Dear Dr. Lori,

I have tried for so long to get my marriage back on track. I love my husband, and I think he loves me, but we are like roommates not husband and wife. I am sad and unhappy and it seems the harder I try to hold on to this marriage the further from it my husband seems to move. I have tried, dressing nicely to get his attention, but when he doesn’t notice I feel defeated. I have tried cooking his favorite meal; he says thanks and then reads while we eat, even when I ask him not to. I feel invisible in the marriage. Any suggestions?
Sincerely,
Lost

Dear Lost,
My first question to you is have you tried marriage counseling. Even if your husband isn’t a fan, perhaps he would go if you told him how terrible you feel. If not perhaps go and get some support for yourself. In the meantime I can suggest you talk to him and tell him how you are feeling. Perhaps do it in a restaurant where he isn’t as likely to be reading. Another thing I would like to suggest is that you take a break from trying to get his attention. Sometimes you need to let go a bit before someone picks-up on the fact that you are unhappy in the relationship. I am not suggesting you leave, I am suggesting you start to do SOME things that make you feel happy ad stop trying to fix this situation. Time has a way of bringing things to the surface or making them better. When you try to push a situation, it can backfire and end up creating the exact opposite of what you wanted. So take a break and find thing that fulfill you. See where that takes things in the marriage. I do strongly suggest that you do consider getting some help from your pastor or a therapist for you and your husband or at least for yourself.

I wish you well,
Dr. Lori

Dear Lori,
I work for someone who one day is wonderful to me, and the next day this person is yelling at me that I am incompetent. When I tell this person they are suppose to be my supervisor and helping me not yelling at me I am accused of having a “sassy mouth”. I can’t afford to lose my job, and I don’t know what to make my supervisor happy. I have tried to be pleasant and upbeat even if I don’t feel that way, I try to get all the work done that is assigned to me but it just doesn’t seem to be enough. Do you have any insight to this problem?
Thanks,
Unhappy with Supervisor

Dear Unhappy,
I can see where this would be frustrating for you. It would be very difficult to have a supervisor switch from being friendly to yelling at you. There are many pieces of information I don’t have. Based upon what you have told me I would suggest a few things. First, do you have an accurate job description? If you do not, then get one. If you do are you able to do everything in your job description? If you can’t then go to your supervisor and get the necessary help/training. Is your supervisor yelling at you for good reason? Are you not able to do the work? If you can’t again sit with your supervisor and work out a plan so you can get the training you need to do the job. If you are doing your job well, then your supervisor may have a problem with you. In this case I advise that you begin documenting these yelling episodes for awhile. Then when you have at least 5 different episodes documented, show them to your supervisor if you think they will listen and try to work it out. If you think they will not be willing to sit down and discuss this with you, perhaps you need to take the documentation to their boss. I feel strongly that one should go to the person they are having a problem with before jumping over their head, but I will leave that decision to you.
Good Luck,
Lori