Articles

Home > Relationship  

Your Relationships Begin With You

As a single male in my mid-twenties, I find myself consciously and unconsciously thinking about and searching for that special someone. My goal has always been to be friends with my future wife for at least a year, date for a year, engaged for a year, which includes being married by the time I'm thirty.This goal may seem far-fetched and I admit it is, so I'm open to altering it. I know what I want in a future spouse (I think) and I definitely know what I don't want. But the older I get, the more I realize that the... Read More

Essense of Infidelity

On one very popular web site there were 260 posts from both sexes commenting about forgiving and forgetting infidelities. I read every one of them. With one exception, the perception conveyed was that one party was an innocent victim of the other's philandering. It seemed to me that everyone was looking at adultery as a cause of marital discord. From my perspective, there are only rare exceptions to the fact that adultery, cheating, or affairs are SYMPTOMS of long standing marital problems. The cause occurred possibly even before the marriage vows were uttered. Let's go back to the beginning... Read More

Washroom Break

Picture yourself at a bar with some of your buddies. Everybody is having a good time. Suddenly your friend stands up and asks you to go to the washroom with them.Now if you were a female this would be totally normal you would gladly accept and probably talk up a storm in the washroom. But if you were a man being asked by another man you would feel embarrassed, wonder about your friends' sexuality and manlyhood and hope that the rest of the group doesn't think the same about you.Why do woman use the washroom as a meeting place? Why... Read More

Do Men Just Want Mommy?

Accomplished women are losers in romance claims NY Times columnist Maureen Dowd in her column titled "Men Just Want Mommy." She says powerful men want to marry women who are caretakers like secretaries, assistants, nannies, flight attendants, etc. Are powerful women really at a disadvantage in the marriage market?A University of Michigan study found that men prefer to marry women in subordinate jobs than womem who are supervisors. Another study by British researchers suggests that successful men would rather have traditional wives, more like their mothers. They also reported that the higher a woman's IQ, the less chance she has... Read More

Better Than Help

One thing that women in abusive relationships and their family and friends frequently request is 'help'; help to change the situation. While I understand, and can relate only too well, to their sentiment, the term 'help' makes me feel uncomfortable.Perhaps I can clarify what I mean with an example. A woman I know believes she has found her big idea and her mission. She is constantly looking for people to 'help' her to realise her dream. (She doesn't feel that she can take charge of realising her dream herself.) So people constantly find her who promise help, but first expect... Read More

The Flames of Love

Suppose you have everything; a good job, good health, good reputation, good relationships and lot of money to spend. But still there is something missing from your life. Guess what? The LOVE. It is not something which you should ignore. Life without love is just like body without soul. Love gives meaning to life as without love life is meaningless. Lucky is the person who gets love and keeps the flames of love burning for ever. It is not a matter of days or months. Love is for life and life is for love. Short term love encounters are not... Read More

Get Lucky In Your Love Life

Whether you are single or married, we all need luck in relationship and romance. It could be for getting a lifetime soul mate or to strengthen you relationship with your current spouse. According to Chinese Feng Shui, the romance corner is at the Southwest corner of your home and this corner belongs to the earth element. Therefore, placing earth element object such as crystals in this corner can enhance your romance luck. A solid rose quartz crystal ball is a good option since this stone (rose quartz) teaches us to love ourselves thus opening us to universal love. Another... Read More

Dont Avoid Conflict and Confrontation with Your Spouse

"I just let him handle things his way." "We're not very good at resolving problems, so I let it go." "I just hate confrontation!" Listening, talking, communicating, resolving problems, making joint decisions... these are requirements for all couples. Without good communication skills and quality time dedicated to communicating, relationships soon flounder and fail, especially among couples with the stress of two careers and a full family life. Many couples don't talk because they are avoiding conflict and confrontation. There is a common misconception that conflict and confrontation are bad. One of the major reasons couples have problems is... Read More

Extramarital Affairs: What Everyone Needs to Know and What You Can Do to Help

Recent statistics suggest that 40% of women (and that number is increasing) and 60% of men at one point indulge in extramarital affairs. Put those numbers together and it is estimated that 80% of the marriages will have one spouse at one point or another involved in marital infidelity.That may seem like a very steep number. However after two decades plus of full time work as a marriage and family therapist, I don't believe that number is off the charts. I worked with a great number of people involved in infidelity who were never discovered.The possibility that someone close to... Read More

46 Clues Your Partner is Having an Affair

Some of these signs of a cheating spouse are "tongue in cheek" while others are tell tale signs that commonly appear with a cheating husband or cheating wife. There is no copyright. Feel free to forward to those who might be interested. But please don't change anything.Signs of a Cheating Spouse:1) You find birth-control pills in her medicine cabinet, and you've had a vasectomy.2) Mutual friends start acting strangely toward you. (They either know about the cheating or have been told stories about what a horrible wife or girlfriend you are.)3) Your cheating husband or wife stops confiding in you... Read More

Cheating Spouse: 7 Legitimate Motives for Spying

Should you spy on your cheating husband or wife? You believe you see signs of a cheating spouse. The need to know whether your spouse is cheating and EXACTLY what kind of cheating is taking place is often strong. There are a number of reasons why the drive to spy is powerful. Here are seven:1. Trust is a big reason, not of your partner, but yourself. Probably for some time you have sensed something is different or questioned the change of behavior in your partner. Perhaps you confronted your cheating husband or cheating wife and it was met with denial.... Read More

Cheating Husband/Wife: 6 Keys to Know if You are Ready to Handle What You Might Find When You Spy

When you spy on your suspected cheating spouse, please make sure you consider all the possibilities you might encounter and whether you can handle them.Have you considered the many situations that spying might uncover? Can you imagine the worst thing you might find? Predict what your response will be to the worst-case scenario. Are you ready? Here are some specific questions to ask:1) Do I have friends I can count on for support if I discover the worst? Do they know I might need them? Have I told them exactly how they might help me? Do I have the capacity... Read More

Cheating Spouse: Is Spying an Invasion of Privacy?

My, how the cheating spouse cries foul when he/she discovers you are spying.Outrage can be intense: "How dare you!! I never thought you would stoop to that! How could you!? How can there be trust in this relationship if you do that? This is none of your business; I don't spy and go behind your back! Now you know why I want to pull away from you. How could I love anyone that would do something like that to me?" On and on. Cheating husbands and cheating wives usually will not admit the duplicity of their clandestine behavior. But you... Read More

Infidelity: Spying is NOT Revenge

Do not use what you find on your cheating spouse as ammunition for revenge. Sure, you may have wonderfully violent fantasies of what you would really like to do to him/her and the other person. This is very normal. But, don't act them out.Using what you find to extract revenge will only lengthen the time of pain and anger. It will undermine your integrity as a person, lower your personal standards and make you exceedingly unattractive.Resist the temptation to sling the mud!Keep what you find to yourself.The obvious signs of a cheating spouse disturbed you. You spy because the truth... Read More

10 Crucial and Surprising Steps to Build Trust in a Relationship

1. Be predictable.When do seeds of suspicion emerge? When one begins to think, What's up? Why is he doing that? He's never done that before. That is so unlike him. He loses 30 pounds, buys a new wardrobe and comes home late from work. He changes his patterns. His behavior becomes unpredictable. You get the picture? Any movement away from predictable behavior can become suspect and trust can deteriorate.Focus on acting predictably if you need to build trust. Be consistent in what you do.This doesn't mean you must be boring. If there is a twinkle in your eye and a... Read More

Relationship Spring Cleaning by Susan Sheppard

History doesn't belong in a relationship that is presentMy friend, Jack Rafferty, the famous Man-Woman Coach, used to say "don't clean the clean" referring of course to relationship. What he meant by that was once you have gotten angry, argued, and "effectively dealt with" something that happened that hurt your feelings, be done with it. Don't keep bringing it up like dirty laundry. Once you have forgiven someone for something, it's history. . The conflict, resistance to new concepts, stored resentment and revenge for old hurts, that happens in most relationships relates back to those three words "effectively dealt with",... Read More

Are you (or are you with) a Commitment-Phobe?

We hear it all the time. "He just won't make a commitment." "She just wants some space right now." "I'm not sure if I'm ready for a serious relationship."What does having a fear of commitment really mean? Actually, it means basically what it says. For SOME reason you, or someone you are involved with, isn't ready to take this relationship (or any relationship) to the next step.So how do we know if we or our (hoped for) partner are truly afraid of commitment? How do we know that it's not something else? Is there any real difference between these two... Read More

What Went Wrong? When Relationships Go From Hot To Cold

Everything was great.We had been dating for 6 months. We shared the same interests, felt very at ease together, had (often) discussed future plans and had even spent some of the holidays together. Our relationship seemed right on track and just right in general.Then, without warning, he said he "needs some time to think and figure things out." He stopped calling and rarely returned my calls. When he did, I was often met with silence on the other end of the line. When I asked "what happened", I just got a verbal run around of excuses about how busy he... Read More

Are You Relationship Ready?

So, you want to fall in love? You are certainly old enough and moving well along your chosen career path. Many of your friends are either married or in committed relationships. You have grown weary of the singles sceneand the solitary life. Therefore, you must be ready, right?Not necessarily.So what is relationship readiness anyway? Exactly what it says. You are adequately capable of handling the commitment and challenges that a healthy, intimate relationship requires.How do you know if you are ready? What are the characteristics you need to have or acquire in order to be ready for true love?There are... Read More

How to Ask for a Gratifying Sex Life

So your relationship has changed over the years since you said "I do" and sex isn't what it use to be. First you should know that this is normal and common place in the majority of marriages. Knowing that you are not alone does not make you feel any better nor does it get you the satisfying sex life that you once had. You simply can't go through the trials of life without changing.Some men and women feel that if their spouse is not interested in sex, this gives them license to have an affair. Being in a committed marital... Read More