPress. Probably going to go with phpWiki. Any hoo – back to it…
You see – I’ve stated before that your spouse is not the same person right now. Your spouse is angry or even emotionless / dead inside if you are in real trouble.  Unfortunately for you, until you “get it” your spouse will NOT start to turn the corner. What a lousy selection of words. “Get it”. As best I can explain, I remember my wife telling me that I was guilty of being a control freak. Who me? A control freak? You’ve got to be kidding me… I let you make decisions on most everything we do.

Wait a second… I “let” you make decisions. Meaning ultimately it is my decision, but I relinquish control when I feel you won’t mess it up. OOOOooooooh. Perhaps I am a control freak from your point of view and that IS what matters right now is your point of view – especially since I’m trying to figure out this whole “agape” thing. So I stopped making decisions for her for a couple of reasons. One was to give her a feeling of control and I tell you there was a part of me that was afraid that she’d mess up our whole family’s life the way she was acting, but I just “let go”. You want a new car? Sure… go price it out – let’s see what is available. She prices it out and discovers – “yep we can’t afford it”, but it sure made her feel better having that control back.

As usual, I’m going to relate this to a movie scene. If you have ever seen Star Trek VI – the Undiscovered Country, there is a scene where the humans and klingons are sitting down to a luxurious dinner of blue food. The humans go on to talk about how they believe everyone is entitled to inalienable human rights. To which our idealistic klingon princess replies, “Inalienable”, “Human Rights”. If you could only hear yourselves. The very terms are racist. Righto.

It is all about point of view. Now getting back to it. Her point of view is that you are now an alien. You are no longer entitled to horizontal polka rights. You are no longer entitled to a kiss. You are no longer entitled to anything having to do with “us”, because it is no longer us, but now just you and me. Your rights have been effectively demoted to premarital levels of not worse. That means you must treat her as though you were trying to secure a first date. You can no longer be that big talking monkey walking around the house with nothing but your hanes showing. In fact, if you happen to get a date – guess what – you can’t even talk about the marital problems because there is no marriage to talk about. That part of your spouse is dead………………………. for now. Every time you “expect” a kiss or a hug or an “I love you” you are pushing her away. You are in a position to demand NOTHING after the way you have acted. Remember, this is her point of view and if you don’t get into her shoes and understand this – there is no way you have a fighting chance at saving your marriage. You still haven’t changed just like she said.

But you say, well I know I’ve done this and I’ve done that, but I wasn’t that bad. Yes – not that bad from your perspective. She snapped okay. It happens to the best of us.  So you may ask… what can I do then? Well – when you are around your spouse. You are on first date behaviour. If she fell for you because you were fun and are no longer fun – then guess what you better be fun again. If she fell for you because you were fun at first, but now have become as annoying as a table of monkeys drinking round after round of bananna daiquiris then guess what – time to stop drinking bannana daiquiris and focus more on what matters to her. Do you even know?

Ahhh yes, but you say it is a two way street and you can’t continue this way. It takes two to tango. No it doesn’t – you just need to quit getting on edge when you are around her. She can smell your fear and it is repugnant to her – not unlike that girl or guy you may have turned down for the homecoming dance back in high-school. You are actually no better off than that guy who couldn’t get a date (that was me at one point so back off . Don’t be that guy. See it from her point of view. She is building a case against you and every time you come to her expecting a kiss, or demanding this, or stating your case, or just being flat out annoying and selfish -… guess what you just lost a couple of points for the team. Keep it up and you’ll be benched for good or she’s going to find someone who IS willing to play ball.

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Words are by far mightier than the sword. Words start wars. If you have something to say to your wife – I want you to think about how it will play out once she receives those words. Are they to get something off of your chest or are they to help her? I’ve always struggled with this one. I want to be as honest as I can, but I do not want to send a rift in our relationship if I have something serious to talk about. I found that it helps me to write the words down and the come back and read it about a day letter. Many times I realize just how petty my words were the day before and wish I had never written them. This goes to a level of practicality as well. Many of the divorce prevention books suggest things like “Writing a list of the top ten things you like about your wife” and giving that to her. That backfired horribly in my case. In fact she was so mad at one point that she burned our high-school love notes. I did notice that she accepted some of these words though.

I took a bar of soap and wrote “I love you” on the bathroom mirror so that when she took a shower – “Surprise”. She liked that. I handed her a list of the things I liked about her – it went straight to the trash. What was the difference? Perhaps once required more thought and planning and was not like checking off a “todo list”.

I had my wife explain the difference to me after we saved our marriage and she said from her perspective it meant more if it was “thought out” – but not desperate. For my wife that meant short and sweet messages. Too long and she thought it was creepy. I imagine there is a balance for your woman as well and that means you will either have to think back about what worked or do some trial and error.

Another thing I should comment on is the recording of your thoughts in your journal and her moods, etc. You need to be careful with this stuff because if she finds it – you are hosed. Here is what I did. I told my wife that I was writing down my thoughts and that some of them were me being scared, some were my negative and positive feelings, but that I was working that part out to better understand her and myself. I respectfully asked that she not look at my log book because it contained stuff that was at a moment in time and could be taken out of context. She complied with my wishes. If you come to this site and start writing in the forum or equivalent – it may be okay to let your spouse know, but you need to be upfront and ask her not to review your words until enough time has passed. You know your girl – if she is able to respect this then it is probably okay to share this information with her – lest she find it in your browser history.

If you fear that she will look at the sites you have been going to, for example – this one, please be smart and clear the browser history – especially if you write in the forum. It is usually under Tools – Options – depending upon your browser.

One more thing – we’ve got the forum (160 hits) up and running now, but at some point we’re going to pull together a “free” save the marriage guide on this site. It will be a community effort. I think I’ve managed to get most of my thoughts out on what worked in my situation, but hope that all of us going through this can put together a practical and free “save the marriage” book containing all those pearls of wisdom we have learned. In the mean time – I think it will be interesting to watch whether the forum takes off – I think it is kind of like watching Thankgiving dinner. The food is served and waiting, but noone will go for it until one person gets in line – yet another human phenomonenon that has always puzzled me. It just takes one person to start a movement or to get the family started on Thanksgiving dinner. Now I’m going to eat my own words.

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I have written previously about the day (143 hits) I pretty much thought our marriage was over with. I did some pretty sorry things once I got into the “grab for power” and “grab for me me” mode. I thought it would be helpful for you guys to understand my thought process and what went wrong that day. You see – my wife and I shared a common email account. I had made an accusation that she had lied to me about something. She had gone out to one of those astrology sites to do a “compatibility” test on the both of us. I had become quite curious about the results of the test and went hunting for it in our email account. I found it in the “deleted items” folder. It said we were a “good match”. Not perfect – but good. Well great – at least the astrology site had my back although my wife was none too convinced that we were a good match at the time. Any hoo – I asked my wife about it and she said that she never saw the results. “LIAR LIAR” I immediately told myself. I confronted her about this and eventually our tempers flared – particularly mine. This little grain of sand sent her over the edge while I was already on “probation” with her.
I had been monitoring that email account and she knew it. I was paranoid – as I later discovered my fears were realized; however, I am left wondering what did I gain by doing this? It was evil and the end result of it was more evil and guess what she changed the email password. That sent me over the edge. I just knew in my mind that there was very little I could do to save my marriage – boy was I wrong, but I didn’t know it at the time.

A couple of lessons here – please don’t repeat my mistakes. Unfortunately, my words will not reach you until you’ve finally woken up, but I hope this at least makes somewhat of a dent. Once this stuff starts you may find yourself getting paranoid. Paranoid = Good Bye Marriage. Your mind may concoct stories and situations that simply do not exist. I’ve seen this same thing happen to other people so I know this isn’t just me. What I do know is that the paranoia made everything worse by far.

Eventually I learned to control it by just expecting – but not assuming the worst and by realizing I could only change me – not her – and if I was lucky – perhaps my family wouldn’t go down the gutter.

Folks – If you are at the “scared stage” let me at least tell you what I learned. Your wife may say – “you are only doing this because you are scared”. It is fine to own up to being scared, but I hope that isn’t your primary motivation for trying to save the marriage.  Fear is the opposite of love because fear is self-preserving. To save your marriage you MUST practice selfless love. That means you can not expect a single thing out of her for some time. She has become Mr. Hyde and you must wait for her to return to that woman that you love. Love her not for who she is NOW, but who she can become. A little grain of sand can turn into a pearl if given enough time.

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The save the marriage / prevent the divorce books invariably suggest one strategy consistently across almost every book. Don’t push too hard.

What does that mean though? Don’t push.

I think it is something like this. There are things that your now estranged and if you are lucky, angry partner, would not want you to do even though logic might dictate they should. Guess what – if you came up with the idea – by definition it is a bad idea!

Emotions are a very powerful force for controlling decisions like it or now. I remember at one point I was presenting all the data that I could to my wife that saving the marriage was the most logical choice. Yeah – she didn’t buy it. She was tired and didn’t care as long as she was away from me – at all costs.

Can you think of a moment where you may have been like this in your life? Perhaps a moment that you had become so distraught that you no longer cared about the outcome? That no additional effort would result in anything positive. I remember feeling like this after staying up for several days while in college working on finishing projects. After staying up for 3 days in a row, the value of sleep started looking awfully appealing even if I failed a course. Perhaps compare this to ol’ Esau trading his birth right and father’s blessing for a nice meal from Jacob. If your spouse has run out of fight – then it is up to you to save this marriage. Call me old fashioned or just crazy, but I truly believe marriage is until death to us part and is the most important human relationship on this planet and worth every inch of fight that you have even if your spouse is tired. How do you give your spouse more energy – without pushing?

I couldn’t ask my wife to remove the emotion from her decisions – only a 3rd party was able to do that for me – the only thing I could do was work towards giving her more energy and helping her no longer be tired. A vacation certainly helped with that, activities, happy memories, etc.
So what is pushing? Simple – would your “wanting to leave” spouse want what you are about to suggest? Does it interest them or are you merely suggesting something in the hope that they will respond with love for your sake? Ask yourself first.

• My “wanting to leave” wife, would you like to go on a vacation by yourself? Yes!
• My “wanting to leave” wife, would you like to go to marriage counseling with me? No!
• My “wanting to leave” wife, would you like to go to the bookstore and get some books? Yes – I’ve always wanted to read Hemmingway.
• My “wanting to leave” wife, would you like to go to the bookstore and get some marriage saving books? NO!
• My “wanting to leave” wife, would you like to go to have dinner “just as friends”. I guess
• My “wanting to leave” wife, would you like to go on a date with me? NO!
  My “wanting to leave” wife, would you like to go to the park with me to watch the kids play. Yes!
• My “wanting to leave” wife, would you like to go to the park to talk about our marriage while the kids play? NO!

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One of the things I talked about in the past was how to filter advice, particularly negative advice. I started to study myself and my wife during the rough period of our marriage and noted a couple of phenomenon.

People tend to rationalize their decisions as being correct including me.

People often tend to think exactly like the last person they spoke with when they are under emotional duress.

Interesting. I noted that this was the same for my wife and I; and for other people whose marriages had either fallen apart or had made it through the rough patch. I started interviewing everyone I knew who had both a successful and an unsuccessful marriage to understand what happened. As part of that process, I noted that there were some very common themes that ran through each of the marriage situations even though each situation had its own set of circumstances.

One of the biggest things I’ve noted is that one or both parties tend to get “paranoid” and drive themselves towards a “me me” mode. In every case, I noted that this resulted in a divorce. In other cases, I noted that one of the persons stood up and said “Oh well, If I get divorced I get divorced”, but I’m going to do everything I can to show my spouse that I’m serious about them. At a minimum, I won’t have to look back years down the road and have regrets about not trying hard enough.

I also noted, that one or both partners will go to outside the marriage to get support for their decisions or to get advice on what to do. Sometimes, this support will take sides and only listen to one side of the story. Sometimes, this support will listen to both sides and point out errors that both partners are doing.

In my case, it actually helped me more to listen to support that told me what I was doing wrong instead of making me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

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One way or another you figured out (at least) one of the things that has caused your spouse to leave you and ask for a divorce. Whatever it is, from not taking enough showers to fooling around outside your marriage, it is up to you to change. This article is not about whatever the issue is, it is about the change you need to make.

You think changing something in yourself is going to be easy? “Yes honey, I promise I’ll be good from now on” isn’t worth the powder to blow it up. You have been doing this for long enough to cause your spouse to give up and move out. And you may not have even been conscious of your habit! That is the situation I have been in. Yes, some issues might have been a real choice on your part, but the results now are that your marriage is in mortal danger of dissolving. How to make that right?

“Yes, but it’s my wife who has a screw loose!” Earth to Reader! Change is not easy, but it’s easier to work a real change in you than it is to cause someone else to change. You want your marriage back together? Seek real professional help. But keep in mind, you do your work, and your spouse needs to do theirs. Don’t cross over!

I have figured out the secret to working out a real change in yourself takes three steps,

1. Find the thing in you that does need change.

2. Learn the new direction you need to go.

3. Find a reward for yourself – see the advantage in the “new” you.

Look at Yourself

Jesus made a point that people easily find fault in others, and ignore the problem in themselves. That’s what he was talking about when he said “Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?” (Matthew 7:1 (14 hits))

Your spouse has told you (probably more than once) what’s bugging her. Brother, you need to work on yourself to find the root cause. For almost a year, my wife had accused me of being controlling. I didn’t believe her. After she left, I had extra time for examining myself and more time for prayer. I came to the conclusion she was right, after all!

Make a Plan

Once you’ve seen the log in your own eye, it’s time to get to work. Picture yourself without this problem. How do you think? How do you act? What do you need to do? If you came to GlassGloves.com looking for a way to save your marriage, you know what this change might cost you. It will be worth it!

The first step is an APOLOGY. Your spouse has been through enough pain – enough to believe it’s better living without you. This will be your turning point. Be “bottom of your heart” sincere. Listen to and accept any criticism. Be open and truthful, even if your wife has that “I’ve heard this before” look on her face.

Change Direction

Next, to help both you and your spouse understand what’s going on, BE ACCOUNTABLE. Ask your wife to help you by reminding you when the old you surfaces. This will happen, and hopefully you might catch yourself before she does! Use a code word or signal (“That’s silly”, or “lay off”). Being accountable to another will go a long way in keeping you on track, and your accountability person will be actively watching for the good changes.

Reward Yourself

Change for change’s sake is worthless. You need a reward for yourself, and I don’t mean “I’ll get my marriage back together”. Realize how this change will reward you personally. When I recognized my tendency to control others and worked to stop that, I found a reward: I didn’t have to worry about other people’s lives! I could just live my own! Seriously – do not think getting approval from others is any reward. You need to find value for yourself in your new change. Running up the applause meter might feel good, but that won’t make for a life changing experience.

If your wife does say you stink, then be conscious simply of the fresh feeling you get when you get out of the shower (yes, and your wife’s reaction when she knows you are clean). If you have been involved with someone else (this is a symptom of issues too deep to talk about here) remember, if nothing else, you don’t need to live two lives any more – you need only focus on the real love of your life. If you spend too much time with your work – if that’s what you “live” for, take a look at the rest of the world, and learn there’s real enjoyment in sharing what God has given us all.

Yes these are simplistic solutions, but you need to do the real work in yourself and for your marriage. Seek God’s wisdom:

1 Mortals make elaborate plans, but God has the last word.

2 Humans are satisfied with whatever looks good; God probes for what is good.

3 Put God in charge of your work, then what you’ve planned will take place.

Proverbs 16:1-3 (15 hits) (The Message)

[Note: I wrote this before I read Shohn's latest entry, "Talking About Problems Doesn't Help". But he uses some of these techniques!]

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Here is another fun story about how to encourage your wife to divorce you.
We had a nice little front porch argument after which my wife was convinced for the 2nd time (of three total) that we needed a divorce.

Somehow her mother managed to talk her into meeting me at McDonald’s so that we could discuss our differences in a civil tone. Somehow being in public makes everyone behave themselves.

My wife had “shut me out”  after I had somehow managed to convince her to come back this time. She told me she was giving me one more chance, but if I couldn’t learn to control my temper it would be over. I asked her to warn me if I started to escalate the ol’ temper to which she agreed.
After she was back home, she didn’t want to “talk about it”. Unfortunately, at that time I didn’t understand the rule that talking about problems just makes things worse. Naturally, the antagonist that I am, I proceed to poke and prod at her to get her to talk about the problems. At that time, I still perceived half of the problems to be me and half her, but I wasn’t smart enough to realize that it doesn’t matter whose fault they are. Assigning blame doesn’t help.  It’s not a trial of law, though it is a trial in your life.

She had agreed to allow me to sleep in the same bed so long as I stayed on my side. The idiot that I was, I couldn’t just keep my mouth shut. I started trying to get her to read books about saving marriages. I showed her the passages about what she was doing wrong and what I was doing wrong. Oops. Good job, Shohn.

That just pushed her away.  Eventually, I managed to anger so much that she went to sleep on the couch. This was in the dead of Texas summer and we weren’t running the AC so it was hot. The room with the couch did not have a ceiling fan. She would rather sleep on the couch in that hot room than on a nice soft bed with a ceiling fan. I went and confronted her some more to read the books so we could save this marriage – she shut down and quit talking. This drives my personality type insane. I said some things I shouldn’t have then she just looked at me with some facial expressions that say “I hate you” and said “You are just signing the papers right now”. Finally, I calmed down and went back to our bed and let her sleep on the couch.

In retrospect, I should have offered her the bed. Now guys, there is something you need to know about here. Have you ever looked at your woman and had her give you one of those looks that says “I hate you”. Leave her be, buddy.

What have you learned from this – if you’re marriage is on rocky ground – talking about the problems doesn’t help. Wait till it is stable or you have finally reached stage 3 of the marriage.

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