What is the secret to making your marriage special while also parenting a child with special needs?
Approximately 10 percent of individuals within the general population have a disability. Now, with the rise of certain disabilities like autism disorders, many couples are parenting special needs children. In those instances, making your marriage special can be more like a chore. When so much extra time and energy is put into taking care of a child with special needs, what ends up happening to the marriage?
Becoming a parent for the first time is a challenge and usually involves a degree of adaptation. For parents with a special needs child, however, adaptation can be much more difficult. These parents must learn to adjust to the unique and sometimes scary path of raising a child with a disability. And with the many extra demands that it places upon parents as individuals, having any time to work on the marriage might seem impossible.
Our guest today is Dr. Barbara Lowe-Greenlee, a licensed psychologist with Greenlee Psychological & Support Services in Chapel Hill, NC. She works to help families with special needs children succeed and thrive despite the tough challenges they face. To find out more about Barbara and her practice, visit her website or call (919) 824-5743 to make an appointment.
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Planning a romantic vacation for couples does not have to be a battle royale.
If you’re like most couples, there just isn’t enough time in the day to do everything that needs to get done. Between work and kids, you’re lucky to squeeze in time to brush your teeth – let alone take a vacation together. You have to balance your professional and home life without dropping the ball on anything important. Learning to manage the day-to-day can be a huge challenge for most people, making vacation seem impossible.
Our guests today are the brains behind a leading couple’s travel blog, 1000 Places to Fight before You Die. Mike Willits and his wife Luci encourage busy couples to get out and see the world together. It’s time to leave the kids behind and let the relatives do all the heavy lifting. Reconnect and strengthen your relationship by planning and making an annual escape. Whether this means an exotic trip to the other side of the planet, or discovering a neighboring state, the limitless possibilities mean great things for your marriage. From taking those bucket list dreams and turning them into a reality, Mike & Luci Willits break down the fine art of vacation for couples.
To find out more about Mike & Luci Willits, as well as the 1000 Places to Fight Before You Die, visit their blog.
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Are you sabotaging your love life?
Statistics show that 85 percent of single women can’t wait to get married– but do they really want the whole package? We already know that women have vastly different expectations of marriage than men do so it should be no surprise that men don’t always live up to those expectations. Throughout the phases of marriage, however, many things can change.
As many as 70 percent of wives express unhappiness and dissatisfaction in their marriages over time– which is a pretty big number. Is that just part of the natural cycle that marriages go through, or does it signal a larger issue? When women are dissatisfied, what do they do about it?
This episode, our guest has the answers to these questions and can help explain why couples experience these cycles. She also has some tips on marriage– how to make it, break it or keep it. Susan Shapiro Barash is the author of 13 books, including The Nine Phases of Marriage. Susan teaches gender studies at Marymount Manhattan College and helps women understand the issues they face during marriage.
To learn more about Susan Shapiro Barash visit her website. Visit BookTrib to find out more about Susan’s many publications.
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