My Lil Red Dress

It’s a well-known fact that marriage & finances cause a lot of problems. Since this whole economic crisis has hit, I can’t help but think that lots more couples are having fights about finances. I know that there has been some stress in my house over money since the seemingly never-ending fall of our economy.

But economic crisis aside, marriage & finances have been an issue for couples, probably since the beginning of time. Part of the problem may be that many couples don’t spend that much time talking about money before they get married. It’s just not one of those things that is at the top of most people’s priority list when they are busy with the business of falling in love. Eventually the knot is tied and all of the sudden you realize that you and your spouse have very different ideas about how to spend (or save) money. One person may be a spender; the other a saver. Or, two spenders get married and then start to fight when the money runs out and the debts start to pile up.

How we feel about money is affected by lots of things and our habits likely started when we were small children. We’re affected, either negatively or positively, by how our parents handled money. We’re probably also affected by lots of other factors, not the least of is our personality.

The good news is that finances don’t have to ruin a marriage, even when you feel like they might. If you and your spouse are in love and are committed to your marriage, you can work out money issues – heck, you can even learn something from each other.

The best advice is to start talking to each other about money. Learn about your spouses past and try to understand what affects that way that he feels about spending or saving. One of the best things that you can do to bring peace to your marriage & finances is to set mutual goals. If you and your spouse can set goals together, the chances of you working together to meet the goal go up exponentially.

Here’s a tip that you probably won’t like, but it’s worth saying…you’ve got to compromise. Even if you are completely right (and you know you are!), you know that compromise is part of marriage. The same is true for marriage & finances. If both parties are willing to give a little, you’ll both end up happier in the long run.

My husband and I recently started going through a book called The Couple’s Guide to Love & Money. I can’t say enough good about this book. We both learned our “money personality” and tons of great ideas that we’ve used to get on the same page, financially speaking. This is a must-read book for any couple that’s having issues about money. It’s also a great book, with tons of worksheets and other information for engaged couples and those who are getting married.

Don’t allow the problems that come with marriage & finances ruin your relationship – it’s really not worth it. Make it a priority to work through your money issues together – your relationship will be stronger in the long run.

Have you and your spouse successfully worked through financial issues together? What worked? What didn’t? We’d love to hear about it!

I’ll admit it, I hate when I’m wrong. I think that makes me pretty normal. I don’t especially like saying sorry either. Unfortunately, I find myself in the position of having to apologize more often than I’d like to admit. Typically, I sound exactly like my 4-year old when the time comes for my to apologize. If you have kids, you know exactly what I’m talking about!

Seriously, though, knowing how to apologize is an important part of being in a relationship. Sometimes it’s just got to be done.

Before you can learn how to say sorry, you’ve got to be able to admit that you did something wrong in the first place. And that’s where the problem comes in…for me at least. It’s not fun to admit that you’re wrong. For some people, it’s darn near impossible. Here’s a hint for you though, if you are fighting with your boyfriend or husband, chances are that it’s at least partly your fault.

Once you are able to admit to yourself that you did something wrong, you’ve got to make up your mind to apologize. There are two basic ways to say you’re sorry. You can actually say it or you can write it. Which method you decide to use may very well depend on the severity of the argument and your personal feelings about apologizing. For some people, an apology comes easy. For others, like me, it’s a nightmare.

I usually choose the written apology for any wrongdoing greater than forgetting to pick something up from the store or staining his favorite shirt. Writing allows me to think about what I want to say…it also masks that sneer in my voice that always seems to show up right at the time that it’s time to say I’m sorry.

But what about those times when you know that you’ve hurt someone’s feelings, but you really don’t believe that you’ve done anything wrong. For example, you have a disagreement with your boyfriend or husband about finances. During the disagreement, that really ended up to be more like a fight, you said some things that hurt your sweeties feelings. After it’s over, you feel sorry that you hurt his feelings, but you stand by what you said in the first place. How can you apologize when you don’t believe that you’ve done anything wrong?

During situations like these, it’s important to stay true to what you believe. For the sake of your relationship, it’s also important to work things out with your guy. During situations like this, I like to apologize for the pain that I caused without apologizing for the way that I feel.

In the end, sometimes you’ve just got to suck it up and say you’re sorry, even if you don’t want to. Heck, sometimes you have to say it even when you don’t mean it. In a relationship, we aren’t just responsible for our own feelings – we’ve got the feelings of someone else to think about. Learning to say sorry (without sounding like a 4-year old) is going to go a long way in making your relationship a happier one.

getting pre-marriage counseling before saying I do

Getting  pre-marriage counseling is highly recommended if you think you have found that special someone that you are considering marrying.  Take the necessary step to build your relationship on a strong foundation.   Getting pre-marriage counseling early in the dating relationship can prevent divorce in the long range and help each partner to understand each others perspective on important subjects such as sex, finances and raising children.

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Date Night Ideas

If you are married, I highly recommend setting up a weekly date night with your spouse. Think back to the years when you were dating – I’m willing to bet that if you’ve passed the honeymoon phase of your marriage, you have started to forget what it was like to date your spouse.

As things like work, kids, and life get in the way a marriage begins to suffer. Before you know it, you realize that you hardly talk anymore, unless it’s about bills, work, or the kids. There’s simply not the time to talk about the things that used to thrill us about our spouse.

In my marriage, part of the answer has been to implement a regular date night. My husband and I set aside a night each week that is just for us. We don’t talk about our kids, we don’t talk about work, and we don’t talk about bills. In all honesty, at first there wasn’t much to talk about at all. How sad is that? We had gotten so used to talking about the day-to-day stuff that we didn’t know what to talk about when we couldn’t discuss the mundane.

However, after awhile, an amazing thing started to happen. We found things to talk about. We started talking about our dreams and our goals again. We talked about all of the things that we used to talk about…before we were married.

If you’d like to start a date night, but don’t know what to do, I’ll gladly share some of my date night ideas to get you on the right track.

~ Dinner is always a great way to spend time together. It allows you to talk and once you have children, there’s something amazing to go out alone – with no interruptions.

~ In the summer, my husband and I like to pack a picnic and go out to the beach. A lake or other park works just as well.

~ Both my husband and I love music, so we sometimes find a good band at a local bar and enjoy music and dancing…just like when we were dating!

~ Sometimes we really splurge and do something fun. Since we live in Hawaii, we’ve been on a dinner cruise, to a luau, and to a crab dinner on the beach at a local hotel.

~ If you like sports, a game of basketball can be a great way to spend time together while also releasing tension.

~ I’m almost ashamed to admit it, but my husband and I love to play the Wii. On date nights when we aren’t necessarily pleased with each other – a good boxing match does wonders when it comes to easing our tensions.

~ Visit a local museum or your local planetarium.

~ Find a place far from the city and just look at stars – bring a nice bottle of wine.

~ We once went to Build-a-Bear. That was my favorite date night ever, even though my husband thought it was slightly cheesy.

~ Make sure you take a trip to the local carnival when it’s in town. Pretend you are back in high school and dating again.

~ How about ice skating? If you don’t know how, learn together.

~ Make a day of it and go to a local amusement park. Again, pretend that you’re dating again. Hold hands in line and feed each other cotton candy.

There are hundreds more date night ideas. Get creative and have fun. Get to know each other again and learn things that you never knew!

For more date night ideas and information about why date night is so important for married couples, check out two great books:

~ 40 Unforgettable Dates with Your Mate: This is a great book full of ideas for fun and exciting dates with your spouse. It’s also a great wedding gift for newlyweds.

~ Date Night in a Minivan: Revving Up Your Marriage after Kids Arrive: If you’re married with kids, this is a definite must read. It teaches you how to keep the fires burning while taking care of your family. After three kids and years of marriage, my husband and I hardly talked. I think many parents are like us. Make sure that your relationship gets the attention it deserves!

What are you doing for your date nights? Share your stories and give others ideas for their own marriages. Check back for more great relationship tips often, or sign up for our RSS feed to get updates when we add new information.

So you’ve found your guy cheating and after contemplating serious bodily harm, you’ve either decided to stay with him or you’ve left his no-good lying, dirty rotten, behind in the dust, but you’re still upset about the other woman.

If you are like most women, you obsess over her. You wonder if she’s prettier than you, better in bed than you, funnier than you…on and on it goes, a million thoughts constantly invade your brain and no matter what you do, you can’t make them stop.

Just like most women, you probably also think about confronting her. You’ve probably got a thing (or ten!) that you’d like to tell her, and really, who can blame you?

But, even after all the hell that you’ve been through, you still have some common sense left, and a part of you wonders if confronting the other woman is the right thing to do.

There’s a few things that you may want to think about before deciding whether a confrontation is what’s right for you:

1. How is the confrontation going to benefit you? Right now, you’ve got to make your yourself your very top priority. Is talking to this woman going to give you closure? Is it going to make you feel better? Now ask yourself if you’ll still feel better if she won’t answer your questions? Or worse, how will it make you feel if she goes into intimate detail about her relationship with your husband? You can’t control how she reacts to you – so if her reaction, or lack of one, is going to cause you more pain, then a confrontation may not be the best option.

2. Was she a friend? I think that it’s important to remember that, unless the other woman was a friend of yours, she really didn’t have any obligation to you. Your husband, on the other hand, did. A lot of my friends get really mad at the other woman, while letting their husbands almost completely off the hook, making excuses like, “That’s what men do.” What?!?! In my world, men who do that end up on curbs. But, seriously, don’t shift blame from your husband to this other woman. If you are planning on confronting her because you think “it’s all her fault,” it may not be the best thing to do. On the other hand, if she was a friend of yours, then she, too, had an obligation not to sleep with your husband. In that case, a confrontation is almost unavoidable.

3. Is your husband still seeing her? If you are planning a confrontation to get her to stop seeing your husband, it’s probably not a wise idea. Seriously, if your husband is still cheating on you, do you really want him back? If you do, it’s time to think about your motives and to spend some time working on your self-esteem.

I guess I made it sound as if confronting the other woman is never a good idea, and I don’t necessarily think that. There are times when a confrontation may be a good thing. If it’s going to help you in your healing process, then by all means, tell her how her involvement with your husband affected your life. Just don’t set your expectations very high – meaning, she’s not likely to see the situation the same way as you do.

If you’ve decided to confront her, it’s also smart to think about how you’ll do it before you run off and start a fight. Writing a letter or an email may be better than a face-to-face confrontation because it will allow you to say what you want to say without any interruption. Another benefit is that it will allow you to actually think about what you are saying before it all comes flying out of your mouth. If you are anything like me…that’s a serious benefit!

Has your husband cheated on you? Did you know the other woman? Did you confront her? How did it go? We’d love to hear about it!