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10 Lessons About Marriage You Can Learn From Divorce

by Michael Warshauerin RELATIONSHIPS

Unfortunately, I know a thing or two about divorce. My parents divorced when I was in my twenties, and my first marriage ended in divorce after 13 years. Even my closest friends all have parents who are divorced.

So when my marriage ended, I thought that having a successful marriage wasn’t in the cards for me. But as luck would have it, I ended up meeting and marrying a man who is not just an amazing person, but a top-notch husband. My second marriage has been my version of Happily Ever After.

What I’ve learned from my experiences of divorce and remarriage, and from observing other couples, is that every couple has the ability to have a successful marriage. Marital success has nothing to do with education, economics or social status. In fact, if ever there was an even playing field, it is in this area.

Having a successful marriage is all about the choices we make every minute of every day. Marriages fail when spouses make poor choices as to how they are going to treat each other. It isn’t more complicated than that. So here are some of my insights about marriage (some learned the hard way) and how you can make good choices and have your own happily ever after…

Lesson #1: Remember that it isn’t your job to make your spouse happy. Your job is to help create an environment in which your spouse can be happy. That means get your act together and be a dependable partner. That means don’t create unnecessary stress or conflict in your marriage. That means genuinely love and encourage your spouse. After that, whether or not they are happy is up to them.

Lesson #2: It helps immensely if you and your spouse have a spiritual practice. Your choice of religion doesn’t really matter. Simply following any spiritual teaching that reinforces the importance of love, compassion and forgiveness, will inspire both of you to treat each other far better than you would otherwise.

Lesson #3: If you are married, that fact should be part of your public persona. Wear your wedding ring. Talk about your spouse in glowing terms to your colleagues and friends. Being married should be part of who you are.

Lesson #4: You can always find someone smarter, more attractive or more successful than your spouse. Remember: your spouse can do the same. “Affair proof” your marriage by telling your spouse regularly how highly you think of them. A daily dose of positive reinforcement goes a long way.

Bride and Groom, Kissing at Sunset on a Beautiful Tropical Beach

Lesson #5: Frequent physical intimacy is necessary for a happy marriage. Don’t make it complicated. You don’t need outfits, pornography, role playing, threesomes, spouse swapping, BDSM or anything else. You only need to give your spouse your undivided attention, caring and acceptance. It requires nothing more and nothing less.

Lesson #6: If your daily communications with your spouse are limited to the Costco list and your children’s soccer practice schedules, then you both are going to be looking elsewhere for a romantic charge. Flirt with your spouse, not your co-workers or the Starbucks barista.

Lesson #7: Dating does not end on your wedding day. When you go out with your spouse, act like it is your first date. Put on a great outfit, hold hands and make interesting conversation. Don’t save your best self for others. Give your best self to your spouse.

Lesson #8: If you are married, you have an obligation to take care of your appearance. You are the person who is most closely associated with your spouse, and you shouldn’t be an embarrassment to them. You don’t have to look like Kate Upton or Will Smith. You just have to look your best.

Lesson #9: There is no glory in remaining in a bad marriage. No one is going to give you a gold sticker or saint you. Worse yet, your kids ultimately may not thank you for it. So choose how and with whom you spend your time on this earth wisely.

Lesson #10: People stay in marriages for many reasons. For their children. For money. For convenience. For ambition, political or otherwise. But you will find no greater joy than being married solely for love.

Over the years, I’ve learned that marriage is not for the faint of heart. It requires a level of maturity and selflessness that most people don’t possess when they first say, “I do.” However, if you are patient and work hard at it, the rewards of a happy marriage are immeasurable.

Curated By Timothy

Original Article

 

Men Speak Out: The Secret to Keeping Him Committed

by zfortadminin RELATIONSHIPS

Are you willing to let your Man take the Lead? How adventurous are you in Love to step out of your comfort zone and try out a suggestion from your partner? 

 

Should we help him feel like a “conqueror”? Allowing men to take the lead sometimes helps men stay committed to the relationship. From  Death of the Cheating Man: What Every Woman Must Know about Men Who Stray.

Helping a man feel like a conqueror will help him want to stay committed. It may sound odd to women, but it can be easier than you may think.

Why do men love a “ride-or-die woman”? “She doesn’t get in the way,” one of my buddies told me about his wife. It’s true; she allows him to do the things that cause him to feel like a conqueror and that helps him to feel like she’s going to ride with him no matter what. When a man feels that he has this type of woman, he will go the extra mile to stay committed because he sees her as an asset to his life. And ladies, keep in mind that just because you are in a relationship, doesn’t mean that you’re an asset…many women become liabilities.

Men love to feel like a woman will do something out of her comfort zone for us. In other words, she’ll ride, no matter what. It’s all about the little things that help us keep our heads in the commitment.

For instance, a man wants to take on a task that you see is menial. If a woman makes him fight or justify it, then she may cause him to flee. Allowing him to do it without hassle, and trusting that he is a faithful man who simply needs to conquer something, will make all the difference in the world.

I’m not suggesting that women should give men whatever they want all the time, but it’s important for women to know that a man doesn’t always want what he’s asking for; he wants to know that his woman will ride with him if he asks. That makes him feel like a conqueror and that he has a ride-or-die type of woman.

It’s really that simple…the small things make a man feel like a king!

Little do most women know that a small task like pushing the elevator button can be important to a man. We have all been in the elevator when a little boy gets in and wants to push the elevator button and his mom lets him do it. What seems like such a menial thing to a woman can be a task of conquering for a man.

I used to have a girlfriend that battled me on simple issues like where we parked when we went somewhere. No matter where I wanted to park, she’d argue that we should park somewhere else. To her she had just as much right to pick the parking place as I did.

While she was in the right to voice her opinion about the parking decision, battling me over an issue where I needed to feel like a conqueror only served to cause me to try harder to conquer. So we’d argue back and forth and I’d park where I wanted to just to conquer, or I’d reluctantly give in and flee. For a while I pleaded my case to her and tried to get her to understand that little things were important to me as a man. But she decided that it was more important to her that we were equal in all decisions and in the long run, our relationship was lost in her conquest.

However, my next girlfriend saw that this was important to me, so instead, she placed her concerns on making sure that we were always on time and as long as we were safe, she allowed me to choose the parking without hassle. Again, it may sound like no big deal to a woman, but making that small decision helped me to feel like I had conquered, and in return, I made sure I accommodated her desire to always be on time.

Those little nuances serve to remind a man how valuable a woman is in the moments where he may tire of commitment.

On a larger scale, the thing that most faithful men complain about is that they can’t get sex when they want it in a committed relationship. When a man is single or cheating, he can have sex at random or whenever he wants it. But when he’s in a committed relationship, his sexual fulfillment is based 100 percent on the clock of his woman.

As I said earlier what many women may not see is that for a faithful man, being committed to a relationship gives us a sense of entitlement to sex. If we can’t have it at our leisure, we feel rejected and no conqueror thinks he should ever be rejected. If it persists, we won’t cheat, but it can cause us to pull away from the commitment.

Ladies, I understand that men always want sex and that can be inconvenient for a woman. Some women complain that they love having sex with their man, but they can’t keep up with giving it the way a man needs it—all the time.

When a woman shows frustration, she can cause a man to feel that he isn’t welcome to have what he believes is his. Because he can’t take the cave man approach and drag her into his cave, he may retreat in frustration. This causes a lot of men to pull away over time and want to get out of the commitment where he is faced with such restriction.

Instead of completely turning him away, another approach is for a woman to negotiate without him knowing. Let him know that if he’s willing to wait until the more convenient time, he can have it the way he likes it. This helps him feel like he can have it if he wants, but that she will fulfill his larger desire if he nurtures her needs as well.

As women find themselves at these little crossroads every day in relationships with faithful men, they can keep us engaged in commitment by allowing us the small things that make us feel like conquerors. Remember, just because a guy doesn’t cheat, doesn’t mean he doesn’t still have all the desires of a conquering man.

If you help your man feel like a conqueror, then he’ll be less likely to stray and look for other places or things to conquer. So don’t underestimate the power of the small things. Remember that if it seems small to you, it’s probably big to him.

Curated by Erbe
Original Article

 

Why I Swipe Right for Divorced

by Lisa Lauretain RELATIONSHIPS

Divorcées may not all know exactly what they want, but they have a much better idea of what they don’t want.

“Never married,” two of my least favorite words, whether they’re apart or together. And yet, they can be found at the top of probably over half of the profiles I come across when I’m online dating. Why is “never married” such a selling point? Am I supposed to take this statement to mean you’re unscathed, that you have no baggage? Well, I’m not buying it, and for me, it’s less a selling point and more a reason for me to swipe left.

The first thing I did after getting out of my three year monogamous relationship was hop on all the dating sites and apps, making myself a bunch of clever, witty profiles with WAY more written words than any interested party would ever desire to read. And it worked! I went on date after date. It became my new favorite hobby. I started telling people I was a professional dater. Men, women, couples, and everyone in between, I was dating them all and having a blast! I think the only reason I was able to have so much fun going on terrible date after terrible date was because I wasn’t looking for love or anything remotely resembling it. This is also the reason I considered everyone as an option, even those with “divorced” in their profiles. Since beginning this open-policy dating journey, I’ve found one common thread that surprised even me: the only single people I really enjoy in the dating world have gone through a divorce.

I realize that this sounds at the very least a bit strange, and to some completely off the mark. The way most see it, a divorced person who is dating is trying to jump into something that they failed so miserably at that courts had to get involved. This is true, but here’s the kicker, everyone who is good at anything has failed at it. Think about it, athletes practice endlessly for years and years before becoming professionals. A stand up comedian has to bomb a joke to realize how to rewrite it into something people laugh at. And how many times do babies fall on their faces before taking more than two steps in a row? A lot, and if you don’t trust me on that one, there’s plenty of evidence on Youtube. My point is practice makes perfect. And a divorced person is basically ready for Carnegie Hall.

I’m honestly more excited to hear someone has divorced than I am to hear someone has gotten married. This isn’t because of some sick fetish of enjoying people’s pain, although those baby falling vids can be hilarious. It’s because I know that someone who’s divorced has typically learned a lot about who they are and who they want to be. Divorcées are not only people who are intelligent enough to recognize that something needed to end, but were also brave enough to have let, or even make, that end happen. But there are more aspects to a divorcées personality besides bravery and intelligence that make them ideal candidates.

The recently divorced typically have more insight and better communication skills. This is because many who have called it quits went through counseling before doing so. Believe it or not, even when counseling doesn’t help the current relationship, it can really help future ones. Therapy can teach a lot about how someone is communicating, or not communicating. By seeing a relationship through someone else’s eyes, a person can realize they have needs that aren’t being met, and can also discover that their partner has needs they haven’t been meeting. What’s more, a lot of people discover that this is why they’re arguing, rather than leaving their nail clippings on the floor. Counseling can provide clues into how to be better in the future, whether it’s with their current partner or future ones.

Divorcées may not all know exactly what they want, but they have a much better idea of what they don’t want. I’ve dated a lot of people who were on a seemingly endless path to nowhere, perhaps because in the past I’ve dated a lot of comics. But there are a lot of people out there, besides comics, who have no idea what they truly desire out of a partner, a career, or even life. Divorced people don’t necessarily all have a clear answer when asked what they want, but they know at least one thing that didn’t work for them in the past, and many recognize how to avoid this in the future. This means that if they’re dating you, it’s probably because you do things differently than their ex (unless, of course, they’re a masochist who loves repeating negative patterns).

There’s also a maturity that comes from someone who was once legally bound to another. Chances are they shared finances, maybe even purchased a home with someone else. No matter how entwined their assets became, they’ve at the very least had some experience with “what’s mine is yours.” This is a huge step up from the eternally single dudes and gals I was used to dating, the type who haven’t committed to anything more than how much ketchup to put on a burger.

And finally, divorce can be quite humbling. There’s a certain cockiness to the single person that a divorced person often loses along the way. They know they’re imperfect. In fact, many of them have had these imperfections pointed out a bit too much so go easy on ‘em, huh? Even those who honestly believe their relationship failed solely because of the other person involved still know it failed, and live with the knowledge that even they couldn’t save it.

So I suggest the next time you see “divorced” in a profile, you give them a chance. And if you’re divorced, be proud that you made a choice that you’re probably happier and healthier for! Wear it like a badge of honor, because there are people out there, including myself, who will always pass up the “never married” for the more seasoned divorcées.

Divorce Lawyers Share What to Do to Stay Married

by zfortadminin LOVE

The best source for marriage advice? Divorce attorneys. Before you protest, just think about it: Every day at work they see the types of marital problems that lead otherwise happy couples to split up.

With that in mind, we recently asked 11 family law attorneys to volunteer their best love and relationship advice. See what they had to say below.

1. A sustainable marriage is not about love, it’s about tolerance.

“Can you tolerate all your partner’s quirks? Even the ones that you don’t like, are they tolerable? Don’t marry your partner thinking that any of his or her quirks are going to change, improve or wane. As we get older, your partner’s quirks will only magnify. So if you can’t tolerate it now, you for sure are not going to be able to tolerate it in the future. Tolerance may not be romantic, but it is the key to a long lasting marriage.” — Melissa B. Buchman, an attorney in Beverly Hills, California 

2. Give your spouse the benefit of the doubt. 

“Unfortunately, many couples I see going through a divorce ascribe bad — or sometimes terrible — motives to everything their spouses do. What is the harm in assuming or presuming the best? Even if you’re wrong, it hurts no one. And it may be the start of a better relationship.”  — Randall M. Kessler, an attorney based in Atlanta, Georgia

3. Don’t be afraid to feed your spouse’s ego now and then.

“Silly as it may sound, your spouse wants to feel strong, sexy and attractive. I have seen spouses cheat because someone else showed them attention and made them feel good.” — Christian Denmon, an attorney in Florida 

4. Put your spouse before your kids. 

“This may not be the most popular piece of advice, especially for parents, but after watching countless people get divorced because they allowed themselves to slowly drift apart over the years, I honestly believe it’s true. We are all busy these days. It’s far too easy to put your job, your house, your activities and your kids before your spouse. Don’t do it! While many people believe that their kids have to come first, if they don’t put their spouse first and their marriage eventually sours, it’s not going to be doing the kids any favors. If you value your marriage, choose to put it first.” —Karen Covy, an attorney and divorce coach based in Chicago, Illinois 

5. Don’t wait until it’s too late to work on your marriage.

“Work on your marriage while it’s still a good marriage, don’t wait until there’s a problem. ‘Work’ does not have to mean counseling, it can simply be having a set date night once a month.” — Carla Schiff Donnelly, an attorney based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

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The Married Millennial: What Marriage Isn’t

by RJ Newellin LOVE

The Wedding industry in the United States has an estimated worth of nearly $60 Billion. That may be no surprise, but did you know that the Divorce industry is booming, too?

Recent findings suggest that the Divorce industry’s total worth in the U.S. is $50 Billion or more. It makes sense, then, that most lifestyle websites will have a “Weddings” section and a “Divorce” section, with little to say about the marriage in between.

Marriage isn’t cool, these days. Stable relationships simply don’t make headlines. Hollywood magazines are constantly on the lookout for wedding announcements and breakup scandals. Paparazzi follow newly married celebrity couples, denying them privacy. When the whole world is waiting for them to screw up, is it any wonder that most famous marriages fail?

If our famous role models are divorcing, our parents have been separated, and our newly engaged friends are over-sharing ring selfies left and right, it’s understandable that we have warped ideas of marriage.

To define what marriage actually is, let’s consider what it isn’t.

Marriage is not a blissful horseback ride into the sunset.

Most people do not have their lives figured out, their hearts fully mended, or their finances in perfect shape before tying the knot.

Before I met my husband, I said I would never marry unless I: (1) had become wildly successful, (2) conquered my anxiety, (3) made a million dollars, and (4) owned my own home. But then, I met him…and there went all my plans.

On the other hand – marriage is not a bummer. At all.

Our relationships reflect our inner states – and how you value your partner shouldn’t change just because you’re married. Happy unions are not as rare as you’d think. People who are genuinely happy with their partners are actually less likely to talk about it on social media, or in public. Unhappy people, on the other hand, are much louder about their dissatisfaction. Marriage, by itself, does not make people unhappy. Life does. It’s been said to “Never take advice from someone you wouldn’t trade places with.” This applies to marriage tips, too.

Marriage is not about “settling” or compromising on your dreams.

Sure, my checklist didn’t happen in the order in which I planned it, but since being with my husband, I’ve accomplished more than ever before. He encourages me – and because we have similar goals, we work well as a team. You don’t have to be alone in order to achieve your dreams, as long as your partner is truly supportive.

If you expect your partner to set aside their goals in order to make the relationship work, this is a problem. If you’re thinking that marriage will change your partner (or you), it won’t.

Marriage is not about you.

It’s not your partner’s job to make you happy – it’s yours. We all have problems, but your spouse can only do so much. There’s a reason why people say the first year is the hardest: our personal expectations almost never match the reality of a lifelong partnership. Nobody “fixes” us.

When we date, we often present the perfect package. We offer the best versions of ourselves – and this is not a bad thing. Unfortunately, there are two sides to every coin, and you need to be willing to work on your issues. Marriage brings only one guarantee, and that’s vulnerability. It is a commitment to working on yourself, while encouraging your partner in their journey.

Marriage is not the end of freedom – not anymore.

I can’t tell you how many people asked me “why?” when I said I was getting married in my early twenties. There’s an outdated image of a 1940’s housewife begrudging her chores, and a 1940’s husband who’s dying to cheat on her.

It’s 2016, people! Marriage has changed as much as we have. My partner has a career, and so do I. He has friends, and I have mine. We do fun things together, and have no qualms about going places on our own. Nowadays, people can get married because we want to. Not because we have to.

Marriage is not the end of sex, or dating.

The longer you’re together, the more opportunities there are to be creative. Being married is not an excuse for complacency. You may not sweep your partner off their feet every day, but don’t forget to make them feel valued. Intimacy is only as important as you make it…So make it important.

Marriage is not everything.

My relationship with my husband is number one to me. But if I don’t have a life outside of our marriage, it’s unhealthy. Maybe that’s why marriage doesn’t make headlines: we’re all just people living our lives. It’s not as glamorous as a wedding, or as dramatic as a divorce, but I like this better. Much better.

In the end, Marriage is what you make it.

It’s like any other thing, except it involves another person who is equally important and committed. Marriage might have changed in meaning, but love itself has not. Commitment relies on communication in order to thrive.

Marriage looks different on everyone. Choose your own adventure.

There are countless variations to the traditional marriage model. In the Western World, gender roles don’t matter the way they used to. Women can choose to have careers, or stay at home – and so can men. These days, most of us get married for love, and having children is optional. Some couples live together, and some live apart. Monogamy is a choice between two people, and some marriages skip it altogether. Regardless of gender, religion, race, sexual orientation, married or unmarried, we all deserve to love – and be loved – in the way that’s right for us.

T&A In Bed With Lahna Turner, Comedian of The Perfect 10 podcast

by T A Talk Sexin LOVE

Lahna Turner, comedian, musician, and podcaster of The Perfect 10, opens up with our playful questions – thx for being so honest, Lahna!

t&a in bed with Lahna Turner

On our podcast with Lahna: EP 114! In homage to the fall and the change of season, we’re talking all about endings and new beginnings, with comedien Lahna Turner. ‘A’ shares her relationship revelations from a session with a psychic that changed her romantic life, then Lahna gets candid and raw about currently going through a divorce and we get the full story of how ‘Limeade’, her new comedic, visual album from the title parady of Beyonce’s ‘Lemonade’ came into being. Plus, a lively debate over how to handle the death of intimacy after children enter the picture with a real-life mom, and then we cap it off with ‘New Dick’, Lahna’s HILARIOUS new song from Limeade.
Listen here: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/tatalksex/podcast