Love & Relationships

Are You In A Relationship With A Boy, A Guy Or A Man?

A fulfilling physical relationship can be amazing. The sex may be great, you may have a high level of physical compatibility, and every time you’re together it reminds you what a great couple you are. But what about beyond that? What would happen if, despite using protection, you suddenly became pregnant? Just because your partner is good in bed doesn’t mean he’ll automatically be good as a dad.

Instead of crossing your fingers and hoping that a journey of nine months will culminate in a wedding or at least a commitment, don’t you think it would be a better idea to find out now, before it’s too late, what kind of man he is and what you and your child would have to look forward to with him? It’s important to know if you’re with a man who understands the potential surprise consequences of sex, and feels an equal and unconditional responsibility no matter what the outcome.

In other words, it’s important to learn whether you have a boy, a guy, or a man.

A Boy

Boy sees girl, and the first thought in his head is what she would look like naked.

The girl introduces herself, and the boy immediately thinks that she wants him.

The girl gives the boy her phone number, and he’s starting to think that getting laid is a real possibility.

The girl agrees to a date, and the boy decides to bring a condom.

The girl allows a kiss, and the boy pushes it to second base.

The girl gives up and allows the touching, and the boy pushes on until he gets sex.

Sooner or later the girl wants a commitment, and which point the boy starts shopping for other girls.

This sort of story happens most often among teenagers, before either party has recognized their self-worth. Sometimes, however, the adult version of this scenario can have a lot of similarities.

A Guy

Guy sees gal, and immediately ponders what she would look like naked.

The gal smiles at him, and he knows she’s wanting him.

The gal says she’ll call the guy, but just to be safe he gives her his office voicemail.

The gal sets up a date, and the guy suggests early drinks on a Tuesday, just in case he needs to bail.

The gal pictures their future children, while the guy just hopes she doesn’t talk through the whole date.

The gal initiates sex, and the guy rehearses his story so he can get out of there as soon as possible.

The gal calls the guy constantly, while he thinks, I knew I should have bailed.

The gal writes him off as a typical male pig, while he wonders if she’d be game for some more sex.

A Man

Man sees woman, and wonders what she’s aiming for in her life.

The woman opens up a little to him, and the man wonders how genuine she is.

The man asks her out, and the woman accepts without hesitation.

The woman tells the man about her dreams and goals, and the man notes how much they have in common.

The woman notices over time that the man’s actions back up his words, he builds respect.

The man opens up to the woman completely, she drops her drawers.

The woman and man are honest with each other, and do their best to enhance each other’s lives!

To be close to someone is one of the most natural desires in the world, and along with that comes the desire to be touched, to be held, and to have sex. We are all on our own paths of growth, and when we start to want to build a relationship, it’s important to remember the differences between boys, guys and men, even if children aren’t involved.

Q&A: How Do I Get Over My Ex?

By loveandsex

We’ve all been through it before – we’ve been dumped, and it’s been extremely difficult to get over our ex. In fact, it often happens to us more than once throughout our lives. Pining over an ex can wreak havoc on your social life and your love life, and prevent you from accepting new relationships with people who might be more compatible with you than your ex was. So the question is, how do you get over your ex?

Question: Why is it sometimes so hard to not love your ex girlfriend even though she was quite cold and left you because she didn’t love you? My brain says I should not think of her, but my heart says something different. Well, I hope one day I will find a more intelligent woman.

— From The Dan & Jennifer Love & Sex Forums

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g93-q7X6hEI[/youtube]

Living Up To The Expectations

Everyone has an idea of what they feel a good relationship is. Going into a relationship, the expectations are applied and when their partner doesn’t meet those expectations, those loving feelings start to go away. This leads to an inevitable breakup, whether it is a quick and dirty one or a long, drawn out process. When your ex broke up with you, it was because you didn’t meet their expectations of what a good relationship is. You can’t change their ideas of what a good relationship is, so what do you do? You look for someone who has relationship expectations that are similar to your own. Look for someone who has similar life goals, and someone who has expectations that you can easily meet.

Keep The Hope Alive

The hardest thing to get over after a break up is the feeling of rejection. It cuts deep, and we often feel like we’re unworthy of love and unworthy of a great relationship. Don’t let these feelings overtake your life! Recognize that it’s normal to feel rejected when you get dumped, but realize that you and your ex just weren’t compatible as far as relationship expectations go. And more often than not, a break up has nothing to do with you being a bad partner – it has everything to do with unrealistic expectations. So try your best to work through the emotions instead of trying to stop them – because your feelings absolutely deserve to be validated. Allow yourself to feel them, but also allow yourself room to let them go. There is always hope for another relationship – an even better one – down the road.

Learn From The Past

Each relationship that we are in gives us multiple learning opportunities. Failing to use the opportunities you’ve been given to learn from the past will only make you repeat it in the future. You don’t want to go through a situation like that ever again, right? So think about the things you can do in the future to prevent it, like finding a partner with whom you share similar relationship expectations with. Dwelling on the past and the hurt it has often caused will do nothing but get you running around in circles! Let it go and move on to a better and brighter future.

When You Take Care Of Yourself, You Take Care Of Your Relationship

By sarahelizabethmalinak

If you have a supportive personality, if you usually put other people before yourself, or if it matters to you that people like you back, this article may seem like a radical piece of advice! For hyper-supportive types, you only know how to feel good about yourself by taking care of others. Let me show you the benefits that your relationship and those you love will receive when you take some time for self-care.

How Self-Care Benefits Your Relationship

Increased self-care leads to more self-love, creating a kinder, more receptive you. Receptivity is important to your relationship whether you are male or female because your lover feels secure with you when he or she trusts that you won’t reject him or her.

Increased self-care and self-love creates a more confident you. Confident people are sexy! Confident people also go to bat more easily for those they care about. That makes you very attractive to your partner and makes them feel good about themselves and about you. For instance, a confident man will go to bat on behalf of his woman if ever she is disrespected by another. A confident woman will go to bat on behalf of her man by affirming him in her conversation with others. Confidence can build trust and grow love.

The more you actively care for yourself, the less needy you are of others. Spouses love this! The less needy you are, the more time and energy your have for the stuff of relationships that creates bonding and deepening of your love! Trust me, a big fight or emotional session brought on out of need strains a relationship. It doesn’t deepen the intimacy! Making love, having adventures, loving conversation, and discovering new places together are just some of the stuff of relationships that creates bonding and greater intimacy.

Increased self-care leads to greater awareness of where others are “at.” As you grow your sensitivity to your own needs, you can become down right psychic about the needs of others. This doesn’t mean you go around rescuing everyone because you can more easily “read” them. It looks more like being able to acknowledge where they are in such a way that they feel seen and heard and can more confidently handle whatever’s going on. Rather than seeing you as a rescuer, they experience you as someone who has their back.

Increased self-care means that you slowly but surely get more comfortable saying “no” to the things, people, and circumstances you really have no business taking on. Supportive types especially are prone to offer support beyond their ability to provide, resulting in resentment and grudges held. One of the most beautifying things a supportive person can do for him or herself is to learn to calmly and peacefully say “no.”

Being able to say “no” also means your “yes” means “yes” and your “no” means “no.” No wishy-washiness. No saying “yes” only to find you’ll come to resent everything and everyone associated with that “yes.” This level of integrity makes others trust you more. And trust is good for relationships.

What Does Self Care Look Like?

It looks like just about anything that brings you pleasure! Some people take the word and apply it to getting caught up with doctors’ appointments or eating right or exercising more. Well, I think all that stuff is about being responsible. For self-care I look at things like bubble baths, favorite foods, petting my dog or cat, enjoying a belly laugh with my husband, the way the air smells after a big snowfall, the way the rain sounds when its drops are big and fat, taking time out for me, a good book. Self-care also means going through life slowly and sensitively enough to recognize when I’m hurting or “off” so that I can stop and address my need.

Do you see? It’s just taking the time for the stuff that brings me pleasure and paying attention to my needs the way I would anyone else’s. It’s simple but it’s hard to do when I’m putting everyone and everything else first. And when I don’t do it, my relationships suffer because I feel taxed and resentful.

I don’t know if I’ve persuaded you but if you even take a few moments out of each day to slow down, breathe deeply, and be present with something – the food you’re eating or the way the air smells at whatever season it is or the touch of someone’s hand in yours – and take in the sensual and emotional pleasure of being present just because you’re worth it, you will find that your eyes twinkle just a little bit more at the sight of your beloved. That twinkle can warm the cockles of their heart (whatever “cockles” are!). That twinkle in your eye and the warmth in their heart can fan the flames of your love and attraction for each other.

You, your relationship, and the person you love best of all are worth you taking care of you!

The Pitfalls Of Addictive Love

By maryannecomaroto

In ancient Greece, there were five words to describe different kinds of love. Romantic love was called eros, the love between friends was referred to as philia, and storge was a natural affection that occurred between people. Thelema was love based on a desire to do something, and agape was a selfless, giving love. By comparison, we only have one word for love in English, and even though we have lots of words describing different aspects of love, those words are not love itself, but rather facets of it.

Addictive Love

On the surface it would seem that addiction is a different thing entirely, but it’s surprising how much these two ideas can overlap. There are two levels of meaning for addiction – one is the etymological root, addictio, which simply indicates a surrender or giving something over. In modern times, however, we interpret this more as an enslavement, habits or practices so traumatically habit-forming that the person caught in the habit sustains lasting and significant psychological or physical damage. This puts addictive love on its own level, and as you can imagine it can lead to some pretty dangerous places if it is left to its own devices.

Thomas Moore, the author and spiritual leader, maintains that most of our addictive behaviors are brought on by us misinterpreting and distorting our soul’s longing. Over the years I have come to notice that when we are not truly in touch with who we are, we don’t really know what we want or need. This can lead to us regressing to comfort behaviors we learned in childhood – potentially destructive ways to deal with perceived longings. In the case of being externally referenced in the “object love” catagory, oftentimes this can set us up for entering into addictive relationships again and again.

Being repetitive in itself is not a bad, thing, however – many of our successes count on us being able to engage in and repeat positive patterns. It’s when the repetitious behavior is destructive or harmful that we need to identify it and do something about it. If we can spot it, we can take the opportunity to look more deeply inward and examine our actions.

Are You In An Addictive Relationship?

How boring is that, though? In a world full of interesting bad boys promising fun and adventure, opting for less drama may seem like the wrong choice… at first. If you are starting to suspect that you are one of the hundreds of thousands of people who engage in addictive relationship behavior each year, you might want to ask yourself the following:

Do you feel excited by a sense of the forbidden in your relationship?
Do you get antsy or agitated when you don’t know where this person is?
Do you feel like your attraction for this person is beyond your control or bigger than you?
Are you overcome with a natural high whenever you speak to this person?
Have you noticed that this persons values and behaviors are not like yours?
Do you find yourself rationalizing their behavior more and more as time goes on?
Do you find yourself doing and saying uncharacteristic things when you are around this person?
Do you go to extreme lengths to please this person or be sexy for them, hoping that they will remain interested in you?
Do you find reasons to stay in the relationship even though you know it’s unhealthy or even a dangerous addiction?
Have some of your other important relationships (family, friends) been damaged by this relationship?
Do you feel increasingly unfulfilled by the direction the relationship is heading?
Do you know somewhere inside that this is not the right person for you, yet you still don’t leave?

Being aware is important, and it’s a great starting point if you think you may be addicted to your relationship. Having the strength to look at your own situation in an objective way takes a lot of courage. So here’s what I would say: if you are in a dependent relationship that you think edges over toward addiction, start keeping a journal and make note of anything that seems suspicious to you. There are plenty of groups out there that help people deal with the patterns that lead to addictive relationships, and they can help support you in your quest to attain a healthy love life. If you’re at a loss for where to start, find a local chapter of Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous.

Q&A: Valentines Day Gift – Anonymous Or Not?

By loveandsex

Valentine’s Day is coming up soon, and if you’re admiring someone from afar, you may be wondering whether to get them a gift or not. Should you give them a gift at all, or give them an anonymous gift? Here’s what to do if you’re stuck on getting your crush a gift – or not.

Question: I have a question seeing as its nearly February 14. I was going to get the girl I really like gifts, but I’m afraid to because she will know it’s me [we’re both teenagers]. What should I do?

–YouTube Viewer

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvwN4fmMHIA[/youtube]

Afraid Of Rejection

If you’re afraid of getting the girl (or guy) you like a gift for Valentine’s Day, it’s more likely that you are not so much afraid to get them a gift (and them knowing it is you who got them the gift) but you are afraid of rejection. Everyone is afraid of rejection, especially when it comes to dating, such as asking a girl or guy out. Here’s a sound piece of advice – don’t worry so much about rejection. Many times, when you get rejected, it has nothing to do with you. It’s not you who is being rejected. Most of the time, the girl or guy already has some things going on in their life that they are just too involved with at that time to be accepting of a gift or a date. For example, a girl may say “no” to a date because her puppy just died, or because she’s in a relationship, or because she’s a lesbian. Hey, you never know. More often than not, it has absolutely nothing to do with you as a person.

Don’t Regret What You Didn’t Do

If you hold out on yourself, and don’t ask out the girl you like or give her the special gifts you want to give, you’re going to be regretting it your entire life. Many people spend the rest of their lives wishing they did something they didn’t do, because they wonder how it would have turned out if they had done it. Don’t let life slide past you that way! Give her the gifts, say they’re from you, and tell her you like her. Do you really have all that much to lose? Even if you do get rejected, you can at least say that you took that step and weren’t afraid of making your feelings known. If you don’t do it, you’ll wonder for the rest of your life what it would have been like if you had.

Valentine’s Day is about showing the people you like or love that you care. Whether it’s your spouse, your girlfriend or boyfriend or simply someone you have a crush on, Valentine’s Day is the day to let it all come out. Don’t hold back! If you like them or love them, let them know. Let them know how special they are to you, and don’t be afraid to say that you enjoy having them in your life, even if it’s just your friend! Valentine’s Day is the best day of the year to let your feelings about someone be known. So go for it, take the risk and show someone that you care!