Secrets We Keep From Those We Love

Everyone keeps a few secrets from a husband or wife, boyfriend and girlfriend. And people keep their secrets for a lot of reasons. Often people are embarrassed or they are fearful of a partner's hostility or possible rejection.

And research shows that it is in one's best interest to keep some things private, especially when partners or spouses are likely to respond poorly to the truth. Being rejected, scorned, or stigmatized does not help any one work through a serious issue.

But, keeping secrets can also be harmful.

Keeping secrets often prevents people from dealing with the problem at hand. Keeping secrets leads to increased stress, anxiety, and it often makes people think about the issue (event or topic) more frequently.

For instance, people who have a secret crush on someone often dwell on their feelings more than people who are able to talk about their feelings out in the open. More often than not, keeping something secret makes it seem more important than it really is.

Likewise, revealing secrets is very helpful when it is done right; that is, in a safe, non-judgmental environment. Revealing secrets can reduce stress, it helps people let go of an issue and think about it more clearly.

If a secret is bothering you, it really does help to get it out - as long people don't respond negatively or use the information against you.

In fact, research shows that the simple task of writing down a secret, even if no one ever reads it, makes people feel better. Writing a secret down reduces stress - it is cathartic.

With this in mind, we have created a place where people can anonymously reveal the secrets they keep. Maybe you will find that letting go of one of your own secrets is helpful and not so embarrassing after all.

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The Funny Side Of Saying - I Love You

Love, the feeling that makes a person new and feel heavenly. Love, a feeling that changes life within a moment. Have we not heard of love at first sight? One who was happy go lucky in the morning, gets deep and dreamy looks in the eyes by the time the evening arrives. What happened? He/she fell in love during the day and now does not know what to do?

The very first response of such people is dreaming. They have dreams during the night and more often during the day. They lose all attention to their work and the only work left for them is to think of their latest sweetheart. Then begins the planning of where to meet again? How to spot that lovely person again? Through friends, or what? Depends on where the love was found at the first place. After getting few glimpses more, the love deepens and the dreams become more frequent. But at the same time, fear sets in. What if the other party refuses to reciprocate? What if the other one does not like me? So looks are given immediate attention. 'What if the other party is already in love with someone? That will be horrible. Let me not think of that at all. And if it comes to that, I will move heavens to win my love.'

And the final question. How do I say, I Love You? Shall I send a letter with flowers? Shall I send the message through some friend? Shall I meet and dare to tell across the table? How about sending an anonymous letter saying that so and so is madly in love with you. How about you? Shall I first ask for a date and get to become more friendly and then come up with my proposal? One keeps on thinking of so many alternatives and then suddenly one day, blurts out. Please I love you. How about you? And the response is - I also love you since I saw you for the first time, but did not know how to say?

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What makes a Good Marriage "Good"

Most people get into a marriage with high and full spirits. They know fully well what they are getting into and accept this with an open heart. While you may say that there is a lot of hype in marriages especially on the days leading up to the wedding day, it can get a bit difficult to maintain this momentum.

There are many sad stories told about marriages dissolving because they had trouble maintaining the lives they had imagined they would have with each other. But everyday can't be a honeymoon. While there are indeed good marriages, there are also partners who eventually lose the heat.

Without questioning the devotion and love one partner feels for the other and vice versa, a couple may find their marriage at times to be monotonous and in a humdrum.

A good marriage should always be stimulating for both person involved and should make each other to look forward to another day with each other. It should provide a union that doesn't erase ones individuality.

Good marriages just doesn't happen, it's not just about love, devotion and compatibility. Both man and woman should work hard to make a marriage good and keep it that way.

Some tips on a Good Marriage

Be spontaneous and have different interests. It is always good to keep the other guessing. Do not have a predictable marriage that would make the union boring. Have different interests that you could share with your partner.

Be adventurous in the bedroom. Your sex life should be more than satisfactory. Experimenting is not a bad idea. Make your bed room romps something each one always looks forward to. Do not be critical with each other as well in making love. Learn to appreciate and communicate.

And never forget to have fun. Be a child with each other, remember the good times when you were just dating, try to impress one another and don't take each other for granted.

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Relationship Mistakes - Smothering your Boyfriend

Have you noticed that some girls just can't help self destructing their relationships? Even when they have a great guy who treats them well, they start committing relationship sins that are sure to lead them to a cold and lonely destination. One major relationship crime is smothering.

Listed below are some of the most commonly violated forms of smothering. If any of this sounds familiar, you need to make a change starting today. 

1) Do you insist that you two spend every weekend together?

For your boyfriend to fully appreciate you...he needs time to miss you. Remember, too much of a good thing is still too much.

2) Do you give him alone time?

Everyone needs time to kick back and chill. Your boyfriend will go crazy if you're in his life twenty-four-seven.

3) Do you insist that he brings you to every party or event he goes to? Everyone needs time away from the person that they're dating. Especially, to go out and have fun with their friends. 

4) When your boyfriend wants to go to a party or sports event alone with his friends...and you say OK...do you show up halfway through or at the end? 

This is the ultimate sign that you're smothering him. Not only will this drive him crazy and make you look psycho to his friends, but you'll also be breaking a bond of trust. If you agree to something...keep your word.

5) Do you always come over uninvited or when you're asked not to? Realize that your boyfriend might not appreciate your habit of "just showing up". In your mind, you're being thoughtful and sweet, but that's probably not how he sees it. 

6) Do you call him several times a night?

News flash, ladies!! Most guys don't like talking on the phone to the same person more than once a day...this includes you.

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Put an End to Emotional Terrorism in Your Relationships

First let me explain what I mean by "emotional terrorism."
When you have a relationship, at home or at work, with a person who's constantly humiliating you, harassing you, pressuring on you, taking pleasure in your pain, saying negative things about you or making you feel worthless, then you are caught in a situation of emotional terrorism.

By staying in a relationship with someone who feels the need to put you down and beat you up (physically or psychologically), you actually keep on feeding his destructive attitude. It's hard to conceive why so many people stay together with such a partner, but they do. This is because of a belief that they don't deserve any better, that they are not worthy of real love. They lack self-respect and don't really consider getting out of the relationship. They are stuck because the vibrational energy of the dysfunctional relationship matches the low level of their own self-esteem.

People without self-respect attract, by their vibration, abusive individuals who then "confirm" that they don't deserve any respect. The outside world mirrors to you what's going on inside yourself. If you have a partner who is beating you up, then that's because somehow you are already beating yourself up from inside. Does your partner constantly harass you? Does your partner drown you with negative remarks, no matter what you do? Then start by looking to how you are harassing yourself, and how many negative remarks you are aiming at yourself. Being surrounded with negative people is caused by your relationship with yourself being very degrading as well.

Your partner doesn't love you? This first thing to look at is whether you really love yourself. Because if you love yourself, so will your partner. If you love yourself, then it is impossible for an unloving partner to remain in your life. If you maintain a positive inner dialogue with yourself, then you are simply not aligned with a person that is trashing you with negativity. When you find yourself in a long-term relationship with such a person, then this is testimony to how bad your relationship with yourself really is.

Step 1 – First you have to honestly examine the quality of your external relationships. If the quality of the relationship is very low, then break up and leave. It's only fair to take some time to fully make up your mind, but remember that leaving someone doesn't have to take ages. However, your own security is always the first priority. If you are in danger then leave immediately. Later on, when you get back on your feet again, you can still take time to analyze the situation to see how you got involved in such a relationship.

If you notice that your relationship is bad, but there is no immediate threat to your life or well being, then step out of the grasp the emotional terrorist has on you by doing the following. First, understand that someone who has to hurt other people to feel good himself, is a vampire. He sucks your energy up to stay alive himself. These people are sick, both in their head and in their heart.

Probably they had a troublesome childhood and never learned how to love, but this is no excuse for their behavior and surely not a reason for you to stay with them. Don't play therapist in your relationship! Any adult who commits himself to positive change can do it, but it is not your role to bring your partner to a healthy behavior. You will lose time, energy and self esteem. Your efforts will be in vain. Why would this energy vampire make an effort to better himself if he can easily feed off the energy of his victim? Ask yourself this question: "Do I want to be the victim of an energy vampire?"

Everybody who has lived through a vampire-victim relationship knows how difficult it is to withdraw from the grip of such a person. Their tactics are so subtle and covert that it is indeed difficult for the mentally sane person to understand the strategies of the emotional terrorist. Everything they do is set up to make you doubt.

Behold the infernal vampire-victim combination: the vampire pretends to "know everything" while the victim "doubts herself." This combination is fatal, because whenever you see clearly and realize you're targeted by emotional terrorism, the vampire will promptly start acting very friendly just to make you second-guess your conclusion. Whenever you see him like he really is and decide to leave, his strategy is to go back to some kind of honeymoon feeling to make you doubt your opinion. You will say to yourself, "How could I have thought so bad about him? See how friendly he is! Nobody else has ever said such kind words to me." Beware! Don't forget that the vampire will lull you to sleep before attacking! You become less awake, less alert, and when you have been fooled again into thinking he's a friendly person, things go back to "normal" and he attacks again.

His attacks get worse and worse while your defense gets weaker and weaker. He wants to empty you completely, until there is nothing left of you. What he wants (unconsciously perhaps, but that doesn't matter) is to depersonalize you, to cut your ego into little pieces, until you no longer exist as your own person; that's when he has complete power over you.

Step 2 – After examining the quality of your relationship, the second thing to do is to carefully listen to yourself! Instead of listening to that energy vampire, listen to your feelings! Whenever you are experiencing fear in your relationship, you are not in a loving relationship! Love and fear do not go together. Where there is fear, love cannot exist. Take your feelings seriously! Fear doesn't come falling out of nowhere; it is an important signal that something is wrong.

Step 3 – Here's a trick to quickly escape somebody's grip. Make a list of everything the other says just to make you feel bad. Assign a number to each phrase, and learn this list by heart. Now every time he gives you a negative remark, don't react to it but instead go to your list and mark the corresponding phrase. Every night, review your list and keep statistics: make an overview to check daily how many times he used the first phrase, the second phrase, and so on. This will help you to stop reacting to the negativity and to stop feeding it. So don't answer, but just check your list. It will only take a few days to know the list by heart!

Step 4 - Be aware of the fact that an emotional terrorist will not just let his victim slip through his hands without a fight! He will double his efforts to keep you down. Don't stay with someone like that. If it is your partner, leave him. If it is your boss, find yourself another job. If it is your mother or father, keep some distance for a while and go visit them in little doses. Talk to a lawyer if you must. In any case, a person behaving like that cannot be cured in a matter of weeks. If you ask me, he may never be cured at all in his lifetime.

Staying in this kind of fearful relationship is a ticket to hell! So don't stick around waiting for the impossible, but start living your own life. You are worthy of living a life of love, happiness and freedom! NOBODY deserves to undergo such destructive behavior!

Step 5 – Now that you have left that person, you can start to have a look at the relationship with yourself. Do you love yourself? Learn how to love yourself! Make a commitment to yourself never to get involved in such kind of relationships again. Be kind to yourself. If you want to do something for these people, pray for them, visualize how they get healed inside, but don't stay with them. It is not your responsibility to cure them. To destroy yourself is not an option and won't help them out either! You were meant to be loved, never forget that! Take care of yourself!

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Free Online Dating As A Tool for Single Parents

One of the most useful features of online dating for single parents is the flexibility that many online dating services offer. For single parents who are easing themselves back into the dating arena, online dating can be a useful tool. Free online dating sites are particularly useful, since saving money can be challenge enough as it is, whether singles have children or not.
Many single parents may be wary of entering back into the dating world, but online dating provides a way for parents to slowly ease back into the process. New members can start by simply browsing around free online dating websites to get a feel for how they work and what type of people they might be able to meet. Single parents often find other free dating websitesdevoted to single parents to be an inviting way to meet other single parents and find contacts with whom they can discuss issues ranging from romance to their children.
With most online dating websites, members are in control of who they message with, and who they will meet in person. Of course, members have the right to accept or decline invitations. Single parents also have the ability to control how often they sign in and out, making it an extremely flexible way for working parents to balance their home, work, and social lives.
The flexibility of being able to meet people online is another appealing feature of online dating for single parents. Meeting people online frees single parents from having to find ways to get out and meet people, which can often cost people valuable time away from the children, and create the burden of finding a suitable babysittter, on top of the other costs and hurdles that come with keeping an active dating life. Since saving time and money are often highly valued by many single parents, free online dating is a great way for people to save on both.

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Baggage Handling - And Not The Kind You Take On Vacation!

My friend Susan, a beautiful, intelligent and successful professional single, recently announced that her tumultuous 6-month relationship was over.


"He's got too much baggage and I don't know how to handle it", she explained over a skinny decaf latte at our weekly hangout session.


So how much baggage is too much, and when do we hang out the "overloaded" sign?


It's a fact of life that any man over the age of 30 is going to bring some sort of baggage to a relationship. Heck, I know 20-year-olds with more baggage than the Orient Express!


And it follows that the older we get, the more likely it is that the baggage is going to exponentially increase -- ex wives, children, stepchildren, in-laws, lifestyles or commitments, just to name a few. But it's not about how much baggage he has, it's more about how he (and we!) deal with it.


Kathryn Bigelow, behavioral scientist and director of the Burnett Behavioral Science Unit at Sydney University in Sydney, Australiasays, "Baggage is merely a name for our collective past experiences. What we do with our history and how we manage it is a clear indication of how we will deal with current and future experiences."


So back to my friend Susan. Her difficulty was in trying to deal with her partner's obvious inability to let go of past relationships. According to her, this man wanted to remain friends with every woman he had ever gone out with. At least twice each week he would arrange to meet up with at least one of his ex's for a coffee, or whatever. For Susan, her gripe was how to get his ex's to exit - permanently.


According to Dr Bigelow, here is a list of ways to put the baggage down and get on with life:



*Take a good hard look at what you expect from a relationship and a partner. Then list the absolute essentials. The rest is baggage that needs to be discarded.


*From the list of essentials, try to imagine what it would be like to go without one of your "must-haves" for a day. How would you feel? Then try to imagine letting go for longer. The less demanding we are of ourselves and others, the less baggage we accumulate.


*Take a good hard look at who you are - yes, who you really are. Do an honest appraisal of your good and bad points and decide what you would like to change. Then imagine what it would be like if you could rid yourself of that trait for a day. Then try to imagine how much more space you would have in your life if you could let go of one of your negative qualities for good.


*Don't take yourself too seriously. OK, you're not 20 any more, but that doesn't mean you can't have a little fun. Think about the traits you have that annoy you, or other people, and try to find something funny about them. Creating a humorous side to a bad habit or trait can help diffuse it.


*Be your own best friend and don't beat yourself up about things that happened in the past. The past is in the past, so there's no point in worrying about things you can't change.


*Let go of the anger, resentment or guilt that you may be holding on to. You'll be amazed at how much lighter you'll feel!


We all know how cumbersome it is travelling with excess baggage, and the costs it can incur, so the object is to travel through life with just the right amount of baggage to travel well, but happily.

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How To Stop A Divorce

Divorce appears to be the new tendency in marriages these days. The entire globe appears to have jumped on the bandwagon which is endlessly being caused by split-ups in the entertainment industry. The holiness of wedlock is being sacrificed and it has turned into a marketplace for divorce- driven oblects such as divorce attorneys.

A great many people believe that obtaining a divorce is the sole means to pull out of a distressed relationship. However, as the wonderful philosopher Aristotle said, "There is always a third option." Regarding individuals that believe that obtaining a divorce is the same thing as being contented, try thinking it through again. A current study that was lead by Ms. Linda Waite of the University of Chicago disclosed that divorced individuals are not any happier. An additional even more amazing reality that was uncovered by the research is that 67% of the individuals that became distressed about their marriages later stated that they were happy in their marriages five years later. Her group additionally discovered that a preponderance of devotedly wedded pairs had undergone long durations of sadness in their unions. The distinction is that the pair remained with the relationship and discovered answers to their difficulties.

Matrimony is designed to connect the inner souls of two individuals together. The marriage loses its holiness in the complete circumstance of splitting up. There exist more methods than one to stop divorce. Listed below are a few valuable points that someone can use in trying to rescue their marriage.



-Communication is the Key Virtually all differences advance to fights as a result of the absence of communication. A few pairs merely discuss chores and projects. Maintaining an open line of communication would maintain the frankness in the relationship and prevent concealed perceptions that could prod significant emotional harm.

-There Are No Perfect Relationships The fundamental lessons of economics dictate to us that any time we remain with one thing, we are consistently excluding something else. Divorces are commonly spurred by unfaithfulness and third-party affairs. Keep in mind that no relationship is perfect. Problems between marriage partners is no reason for unfaithfulness, actually it ought to make their relationship stronger.

-Look For Assistance In case everything else does not work the way you hoped it would and you have attempted to solve the difficulty between the pair of you, seek outside help. There exist professional marriage counselors that are able to help marriage partners with problems to get back on the right track. There's no harm in seeking assistance.

Keep in mind that divorce has its penalties, which include tremendous monetary losses. Even more significantly, it taints marriage and completely finishes relationships. What it comes down to is that if there is more than sufficient love that exists within a home, divorce will not ever rear it ugly head.

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Tips On Choosing Your Wedding Invitations

This is your big day and you want everything to be absolutely perfect, so the invitation is the best way to send the right impression to your guests. You want to show the theme of your wedding as well as give important details, so there's a lot to consider.

Setting the tone

If you're a fun loving person, then there's no need to pick a stodgy old wedding invitation. And why would you? You want to show your guests the real you (and that includes both soon-to-be spouses) as well as what they can expect for the events of the afternoon or evening.

Decide with your fiancé or fiancée what the overall theme of the wedding will be. If you're stumped on that, perhaps you can choose more than one idea and figure out invitations for each. A lot of couples will actually choose a theme from the invitation, rather than the other way around.

Not only are the pictures or illustrations on the invitation a way to show guests the colors and the atmosphere, but the wording can be a sign as well. By choosing casual phrases like 'May 28' instead of the '28th of May in the Year of Our Lord,' you can signal to the recipient that your reception and ceremony may be a little less formal.



Buying or making?

Of course, you may have looked in various bridal magazines or at print shops for wedding ideas, but this doesn't necessarily mean that you have to purchase them. A lot of couples decide that they want to make their own and add another personal touch to their wedding affair.

But for the busy couple, having your invitations made to order is the best course of action. By looking at samples and choosing the wording that you would like, the invitations will be personalized (even the envelopes can be printed for your convenience), so all you have to do is buy stamps and find the nearest mailbox.

If you have a little more time and patience, then you may want to consider creating your own wedding invitation. You will find that this process takes a bit longer than you think, but the results are tremendous.

Sit down with that book of samples for the printed invitations and see if there are any that you like, and can duplicate. Many times you can even use a home computer to do the printing for you.

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Sex vs. Romance

and believe that finally they may have the answer.

There are two distinct differences in the areas of the brain associated with sexual arousal and emotional responses typical of being romantically involved, and using brain scans. Scientists were able to decipher the distinctions people make-in their brains-when presented with sexual stimuli and then pictures of their wives and/or girlfriends. (By the way, the studies were done on females as well, we will use the term him for the sake of simplicity.)

Subjects who had very recently entered into new love relationships were hooked up to electro scanners and given a series of questions to answer pertaining to their new loves. Their levels of dopamine soared when answering the questions, and appeared mostly to stimulate the right side of the brain, usually associated with rewards that are not typically in the instant gratification section. This was thought to be because romance and love is not part of instant gratification, as is thought to be sexual encounters, porn, and impulse control associated with the left side of the brain. When the same subjects were shown sexually explicit material or answered explicit questions, the scans on the left side of the brain reacted.

More importantly, the areas of the brain which are thought to act as the relationship matures changed strongly when these same questions were answered by couples who had been involved for several years, leading scientists to believe that as we mature in our relationships, so does our brain activity in response to that relationship. This could also explain why couples who are very much in love also experience a sense of the spark going out of their relationship after a few years. It's not that they aren't attracted to each other any longer; it's that their brain waves have matured. This could give much hope to couples thinking about separating because they don't know what happened to the romance and sex in their relationship. This breakthrough could save you thousands on couples counseling, and give the hope that as the two of you move through this area of your relationship-and you will move through it, studies also show that this is a growth area for couples, not the end of the partnership- you will come out on the other side even more attracted to each other than before.



During the fifties and the beginning of the sixties, these types of studies where not even thought of, couples stayed together even when it seemed impossible. With the explosion of divorce becoming popular in the seventies and more couples separating in order to find them, the need for these types of brain wave studies became very necessary, and a good thing, too.

If you and your partner are in a rut, it's not the right move to separate. Stay together and give it some time, there are other things you can do to spice up your relationship and still stay together. Love is still by far the strongest of all of the emotions.

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Do You Have An Abusive Boyfriend?

Statistics show that 1 out of 3 teenagers has experienced violence in a dating relationship. Most cases involve one partner trying to maintain power and control over the other through some kind of abuse.

Most victims of Dating violence are young women who are also at higher risk for serious injury. Women ages 16 to 24 experience the highest per capita rates of intimate violence -- nearly 1 out of 50 women.(Bureau of Justice Special Report: Intimate Partner Violence, May 2001)

Teen dating violence often is hidden because teenagers are inexperienced, want independence from their parents. and they are pressured by peers to begin dating at an early age.

Some young men may believe they have the right to "control" you or they think they will lose "respect" if they are attentive and supportive toward their girlfriends.

Are you at fault?

You might think you are the one who is causing the problem. You may think that his jealousy and abusiveness means he really loves you so much he can't control himself.

You might think because you have friends that are also being abused that this is normal or you may think you can change him.

You would be wrong on any of those counts and statistics prove that beyond a shadow of a doubt. If your boyfriend is abusive now, he will not get better, he will get worse until one day he hurts you really bad or even kills you. It's that serious.

Ask yourself these questions; If you answer yes to one or more of the following questions about the boy you are dating then you are in danger of having a serious problem. If several of these are yes, get a new boyfriend.

Is he using alcohol or drugs?

Does he have extreme mood swings? Happy one minute and angry the next?

Is he extremely jealous? Does he get into fights with other boys who pay you attention?

Does he use force during an argument or during intimacy?

Does he blame others or make excuses about his problems?

Is he verbally abusive to you? (yelling all the time, putting you down, calling you stupid, threatening you?)

Does he treat his mother with disrespect or is he mean to her? Do former girlfriends say he abused them?

Does he try to control you or tell you what to do, who you can0 see, where you can go all the time?

Does he try to keep you away from your family or try to make you dependent on him, telling you that he knows what is best for you and your family is always wrong?

I repeat if even two of those things is true, you need to break it off and get as far away from him as possible, because these are all signs of someone who abuses or will abuse women.

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