Love & Relationships

Romance For Men: Following The Platinum Rule For A Better Relationship

The Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” is often promoted as the most important standard to maintain a rewarding relationship with the rest of the world. When it comes to romance, though, the Golden Rule has probably hurt more relationships than it has helped, since there’s often a distinct difference between what a man wants and what a woman wants.

Keeping Romance Alive With The Platinum Rule

Fewer people have heard of the Platinum Rule, which says “Do unto others as they want you to do unto them.” Following the Platinum Rule is a much better way to keep romance alive in your relationship, but for most men, simply following the rule is the easy part. Finding out exactly what a woman wants can be a difficult thing for men to do, especially since every person’s desires evolve over the course of a relationship. Applying the Platinum Rule to your relationship can dramatically improve your satisfaction, but it also requires consistent attention to identify her desires.

The most obvious way to find out how she wants to be treated romantically is by asking her. While we promote good old-fashioned romance on our website, and we will always believe that it will lead to more happiness in most relationships, we also realize that there are some women who might not like the type of gallant attention that it calls for. Some women simply don’t like classically romantic overtures, and measuring her reaction when you bring up topics of amour can give you a clue to what kind of a partner she really wants.

Being Empathetic To Satisfy Your Partner

In some cases, the best way to find out how she wants to be treated is through good old empathy. Your wife or girlfriend might not be able to really tell you what she thinks about romance, but you should know her well enough to put yourself in her shoes for a while. Does romantic behavior embarrass or intimidate her, or does she light up at small loving gestures and actions? Will it take some consistent effort to get her used to being romantic, or is she more comfortable with you treating each other as peers and friends? Old-fashioned romance can seem outdated and schmaltzy to some women nowadays, and there’s nothing wrong with that opinion.

Using the Platinum Rule and treating her as she wants to be treated will inevitably lead to more romance and satisfaction in your relationship, even if you discover she isn’t as interested in overt physical affection on a regular basis.

View Obstacles As Positive Challenges

There’s no single formula for successful couples, and what works for you will have a lot to do with your partner’s unique personality and the dynamics of your relationship. Just remember one important rule of thumb: if her romantic desires don’t mesh perfectly with yours, look at it as a challenge, not a hindrance.

Perhaps most importantly, using the Platinum Rule in your relationship will likely lead to a great return on your investment. Once she sees how dedicated you are to treating her as she wants to be treated, she will be much more likely to take the time to do the same for you, as well.

Getting Off….Your Phone!

By maryannecomaroto

I was at one of my favorite local restaurants this past weekend and while I was waiting, I noticed two really cute little kids at a table with a well-dressed man who I assumed was their father. This assumed father in an expensive suit was perched like a penguin at a table and it appeared doing his college best to try and talk to his kids, who looked like they were on Prozac.

I thought, awwwww, how nice , a dad, with his kids (okay, yeah, I am a sucker). This guy was talking non-stop about something, blabbing on and on in the general direction of his kids, yet upon closer inspection I noticed the kids weren’t really paying attention at all. Now, clearly this was no company for Socratic dialogue – but still, there was no connect at all.

I thought, hmmm. Is he scolding them? Then I saw him laugh. No, that’s not it. Are they just to young to understand what he’s talking to them about? Yeah, I was really trying to figure out what was going on, to the point that I had almost forgotten what I was doing at the restaurant in the first place. I paid and glanced back over.

Disconnecting To Connect

Nope, same guy, same scene except…wait…a minute. Oh, no…is that guy? Could he be? No…. I squinted my eyes, looked closely across the room, and zeroed in on his ear reflected in the mirror, and sure enough…I swear I almost shouted “OH MY GOD, HE’S ON THE PHONE!!” I gasped instead. That whole time, instead of trying to do what I naively gave him credit for, almost shed a tear over, he was on the f-ing phone.

Now everything made sense. Now I saw why these kids looked like they were in a dead zone. Oh, the judgments flew, and they were flying everywhere. And you’re right; I didn’t give him the benefit of the doubt. I was way beyond giving this guy the benefit of the doubt – to be fair he could’ve been on the phone with a sick relative, or talking another kid through a crisis.

So I caught myself – I didn’t know why this guy was on the phone, or why his kids looked drugged. And is it any of my business? Some would say no, some would say it takes a village.

A Responsibility To Your Family Or A Responsibility To Your Phone?

I see it so much now, parents-hell, people of all ages-who are with each other but not where they are, obviously wanting to connect, but not present to being connected. I watch young kids’ digits manipulate with their opposables, texting like fiends, like junkies, while in the car, while driving the car, parking, talking, walking, riding bikes, skateboards, eating in restaurants. It’s like we should all have the friggin’ phones surgically attached to our bodies! Or, how about, hang up the bloody phone once and a while?

Let’s take a look at what some modern-day respect and responsibility might look like …

If you are driving in the presence of other human beings, hang up the phone-you are putting them in danger. At least, use the speaker. You wanna kill yourself, that’s your decision. The rest of us want to live.
If you have children and feel burdened by their presence and wish they were not with you, get help, give them up for adoption, or at least try and talk to people you care about less than them during business hours or when they’re sleeping. Kids need attention, respect, to feel safe and to have an enlightened witness to see them!
Basically pay attention to where you are and the effect you may be having on other people. If it seems rude, it probably is. Just walk outside or keep your voice down. Manners are how we show each other respect!

Of course, I – like everyone else -have a phone. But I try like the dickens to be sensitive, both in regards to my phone etiquette and just in general. Lately, every Friday I try and leave my phone at home for several hours, practicing what it was like when people had to wait. I highly recommend it.

6 Reasons People Stay In Relationships

By michaelfreeman

Sometimes, it’s clear that a relationship is unhappy, unsatisfying, and possibly even harmful for us. If there’s no hope for your relationship, it’s important to end it as soon as your situation allows.

Sometimes staying in an unhappy situation is a deliberate sacrifice: For example, some people stay with an incompatible partner if children are involved. However, often it’s simply passive choice stemming from indecision, fear, and even a misguided sense of loyalty.

Why Can’t You Leave?

If your partner stands in the way of you living a fulfilling life, you need to leave ASAP – life’s too short. All relationships require some amount of compromise, but giving up the possibility for happiness is not part of the deal.

Many people find themselves staying simply for their partner’s benefit. This is a mistake: It’s not only unfair to you, it’s unfair to your partner, who deserves someone that truly wants to be with him or her.

Maybe you’re “just waiting for the right time.” But there is never a good time to break up: There is almost always pain and discomfort involved. That persistent delay is your mind’s way of avoiding the pain and hardship of breaking up. Down the road, you may experience acute regret for the time you wasted.

I encounter six major reasons why people stay:

Guilt – You can’t stand causing your partner pain
Loyalty – You feel a devotion to the history you share with your partner, even if it’s a bad one
Misplaced priorities – You place your partner’s needs above your own
Expectations – You feel pressure from family (yours or your partner’s) and friends to stay together
Financial or logistical reasons – Financial and lifestyle concerns make it too difficult to leave
Anxiety about “the moment” – You fear how your partner will react, especially if your partner has a pattern of emotional or physically abuse

Regarding the last point, sometimes the thought of initiating the breakup can be so intimidating that the individual is paralyzed, sometimes for years. Much of the time, the best approach to leaving such a relationship involves a good deal of distance (The advice to “always tell them in person” doesn’t always apply!).

Take The First Step

The longer you wait, the more invested in the relationship you both become. By the time you have the courage to pursue a life you want, you may have kids, financial obligations, and a whole list of reasons why you can’t leave. The first step is accepting that you will have to take action to change your situation. Stop envisioning disaster scenarios and start deciding exactly how you’re going to proceed.

Remember, the pain of a break up is temporary and will pass relatively quickly. It causes much more suffering to avoid the decision and stay in an unsatisfying relationship, wasting your time (and your partner’s time!) in a relationship you no longer want.

Do You Stash Cash?

By drbonnieeakerweil

No, I’m not talking about an emergency supply you may have in a kit for a natural disaster or the like (in which case you SHOULD stash your money!), I’m talking about those of us who have a habit of keeping our cash around the house. It’s even more understandable given the recent collapse of banks and all this uncertainty, but consider the example – albeit extreme – of the woman in Tel Aviv who had stashed $1 million in cash under her mattress (literally), which was then hauled away to the dump. The cash still hasn’t been recovered.

According to MSNBC, statistics on the number of people in the U.S. who stash cash at home are hard to come by, but a 2007 survey of 1,500 British adults by Virgin Money found 8 percent of them stash between approximately $500 to $1,650 around the house, usually tucked within a drawer, mattress or safe.

Locked Up Tight?

Utilizing a safe may be one thing, but too often cash-stashers don’t secure their loot behind a combination lock, which can lead to all kinds of problems – the money accidentally being thrown out, donated (when stashed inside a jacket pocket for instance), or stolen. Then you have the risk of fire or even forgetting where you put it!

An exercise I suggest in my book to people who have unhealthy relationships to and with money is to figure out their financial Imago, which I discuss in my book Financial Infidelity – which deals with peoples’ romantic relationships as well as their relationship with money.

Your Relationship With Money

Depending on your stage in life, and your stage in the relationship, there are crucial questions you need to answer. How do you feel about debt? How much debt do you have? Are you a risk-taker or are you risk-averse? Will the kids go to private school? Will we fund their college education in its entirety? Who will pay when we go out? How often will we go out and how often will we eat in?

Of course, these are only a few, sample questions to touch on before you head into significant life changes, but they are a good place to start. Many times you many not even know how to answer those questions yourself, much less how you will answer them as a couple. And just as often, you will have a knee-jerk reaction as to how to answer them that may be completely opposite from your partners. It’s always best to get those reactions out in the open before you find yourself “in the heat of battle!”

If you uncover that your passion for stashin’ is somewhat hereditary, you may want to go around emptying out drawers of heirloom dressers … JUST KIDDING!

The Cleanse Yourself Diet

By maryannecomaroto

What if I told you there is one diet to trump all diets – one that affects your emotional health, and not your waistline? One that will make you feel better without telling you what to eat or how to eat it – would you think it was too good to be true?

The diet I’m talking about isn’t one that’s related to food or exercise at all, but it will help build your self-esteem and miraculously make you feel better about who you are and what you have. Sound too good to be true? As I’ve said before, there’s no quick fix to create a healthy relationship with yourself or to cure all of your past ills, but there is a course of action you can take that will exponentially increase your self-health.

Are You Being Tricked?

Let me start with a story from my past. When I was younger, my girlfriends and I would spend many a summer day with our bodies slathered in Bain de Soliel (or baby oil if we couldn’t afford that), our faces buried in Cosmo or Vogue, ogling and studying our role models; the emaciated rich. Believing what we saw was real, closing the magazines feeling imperfect and fat yet determined to figure out how to get what they had. A life other than our own. It seemed possible. Why shouldn’t we trust what we saw? It was everywhere; skinny, happy, rich people who wore designer clothes and had passionate relationships.
Little did we know – or, perhaps, did we WANT to know – there was a group of people who had concocted it all, a select group of sleazy, greedy, very clever soul-sucking vampires who day in and day out preyed on people just like us.

At age 14, I put two and two together, and realized that every time I turned on the TV or opened a magazine, afterwards I felt bad about myself, however subtly. The net effect was, I was being hoodwinked or lured to believe I should be, better, cooler, prettier, skinner; something other than me. Interesting how some things never change. But I can – and here was the solution I came up with.

The Ultimate Cleanse:

The bad news may be that the soul suckers lured you in, they sold it, you bought it and you, too, are addicted to being externally referenced. The good news is: The jig is up. Yes, it’s all a big lie. But there is a cure and it’s as simple as, 1-2-3.

Turn off your idiot box (TV)
Don’t buy any more rags (trash or fashion magazines)
Stop paying attention to what other people are doing and focus on yourself!

Being internally referenced is the foundation for all my work. That, and a solid relationship with spirit and your inner divine guidance, and you are all set. You already have everything you need; you have been give the greatest gift of all and it’s staring you right in the face. YOU. Jim Rohn, a well-known motivational speaker, once gave me this advice: “Stop building someone else’s dream!” And I say to you, turn off the TV and shut out the media vultures. Stop taking the bait! Build your own dreams. I promise, you will be glad you did! Your own life is precious and very real. And you are indeed PERFECT as you are.

Try the ultimate cleanse for a month. You will feel better, be more focused, have more time, and be all that closer to turning your heart’s greatest desire into REALITY!