Life Without Baby

filling the silence in the motherhood discussion

It Got Me Thinking…About “Thank You” Notes

By Kathleen Guthrie Woods

I’ve been thinking a lot about thank you notes recently, perhaps because I received the following from a young niece:

Dear Aunt Kath and Uncle B,

Thank you so, so, so much for the giftcard. I can’t wait to by [sic] something! Love you guys!

P.S. I can’t wait to get you something! Maybe!

That last line cracked me up, but what tugged at my heart was seeing her sweet lettering, in bright pink ink, on which she clearly took her time. I will be keeping this note in my box of treasures.

I am a big believer in the power of saying thank you. When I get excellent service at a restaurant or shop, I ask to speak to the manager to make certain she or he knows they have a great employee. When someone sends a new client my way, I follow up with a note and a Starbucks gift card to say how much I appreciate the referral. When someone takes the time to select a special gift for me, they get a handwritten note, sent through the mail, with a wax seal or sticker adorning the envelope.

I refuse to accept this is a dying art. Certainly most of the messages I receive come through an email or text (“Thx! :-)”), which are fine, but quickly disposable. I am always struck by the intimate connection I experience when I receive something in a dear person’s distinctive scrawl.

And this got me thinking about other people I might thank in more personal and direct ways. The nurse who comforted me as I faced a difficult diagnosis. The mommy friend who includes me in her kids’ activities because she doesn’t want me to miss out. The faraway friend who let me cry over the phone, without offering unhelpful advice, as I told her about a very painful baby shower.

This week I am going to send one note out to someone on my list, and I encourage—okay, I challenge you—to do the same. Think about the people who have helped you on this journey toward healing—perhaps by listening, being supportive, or being your ally when you most needed one—and send a note. It could be as simple as, “Thank you for being my friend through this difficult time.” I have a feeling she or he will be very touched by this small act of appreciation.

 

Kathleen is telling the story about her journey in The Mother of All Dilemmas. As she shares her quest to become a single mother (and ultimately embraces a life without children), she explores why society still appears to base a woman’s worth on how many children she has. Watch for updates on the book’s release here at LifeWithoutBaby.com.

 

 

Our Stories: Nora

As told to Kathleen Guthrie Woods

Nora endured devastating abuse from her parents and from a former husband. With such dysfunction in her world, becoming a mother wasn’t something she dreamed about. Then she discovered she was pregnant. “I wanted to keep the baby very much,” she says, “but the situation was too dire.” So she made the heartbreaking decision to end the pregnancy.

With the help of therapy and work in creative fields, she has survived her youth and has healed herself “to the point of being able to live in a loving relationship” with a wonderful fiancé. “I can finally do something productive with my life,” she writes, yet at the same time, feelings of doubt and failure pop up as she wrestles with the results of her choices (oh, how I hate that word).

I hope you’ll offer her words of compassion and encouragement in the Comments, especially if you can relate to her story and have escaped an abusive situation yourself.

LWB: Describe your dream of motherhood.

Nora: I honestly never pictured myself as a mother. The whole idea felt too foreign to me, as I came from a religious family that was profoundly dysfunctional and had no internalized positive image of motherhood. I came to terms with the reality of being an orphan after I disowned my abusive parents and cut contact with my younger siblings who were my only other relatives. I started therapy as early as I could, driven also by the fear that if I didn’t arrive at a point of healing soon enough, I might be too old to create a loving family of my own when that day finally arrived. I have found this to be common among victims of child abuse.

LWB: Are you childfree by choice, chance, or circumstance?

Nora: Circumstance. I believe if I had had a semi-functional family background, I would have made better relationship choices in my 20s and I´d feel encouraged to plan for a family with my fiancé now.

I had an abortion at 27 when I unfortunately became the victim of a serial fraudster, a foreigner who married me and then took all my money. This man took advantage of my profound longing for family and for love. I wanted to keep the baby very much, but the situation was too dire. He was threatening me, and I was in danger of developing serious STDs, which could have affected the child, too. It all happened so fast.

LWB: Where are you on your journey now?

Nora: Sometimes I think about that abortion, that somehow I “could have made it”, living in a shelter house, alone in a foreign country. But then I come back to my senses and realize it was the best decision. I would never want to bring a child into the mess I grew up in. The possibility of having a family is fading in front of my eyes when I realize that nothing is going to happen unless I put substantial effort into creating a suitable environment for a child—and I feel too hollow and tired to pursue it. I never really expected to become a mother, so it doesn’t surprise me. It just feels of empty and out of reach for me.

LWB: What was the turning point for you?

Nora: When I moved in with my fiancé, into his one bedroom apartment, it finally dawned to me that it’s never going to happen. He is a bachelor, 10 years older, and looking forward to his military pension. But I think we both find the fantasy somewhat comforting, that we “still can change our minds.”

LWB: What’s the hardest part for you about not having children?

Nora: Feeling like a failure, like I am not “good enough”, normal, natural, whatever. But I guess it’s cruel to measure oneself against other people’s standards. None of them has walked in my boots.

LWB: What’s the best advice you’ve received?

Nora: Somebody related the question of motherhood to a form of immortality, and said it is viable through creating children or something else of lasting value, like art.

LWB: What’s your Plan B?

Nora: I want to become a writer and documentarist. I find art and writing very fulfilling, but also it asks for your full being to be present. Sometimes I feel I have already given up some of that creativity by entering a close relationship, but I don’t regret that. I love my fiancé, and I can picture living a happy life together.

 

What is your Plan B? Or are your wounds so raw that you can’t even imagine a happy future? We can all benefit from hearing about your experiences, plus we’d like to support you. Please visit the Our Stories page to get more information and the questionnaire, and consider sharing your story with women who truly understand what you’re going through.

Did you know Kathleen Guthrie Woods is getting ready to tell her own story? The Mother of All Dilemmas follows her journey of pursuing being a single mother then embracing a life without children, and explores the reasons our society still presumes to calculate a woman’s worth based on whether or not she’s a mother. Keep an eye on LifeWithoutBaby.com for announcements about the book’s release.

Our Stories: Janey

As told to Kathleen Guthrie Woods

“I think I have not yet healed as much as I would like,” Janey wrote to me in her cover letter. She first filled out our questionnaire for this column in early 2015, just a year after she ended her 17-year-long IVF journey—one that included six unsuccessful IVF cycles, a miracle natural pregnancy and heartbreaking miscarriage, and an ectopic pregnancy with a donor egg that required emergency surgery. I wept as I read “A lifetime of longing and waiting was literally ripped from us in under an hour.”

 This past November she turned 48, the cut-off age for possible treatment with donor eggs and the final “no” to any possible miracles. With her wounds still so very raw, she decided to send in her story. “I would so love not to feel a tightening in my throat when others make announcements or speak of their pregnancy/toddlers,” she wrote. “I hope sharing my story helps others and me in finally letting it all go.”

 That’s my hope, as well.

 LWB: Describe your dream of motherhood.

Janey: I’ve wanted my own baby as long as I can remember. I recall being envious of my older cousin when she was pregnant with her first; I was about eight. I asked my mum constantly to have a younger brother or sister. I dreamed of watching a child grow, nurturing, going to the park, cooking for him/her, and just wanting them to grow up balanced, loved, and feeling important and happy.

LWB: Where are you on your journey now? (for example: still in denial, angry, hoping for a miracle, depressed, crawling toward acceptance, embracing Plan B)

Janey: Crawling toward acceptance. I still feel all the other emotions on a daily basis and cannot quite believe a lifetime of yearning and waiting has ended this way.

LWB: What was the turning point for you?

Janey: After 17 years, being told I needed an operation to check out my remaining tube. I felt sick at the prospect of more treatment that would still only offer a slim chance of success. I think I lost my faith that day, and I could no longer hide behind “any statistic however low was better than no chance”. That pain was rock bottom for me and my husband, for we cannot knowingly go further into that desperately sad place that we have been so many times before. Then, when I told my husband the clinic had called to offer us another donor, I saw hope dance across his face momentarily, instantly followed by a darkness that drained him of all his colour. I saw a physical shadow cast across his features, one of anger, sadness, and terror. This is what I recall whenever I feel weak.

LWB: What’s the hardest part for you about not having children?

Janey: Not having the day-to-day joy/struggle that is part of everyone’s life. No first words, school days, birthday parties. The pride as they grow in life and leave school, get work, meet partners. I can recall the pride I see in my mum when she talks of me or my brother. I broke down recently when she was at the hospital with her hip replacement and was asked, “Who do we call if you have a problem?” Answer, “My daughter, Jane.” I will never have that, not ever.

LWB: What’s one thing you want other people to know about your being childfree?

Janey: That it was not a choice, I am not free. I deal daily with the disease of infertility and the sadness of not ever being able to hold and nurture my own child. I constantly put my feelings aside and congratulate others, and I would love for the fertile world to acknowledge the devastation of infertility and the lasting impact.

LWB: How do you answer “Do you have kids?”

Janey: “No. Life has not gone to plan on that front, and I’m unbelievably sad about it.” By the time I got to being able to respond this way, I realized I was too old for people to ask; they generally assume I have them and they have left home by now. It feels easier to leave it that way. I think I said it once to someone, and they were momentarily understanding. It felt liberating at the time and a step forward towards acceptance.

LWB: How has LWB helped you on your journey?

Janey: Finally seeing that my feelings over all these years are normal. I have experienced so much jealousy and anger at the world, and it was wonderful to have that validated and not to keep forcing myself to face people or situations that leave me drained. LWB has allowed me to feel quite a lot of pride in myself for getting out of bed and going to work and finding the good in myself. This is not all there is to me. I am whole and I am enough.

 

Where are you on your journey? Are your wounds raw? Have you made some progress toward accepting a life without children? We can all benefit from hearing about your experiences, plus we’d like to support you. Please visit the Our Stories page to get more information and the questionnaire, and consider sharing your story with women who truly understand what you’re going through.

Did you know Kathleen Guthrie Woods is getting ready to tell her own story? The Mother of All Dilemmas follows her journey of pursuing being a single mother then embracing a life without children, and explores the reasons our society still presumes to calculate a woman’s worth based on whether or not she’s a mother. Keep an eye on LifeWithoutBaby.com for announcements about the book’s release.

When Spring Cleaning Unearths Memories

By Lisa Manterfield

Spring has sprung and, as usual, I find myself in a cleaning and decluttering frenzy.

I’ve made trips to the thrift store with bags of clothes that are too big, too small, or just plain ugly. I’ve purged my kitchen of all those “good idea” gadgets, rusted cake pans, and broken plates that I’ll get around to gluing “someday.” I’ve even parted with a box full of books, which is a big give-up for me. And I’ve been eyeing the curtains in my living room and thinking about throwing them in the washer.

I go through this every year and find it very therapeutic. But in the past, it’s also been a dangerous pursuit, fraught with emotional landmines.

One year, while rummaging through a rarely used cupboard, I came across some baby-related stuff. I’d been getting rid of all those things bit-by-bit, and I was fairly sure they were all gone. So it was a deflating moment when I unearthed some items that had slipped through the net.

This find was particularly difficult, as it was the glossy information packet we received from our first fertility clinic. It had a picture of a beautiful glowing baby on the front and was filled with encouraging stories, happy family photos, and explanations as to how the expert team would help us build the family of our dreams. Inside I found test results, ovulation charts, and notes written in my own handwriting, reminding me of where I’d been. The whole thing reeked of hope and it stirred up some of those old emotions.

To my credit, I ditched the whole thing without getting upset. I didn’t keep one scrap of paper. There was another, similar item in the cupboard, too, but now I can’t even remember what it was, because I tossed that out as well.

After that, I went to my bookshelves and pulled out the Knitting for Two book I’d been keeping. In addition to the maternity cardigan I started (that was still somewhere in the house) I’d actually used the book to knit a sweater for a friend’s baby. I only did it once, because it was so painful, and I realized that it was part of the hair shirt I chose to wear for a while, when I was forcing myself to be around other people’s babies, and to be “genuinely happy” about pregnancy announcements. This was long before I figured out my need to grieve and heal, so that I could genuinely be happy for someone else’s news. At that time, I had opted to torture myself by knitting from my baby’s book. So out it went.

My purging of baby stuff was a gradual process. At first, I couldn’t get rid of anything. After a while I threw out the assorted test kits, and the doctor info, moving slowly towards throwing out baby clothes (and even a maternity top a friend had given me.) The fertility and pregnancy books went next, and so it continued.

I’ve no doubt that there will be other landmines scattered around my house, even now, and that they’ll come to the surface some day, but now I know I can handle them. And I know I can throw them away with no (or little) love lost.

***

Just a reminder that the ebook versions of both I’m Taking My Eggs and Going Home: How One Woman Dared to Say No to Motherhood and Life Without Baby: Surviving and Thriving When Motherhood Doesn’t Happen are half price ($4.99) on Amazon until tonight.

My “Life Without Baby” is better because of you

By Lisa Manterfield

This week marks the 7th anniversary of Life Without Baby. In March 2010, I sat with my laptop on a sunny patio in a little restaurant (now gone) in Northern California. I ordered a glass of sparkling wine and a dozen oysters, and I tentatively wrote my first blog post.

It was more of a mission statement, really—a public show of my intention to talk about infertility and childlessness. It was a shout out for help, too, a call out into the world in the hopes of hearing someone call back, “Me too.”

No one did.

In fact, no one commented on my posts until I wrote the first Whiny Wednesday post the following month. It’s remained the most popular feature of the site ever since. Turns out there were lots of us wanting to be heard, after all.

Kathleen was with me from that very first day. I texted her to tell her I’d written the first post and we celebrated this wary step out into the unknown. A few weeks later she wrote her first guest post about finding a new path. By the end of the year, she had was writing her regular It Got Me Thinking column, and she’s been here ever since.

That year, I also discovered Pamela’s book Silent Sorority: A Barren Woman Gets Busy, Angry, Lost, and Found. It was my first encounter with someone who’d shared my experience and had put into words all I’d been feeling.

Since then, I’ve posted almost 1500 posts, received more than 11,000 comments, and welcomed more than a million visits from over 100 countries. I definitely don’t feel alone anymore.

A couple of years ago I wrote a post about the importance of marking anniversaries—the happy and the sad—as a way of measuring how far we’ve come. I could never have imagined that, seven years after that first post, I would still be writing posts and meeting new people, or that I would have written two books about life without baby.

I also could never have imagined the level of peace and, yes, happiness that I have in my life, even though it will never include children of my own. For those of you just trying to figure all this out and wondering what your lives will hold, I hope this serves as encouragement. It does get easier, you will find a new path, and there is even happiness, more than you could imagine, in a life without children.

No good anniversary celebration would be complete without presents, for this week (until March 20), the ebook versions of both I’m Taking My Eggs and Going Home: How One Woman Dared to Say No to Motherhood and Life Without Baby: Surviving and Thriving When Motherhood Doesn’t Happen are half price ($4.99) on Amazon.

Finally, a big thank you to all of you who’ve supported me all these years. I never dreamed when I started this site that I’d get to know people from all around the world or that I’d get to form real friendships and even get to meet some of you in person. It’s been a journey I could never have imagined, and I’m grateful to have had you along for the ride.

How We Heal Our Emotional Scars

Woman walking alone on beach

By Lisa Manterfield

I have a large scar on my left knee. It has black lines of grit in it, and smooth patches of scar tissue that catch the light on an otherwise rough patch of skin.

My scar is 30 years old and I don’t think about it very often anymore. It doesn’t hurt, even when I poke it, and the wound that caused it healed long ago.

But if I think back to the day I got my scar, all the memories and the pain come flooding back. I remember the bike accident. I remember riding through the trees on a gorgeous sunny day, laughing with my friends and flirting with a boy I liked. I remember trying to get his attention and catching my front wheel on his back tire. I don’t recall sailing through the air, but I must have done, because I do remember skidding along the trail, trading bits of knee for bits of trail.

I remember sitting in the bath at home and crying as my mum tried to clean the wound. And I remember my older brother—a bit of an expert on injuries and scars—gently coaxing me to scrub out the grit or be left with a terrible scar.

I also have a vague recollection of a discussion among adults (not my parents) about plastic surgery and what a shame it would be if a “pretty girl” was disfigured by an ugly scar.

It all happened so long ago, but dredging up these memories can bring back all that pain, my embarrassment, the tenderness of my brother, the feeling that my scar would make me “less than” I could have been. I can feel all of it again as if it had happened in more recent memory.

I feel this way about my infertility and childlessness, too. Most days, I don’t think about it anymore. But lately I’ve been writing about grief and loss, and some of those awful feelings of sadness, anger, and deep, deep loss have been coming back to me.

It’s taught me that the healing process for emotional scars is much the same as for physical scars.

You have to suffer some terrible pain to clean the wound. You have to struggle through the initial all-consuming grief. You have to ask for support from people who might not know how to give it. You have to walk again, even if every step is agony. You’ll meet people who will see you as damaged and less than you could have been, because you no longer fit into their ideal of perfect.

But over time the healing begins. You’ll knock your healing wound a few times and break it open again. In one particularly unfortunate incident, you’ll fall on the same wound and end up with a double scar. But you’ll remember how much you loved riding a bike and you’ll take it up again. And you’ll meet new people, who don’t care whether you have one ugly knee, because they’re more interested in some other facet of who you are. And you’ll realize that being a “pretty girl” wasn’t what you were destined to be anyway, and you’re happy being an outdoorsy girl who’s accumulated a multitude of scars since then.

And when you’re shaving your legs (which is trickier because of the scar) you might sometimes recall how you got the scar and the pain you went through. But most days, you won’t even think about.

Having a big scar on my knee means I never got the opportunity to be a leg model, but I got to be so many other things instead, things that have made my life journey quite interesting. My infertility scar is much newer than my knee scar, but I can already see it healing in a way I couldn’t have imagined when it was new and raw. I am starting to wonder about what new destiny it’s leading me to.

For more about hiding and revealing our scars, check out this guest post from Quasi-Momma. 

Our Stories: Darla

As told to Kathleen Guthrie Woods

“I’m so glad that I found Life Without Baby,” Darla wrote when she sent in her story for this column. “I have felt so alone in my pain for far too long, and it’s good to know that there are others like me and we have a place to share our stories.”

Yes! That’s why we do this, so that we can heal ourselves through the sharing of our experiences and support each other as we grieve our losses and find inspiration for moving forward with new life plans.

Darla was diagnosed in her mid-thirties with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), the cause of her infertility. Now 53, she is still working through the grief of being childfree, although she feels she’s reached a turning point.

After you read about Darla, I hope you’ll add your words of commiseration and encouragement in the Comments. Then, won’t you please share your story with us? Information on how to submit your answers to the “Our Stories” questionnaire appear below.

LWB: Describe your dream of motherhood.

Darla: When I was sixteen I embroidered two little baby shirts (I still have them). I knew at that young age that I wanted to be a mother. I made no career plans, didn’t plan for higher education, I just wanted to be somebody’s Mom.

 

LWB: Where are you on your journey now? (for example: still in denial, angry, hoping for a miracle, depressed, crawling toward acceptance, embracing Plan B)

Darla: ALL OF THE ABOVE!!!!!!!

 

LWB: What was the turning point for you?

Darla: The turning point is now. I have suffered from insomnia and anxiety for many years, and I think there is a connection with the grief I’ve been suppressing for so long. It’s time to seek help, connect with others who know what I’m feeling, and move on and find joy in other adventures.

 

LWB: What’s the hardest part for you about not having children?

Darla: Christmastime is hard for me. When I hear the lyric “Every mother’s child is gonna spy…,” it brings tears to my eyes because I will never know that joy. I have no one to pass my traditions on to. No one will be heir to the things I love.

 

LWB: What’s the best advice you’ve received?

Darla: Your loss is very real. Seek help and let yourself grieve.

 

LWB: What’s one thing you want other people to know about your being childfree?

Darla: If you have children, don’t tell me how wonderful it is and how much I’m missing; I’m well aware of what I’m missing. Also, don’t tell me you understand my pain—you can’t know. My mother actually told me that she understands what it feels like to be childless. Really? She has three children. I know she is just trying to empathize, but she can’t know the pain I feel.

 

LWB: What do you look forward to now?

Darla: I’m hoping to travel. There is so much I still want to see, so many new places to discover. There’s more time behind than ahead, and I want to make the best of it.

 

LWB: What is your hope for yourself this coming year?

Darla: I’ve waited too long to grieve my loss. I hope to heal the pain and move on. It’s time.

 

Where are you on your journey? Are your wounds raw? Have you made some progress toward accepting a life without children? We can all benefit from hearing about your experiences, plus we’d like to support you. Please visit the Our Stories page to get more information and the questionnaire, and consider sharing your story with women who truly understand what you’re going through.

Kathleen Guthrie Woods is a Northern California–based freelance writer. She is mostly at peace with her childfree status.

This Year, Aim for Progress Rather Than Perfection

Well, here we are in 2017, and I think it’s safe to say that most of us are ready to see the back of last year. Between political craziness, the loss of too many creative icons, and a general feeling of uneasiness in the world, I’m ready for a fresh start.

I do love the New Year for the potential it brings in terms of a clean slate and the chance to make big changes. And yet, in the past, I’ve ended up putting pressure on myself to fix all the things that are wrong with me. My goals have included losing weight, exercising more, doing a better job of keeping in touch with people, and on and on—a long list of things I’m doing wrong.

But a couple of years ago, I started to change my outlook. Instead of treating myself like something broken that needed fixing, I began looking for my potential and making progress with the things I’m doing right. I wrote a post about it last year, Looking for Potential. Do take a look as I think you’ll find it a kinder, gentler way of approaching the New Year.

So, as we go into this year, I want to encourage you to be kind to yourself, too. Instead of trying to fix a laundry list of shortcomings, perhaps you could look for where you’ve made progress over the last year and focus your energy there.

For example, let’s say you have a friend who you’ve avoided because her children are the same ages yours would have been and you can’t bear to see her. Maybe you ran into her last year and realized you’ve missed her company. Could you set a goal to reach out to her, give her a call or send a quick email note, maybe broach the topic of getting together?

Or perhaps you’ve been reading this blog for a while or working your way through my, or someone else’s, book and you’ve hit a spot where you feel stuck. Maybe a goal would be to find a therapist, counsellor, or support group and get some additional help.

This healing process takes time. Oh, man, does it take time! But progress is made by inching forward a little at a time. So, don’t try to take giant steps forward. Instead, be kind to yourself and take the tiniest, most doable step possible, something you can actually accomplish and feel good about.

How could you inch forward on your journey this year? What’s the smallest, no-sweat step you could take? Let us know in the comments, and if you need a little encouragement to take it, just ask.

For now, I wish for you a genuinely happy new year.

Resetting Holiday Expectations

By Lisa Manterfield

Christmas Stockings Hanging over Fireplace“Are you the adult you dreamed of becoming?”

I laughed when I read this question on Facebook. No! Of course I’m not. The adult I dreamed of was an international engineering consultant, living in a large house with a circular driveway, with a fabulous husband and four beautiful children, including one set of twins.

Aside from the fabulous husband, that adult is almost the polar opposite of the adult I am now. I’m a writer, who works from my very small rented beach cottage, and of course, there are no children in my picture. And yet, once I stop to consider my friend’s question, I realize that I’m a lot happier as this adult than I would have been had my expectations been met. I’ve met the person I’d once dreamed of becoming; she wasn’t a very happy person and she definitely had more grey hairs than me.

Half the battle of coming-to-terms with a life without children is letting go of our expectations—and creating new ones. This is never more true than during the holiday season, one of the most difficult times of the year to be childless.

When I think of my expectations of what Christmas should be like as an adult, those four children are always there, gathered around the tree, gathered around the dinner table, and then gathered around me as the day comes to a close. Even when I realized that children wouldn’t be part of my life, I still strived to make Christmas live up to my expectations. Consequently, Christmastime was very sad time for a number of years. I knew there was no way my expectations could be met, and eventually I stopped making an effort to celebrate.

The worst year was when my husband and I found ourselves sitting at home, with no Christmas tree, no plans, no celebration, and we knew we’d allowed our lack of children to take over our lives. We also realized it was time to set new, more realistic expectations.

When I took a step back and looked at what I really wanted for Christmas, not on the surface of gifts, family, and decorations, but on a deeper emotional level, I discovered that my spiritual wish list included love, peacefulness, companionship, and a good dose of silly fun. I needed to explore new ways to get what I really wanted.

It took a couple of false starts to find a new way to celebrate Christmas, but a couple of years ago we nailed it. Mr. Fab and I rented an apartment for three days in a nearby beach town. We celebrated on Christmas Eve with a lovely dinner at an historic hotel with an enormous Christmas tree, roving carolers, and even an outdoor ice rink (in Southern California!). On Christmas Day, instead of sitting at home feeling sad about a pathetic Christmas for two, we went to the zoo, like a couple of big kids, and had a whale of a time. I even got to feed a rhino and have an ice cream. We both agreed it was the best Christmas we’ve had for a long time, plus there were no tantrums or mountains of dirty dishes to deal with.

It’s hard to let go of our expectations, especially when they’re often so deeply engrained, but if you’re struggling to find your holiday cheer this year, I encourage you to look beneath the obvious losses and examine what’s really missing for you. Even if you can’t meet your tangible expectations of what the holidays should be, you might be surprised to find you can satisfy your true needs in unconventional—and unexpected—ways.

Last Christmas, I sat down with Jody Day of Gateway Women to talk about how we’ve adjusted our expectations and reclaimed the holidays. You can find the interview at Gateway Women. 

Whiny Wednesday: Spouses Not Dealing

Whiny WednesdayHappy Whiny Wednesday! I hope you’re doing okay today. If not, this is the place to get it off your chest.

This week we turn to spotlight on the men in our lives and discuss the topic of:

Spouses or partners who aren’t dealing or healing

If you have one of these, we’d like to hear to about it.