Dilemmas: Friends and Inappropriate Behavior

Once upon a time, that reader known as Jade “The Muse” Walker sent me a link to a story about someone’s friend having an affair. The friend’s dilemma: should she tell her friend’s husband about it or not? In addition to asking what I would do, Jade posed another interesting question. “If the situation was reversed, would you want to know?” Sticky Situations Because Jade sent this back when my mom had just moved in with us, I don’t recall everything the article said. (Lots has happened since then and the link is now inactive. I couldn’t reread the article … Continue reading

What To Do When You’ve Got a Crush on Someone Other Than Your Spouse

On my article Are Crushes Natural?, a reader left a comment about how she’s happily married but developed a big crush on someone else. She even tried to hook the guy up with an available friend, but that only made her think about him more. She admitted she knows she needs to stop thinking about him, but also that she hopes the friend and him decide not to see each other again. Yikes. That’s a tough situation to be in. Now some of you will take objection to that and say “If she’s so happily married, why would another man … Continue reading

Fantasizing Wives

This morning on Today I happened to catch a segment about “Sex and the Married Mom.” I didn’t catch who conducted the poll. (I want to say it was a collaboration between AOL and Cookie Magazine. Somehow Cookie Magazine must have been involved because two women who worked for the magazine were being interviewed about the poll results.) Who did it isn’t as important as the results they found. The Poll The poll interviewed 30,000 married women about their sex lives. What they found was that most of us aren’t as satisfied as some may have formerly thought. Some of … Continue reading

Indecent Proposals

The other day Lyn wrote “Do People Really Go Looking for an Affair?” As we so often seem to manage, once again her and I are on the same wavelength. I was thinking along similar topics lines myself recently. I had to take my car into the shop on Friday to get an oil change and have the engine shield fixed. (I think it’s called an engine shield. It’s on the underside of the car, and I’ve scraped it one too many times pulling too close to curbs. Oops!) Anyway, while I was waiting I read the paper. I think … Continue reading

A New Color in the Food Rainbow

Is your plate full of colorful food? Leafy, green veggies, brightly colored fruits, and more? Eating foods from the entire rainbow is a great way to ensure that you have a healthy, balanced diet. But there’s one more color you might not be eating: black. Dark purple and red fruits and vegetables are known as “black produce” — think Mission figs, blackberries, and eggplant. These foods (even darkly colored carrots and corn) are full of antioxidants called anthocyanins. Anthocyanins are the pigments that give black produce their deep, dark color. Did you know? There are approximately six hundred different anthocyanins … Continue reading

Open Affairs

It seems that Courtney and I are all about discussing affairs these days! In the past few weeks there have been numerous articles written and comments made about cheating and affairs. The topic is so broad and so intense that we just cannot help but discuss it. Today I will venture even further into the world of cheating on your mate. The type of affair that I will discuss today is what I call an open affair. I consider an open affair an affair that is not trying to be hidden. Yes, I have actually seen this one happen. These … Continue reading

The Psychology of Why Married Men Cheat, Part 2

In Part 1 I presented some of the reasons the panelists interviewed on Today posed as reasons for why men cheat. Here are the rest. The “Me First” Mentality Jeff Gardere, the psychologist (and the only man on the panel), brought this one up, Dr. Laura seconded it, and Helen Fisher nodded in agreement: men are weak and selfish. I definitely believe this one. Sure, there are some women who can be considered high maintenance, but all men are –no matter how simple they may seem. Admit it, ladies. You may have the greatest guy in the world, but he … Continue reading

The Psychology of Why Married Men Cheat, Part 1

In addition to Matt Lauer interviewing Dina Matos on Today this morning about New York Governor Eliot Spitzer’s prostitution sting scandal, they also brought in a panel of experts (Dr. Laura Schlessinger, anthropologist Helen Fisher, and psychologist Jeff Gardere) to examine why men cheat. (Men in general as well as men in high places.) They focused on men because they’re more inclined to do it than women. The statistic they presented was that one in five married men have cheated. (Compared to only 12 percent of married women having cheated.) So why is it men are more prone to it? … Continue reading

Thoughts on Marriage and Monogamy

As I was writing What You Might Not Have Known About Affairs, I got to wondering: If we’re not programmed to be monogamous, why do we try to be? (As part of my research for that piece I was surprised to learn that monogamy is not the norm for 97 percent of most mammals, including humans.) Something else I learned while researching another article, Affairs and STDs, was that as many as 60% of marriages could suffer a cheating spouse. At first I thought as high as 60% seemed ridiculous –-until I learned about how humans are not monogamous beings … Continue reading

The Marriage Blog Week in Review for February 25-March 2

It was another slow week here in the Marriage Blog. Not intentionally. Lyn was battling the flu unfortunately. She was busy trying to recover her strength. I don’t have a good excuse for my lack of article submissions. Except it was the end of the month and I was scrambling to wrap up all sorts of loose ends. But in case you missed any of the few articles we did post, here’s a handy Week in Review recap for your reading pleasure. Tuesday, February 26 Can You Answer These 15 Questions About Your Significant Other? A friend of mine who … Continue reading