Matthew Fray

Because I am sometimes a walking cliché who struggles with controlling negative emotion, I found myself sitting at a bar on a Sunday afternoon with a shot and a beer in front of me.

Nonverbal invalidation comes in many forms. The worst are obnoxious eye rolls, finger-drumming, or yawning.

You can stop hurting her by NOT treating her as if she’s insane for feeling hurt by something just because that same thing might not hurt you.

I didn’t know when I was married that emotional pain could hurt worse than physical pain.

There are various things men often do (or don’t do) that cause women to feel shitty in their relationships.

In marriage, either your spouse is #1, or you’re doing it wrong.

I think the #1 cause of divorce is relationship-damaging behavior by men who honestly don’t recognize it. Good men with good intentions who damage their wives’ emotional and mental health with behaviors they don’t understand to be as damaging as they are.

So the boys grow up repeating the sins of their fathers.

Not because they’re bad. Just because they didn’t know better.

We know that we love the people we love. But the people we love only know we love them when they see, hear and feel evidence of that love. They don’t just psychically or magically feel good because of our thoughts and intentions.

I was a shitty husband because I promised her in front of hundreds of people we knew that I would love and honor her all the days of my life. In good times, and in bad. And then I didn’t do that.

She didn’t want to be my mother. She wanted to be my partner, and she wanted me to apply all of my intelligence and learning capabilities to the logistics of managing our lives and household.