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No Mudbugs on Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day & Crawfish Don’t Mix When you live in the same city as your mother-in-law, there are some challenges. For me, Mother’s Day is one of them. Don’t get me wrong. I have a great MIL. She loves my family and bends over backwards to help us. However, her Mother’s Day gift got my [...]

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Marriage Requires Higher Education

A School for Marriage Marriage was the last thing on my mind when I was an undergrad at Howard University. I loved to hang out with my friends and go on dates, and the only weighty subjects on my mind were internships  and maintaining my GPA. So I wonder if my college had offered a [...]

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The Difficulties of Dating Your Spouse

Too Bad Barnes & Noble Doesn’t Serve Dinner I hit the jackpot. OK, I didn’t actually win the lottery, but it certainly felt like it when I discovered that Fred’s teenage cousin was old enough to babysit our brood. No more wrangling family and friends to watch our three kids while we got away for [...]

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The Language of Love

Physical Touch is More Than Sex Years ago we, took Gary Chapman’s The 5 Love Languages workshop. What I received from this class was further proof that Men are from Mars and Women are From Venus. This assumption grew even stronger when I saw my hubby’s results. His primary love language was physical touch, which [...]

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Pregnancy Can Test Your Marriage If You’re Not Careful

Baby Strain My first thought when I heard that former NFL player Tiki Barber was leaving his pregnant wife for a 23-year-old intern was what a jerk. Then I found myself wondering if baby strain played a role. What’s baby strain? It’s my unscientific name for the toll having young children can have on your [...]

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Respect is a Key Ingredient in Marriage

R-E-S-P-E-C-T Find out What it Means to Me I was surprised recently when I discovered that Otis Redding wrote and sang the original version of Aretha Franklin’s anthem “Respect.” But once I really listened to the lyrics, my shock disappeared because Redding’s words sound a whole lot like my husband’s… All I want you to [...]

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A Tradition of Marriage

Building a Forever Marriage Despite two layers of clothes, a sleeping bag and blanket, I was still cold on my recent Girl Scout camping trip. Yet those frigid conditions weren’t what kept me awake, instead it was a conversation I had with my cabin mate. While making small talk that night, she shared that she’s [...]

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Netflix is a Leading Cause of Marital Conflict

How Did The Dude Get in There? Opening a Netflix envelope in my house is like staying in a two-star hotel: you never know what you’re going to get. Of course, this is the exact opposite of how Netflix is supposed to work. In a normal household, a person selects the movie she wants to [...]

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Talk is Cheap, Communication is Golden

I Need More Than “It Was Fine” Our 6-year-old son, N, has been dying to play baseball for over a year, so he was thrilled when baseball evaluations finally arrived. Fred agreed to take him while I stayed home with the other two kids. I’ve always been a huge baseball fan. Thoughts of our son’s playing in [...]

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Close the Door on Open Marriages

The Rules If you’ve witnessed a game of tag lately, you know the drill. First, the kids start running, then they start calling out the rules. “No tag backs, no time outs, no base…” They know what adults sometimes forget: it’s better to establish the rules up front in order to avoid problems later. Fred [...]

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