I'm 37, and my husband is 42. We've been married for ten years and have three kids. After our third child was born, we fell into a routine where we were two ships passing, discussing kid-related topics and attributing our lack of energy to do more than that to our not having slept in seven years! We were sinking.
I always had your program on in my car, but around this time, I really started to listen. Your advice seemed somewhat harsh at times, so it was easy for me to brush it off. But I realized that it was also easy to stay in the rut I was in. It was easy to blame him for petty things or blame him for not being happy. It was hard to see the reasons for that were within myself. Reading "
The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands" and listening to your program helped me see how we got trapped in this cycle. We weren't going to survive getting our kids to adulthood if we didn't put ourselves first.
I started holding his hand again, hugging and kissing him in front of our kids and (perhaps the biggest change) I stopped withholding sex as a means of communicating frustration or dissatisfaction. I started doing that even if I was tired or annoyed. Turns out that having sex is a good way to forget the petty annoyances in the first place! My mindset is now different. He feels it and I feel it, and for that I am thankful. Thanks for all that you do for those of us who can't see our way out of the forest.
Maureen
Remember, all of you can send me "
letters" too - by email! Just sign into (or sign up for) the Dr. Laura Family - it's free - and tell us of your experiences.
