Can This Marriage Be Saved?

How do YOU greet your spouse at the end of your day? Marital therapist, Aryeh Pamensy challenges us in this week's video blog while providing some tips to enrich any marriage.

Many young people raise fears about making the commitment to marry. "How will I know that this is the right person, the perfect person, the person who is truly the other half of my soul? And even if I meet such a person, how do I know that our mutual attraction will last over time?"

I am married to Mr. Clean. This wouldn't be such a problem if he was the one who took care of the cleaning, but he expects me to do it and do it to his standards.

How do I know if I have married my soul-mate?

Chaya came into my office with her husband, Moshe, to seek help for her depression. Since her baby's birth, she has not "gotten back to herself" and finds herself crying a lot during the day; feeling afraid and misunderstood and like she has to "walk through molasses" to complete even a simple task. Moshe is frustrated with his wife's struggle. Although he tries to be sympathetic, he often feels it's "all in her head" - and he wishes she could just somehow "snap out of her bad mood."

When you marry, you do not suddenly transform into a patient, joyful, mature or responsible person. You must work on cultivating healthy habits. The following exercises will help you gain maturity...

My wife does many things that irritate me. For example, she never seems to be ready on time, she gets very emotional, or she insists on long conversations before we go to bed...

A peaceful home rarely occurs by accident. In most cases, people must consciously do things that will bring about peace in the home. They need a peace plan.

We are newly married, and although we are very much in love, I am scared about the future. I look around and there is so much divorce in the world. How can we make sure that our marriage will last over the long term?

There is often reluctance on the part of one spouse to seek help in therapy. He or she will often say: "It's not my problem, it's his/hers" or "I don't need therapy, I'm fine" or "No stranger could understand our problems."

Most singles say that they want very much to get married. At the same time, they may harbor secret fears which prevent them from doing so.

Marriage can be easy if you are willing to follow the 95-5 Rule. It goes like this: give your spouse 9.5 good-feeling communications for every .5 not-so-good feeling communications.

With tears streaming down her face, she explained how they had such a good beginning, ten years ago. Recently though, her husband seemed more distant and despite her prodding, he was reluctant to communicate...

I love my husband, but now that we are married, I realize that he is a little neurotic. He worries about everything...

The single greatest challenge faced by couples is how they handle their anger. How does one deal with the inevitable disagreements in marriage, without becoming angry?

The vast majority of modern divorces are caused by emotional suffering. Men and women feel neglected, unappreciated, insulted, hurt, betrayed, bored, lonely, enraged and otherwise unhappy in marriage.

They'd married less than a year ago, following seven months of story-book courtship. It was a match made in Heaven. Hell, I heard him mutter...

Instead of getting into a power struggle with a person who constantly blames, shames and labels, try a refreshing approach that I call "the Pareve Response."

My wife and my mother don't get along. Both of them complain to me about the other one. I'm caught in the middle and I feel like I am balancing on a high wire. What can I do?

When all other options to remain married have been exhausted, divorce is an act of kindness. However, statistical evidence clearly demonstrates that divorce is infinitely more complicated and painful than people expect. Some sobering facts about divorce...

It is scary to be around "aggressor" people, since they have no compunctions about using various forms of emotional blackmail to get others to give in to their demands. Six essential tips on how to deal with these types...

People scream in order to be heard. The thinking seems to go: "He/she isn't listening; I need to say it again and again, louder and louder. That way I will get my message across." Unfortunately the only message we get across that way is, "You are my enemy."

She grew up to the sights of women studying, teaching, arguing law and pedagogy; the women in his family awoke to prepare the lavish breakfast for their men. She was appalled at their apparent submissiveness to their men folk...

Sara was very much like her mother, dynamic, outspoken, and definitely more comfortable in the "driver's seat." She saw how frustrated her mother was with her father's quiet, more passive way. And she was now reliving that anger in her own marriage.

Many psychologists are prone to overly optimistic promises about the power of communication to solve all problems. They urge people to, "Share your feelings," and "Talk it out until the problem is resolved." However, this advice can be disastrous! Not everyone values emotional honesty...

My husband works, while I stay home. By the time he comes home and the kids have gone to bed, I am exhausted. I just want to relax with a book and don't want to talk to anyone. But my husband is insulted by my desire to just chill out on my own.

Having discovered, finally, her Jewish identity, she could not abandon it. Yet, he never had thought to, nor was he now willing to, commit himself to the laws and practices governing Jewish life. How could she choose between the love of her life and the love of her people?

Your spouse is "human imperfection personified." So are you, but that probably doesn't bother you that much. Help your spouse to improve but most of all, help YOURSELF to deal with it.

Love and anger cannot coexist together. Anger will always push away love. A person cannot ingest poison and then remain healthy; so, too, a person cannot receive anger and still feel loving toward the angry person.

Yael and Yosef had a "good enough" marriage, but their marriage felt boring, and on automatic. Whenever they did find time to be together, the talk usually drifted to problems and negativity. As a result of their disconnection, they were both feeling lonely.

My husband and I have a good marriage. I respect him a lot, and he is definitely my best friend. But sometimes I find myself wondering "Is this it?"

What makes a person loveable? Being "loveable" is relatively easy to achieve during the dating process but becomes much more difficult a few weeks after the marriage...

After five years of marriage, we have just begun fertility treatments. The problem is that these treatments are putting a real strain on our marriage.

I have been seeing a couple that is stuck in a non-nurturing relationship. Each spouse says to me, "My spouse doesn't make me feel like giving. My spouse is selfish. For me to give would feel like a burden; it would feel phony."

Here are five Torah teachings that can be used to increase marital harmony...

My father-in-law passed away several months ago. My mother-in-law is very sad and lonely, and has begun visiting us regularly. The problem is that when she visits, her sadness and pain fills the house like a black cloud...

I see her beautiful and content... but she says it's no more than her facade. There on that ground, soaked through with tears of joy and despair, she adds her own

Time and time again, I have heard from women regarding what they need most in the relationship: "If only he would be more patient, if only he would speak carefully with me, if only he wouldn't get so angry all the time."

“Stop nagging!” says an aggravated husband when his wife asks him for the tenth time to please repair the gate. Nagging is unpleasant to do and unpleasant to receive. But how can it be avoided in family life?

Marital researchers can predict with an 80-85% accuracy which couples will have serious relationship problems based on self-reporting information about themselves and their partner in the following five areas...

Shaya and I feel we're really suited for each other, but his children are very unhappy about his getting married. His teenage daughter is especially angry. She won't even talk to me, and told her father that if I move into the house, she's moving out.

Although there are cultural reasons for our differences in emotions and behavior, recent breakthrough research reveals that the root of many puzzling gender differences may lie in our brains. How are couples to deal with these natural differences?