On the virtues of the comfy sweater, or: How sometimes old, green, and baggy is just right
Ah, the comfy sweater. You all have one, whether you want to admit it or not. Occasionally you think about donating it, but you just can’t do it. Maybe it’s like mine — old, green, at least two sizes too big, and shapeless as a potato sack. It might not be a sweater at all; it could be sweatpants, a hopelessly faded t-shirt, or jeans so old and worn it’s like they were molded for your ass. I think it’s time we celebrated this much-maligned garment.
Relationship hacks for communicating under stress
Fighting sucks, especially when it’s with someone you love. All you want is for the dishes to be rinsed before they’re put in the dishwasher and the next thing you know, both of you are saying hurtful things. How can you have conflict without being hurtful? How can you build your own hacks?
Relationship hack: remind each other you’re still in love even during fights
When that guy I married and I get into fights we decided long ago to not forget that love each other, even when we feel like killing each other. So we made a deal and came up with a little sign we could give each other that says “I’m mad at you, but don’t forget I still love you.”
We stopped fighting over money when we started emailing
Nothing can throw a relationship into the doldrums like a nice, long, unsexy talk about money. These types of conversations are the necessary evil of living together, but the arguing with my now-husband getting just plain evil. One day, after slogging through a slew of boring budget work emails, I had an epiphany about how we can talk about money without derailing both our sanity and intimacy.
The Appreciation Song
Andreas and I have been living together since 1998, and for the most part, we’re pretty solid domestic partners. Basically, ANY TIME we notice the other has done something around the house, we tell them how much we appreciate them. Then, the appreciation started morphing into a little song…