This Could Save Many A Marriage

Dear Ann Landers: I just read the letter about the mother who refrained from making any negative comments about her daughter for one month. She then described how miraculously their relationship improved.

Several years ago, I tried the same experiment with my husband. I had reached the point where I could barely tolerate being around him. I’m quite certain he felt the same about me because I never failed to tell him what I thought - and it was never complimentary. I considered divorce long and hard but knew I had really loved him once, and we did have children together. I decided a 30-day experiment was worth the effort.

For the next month, I did not utter a single negative word to my husband. I thought at times I would explode, but I survived. I repeated that experiment for a second month, and it was easier. I lost my temper only once. At the end of the third month, I actually was looking forward to my husband coming home from work.

Six months after I began the experiment, our relationship had turned around completely. By biting my tongue, I gave him the freedom to grow. Delivering advice in a disgusted tone was tearing him down, not helping him. Today, when he needs a piece of my mind, I let him have it, but because I have quit giving him all of my mind when I get angry, he really listens and shapes up. I would have missed out on the incredible life I now have with my husband if I hadn’t tried that experiment. - Mad ABOUT Him, Not AT Him, in Missouri

Dear Missouri: Your “no-knock” experiment is one I strongly recommend. The beautiful part is, it works. Your letter could improve many marriages and might even save some.

Dear Ann Landers: Two years ago, you told your readers about HEAR NOW, an organization that recycles used hearing aids. Amazingly, since that column appeared, we have received 57,964 donated hearing aids. Those, in turn, were reconstructed and recycled to provide new hearing aids to low-income children and adults.

We have received hundreds of letters of gratitude from young and old. A college student wrote that it was the first time he felt part of the class. Another woman told me how excited her father was to be able to hear the birds again. A mother wrote that her daughter received her hearing aid before entering kindergarten and it made a world of difference in her speech and progress. Yet another said, “Our 101-year-old grandmother loves her hearing aid. It makes her life such a joy.”

Ann, over 500,000 hearing aids are discarded every year by people who don’t realize they are still useful. These hearing aids can be refitted and recycled to provide the gift of hearing to sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, grandparents and students - people from all walks of life.

We appreciate the help your readers have provided in the past. Please tell them once again to mail their used hearing aids in a small box or padded envelope to HEAR NOW, 9745 E. Hampden Ave., Suite 300, Denver, Colo. 80231-4923. They can make a difference in the lives of thousands of people. - M. Bernice Dinner, Ph.D., president and founder, HEAR NOW

Dear Bernice: You told them, and I thank you.

xxxx