On Wed, 07 Feb 2007 10:07:05 -0500, Chuck Harris
wrote:

COLIN LAMB wrote:
"Respect and trust. It is the only way. Trickiness and deceit will only
result in a divorce."

So, when your wife asks you what you think of the new recipe she slaved 8
hours making, you have no problems telling her it tastes like crap?

No, I wouldn't tell her it: "it tastes like crap", I'd tell her something
didn't work out quite right, and then I'd tell her what. My wife is a great
cook. She knows when she gets good results, and when he has gotten a bad
result.

We are both retired and both busy. We eat a lot of TV dinners ...and
salads.

Or, when she comes back with a new hairdo she is proud of, you tell her the
old one was a lot better.

I usually forget to say anything.


No, I can tell how she feels by the look in her eyes. If she is happy with
the result, then I am happy. It is called being aware of your spouse.

If she's not, I don't say anything, or course I usually forget any
way.


When your wife just turns 50 and asks you how old she looks, you tell her
the truth?

We both turned 50 so long ago it's hard to remember. OTOH she's more
trim now than even back then. Turning 40, 50, and so on has never been
a traumatic occasion for us. Actually, I think I told here she looks
pretty good for such an old gal. OTOH I also told her that yesterday.


We are both over 50, and she looks great. Neither of us are buff 20 YO's anymore,
but I see her physical beauty, and her spiritual beauty... It works for me!

Both of us were probably in the best physical shape of our lives
through our 40's and into our 50's.

Now I'm the one who needs to lose the weight.
She bicycles several thousand miles a year and works out about 3 or 4
times a week.

I try to work out a half hour to 40 minutes a day on a Nordic Trac and
fly airplanes. Flying does give your legs quite a work out. My
profession was Computer Science and I keep our computers running and
up-to-date along with our own network. That results in far too much
"chair time" which is why I'm the one who needs to lose weight.


There is one other thing you need to know, a wife that constantly asks land mine
questions is trying to provoke a confrontation. You had better find out what
is wrong, and help make it right.

At our age, we both try to avoid asking things like that.:-)) Learned
that "long ago". We still have a sense of humor, know our own
weaknesses and each other's. We make light of our own and never make
fun of the other's.

Sometimes wives do not want to know the truth. My wife would cringe when
she saw the checks I wrote for helicopter rental. So, she asked me to
create a helicopter account and keep it from her. I did. Soon, it became
the expensive aircraft and radio account. She has been happy since.

That's fine as it's what she wanted.

It's not uncommon to hear her say, "It's such a nice day, why aren't
you out flying?" She knows what flying a high performance, complex,
retract costs.
My wife pays the bills. She knows where it all goes. I do the
investing. She says I also do the spending, but it pretty much evens
out.


My wife is my best friend, and my partner. There is no way I would try and
shield her from my expense account. Nor would she me from hers.

We each do our own thing such as biking and flying, but we do things
together as well.


Honesty is the quickest way to tick your spouse off and get a divorce.

There is brutal honesty and common sense honesty.
9 times out of 10 diplomacy works wonders with the truth but it may
take a careful approach. After this many years I also know when I
shouldn't say any thing (usually)


The little lies you tell will build up to a crushing point, and one day you
will discover how wrong you were.

A friend said she and her husband never had an argument. One day she
came home and he was gone. Some people might have to think about that
one for a while but the reasoning is quite evident.

-Chuck

No one is perfect. You know there is, or are going to be problems
when one or both of a couple think the other is perfect. If a couple
never has an argument it means one of them just gives in with out
saying anything.
Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com