The consultant for your relationship is showing up here!
And she is waiting to answer your toughest questions…
My
husband and I both work at home. However, he thinks his job is more important;
therefore, I have to run the errand and take care of the children. How to
divide these works equally?
It is not happy once
the business world is changing day by day – where we work, when we work and
even the definition of work – some of the sex discrimination keeps the same?
Please sympathy for his mistakes. Perhaps he falls into the old roles “work is
yours, house is mine”. Then definitely, he regards whatever he did with helping
you. Try to wake him up gently (Please notice the word “gently”. Neither cry
nor scolding). Let him sit down and have a heart-to-heart talk about our new
world: both need to work to foot the bills, both need to take care of the
children and do housework. If you keep being interrupted like that, sooner or
later your income will lose. Sharing is much better. Every night my husband and
I divide work for the next day, in order to avoid the “You!”, “No, you do it”
at the last minute. It isn’t extremely perfect, life is not 50/50. But at least
it encourages the couple take responsibilities to what should be done.
I
helped one of my best friends overcome a lengthy, troublesome divorce. Recently
she seemed to repeat the whole things again, dating with one who was the same
with her old husband. Can I tell her that I think this guy is bad, or keep
talking something like “I am really happy that you find your half”?
The key for your
letter is repeating old situation. Unfortunately, we often feel convenience
with what we know; regardless it is good or bad. It is common that we hardly
recognize that we ride the same old merry-go-round. What does an exhausted
friend do? Living by her side is not good for her at all, talking behind her
boyfriend’s back just makes her more and more protect and engage with him. It
will be much better if you raise contemplative questions for her such as “He is
often interrupting you if you take part in something. It is not fun at all. Is
that the thing that makes you irritating many times about Peter?” or “Whenever
you have the imagination about a happy marriage, how does it look like? Is this
what he has done to you?”. In the end, you can’t heal the broken relationship
for others; the one and only thing you can do is healing your own one.
Therefore, I mean that you should stop being an unsuccessful therapist. If
someone calls you for hours to rave about his/her story, let gently suggest
that she will take the advantage of the professional consultant to have a
thorough view about what have happened to her life.
I
love to hold night party, but I am about to give up. There is no menu which
satisfies everyone. If I serve for all my guests, I’ll make 5 different dishes.
Any recommendation?
I have 2 points of
view in this. On the one hand, you behave towards all your guests in respectful
manner. I won’t insult the vegetarians by serving bacon, or serve oysters to
the one who is allergic to seafood. On the other hand, if my older brother
decides that he will eat more carbon hydrate or a friend is on diet, good luck
to them. If you have a choosy guest group, let’s serve a buffet to meet all
their needs and hobbies: a handmade pizza party; un-mixed salad; spaghetti with
sauce, meat and other surface decoration in the one side. P/S: I reference it
from the book “The Flexitarian Table” of the chief Peter Berley, who presents
not only meat version but also vegetarian one for one dish at ease.
