Tag: personality

It starts as a whirlwind romance; you’re swept off your feet by their charms and attention. They say everything you’ve ever wanted to hear, and fulfill the deeply specific craving for attention you’ve always needed. Then time goes on. The love struck compliments are replaced by snide jabs and staggering overreactions. You find your needs neglected or overridden. The caring and empathetic qualities you prized so deeply, are replaced by coldness you never thought possible.

Kids may say the darndest things, but toddlers seem to have the market cornered on defiant expressions of opinion. Your once sweet—but inarticulate—baby turns into a fountain of "No!" Don't you wish you had a better understanding of what they are thinking? You can!

Sometimes, it may sound as if your two-year-old doesn’t like you much anymore: "No." "Go Away!" "Mine!" "Stop!"

But toddlers aren’t looking to make you mad. They’re just not yet fully fluent—at 24 months they only have about 200 words to express all their complex feelings

How do you know if your spouse is acting out or has a more serious condition? Major personality shifts aren't something most are prepared for. What makes things tough is that we think we have our soul mate, a person we know and trust with whom we can spend our lives and not have to worry. We love the predictable nature and the security of a spouse we can count on—possibly the only person we can count on. We think we know who they are and are confident in our knowledge and assume that they would never do anything to hurt us.

Several months ago I went to dinner with my husband and some friends. We were at a supper club and sharing a table with an older couple. Because we were late, our friends had started to tell the other couple about us and, as I settled into my seat, I overheard them talking about my husband.

Now, maybe because it had been a while since we saw each other and he wasn’t sure of the exterior details we usually use to introduce people—job, education, hobbies—or maybe he just knew that I needed to hear something else that evening so that I could right this article, but our friend didn’t talk about the superficial things.