Relationship advice and articles

Healing After Divorce: Is Counseling Right for You?

Divorce is right up there on the list of life altering events, alongside childbirth, marriage and purchasing a first home. Too often, the actual divorce and end of that relationship are only small pieces in the puzzle of putting your life back together. A significant change in financial status, moving to a new home, helping children through the adjustment and the potential loss of your partner's friends and family relationships may become realities in an already trying time.
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From Dual-Income to Single-Income: Common Marital Issues When Making The Adjustment

As of the 2004 US Census, there are approximately 5.5 million stay-at-home parents, which shows a 15% increase over the last ten years. With the number of stay-at-home parents climbing, more and more couples are confronting the issues and challenges a relationship faces when one parent forgoes a career to stay at home with the children.
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Using the past to begin anew

In this age of multiple marriages and serial relationships, it's hard not to emerge unscathed without at least one relationship in your baggage that you deeply regret. It's the one where you wonder, “How did an intelligent person like me ever get involved in such a relationship?” or “How did something so good become so bad?” It's the relationship where you are likely to have experienced your highest highs and lowest lows. You may have felt the most loved and most hated you have ever felt, and all with the same person. You can't believe you ever tolerated it. Or it could have been a relationship where you hung on too long to a decent person who was just never going to commit. Some people survive these relationships only to replicate a milder version in the future. The mistreatment is veiled by the perception that it's not as bad as the last relationship. Other people resolve to avoid intimacy altogether in order to avoid getting hurt again. Neither of these options are healthy ones.
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Divorce and Denial

For divorcing families, the first step in the grieving process is denial. It may be hard for you to believe this is happening to you and your family. This disbelief can even lead to thoughts of reconciliation. Even if you were the party who filed first, dissolving a marriage is a tough. After all, you did promise to love, honor, and cherish till death do you part. You had faith in these vows and so did your children.
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How to Recover from a Breakup as a Teenager

Whether this is your first relationship or your twenty-seventh, dealing with a break up is hard. No matter what the reason was for the break up, it still hurts. Even though this break up may seem like the end of the world now, there are ways to heal your broken heart.
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The Surest Way to Cure a Broken Heart

This is a truth everybody knows because everybody has been through it and it’s embodied in our society folk wisdom... Time heals all wounds. Do you intend to suffer from your broken heart 20 years from now? Of course not. But that doesn't help you now . . . or does it?
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How to Help Your Child Deal with the Loss of a Loved One

Death comes in many shapes and forms. Death is not avoidable, no matter how old you are. For children, their first death experience may be that of a pet turtle or someone more serious, like a parent or grandparent. Whether it is a pet or a person, dealing and recovering from a loss is always hard to do. There are ways to help your child deal with the loss of a loved one.
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How to Cure a Broken Heart

Every day thousands of people are hurt by break-ups, divorces or the death of a loved one. Some seem to plummet into the abyss of broken hearts and others appear to brush it off and go on. So what’s the difference between these people? They both feel the hurt acutely. It may be only a matter of how they heal themselves.
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Regaining Control of Your Emotions After a Break-Up

They say that breaking up is one of the hardest things to have to go through, even more so if the break-up in question is your marriage (and subsequent divorce) or the death of someone close to you. It’s hard to know how to handle the rollercoaster of emotions that you’ll undoubtedly be feeling, but there are ways to keep your feelings under control through all of the stress and pain.
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It's Fantastic to be Single

Generally, society makes us think that being single is being doomed or, an unwanted situation for a low self esteem nerd, or judge you with 'you-must-have-a-problem' label if you are not in a relationship. We imagine that we are automatically miserable if we hop into single hood. Think again!
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Communication Between Divorced Parents

If you and your ex-partner have children together then you are aware that the communication between you doesn’t end when the relationship does. The children will always be a part of your lives and anything that concerns or affects them will in turn affect both of you. The lines of communication remain open between most divorced parents, at least on some level. Although it is good to keep the lines of communication open regarding the children, it can often present problems for parents that have moved on to new relationships.
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When Arguing Gets Us Nowhere

Most of us have had this feeling at one time or another in our relationships: we’re angry, and we feel entirely justified in that emotion. We aren’t about to back down, or perhaps examine our own complicity in the problem, even though we may know (deep inside) that either of those actions would probably bring us back into harmony with our partners.
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Moving On After Being Dumped

Being dumped is something, which has happened to everyone at some time in their life. How each person chooses to deal with it depends very much on the individual, but there is one thing you can be sure of and that is that it will be painful whatever your age. Learning the best way of dealing with this situation will help to you to recover as quickly as possible and prepare you for moving on.
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Relax and Get Rid of Stress

Today’s fast paced racy lifestyle can lead to immense mental pressure. People of all ages can be affected by stress, as it is the outcome of a hectic life. However, you can be always on the move and yet manage to lead a relaxed life. You can alleviate stress and remove it completely from your system. To do this, try the effective coping mechanisms stated below, which act as a therapy to secure immediate relief from anxiety. They are reliable techniques that will release stress, provide mental relaxation, and rejuvenate you.
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The Great Soul Mate Debate

There have been poems, books, songs, movies, paintings…there have been millions of words, including these, written to describe, explain, extol, debunk, exclaim, and recount with enraptured spirit the experience of finding, meeting, stumbling onto, searching for and even marrying one’s soul mate.
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How to Meet Your True Soul Mate

Now that your old relationship is over, have you thought about getting back in the swim? If so, which qualities are most important to you, and which are anathema to your idea of smooth sailing in the sea of love?
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Is Your Current Date Your Soul Mate?

A few steps to help you determine if the person you are dating is someone you’d be really happy with (and would be really happy with you) for life.
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Fixing the intimacy in your marriage

With the way that intimacy has been stereotyped in marriage, it is a wonder that people still get married at all. Most people adamantly believe that sex after marriage goes downhill. Certainly passion moves into other levels, sometimes much better than in your single days, but often into something which can sometimes not be called passion at all. Pledging to yourself that your marriage, or long-term relationship, will be different, will not solve the problem of routine intimacy, or none at all. There are few things which will help put the steaminess back into your private life again though.
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How to tell the children

Whether your divorce is amicable or contentious, when and how to tell your children can be a difficult issue. Your children may already know that there are difficulties in your home life and marriage, but you may be surprised at the level of their sophistication and knowledge about divorce. Even if they are relieved to hear that a difficult home life is about to change, do not ever underestimate the degree to which your divorce can impact your children. The adults are not alone in feeling the stress and hurt of a strained family situation. You must take special steps to insulate your children and help them through the divorce process.
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Getting Back Into Dating

As the famous song goes, breaking up is hard to do! After the collapse of a long-term relationship, the prospect of diving back into the dating pool is daunting, to say the least. If it has been a long time since you last went on a date, you’re probably nervous and thinking that you’re not ready for the task ahead. However, there are some steps you can take to ease yourself back into the singles scene.
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Coping with being separated from your children

Being separated from your children after a divorce or relationship breakdown can be one of the most difficult times in a parent’s life. The pain of not seeing your kids on a daily basis can cause separation anxiety for you, and the pain of being separated from kids is unlike any other pain imaginable. Even if you know you’ll see and visit them again, adjusting to the change can be difficult to say the least.
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Emotional First Aid After A Break-up

Don’t feel any pressure to produce the right response to a break-up. There isn’t one. It’s OK to cry, scream, panic, mourn, mope, or display any emotion while you adjust to the change. The break-up of a relationship is the nearest thing to bereavement and you shouldn’t feel ashamed about taking time to cope.
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Your Support System at the End of a Long Relationship

Getting back into the swing of things after the break up of a long relationship is no easy task. Often just getting though the day requires acting as though all is well, when your reality is much different. Finding support that bolsters your ego, helps you through the quagmire of emotions, allows you to mourn, and then helps you wipe the tears away and smile again will get you back on the track of feeling good again.
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Improving the Quality of Your Life Through Relaxation

Stressful events, such as a break-up of an important relationship or divorce can make it much more difficult for you to relax. Learning some relaxation techniques may help you in more ways than you may think. Relaxation techniques are not only used for stress management, but also for pain management, anxiety attacks, sleeping difficulties, general well-being, managing anger, depression, and health reasons, such as headache, heart health, and elevated blood pressure. This article will teach you three relaxation techniques that may improve the quality of your life.
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Natural Remedies To Help You Over The Slump

You have to start doing good for yourself! Don’t wait around for someone else to give you a boost. You are certainly as important as the person who decided you were not a good fit for her or him—if not, relatively speaking, here, more important, No-one else is going to take care of you, but YOU.
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Financial Survival for Single Parents

Raising children in today's world is expensive. Even the most basic needs are very costly. Factor in the fact that throughout the years there will be many items that children want and you could find yourself in debt rather quickly. It can be a struggle to make ends meet with two parents working, and it is even more difficult for single parents.
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How to help your children survive your divorce

Divorce is one of the most traumatic events anyone can experience. But as difficult as it is for the couple involved, it can be even more upsetting for the children of the marriage. Children are often aware that there are problems in their parents’ relationship, but that doesn’t necessarily make a divorce easier to accept.
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Keeping the financial cost of divorce down

Along with the many changes that divorce brings to your life comes a change in your financial status- for both parties involved. Many couples will go from a two income family to a single income individual. Other couples will go from a single income family with a stay at home parent to a single income individual and an individual in need of a job.
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Protecting your assets before during and after a divorce

Divorces can be financially crippling to the couple involved depending on their financial resources in the first place. Knowing what to do in the first place and then doing it are two important steps that you can take to protect yourself financially.
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Learn to say NO to your ex

Do you have an ex from a previous relationship who only contacts you when he or she needs a favor? Do you also find yourself running to the rescue of your ex more often than not? If you answered yes to either of the above questions then it’s time you learn to stop. Stand up for yourself and stop being a doormat.
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Intimacy fears and our reward for facing them

A relationship with an intimate partner provides for us a window through which we can view parts of ourselves – of our innermost being – which seldom see the light of day. Herein lies intimacy’s reward as well as the root of our fear of it: because what if we don’t like what we see?...
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Healing the Mid-Life Love Crisis

All I wanted was to fall in love and live happily ever after. The End. Except it wasn't that simple. At forty-something, I was hardly "on the shelf", but I was the veteran of two divorces. That gave rise to plenty of self doubt. It gave rise to another more sinister, subtle symptom too: I didn't trust the opposite sex not to hurt me again. And guess what? Since the women I was dating were in a similar age bracket, and also veterans of painful relationship break ups, heartache, heartbreak, divorce, loss or grief of some kind to do with the opposite sex, their fear ? that dreaded fear of rejection - echoed mine. Result? An almost cast iron guarantee that love cannot flourish! You might as well scatter seed on concrete and expect to reap a wheat field...
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On Saying Goodbye to a Drama King

Charles left her, just left altogether with no satisfactory explanation. Just announced, after six months of a hot-house infatuation that had swept her off her feet, "Sorry, Miranda, this isn't working" -- said it not even kindly, at that -- and said he wanted out. He wasn't interested in hearing why Miranda thought that in fact it was working; that it was a relationship and relationships needed a little working out now and again. No, he didn't want to hear it. For him, it was the end. Discussion over...
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The three stages of mending a broken heart

You've been dumped. Short of throwing yourself off the nearest bridge, you resort to hiding in your bed for days, comforted only by the fact that at least you have a year's supply of Moonpies by your bedside and your answering machine is on the alert in the hopeful case that your once loved one might call and beg to have you back...
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Lovers to avoid

1. The Roll-On, Roll-Off Romeo

I named these guys after roll-on, roll-off car ferries because all they do is roll on top of you, do the business to their satisfaction and roll off you again....
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Depression and its effect on our relationships

Depression adversely affects every aspect of our lives - including our relationships. Indeed, when one partner is depressed, the relationship may suffer so badly that it doesn't survive. But, in fact, a good relationship is very therapeutic for a depressed person; because when we're really low we need love, support and closeness more than ever - even if we can't show it ourselves...
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Coping with an affair

Affairs can be exhilarating, exciting, passionate and romantic. They can also - more commonly - be damaging, destructive, cruel, painful, time wasting and demeaning...
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20 Do's & don'ts of a functional relationship

1. Who you think you are is important. Like attracts like. Think about it. Do you like who you are?...
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Coping with change

Have you felt powerless around the need to make certain decisions? Has the fear of change or transition created concern, or an adverse effect on your life? If so, you are not alone. Every day millions of people experience various forms of anxiety or fear, while attempting to make decisions. Most of them, just like you, may not know that effective and functional decision making is a learned behavioural skill...
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Hooking up vs. lasting love

These terms have become all too familiar in today's dating world. Are they words that you can relate to? Have you lived them in some way? If so, how have you felt about the experience(s) both during and after?...
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Coping with loneliness

You are not alone as a staggering amount of people suffers from loneliness. Loneliness is a feeling of emptiness and can sometimes result in depression. If you feel that you have nobody to talk to and your life feels empty then there are certain things you can do to get yourself out of this emotional black hole...
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Improving self esteem

We all use the expression 'self-esteem', but what do we mean by it? Some people think that self-esteem means confidence - and of course confidence comes into it - but it's rather more than that...
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The 6 Stages Of A Broken Heart

At one point or another almost everyone has experienced a broken heart. Whether it happened in 3rd grade or a week before your 80th birthday, most of us can relate to the Celine Dion song "All by Myself" (even though we won't admit it). What's important is to get through this passing phase of your life. "Passing" is a verb I chose because you do get over it...
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Haunted: Burying The Ghosts Of Lost Love

Late at night, as you read quietly, before you fall off to sleep...

During a busy afternoon as you run through a crowd, hurrying back to your office or home....

Sitting in a movie theater, a restaurant or waiting for the light to turn...

A sudden thought or image rises within you. It can come as a small nagging feeling or as a wave of emotion that threatens to overwhelm and drown you in the grief of a memory. Either way it's clear; here comes his/her ghost again...
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Are You Relationship Ready?

So, you want to fall in love? You are certainly old enough and moving well along your chosen career path. Many of your friends are either married or in committed relationships. You have grown weary of the singles scene and the solitary life. Therefore, you must be ready, right?...
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What Went Wrong? When Relationships Go From Hot To Cold

Everything was great. We had been dating for 6 months. We shared the same interests, felt very at ease together, had (often) discussed future plans and had even spent some of the holidays together. Our relationship seemed right on track and just right in general. Then, without warning, he said he "needs some time to think and figure things out. " He stopped calling and rarely returned my calls. When he did, I was often met with silence on the other end of the line. When I asked "what happened", I just got a verbal run around of excuses about how busy he is and/or how much stress he is under right now. What happened? What did I do? I don't know what to think...
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Happiness And The Single Person; Changing Myth Into Reality

Does the expression "single and happy" sound like an oxymoron to you? Are you weary of others (especially other singles) reinforcing the belief that singles can't be happy? Do you find yourself always planning for the future or putting things off until you "are married and settled? Do you often have a sense that the intense feelings of happiness and joy can't really be experienced unless you "have someone to share it with?" Do you just feel there is not enough time and other necessary resources available to the single person to pursue experiences that can bring true happiness...
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True Love And Chemistry: Exploring Myth And Reality

When you think about the qualities found in a true "soul mate" relationship, what one word comes up most often on the top of your list?...
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