“Highlights from a Holiday Formal Dinner Dance”

Paul and I got dressed to the nines last night and went to the Officers’ Club for a gathering of folks with whom we celebrate the holidays this way every December. I love to be with my husband any time, but it is especially exciting when he dons his tux and we step out. There’s something about that tux that brings out an extra measure of chivalry in him and that makes him even more handsome to me.

Anyone who knew me when I was a radical in my youth would be shocked that I married a military man. Paul, a career officer in the Air Force, retired and went on to pursue first a Master’s degree in History, then an MBA, and eventually law school in his 50th year. He indeed is very smart. And I like smart people who love learning.

The first person who caught my attention last night was a small woman in a wheel chair. She was with a group of friends and her husband and daughter who doted on her. I had seen her several times before at the Club, but I never had greeted her. My two friends with Multiple Sclerosis have sensitized me to what life in a wheel chair is like, so I was determined that, at least for a moment, she not feel invisible. I introduced myself and said, “Dare I even ask, do you have MS?” “Yes,” she quietly said and turned away. I wondered if I were out of place asking a stranger that question, as I stepped away to give her privacy while she struggled to transfer from her wheel chair to her place at the table.

There was only one young military man present with his tall, beautiful wife. Decked out in his Marine full dress uniform, he was quite handsome himself. After dinner, he and his Grandfather, dressed in his old Marine uniform that still fit, had their picture taken together. They stood at least 6 inches apart, making sure they didn’t touch. On the spur of the moment, I playfully said they should take their picture again with their arm around each other. The older man said not unkindly, “No. We’re Marines!” as if to say, “Perish the thought!” I thought how sad it is that he and Marines' unspoken rule deprived these two men of the affection everyone needs and deserves. Later, I bought the young man a beer. He told me he’s frustrated that he has to wait six months to be deployed to Afghanistan. “I can’t wait to go!” he said.

I love flirting with one man in particular, always careful to do so in Paul’s presence so I send a clear message to both of them that I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine. I am blessed that my husband trusts me and is not in any way jealous or possessive. This gray-haired gentleman impishly stepped over to our table and playfully invited me to “dump” Paul so he and I could get together. I said it wouldn’t happen, and he trounced back to his table in mock horror, turning around to wink as he rejoined his wife.

Perhaps the highlight of the evening, beyond basking in my husband’s love and the magic of the evening, was encountering a woman sitting at the bar with her husband. I spotted her immediately and instinctually was drawn to her. She was reflexively rubbing her shoulder, so I knew she was in pain. I went over to her and asked her permission to touch her hands. When she agreed, I pressed some acupressure points. She noticed a slight decrease of pain. When I picked up her other hand, I was shocked to find a bulbous and swollen knuckle, the telltale sign of someone struggling with severe rheumatoid arthritis. I merely put my hand gently over her knuckle, continuing to talk softly with her and joke with her husband. When I took my hand away, her knuckle was noticeably less swollen and red. I had moved some of her energy that had log jammed in and around that knuckle. But I am convinced that the warmth of our human contact was the major factor in this.

On the way home, I couldn’t stop myself from telling Paul what a lovely evening I had had, how much I love being with him, and of my love for him. I have tears in my eyes now as I write. I hope I never stop appreciating what a gift our marriage and his love are to me.

If you wish to take a look at some pictures taken of us last night, here is the link to my Facebook page. http://tinyurl.com/ydje7m6

Paul and I wish you warm holidays and a fulfilling new year.

"Nurturing Gifted Children"

Current research indicates that spanking actually lowers kids’ I.Q.

Who knew?

I had known that spankings can do psychological harm to children and damage their relationship with their parents. But I didn’t know the impact was even more widespread than that. If spanking lowers kids' IQ, then by inference, it impedes their school performance and in general, their ability to get along in the world. And it creates an aggressive response in those children who have the misfortune to come in contact with a parent's belt or open hand.

Let me say from the get-go that the majority of people who become parents feel the weight of the responsibility that comes with it. Not to mention the weight of being on call when their child needs them 24/7. They take their responsibility seriously. Most are well-meaning, loving parents, even when they mess up and lose their cool. Or even when their kids push their buttons and they "wig out."

That is just regular, garden-variety kids. Rearing intelligent, intense kids can be especially challenging. It takes a special knack to parent them. By definition, intellectually gifted children are intense. The more intellectually gifted the child, the more intense he/she is. Which means that he/she feels everything more deeply, reacts more strongly, challenges more vociferously, has greater emotional needs and requires more intellectual stimulation than the average bear. These are the kids whose achievements most people admire. But it can be quite a challenge for parents to nurture their growth to adulthood.

So let's tip our hats to the parents of those children who give us a run for our money, who ask us questions we don't know the answers to, and who feel things more poignantly than others. And let's high five those kids who are naturally intellectually curious, smart and sometimes smart-alecky, and most assuredly who love whole heartedly.

One of them likely will find the cure for cancer, how to extract oil from the ground without devastating it, or write the next Great American Novel or storied music as Mozart did at age 4.

“The Top 5 Signs Your Marriage Needs Help”

You’ve just had a fight with your spouse. Is this a harbinger of a brewing storm? Or is it normal? How do you know when your marriage needs help?

I have seen marriage from every possible camera angle. I've worked with couples to save and heal their marriage before it becomes irretrievible. I’ve worked in premarital couples counseling to help the smart ones assess their strengths and identify their weaknesses as a couple. I have done couples counseling with folks who’ve been married for five months or 40 years. Sometimes, they seek my help for marriage enrichment, and sometimes because their marriage is in trouble. I have done divorce and post-divorce counseling to help couples stop recycling the same problems in their divorce that precipitated their divorce. And I have been a divorce mediator for couples who seek a saner way of divorcing, and an arbitrator for couples who insist on continuing their marital conflict long after they have divorced.

From all this experience, I offer the following 5 major signs that your marriage probably is in trouble.

1. When you and your spouse continually rehash the same argument, you probably need marriage help. Whether you literally fight about the same topic,or the dynamics of the fight are the same, your marriage is in trouble. In healthy marriages, couples know how to address their issues with each other before they become ongoing problems that tear at the fabric of the marriage. So if you find yourselves having an old, familiar argument that goes nowhere, you are wise to seek couples counseling before you dig a rut so deep that it is impossible to get out of it.

2. If arguing and fighting are the primary way you and your spouse emotionally connect, your marriage is in danger. In a strange way, fighting is "safe" because neither of you has to feel vulnerable to the other when you are in conflict. Yet fighting generates an intense connection. However, this mode of connecting becomes emotionally – and sometimes physically – dangerous. If this description fits your relationship, your marriage definitely will need professional help.

3. If you find your self-esteem eroding since marrying your spouse, your marriage is becoming too emotionally costly for anybody’s good to be left the way it is. Of course, your marriage isn’t necessarily the only challenge to your self-confidence. But especially if you sense that your spouse is deliberately undermining you, you are in danger of losing yourself in your relationship's dysfunction. This benefits nobody, and you likely will need couples counseling to help reverse this corrosive negative dynamic.

4. If it seems like everything and everybody is more important to your spouse than you, this makes for very lopsided investments in your relationship. Maybe you tend to feel that way anyway because of difficult prior experiences that had nothing to do with your spouse. In this case, ideally you would need your spouse’s help to heal that old wound while you both work on becoming more equal partners. Further, if you have married a very self-centered spouse, you definitely will need professional help to correct this increasingly untenable situation, if indeed it is correctible.

5. If you find yourself just not liking your spouse any more, something is going very wrong. I am not talking about the temporary feeling everyone occasionally experiences when you are convinced that marrying your spouse was the dumbest decision you’re ever made! Rather, if this feeling is persistent and gets worse, you definitely will need professional help before there is nothing left between you.

In conclusion, while there certainly is no one-size-fits-all approach to assessing and improving a marriage, I hope this gives you some guidelines. If you are uncertain as to how viable your marriage is and what can be done to improve it, remember that I offer a complimentary consultation to help you assess your situation. Just e-mail me at drbetherickson@aol.com to request your appointment.

"Finding the Right Therapist"

At least once a month, I get e-mails from forlorn people who have read my book LONGING FOR DAD: FATHER LOSS AND ITS IMPACT. In one such letter, a woman told of her husband's ongoing battle with depression. After reading the book, she finally had an explanation for his debilitation depression. As I read another letter written by a man in Dubai who was pleading for help, tears rolled down my cheeks. Soon to be a father himself, he realized that he would not be up to the task unless he dealt with his father's abandonment of the family when he was 2 years old.

The e-mail I got today told of having just finished reading LONGING FOR DAD. He recognized the need to get help to heal his father loss, because of "its unexpected continuation into adulthood.... I have tried to get help with a couple of therapists, but they fall very short of actually understanding my issues and helping me to deal with them. How do I find someone to talk about these issues [with] that understands the issues you've discussed in your book?"

I have maintained for years that whom people choose as their therapist is second only in importance to whom they choose to marry. How does the average consumer of psychotherapy services know whom to choose as his/her therapist? This is a particularly important question when issues are old and cut deep such as father loss.

Here are my top 5 suggestions for helping you determine who is the best professional to see.

1) Don't be afraid to ask the prospective therapist if he/she has had personal experience with your issue. Of course, don't expect for him/her to go into chapter and verse. But knowing a subject from a textbook and knowing it personally are two totally different things.

2) Ask the prospective therapist his/her beliefs about the place for feelings in his/her therapeutic approach. If you need to heal trauma such as a father's death or abandonment, it is not possible to truly do that without experiencing your emotions about what happened. If the proepective therapist indicates a theory of therapy that doesn't allow for feelings, you are in the wrong place.

3) Ask yourself how it feels being in this person's presence. If his/her demeanor detached and intellectualizing, it's not a good sign. Did you feel like you clicked? What does your gut tell you? Then trust your intuition to tell you if you are in the right place or not.

4) How good a listener is the potential therapist? Is he/she attempting to really tune into what you are saying, or is he/she looking around, watching the clock, or otherwise preoccupied? One of the most therapeutic tools a therapist can possess is the ability to create a "holding environment." This is a safe place for the expression of strong emotions. And in order to accomplish this, you need to be able to feel like the potential therapist is with you and not elsewhere.

5) Don't worry about whether the professional has an M.D., a Ph.D., an LICSW, a marriage and family therapist, or a master's in counseling. The degree matters far less than the 4 elements I have listed above.

If you would like a free consultation on choosing the right therapist for your issue, especially if it's sensitive, I invite you to call my toll free number (888-546-1580)for a complimentary consultation.

“Managing the Holiday Blues After Divorce"

Expect the first holidays after a loss of any kind to be difficult. In fact,any “first times” can be expected to be hard, for example your first anniversary or birthday without your spouse. That’s just the way it is. Even if the divorce were your idea and you’re glad the marriage has ended, you probably will feel like a fish out of water during the first holiday season you spend apart.

Since childhood, we wait expectantly for holidays as a time of surprises and togetherness. Most families overtly or covertly agree to ignore Aunt Bernice if she were too much “in her cups” at the dinner table. And everyone colludes to not encourage Uncle Fred if he holds forth too long and heartily about the next year’s elections, high taxes,or corporate greed. Family is family, and any misbehavior generally is ignored in favor of family unity,harmony and preserving the family's Currier and Ives and Norman Rockwell holiday pictures.

Extended family members also can have difficulty with a former family's absence. If a family member sides with your former spouse, as my mother did for a time when I divorced my first husband, the pain is intensified. And even if no one does, you can expect to feel like a fish out of water when it seems like everyone else is coupled and celebrating together.

Ten Tips For Being Single Again For the Holidays

1. Don't push yourself to go out and fake being sociable. Give yourself permission to do what feels good to you. If that means going out but coming home when you have had enough of pretending you are not hurting and are having a good time, then do that. If it means staying home and taking a bubble bath by candlelight, do that.

2. Don’t get prematurely involved with someone just because you don’t want to face the holidays alone. At the least, you will be bored and waste your time. At the worst, you’ll get hurt again because this is a vulnerable time when you are susceptible to choosing someone out of desperation.

3. Don’t sleep with anybody just because you are lonely. That will only confuse you at a time when conflicting feelings are swirling around you anyway.

4. Don’t expect people who have never been divorced to understand why this is such a difficult time. This is especially true if you initiated the divorce. They just won’t get it unless they’ve faced that prospect themselves.

5. Don’t go on a wild, break-the-bank spending spree to make yourself feel better. You’ll only feel miserable when the bills come.

6. Don’t change the subject away from your grief. The sooner you reckon with and resolve your feelings about the divorce, the sooner you genuinely will be able to more forward.

7. Do use New Years as a time to take stock of what is good in your life despite the divorce. Set your own goals to aim toward in the coming year to help you make sure it’s a better one.

8. Do ask for support when you need it. Sometimes that means crying on a friend’s shoulder. Sometimes it means taking a long, cleansing walk with a trusted advisor. Sometimes it means having a cup of tea and talking about anything but the divorce or your former spouse. You’ll know what you need. Honor it.

9. Do make your own plans for the holidays themselves. Plan fun activities with people with whom you feel safe. Go visit special relatives or friends with whom you can be yourself.

10. Do realize that this, too, shall pass. Your life will normalize. You will feel like yourself again.

In the meantime, be patient with yourself. Love yourself a little.

10 Magical Daily Minutes That Will Improve Your Marriage

If you are like most married people, you work, take care of your children, worry about paying your bills and staying healthy, and spend a lot of your “free time” on laundry, grocery shopping and home maintenance. Working on your marriage and strengthening your bond as a couple may not even make your to-do list.

But what if I told you that devoting just ten minutes a day to your spouse can produce magical results?

As a marriage and family therapist, I know how important this “couple time” is, not just to husband and wife but to children who gain when their parents are in a happy and stable relationship that centers on them and not on their children.

Everyone has ten minutes to spare, whether at the beginning of the day or after they come home from a day of separate activities to reconnect with their spouse for what I call “the daily magic ten minutes.” Doing so will set the remainder of the day or the evening right for everyone in the family.

Couples with toddlers and very young children can do this too. Of course, they will need to make sure their children are safe when they plan their alone time. If your children are slightly older, you might make this new habit into a game. I urge parents to tell their children playfully, “Unless the sky falls in, or a whale eats you up, or there’s blood, please don’t interrupt us. Mommy and Daddy need to take a break. But we’ll be done in ten minutes.” Put a timer where they can see it so your kids will know when the time is up. If you have children who are old enough to watch their siblings, you can pay them to baby sit while the two of you go off to seek a quiet place to chat with each other.

Daily Magic Ten Minutes Rules
You and your spouse are taking the time you deserve and need in order to keep in touch as spouses and as people once again – and not as parents or employees. As a result, certain topics are off-limits.

No talking about what the children did that day or what happened at work.
This is precious time you are taking for yourselves, perhaps in your bedroom with the door closed, perhaps over a cup of tea or a glass of wine.

Talk about whatever you want unless it's problems. If the ten minutes allotted turn out not to be enough, pick up the discussion again the next day right where you left off. Or contract for more time later in the evening.

Some topics you might want to explore together as you get used to this new habit are: books you want to read, trips you’d love to take, hobbies you would like to pursue, purchases you would like to make, thoughts about where you would like to live when you retire, and what you might like to do when you reach retirement age.

Whatever you talk about with your spouse, I hope you have fun with this new time together. Sooner or later, children leave home. And when yours do, you will find that your empty nest will not be a problem. Instead, it will present a continuation of your ability to deepen your relationship with your best friend, the person you married.

Create a Family Tradition for the Holidays

There are various times in our lives when many of us are forced to be away from the others that we love. Illness or injury requires us to be in the hospital or advancing age may cause the elderly to be in a senior citizen facility.

These situations during the holiday season are much more difficult to face than other times during the year. It costs nothing but time to schedule a visit to a hospital or senior citizen facility to spend an hour or two with the residents.

Ask the nurses who would be appropriate to visit at the hospital and ask the staff at the nursing home to suggest someone that receives very few visitors and go spend 30 minutes asking questions about their memories of the holidays past.

You can help them relive special happy times by simply asking, what was the best Thanksgiving you ever had or what was the best Christmas you ever had.

My husband’s best Christmas was when he was 7 years old and this is his story as told to me.

Christmas is the season of memories, of joyous gatherings, of renewal of the spirit and sense of wonder. I have recently thought of what was my favorite Christmas memory and without hesitation this Christmas stands out as the absolutely most wonderful Christmas ever.

My favorite Christmas was in December 1949. This event made that particular Christmas memorable beyond all others. I received a gift of love from afar in the form of a package from my favorite aunt and uncle.

School was out for Christmas vacation, ending just the day before at noon. It was Saturday, the day before Christmas and I was outside playing in the yard when the green truck with red trim and the gold letters REA stopped in front of the house. I did not pay much attention as many REA trucks had stopped there before to deliver packages to the Flower shop and greenhouse across the street and none had ever brought a package to my house. I continued to play until the deliveryman closed the door of his truck and with a brown package in his arm he started toward my house. Up the walk he went toward the front door. I ran and jumped on the porch just as he rang the doorbell.

I asked, “Who is that for?” “Master Paul Moe,” the deliveryman replied. “That is me, I exclaimed.” “This package has to be signed for, can you write your name, the deliveryman asked?” “No, I stated matter-of-factly.” That was when the door opened and my mom was at the door. Mom took the package and signed the receipt.

“He told me that was mine, can I open it now?” “No, you have to wait until Christmas to open this, mom said.” “Why do I have to wait until tomorrow, I asked?” “Because the package says do not open until Christmas,” mom answered. My excitement was evident. I wanted so much to at least hold this unique gift delivered by the man in the REA truck. Mom said, “stay outside and play, dinner will be ready in less than an hour and if you come in you cannot go back out.” I remember wondering, where did it come from, what is in that plain brown paper wrapper. Waiting would not be easy, I was sure I could not wait to see what that REA deliveryman had brought for me.

Later I went into the house and under the tree was a new box wrapped in silver paper with the image of Santa Claus sprinkled liberally over it and a tag that said to Master Paul Moe. As I walked toward the box I heard the stern voice of my father. “Stay away from that tree and leave all of the presents alone until tomorrow.” “It’s mine I whined, why can’t I even touch it.” “Leave it alone until tomorrow, if you know what’s good for you,” my father warned.

For the rest of the day and evening that package sang its tantalizing siren song to me and many times I heard the sharp rebuke from dad, mom and my sisters, ”GET AWAY FROM THAT TREE AND LEAVE THAT PRESENT ALONE!” Going to bed that night with that gift so close but so far away was torture. Christmas arrived as always very early in the morning in the Moe household and all of us kids ran down the stairs to see what Santa had left under the tree.

I went straight to that miracle that had arrived the day before. Inside the silver paper with Santa’s image was a card that read, Merry Christmas from your Uncle and Aunt. Before me was a pop-gun with three corks and a target. The target had 7 figures suspended from a round metal bar and each when it was hit would roll over the bar and bring any to the outside with them. If you hit the exact center all seven targets would roll over the bar and it was a perfect score.

I laid out the target and lay on the floor taking aim and fired the first cork. It hit a target and two of the silhouettes rolled over. I reset the targets, aimed and fired my pop-gun again and miracle of miracles all seven of the targets rolled over simultaneously. A perfect hit and perfect score from a gift of love delivered from afar by the REA deliveryman. I never got a perfect score with that toy again and never again did the green truck with red trim and gold REA letters stop to deliver a package to our house.

The memory of that gift delivered from afar, the smell of the Christmas turkey cooking in the kitchen, the warm glow of the tree all alight still form the image of what Christmas should be in my mind.

If your own holiday is not going to be that marvelous I have created a free gift for signing up to be on my newsletter mailing list. It is called Hot Holiday Tips for 2009. I have listed 8 survival tips which you will receive as a thank you for signing up. To get your own Free Holiday Relationship Survival Tips when you join Dr. Beth's email updates go to http://www.drbetherickson.com/ Click on JOIN near the top left of the page enter your first name and email address and you will receive instant access to my free gift.

What was your own most memorable Christmas? Please share by posting the memory in the comments.