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4 Ways To Have A Romantic Anniversary

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Romance is an important factor in your wedding anniversary. It is a celebration not only of your many years as a couple but it is also a celebration of your future years ahead. Each anniversary should be filled with love, sentimentality and excitement. After all, you want your next year together to be as successful as the last.

Plan A Trip Together

Going on a trip together is one of the best ways to act like a couple in an unfamiliar setting. Imagine visiting places together and finding more things to talk about. Some couples have the best sex in a long time in a hotel suite somewhere far from their home. The environment is new, and so is the ambiance for your love making.

Do something romantic in every city you visit, such as riding a traditional carriage, a boat or a jet ski. If the place you are visiting specializes in an extreme sport (rappelling and bungee), go for it. The exertion and the novelty of the activity will boost your excitement. Anything that is new to you is special, especially if you are sharing it with the one you love.

Naughty Coupons

Print out five naughty coupons that are good only for your anniversary weekend. You can print anything there, including ‘one-hour backrub’, ‘your favorite sex positions for 30 minutes’ and ‘full monty striptease.’ Ask your girl to choose three of the five romance coupons that she will use during that time.

That you’re just letting her use three of the coupons is no accident. There’s a reason for this. You want her to weigh the pros and cons of the activities on those coupons. You want her to imagine which activities would excite her most. Chances are, she will end up fantasizing about all those activities and feeling more excited about your weekend together than you.

Honeymoon Night Revisited

Think you’d only use your wedding finery once? Think again! Make it a habit to re-live your wedding night every year. Wearing your wedding lingerie in your bedroom during your anniversary can be your little secret. No one needs to know why you need to have your wedding stuff dry-cleaned every year.

This would help you remember the silly and romantic moments of your wedding day, and all the bloopers that happened during the wedding night. If you can remember the way you made love that night, great! You can do it that way all over again.

Prepare Midnight Snack In Bed

Instead of preparing dinner, dine out. On your way home, you should stop by a diner and get something you can eat in bed together. Better yet, prepare a ‘sex salad’ that you can use to sustain you if you plan to make love all night long. This is full of romance and incredibly sexy, especially if you both watched Halle Berry’s scene in that James Bond movie (she fed the playboy secret agent fruit after sex).

The Art Of Compromise In A Relationship

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In a relationship, learning how to compromise is one of the most important things you can do.. Though humans are meant to be in the company of other humans, we’re all individuals with our own specific needs and desires. That means we’re not always on the same page as our significant other, no matter how much we love them. If you and your partner can find ways to compromise on issues large and small, your relationship will be able to go the distance.

Communication – The 1st Step

The best way to reach successful agreements is to discuss open issues during calm moments. In the heat of an argument, you and your partner are likely more focused on your anger than reaching a solution with love. That means you should try to talk about your shared conundrums during happier times, like over a nice dinner or on a relaxed Saturday afternoon. Once you’ve established exactly what your issue is, try for a collective brainstorm.

For example, let’s say your mate was offered a job in another city which would force you to move and give up your job. Sit down together with the following ground rules in mind: you will each state your case, without interruption from the other party, and then you’ll both suggest possible solutions. Thus, your S.O. will explain why he/she thinks the move is a good idea, and then you will explain why you’d like to stay. This isn’t a situation where both of you will be able to get what you want, so you have to weigh all of the evidence at hand as you work to come up with partial solutions.

Perhaps you’ve been at your company long enough to request that they let you work from home if you have to move away. Maybe you make more money, so it makes financial sense to stay for your job, but you’ll help your partner keep hunting for something nearby. You may even have to decide that your S.O. can have their way, but you’ll get to have your way on the next big decision. As long as you both make an effort to meet each other part way, less relationship problems will come of it.

Learning To Make Tradeoffs

For smaller issues there are often tradeoffs to be made. You’ll clean the bathroom every week if your boyfriend or girlfriend will regularly vacuum the apartment. If he or she does the grocery shopping, you will do the cooking. Small, everyday compromises like these make both you and your partner feel equally important. It may seem silly, but splitting the chores or trading off which person’s friends you hang out with can make your relationship much healthier than most. Knowing that both of your opinions are heard makes each of you feel more valued and loved.

Avoiding the one-sidedness that preys on many relationships can go a long way toward the prevention of arguments and unhappiness. The best thing about a compromise is that everyone feels better in the end, even if they didn’t get exactly what they wanted. When there are clear winners and losers, relationships can suffer. That’s especially true if the same person regularly ends up on the losing end of the equation.

You have to make sure that you’re taking turns coming out ahead, or resentment starts to boil. Romantic relationships are ultimately partnerships, and that means you need to work together to seek the best possible outcomes. Things won’t work out perfectly every time, but making that effort together strengthens your bond. Ask any married couple out there, and you’ll find that compromises played a huge part in their romance success.

Relationship Advice: Are You Spending Too Much Time Together?

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When you’re in relationship with someone, it can be so easy to want to spend every moment you have with them, particularly in the beginning of the relationship. However, there’s a fine line between what is and isn’t healthy. If you start to notice that you never see your friends anymore, or you’re dropping activities you used to love from your schedule, things may have gone too far.

You may even realize that you’re beginning to grow bored with dating your boyfriend and girlfriend because you’re slipping into a routine. We can’t expect one person to satisfy all of our needs, so we have to have a well-rounded life. You may be surprised to find that pursuing your own interests and friendships can actually make you and your mate that much more intrigued by each other.

How Much Is Too Much?

Perhaps you are feeling smothered by your relationship, or you suspect you’ve lost your sense of self. Think back to the things you did when you were single. Did you have a regular ladies’ or guys’ night? Were you a member of a club or sports team, or taking a class to pursue a hobby? While you may not want to pursue every activity from when you were single, it’s worth adding a few back into your lifestyle. You don’t even have to do something as frequently as you used to. If you and your girlfriends had a weekly movie night, perhaps you can try to attend at least twice a month.

Maybe your monthly camping trip with the boys can now be done three times a year. As long as you’re maintaining at least one other important relationship in your life and taking some time out of your schedule for them, that’s a start. Absence really does make the heart grow fonder. You may find that your girlfriend is that much more excited about spending the following weekend with you upon your return from that camping trip.

Keep Up With Your Own Hobbies And Interests

It is also important to keep up with hobbies and other interests you have, whether you invite your significant other to participate in them with you or keep them an alone-time activity. This isn’t just because you’ll feel happier, but also because it makes you a more interesting person. Your partner loves you for all the things that make you a unique individual, and that includes the fact that you love to read, or cook, or go running every morning.

Maybe you can no longer play video games for an entire Saturday afternoon, but that doesn’t mean you can’t fit in an hour here or there. Plus, this helps encourage your S.O. to develop his or her own interests. While you’re busy baking that cake, your mate can head outside and practice free throws. Now you have that much more to discuss with and learn from each other.

Don’t Shoulder Your Partner With The Responsibility Of Making You Happy

Truthfully, it boils down to this—if you drop all of your friends and hobbies for a relationship, you’re now reliant on your partner for all of your happiness. That’s not fair to either of you, and it can place a strain on your relationship in the long run. You will both feel better if you can learn how to maintain a sense of self-worth. It’s important to have friends there for the times when things aren’t going so great with your boy/girlfriend.

You need a network of support, just as you need to know that you can make yourself happy through hobbies and solo fun. Having two well-rounded people in a relationship will make that relationship that much more compelling. That’s the best way to ensure a long, happy and interesting romance.

Love & Romance: The Best Of 2010

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While love almost always comes freely and naturally, actually telling someone how you really feel about them isn’t always the easiest thing to do. It’s harder to actually say those three simple little words than it is to say anything else really, especially if you’re in a new relationship and have never said it before.

Even after you’ve told your partner that you really care about them, continuing to be romantic throughout a relationship is also difficult. It’s easy to sweep a girl (or guy) off their feet when you first start dating them, but after you’ve been together for some time, day to day life gets in the way and romance isn’t on the forefront of your mind.

Romance – especially for guys – is something they have to work really hard at and romantic ideas rarely pop into their heads without an instigator. Does this mean that telling your significant other that you love them or bringing romance into your relationship is impossible? Not hardly.

It may take a little more work than you originally thought, but there are lots of ways to let your lover know how you feel, often without even saying anything at all. This year, we’ve found the best romance tips out there and the best ways to show your partner you love them. Take these suggestions with you into 2011 for a romance filled new year!

Married Life: My Wife Says I’m Not Emotionally Available?

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For a woman to say that her husband is emotionally unavailable in a marriage is not at all uncommon – in fact, most women aren’t sure if their husbands have any emotions at all! Fortunately, this is not a sign that he doesn’t enjoy being married to you or wants to be someone else. What it is a sign of is that he’s a man and wasn’t taught how to talk about his emotions or express them growing up. Guys, if you’re in a marriage, it’s time to grow up and learn what being emotionally available means. Ladies, here’s how you can help your man learn the language of emotion.

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What Does Being Emotionally Available Mean?

Being emotionally available to your partner in a marriage is a very essential component to making the relationship work. Guys, you have to be at least willing to share a little bit of emotion with your partner. You need to be able to respond to your partner’s emotional needs and meet them without trying to “fix” them. Instead of trying to “fix” a sad partner, try to share a little bit with them and listen to them express why they’re sad and what made them upset. Most of the time, listening to your partner express what they’ve got going on and what they’re feeling will help them to get it out and get over it. Guys, most women can’t stand trying to be “fixed” or being told that they shouldn’t feel a certain way because it’s not logical. Women are going to feel whatever they feel whenever they feel it! Listen to her and allow her to express her feelings without being critical and without trying to offer a solution. She just needs you to hear her out.

For The Ladies: It’s Not His Fault

Ladies, you need to realize that men weren’t born and raised in an emotional environment like women were. Men were taught to hide their emotions – if they were sad, they didn’t talk about it. Dads didn’t teach their little boys how to talk about their feelings. Instead, they were taught how to hunt, fish, bowl, etc. to deal with their emotions. Men usually have two emotions that they express freely – happiness and anger. Any other emotions that crop up get pushed deep down or get dealt with by his retreating to whatever activity helps him to relieve stress and not talking about it. This can frustrate women to no end, but it’s not his fault! It’s just how men have been programmed to deal with what is going on in their lives and how they feel about certain things. They don’t know how to be emotionally available or how to talk about what they’re feeling. They literally don’t know the language. They don’t know what words to use to express how they’re feeling inside, so they usually just put it away.

For The Ladies: Help Him Learn The Language Of Emotion

It’s up to the ladies to help their male partners to learn the language of emotion. Guys, you have to be open to it though, or her efforts are going to fall on deaf ears.Emotions are a many layered thing, and it’s possible to feel many different things at once. This is usually what overwhelms a man and causes them to retreat – they’re not sure how to deal with that many different emotions at one time, or even one really strong emotion. Offer to listen to your partner and encourage him to talk about how he feels if something comes up that makes him upset or sad. Did he get frustrated at work? Why? How did what happened make him feel? You can offer up how you felt in similar situations without being critical so he can begin to understand how different situations can make people feel many different emotions. Don’t criticize him if he can’t think of how to express what he’s going through – instead, gently prompt him on the words to use to illustrate what he’s feeling inside. Guys, try not to shut your partners out when you’re feeling upset, sad, frustrated, angry or all of the above. Instead, allow them to be there for you. Allow them to listen to you and be there for you. She just needs to hear you out. This will make a huge difference in your relationship, whether you’re just in a long term relationship or you’re married.