A Whole New World Of Information

Work environments, sporting interests, religious involvements, and political movements are all common areas that we get involved in and want to share with another. Our relationships are more intimate when we share more interests than the bedroom.

The most intimate relationships, those more intricately intertwined, are the most stable and long lasting.

A fake interest, one conjured up in order to appeal to another person and get them interested in you, conveys the illusion of an opportunity for intimacy. No wonder your partner is disappointed to find out he/she was deceived.

On the other hand, a real interest (and the resulting intimacy) can be developed.

I am amazed at how interesting virtually everything is when I know more about it. On the surface, most things appear pretty dull. When you dig deeper and gain an understanding of the players, the tactics, the intrigue (in sports, work, church, you name it), those formerly dull areas become exciting.

If you want to be more intimate, be more involved. Don't fake it!

If you do, you are not only lying, you are missing out on the fun! Take the time to actually find the fascination, to become involved, and you will not only be rewarded with increased intimacy, you will have grown as a person.

So, how do you get there?

Ask your partner (or the person you would like to have as a partner) about the subject. Become an aggressive student, learning all about it, from history to the present, and then start anticipating the future.

Or surprise your partner (or potential partner) by studying the subject on your own. Let him/her know you figured that if someone as interesting as this partner found the subject interesting, you would be "missing the boat" not to know more about it, too.

You have just become irresistible.

We all want to be around people we can relate to, and this is most important in the areas we are most interested in. The more obscure and unusual your shared interest, the more valuable the bond.

Anyone can share a sexual intimacy but only you offer that unique intimacy. You win!

You can improve or beat the odds of having your relationship or marriage end in dissolution. With practice and patience you can become a world-class partner. These additional suggestions and techniques for improving your relationship based on over three decades of working with couples in clinical practice.

Be Realistic. Couples often go into marriage with idealistic notions of what marriage is all about. These ideas are handed down from generation to generation or gleaned from popular magazines, TV shows, or simply conjured from their own fantasies of what they would like. Each individual should make clear what their explicit and implicit expectations are and clarify these expectations such that they are clearly understood by one another. Where there are discrepancies, a mutually satisfying compromise must be reached.

Do Not Take One Another For Granted. This can be a killer for a relationship. It usually occurs sometime after the honeymoon period. When our partner feels taken for granted, not respected or acknowledged, and feels that others are a higher priority than him/herself, resentment brews. A regular "state of the union" check-in with your spouse as to how s/he is feeling about the relationship can help avert resentment build-up.

Regular Meetings. There are two types of meetings that can facilitate communication: a business meeting and a date night. Couples often find that scheduling regular business meetings, just as one would do in a business partnership, to discuss the business of the marriage is helpful and indicates that the marriage is a high priority in their life. Date night is one evening each week set aside for the purpose of emotional connecting. No business matters are discussed. Each partner takes responsibility on alternative weeks for planning the date, just as they might have done during courtship. Dates do not have to be elaborate events. A picnic on the bedroom floor or at the park at sunset can be every bit as romantic as a $100 dinner.

Keep the Romance Alive. Maintaining the romance in a relationship is vital to the vibrancy of the relationship. Once folks marry they often become quite lax in this department. They allow business, chores, and children to get the way of their romantic life. In a busy life, especially if there are children, it takes considerable effort to maintain romance. But it is worth it. It takes planning, creativity and commitment.

Develop Sexual Skills. People believe that having sex is just "doing what comes naturally." Believing this is like thinking that world-class ballroom dancers are simply born -- no rehearsals, no practice, no innovation, no experimentation, and no mistakes. No one would believe that Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers did not practice in order to be graceful as they appeared on screen. The same holds true for sexual activity in the bedroom. Good lovers are made, not born. Many times men and women believe that somehow the man is supposed to "know" what to do and be good at it. Fearing failure, they do only what is tried and true. One of the most common problems that couples have is the lack of innovation. Sex becomes boring. Such predictability can lead to staleness and apathy. Communication about sexuality, and the willingness to experiment will keep the bedroom activities exciting, interesting and fun.

Be Complimentary. It costs nothing to compliment your partner and it sure feels good to receive them. We are often chary about paying compliments to our mates, letting them know that we think they are pretty/handsome, smart, clever, well-dressed, kind, a good parent, etc. We do not have to wait until some occasion when we purchase a greeting card to let our mates know that we think they are special.

Show Appreciation. Another small thing that feels good. Thanking your partner for making dinner or taking out the trash, picking up clothes from the dry-cleaners, and in general letting him/her know that s/he is appreciated can go along way in creating a caring environment. Couples are very quick to criticize one another when chores do not get done, but they are very remiss when it comes to showing appreciation.

As you can see from the foregoing, maintaining a contemporary marriage is no easy task. It requires hard work. To think that a successful marriage -- that is a relationship between two people that is fulfilling, enhancing of one's sense of self-esteem, emotionally gratifying, nurturing, and supportive -- can be achieved by merely living under the same roof without investing effort and time, would be naive thinking. Some individuals believe that marriage should be easy, and if it is not, they think something is wrong.

Marriage, like any other worthwhile endeavor, requires patience and practice. When there is difficulty, it may require outside help. Just as a business may require a consultant, so too might a marriage. Today's relationships are complex and dynamic entities that become even more complex as children enter the picture. For then there are additional dynamics that must be incorporated into the mix. Maintaining a long term relationship is one of our most significant challenges.

Uche Ikechukwu Benson
haiklassxtian@yahoo.co.uk

You have recently found out that the man you love is cheating on you. The word cheating doesn’t always mean the act of having sex, but it could be a dependency on seeing another woman, the need to hear her voice, a need to please her. So, you have caught him in the act of cheating on you, and now you want to bring him back into your life. Can you really learn to forgive him for straying from your heart? This is a tough question only few women are going to be able to answer truthfully.

You can bring back the man who is cheating on you, no matter how far the cheating has went, and no matter how bad the hurt is really inside your heart. The trick to bringing back a man is to think back to a point in your life together, that will show you what he loves the most. Does he have to be babied all the time? Does he want supper on the table at a certain hour?

Does your ex feel that he should be making the money in the home? On the other hand, perhaps you have always given your complete attention to this man? While you want to bring back the man you love, and change his ways there are a few things you will have to change as well to bring him back and keep him. You can be sneaky or just outright changed, but it will depend on how much you want this man back in your life.

What Should You Do To Keep The Relationship?

You can be sneaky about the attack. If you feel certain you love this man, and you want him back find out where he will be and when he will be there as often as you can. Make it a point to be in the same places, and at the same parties. Get your hair done, your nails done, and be fun loving self. Talk to everyone in the room but him the entire night so he feels your presence but not your attention. As you are getting ready to leave for the night, be sure to say hello, and nothing more to your ex, but it is important to do it with a smile.

After a few ‘run ins’ like this on several different occasions you are going to be on his mind all the time which will lead him to want you more and more, until he calls you. The only way this sneaky method is going to work is if you are able to act as if nothing bothers you, avoid the fact he cheating, don’t talk about it with others in the room and more importantly don’t embarrass either of you by saying anything in public. Build his awareness of your creative sexiness, and availability without giving him the satisfaction of seeing you mope around. Be fun, loving, and sexy with every one in the room, as you make him notice you are a woman who can get by without him. Most men feel the urge to be in a woman’s life when they realize they are not needed, as strange as it may seem.

How Do You Decide It is Time To Leave The Relationship?

The pain you feel every time you see your ex, no matter how much you love him is going to help you determine if it is time to leave him. If you feel you, need him back only because he left you, or that because his heart is not following yours own, it could be time to leave the cheater behind?

The pain you feel because you love a person, unconditionally is different from the pain you feel because you have been ‘dissed’. How can you tell the difference? If you feel angry because he is cheating, you are not truly missing him. If you want to hurt him, you are not truly in love with him. If you miss how he holds you, talks with you, or you miss how you spend time together just being together; you miss him and should think about taking the cheater back.

Should You Give Him A Chance?

The decision to let him go is going to be one that is difficult to make, but you can make it on your own. The feelings of anger, and embarrassment are going to be two feelings that are difficult to overcome. These feelings are going to put a roadblock in the relationship forever, as you can never rebuild the trust while these feelings are present. If you can’t get passed the anger, and the feeling of abandonment, you should leave him where he is with someone else. If you feel confident in yourself, and in your abilities to get by without the man, but you miss him in your life you should try to get him back.

The only real reason to give a man, who has cheated on you in some or in any manner, is going to be based on the fact of love, and not a need. If you need him to care for the children, if you need him to pay the bills, or if you need him for other materialistic things, you should leave him be, no matter how hard it is. If you want the man in your life, just because of the love, you have shared, and the memories you have built together, you should track him down and make him yours again.

Being together, as a couple for love no matter what else, is reason enough to track the man down and give him another chance – but overall you are going to have to sit back and do some serious thinking about the relationship before taking that leap. Find the difference between the need and the want and you will be able to confront yourself, making a solid choice for your life and the cheating man.

Would you like to possess the power to be able to penetrate into your partner's thoughts and know exactly what he or she wants? Imagine having such jedi-like powers at your fingertips.

Well, you can! If you will learn how to hold the keys to your partner's heart and mind and make him yours forever.
Kenneth Goode is an outstanding figure in advertising and selling and I do recommend his books if you are interested to find out more about him and his teachings.

When I read about his eight insights about people, I can still remember that I'm beaming with excitement as this might hold the formula to understand what your partner will do.
Although Kenneth Goode is speaking to an audience that is supposedly to be interested in selling and advertising (to people), his wisdom and insights about people can help us to understand what people do the things they do, and of course "people" include yourself and your mate.

His eight insights about people are:

(1) Follow a habit until it hurts
(2) Accept his beliefs ready-made and stick to them until the cows come home.
(3) Follows his leaders, eyes shut, mouth open.
(4) Work hard to establish superiority in the eyes of his equals.
(5) Find his greatest interest in his own emotional kicks.
(6) Yield to suggestion when properly flattered.
(7) Love low prices and dislike economy.
(8) Glorify the past and discount the future.

Remember, you cannot change your partner into someone you like to see; you cannot force your another person to become that which you want him or her to become.
Here's an invaluable tip for you. If you are want to influence your partner; if you want to persuade him to do something or to see your point, don't say it out loud or even point it out to him. Try, instead, to make him think that that idea comes from his own.

Why? People always "accept his beliefs ready-made and stick to them until the cows come home".

Most people hate to be told what to do. Most people hate to know that their ideas are wrong. In fact, people hate it even more when you point it out to them.

So, if you want to attract a new mate, make it seem like he or she is the one who wants to be with you!

If you want to bring back a lost love, your first step is to make sure you don't make it seem like you want him or her back. Depending on your relationship or marriage circumstance, most people hate to be told that they should come back to your side. To them, it just spells more trouble.

Make yourself indispensable. If you have a hot temper, find ways to solve this problem. If you are too clingy, find the solutions to do away with your clingy-ness. If you know the mistakes you have done, correct them.

Your partner will find his or her way back to you all without your asking when they "know" that you are someone they would want to spend their life with afterall. I now understand that there are certain things we cannot change about people, because that is the way people are! If you are always finding yourself eveloping in self-pity in a failing relationship, or if you are always finding yourself wanting your partner to behave in certain ways, I hope you understand these insights and apply them to your life and to your relationship because they can liberate you. Many times, it is not your fault afterall.

Wrtie these eight insights down and stick them on your desk where you can see them daily.
I will write more about how these insights can be applied to any types of relationship as and when I have more tips to share with you on this site.

Master these insights, and you can be well on your way to hold the keys to your partner's heart and mind; or rather, anyone's heart and mind.

Ten Reasons Why Sex Should Wait Until Marriage

1. Sex is a powerful force that can destroy if not used properly. Like atomic power, sex is the most powerful creative force given to man. When atomic power is used correctly it can create boundless energy; when it is used in the wrong way it destroys life. Sex is the same kind of powerful force. Sex is a gift from God to give us the greatest pleasure, to help in creating a deep companionship with one's spouse and for procreation of the next generation. But if you play with this powerful force outside the bounds of marriage, it destroys you and those close to you.

2.Sexual activity for young people arrests their psychological, social and academic development. Studies show that when young people engage in premarital sex, their academic performance declines and their social relationships with family and friends deteriorate. This is because adolescents are too immature to deal with the explosive sex drive and it tends to dominate their life.

3. The majority of women cannot enjoy sex outside of the bonds of marriage. The development of a fulfilling sex life needs the security and peace of the marriage bond. Premarital sex usually takes place sneaking around in hidden places dealing with the fear of being caught, the fear of pregnancy and feelings of guilt. All these (worrisome) factors undermine pleasure in premarital sex, most especially for women.

4. Virginity is to be given to the most important person in your life, the person you committed yourself to stay with forever in marriage. Your virginity is the most precious thing you have to give to your spouse. Once you lose it, nothing in the world can bring it back. Don't lose something so precious in a thoughtless way.

5. Those who engage in premarital sex run a high risk of contracting one of the many venereal diseases rampant today, as well as losing their fertility. Not just AIDS, but other common disfiguring diseases like herpes have no cure.

6. Some venereal diseases have no symptoms and many couples discover many years later that they became infertile because of these diseases. Infertility experts estimate that 80% of today's infertility is due to venereal diseases contracted before they married.

7.The best and only method that guarantees 100% against AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases is to wait for marriage to have sex and maintain fidelity in your marriage.

8. Premarital sex breaks the 10 Commandments given by God. The 10 Commandments are given to man by God to make man happy. They are not outdated and they are not restrictive. If we follow these laws, we can create happy and prosperous lives. If we don't follow them, we will pay a heavy price in divorce, disease, abortions, illegitimate children and loneliness. Modern men make a big mistake when they think that they can break these eternal laws and not suffer consequences.

9. Premarital sex runs the risk of conceiving illegitimate children. Numerous scientific studies show that the children of single mothers suffer psychologically and are less successful socially and academically than children from intact families. Above all, children need both their father and their mother. It is wrong to risk having children who will never have their father's love, protection and care.

10. If you date and you don't have sex, you can forget about that relationship when you stop dating. But if you have sex with those you date and then break up, the nature of sexual involvement creates strong, often unpleasant memories for your whole life. Every relationship you break up where you had intimate relations is like a mini-divorce. The psychological difficulties of these mini-divorces does damage to your character. Later, when you are married and go to bed with your beloved spouse, these unpleasant memories will accompany you.

True love waits. If a boy or girl truly loves you, they will want the best for you. They will not want you to suffer fear of disease, unwanted pregnancy and the psychological difficulties of premarital sex. They will want to experience love with you only in the very best place of all - the love nest of marriage.

Do you know how to make relationships last? Would you like to know the secrets to successful marriages? If you are searching for a relationship that goes on and on and endures throughout time, you need to consider the following points. There are four major predictors that determine which relationships will survive and which ones will not.

Why Relationships Fail: Four Predictors

The power of positive versus negative comments

People in failing relationships look for what is wrong with others (especially their mate) instead of what is right. During a conversation where the two people held opposing views, the ones who had a good relationship said something nice to the other one five times more than they said something critical. In relationships that don't last, the ratio of good comments versus bad ones to each other was one to one.

Accepting responsibility to be in a committed relationship

When one or both people don't take responsibility for their commitment and allow themselves to be attracted to others, they are in trouble. Some people feel there is nothing wrong with a little "harmless" flirtation. On the contrary, research shows that in every close conversation, there is the possibility of secreting oxytocin (a hormonal chemical) that creates a bond. These interactions can make people feel like they are falling in love. But people can consciously choose not to cross a boundary when they feel even slightly attracted to someone else. They can change their focus. They do not have to be a victim of this attraction.

Forgiveness

There is no "perfect" relationship and even the best ones will have some ups and downs, but is is how couples ride those rough times that determines if the relationship succeeds. People who are good at relating will try to repair any damage that is done in their partnership. They will offer apologies and make gestures to right what has caused hurt.

Attitude

Understanding that you need to teach others how to treat you in order to get your needs met will move you from the victim column into the winning column. There are, however, some attitudes that indicate a relationship will break up. The kinds of behavior that will erode closeness are contempt, criticism, defensiveness, and stonewalling.

Why relationships don't last is profound but simple. You need two people who treat each other with love, affection, respect, and support, and have a commitment to each other. You deserve a love that lasts--so think about the above.

Why is it that love plays such an insignificant role in relationships? Well that is a complex issue but let me try to explain.

Love, true love originates and is felt in the Heart of the individual. It is associated with feelings of joy, light heartedness, inner peace, contentment with life, a sense of being care free, an deep inner wisdom and a child like attitude towards life to name a few.

It is something that we are all born feeling but with time and age the Heart starts to close down. This shutting down occurs each time we experience something that the Heart gets hurt by. Now by "hurt" I mean two different things.

On the one hand there is the common definition i.e. being hurt equals being disappointed when something that is desired doesn’t come to pass.
Additionally though it means that it, the Heart is not honored as the essence and center of that individual's life choices or decisions. By this I mean that when the Heart feels passion for something, that passion represents that Heart's desire for that thing.

Now because that feeling of passion equates, in my view one's life force, one's reason for being, one's core values, indeed what one values and gives meaning and color to their life, when it is ignored it is equivalent to the individual being ignored.
When that individual "suffers" a series of such slights the Heart slowly, bit by bit starts to shut down. As it does the individual not only becomes numb to the feelings that emerge from there i.e. love, joy sadness, light heartedness, passion etc. they also become numb to themselves i.e. who they really are.

This is equivalent to saying that they stop "feeling themselves" and hence start to feel a deep sense of emptiness inside. This feeling state, is associated with such things as low self esteem, low self worth, low self confidence, fear of being alone, inadequate, fear of not being loved and so on.

When this happens they become desperate to reclaim some of their self esteem, self worth, self confidence, sense of security, love and so on. Rather than looking for all this from within they "think" instead that it can be gotten from without. That is from someone else through a relationship.

This is when their need, which is really a need to reclaim the Heart, passes itself off as love and becomes the motivator for starting a relationship. Of course since the need can only be filled by the Heart itself, the partner's ability to fill this need will always fail.

Having said all of this, the important point to be made is that for a relationship to be successful, the Heart of an individual must be sought first, must be re-opened, and the real person who is represented by that Heart must be fully present and alive first.

If you pursue this path then you will not only know real love, you will have success in relationship and life beyond your wildest dreams.

Have you ever noticed that the second that you introduce sex into a relationship, it begins to slide into a bottomless pit and die? At least we wish that it would die. We should only be so lucky. Our society has created a group of high paid buzzards known as family law lawyers who circle waiting for the partners to part, at which time they move in for the kill, using a host of false promises and lies to suck the money and the spirit and the children and the lives out of the entire family. Gay men and women are fighting like cats and dogs for the right, the privilege to marry one another. There has to be some bar association behind this insanity.

A Platonic friendship between a man and a woman, or a man and a man, or a woman and a woman, or a sheep and a goat, is where there is no sex involved. These types of relationships are named after a Greek Philosopher, Plato, (that was his wrestling nickname), who lived 2,500 years ago, 500 years before Jesus. Mary and Joseph had a platonic relationship, if you don’t count Jesus’ brothers. This sibling jealousy over Jesus having been born immaculately is the root of why the Jewish people do not believe in Jesus Christ, the God of 2 billion people today.

It is well known that Plato, his teacher Socrates, and his student Aristotle, were old pedophiles who lived to have sex with beautiful young boys. What isn’t as well known is why sexless relationships are called Platonic. Their philosophy was that the longing and desire for the beauty of the boy was the root of the relationship and that their sexual desire for the boy is what set the relationship on fire. Socrates was executed for corrupting the youth of Athens, not by his sexual shenanigans, but for questioning everything and everyone, including the Goddess Athene, the protector of Athens.
Blasphemy aside, it is a known fact that platonic friendships between men and women last, and sexual relationships between men and women do not. Why is that? Is it because I think therefore I am? Wouldn’t it make more sense to say “I think and this is evidence that I am?”

Actually Socrates hated his wife. He had three children with her, and said that learning to live with her enabled him to be able to cope with any other human being no matter how malevolent. How did she feel being married to a man moonwalking backwards on the top of his car at his internationally televised trial for pedophilia and dangling his newborn son upside down off the top balcony of the Paris Hilton? People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, if they have any.

Enough about Mick Jagger, who openly admits to sympathizing with the Devil. At the time when Plato was prancing around with young boys, sleeping in bed naked with them but not touching them, the Jewish and the non Jewish residents of the Holy Land were sacrificing their first born sons alive on fire altars south of Jerusalem to the God Baal. The Jewish Priests lured the people into the Holy Temple built by King Solomon with Temple Prostitutes. Jesus Christ’s best friend was a prostitute and her girlfriends were prostitutes. So lets recap: 2 billion people on Earth today believe that the Universe and its trillion stars, the other planes of existence, and everything on Earth was created by a Jewish Rabbi named Jesus Christ who was born to a Jewish couple having a platonic relationship, and that soon Jesus will return flying down from Heaven on a flying white horse to defeat the armies of Satan, a part goat, part lion, part snake on his flying horse accompanied by his army of flying jockeys, a dead on plagiarism of the Greek Myth of Prince Bellerophon, and his flying horse Pegasus defeating the Chimera. When the level of violence and gullibility on Earth has reached such epic proportions it is amazing that that any couple can stay together without killing each other for over 5 minutes, sex or no sex.

The reason that sex kills a relationship is because it’s dirty. It’s expensive. We’re talking prenups. Ask Kanye, a modern philosopher who penned the tome Gold Digger. The 6 billion people on Earth today are cutting down every tree, our only source of Oxygen, to make Kleenex, because it’s cheaper than fine dining. This is the root of global warming. High priced lawyers. Did you know that Jesus never once mentioned the word Hell in his life? If you pick up a New Revised Standard Version of the Holy Bible, every time that Jesus says “Hell”, there is an asterisk beside the word “Hell”. If you look in the fine print, next to the vibrator battery section, the footnote says that in the original Greek versions of the Gospels, every time Jesus said Hell, he really said Gehenna, or Sheol, the place underground where both good and evil spirits lived after death. Did they mate there? How did they get along? So, the question is, why do your modern Bible Writers put their own word “Hell” into your Holy Bibles, and remove Jesus’ words Gehenna or Sheol, 1,435 times? Who cares about Plato? We’re all about to go up in nuclear flames while we heat up the sheets, whether it’s with our mates or our lovers or young boys, it’s all a diversion to make the lawyers rich.

Once upon a time there was a man named Lot, after whom the Lotka was named. God spared him and his 2 daughters because Lot was the only righteous man in the two cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot had two young virgin daughters. Since there were no longer any other people on Earth, in order to keep humanity going, they gave their dad some wine, and slept with him, and had children. He didn’t know that it was them, even though they were the only 3 people on Earth, he didn’t recognize his own daughters in his bed, because he had 2 glasses of wine. We are all their direct descendants. And you want to know why sex destroys relationships? It’s because we’re all insane. And the irony of all ironies is that our map to creating paradise on Earth forever is hidden right in our Holy Bibles underneath tons of rubble, said Jesus Christ, and God of Mount Sinai through every single Biblical Prophet. This is why they were stoned. For delivering God’s message. You still refuse to hear it. And soon you will all burn alive in the nuclear inferno you create, Slaves Of Satan. Rudolph is a hundred to one at Churchill Downs. Merry Christmas, and remember to think positively, as if that will help. “You’re far better off pleasuring yourself”, said Plato to Euripides, in the Dialogues. “Your relationships and your genitalia will last longer.” Euripides: “You can say that again.” Plato: “Once is enough. I redundate, therefore I am.” Continue to probe the great mysteries of life. It’s all just a dream. Sleep. Sleep.