How to get over “The One”

 

Your mobile tortures you with messages from everyone but him. You mope around asking yourself “What went wrong?” We talk to experts about how to snap out of it, and move on.

Some relationships die a natural death: the passion fizzles, they peter out or it’s a mutual decision. But when someone you imagined going grey with calls it quits, you’re left reeling – and that person stays in your head for years. “We never forget the one that got away,” says Dr Helen Fisher, biological anthropologist and author of Why Him? Why Her? “When you fall in love with somebody you trigger the brain’s dopamine system. It’s responsible for wanting, for craving, for obsession – and if it’s not satisfied, if you didn’t win that person, they’re seared in your memory.” Dutch scientists recently found being dumped by a lover can actually be heart-stopping – so how do you begin to recover?

Rent Titanic
Forcing a smile when you’re devastated only prolongs the suffering. “Have a weekend of watching tear-jerkers, playing gloomy music and really wallowing in your sadness,” says counselling psychologist Jacqui Marson. But once that weekend is over, it’s time to get moving. Start by treating yourself to a mani-pedi and blow-dry, but also make time to work out, which releases feel-good endorphins. For added benefit, exercise outside, since sunlight exposure delays your body’s release of melatonin (the sleepiness hormone) and elevates mood. 

Change your brain
While it’s not (yet) possible to erase someone from your memory, in the style of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, according to Dr Fisher it is possible to change your brain circuitry. “It’s important to get hugs from old friends as it’ll drive up oxytocin,” she says. Your body is flooded with this feel-good hormone when you have an orgasm, so it’s something your body is craving after a breakup. “Doing novel things with interesting people will boost levels of dopamine in the brain and make you feel better,” says Dr Fisher. 

Lisa, 22, found that a weekend hip-hop class helped distract her from her ex. “I was sick of spending Saturday mornings having breakfast with my mates and their boyfriends, so I decided to try a dance class – something I never had time for when I was with Tom,” she says. “I met a whole new group of single girls there, and the class got me excited about the weekend.”

Rally the troops
After a breakup you need to re-build your network – get in touch with old friends and put yourself in situations where you’ll meet fresh faces. “It’s good to ask for help,” says Marson. “And it helps to give friends a specific support role.” Whether you want them to be your exercise buddy, travel with you, take you out on the town or be that friend you call at 2am when you’re tempted to text the ex… make sure they know their job and are prepared to dispense tough love when needed.

Delete his number
“Don’t call, don’t show up where he hangs out, don’t ask his friends about him,” says Dr Fisher. When someone’s been the centre of your universe it can be gut-wrenching to wipe them completely from your life – but it’s the quickest route to sanity. If your ex wants to be friends, tell him it might be possible in 2013. “You will still continue to crave that person and it might be three years, maybe 10 years, before it’s feasible to have a friendship with them,” says Dr Fisher. (Get over him with a fresh start: Fish2FishDating)

Don’t sleep with him
Jo, 26, never got over her first boyfriend Charlie. “I’d managed to push him to the back of my mind until he added me on Facebook last year,” she says. “He could see from my status I was engaged, but it didn’t stop him poking me daily and sending me flirty messages. My fiancé was working late one night – I felt a bit neglected and so I decided to meet Charlie for dinner. The spark was still there and we ended up sleeping together. A few weeks later I broke off my engagement – only to have Charlie break my heart again.”

Cyber stalking, or even meeting up with an ex for coffee, is playing with fire. “If I could have a penny for everybody who’s in one relationship, but still half in their old relationship, I’d be a millionaire,” says marital therapist Andrew G Marshall, author of Heal and Move On. He sees many clients still emotionally cleaved to an ex “soul mate”. “We need to get rid of this idea that there’s one single person who is right for us,” says Marshall. “There are different people who are right for us at different stages in our lives.”

So, instead of holding a candle to the one that got away, think about why. It’s easy to get caught up fantasising about the life you might have had with an ex but it’s so much more helpful to remember why it didn’t work.

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Women Gain 7lb In a New Relationship, Men Lose 4

A new relationship means plenty of love, laughter and smiles and an expanding waist line too, according to new research.

The research has revealed the effect that a woman’s frame of mind can have on her weight, unveiling that the majority of women in the UK claim to have been at their ‘skinniest’ in recent years when they’ve been most unhappy in other areas of their life.

The study also found that the average woman will gain 7.2 pounds in the first year of a new relationship with majority putting weight gain down to being happy. However, just under half put blame on their partner’s poor diet as the reason for weight gain.  

So it’s no surprise that the men who lost weight during the first year of a relationship put it down to the healthy foods their partners were cooking.

Sarah Bailey of UKMedix.com, who conducted the research, commented on the findings:

“It seems that our frame of mind has a huge impact on our weight, and although men seem to lose weight when in a happy relationship- the average woman will gain half a stone! It was incredibly interesting to see just what effect happiness has on our weight, and it seems that unhappiness often equals Weight loss amongst women. Being comfortable in our love lives often equates to increased self-confidence, perhaps explaining the weight gain that many experience. As long as you’re a healthy weight though, this shouldn’t be anything to worry about- happiness can give you a huge health boost, and is probably more important than squeezing in your jeans!”

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Friendly Gathering or Pending Romance?

Dating and hanging out look alike these days

Singles are having a hard time telling when they're on a date, versus just "hanging out" with a pal, a new study suggests.

It's confusing, say the 2,647 singles surveyed for "The State of Dating in America" report, commissioned by ChristianMingle and JDate, an online dating site for Jewish singles.

"The standout finding of the report, released Tuesday, is that nearly 69 percent of those surveyed said that they were at least somewhat confused about whether an outing with someone they're interested in was in fact a date or not," wrote Liz Fields for Good Morning America.

New York-based psychotherapist and relationship counselor Rachel Sussman underscored the point, telling ABC News that "There's no longer any formality in dating. It's becoming very much a culture of getting a text at 9 o'clock saying, 'Hey, what's happening? Where are you? Do you want to meet up?' This type of behavior can go on for months. It's become so ambiguous."

She also noted that her younger clients often correspond more by texting and Facebook, rather than in more personal ways.

Not Cheating: Facebook and texting popular with younger daters

"A date is someone personally asking you out — that sometimes can get confused with a one-on-one hangout, depending on the way they mention it or which medium they use to ask you or if it happens to be a group hangout," Sara Svendsen explained to USA Today's Sharon Jayson. The 25-year-old said she's wondered if she was on a date when she has gone out with someone.

She's been wrong "on both sides of that," she said.

The data, taken from the online survey, said 80 percent agree that a planned one-on-one hangout is a date, but 24 percent also think a date is a planned evening with a group of friends and 22 percent said it's a date if someone asked them out.

It's the second such survey the two faith-related dating sites have commissioned and they asked Sussman to evaluate dating in America. Among the key findings:

— Attitudes on what cheating is have changed, although the vast majority believe having sex with another person repeatedly is being unfaithful (86 percent of men and 92 percent of women).

— Flirtatious messages are somewhat less likely to be viewed as cheating, down to 68 percent from 82 percent for women and 56 percent to the current 51 percent for men. There were also drops in how many view "passionate kissing" with someone else as being unfaithful while dating. But nearly a quarter of singles said they would consider marrying someone who was unfaithful to them while they were dating.

— Two-thirds of men prefer to date someone younger than them; 83 percent of women would rather date someone who is older than they are.

— Both genders said they'd consider marrying someone who had children from a previous relationship. "However, interest dropped dramatically if a potential partner had children from multiple relationships," the report states.

Among the dos and don'ts of dating: Half say it's bad to be a messy eater and one-third of women don't want men ordering for them. Both men and women tend to believe that the man should pay for the first date (69 percent of males, 55 percent of females). Those numbers are lower than the previous survey.

As for what the report call "deal breakers," men cite hygiene (35 percent), smoking (24 percent) and weight (14 percent). For women: hygiene (34 percent), unemployment (21 percent) and a tie between drinking habits and smoking (each at 16 percent).

Most singles, regardless of gender, say they'd break up with someone who did not get along with their friends.

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Dating After Divorce: Is Honesty Really the Best Policy? Yes!

Dating after divorce can be exhausting! The ups, the downs, the games, the lies, not hearing from someone, hearing too much from someone, the fighting, the breakups, the getting back together, the cheating, the indecision, the baggage, and the worst one, the DISHONESTY!

 

Wouldn't it be nice if instead of someone saying, "I just don't know what I want right now," they would say what they really mean? -- " I really like you but I want to see if there is someone else I might like better."

 

It's really hard to be honest, not only with someone else, but with yourself. Isn't it comfortable and convenient to stay in a relationship that in your heart you just know isn't right? And isn't it easier to tell someone you have a boyfriend than to just say, "I'm not interested in you?"

The downside to not being truthful is that you are holding yourself back, and you are holding back the other person, who in this example might say to himself, "I'll just wait until she breaks up with the guy and then try again."

 

Here are 16 things people say in the world of dating after divorce, and what I wish the person would say instead.

 

1. I don't want a girlfriend right now.
Honest version: I don't want you to be my girlfriend. Ever.

 

2. I'm sort of seeing someone right now.
Honest version: You're not worth me risking what I have right now with my current girlfriend, even though I'm not sure she's the one.

 

3. It's not you, it's me.
Honest version: It's you.

 

4. I want to date other people.
Honest version: I want to see if I can meet someone I like better because I'm not sure about this relationship, but I don't want to risk losing you.

 

5. I just want to have fun.
Honest version: I don't want to be exclusive.

 

6. This really isn't working out.
Honest version: I'm breaking up with you.

 

7. You're a great guy. I don't deserve you.
Honest version: I don't want you.

 

8. What are you doing right now?
Honest version: Want me to come over and have sex with you?

 

9. What are you doing Saturday night?
Honest version: I really like you a lot and I want to take you out for a really nice date so you know that.

 

10. You're going to make some guy really, really happy.
Honest version: You're not making me happy.

 

11. I don't want to fight anymore.
Honest version: I wish we could go back to the first six months of our relationship when we were on our best behavior, because we both know this is going downhill fast.

 

12. Sorry I haven't called. I've been so busy with work.
Honest version: I met someone else and dated her for a couple weeks and it just ended. OR, I wasn't really into you and then I changed my mind.

 

13. I'm just happy with the way things are.
Honest version: I don't want to marry you.

 

14. I'm going out of town, so I'll call you when I get back.
Honest version: I'm not into you.

 

15. I don't have time for a relationship.
Honest version: I don't want to be in a relationship with you.

 

16. I just can't see you right now, I don't know what I want.
Honest version: I want to go out with my friends and talk to guys and figure out if I want to date you still.

 

Here's the thing. These things don't translate like this in every case. Relationships are complicated. Dating is complicated. People do get confused and say things, and things do end up working out. I'm just saying that if someone feels a certain way, he or she should buck up and just be honest.

 

These things might be brutal to hear, and they might be hurtful and upsetting, and they might even make us cry. But, in the long run, hearing the truth saves so much time, so much aggravation, and it forces us to move on much quicker!

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The Power of Monogamy: 10 Surprising Claims Regarding Modern Love

Never underestimate the power of someone who has your back: It’s the message in Love Sense: The Revolutionary New Science of Romantic Relationships, the book by Ottawa clinical psychologist Dr. Sue Johnson, slated for release on Dec. 31.

Her thesis, based on decades of neuroscience research into human emotion, is that just like the bond parents have with their offspring, monogamous love makes sense as a survival code.

“We’ve understood so much about the power of adult love relationships, how this emotional bond creates a safe haven for us in life, allows us to grow and function on an optimal level, as well as how emotional isolation and disconnection are extremely costly to us as a species,” Johnson said. (Johnson is a psychology professor at the University of Ottawa and founder of the not-for-profit organization the International Centre for Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy, which trains mental-health professionals – not to be confused with Toronto’s vibrator-waving sex educator Sue Johanson.)

Monogamy, she says, makes sense, and yet “there are so many forces pulling us away of being aware of relationships.” Among them are porn, a robust friends-with-benefits culture and attention-splicing technology, she says. Just as parenting has undergone a radical shift over just several generations, Johnson is hoping for an overhaul in the way North Americans think about love.

“In the last 40 years we’ve really started to understand exactly how much impact a parent can have on a child’s development,” she said. “The revolution that we went through in parenting, we have to go through it with romantic relationships.”

The Globe asked the author about 10 of her more surprising claims regarding modern love.

Our culture exalts independence even though it’s not natural

“We are supposed to live in a rich social environment, and part of it is long-term bonds with special people. It sometimes feels like modern society is just determined to forget this,” said Johnson, referring to the high rates of solo dwellers in North America. (Census figures released last fall showed that 27.6 per cent of Canadian homes have just one occupant, a massive shift from decades past.) “We don’t live in little villages any more. People now often depend on romantic love as their main source of social support.”

Romantic love is a bonding attachment like that of a mother and child’s

“We are not wired to face the perils and uncertainties of life by ourselves. Our brains are designed to use the people we love as physiological and emotional safety cues to make the world a safer place. What our society does with that is, as children we have parents, and then we have life partners as we get older. These are the bonds that we count on,” explained Johnson. “In that sense we never grow up.”

Emotional dependency is healthy, not ‘clingy’ and pathological

“Secure attachment – having one other person you can count on as an adult – is related to almost every index of good functioning, happiness and health,” says Johnson. She cites the physical and mental-health implications of social isolation and loneliness, from increased risk of anxiety, strokes and heart attacks to elevated heart rate and increased levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which impacts the immune system. “Having no one to confide in at all literally is going to stress your body out all to hell.” The caveat: “You don’t have to be glued to each other, that’s not healthy, but you have to be available.”

People are at their best when coupled up, not isolated

“It’s been shown in research but we know in our gut that with somebody valuing us, loving us, listening to us and supporting us, we are the best we can be then,” said the author. “We take risks, believe in ourselves and deal with problems better. If you’re securely connected you’re more assertive, more trusting, confiding … you’re better at dealing with ambiguity.”

Secure relationships breed independence

Beyond health, the benefits of monogamy extend to “emotional balance,” says Johnson. “The safer our relationships are, ironically, the more independent we can be. Closeness and independence are two sides of the same coin. They’re not opposed.”

Attachment styles can change, depending on their partner

“Yes, people can change,” says the psychologist. The thinking used to be that we receive a relationship template from our parents, a model we would then use our whole lives. Newer research suggests “we’re adaptable animals,” says Johnson. “If we have new experiences and we’re open to them, we can change our template.”

The novelty of open relationships is ‘overrated’

Friends-with-benefits relationships don’t “make sense” as a survival code, says Johnson. The trouble with polyamorous arrangements, she says, is they don’t fulfill the physiological bonding needs people have for “someone in the universe to depend on, who we come first with.”

Porn is a bad teacher

“People who don’t trust other people are into performance and sensation. The trouble with that is it’s endless: You need more and more performance and sensation because you’re emotionally numb,” said Johnson. “What we’re creating in our society is this empty, formulaic, going-through-the-motions sexuality. Porn is a lesson in how to be a really bad lover.”

Monogamy yields the best sex

“The people who have the best sex, enjoy it the most and have sex most often are people in long-term committed relationships,” says the author, citing the survey research of University of Chicago sociologist Edward Laumann, who found that monogamous couples were the cohort having the most sex, and so also the happiest with their sex lives.

Technology erodes our relationships

“Look at couples courting on dates: They’re on their little screens almost half of the time,” says Johnson. She argues that technology should be used as a tool, not a replacement for more intentional relationships. “What you don’t use you lose. Face-to-face conversation is an essential in human life. It’s not an incidental.”

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7 Reasons Most People Are Afraid of Love

Around this time last year, Virgin Mobile USA proclaimed February 13 to be "National Breakup Day." They did so after conducting a survey in which 59 percent of people said that if they were looking to end their relationship, they would hypothetically do so before Valentine's Day to save money. The beginning of the year is often said to see a spike in couple splits, with various sources claiming that January hosts most divorce filings and couple separations. You may even have heard it referred to as "National Breakup Month." In this so-called breakup season, we may be unfortunate enough to witness once-happy couples splitting up left and right, or we may recount our own painful parting from a partner we once loved.

No matter what the timeline, the story of lost love is one most of us can tell. This leaves the question "why do relationships fail?" to linger heavily in the back of our minds. The answer for many of us can be found within. Whether we know it or not, most of us are afraid of really being in love. While our fears may manifest themselves in different ways or show themselves at different stages of a relationship, we all harbour defences that we believe on some level will protect us from getting hurt. These defences may offer us a false illusion of safety or security, but they keep us from attaining the closeness we most desire. So what drives our fears of intimacy? What keeps us from finding and keeping the love we say we want?

1. Real love makes us feel vulnerable. A new relationship is uncharted territory, and most of us have natural fears of the unknown. Letting ourselves fall in love means taking a real risk. We are placing a great amount of trust in another person, allowing them to affect us, which makes us feel exposed and vulnerable. Our core defenses are challenged. Any habits we've long had that allow us to feel self-focused or self-contained start to fall by the wayside. We tend to believe that the more we care, the more we can get hurt.

2. New love stirs up past hurts. When we enter into a relationship, we are rarely fully aware of how we've been impacted by our history. The ways we were hurt in previous relationships, starting from our childhood, have a strong influence on how we perceive the people we get close to as well as how we act in our romantic relationships. Old negative dynamics may make us wary of opening ourselves up to someone new. We may steer away from intimacy, because it stirs up old feelings of hurt, loss, anger or rejection. As Dr. Pat Love said in an interview with PsychAlive, "when you long for something, like love, it becomes associated with pain," the pain you felt at not having it in the past.

3. Love challenges an old identity. Many of us struggle with underlying feelings of being unlovable. We have trouble feeling our own value and believing anyone could really care for us. We all have a "critical inner voice," which acts like a cruel coach inside our heads that tells us we are worthless or undeserving of happiness. This coach is shaped from painful childhood experiences and critical attitudes we were exposed to early in life as well as feelings our parents had about themselves.

While these attitudes can be hurtful, over time, they have become engrained in us. As adults, we may fail to see them as an enemy, instead accepting their destructive point of view as our own. These critical thoughts or "inner voices" are often harmful and unpleasant, but they're also comfortable in their familiarity. When another person sees us differently from our voices, loving and appreciating us, we may actually start to feel uncomfortable and defensive, as it challenges these long-held points of identification.

4. With real joy comes real pain. Any time we fully experience true joy or feel the preciousness of life on an emotional level, we can expect to feel a great amount of sadness. Many of us shy away from the things that would make us happiest, because they also make us feel pain. The opposite is also true. We cannot selectively numb ourselves to sadness without numbing ourselves to joy. When it comes to falling in love, we may be hesitant to go "all in," for fear of the sadness it would stir up in us.

5. Love is often unequal. Many people I've talked to have expressed hesitation over getting involved with someone, because that person "likes them too much." They worry that if they got involved with this person, their own feelings wouldn't evolve, and the other person would wind up getting hurt or feeling rejected. The truth is that love is often imbalanced, with one person feeling more or less from moment to moment. Our feelings toward someone are an ever-changing force. In a matter of seconds, we can feel anger, irritation or even hate for a person we love. Worrying over how we will feel keeps us from seeing where our feelings would naturally go. It's better to be open to how our feelings develop over time. Allowing worry or guilt over how we may or may not feel keeps us from getting to know someone who is expressing interest in us and may prevent us from forming a relationship that could really make us happy.

6. Relationships can break your connection to your family. Relationships can be the ultimate symbol of growing up. They represent starting our own lives as independent, autonomous individuals. This development can also represent a parting from our family. Much like breaking from an old identity, this separation isn't physical. It doesn't mean literally giving up our family, but rather letting go on an emotional level -- no longer feeling like a kid and differentiating from the more negative dynamics that plagued our early relationships and shaped our identity.

7. Love stirs up existential fears. The more we have, the more we have to lose. The more someone means to us, the more afraid we are of losing that person. When we fall in love, we not only face the fear of losing our partner, but we become more aware of our mortality. Our life now holds more value and meaning, so the thought of losing it becomes more frightening. In an attempt to cover over this fear, we may focus on more superficial concerns, pick fights with our partner or, in extreme cases, completely give up the relationship. We are rarely fully aware of how we defend against these existential fears. We may even try to rationalize to ourselves a million reasons we shouldn't be in the relationship. However, the reasons we give may have workable solutions, and what's really driving us are those deeper fears of loss.

Most relationships bring up an onslaught of challenges. Getting to know our fears of intimacy and how they inform our behaviour is an important step to having a fulfilling, long-term relationship. These fears can be masked by various justifications for why things aren't working out, however we may be surprised to learn about all of the ways that we self-sabotage when getting close to someone else. By getting to know ourselves, we give ourselves the best chance of finding and maintaining lasting love.

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Why Relationships Succeed?

Through it all the things we had and did in common were vital in keeping our focus on family life.

Until now, research into marriage and relationships has mainly focused on what goes wrong: why do so many couples who signed on for a happy union end up in savagery and despair?

This week, Britain's Economic and Social Research Council released the findings of the Enduring Love project, its large-scale survey intended to help us understand how relationships can sustain and reward couples.

What it is that partners do and don't do; what makes for pleasure, appreciation and a willingness to work on the relationship when it hits trouble; how do couples cope with different sexual needs and diverse feelings about children? And a good deal more that deconstructs the nitty gritty of negotiating life with the chosen one.

I have lived with my husband Olly for 41 years (he's had the best years of my life, I remind him), navigating four decades during which we grew from a couple of childlike young adults living on the hoof, to become parents and matured adults. And looking back on our time, I see how many of the Enduring Love findings have resonance for us.

For all the good stuff, ours was a meeting of very different minds, backgrounds and life experiences, and we have been a frequently volatile alchemy of opposites.

I met Olly after three years working as a freelance journalist in his native Amsterdam. He was the son of a shipyard worker, a free-spirited character who had gone to sea aged 15.

He had seen the world and I liked his sharp mind and askance way of viewing things many of us take for granted. Neither of us had envisaged more than a casual fling. But when I chose to return to England for work, Olly came, too.

By this time I had seen a good heart: on our second date he picked me up from the home of a friend who had just been ditched by her lover and was in bits; he didn't hesitate before inviting us both to dinner. It is these gestures, frequently small, that show a partner's kindness and appreciation of the relationship and were cited far more frequently in the ESRC survey than grand romantic gestures.

The pregnancy when I was 32 was a ''Freudian slip'' and both of us, nervous about the unexpected change to our life, argued relentlessly. I seriously thought once I had the baby I'd give Olly his marching orders. But my heart melted at the sight of him cradling our just-born infant and that love has been there for both of our sons unwaveringly.

But around other issues we were often enough on opposite tracks. During a mid-life period (common enough, the Enduring Love research shows), I found myself turbulently discontented, wondering how much more fulfilled I might have been with the person I had always envisaged - an earnest intellectual who would lie back on the pillows and read me T.S. Eliot poems.

Through it all the things we had and did in common were vital in keeping our focus on family life, and I am one with the survey in finding that domesticity and relaxing, home-based activities - watching DVD box sets together rated highly - are superglue for intimacy.

But then 12 years ago we came perilously close to calling it a day. The boys had left home for independent lives and Olly and I found ourselves facing each other night after night over the dinner table with nothing to say. Looking back, I think this was classic empty-nest stuff.
(Read: Why the Key to a Strong Relationship Could be Something as Simple as a Cup of Tea)

We were like empty vessels, mourning our loss, and seeing nothing in each other to compensate. When we did talk, it invariably turned to aggravation over some small matter and we could not resurrect the rhythm of domestic life that had been so supportive. We began to discuss selling up, living apart and joining the ranks of parents who see their grown-up children separately.

The enormity of this hit us: we would lose the home we had created together, the place which had our family life embedded in its bones. So we decided on separate togetherness.

Olly made his home on one floor with its own kitchen and bathroom. I had the floor above with the same arrangement. It was a way to get breathing space before making any definitive decision.

Unhooked from our state of emotional stasis we began inviting each other for a meal, suggesting a trip to the cinema, an evening in Olly's flat where the TV was, a glass of wine with our books in mine. We invited each other for sleepovers. And out of all this came a refreshed intimacy; we saw the children as family for weekend visits, and most importantly realised we could go on happily like this. Clearly not everyone can create private space this way, but interviewees in the study spoke often of their need for their own time and space.

Things changed for us again three years ago when my elder son's wife became pregnant and wanted to live close to family - ideally in our home on Olly's floor, our son murmured.

We adore our granddaughter, who spends much time with us; we have spontaneous family meals and my younger son visits often and comments on how good it feels to be part of it all.

But how very, very different things would have been if we had decided to separate and ditch our joint history. Of course there are relationships where, for all sorts of reasons, love cannot endure. But what I know now is that it's worth giving it the best shot.

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