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When Baby Bumps Spell Danger

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If it seems like everyone around you is pregnant – maybe you’re even one of the pregnant ones! – you’re not crazy. More and more people are having kids, and many are having their third or fourth child. In 2007, American women gave birth to 4.3 million babies – that’s more than ever before! And of those 4.3 million, more than a quarter of those babies were born to women either on their third or fourth child. An article in Women’s Health points out this doesn’t mean we’re all rushing to ensure our buns are in the oven, or that family size is growing exponentially – in fact, the average number of children per American family is still close to two.

Pregnancy Problems?

But this birthing trend can reveal some issues that are less than warm-and-fuzzy. The problem may actually start with those feel-good hormones people experience during pregnancy along with the attention from friends and family. But wanting to re-capture those feelings, even subconsciously, can make for an unhealthy outcome – and an unhealthy relationship with your baby.

According to psychiatrist Carole Lieberman, M. D, “Women who are obsessed with being pregnant are literally filling an emptiness inside of them, just as alcoholics and drug addicts use substances to fill a psychological void.” It makes sense: we all want to feel less lonely, and for many, babies help them do just that. And this “fix” can easily become a cycle – when an infant becomes a more independent toddler the mom may search to fill the void again by having a baby.

Bumpaholics

These “bumpaholic” behaviors can ao be traced back feelings of abandonment by their own parents, which in turn creates that desire to not be alone or lonely. We have a biochemical craving for connection, as I mention in my book Financial Infidelity, that spurs us on to want to connect with the important people in our lives. When those needs aren’t met by our parents, we can try to overcompensate for that as we become parents ourselves, by looking to create a large family. Or it can be a reflection of the abandonment people feel from their significant other, or from life in general. As our society becomes busier and busier we pull away more and more from the relationships that should be an integral part of our lives. Creating a baby with someone not only allows us to feel close to that person, but gives us someone to lavish our affection, emotion and energy on.

These are all dangerous reasons for bringing kids into the world! Just as alcoholics must examine their relationship to alcohol and what drives them into the destructive habit, so too must a mom looking for fulfillment through pregnancy look at her reasons for doing so.

The Good Wife

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A show called The Good Wife, is a drama that focuses on the wife of a politician. Her husband has recently been thrown in jail for his part in a public sex and corruption scandal. She then returns to her old job as a defense attorney in an attempt to rebuild her life and provide for her kids.

It’s a bit of a different tack than the one taken by Jenny Sanford, wife of fallen politician Mark Sanford who has lied about being on vacation when he was out of the country visiting his mistress. As I’ve mentioned before, Jenny is seemingly engaging in what I call a “make up to break up” – she threw him out but left the door open.

Temporary Breakups To Reconnect

A temporary break up can help resolve certain issues, and creates a shake-up that many couples need. In certain circumstances, this is the only thing that will create an action step which will make reconnecting and making up easier to do. Creating this strategy – and it MUST be a strategy, not something entered into half-heartedly – is not the end of the relationship, but rather a new beginning. When you break up to make up you get an endorphin rush, they don’t want you till you don’t want them.

Just about everyone craves some sort of excitement in their life – and some people push boundaries to find it. Anything from skydiving – to having a physical, emotional or financial affair. If you’re lacking excitement in your relationship and are heading into dangerous territory (i.e., considering some kind of infidelity), know that wanting to seek the high that comes from a risky experience is normal – but how you handle the situation can make or break your relationship.

Forgiving Adultery Or Condoning It?

Although the public ramifications of Mark’s affair weren’t known until more recently, Jenny says she knew of it as early as January. Yet according to the New York Daily news, as recently as June he begged his wife to let him go visit his mistress. “I said absolutely not. It’s one thing to forgive adultery; it’s another thing to condone it.”

People are looking for novelty, for that dopamine high we get when we try something new and adventurous. Unfortunately, many people sacrifice a relationship they’ve worked hard to build on the quest for that high.

So it remains to be seen how things play out with the Sanfords and if Jenny’s “break up” will be successful, or if she’ll end up like the fictional counterparts on The Good Wife – looking to support her family on her own.

Americans Less Worried About Debt?

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First the bad news – Unemployment rates are high, peoples’ life savings and retirement investments are still depleted, home values have tanked. Now the good news: Surprisingly, Americans are feeling less stress from financial debt these days.

The gist of a study, conducted by the Associated Press is that people are optimistic that they’ll eventually be able to get out from under a mountain of bills, a major factor behind the decline in stress from last year.

According to the poll: Debt-related stress was 12 percent lower this year than in 2008. “People now have some optimism that the worst is behind them,” said Paul J. Lavrakas, a research psychologist and AP consultant who analyzed the results of the survey.

Growing Your Relationships In Financial Crises

As I’ve mentioned in previous articles, staying in has become the new going out, which – in spite of the fact that people and families are dealing with depleted finances – has had some positive effects. Families are connecting. People are viewing their budget as a team effort. Couples are saving more. All these things are also likely factors in the increase in positive debt perception that the study reveals. People feel like they might be gaining control of their lives again.

In my book, Financial Infidelity, I encourage people to talk about their money history – both in their own lives, and as a reflection of what they learned growing up, or in their past. It seems like more people may have started to do this, and subsequently have gotten on the same “financial page” and are willing to make a few sacrifices whereas before they may not have been as open to the idea.

Avoid Prolonging The Recession But Take Your Lessons Learned With You

Of course, this has had somewhat of a negative effect on the economy as a whole – if Americans were to sharply cut back spending, that could prolong the recession and hopes of recovery this year.

But every cloud has a silver lining, and as such, Americans aren’t dealing with record-high gas prices as they were last summer. Credit and financial problems, which reached a crisis point last fall, have shown some signs of easing.

It would be naïve to think that because overall debt-related stress is down from this time last year, we’re out of the woods. Obviously our habits continue to have potentially dangerous repercussions both in our personal lives and in our economy as a whole, but people are definitely thinking about spending less and are more mindful of their finances. And I would say that’s a net gain!

Should You Stand By Your Man After An Affair?

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We’ve all seen it over and over … politicians (and others who are vocal and visible) preach morality, family and the like, and end up falling victim to an affair. Then, what’s perhaps more surprising to us, is that the spouse (usually the wife) decides to stick it out. To forgive and forget and work through whatever issues have arisen. This decision baffles a lot of us, and it’s one that Governor Mark Sanford’s wife, Jenny, recently tried to explain in a recent interview. She’s the gracious, forgiving woman being called a “role model,”by the Washington Post, and a “media genius” by Newsweek.

Infidelity Is An Addiction

In June, when Gov. Sanford admitted that he had not been traveling along the Appalachian Trail, but in fact, traipsing around Argentina with the mistress he had met eight years ago, Jenny was cool and composed. She and her sons then moved out of the governor’s mansion, but the former investment banker turned stay-at-home mother of four has decided to give her husband another chance, for a reason I completely agree with: Infidelity is an addiction and – just like when someone’s addicted to drugs or alcohol – it becomes nearly impossible to break away.

For this reason, I deem adultery the “forgivable sin” and, in my book Can we Cure and Forgive Adultery, delve into reasons why people need to conquer this biochemical craving for connection and have an affair with their own partner!

As Jenny aptly put it, “Everybody would like an escape sometimes. I’d like somebody 5,000 miles away I could E-mail. It’s not exclusive to men, but I know that isn’t realistic.”

Affairs Are Self-Medicating

Engaging in an affair can provide the desire for an illicit self-medicating, thrill-seeking “high” that many people seek. This can easily become a self-enforcing cycle: politicians and others of us under a lot of stress are looking for a release from this constant pressure. An affair fulfills the biochemical craving for connection, along with that high and thrill of a new romance. But keeping up the charade only causes more pressure. And so the cycle perpetuates itself. In order to re-instate that connection with our partner I suggest taking some time apart and doing what I call a “brush with death,” which Jenny has already done.

More instructions can be found in my book, Make up, Don’t Breakup, but when you do this “break up to make up” correctly, you’re operating from the position that you don’t know what you have till you lose it. This is a technique that jolts most people into getting their feelings back and falling back in love with their partner.

Forgiveness Is Divine

Or, in the words of Jenny Sanford:

“All I can do is forgive. Reconciliation is something else, and that is going to be a harder road. I have put my heart and soul into being a good mother and wife. Now I think it’s up to my husband to do the soul-searching to see if he wants to stay married. The ball is in his court.”

Do You Stash Cash?

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No, I’m not talking about an emergency supply you may have in a kit for a natural disaster or the like (in which case you SHOULD stash your money!), I’m talking about those of us who have a habit of keeping our cash around the house. It’s even more understandable given the recent collapse of banks and all this uncertainty, but consider the example – albeit extreme – of the woman in Tel Aviv who had stashed $1 million in cash under her mattress (literally), which was then hauled away to the dump. The cash still hasn’t been recovered.

According to MSNBC, statistics on the number of people in the U.S. who stash cash at home are hard to come by, but a 2007 survey of 1,500 British adults by Virgin Money found 8 percent of them stash between approximately $500 to $1,650 around the house, usually tucked within a drawer, mattress or safe.

Locked Up Tight?

Utilizing a safe may be one thing, but too often cash-stashers don’t secure their loot behind a combination lock, which can lead to all kinds of problems – the money accidentally being thrown out, donated (when stashed inside a jacket pocket for instance), or stolen. Then you have the risk of fire or even forgetting where you put it!

An exercise I suggest in my book to people who have unhealthy relationships to and with money is to figure out their financial Imago, which I discuss in my book Financial Infidelity – which deals with peoples’ romantic relationships as well as their relationship with money.

Your Relationship With Money

Depending on your stage in life, and your stage in the relationship, there are crucial questions you need to answer. How do you feel about debt? How much debt do you have? Are you a risk-taker or are you risk-averse? Will the kids go to private school? Will we fund their college education in its entirety? Who will pay when we go out? How often will we go out and how often will we eat in?

Of course, these are only a few, sample questions to touch on before you head into significant life changes, but they are a good place to start. Many times you many not even know how to answer those questions yourself, much less how you will answer them as a couple. And just as often, you will have a knee-jerk reaction as to how to answer them that may be completely opposite from your partners. It’s always best to get those reactions out in the open before you find yourself “in the heat of battle!”

If you uncover that your passion for stashin’ is somewhat hereditary, you may want to go around emptying out drawers of heirloom dressers … JUST KIDDING!