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<p>^^^^That’s great. Increases the odds that both of you will maintain your new healthy ways for your whole lives.</p>
<p>MP- I treated him like the man of my dreams and he began to act like it :D</p>
<p>He was not a jerk; I would say it was more a case of not having the energy to put into treating him any special way at all- nothing good, nothing bad, just nothing. Too busy & too tired to think of him.</p>
<p>Now, I am more likely to give him a foot massage randomly, he will get up out of bed and go get me ice water- not when I ask, but if I ask if he has water on his nightstand, he’ll say,“No” and then go get me some without being asked.</p>
<p>We also seem to be more supportive and more complimentary of each other’s hopes, dreams, interests, abilities as parents, etc.</p>
<p>I don’t know that it would work in a “jerk” situation, but perhaps an under-achiever.</p>
<p>I was thinking about solutions to the ice cream question. My husband is a 200-mile-a-week cyclist so he eats a lot more than I do, but fortunately he doesn’t like ice cream that much ;-)</p>
<p>So here are some solutions:</p>
<p>If the ritual involves big bowls, make one bowl smaller.
Switch to a lower-fat-content ice cream.
Go for a walk together before you have the ice cream.
Put something else instead in one bowl.
Change to a new habit together, like popcorn or carrot sticks.
He has a big bowl and you have a spoonful from his bowl.</p>
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<p>I have had this process repeated to me numerous times. The reports follow a general pattern.</p>
<p>The couple has developed a lot of built up resentment. Candidly, both partners think the other is a jerk. One finally breaks the cycle by just being kind and appreciative to the other.</p>
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<p>Okay, this may be why I can’t change my life because I just can’t fathom doing that. It just seems unhealthy.</p>
<p>Example - *not my case *but just an example: Let’s say you have a very “traditional” husband who demands to be waited on. It’s always caused friction in your marriage because you both work but he doesn’t lift a finger at home and calls you to bring him beers while he watches TV, etc. So for a month you do it - you’re dead tired, but you jump every time he calls, with a smile on your face because the man of your dreams deserves to be waited on. Would Dr. Laura say that after a month the cave man would actually change, OR that by then you’d be totally used to giving service with a smile? I can’t imagine my daughters observing that.</p>
<p>Great ideas DMD. I lost weight several years ago when I worked out of town for 6 months and was really in tune with my body. I discovered that if I eat to be polite, when & what everyone else is eating, that I still want what I want when I want it.</p>
<p>I now rarely eat to be polite; I really dislike a heavy dinner and my family just accepts that I use a small plate and eat a tiny portion, because I will eat a bit more in a couple of hours. </p>
<p>MP- one of the big things for us (keeping it PG) is when I cut down on outside activities, I was no longer asleep before i hit the pillow.</p>
<p>I don’t know about that case MP, that would be tough to have an Archie Bunker kind of guy and see this work. I think it is more for a great guy & great woman, who used to be madly in love and are just busy with kids & life and the love gets a lost.</p>
<p>I think you have to have had a good rapport to begin and use this to find it again, not to fix a broken guy.</p>
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<p>LOL, I wasn’t thinking Archie Bunker but that’s perfect…because Edith DID give service with a smile…I think that Dr. Laura would gaze into the Bunker marriage and say that Edith was happy. Archie married the right woman!</p>
<p>Where the feelings have reached the stage where both people really are treating each other poorly because they feel the other one “deserves it,” the kids get to see a husband treating a wife without kindness and a wife treating a husband without kindness. </p>
<p>It is sad to say that they learn to accept that this is marriage.</p>
<p>The change I made in my life between the ages of 45-50 was about as dramatic a change as anyone could possibly make, and it’s been positive in improving my life in almost every single way. But I’ve already written about it more than enough, and don’t need to go into detail again. Suffice it to say that dramatic change <em>is</em> possible, no matter what your age. What motivated me? Most of all, the fact that I simply couldn’t imagine continuing to live the rest of my life the way I was. Perhaps especially because, given the general state of my health and one major medical crisis (which helped precipitate my decision to finally go ahead and transition), I didn’t know how much longer I would have. And because all my intense fears of going forward, and what people would think of me, seemed rather trivial when compared to what I’d been facing, and had managed to survive.</p>
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<p>This is interesting. A while back, I was listening to one of those self-improvement monologues, and the idea was to behave like the person you want to be, to take on the attributes, habits, thought patterns of the person who has achieved whatever goals you have for yourself. It can be very superficial things, but you basically project that behavior onto yourself. I tried this and found that it provoked some interesting chain of events. Rather than trying to change your inner thoughts and patterns, you take on behavior as if you’ve already made the changes. I found that it exerted a subtle but powerful influence on me, and in turn, on others. People started treating me differently! It was pretty astonishing. It had tangible results too – I was offered two new opportunities as a direct result, almost immediately. Weird.</p>
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<p>dmd77, since you’re so good at this, hope me figure out a real life situation. My house is way too cluttered. It’s always a mess and makes me crazy because I’m a very orderly person. The clutter and mess are made by the four other people who live in my house, not me. As many wise people have said, too many possessions are just a burden - you have to find a place for them, take care of them, etc. I feel that burden all the time and feel uncomfortable in my own home. But it’s not MY behavior that needs to be changed…except of course, that the “experts” say to learn to live with the mess and make yourself not care. How do I change my house into an orderly organized one? (Note that one chld has a pretty severe executive function disorder, and an orderly house would help him, even if I could learn to live with it.)</p>
<p>DonnaL, you don’t have to go into specifics again, but you know that some people in your situation would have just continued in a downward spiral. Lots of people live sucky lives and never make the dramatic changes that are best for them. What was it in YOU that make you take control, instead of just not liking your life?</p>
<p>I too have thought about losing weight, downsizing the evening ice-cream and snacking while watching TV with the family. Then my 15 year old was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes - now the whole family eats better. We do have a secret stach of peanut butter cups that the girls eat occasionally, but the daily routine is that we all eat like diabetics in support of him. S has not requested this, says he doesn’t crave sweets etc. but it still seems impolite, so we as a family changed our eating habits overnight. </p>
<p>Big change is possible!</p>
<p>missypie, I suggest that you designate a clutter collection point. Preferable a closet or a guest room: a place you can close the door on. Rather than nagging people to pick up after themselves, when you find personal stuff left lying around, calmly pick it up and deposit it in the clutter collection. The rest of your family will learn where to go to look for their stuff, and you won’t have to look at it lying around the house. They can either start putting things away in an appropriate place, or continue to go to the clutter collection to look for it Their choice. No arguments.</p>
<p>Okay, Dr. Laura. H just called and said he got a card in the mail that he had a red light ticket - $75. The second one in three months. I was very cognizant of this thread, but I could not bring myself to side with him about the injustice of his ticket. I tried to be pleasant, but yes, a dog would have accepted the news better than I did.</p>
<p>^^^LOL, missypie.</p>
<p>MP- what about some really pretty seagrass baskets, the rectangular ones, and one for each person. </p>
<p>You would still have to place their clutter into the basket, but you could simply keep putting their flotsam and jetsam into their basket in their room. They are then free to do whatever they wish with it. Can’t find what you left around the house? Look in your basket. Upset that some one moved your stuff, so put it away. :)</p>
<p>MP- does that count as DL points? Any one can forgive one ticket, two of the same are kinda…um…dumb!</p>
<p>Put it in his seagrass basket and forget about it ;)</p>
<p>I’ve really tried a million de-cluttering methods-all involve me doing something with their clutter. My favorite is when about 15 pairs of shoes end up downstairs and I line them all up in the upstairs hallway; they have an amazing ability to walk over 15 pairs of shoes.</p>