Questions For Dr. Kim

Question: My husband is a great guy. We have been married 14 years. We both work, me 3/4 time and him full time. We have two children who are 5 and 7 years old. How do I approach us working on having an awesome marriage, without him thinking that I feel something is majorly wrong with our marriage?  We have a good marriage, but have gone through some tough times in the past that we have worked through.

Dr. Kim: Every marriage needs work.  I have never seen a couple ‘get it right’ and coast for fifty years.  Often we just need a starting place.  There is an assessment that I use a lot with couples.  It is called the Couple Checkup.  It looks at a number of areas in a marriage and then shows whether that area is a strength area or a growth area.  There are specific steps given to help improve the growth areas.  When I teach premarital classes, I have the couples take this assessment and then ask them to take it every year on their anniversary.  That keeps them constantly working together to improve their marriage.

Here is the link for the Couple Checkup.

Question: How do I trust someone after years of being lied to and cheated on? I am getting married in about 6 months, and my fiancee is wonderful!! But there is always that voice inside my head, and those doubts in my heart because of my past... HOW DO I LET IT GO, BE HAPPY, AND MAKE HIM HAPPY TILL DEATH DO US PART???

Dr. Kim: You cannot make someone happy and you cannot be in a marriage that does not have trust. Please do not go forward with the marriage until these are resolved.