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It’s no secret that modern life is fast-paced and getting faster every day. In this world, relationships—and all the work they require—can easily be seen as inefficient, time-consuming and simply not gratifying enough. For your relationship to have a healthy chance at survival, you must take steps to nurture the simple, loving aspects of your union.
5 actions that are essential for your relationship:
1. Hellos and good-byes
Greeting your partner and saying good-bye are quick and easy to do but often overlooked in the chaos of hectic schedules. A warm, expressive greeting can set the stage for the entire day. An affectionate “good-bye” allows you and your partner to emotionally hold on to loving feelings while separated from each other. You’d be surprised how often couples skip this simple way to book-end their days. It may seem easier to put all your morning energies into catching the 7:15 train and overlook taking the time to stop, make eye contact with your partner and genuinely wish him/her a good day. Don’t fall into this trap.
2. Share the trivialities of life
Think back to a time when your relationship was new. What did you and your partner talk about? Probably anything and everything. The excitement of new love propels us to share even the smallest details of our day. Unfortunately that level of sharing often dwindles as relationships mature and responsibilities mount. Focus on the act of sharing to refuel intimacy. The simple act itself is more important than the specifics of what is shared. So make it a habit to share the trivialities of your day with your partner.
3. Learn to laugh together
Shared laughter is a surefire way to keep the connection with your partner vibrant. When you laugh, you’re tapping into the playful energy that transcends life’s stresses. When you and your partner make each other laugh, this energy feeds intimacy and life becomes a little less daunting. Make time for mutual playfulness and make fun of life’s absurdities —this will help you both cope with stress, develop perspective and achieve a greater sense of togetherness.
4. Communicate through Touch
Touch is a powerful way to communicate affection and foster intimacy. Whether you’re sitting across from each other at the dinner table or next to your partner on the sofa, make the effort to increase the amount you touch one another. Touch also has a calming effect on our bodies, so if you want to create a relaxed, loving atmosphere and make your partner feel special, lean into each other the next time you’re at the movies or watching TV.
5. Show your appreciation
It’s human nature to want to be recognized for the things we do. When you express gratitude, your partner receives the message that you are thankful and are not taking him/her for granted. An atmosphere of appreciation will create positive feelings and deepen your connection. Don’t fall prey to the expectation-mindset, where you start to believe that your partner is supposed to do all the things s/he does and therefore doesn’t need to be thanked for them—this mindset creates a dangerous atmosphere of complacency that erodes intimacy.
These five loving acts don’t take much time and don’t cost a dime—but the payoff is huge. You will be taking steps to protect your marriage or relationship from the fast-paced tempo of life.
Is your relationship worth protecting? Are you ready to make your marriage everything it can be?
Find out how to create the relationship of your dreams: Sign up for Dr. Nicastro’s free Relationship Toolbox Newsletter at http://StrengthenYourRelationship.com/ and immediately receive two FREE reports that will help you achieve your relationship potential.
Richard Nicastro, Ph.D. is a psychologist and relationship coach who is passionate about helping couples protect the sanctuary of their relationship. Rich and his wife Lucia founded LifeTalk Coaching, an internet-based coaching business that helps couples strengthen their relationships.
By RICHARD NICASTRO, PH.D.
Source: http://www.amazines.com/Relationships/article_detail.cfm/403228?articleid=403228
Anyone who has run a marathon knows about commitment. To compete, the athlete relies on extensive training and physical fitness. But when the initial enthusiasm wanes and the painful, long-distance realities grip the runner's body, it is sheer dedication--commitment to completing what she started--that sustains the runner's motivation as she reaches for the finish line.
A relationship is a lot like running a marathon. There are highs and lows, challenges and rewards, and times when you may want to give up--when it feels too difficult to continue. What will keep you on track and moving forward when your relationship hits the inevitable rough patch? Will love be enough?
Commitment: Your relationship lifeline
Commitment is a belief in relationship permanence and the understanding that at times your union will need a life-jacket to stay afloat.
When you and your partner are committed to the relationship, the union remains more important then your (and your partner's) individual needs. Without mutual commitment, deep trust will never take root and intimacy will wither. When one person's commitment is tenuous, the very fabric of the relationship is weakened. A lack of commitment reduces the buffer that holds relationships together during times of conflict and stress. Imagine living with the fear that periodic slumps in your relationship can cause your partner to bail.
Trust and deep intimacy will only grow in the soil of commitment
Commitment has a dual role in your relationship. You can view commitment as the vehicle to help deepen your love, and you can also view it as a safety net of sorts, a way to protect your marriage or relationship during the difficult periods that each and every relationship experiences.
Commitment allows love and intimacy to mature over time. Someone who ends a relationship because the excitement of new love has diminished misses out on the opportunities that relationships bring for individual and mutual growth. Some erroneously believe that a commitment like "till death do us part" means foolishly locking yourself into a life-time of potential unhappiness. No one should commit to a relationship that cannot meet their needs. Your needs (and your partner's needs) do matter and should be part of the overall commitment equation. But life and relationships are complicated, and there will be stretches of time when your partner does not meet your needs (and you will not meet your partner's needs). Commitment is what will get you through those rough stretches, enabling each of you to get back on track in meeting each other's needs once again.
All couples (married and unmarried) face an enormous challenge: How to stay devoted to one another throughout the life of your relationship, even when early enthusiasm and euphoria naturally wane.
Commitment is a very personal process. Unfortunately, for some it will mean blind dedication to a union that rarely meets their needs; while others eschew commitment and impulsively use the ebb and flow of happiness as the gauge whether to stay or leave. Both of these approaches are flawed. Ideally, commitment will remain in place as happiness comes and goes and your relationship finds its footing along life's shifting terrain.
Commitment checklist:
Commit to ________:
…understanding that love grows and deepens over a lifetime
…acknowledging that all relationships go through ups and downs
…continuously working toward a meaningful relationship that will transcend momentary happiness
…working through problems with your partner (while resisting the temptation to get your needs met outside of the relationship)
…finding solutions that will keep your relationship moving forward
…compromising (even when you think you're right)
…yourself and the relationship
Don't commit to ________:
…anything that feels abusive
…always sacrificing what's most important to you
…the idea that if your relationship requires hard work it means your relationship is flawed
…the mindset that it's acceptable for your needs to continuously go unmet
One of the greatest challenges to commitment lies in the instant-gratification mindset--the idea that you deserve to have what you want when you want it. The settings to our pleasure barometer have been altered and humans are less willing to deal with frustrating circumstances or anything that feels like it stands in the way of immediate happiness. This poses a problem for relationships.
When you make decisions about your relationship based solely on the need to feel happy (all the time), you abandon commitment and the rich opportunities that are essential for your relationship to grow.
I invite you to think about what commitment means to you. What you are committing to in your marriage or relationship?
To discover many practical tips for a stronger relationship, visit Dr. Nicastro’s website at http://StrengthenYourRelationship.com/ and sign up for his FREE monthly newsletter. You will also immediately receive two free reports that can help you build the relationship of your dreams.
Richard Nicastro, Ph.D. is a psychologist and relationship coach who is passionate about helping couples protect the sanctuary of their relationship. Rich and his wife Lucia founded LifeTalk Coaching, an internet-based coaching business that helps couples strengthen their relationships.
By RICHARD NICASTRO, PH.D.
Source: http://www.amazines.com/Relationships/article_detail.cfm/403239?articleid=403239
Starting sometime in the nineteen fifties, television sitcoms started milking what has now become a pretty standard plot. It is the one where one spouse thinks the other is out fooling around but in the end it turns out to be nothing more than a series of misunderstandings. "You saw me with that woman because she is a mink coat wholesaler." Eventually all is forgiven. The jealous spouse apologizes for jumping to conclusions and for not trusting their partner. True love triumphs and all is right with the world. Fade to commercial.
But the real world does not work like that. In the U.S. alone half of all marriages end in divorce. While there are a myriad of reasons why, a significant chunk of the blame can be placed squarely on the shoulders of a spouse who is actually cheating. This is not just confined to marriage; many dating relationships have been destroyed when one or both persons have been caught tomcatting around.
There are two options when it comes to dealing with a cheating partner. The first is to ignore it. You know what is happening but for whatever reason you cannot deal with confronting the other person. There is always the hope that things will work themselves out and that your partner will stop cheating after they realize that true love is where you are.
That may happen every now and then but in the overwhelming majority of cases that is the equivalent of playing roulette with the odds stacked heavily against you. If one partner is cheating on another and feels they can get away with it anytime they want, it will probably take divine intervention or some traumatic event to change their thinking. In the meantime while pretending to be a tower of strength you are slowly dying inside.
The other option is to confront your partner with the evidence and have it out. You do not know what the future will bring but right now let the chips fall where they may. If you have to end the relationship immediately so be it, no one is going to make a fool out of you.
Understand that there could be a lot of harsh words exchanged. Everything that each of you considered a trivial problem at one time may explode to the surface. No matter what happens refrain from the physical. What's done is done so be ready to move on. They blew an opportunity to get to know more about wonderful you. This applies no matter if you have been married fifty years or have been dating five months.
Do not base your decision on what your friend, family or neighbors might say. If you have children avoid using them as a crutch to make your decision. "I'm doing this for the kids" will not make you any happier.
Also stay away from putting all the blame on you. No relationship is faultless and taking one hundred percent of the blame for another person's infidelity is just plain wrong. Be careful that the person cheating does not try to pull that one on you either. They would not cheat if only you had done x, y or z is a major copout and a clever way to put the ball back in your court while absolving themselves from all blame.
There are of course no good options when dealing with a cheating spouse or partner Seeing a professional counselor maybe able to help a great deal with the situation but in the final analysis of course the choice is yours. Just understand your main loyalty belongs to you.
By DARYL CAMPBELL
Source: http://www.amazines.com/Dating/article_detail.cfm/388911?articleid=388911
Wedding Photography art has evolved and grown. When the idea of wedding photography started most the couples didn’t take photo in the actual wedding until the second half of the late century they were posing for a formal photo wearing formal clothes before or after the wedding.
The great evolution of this art occur when the colored photo invented in the beginning of the late century, but in that time the people kept using the black and white photo because the expensive price and poor quality of the colored one. In these days wedding photography became something mandatory in the wedding and it has to be considered in the wedding plan and you to keep a budget for it.
If you want to have a nice package of wedding photography you must find the appropriate wedding photographer. Now it is easier to find a wedding photographer all what you have to do is searching on the internet you can find a lot of them and you can actually see some of there work.
You have to make sure to choose the appropriate one after that call him not by the email call him by the phone because you have to make sure that he is a nice person and you can't know that by the mail, because you don’t want any thing to bother you in this special day.
If my wedding photography brings assistance with him is this good or bad? Most the photographers do that it's good most the times, because a professional wedding photographer well only brings a professional assistant, and he is in the wedding to help the photographer to cover the whole wedding and capture every thing in it.
About the cost of the wedding photography, well this is something that you determine it according to you budget, there is no standard in the cost it's depend on many things like: 1. The wedding photographers you choose 2. The photography style 3. The celebration period 4. kind of options you want to add to you wedding photography package
By KENDY SMITH
Source: http://www.amazines.com/Dating/article_detail.cfm/391006?articleid=391006
"How can she possibly go out with that guy?" Keep your ears open long enough and you will hear that question or at least a variation of it a number of times in your life.
Some women ask this question not because they want an answer but more so out of plain jealousy. They want what another woman already has. That is all part of the game. Still others really are curious as to why she would even pick this particular guy to build a relationship.
No one can fully understand romance or human compatibility. It is what it is but that does not mean women love everything about us. In fact the majority could really do well without the following:
1. Selfishness
It's all about you. When the circumstances directly affect her, you find away to become the center of it. Dating and relationships are about give and take. Nobody and I mean nobody should get their way all the time or even want to. Not only does it make for dullness in the partnership but you are also buying stock in the resentment portfolio. It may not come back to bite you tomorrow or the next day but the longer the selfishness continues the more likely the resentment will grow. And when it comes to the surface you will be in for a nasty shock.
This also includes being a power freak. You will decide what, when, where, why and how much in every facet of the relationship. You want to be king of the roost but are not willing to make her the your queen. She is not your servant; she is your partner so learn to trust her decision making process and be prepared to let her lead sometimes.
2. Huh?
That means you were not listening. This drives women up the wall. It says that a: you do not respect her opinion and b: she is not worth listening to. Communication is high on the list of priorities for many women and listening is a huge part of the equation. If you need to train yourself to listen than do it. Besides that she will also appreciate the effort on your part. 3. The Mama's Boy
A good relationship with your mom is to be cherished and respected. No woman should begrudge you that. However running to mama to solve some problems you maybe having in your relationship or worse still using her as a standard to routinely criticize your partner is a definite no-no. It shows a strong lack of independence. Keep in mind also that while women may have maternal instincts that does not imply they want to assume the role of matriarch in your relationship. Two consenting adults means just that. There are of course many other things that women don't particularly like about us but it would probably take days to list them all (You can hear the ladies now saying think in terms of years). That's fine. No one is perfect so follow the three tips mentioned do the best you and watch it pay dividends.
Article written by Daryl Campbell. You can hear the ladies saying that it would take years not days to list all the things they don't like about men. Not surprising but it doesn't have to be that way. Find out how to manage the Relationship Matrix
By DARYL CAMPBELL
Source: http://www.amazines.com/Dating/article_detail.cfm/391431?articleid=391431
