Note: This is the second of a two-part series Many couples get stuck in patterns of unproductive fighting, complaining and blaming each other. If you are wanting to solve fights and conflicts from ruining the intimacy in your relationship, try the following suggestions: Become a student of your own anger by logging the events that […]
Being More Effective With Your Anger
Note: This is the first of a two-part series Dear Neil: I am 26 and have been engaged for just over a year. For the past five months, I have asked my fiancé to do some housework. After asking three or four times, I get extremely upset, start yelling and we end up fighting. How […]
Trust and Betrayal 2
The subject is about trust and betrayal, and three different readers illustrate the point. A woman from Brookfield, Wisconsin writes: “Please address how long it takes to get over the betrayal of a spouse after 21 years of marriage. He left me for another woman.” Sheila T. from Denver wrote in to ask: “There have […]
Women’s Issues with Men
Trust, infidelity and deception are the biggest issues women have in their intimate relationships with men, according to the results of a recent survey from the readers of this column. Participating cities in the survey included Amarillo, Texas, Woodbridge, Virginia, Everett, Washington, Denver, Colorado, Christchurch and Wellington, New Zealand and Janesville and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Women […]
What Do Women Want?
A Primer for Men Based on a reader’s survey of this column (and quoted last week), I am going to attempt to summarize what women want in their intimate relationships with men. Women do not speak with one voice. Every female is different, and no viewpoint attempts to represent all women. There are exceptions to […]
Sharing Sexual Fantasies Can Hurt
Dear Neil: Would you address the subject of having lustful fantasies about others while being in a stable, long-term monogamous relationship? Is there a place for sexual fantasies about others in a healthy committed relationship? The two of us are divided on this subject, and my partner is upset with me, accusing me of mental […]
Men and Women Talk About Their Differences
A Reader Survey Result Poor communication, differences in how to spend money, and infidelity were the three most frequent areas of conflict mentioned by both men and women in their intimate relationships with each other. Several hundred people responded to the reader’s survey printed in this column on March 1, 1992. Reader responses came from […]
Infatuation With a Co-Worker Threatens Marriage
Dear Neil: I have a wonderful, considerate husband and two great kids, but excitement must be missing in my life because I think about this man at work, and can’t get him out of my mind. There is a flirty attraction between us that is hard to ignore, and I’m having fantasies about him all […]
Women Talk About Their Sexuality
How important is sex to an intimate relationship? Can a good, healthy, intimate, loving, romantic relationship between adults exist without it? Several thousand readers from around the world have written in to express their opinion about the above question. Listen as women—and next week men—talk about the importance of sex to their relationship and to […]
Healing an Infidelity
If I were Bill and Hillary Clinton’s marriage therapist, here are some suggestions I would offer them for how to heal their marriage after infidelity: For the betrayer, some questions to expect: Who? Where? How long? Where and when did you meet? Do you love this other person? Who else knows? Do you still love […]