Chatterbox
This has no basis in magazine, internet or lit. This is from personal experience.
If you want to maintain a healthy long-lasting relationship, you must talk. I'm not refering to planning out where you're going for dinner or whose picking up the kids. I mean talking like you have all the time in the world for that other junk. Talk about religeon. Talk about politics. Talk about the fabulous new novel you just finished. Talk about your fascination with *whatever*. Talk about what makes you tick...what makes you who you are.
If you do not, one day you will wake up and realize that you have no idea who that guy/girl is that's in bed with you.
Make time for it. Plan dates that include chatting over coffee. Think of insightful or leading questions to ask your partner in order to trigger some great convo. Above all, be an active participant.
These talks help maintain intimacy. It is my firm belief that these talks make or break a relationship.
Labels: communication, love, marriage, relationships
How to deal when your significant other has changed
Here is the thing about love: it is never perfect. Even the most wonderful person in the world is going to have flaws. When you can accept them, flaws and all, that is love.
Sometimes people change. Maybe you've accepted all of your significant other's flaws, but years go by and new ones come up that you never would've accepted in the beginning. Sometimes the person you love is going to change for the worse. What do you do when the person you're with is not the person you fell in love with? In the immortal words of Kenny Rogers, "you gotta know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em."
Ask yourself, is this a change I can live with? Let's say you married a vegetarian hippie like yourself, but now he's eating steaks and his politics are decided by Toby Keith songs. Can the two of you have a relationship full of lively, respectful debate? Or have things become hostile and bitter as you realize you're not on the same page anymore. Even a change for the worse can be something you can adjust to in time, you just have to really be honest with yourself about how it will affect your relationship.
Temporary changes happen sometimes, and in this case I think you've got to stick by them and get them through it. If your normally happy girlfriend gradually becomes sad and withdrawn, she could have depression, and it's something you can try to help her out of. Encourage her to go to therapy or figure out what triggered it in the first place. If it's a temporary setback, your relationship may be fine, if not stronger, when you get over the rough patch. Temporary changes can be brought on by stress, depression, change in work status, or many other things. This is the time when your significant other needs you the most, but you need to confront them about how they've changed. Waiting for them to fix it ,when they may not have even realized what was happening, isn't fair to them. Things like depression can come on gradually, and they may not know what was wrong until you point out specific things that are different.
If it's a permanent change, then it's up to you to decide if it's time to leave. How will you know? Talk to them about it. Do they recognize that they've changed, that it wasn't a positive change, and they want to fix it? Then stick by them. If they keep saying they want to fix it, but given time make no real steps toward doing so, then it's time to reconsider. This is never easy. You want to believe that they are going to make the changes you want them to, and you still love them very much. But if they keep promising to try to fix thing s but they make no attempt to do so, that is a problem. If they are really trying but it's not working, it may still be salvageable. The difference is when they are really trying, or just giving you lip service to keep you around. That can be one of the hardest things to differentiate when you're looking at someone with loving eyes.
When you bring up the change you've noticed, are they hostile or defensive, or do they see what has changed as a positive? Then it's up to you to decide if you want to stay. You never know, the change that you perceive in their personality may even be a reaction to a change in yours that you weren't even aware of.
Labels: communication, love, relationships
Having Standards that are Just Right
Having standards while dating can be tricky business. If they are too low, you end up in one of those "What was I thinking?" situations, where you're with someone that is clearly not right for you. If you're standards are too high, you risk missing out on a lot of opportunities to spend time with great people.
As Lauryn Hill put it, "Respect is just the minimum." If your boyfriend or girlfriend does not respect you, it should be over right then and there. Basic respect means they don't belittle your opinions, they don't ignore your concerns, and as mentioned in a previous post, they don't tell you that your feelings are wrong. That doesn't mean they can't disagree with you, but there is a respectful way to do so. When your standards are too low, you may not see disrespect for what it really is. If you're putting up with someone who lies, cheats, ignores your feelings, or treats you with indifference, you need to raise your standards.
When your standards are too high, the only person it hurts is you. I think it's great to have an idea of the kind of person you're looking for, but be willing to try someone who isn't exactly your type. Are your deal breakers things that are close to your heart (like being an animal lover?) Or are they things that, down the line, won't really matter (like only dating girls with blond hair?) Something I
posted about before is that when you are in love with someone, they become attractive to you. It's the way your brain is wired. Even if they weren't your type before, if you give them a chance and you develop that emotional bond, you'll find them attractive pretty quickly. That doesn't mean you should date someone you find repulsive, but giving someone a shot who doesn't fit your normal physical type is definitely worth it if there are other qualities you really like about him or her.
This is for the ladies. Specifically, the ladies that read romance novels. I work in a library, so I see quite a few of these every day.
You are not going to marry any sort of prince. There are not tons of super sweet billionaire bachelors out there who are sick of dating starlets and are just looking for a nice Midwestern secretary. If you have an affair with some Greek doctor, he is not going to fall in love with you when he discovers that you're carrying his child. And you will not, I repeat WILL NOT, ever marry a sheik. We're keeping our standards and expectations in check here.
The situation I've seen happen time and time again is that people have really high expectations for the things that don't really matter in a relationship, and they are willing to accept anyone who meets them. The way he or she treats you should be the most important thing in a relationship. Who cares if he has money, if he's a jerk? Who cares if she's gorgeous if she constantly belittles you? Ladies out there who like bad boys, you know exactly what I'm talking about. He has tattoos, he rides a motorcycle, you fall in love. It's too bad he blows off dates with you, drinks too much, and is completely uninterested in anything you have to say. Meanwhile you met a great guy at a party, but you were too wrapped up in Mr. Leather Jacket to see it.
You'll likely never find someone who matches what you have pictured in your head exactly. If you learn when to bend your standards a little bit, and when to stick to them, you'll waste less time in go-nowhere relationships and have more opportunities to find real love.
Labels: love, relationships, standards
Making Relationships Conscious
"Intimacy is the realization that you have a profound effect on the other and treating that knowledge with the utmost respect."
This is from a great column from the
Santa Barbara Independent about the importance of making relationships conscious. I know it sounds like new-age hippie stuff, but it's really good advice. I think its important to point out that a relationship is something you put effort into every single day. For some people it might be easy, but every relationship hits rough patches. If you put in the routine maintenance, a little bit each day, you'll get over the rough patches. If you don't put in the effort, the rough patches will tear you apart.
There is a follow up article called
Making a Conscious Relationship Work. I want to pull out this quote:
"If you can't describe your feelings of anger, hurt or disappointment to your spouse because it is disallowed—through such typical maneuvers such as shaming or ignoring—then you are being emotionally abused and you don't have a viable relationship."
So completely and amazingly true. You need to be able to express your feelings to your significant other, no matter what, without fear of ridicule, and without being ignored. I will say that sometimes you might want to calm down and collect your thoughts before expressing yourself; screaming at someone won't get your point across as well as talking about something honestly but calmly. Honesty is the key though. While yelling and screaming are counterproductive, you also don't want to water down what you need to say. The right person will listen to you and give feedback. Don't accept anything less. The person who keeps everything bottled up inside can be just as destructive to a relationship as the person who is emotionally abusive. You've got to talk to your significant other when a problem arises, not six months later when the resentment has snowballed and you can't take it anymore. It's not fair to them, if they never even knew about the problem.
Labels: communication, love
Long Distance Relationships!
Here is an
article about long distance relationships from the Boston Globe. The article discusses the factors that have led to more 20-somethings trying to maintain romantic relationships over long distances. One of the people they interviewed mentioned that all of the time spent talking and getting to know each other when they were apart made moving in together much easier, because they had already talked about a lot of issues that would come up later. I think this was definitely true in my case as well. Especially when you're going to move very far away to be with someone, you want to make sure there won't be too many unpleasant surprises when you move in. If you're considering moving a long way to be with the one you love, you should start talking about things like chores, bills, pets, all of your annoying habits, and anything else that might come up. Hate doing the dishes? Mentioning that now can avoid a fight later. Maybe if your potential live-in partner hates laundry, you can work out a trade.
If you're trying to do the long distance thing, I can not recommend purchasing a web cam enough. It's really nice to be able to see someone while you're talking to them.
Eyejot is a new service that can add another use for your web cam. It lets you send short web cam videos in email. It's completely web-based, so you don't have to download any sort of software to use it. When I tried it, the video worked immediately. However, it took me a bit to get the audio working. That might be because I'm completely incompetent with computer audio, though! This would be great for long distance couples to send each other video emails. Even if you aren't far away from each other, you could use
Eyejot to send each other funny little messages whenever you want. (via
Lifehacker)
From the Village Voice, the story of how a BDSM relationship
ended up in federal court. The article points out that this case would be much different had the charges been filed with the local police, instead of the US Attorney.
The Queen of England shows that she considers couples who are unmarried but living together to be
essentially married. As half of a cohabitating couple, I think that's a pretty cool recognition of today's changing lifestyles.
Labels: bdsm, long distance, love
Falling in love in Rome, lights on or off, and being happy and single!
How do you express your love in Rome? By
hanging a padlock on an ancient bridge, and throwing the key into the river. I don't know what I love about this story more, the fact that it's a brand new trend on the most ancient bridge in the city, or the fact that it was spurred by two recent books. I love when reading a book makes people go out and *do* something.
A
blogger ponders the eternal question: Do you turn the lights off or keep them on during sex?
I think I agree with this blogger, I don't have a preference as long as it's not harsh, artificial fluorescent lighting. No one looks sexy under those lights!
This is a
really good article about being happy with being single. Have a friend who is complaining about not being in a relationship? Send them this link! I especially like the part about taking time while you're single to figure out where you've gone wrong in past relationships, and take care of some emotional baggage.
Labels: love, sex, single life
Are text messages and TV the bane of relationships?
Do you use text messaging or other technology to avoid serious conversations?
Here is an article talking about the importance of face-to-face conversations in the digital age. It points out that texting shouldn't be used as a way out of a real conversation that you don't want to have. I agree with that point, but I would add that its better to text about something than never discuss it at all. Quietly stewing about something is far worse than having a text conversation about it. Personally, I hate texting on phones- it takes too long. I've had plenty of important conversations via instant messaging or email, though.
In the latest "
Blame Television for the Downfall of Civilization" news, studies show that people are more disengaged from those around them when the TV is on. Does this mean you should take the TV out of your bedroom? The article does point out that it depends on how people use the TV. Do you turn the TV on to drown out your partner, or do you watch together and talk about the shows? It can be a nice way to relax together if its something you both enjoy. If you're using it to zone out and ignore your partner, then there are likely problems in the relationship that can't be solved just by taking the TV out of the bedroom.
A very sad, touching
article from BBC News about an Israeli woman and a Palestinian man in love.
A woman talks about sexuality and Buddhism in a post from
BuddhistGeeks.com.
Labels: communication, love, religion
Why do fools fall in love? Neurotransmitters!
Ever wonder what causes you to fall madly in love? Chances are neurotransmitters like dopamine in your brain had something to do with it. Here's some info about how these chemicals affect romance:
First an
article from CNN. Researchers looked at MRIs of people who were in love to find out what exactly happens in the brain. There is a very interesting point about love and lust affecting seperate areas of the brain.
Next, a special section from BBC about "
The Science of Love". Like the CNN article, this one also points out that love's affect on the brain is similar to that of cocaine.
Here is an article from a very cool site called Your Amazing Brain that details what your brain is going through during the three stages of a relationship: lust, attraction, and attachment.
Interested in more about why we fall in love the way we do? A lot of things I read on the subject mentioned Helen Fisher's book,
Why We Love. Especially check it out if you're interested in the three stages of relationships.
Labels: love, neurotransmitters, science
