How To See Your True Partner

Most people keep their true selves hidden, especially when they want to impress someone. This fact has a way of biting people in the butt when dating. You meet a guy or girl, both are looking for a relationship, and it’s only natural that you want to show off your polished attributes while hiding your more tarnished side. After all, when you’re first meeting a possible romantic partner, you don’t want them to know that you roll your socks up into balls, or leave the toilet seat up after you’ve gone to the bathroom.

However, some people are better at hiding their true selves than others. Sometimes you can be in a committed relationship before you learn that your partner has some unsavory attributes that he or she had successfully kept hidden until now. While leaving the toilet seat up might be mildly annoying, the fact that your new live-in partner likes to punch holes in walls or fling ashtrays at your head when angry, isn’t something that can be passed off as annoying.

There are a few ways that you can test their personality before you commit. For instance, watch how they react when under stress. Most people can keep their true selves under wraps when everything is right in the world, but can’t maintain the mirage when under strain. Watch carefully how they react when angry, sad, annoyed or upset. In most cases, this is when their true colors will come shining through.

You can also watch how they treat the people around them. Does your new boyfriend treat his mom like a queen? Does your new girlfriend maliciously gossip about everyone when hanging out with her friends? If so, you can bet your bottom dollar that this is an indication of what they are like when not trying to impress someone.

You can also watch how they interact with strangers. Suppose you go out to a restaurant for a bite to eat, and the waiter brings them an order of shrimp, instead of the clams they originally ordered. Do they react angrily? Or do they just shrug it off, make a joke, and wait calmly for the waiter to fix their order? If they are a jerk over something so easily corrected, how are they going to be with you, if you screw something up? Everyone makes mistakes, but ideally you want a partner that’s going to be understanding, and not over-react.

The bottom line is, that people have a hard time pretending to be something they’re not, when the going gets rough. Every relationship has its ups and downs, and you want to make sure that when the going gets rough…your partner isn’t a jerk. By watching their actions and reactions before hand, you can spy out potential relationship ending problems that will crop up in the future.

2 Ways To Bring Back Passion Into Your Relationship

After the initial dating phase, you find yourselves losing some of that sparkle. It’s natural, and all long-term couples are faced with this problem. The ones who survive are the ones who figure out how to inject more passion into their relationship, before it’s too late. Don’t let your relationship fizzle and die. Use these two tips to inject more passion into your relationship now.

Keep Dating

Many couples forget what attracted them to their mates in the first place. Sometimes work or kids leave them with little time to grow as a couple and they move away from dating.

This can pose a serious problem for couples. I know a couple that’s fallen into this situation. After the birth of their first daughter, the wife was so tired all the time with taking care of the infant that she no longer had any interest in her husband. It’s important to keep that spark alive by continuing to date. Whether it is once a week or once a month, it’s important to get some alone time with each other. This might mean getting a babysitter for an evening or putting overtime at work on hold. If your partner is worth it, don’t let the relationship grow stagnant and die. I know this sounds easier said than done, but keeping that spark takes a lot of time and energy, especially when a newborn.

Make Love In Weird Places

One great way to inject more passion into your relationship is to take your love making outside the bedroom. Make love in different rooms, in public places or places that you’d never normally think of as a hot-spot. Many couples fall into routine lovemaking….boring, right? While there’s nothing wrong with routine, it’s always a good thing to add some spontaneity to the relationship.

Remember when you first met, and couldn’t keep your hands off of each other? That’s the kind of passion you want to recapture. Your partner wants to know that they’re still attractive, desirable and you can’t get enough of them. They want to feel like they still have it in them to drive you crazy with lust, with a glance or a touch. Flirt with each other and build the anticipation. My sister and her husband have been married for 10+ years, and they claim they’re still on their honeymoon.

For most couples, it’s easy to fall into a rut. Taking each other for granted and doing the same thing over and over again, will lead most couples down the boredom highway. Every once in a while (as much as possible!) you need to hit the gas and swerve off that highway if you want your relationship to last. It’s not terribly difficult to inject more passion into your relationship and it can be a lot of fun.

Try it out….who knows? You may discover another part of your spouse you never knew existed.

When Relationships Go Bad

How are you going to admit this to people? Your perfect relationship, the one that was destined to last forever … it’s over. What went wrong? How could you have let something so wonderful just slip through your fingers without even realizing it?

The truth is relationships fail for all sorts of reasons. However, there are a top few that tend to permeate stories of love gone wrong.

Money

It’s been said over and over again – “money is the root of all evil.” Whether or not that is entirely true, it is indeed at the root of many relationship problems. Both partners need to be on the same page as far as money is concerned. Issues can arise when one person is a saver and the other is a spender. Any major purchases should be discussed and agreed upon prior to buying. Even daily expenditures can become a problem. Be sure you both understand where the money is coming from in your relationship and where it will go.

Communication

At the heart of money and all other issues is generally a lack of communication. Some couples don’t talk about things that bother them. Others talk, but their conversations tend to deteriorate into arguments. Another group tends to assume their partners can read their minds and should know what is at the heart of any problem. Obviously, this isn’t the case.

Putting the time and the effort into reaching a level of communication that involves equal parts speaking and listening, as well as a healthy dose of understanding and a heavy coating of thick skin can go a long way towards keeping a relationship happy.

Selfishness

Just talking about a problem isn’t enough. Every problem needs a resolution. Even the best communicators can fail at this point. If either side (or worse, both sides) refuse to budge, all the talking in the world won’t fix things. Relationships require compromise and a lot of it. Even if a couple is perfectly in synch on every issue for a long time, eventually they will run across something they don’t see eye to eye on. This is where compromise becomes necessary. Both people need to be willing to give a little so they can reach a decision they are both able to live with.

Family

While it is wonderful to paint a picture of your relationship as existing in its own little bubble, both people involved have families who were with them long before they met each other and will likely stick around for the remainder of their lives. The importance of this group of people cannot be ignored. They can be friends, confidantes, or even the measure against which your relationship is compared. Remember the old saying– “you don’t just marry the person, you marry the family.” Do not dismiss their family as unimportant. Do not try to break the bonds that exist between them. Instead, try to form your own bonds with the other person’s family. If that isn’t possible, at least try to keep your feelings about them from destroying the relationship you hold dear.

There are certainly other problems that can affect and destroy relationships, but the above four are often at the heart of the issue. If those are kept in check, everything else can be dealt with as it comes along, and your relationship is likely to last as long as you want it to.

One Surefire Way To Mess Up Any Date

You’ve been out on a few dates recently, but none of them seem to be working out. You don’t seem to have a problem actually getting the date, but somehow the second date never comes. What are you doing wrong? Are you breaking some kind of dating rule?

Probably. You’re probably breaking the biggest date rule of them all: learning how to communicate. Learning how to communicate effectively is the single best way of getting asked out on a second date. Communicating badly, which can be done in several different ways, is a surefire way to mess up any date, regardless of how much thought and effort you’ve put into trying to make it a success.

What you need to remember when going out on a date is that you want the other person to get a better idea of the kind of person you are, without talking too much or too little. People who talk about themselves too much, are a real turn off. Not only that, but they’re annoying. For some people it’s in their nature to talk about themselves, and yet other people babble, because they’re nervous, which is natural. Instead, get the other person to talk about himself or herself, and maintain some mystery. By doing this, the other person will want a second date, just to learn more about you.

Talking too little is another surefire way to mess up any date. Your dating partner doesn’t want to go out on a date with a manikin! They want you to talk, make them laugh and they want to get a little insight into who you are and what you’re all about. Make it easier for them, and open up a little.

People love to laugh. Laughter is infectious, and sexy. This doesn’t mean you have to be the next Chris Rock, it just means you should try to loosen up and enjoy yourself. Tell your date a few funny stories or a joke to liven things up a bit. If you can make him or her laugh, you’re half way to getting a second date.

Just remember to be yourself. A surefire way to mess up any date is to be a fake, which is another communication problem. Be confident, slightly mysterious and make them laugh. Those are the keys to any successful date and the path towards a second.

Women’s Guide to Safe Online Dating

Online dating can be a fun and certainly a rewarding experience for women of all ages. So maintaining your safety while doing it is simply a combination of using common sense and exercising good judgment. Online safety rules are the same as real world safety rules.

You wouldn’t give your name, address and phone number to a strange man that you met in a bar or on the street, would you? Therefore, you should never do that online either. Play it safe. Get to know this man who could turn out to be Prince Charming before you give out any information that could make it possible for him or others to trace you. Don’t tell a stranger exactly where you work. Say that you are a legal secretary (if that’s what you are) for a mid-sized law firm….not that you work for Brown, Smith and Jones Attorneys-at-law. It’s safe to tell him what city you live in but you should wait to be any more specific than that until you have been chatting and exchanging emails for awhile.

Use only the tools provided by the dating service you belong to. Most offer chat and private email on their site. Do not give out your personal email address. If you must give out an email address make it a free one such as Hotmail or Yahoo. Your personal address is traceable for anyone who wants to go to the trouble.

When the time comes for you to have your first face-to-face, make that first meeting in a public place and during day light hours. Take a friend with you or arrange for one to call you on your cell soon after the arranged meeting.

Remember…you ARE in control so don’t let anyone pressure you into revealing more personal information than you are comfortable revealing.

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