Ask Dan and Jennifer » honesty

Men Are from Way Farther Away Than Mars!

Maia Berens — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 13:06:13 +0000

Many of you probably have read the book Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus and many of the rest you have heard things about it if you haven’t read it. Well, I didn’t write it.

But I worked with John Gray for 18 years, wrote workshops and a training based on the Mars Venus stuff and trained over 500 speakers and therapists on how to give those workshops. So I should know about men, right? Well, I know some things about men.

In order to feel loved in a relationship, men need to be trusted. Men need to be accepted the way they are. They don’t want you to try to change them. Men want to be appreciated for what they do.

They also want to be admired, to be regarded by their partner with "wonder, delight and pleased approval". Men also need encouragement so that they become hopeful and courageous to go out and do what they do all over again even when it’s hard.

This is all vintage Mars Venus. You may not agree but the expert says so and the following are how I observe this to be true about the man I live with all these years:

Men Need to be Trusted

One of the most hurtful things I can do is not trust my husband. When he does his household disappearing act like leave, say nothing to me that he’s leaving or where he’s going, he is disturbed by my not trusting that if he were going some place for long or really away, he’d tell me.

After all, he just went to the car for twenty minutes. I shouldn’t be worried that he died somewhere or was captured by other Martians.

Men Need to be Accepted the Way They Are

Now I’m a woman and if my husband tells me lovingly that when we are with other people, I sometimes (or often) interrupt him or finish his sentences and we could have a signal so I know when I’m doing it, that’s cool. I don’t mind. He’s right. I don’t want to be the person who does that.

But in his case, he’d rather I tell him how what he does affects me and trust that he’ll make his own improvements. He doesn’t want me to tell him what to do or how to do it.

Men Want to be Appreciated and Admired for What They Do

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How Keeping A Journal Can Reveal If Your Lover Is Cheating

Jim Walthby — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 13:05:32 +0000

Our minds aren’t perfect at remembering special details and specific facts. Far from it.

Our brains work selectively; they store and recall certain bits of information while forgetting others.

For example, you might remember, for whatever reason, a phone number that has little or no importance to you, but forget the birthday of someone you really should buy a present for.

For the most part, this selective/subjective memory trait creates no real problems in our day to day lives. We can look up a number if we forget it, or ask a friend of a friend for the day of the month on which someone’s birthday falls.

When Selective Memory Is A Problem

However, sometimes it can make things slightly trickier. One such time is when we suspect our partner may be cheating on us. Imagine you walk into the room just as your partner is putting down the phone and they seem a little on edge or tense as they turn around and see you.

The incident may stick out in your mind for weeks, niggling at you, making you wonder: did it mean something, was it a sign? Fast forward to a different occasion, when your partner returns home from a business meeting or other engagement late and immediately jumps in the shower, even before properly saying ‘hi’ to you.

You might rationalize their behavior by thinking: “Well, they were probably tired or something. They surely just felt like refreshing themselves with a shower,” then forget all about it.

You might be 100% right, but that’s not really the point. The strange phone incident and the unusual dash to the bathroom on returning home could both have happened because your partner is cheating on you, and conversely they both could be wholly innocent and not caused by infidelity.

The point here is, remembering one incident over the other and thus giving it more weight or meaning than the other in your mind could potentially make it much more difficult to ascertain what is or isn’t going on, whether they’re trustworthy or not.

So, to combat the human tendency to selectively remember and therefore consider some incidents more than others, and therefore improve your chances of revealing the truth, you should keep an objective, non-selective record of everything that happens. Here’s how it works:

Keep A Journal

Use a journal or diary, not a digital method of recording events, changes in behavior/habits/moods, etc. Noting things in your own handwriting allows each piece of information recorded to be absorbed more deeply and permanently by your mind than if you type them out quickly on a computer.

Also, paper records (a diary, journal, etc.) are usually more portable than laptops, PC’s, etc., which could come in handy if/when you spot a potential sign of infidelity away from home.

Be Objective

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Cheating And Infidelity – Can It Really Be Prevented?

Chick In Heels — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:05:19 +0000

I always find it fascinating to hear people discuss infidelity and what could have prevented it or what the cheater ‘should have’ done before stepping outside of their relationship.

Are couples really supposed to think about how to KEEP their partner from cheating or how NOT to cheat?

Do We Really Need to Anticipate Cheating?

The thing about cheating in most cases is, it’s not an anticipated occurrence. I mean, no one gets married or enters into a relationship thinking that they will cheat or that their partner will. So all of the ‘couldda-wouldda-shouldda’ talk seems meaningless to me.

Some experts suggest that the partner who was cheated on did not adorn enough attention or appreciation on the cheater. Other experts solely blame the cheater on breaking their vows or stepping outside of their relationship in greed.

Talking About it Before it Happens

Many tend to agree that couples should sit down and have a discussion at the first sign of trouble or to be open with the other partner about their unhappiness in the relationship prior to having an affair occur. I find that thought wildly unrealistic.

I think if you are at a stage where you have to sit down and have ‘that conversation’ things are already too far gone. Plus, I would bet that there are a very minimal percentage of people who would actually HAVE a conversation like this prior to any affair happening. It just doesn’t happen like that.

As much as we’d like to believe that our partner would ‘at least’ show us the respect of exiting the relationship before a third party interferes, most times, it just doesn’t work that way. The list of what ‘to do’ or what ‘not to do’ when it comes to a faithful relationship is endless.

A true realization of the risk factors to cheating are never fully appreciated until the scope of the reality sets in. In other words, until the cheater is caught or confesses out of guilt. Many men (sorry guys!) have stated that they would indeed cheat if they KNEW for sure they could get away with it.

Unless you can erase your memory, I don’t believe you can ever truly get away with cheating. In most cases, something’s gotta give. Sometimes that will include losing custody of your children, losing your home, losing the person you may have actually loved more.. never truly anticipating that you might be found out.

Does Cheating Really Add Something to the Relationship?

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I’m Leaving You! Does The Punishment Really Fit The Crime? (Video)

Dan and Jennifer — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 19:04:40 +0000

If you’ve been in a relationship where you or your partner threaten to leave or end the relationship when you’re angry, you’re not alone. In reality, this is often something people do out of frustration and desperation.

You may not be planning to leave or end the relationship at all, even though you’re angry now.

What causes you to act so extreme?

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Feeling Out Of Control

It’s easy for someone to feel out of control in a situation like that. One partner gets upset, the other gets upset and it goes back and forth, escalating until one or both partners feel completely out of control.

Being extremely angry at your partner can make you feel lost and helpless, and an escalating argument doesn’t help the situation any at all. It simply gets to a point where you feel so out of control of the situation that you want to say something, anything, to gain some control again over what is happening.

Threatening to leave or end the relationship puts you back in control and puts the ball back in your court. Your partner may say, "Fine, leave," however this simply puts you back in the position of feeling out of control.

Arguments between couples often go on and on like this, until one or both partners get enough time and space to resolve the original argument. It might be difficult at that point, however, to even remember what the original argument was about!

Where Does It Come From

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Should I Tell My Parents I’m Gay? (Video)

Paul Carlson — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 20:05:17 +0000

Discovering that you’re gay and learning to accept who you are is difficult. It’s not an easy road to take.

However, once you’ve accepted yourself, there comes a time that you want your friends and family to accept you as well. Should you tell your parents that you’re gay?

Unfortunately, it’s not necessarily and easy "yes" or "no" answer.

I’m gay! Should I tell my parents? If so, how? When?

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Take A Look At Your Family’s Background

Were you raised in a very strict, religious family? Were your parents raised in a very strict, religious family? What kind of values does your family hold? Take a look at other things that society has accepted and really look at how your family has reacted to that.

Do you have parents or grandparents that are still prejudiced against races other than their own? Do any of your family members still hold outdated beliefs about women and their place in society?

Do you have any friends that are gay or do your parents come into contact with gay people in their daily lives? How do they react to these people?

Really examine your family and feel out how they’ve judged similar situations that have caused society to change its beliefs as a whole. Have your parents changed with the times or do they still hold old fashioned beliefs? Do they hold strict religious beliefs?

Taking a hard look at how they’ve judged similar situations will help you determine whether or not its best to tell you’re parents that you’re gay at this time in your life.

When To Tell

Telling your parents that you’re gay might not be best when you’re young.

Your parents may react very strongly to the news, whether they’ve suspected it or not, and you need to make sure you have a solid support system of friends, a home, a job and anything else you might need to get you through a tough time should your parents decide this is not news they’re willing to accept.

It can be incredibly painful when parents decide they’re not ready to accept a child being gay, and its important that you take steps to make sure you’ll be okay should that happen. Waiting until you’re older may be a wise decision.

Other Things To Consider

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3 Common Signs Your Partner May Be Cheating On You

Jim Walthby — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 19:14:33 +0000

An unfaithful husband, cheating wife, any kind of disloyal partner, is an ugly prospect. And that feeling of being betrayed by someone we thought we could trust more than anyone else is one of the worst.

People who discover their partners have been unfaithful to them go through a hurricane of different emotions – anger, sadness, shame, dejection, sometimes even relief. It’s a grieving process, not of a person that’s died, but of a relationship and level of trust that’s instantly disintegrated. In short, it sucks.

But before you can begin “grieve” that loss of trust, or simply throw caution to the wind and ditch your partner for good, you need to make absolutely sure your reaction will be 100% warranted. You need to know without doubt whether your lover has, in fact, double-crossed you by looking for, finding, and partaking in, an affair.

The only guaranteed way of knowing this, aside from finding damning physical evidence or seeing the affair with your own eyes (both pretty rare), is by hearing a confession straight from the horse’s mouth, by communicating your suspicions with your partner and listening to what they have to say however heartbreaking or relieving their response might be.

But before you take that big step, there are a few simpler and smaller steps you can take to make the whole process, the whole “investigation” and confrontation of your partner, easier and more factually accurate.

The first thing you should do is look for some of the most common signs/groups of signs people produce when they cheat. I’ve listed 3 of them below. Read over and think about each and carefully consider if they apply to you, your partner and your relationship.

1. Changes in sex drive and sexual behavior

Sex is almost always an integral part of a happy and healthy relationship between two people. So when one of the two, regardless of whether it’s the guy or the girl, begins to cheat, it doesn’t come as any surprise that changes in the way they feel about having sex with their partner can be brought about. There are two main ways these changes can manifest themselves.

When the cheater initially begins their affair they may, out of guilt and in an effort to avoid the newly formed affair being rumbled, actually increase the amount of attention they pay their real partners in bed. Conversely, and usually a little while after the affair has begun, the cheater may appear to have a loss of sex drive.

They, for some reason, seem to not want to be intimate with you as much as they used to. Once again, this can be attributed to guilt, but more often it’s to do with a fear they’ll reveal their infidelity through they way they behave before, during and after having sex with you.

2. Peculiar changes in habits & schedule

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8 Ways You May be Betraying Your Lover

Scott and Stephen Petullo — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 18:45:17 +0000

Infidelity comes in many different forms besides having a sexual relationship with someone other than your lover, assuming you’ve agreed to a monogamous relationship with that person.

We’re often asked how romantic betrayal relates to spiritual tenets such as karma and personal destiny. In two words, a lot. Our long-term empirical research firmly indicates that everything you do and say will return to you, and usually not in the same lifetime.

The Big Picture

When looking at the big picture in relation to your love life, it’s important to realize that key circumstances and events, "good" and "bad," happen because that’s the way your soul (not your personality) planned them before birth so you can learn your lessons and grow spiritually.

However, you do have free will to make the most of every situation. You can also limit your future life karma by treating others as you want to be treated now. Below we list five ways you may be betraying your lover, possibly even without realizing you’re doing so.

1. Emotional Cheating

You have an emotionally intimate relationship with someone other than your spouse. You’re not sleeping with this other person, but still you have an intimate connection that you explore and nurture. If this sort of relationship isn’t acceptable with your spouse, then you are betraying them.

2. Fantasizing Outside the Relationship

You’re regularly fantasizing about someone else, even while in bed with your partner. If you and your partner have an agreement that it’s okay to do so, then fine, but beyond that, it’s a form of betrayal.

3. Disregarding Personal Health

You stop maintaining your health, take up unhealthy habits that cause your looks to deteriorate and, or otherwise are not making the most of your appearance and looking your best for your partner.

4. Decreasing Sexual Frequency

You limit the amount of sex between you and your significant other. Worse, you start to offer sex to your partner only under certain conditions, perhaps in exchange for something such as giving you more of his or her disposable income.

5. Cutting Off Your Partner

You cut off your lover emotionally or intellectually, or otherwise limit or sever vital human contact. Sure, relationships go through certain stages where you may change the way you relate, but to intentionally starve him or her of the type of emotional or mental contact you had prior is a form of betrayal.

6. Financial Irresponsibility

You are not financially responsible, spend more than you both make or have, and risk his or her good credit standing. Telling your lover he or she should be making more money isn’t an excuse for spending too much.

7. Just Pretending

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Should I Give My Cheating Man Another Chance? (Video)

Dan and Jennifer — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 19:20:28 +0000

Whether you’re in a brand new relationship or a years old marriage, being cheated on is devastating. The idea of losing a relationship and the person you love can be even more devastating.

Should you give your cheating partner another chance or does it end here?

Dear Dan and Jennifer,

I’ve had the feeling my bf was cheating on me. I’ve caught him in multiple lies about were he was, why it was taking him hours to get home from work, where his money was going… In the end through checking his voicemail and email I found out that he was cheating. I have even gone so far as to show him the emails and tell him about the voicemails. He still insists that it never happened. I am willing to give him one more chance if and only if he comes clean and is completely honest with me. Am I foolish to think that our relationship can be saved?

–Marie, MA

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Cheating And Apologizing

Everyone makes mistakes, its human nature. It might have happened because your partner was a little too drunk or it might have been a flat out mistake. A person who cheats and it was obviously a mistake may try to hide it, because they’re afraid of what might happen if they’re honest.

When confronted about the cheating, however, this type of person will usually own up to the mistake and apologize for it. In these cases, it can be easier to forgive and forget and give your partner another chance.

Cheating And Lying

On the other side of the coin, there’s the type of person who will cheat, continually even, and deny or lie about it even when confronted with evidence that they’ve been cheating. Even worse is when this person continues to cheat even after they’ve been confronted about it and denied it!

This type of cheater is definitely more difficult to forgive and in some cases, it’s better to move on and find a new relationship. If your partner isn’t willing to own up to their mistakes and promise to be honest and move past the cheating, there’s really no way you can forgive them.

How can you forgive someone who isn’t sorry or who won’t even stop cheating? This is something you really have to think about on your own and figure out what you can live with. This type of cheater is generally the type that is considered "once a cheater, always a cheater."

Giving A Cheater Another Chance

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Did You Know That 81% of People Lie in Their Online Dating Profiles?

Stuart Morris — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 11:51:50 +0000

For people who are either considering online dating or are already involved in online dating, lying is a big concern.

There are plenty of stories, each more frightening than the last, about first dates gone terribly wrong when the other person showed up and it was obvious that they had lied on their online profile about something really fundamental like their weight, height, or even age.

It’s an incredibly awkward situation to be in, and it rarely ends well.

Now, a research study has been done to find out just how many people are lying in their online dating profiles, and how big the lies are. Jeffery Hancock of Cornell University and his fellow researchers took 80 willing participants, 40 men and 40 women, from the New York area and compared their online dating profiles to their real life selves.

Specifically, they compared the 80 participants on height, weight, and age.

The Lying Masses

What Hancock found was that 81% of the 80 participants lied about at least one of the three things in their profile. Perhaps not surprising, women lied the most about weight by under stating it in their profiles, and men lied most about their height by over stating it in their profiles.

Yet despite such a high number of liars among us, the average lie was actually quite small:

Age – The average lie about age was only .44 years higher or lower than the real number, hardly a lie to be worried about
Height – The average lie about height was only .33 inches higher or lower than the real number. Again, not a big enough lie to really worry about it
Weight - The average lie about weight was 5.86 pounds higher or lower than the real number, which is not small, but not terribly large either

So while 81% of online daters may lie in their profiles, the lies are usually quite small. So small, in fact, that you would probably never even realize you had been lied to in the first place if you met the person in real life.

Most people realize that lying in their online profiles wont pan out in the long run, and any lie they do include is subtle enough that you’re probably not going to notice unless you bring a scale and a tape measure on your date.

A Few Bad Apples

The study found…

Afraid To Talk To Your Partner? Here’s a Step By Step Guide to Overcoming Your Fears…

Nick Arrizza MD — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 13:53:15 +0000

Certainly love means many things but one of the critical components is the ability to be courageous and indeed honest in your communications with your partner.

This is perhaps one of the most difficult of tasks because of the many fears that step in one’s way. It may not seem surprising that these fears are also those that eventually spell the demise of a relationship.

So what are some of these fears and how does one transcend them in order to establish a healthy and truly loving relationship?

Fears in Communication

First the fears; they include such things as:

I fear I will be rejected if I speak my truth to my partner.
I fear I will hurt my partner with my truth.
I fear I will feel guilty and be unable to forgive myself.
I fear I will have to justify my feelings or beliefs to my partner.
I fear my partner may get angry with me.

Clearly capitulating to such fears means suppressing your own truth. That is accompanied with feelings of frustration, dishonesty, needing to constantly be on guard that one’s truth is kept under control, and a decreasing degree of true intimacy.

It may also lead to feelings of becoming emotionally and sexually distant from one’s partner, possibly the sharing of such information with third parties in order to vent one’s frustrations, sexual affairs and so on.

The tendency for all of these is to undermine the relationship anyway.

So if you’re feeling caught between the proverbial “rock and the hard place” how does one find a way to nurture a truly healthy, loving and sustainable relationship? Well, to summon up the courage to be honest and truthful when the circumstances call for it!

Summoning Up the Courage to Communicate

Of course in order to do so one must transcend the catastrophic beliefs i.e. the potential for rejection, being hurtful, feeling guilty etc., that are fed by the fears that I have listed above.

Here is a powerful way to accomplish this.

Let’s take the first item above i.e. the fear of rejection as an example that you can walk through with me.

Overcoming Fear Step by Step

Now contemplate the following question: “What is the benefit to you of having the fear of rejection living inside you?” Initially one may say that it protects one from getting rejected,

If this is the case, then supposedly how would you feel knowing that you were being protected in this way? Well, you might say that you might be feeling safe, secure, calm, relaxed, confident and resilient to the reactions of others to whatever you might say.

So to summarize one could say that: The fear of rejection causes you to feel safe, secure, calm, relaxed, confident and resilient to the reactions of others to whatever you might say.

Is That Really Your Truth?

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How To Break The Communication Gridlock And Save Your Marriage

Melody Brooke — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 13:06:46 +0000

As a child I heard that “children are best seen not heard” so often I never spoke up in public about anything. We are taught to keep our thoughts and feelings to ourselves from an early age.

Gender differences in communication

Girls are taught subtly in the classroom to keep their ideas to themselves.

There was a study done years ago (sorry, I don’t recall the source) where they counted the number of times girls were called upon in class to boys, and the number of times girls were punished for speaking out of turn as opposed to boys. This study revealed that girls are called upon less, and punished for speaking out of turn more.

Boys, of course are taught to hide their feelings from toddlerhood. Our culture doesn’t even allow boys to learn the words for feelings. Then, older boys, fathers, brothers, teachers, and coaches shame them if they show any sign of having a feeling other than happiness or anger.

So it’s no wonder communication is so hard for us. Yet those of us who can overcome our difficulties with communication are the best equipped for any career and have far more financial and social success.

Environmental effects on communication styles

For myself, my “dysfunctional family” further complicated all the cultural edicts against communication. I learned to keep secrets, to protect others from my feelings (I didn’t want anyone to know how badly I hurt because then I would have to tell them why), and to try to guess what others wanted from me since they wouldn’t come out and tell me.

Coming into a marriage with this kind of baggage at age 43 and a history of two failed marriages did not bode well from my new partner. Yet he took the gamble (Yea!) and I think it has paid off for both of us.

To get to good communication from the very beginning we had to fight a number of difficulties.

First, I was phobic of his anger (anger in my family meant someone would get abandoned or hurt) and because of his own Self-Protector mode anger was his primary emotion. Second, I hid my real feelings because of how I had been trained as a child.

The first year of our marriage was turbulent and extremely painful at times. It was a good thing we were so crazy about each other or we could never have survived it!

Overcoming communication difficulties

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Can Swinger Relationships REALLY Work? (Video)

Dan and Jennifer — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 23:44:59 +0000

Nowadays, you hear so much about open relationships and swinging, where partners will team up with other couples (or even go their separate ways) to have new and fun sexual experiences with other people.

You also sometimes hear how this is essentially a recipe for disaster, but you’ve thought about it and it sounds like something you might want to try. Can an open relationship or swinging relationship ever actually work?

Can swinger and open relationships really work or are they just a recipe for disaster?

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Yes, for strong couples.

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My Boyfriend is a Total Liar! Should I Dump Him Or Give Him Another Chance? (Video)

Dan and Jennifer — Tue, 06 May 2008 13:45:40 +0000

What should you do if your partner lies to you?

It can be a tough situation to deal with, especially if both partners love and care about each other despite the lies.

There are a few things to ask both yourself and your partner before making a decision whether or not to stay with them.

One thing is for certain – a good relationship is open and honest.

Dear Dan and Jennifer,

We have been living together for 3 years and together for 3.6 years. We are engaged.

He would do ANYTHING for me, but at the same time LIES. He lies about MONEY and work. He is not a good provider. I can’t even work because he can’t afford his own car and uses mine and He would rather be the one working.

What do you do when you both love each other but your partner can’t tell you the truth about money things? How can I get him to UNDERSTAND that he needs to be honest about money and work? Please help, I need to make a decision FAST before I marry into a problem that cannot be fixed.

- Melissa, NY

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Why is he lying?

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Love, Money, and Sex – Advice for a Lasting Relationship – Dan and Jennifer on Retirement Television (Video)

Dan and Jennifer — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 01:57:45 +0000

What are the really hard issues that can tear apart the best relationships over time?

Love, Money, and Sex. At the core of it, that’s it. Sure, there are lots of little issues, but ultimately most of them come down to Love, Money, and Sex.

We recently had the pleasure of meeting Florence Henderson and Meshach Taylor on the set of their new show, Living Live on Retirement Television. They asked us to share with their audience our advice for a long lasting, happy relationship.

So what DOES it take to have a long lasting, happy relationship?

Be HONEST with your partner! No, not just part of the time…

TALK to EACH OTHER – Always share your feelings. It doesn’t matter one bit what your friends think. What truly matters is how you and your partner feel about each other. And if you’re not completely open with your feelings, your relationship is doomed.

So without further delay, watch Dan and Jennifer LIVE on Retirement TV!

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Then, be sure to chime in and tell us your thoughts - leave a comment below.

How to Tell Your Partner Anything and Live to Tell About It

Melody Brooke — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 13:16:36 +0000

Do you have things that you don’t tell you partner because you’re afraid of how they’ll react? Is it easier to avoid the conversation than to deal with their response?

Do you know that your lack of communication is actually hurting your relationship rather than helping it?

Here’s great article from featured author, Melody Brooke that will help you better understand how to have even the most difficult conversation with your partner and how having these conversations can actually help your relationship grow even stronger.

Oh, No, I Could Never Tell Him That!

by Melody Brooke, MA, LPC, LMFT

It took me many years to figure out that my way of communicating was a disaster. I was so paranoid of telling my partner things that would upset him that I had very few things that I could actually say to him. Even when I got over the paranoia, I still found myself not always telling him things.

By choosing to limit what I was telling my partner, I was controlling him. I chose not to tell him certain things because I was afraid of his reaction. I didn’t want to displease him or anger him, so I just didn’t tell him things that I feared would cause those reactions.

For years I was convinced behavior I labeled as “controlling” was a “bad” thing. It would make upset me terribly to have someone tell me what to do or to command me to behave in a certain way. I would be triggered into feeling trapped, angry and resentful. Yet I never realized that my own lack of communication was really the same thing!

The decision making process is key to understanding why we communicate the way we do. If our decision-making is based on fear or control, we are in for trouble. The trick is; how do we recognize our motivations? To know what our motivations are, we have to be connected with our own feelings. We have to be able to name them, and we have to be able to recognize how they are affecting us, and our communications.

The funny thing is that many of us are keenly aware of what other people are feeling (or what we think they are feeling) and yet clueless about what we are feeling. What I have learned over the years is that the same thing motivates all of us: survival. On a brain level we are driven to do that which will help us survive in whatever circumstance we find ourselves.

Rarely in this day and age are those feelings based on actual physical survival, but rather they are based on the survival of our well being. When we feel our well being is threatened in any way, we will be thrown into a survival mode that is as old as life itself. We can’t help it, its automatic. It doesn’t matter how mature we are, if we are put in the right (or wrong) circumstance we will behave in ways we end up regretting and we may even be confused as to why we found ourselves reacting that way.

This brain response limits our choices. When we are in this kind of reactivity our bodies go into what is known as “fight or flight” response. Telling my partner something I feared would make him angry sent me into “flight”. For me, that meant shutting up, holding back, and not speaking my whole truth. As a result I often ended up lying to him through lies of omission. I didn’t think of it that way, in fact, I rarely thought about it because it was automatic.

Once I recognized that pattern I was able to start speaking my truth to him. Scary though it was, it dramatically improved the quality of our relationship…

How to Spice Up Your Sex Life and Save Your Relationship (Video)

Dan and Jennifer — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 19:53:33 +0000

Here’s a common scenario…

My partner and I have been together for 2 years and we have been living together for about 4 months. Now that we are living together, we rarely have sex. We are becoming more like best friends and I’m scared the passion is fading.

I don’t want to lose my relationship but I don’t know if I have the will power to save it. What can I do?

Watch this short video to find out how you can spice up your sex life and bring back that spark you had in the beginning…

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Then, be sure to tell us your thoughts - leave a comment below.

Leaving the Friend Zone – How to Actually Ask Her Out On a Date (Video)

Dan and Jennifer — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 13:00:29 +0000

At some point you’re going to have to make your move and depart the friend zone. Now, this may not be in the first minute or two, and maybe not even the first time you talk to her. The key here again is self confidence. You’ll also need a little patience.

Take your time and feel it out first. Don’t make her choose until you know she’s comfortable enough with you to give you a chance and you’re comfortable enough to take the chance.

Watch this short video to find out how to move out of the ‘Friend Zone’ and on to the next level.

Don’t forget to go to YouTube and rate the video and subscribe to our channel.

Then, be sure to tell us your thoughts - leave a comment below.

Help! My Partner is Driving Me Crazy!

Melody Brooke — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 12:52:01 +0000

Have you ever been in one of those relationship "discussions" – read: arguments – with your partner that for no reason seems to escalate out of control and when it’s all over, you’re sitting there in a daze wondering what happened?

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could identify these situations before they occur and stop arguments in their tracks?

Here’s great article from featured author, Melody Brooke on just how to prevent these "discussions" from spiraling out of control.

Help! My Partner is Driving Me Crazy!

When we are in a long-term relationship we sometimes find that we are caught in conflicts that make us feel crazy. We don’t understand what the other person is talking about and they don’t seem to understand what it is we are trying to tell them. Often this is about the time couples give up on their partnership and call it quits. Why does this happen? How can we stop it?

It happens because we are animals. Yes, essentially we are human animals driven by instincts that we don’t have conscious awareness of, but that are driving our behavior nonetheless. It’s not terribly complicated, though it’s not all that easy to change. Understanding what drives us and why we react the way we do, and why our spouses are reacting the way they are; helps us move through it to a (hopefully) happy resolution.

We can stop it, but it’s sometimes really hard. To begin with, recognize that whatever it seems like the conflict is about is not what it’s really about. I know it’s hard to accept but what you are really upset about it not that he didn’t call when he said he would or that she got upset with you for being late. That may be what triggered the discussion, but it is not the source of the upset. Let me explain.

When we feel we are being attacked or threatened in someway we feel that we are the Victim, and the offending person (our partner) is the Villain (perpetrator, bad guy, whatever) on an emotional level. Now, we may know intellectually that this person is our lover, our spouse, our intimate partner, etc., but we don’t feel that way when we are feeling attacked or threatened. On an emotional level, we are the Victim and they are the Villain. As long as we are emotionally in this place, our relationship is ultimately doomed.

Our instinct then, is to attack back in order to feel safe or that we are protecting ourselves. I call taking this position being in the “Self-Protector” position. Of course, if we are “Rescuers” we might instead, let our partner off the hook by saying, “Oh, it’s okay. I’m sorry, I am getting upset over nothing” thereby placating our partner and avoiding a fight. But the end result is the same, we haven’t stopped feeling like a Victim and they are still the Villain in our heart.

So if fighting back or placating are not the answer, what is? How do we stop the craziness?

The answer is simple, but not easy. We take ownership of our part in whatever upset our partner, or of what is upsetting us, and then provide empathy and respect for our partner. This is what it looks like…

I’m Afraid to Tell You…

Melody Brooke — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 10:39:15 +0000

Honestly in a relationship is critical for long term success. But we all know how hard it can be to share our past transgressions with another person, especially the one we love.

We insist that our partner be completely honest with us about everything (check out the discussion around our previous post, Honesty About Previous Sex Partners… How Much Do You Really Need To Share?) and yet we find it difficult to be completely honest with our partner for fear that their feelings about us will change.

Here’s another great article by featured author Melody Brooke with her thoughts on intimacy and trust.

I’m Afraid to Tell You What I am Thinking!

Most of us learn to hold back on some of our truths when we first start dating. We might not tell him about our crazy old boyfriend who used to pull our chair out from under us on the first date. We might not tell her that the way she says the world “Insurance” with the inflection in the wrong place drives you crazy. So we learn to hold back truths in the service of getting to know each other and not running her off before we have had a chance to find out if there is more.

Over time, if we have any skill at intimate connection, we are able to start disclosing more and more information about our past and our likes and dislikes. But some of us find speaking our truths to our partners a real challenge. We may have a hard time letting them know when they don’t shave it scratches our skin raw. We might struggle with telling them when we have made a huge mistake that we are embarrassed about. Our fear of being seen for who we really are can be overwhelming.

What if I tell her and she leaves me? What if it makes him angry? How do we tell our truth and stay in connection? The reality is that if we don’t speak our truth our connection is already starting to deteriorate.

When I first married I had a hard time telling my husband when I had spent money on things for myself. I was fearful that, like my first husband, he would be upset with me and it would start a fight. So I didn’t always tell him when I spent money I was not sure he would approve of my spending. But eventually I learned that keeping secrets builds a wall between us. Over time I began to feel separate from him and he knew something was going on, he could feel the shift, but didn’t know where it was coming from. When we finally talked he let me know that he trusted my decisions and both of us knowing where we are financially would help us both make wise decisions about spending. It was an enormous relief.

Other things are hard sometimes too…

Break Up and Divorce – Should You Condemn Yourself to a Bad Relationship for Life Because of Religion and Guilt?

Dan and Jennifer — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 14:00:56 +0000

If you’re in a bad marriage and are really unhappy, should you separate, get a divorce, or stay in the marriage?

For us, this is not a cut and dry decision as there are many factors to consider.

As you all know by now, we’re not afraid to approach what some would consider to be forbidden topics. We like to think outside of the box and question everything while staying true to ourselves.

Our goal with this post is to help Karen follow her heart and make decisions based on love rather that fear and guilt.

Hang on tight! This could get bumpy. We’re about to step outside the box and ask you to question beliefs that you may have never have thought to question before.

Don’t forget - take the poll at the end of this article to make your vote count on this incredibly controversial topic.

Background – Is this a bad relationship?

This question is a bit involved, so we’ll break it up into sections.

I was married for twelve years to a man (S) that deserted me twice. He also had numerous extra-marital infidelities. He took his stuff and left this last time about a year and a half ago. I tried and tried to talk to him but he refused to talk to me or answer my phone calls. I was just heartbroken. He was my second husband. My first husband wasn’t unfaithful, but he had an explosive temper and shouted and screamed at me. And even though he never actually hit me, I was afraid of him.

Anyway, seven months after my second husband left me I decided to try and move on with my life. I met a wonderful man (D). He was everything I had wanted – Caring, responsible, trustful and very loving. We started slowly, but after awhile I fell deeply in love with him. And he fell in love with me.

I hired an attorney. I filed for divorce. After I had been with D for around four months he proposed to me. I was very excited and accepted. I knew our relationship was perfect and we had a wonderful life ahead of us. We were doing everything together and I was so happy.

S somehow found out and started to phone me. He told me he wanted us to get back together. He told me he would never do any of the things he had done to me before. He said he had found God and was going to church now. He said that he was a changed man. He said I was still his wife and I owed him another chance to prove he had changed. He told me he was a broken man and was thinking about suicide. I finally allowed him to see me he cried and cried and pleaded with me telling me he had changed. I felt so guilty.

Love and Fear

Karen, while this is a very emotional situation, don’t allow yourself to feel guilty about anything another person does or experiences. They make their own choices in life and their experiences are their own. You can be understanding and empathize with the other person, but never, ever, make yourself responsible for what another person is experiencing.

You can control how you behave and respond to a situation, but that is where your control ends. Never let another person make you feel guilty. There is no right or wrong choice in life because we grow from each experience – some choices just work better for us than others. Even the ones that didn’t work out quite like you hoped provide the opportunity to grow.

Sometimes the best way to figure out what we want is to experience what we don’t want. Just try to learn from that experience so that you don’t keep repeating it. I’ve noticed that the Universe will keep sending you the same situation or experience over and over until you learn the lesson that you need to learn from that specific experience.

Our emotional scale has two extremes – love and fear.

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