THE CHESTNUT HILL INSTITUTE

How is your marriage going?  Are things OK or are you in trouble?  And while we’re at it, how is marriage in general going these days?  (more…)

Well, Mother’s Day is almost upon us, a day filled with roses and restaurants and…a lot of BS.

For once, in this forest of phony floral prints that are a hallmark of Mother’s Day, let’s tell the truth.  Our relationship with our mothers is one of the most difficult relationships in our lives.  Yes, sometimes it’s uncomplicated.  Sometimes it’s really true that your mother is your best friend.

But too often the relationship between mothers and their adult children is filled with resentment, regrets, and recriminations.  “How could you have…?”  “Why didn’t you…?”  “Why won’t you listen to me?” “Why won’t you call me?”  “Why won’t you leave me alone?”  “Why won’t you accept me?”  “Why don’t you love me?”

And why wouldn’t there be so much anger and disappoint.  There is no other relationship on which we place such high expectations.

And then what do we do about all this?  (more…)

The single biggest problem facing couples these days is that they don’t have time for each other.  Their work schedules and other demands on their lives mean that they live what we call “the weekend marriage”: the only time they have for each other—if then!—is on weekends.

And that’s where the problems START.  Because they don’t have time for each other, they become stressed-out, distant, starved for affection, irritable, angry, tempted to stray…all kinds of demons are released by their time-starved lifestyles.

Help is available, excellent help.  I’ve written the classic book that gives harried marrieds everything they need to know to have abundant love and romance.  That book is (more…)

Deb was a lovely woman living a nightmare. It wasn’t just that her husband verbally and physically abused her. Even worse, he tried to control her. It started slowly, but before long he was monitoring and restricting her phone calls. He made it very difficult for her to leave the house. When she went to the market, he gave her one hour and threw a fit if she came home a minute late. Deb felt she was slowly being strangled. She wanted, needed, to get out. But how? (more…)

If one person in a marriage gets sick or injured it can make their relationship much stronger. But too often it it doesn’t; it sends the relationship into a tailspin. It all depends on how you handle things. The fact is that most of us could handle things a lot better.  (more…)

If you’re stuck in a toxic relationship, you need to know because things can’t say they way they are.  So are you stuck in a toxic relationship?  (more…)

Okay: there are problems in your relationship.  Welcome to the club!  And one of the questions you may be asking yourself is, “Can our marriage be saved?”  Good question!  And what’s the answer?  Here’s how to look for clues that make all the difference.  (more…)

I’ve seen couples survive betrayal, abuse, tragedy, incompatibility, insanity, termites, alien abductions, you name it.  But nothing puts a marriage in more jeopardy than when the one person finds the other really annoying.  Let me put it this way. Bill Gates is one of the richest men in the world.  But even if he were also the handsomest, sweetest, sexiest guy in the world, if you were in a relationship with him and you found him annoying, you’d still end up feeling “let me out of here!” even if you’d signed an iron-clad pre-nup that gave you nothing if you left. 

So what can you do if you’re in a relationship with someone you find annoying? (more…)

One of the comments we’ve gotten from people is, “Please post more often and more regularly.”  You’re right!  We should, we can, and we will.  So from now on stay tuned: every Monday and Thursday you can look forward to one of our helpful and informative (we hope!) blogs.   Love, Mira and Charles

When is the last time you ran out of gas?  I don’t mean your car.  I mean you.  I’m talking about a time when you just ran out of fuel, coughed, sputtered, gasped, and slowly drifted to a stop.  It might have been a job, a volunteer commitment or a hobby that sparked this feeling.  You’d given and given and given and suddenly you had nothing left to give.

This lapse in emotional energy can happen to us in our relationships, too.  And it doesn’t always take much to bring it on — maybe just a period when you’re busy, irritated, distant, and disappointed with each other.  Suddenly, cough, gasp, sputter, and the emotional energy you’ve had for your relationships has gone.  Uh oh.  Where do you go for gas when a relationship has run out of fuel and is just stuck there at the side of the road? 

You don’t have to go anywhere.  All the emotional energy you need is already there.  You just have to know how to tap into it.  Here’s how to start.  (more…)