Showing posts with label love. Show all posts

Saturday, 15 July 2017

13 Relationship Mistakes New Couples Make All the Time!

"Don't rush into the date with the thought that 'could this be the one'. Take the pressure off, just meet for coffee, make friends, then see where that takes you"......................Susan

13 Relationship Mistakes New Couples Make All the Time!

New relationships are exciting, but the excitement can cloud your judgment too! Keep these 13 mistakes new couples make all the time in mind, and avoid it!

Everything’s always a lot more exciting in a new relationship!

After all, you’re starting off a connection with someone who could potentially be the one you’ll be spending the rest of your life with.

Every new experience feels like an experience with a newfound zest because of the person you’re with.

And every little thing they do cause you to giggle with glee and delight. And everything is just oh-so-perfect!

Yes, new relationships will inadvertently be filled with the haze of the honeymoon phase.

13 Relationship mistakes new couples make often

But despite your enthusiasm for your new love, there are still things you should avoid doing lest it makes your relationship turn sour too quickly.

From marriage talk to insisting on more time together, here’s a comprehensive list of the mistakes lots of new couples make.

#1 Moving too fast. Relationship milestones are something to be experienced, not something you should zip through. Savour your first night out, your first make out session, your first argument or your first out of town trip.

Take your relationship a step at a time and give yourself enough time in between to appreciate what just happened. In the future, you might think, “Oh, we never went through that phase,” but in fact you may have zoomed right through it.

#2 Fantasising about the future. It’s okay if you’d like to talk about future date ideas and things you can do in the following months. But imposing your fantasies about marriage, kids or moving in can make your new partner think that you want to move too fast. Isn’t it way too soon for that talk?

What if your partner hasn’t even thought about anything in the future other than your next date? Whatever fantasies you have about your future together, save it for when your relationship is fully established and stable. This way, you can both share your dreams and work on achieving it.

#3 Broadcasting every detail of your relationship. It can’t be helped when you gush to all your mates or girlfriends about your new beau. What they won’t be happy about is little unnecessary details about your relationship.

Your partner too won’t be very pleased when you tell everyone about these things either. Try to resist the temptation to tell people about the little details that should remain between couples like weird bathroom habits, stinky feet or wild fetishes.

#4 Getting disheartened at the first roadblock. Each relationship reaches its first challenge at different times. But when it’s your turn, don’t let it make you feel like your relationship has become damaged beyond repair.

You must understand that for a relationship to work out, both of you must be willing to put in some work. You can’t just drop everything when you’re starting to feel like things aren’t as perfect as they once were. Remember, challenges make you stronger!

#5 Sacrificing too much. Save the big sacrifices for when you’re sure that you’re with someone who’ll be there for you in the long run. Too many people tend to lose themselves in their relationships.

It starts off with giving up little things like certain hobbies and certain friends. Then it moves on to switching jobs, moving to another country or losing contact with close friends. And then, before they’ve realised it, they’ve become a shadow of their former selves!

#6 Being too unavailable. Your relationship is new, yes, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be one of your priorities. If you start off by being too aloof, your partner may feel neglected to the point of wishing they had never invested their feelings in you.

The early stages of the relationship are fragile because this is where you’re building your foundation. Don’t disregard this starting phase because a relationship built on flimsy foundation will be so much easier to dissolve at the first pitfall.

#7 Being too clingy. Unavailability is one thing, but clinginess is just as bad. Give your partner room to breathe! We know it’s exciting to be in a relationship with someone, but don’t breathe down his/her neck all the time.

You’re both individuals who should have your own lives. Let your partner do his/her own thing as you do yours. Just relax and resist the urge to leave a hundred voice messages when you start missing him/her.

#8 Playing the lying game. It’s never a good idea to lie to your significant other ever. Keep in mind that the lies you tell when you’re just starting off can build up into bigger lies.

For example, you might lie about resigning from a job you were actually fired from. But when your partner finds out, this will unleash a bunch of questions about what you lied about when you first started dating. That could potentially damage whatever trust your partner has in you.

#9 Overlooking the red flags. Some couples, in their desperation to keep things together, cling onto the relationship so much that they’re in denial about its flaws. It’s easy to dismiss the red flags when you really want things to work out. But if you ignore them for too long, you may one day find that you’ve invested so much in someone who’s been treating your badly for years!

#10 Mentioning the ex too often. Not only can this be annoying to your partner, but they might start comparing themselves to your ex. Also, it may make your partner think that you’re not over your ex yet. Limit any sort of mention of your ex, lest your partner get disheartened and thinks you still want to go back to your previous relationship.

#11 Social media stalking. Okay, so you want to know things about your significant other that you don’t want to ask upfront. But come on, don’t be the creepy partner who stalks a partner’s pictures from way back in 2008!

If you want to know something, ask. It beats sneaking around and jumping to your own conclusions. Also, trust us when we say you’re probably better off not unearthing your partner’s poor fashion choices in the early 2000’s.

#12 Imposing your beliefs. This is something that can be tricky, especially if you’re passionate about something. Bear in mind that you can’t expect your partner to believe every single thing that you believe in, whether it’s religion, politics, animal rights or whatever you have a firm stand on.

You’re not supposed to be clones of each other, so don’t start preaching if your partner has opposing beliefs. What you can do is be more open to their point of view. If there’s a big issue that you don’t meet eye to eye on, try to be more understanding or get out of the relationship if you feel like this will compromise your beliefs.

#13 Making your partner choose priorities. It’s unfair if you’re making your partner choose between you or their friends, their family, their job or their hobbies. You can’t expect your partner to prioritise you above everything else just yet. Your relationship is just starting to grow, and you can’t expect your partner to drop everything and be at your beck and call.

Considering your relationship is just starting off, you don’t have much of a fighting chance against things your new lover has valued before you came along. Keep this in mind, lest you make your partner choose and they end up not choosing you. Ouch.

New relationships can be both fun and tricky. But just keep working on love and try to avoid these 13 major mistakes that new couples make.

Before you know it, you’ll already be celebrating your first anniversary!

Read original article here:

Previous articles:

This Is The Single Key to Effective, ZERO-Arguing ...

How To Make Love To A Man So He'll NEVER Forget Yo...

How to Make Love to a Woman, As Told by a Woman

I have fetishes for feet and tickling but my girlf...

Photo Of Naked Elderly Couple Is Teaching The Worl...

Wednesday, 18 January 2017

10 Signs The Honeymoon Stage of Your Relationship is Over

There is a sense of loss when you look back on how intense a relationship is at the beginning, when the need to be in each others company is president and seeing the eyes of your partner light up each time you see each other. One cannot put words to the feelings one gets from being made to feel "special". ........... Susan

10 Signs The Honeymoon Stage of Your Relationship is Over

Worrying that your relationship is suffering from the demise of the honeymoon stage? Don’t worry, your relationship may just get better with age!

There is no hard and fast rule about how long the honeymoon period lasts. It could be a couple of months, it could be a couple of years. However, there is no dispute as to what exactly it is. It is that sickly sweet period of time at the beginning of a relationship where you can’t keep two people off each other.

They are so utterly and disgustingly in love that they can’t spend any time apart and can’t see the merest fault in the other. You could tell them that their other half is a serial killer, and they’d still find it endearing!

The end of times

It can come as a bit of a shock to the couple in question then, when they have been so firmly ensconced in this manner, to witness that loving feeling begin to fade. And when it begins to fade, it does so at an exponential rate. But it certainly isn’t all doom and gloom. Yes, the “being in love” part of the relationship may be dwindling, but that’s when the actual “loving” part of the relationship starts to come to the fore in its place.

Why you shouldn’t be scared when the honeymoon stage ends

The following list describes some of those signs that the honeymoon period is indeed coming to an end, but more importantly, also explains what these signs mean in the broader context of your relationship as whole – and how they can actually be a good thing.

#1 Having a gas. Okay, the example of farting in front of each other might be at the cruder end of the personal habit spectrum, but it nonetheless makes a good point. The fact is that there comes a point in a relationship when you stop holding it in.

Whereas previously, you would have suffered stomach cramps with heroic endurance in a desperate bid to keep your good standing, trying to impress eventually has less importance. And that’s a good thing. It shows that not only do you feel comfortable with each other, but that you are at last comfortable with yourselves. Enjoy the freedom!

#2 All hung up. Do you remember when you were constantly on the phone to each other, and in those brief moments that you weren’t, the popping tones of newly arrived text messages were constant? Well, that may have slowed down to a point where you’re both communicating with each other at a far slower rate – at normal punctuations in the daytime routine.

This isn’t something that particularly needs to be mourned, however. All it means is that the desperate need to remind the other of your presence is no longer quite so insistent. And let’s face it, you’re probably being far more productive now that you’re not on the phone 24 hours a day.

#3 Playing it down. It is likely the case, when the honeymoon period starts to fade off into normality, that you don’t quite take the same level of care of yourself and your appearance. Not that it’s acceptable to start showering with a can and wearing the same pair of underwear for a week at a time. That’s foul in any circumstances.

Maybe the three-hour-long meticulous grooming campaign you used to ensure upon has suffered somewhat. And that’s not a bad thing, as long as you make at least some effort in the presence of your significant other. It’s time to start being comfortable with yourself and your partner and enjoying the real boons of true love.

#4 Honesty is the best policy. I doubt there’s anyone who hasn’t been in the situation where they’ve tried a little bit too hard to impress a potential partner during the early stages of the relationship – pretending you love Vietnamese food, for example, because it’s one of their favourites when you actually abhor it. That’s all fine and well for a few months or so, but do you really want to maintain that pretence for the rest of your born days? Of course not.

Loving someone rather than being in love with them means you finally get to explain your likes, wants, and needs without any trepidation or hesitation. Yes, that might mean the honeymoon stage’s over – but I’d say that was a pretty fair trade. Wouldn’t you?

#5 Happy is as happy does. Of course, you don’t want to give off any negative vibes when you’re in the honeymoon period. You suck up any misadventures in your current life story, get on with things, and put on a brave face. But this is where true love, fostered over a period of time, kicks the whole honeymoon period thing into touch. Sharing is a very important part of love, and the whole act of being able to admit to unhappiness, and helping/being helped through it is what love is all about.

#6 Save the tales. That whole thing that you do during the honeymoon period where you’re constantly trying to impress the apple of your eye with tales of how wonderful you are, well, that can stop now. If they love you, they’ll love you for who you are, and this is one ending to the honeymoon period that pretty much everyone is probably happy about.

#7 PDA oblivion. A dead giveaway as to the demise of the honeymoon stage in your relationship is the sudden absence of public displays of affection. This can be a point of contention if one of the couple has a particular penchant or need for PDAs, and it’s something that easily be righted.

But if it’s entirely mutual, then there’s nothing to worry about. Just accept that things have moved on, and as you’ve become more comfortable with each other, that need to advertise your togetherness is less pressing. Not a bad thing at all.

#8 Those three little words. You know which three I mean – if not, then you’re reading the wrong article! Okay, post-honeymoon period, these words might get said less, but this isn’t necessarily anything to worry about. It could just mean that you are both secure in what you have together. If this is the case, then congratulations are far more in order than the opposite.

#9 Taking it easy. Quite simply, all those months of being constantly on edge and being over-aware of how you should be presenting yourself are a thing of the past. You might worry that the absence of a constant need to make the best impression signals the end of a glorious period, but isn’t it better to relax in a comfort zone with someone who knows and loves you than pretend to be something you’re not?

#10 Singular pleasures. The key to a happy and fulfilling relationship is to not only nurture it, but also to nurture yourself. With the honeymoon period out of the way, along with that desperate need to exist only for your significant other, you can start tending to yourself again in order to ensure that you can contribute to the relationship as a healthy and strong individual.

The end of the honeymoon stage, as you can see from the list above, only signals the beginning of a new phase in the relationship – not its end. Enjoy the progression and give yourself a pat on the back for successfully getting through to the next stages of the relationship game.

View original article:

Previous articles

Sunday, 10 July 2016

I have fetishes for feet and tickling but my girlfriend won’t play along

"Try sharing a bath, lots of bubbles, candles, a long drink and conversation, if this fails remember how Prince Charming managed to bed Cinderella - SHOES yes shoes. So if all else fails buy her shoes at least you will be in the right area when you place them on her feet!" - Susan

I have fetishes for feet and tickling but my girlfriend won’t play along

While my partner hasn’t rejected me, she feels feet are inherently unhygienic and won’t let me worship her as I would like. Are there any ways I can change her mind?

I have had fetishes for feet and tickling since I was a teenager, but have never been confident in opening up about it before. I told my current girlfriend and, happily, she did not reject me. However, she will not take part. When it comes to me wanting to worship her feet, she declines because she believes they are inherently unhygienic. I don’t want these fantasies to be the only part of our sex life, but I would like them to play some part.

While it is important that all sexual practices between two people are consensual, it’s also reasonable to introduce something unusual or fetishistic to a partner cautiously and incrementally. Instead of rushing to propose something that might seem radical or even bizarre, help her to get used to the idea by gradually suggesting something more palatable. It is often best to start with something that would not be generally considered weird. So, rather than requesting a full menu of foot worshipping – and knowing that her discomfort is partly related to her notion of hygiene – perhaps you might initiate love-making in a bath, shower, swimming pool or the sea. Make this session 95% “vanilla”, including her favourite sensual stroking or oral pleasuring to fully arouse her, then switch to something such as oral toe-pleasuring. If she enjoys this, you can repeat and extend it until it becomes a regular aspect of your love-making. Eventually, you can introduce something slightly more advanced, but it must always be very gradual.

Read original article

Thursday, 30 June 2016

Photo Of Naked Elderly Couple Is Teaching The World There Are ‘A Million Billion Definitions Of Beautiful’

"Everybody is beautiful in there own right, nobody has the divine right on what is beautiful and what is not. Imagine how boring the world would be if we all thought the same thing was beautiful !!! Gerry and Darwin - yes I think you are beautiful !! " - Susan

Photo Of Naked Elderly Couple Is Teaching The World There Are ‘A Million Billion Definitions Of Beautiful’

Gerry, 75, and Darwin, 70, have been together for more than 20 years.

Now, hundreds of thousands of people have seen them naked thanks to a new project by photographer Jade Beall.

I refuse to accept the wide spread (mostly Western) human belief system in regards to what is beautiful, especially when it comes to the sacred vessel we call our body.

Why do we accept to believe that one thing must be more beautiful than another? Why cannot we embrace a million-billion definitions of beautiful?

The divine: skin that drapes, stretches, sags, wrinkles, burns and rebuilds like spiralling Fibonacci across our fragile and strong bones made from the same stuff as the stars all combining to create this phenomenon that comes to life for a short amount of time that we call... bodies.

Many from my human tribe and other humans who wish to sell me things "that will hide the evidence that I am growing older" tell me that as I grow older, I am worth less and less and that elder bodies are anything but beautiful.

These elder bodies: the temples to decades of wisdom, heartbreak, strength, failure, triumph, THRIVING. How, I wonder, could they be anything but beautiful? .

I am starting a new series on beloveds over 60 because I wish to be free from the imposed beliefs.

Gerry: I love my body. I use a cane, I am having vision problems and my breasts reach to my waist, but you know what? I like me!

Darwin: I still have body issues. I would love to loose some weight.

See original article

Previous articles:

Here’s What REALLY Happens To People Who Hook Up W...

12 Things Guys Like in a Girl besides Her Appearan...

Treasure The Love Of Your Life

Why 'Being Hot' Is NOT Essential To Our 23-Year Ma...

The Uncanny Power of a Red Dress

Tuesday, 21 June 2016

Treasure The Love Of Your Life

"Treasure the love of your life because life has a habit of throwing a curve ball and one day they may no longer be with you". - Susan

Treasure The Love Of Your Life

We have all had one; that truly amazing love. The love of your life is considered a soul mate, the person who completes you. Unfortunately, most of us don't end up with that person, mostly because of ridiculous mishaps, or because we fail to realise or accept the way we really feel about them.

A lot of people manage to find their true love in high school or college and they grow together, creating an unbreakable bond. Often, we associate our first love with our true love because that person may have been with us during a time in our lives where we experienced the most changes. The time where our own beliefs, opinions, and ideas develop.

We can't help but feel close to that person because those partners had the most important influence during the most crucial development period. Despite the connection we may feel, we inevitably separate from that special someone. Most of the time, it is bad timing.

A lot of my friends always say "If only I had met him when I was in my 20's, I would have been able to handle everything." We meet the right person usually at the wrong time. This isn't always the case though, and those who meet their true love when they are a little older and more mature often end up with them forever. It's funny how we have to sometimes suffer through terrible relationships, to truly appreciate a good one when it comes along.

Why are we so stupid?

But most of the time, we end great relationships prematurely. Are we stupid or do we consciously end a relationship with the person we are supposedly meant for? It's probably a bit of both. It's important for us to make a distinction between a great relationship, and a relationship of habit. Bad relationships are a fact of life, great ones are precious, and are often taken for granted until it is too late.

We all spend our lives looking for love, but rarely finding it. We can love someone, but we are hardly ever in love. Most of the time, we learn to love our partner simply because we are with them for a long period of time. The love most couples have is equivalent to the love we have for someone we care about, not someone we are necessarily passionate about.

We fall madly in love with someone, we revolve our lives around that person, but somehow it never works out. Men (and some women) often break up with loved ones, while they are still in love with because they think there is someone else out there who is perfect for them. Women know that Mr. Right doesn't exist and that no guy is perfect, yet they can't help but always wonder whether their boyfriends are the one . The same applies to men, though men tend to be more blasé about it.

Some of my girlfriends claim that they're in love with their current boyfriends, yet they continuously talk about some other guy that they had a passionate affair with or long to be with. I tell them to follow their heart because there are enough loveless relationships in the world. The genuine love of your life is the one that makes your heart beat a little faster, the person you are constantly trying to impress, the person whose voice you need to hear, the person you do the little things for. But most importantly, it is the person you feel complete with. It's not a Jerry Maguire cliché; it's the truth. You will only realise this when you feel that way about someone, for the first time.

Avoid the checklist

There are a few people who do end up with their soul mates. Those are the lucky ones. The rest of us end up with people that meet enough of our criteria. A few years ago, a male friend of mine was madly in love with his girlfriend, to the point where they were months away from getting married. Then she did something stupid, nothing major, just annoying enough to bother my male friend. He then did something back to her, upsetting her of course.

A week later, it was over. Five years down the drain. The stupid thing is that they are still madly in love with each other. They are both too proud to get back together. In the meantime, each has gone through numerous relationships with no meaning and no love. But their example is an exception to the rule; most people would end the 5 years with each other's picture as a dartboard target.

My advice is simple for all the men out there: if your current girlfriend is the love of your life (and a person can tell if they are or not), then never let them go. Forgive when you have to, stand up for yourself when you must, but don't ever let petty problems end the relationship. Chances are that you will have a very hard time finding someone else like her. Cherish her like a diamond (it's a woman thing), and most importantly tell her how you feel. Men communicate, trust me.

If you are dating someone, but your heart still longs for another woman who is perfect for you, simply tell that perfect woman. She might have mutual feelings. If you don't try, you'll never know. If she doesn't feel the same way about you, you are in the exact same spot you were in before; but if she feels the same way, you will be one of the lucky ones who gets his princess.

View original article here

Why 'Being Hot' Is NOT Essential To Our 23-Year Ma...

The Uncanny Power of a Red Dress

What to Text a Guy When You Want to Make the First...

The One (Really BIG!) Reason Monogomy Beats Polyam...

Which of the 7 Types of Love Relationships Fits Yo...

More Than A Quarter Of Brits Have Ended A Relation...

Saturday, 11 June 2016

Why 'Being Hot' Is NOT Essential To Our 23-Year Marriage

"Proof that marriages do last if you work at it and not give up at the first hurdle when something goes wrong. Well done !! " - Susan

PHOTO: EILEEN DONOVAN-KRANZ

Why 'Being Hot' Is NOT Essential To Our 23-Year Marriage

What is essential? Laughter, love, and a husband who shops and cooks.

The essay by Amanda Lauren, "Staying Hot For My Husband Is ESSENTIAL To A Successful Marriage," just slapped me upside the head — probably because it's what marriage, in my mind and my reality, is NOT.

Today is my 23rd wedding anniversary and my husband I have been through so much in in that time. I married at 31; my husband was 29. My mother clasped her hands and said, "Finally!" when we told her and my father called up friends at the Knights of Columbus (where once upon a time he was Grand Poobah).

Between them, my parents planned the wedding in an hour.

On our day I remember the beauty and power of gathering all our people together, and I remember my spouse's tears when I walked down the aisle.

I also remember when his father stepped into the aisle I was walking down with my own dad and introduced himself to me in front of the 200 seated witnesses. He hogged my spotlight in some weird way for a minute.

Maybe I was to blame for that; after all, I had urged my husband to invite the dad from whom he'd long been estranged. But it worked out OK in the end because parents don't last forever and our relationship needed to start sometime, so why not mid-aisle?

That morning my mom had said something helpful: "No matter what happens today, if your flower girls scuff up your veil, take it with grace; if someone splashes red wine on your dress, take it with grace; if the lights go off, the food runs out..."

"OK, OK," I'd said. "I get it!" I responded.

Much later on, I realised those words were a good rule for life.

On our wedding day I was overwhelmed with waves of love and emotion and forgiveness. Having lived on a diet of irony for a long time, I didn't think this would happen to me: not marriage, necessarily, but the emotion that accompanied it. Later that night, my spouse carried me over the hotel room threshold.

I asked him recently if he remembered that.

"Huh," he said. "I don't."

"Probably because you don't remember me being light enough to lift," I said.

......

Marriage has delivered to us so much more than we expected — weight, sure, but age as well. It's delivered us lots of love but also plenty of heartache. It's delivered us two gorgeous, wonderful, feisty girls, and everything about them has made us grow in unexpected ways.

It's delivered us a lost pregnancy and deaths — of a parent here and grandparents there, and a brother in law, too — divorces of siblings, drug addictions in the next generation of children, surgeries and depressions, and the horrific pressure and pain of a brutal teen culture that nearly destroyed our daughters and us.

But overall, I'm so happy to be alive and fairly well. I would trade any bit of health I have for the wellness of my children and the other young people I love, though no one gets to choose.

One thing is certain: through all this time, and all of this marriage, I've rarely thought about hotness — as if that mattered, as if that were a thing.

Sure, I've been hard on myself superficially some days. (But come to think of it, I've never really been hard on my husband. Quite the double standard discrepancy right there, huh? The way I've judged myself?)

I acknowledge I was pretty damn attractive at one time, and much more attractive in retrospect, even though I'm still the hottest wife on the block. (But it's a really short block. And some of the residents are over 80. And none of the pretty young people living next door in that triple-decker are married yet.)

Tonight, for our anniversary dinner, my husband made us all ratatouille and — upon request — gluten-free calamari. He's a great cook. We sat down and I groaned: I had thrown out my back this morning when I bent to load a saucer into the dishwasher.

"I hope you know, hun," I said. "There will be no athletic anniversary sex tonight because of my back," which got a laugh from him. The kids, who are no longer kids, and one boyfriend, screamed protests, ate quickly, and pretty much ran from the room. So we had a bit of a private anniversary dinner after all.

Hell, if we didn't have laughter and conversation more than hotness, what would we have?

If staying hot for your husband is ESSENTIAL to a successful marriage, then clearly, you haven't been through much in marriage ... yet.

Read original article

Thursday, 26 May 2016

The One (Really BIG!) Reason Monogomy Beats Polyamory EVERY Time

"Monogamy vs polyamory ? in my mind it has to be monogamy, why ? life has enough stresses in it without adding multiple relationships to it" - Susan

Weheartit

The One (Really BIG!) Reason Monogomy Beats Polyamory EVERY Time

We are only human.

Monogamy isn't the only way to live, but it's a path that provides the most comfort, a sense of belonging, good health and longevity we deeply desire.

A polyamorous relationship can provide those things, but it also dramatically ups the ante for those scary feelings we all experience when wounded in love. By being deeply vulnerable to more than one person, the possibilities for suffering increases. So for those of us who already have enough of a challenge working through our emotions with a single partner, it can be too overwhelming to make polyamory work.

Thanks to that little ol' evolutionary adaptation called LOVE, you're hard-wired to vigilantly assess the quality of connection between you and the person you feel most bonded to. If that loved one seems unavailable — literally or emotionally — you'll experience biologically-driven, unstoppable feelings of vulnerability ... be it within monogamy, polyamory, or all the shades of grey in between. 'Tis just the way you're built.

Is there anything more comforting than belonging so completely within a securely bonded relationship of commitment, availability, responsiveness, and emotional engagement?

Our ability to emotionally bond with another is an integral part of who we are, and played a huge role in ensuring we survived as a species. When Mom emotionally bonds with Baby, Baby's chance of survival improves; so in order to survive, Baby seeks emotional and physical bonding with Mom (our first primary other).

Makes sense, right? We also developed the ability for romantic love so Dad sticks around to protect Mom and Baby from predators and competing males.

So yeah, our need for love runs deep, and you need it today JUST as much as you did when you were a wee little baby. If you've ever felt like you might die without it, you weren't being over dramatic — it's awful when you feel that love is in short supply.

When I was in a polyamorous relationship and my primary partner shared her unrelenting desire to connect emotionally and sexually with an ex-lover, it broke me to pieces. I felt heartbroken, rejected, and powerless. Of course within the agreements of our relationship, it was her right to follow her longing, and my job to process the resulting pain — which I did while sobbing in the arms of my friends.

"Learn to recognise the counterfeit coins

that may buy you just a moment of pleasure,

But then drag you for days

Like a broken man

Behind a farting camel."

— Cast All Your Votes for Dancing, Hafiz

Mind you, I'm genuinely grateful for that experience — and it’s not because I’m a masochist. In this instance (and others), I traversed the depths of my suffering, and now as an emotionally focused couples therapist I harness these experiences to be in sync with my clients' pain and guide them through it to the other side where the longed for experiences of connection, love, and soothing with their primary other reside.

For me polyamory was a challenging, spiritual and self-developmental practice (so is fasting, meditation, social isolation, and attaching weights to your genitals in order to transcend the limits of your biological drives). If you're ready to face your hard-wired fears and trigger them day-after-day, you’d be hard pressed to find a better practice than Polyamory to bring you to your knees to submit to your vulnerability.

But if you want some modicum of comfort during this wild and danger-ridden journey called life, then monogamy is probably for you.

Is there anything more comforting than belonging so completely within a securely bonded relationship of commitment, availability, responsiveness, and emotional engagement? It ain't perfect (spoiler alert: you won't avoid feeling vulnerable), but it's the best available path we have to feel connected to our primary other with as little heartache as possible.

I, for one, am happier on the monogamy path. My relationship serves as a secure base and emboldens me to step outside of my comfort zone professionally and personally. Today as I type away in our family's living room, I can hear my wife and toddler going bananas in the kitchen making popcorn. You know, life brings its own f'ing growth opportunities without me searching them out. I'd rather my relationship provide the love and popcorn.

We are all longing to be loved — longing to feel safe and securely snuggled under mother nature's security blanket (our ability to emotionally bond with another). The part of you that needs love the most is not a weak or needy part, it is actually the best part of you and the part of you that most deserves love.

Be kind to yourself and others. You deserve it — we all do!

View original article

Previous articles: