Hooking Up and Hanging Out

I am learning a lot talking to my daughter about today’s dating culture. She sent me a New York Times article the other day on the end of courtship that described her experience to a tee – Hooking up and hanging out! Young adults today have ways to instantly access their social network with text […]

Featured Couple: Flirting

Embracing Feelings

One of the important lessons that Martha and I learned early in our marriage was that expressing emotions is a natural and normal part of any human relationship. Feelings seem to come and go. It is easy to label some feelings as “good” and other feelings as “bad.” It is true that some feelings, like […]

The Changing Face of Marriage

In the United States today, society is rapidly moving to a time when all people, regardless of sexual orientation, will have equal opportunity under the law to get married. At present, same-sex marriage is legal in seventeen states and the District of Columbia.  Same sex marriage in Utah, which was the eighteenth state to legalize […]

Happy Holidays!

Martha and I wish each and every one of you a loving and joyous holiday season and a very happy new year in 2014! Andy

The Empty Nest – What’s Next?

If your grown kids are leaving home, going off to college, getting married or starting a new job, there is good news. Many couples at this stage are spending more quality time together. Marital satisfaction increases as the quality of your interactions and conversations improve with each other. The empty nest phase of your life […]

Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving is just around the corner. I am looking forward to being together with family and eating bountifully. As usual, this holiday comes at a very busy time of the year for Martha and me and reminds me just how seldom I give thanks for anything, let alone the wonderful life we have. Martha, I […]

The Power of Conversation

Oscar Wilde wrote, “Ultimately, the bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or in friendship, is conversation, and conversation must have a common basis…” Over a lifetime, a married couple expresses all kinds of feelings, viewpoints, opinions, judgments, and ideas in conversation with each other. Their conversations can, at times, be creative, productive, and affirming […]

By the Year 2017…

In the summer of 2005, Martha and I were living in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, with two of our three children, and starting to think about coming back home to the United States. Martha’s four-year expatriate contract with an international bank would be coming to an end in a year’s time, our eldest daughter was getting […]

Conversations for Partnership

Over the past year, I’ve been writing a book on partnership in marriage. The focus of my book is the power of conversation in marriage and how couples, by having important conversations, can create a fulfilling and enduring partnership over a lifetime. Here’s an excerpt from the first draft: “It is the nature of a […]