How to Get Him to Call You

How to Get Him to Call You - Your man has tons of ways to get a hold of you — texting, IMing, Facebook messaging, tweeting … maybe too many. Here's how to actually hear his voice once in a while.

Believe it or not, there was a time when women used to "sit by the phone and wait for a guy to call." That was a bummer. Now we live in a hyper-communicative fog of tweets and texts. Which is great, right? Your guy can always reach you -- by writing to you. The downside: he can always reach you by writing to you.

And that can be a bummer, too, at least sometimes. What happened to the good old-fashioned phone call, where you hear each other's voices, laugh a little, maybe even exchange a little R-rated whisper? Here's how to get your guy to be just a little more old-school ... now and then.

1. Be Direct

Men don't pick up on subtleties like women do, says Dr. Jenn Berman, licensed therapist and relationship expert. If you say to your best friend, "You always text me so much and I get confused with all the messages," she'll probably get the point and slow down on the texting. With a guy, says Dr. Berman, you actually have to tell him what you want.

"Don't make a man decipher your communication style," she says. "He's probably treating you the same way he treated his last five girlfriends." Just come out with it -- but keep in mind the difference between assertive and aggressive. (In case you're wondering, aggressive is "Call me, you jerk!" Assertive is "I'd love if you could call me.")

It helps to be specific, too. Next time you're making plans for the evening, say something like, "Hey, it's cool if you send me the address by text, but could you call me later about the other details?"

Lastly, sometimes you have to put yourself out there to get back what you want, advises Howard J. Morris, co-author of Women are Crazy, Men are Stupid. "You can make the call yourself," he says. "If he still texts you back instead of returning your call, that's lame. And you can tell him that!"

2. Give Positive Encouragement

For a man, a phone call can be surprisingly daunting, especially considering all his other options. Explains Morris: "Facebook is practically anonymous because the woman can ignore a guy and it doesn't get awkward. Email is safe because she probably doesn't respond to her messages right away anyway. Texting is just something you do on auto-pilot. These days, 'calling' is practically a commitment. I mean, she might actually pick up the phone!"

So when your guy gives you a ring, don't be afraid to gush a little. Go ahead, sound excited to hear from him. "We train people how to treat us," Dr. Berman says. "If you want more phone calls, you have to let your guy hear in your voice and your words how happy you are that he dialed your number."

3. Make the Call Super Easy

You know what he also dreads? Getting roped into some endless, rambling conversation. (Admit it: you dread that too!) So just don't let it happen. Here are a few ideas for painless phone calls: Keep the call to less than 10 minutes. Set a timer if you need to. Hey, never a bad thing to leave him wanting more. If your guy actually wants to have a longer convo but you know you'll have to jet, tell him ahead of time, "Hey, I have five minutes before my meeting starts" (or whatever). That way, he won't feel brushed off. Finally, cut him some slack if he says something silly. The main reason men love email and texting is because they can read over what they're going to say, says Morris. So if he's not as clever or charming on the phone as usual, just chalk it up to male insecurities and go easy on him. ( cosmopolitan.com )

Blog : The Love is Beautiful
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How to Overcome Apology - Phobia - Or Why Love Means Never Waiting for Someone Else to Say They're Sorry Firs

How to Overcome Apology - Phobia - Or Why Love Means Never Waiting for Someone Else to Say They're Sorry First

Are you an apology-phobic? Telltale sign: You shrank your wife's favorite cashmere sweater in the wash (though, yes -- for the record, you were trying to help with the laundry) and didn't notice her new haircut (because to you, your wife always looks gorgeous), but when she brings these facts to your attention and it's time to utter those two little words that would fix everything, you suffer from lock-jaw. No key in sight. Except when she gets upset at you for not apologizing and then you mysteriously and conveniently find the missing key and run your mouth making the situation worse by saying things like, "Why does it matter so much to you? Why is everything always my fault?" Or the last ditch: "Well, look at the bright side, now the sweater fits the dog." So intractable is apology-phobia that sufferers are known to say anything in their entire vocabulary except for the right thing. This disorder does not just strike men. Women can be afflicted too, but I'll leave it to my husband to write his, I mean, that side of the story.

Let's admit it: There's nothing quite like those heartfelt apologies. But let's admit something else: We're just not very good at giving them.

Interpreting the Love Story dictum a little too literally we translate "love means never having to say you're sorry" into an excuse to refuse to 'fess up to our transgressions, or even just our blunders. All the while knowing deep down that love is exactly the place to apologize -- early, often and even first.

What are we afraid of? Too much love, appreciation, and the enviable consequence of getting closer to those we care about the most?

What we are afraid of is not the apology itself. Once we get to the point where we are saying the words, we're already reaping the benefits -- basking in the reflective glow of the other person's appreciation. No, what we are afraid of is the anticipation. Walking that plank, naked, without the protection of our ego or pride. Our anxiety says in that special way that claims self-preservation while simultaneously biting us in the seat: Don't do it! You are stepping out into the abyss! You'll be eaten alive! You shouldn't apologize -- it's not your fault! Apologize for this and there'll be no end to the blame that's pegged on you! Meanwhile the truth plays out a bit, or actually entirely, differently: Without that very pride or ego getting in the way, we leap over the uncertainty, utter the right words, and are welcomed, rewarded, relieved, and embraced. All good.

Given our propensity for hurting each other -- usually inadvertently through our clumsiness or our being inconsiderate -- getting good at apologizing should be standard-issue emotional equipment for membership in the human race. And it is. Any one can do it.

Instead, we defend ourselves when we hurt someone's feelings -- It's not my fault! I had nothing to do with it! But we've all witnessed those un-glorious scenes with children: the little kid whose littler kid brother is crying. Right alongside the howls of the littler kid, one hears the protests of the bigger kid insisting: "It wasn't me! He was the one who pushed me!" What we tell the child, we need to remind ourselves: Apologize first, and then sort out the details of who did what to whom later. We can do this best when we distinguish the idea of apologizing from admitting that you are a terrible person. They feel like they are the same thing, but truly they are not.

Let's get better at apologies, together. Here are six ways to put out the welcome mat -- in our own minds -- for those magic words.

Shift the Mindset: Don't Think What's Most Fair; Think What's Most Freeing

What's going to help you feel better sooner -- waiting? Being on hold? Or taking action? Take the first step yourself. That's a gift that you give to yourself -- you're giving yourself the opportunity to resolve, move on, let go. Oh, and of course, this will help the other person feel better sooner too. Rather than being in anticipation mode, you can shift into resolution mode. See these conflicts and their resolution as opportunities to improve and even strengthen a relationship. You don't want to be locked in and neither does the other person -- you are doing both of you a favor, and in general favors are returned.

Have Compassion, Not Daggers: Is the Other Person a Bad Guy or a Good Person Who Made a Bad Choice?

It is hard to apologize for our part of things when we are thinking that the other person played into this "on purpose." Step into the other person's shoes. Stretch your mind and find at least one good reason why a person would act that way. Are they stressed, intimidated, forgetful? Whatever the reason, note how very rarely the things people do wrong are "on purpose" things, and how often they're accidental or, even more often ,something the other person regrets. The more we have compassion for each other and see each other's humanity and vulnerability, it's easy to do the right thing. And that compassion may come in handy when we're the ones who mess up next time.

Keep What You Are Apologizing Small: You Are Apologizing for Your Actions, Not Your Entire Existence

What are you apologizing for? If you understand that you are not apologizing for being a terrible human being (something that any of us would find hard to do), but rather, you're apologizing for the misunderstanding, for not being thoughtful, for hurting a person in that situation, you will be more willing to step forward with generosity and say, "I don't want things to be like this between us. I want to work things out. I'm sorry, can we work this through together?"

Apologize Big: You Can Afford It

Even though what we are apologizing for is something small -- we didn't mean to forget to pick up the dry cleaning -- that doesn't mean that how we apologize needs to be small and pulled like a tooth. We measure out our apologies as if following an unwritten instruction to use sparingly. Imagine that you have a plethora of apologies, and apply liberally.

Be Gracious When You Get An Apology

Don't have a double standard. If you want folks to accept your apologies, don't do a red-pen edit of theirs. As long as their apology was sincere, don't create a roadblock by critiquing how they did it. Instead, let it in, thank them, and see how, even if it's not how you'd do it, they're trying to make things better.

If It's Too Hard to Apologize: Say That

If you can't quite say you're sorry, but you know it's what would help, don't keep that a secret: Ease your way in. If apologizing is hard to do -- start there. These aren't fighting words, they are the pathway to resolution or at least communication. This can turn what feels impossible into an action plan. Say: "I'm mad, and I know apologizing will help, but I'm not ready." The other person will appreciate your honesty and may come and meet you halfway.

Let's overcome our fear of apologizing, together. With everyone working on this, you may find that the next time those two little words -- "I'm sorry" -- get stuck in your throat, someone else will apologize to you first. And you'll be grateful for it. It's the great community clean-up effort. Clearing the air together, we'll all breathe better. ( huffingtonpost.com )

Blog : The Love is Beautiful
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31 Ways To Know You're In The Right Relationship

31 Ways To Know You're In The Right Relationship - As anyone living in the age of depressing divorce rates knows, a happy long-term couple is almost like a unicorn: If by some miracle you encounter it, you can't stop staring, and you have a feeling no one will ever believe you when you tell them you saw it.

The Internet is filled with articles on how to decide when to end it, how to recognize when your relationship is toxic, codependent, one-sided, stagnant, asexual, manipulative. But we don't talk all that often about what defines a happy relationship. Picture it: You're dating someone new. You're waiting to feel the toxic stagnant codependency. Where is it? Months go by. Still nothing. At some point a corner of your brain dares register the thought: Could this be one of those? Could I actually be happy?

To help you answer that question, you lucky thing, here's a completely unscientific list of 31 ways to know you're in the right relationship:

You don't...

1. Fear it.
If you're afraid of commitment, best to work that out before you put yourself in a situation where it's hoped you'll eventually commit.

2. Hide anything more significant than a surprise party from each other.
That includes exes, cheating, debt, STDs, chronic illness, felonies, whether you want a marriage and/or children, genetic abnormalities (if you both want kids), a strong desire to live somewhere else, professional failures and successes, doubts about your sexual orientation, a strong preference for un-vanilla sex.

The truth will come out, and if you're with someone you feel the need to conceal any of this from, he or she probably isn't right.

3. Snoop.
If no one's hiding anything, why are you looking? Going through your significant other's email, phone, Facebook account, or journal strongly indicates that you don't trust the person you're with. You're also violating his or her trust in you.

4. Hide the relationship from other people in your life.
If you're unwilling to introduce the person you're dating at appropriate junctures to the most important people in your life, that's usually a bright, flapping red flag.

In general, if you have a good thing going, you can't wait for him or her to meet your friends, siblings, parents, the guy at the deli, and you wouldn't have any qualms about presenting this person to professional acquaintances, people you knew in college, family friends, even your ex.

5. Think you're superior.
If you feel that your significant other is your inferior in any way you know matters to you in a mate -- morally, intellectually, socially, financially or professionally -- you're never going to respect him or her as much as you hope to be respected.

The best relationships make you feel that you've convinced a person more exceptional than you to love you.

6. Resent the other person's success.
Professional jealousy can be as poisonous to a relationship as constantly thinking he or she is flirting with your best friend. It also suggests that you're spending a lot of time comparing yourself to a person you supposedly adore, rather than sitting back and marveling at how amazing he or she is. In a good relationship, you quit (or refuse to ever engage in) the one-upmanship.

7. Let any substance or behavior come before the relationship.
Any addict or over-user of a substance or behavior is cheating on you with his or her drug of choice. You deserve more.

8. Stew.
When something the other person does annoys you or turns you off, you don't push it to the back of your mind and hope it will go away, because it won't. You bring it up in the moment or sometime in the next 24 hours.

9. Damage property, animals, children or each other during an argument.
You think this goes without saying until you read something like this New York Times "Modern Love" and realize that human beings can rationalize staying with someone who leaves holes in their walls.

On the other hand, if you damage a vase or two in the heat of a different kind of passion, totally fine.

10. Challenge each other on personal issues in front of other people.
You know which conversations you shouldn't be having at brunch with friends.

11. Depend on each other for things no one can or should supply.
If you're looking to your significant other to resolve your emotional issues, make you more responsible/successful/adult, support you financially, improve your social standing, expand your group of friends, provide you with the family you never had, or make your parents finally accept you, it's possible you shouldn't be in a relationship at all, or at least not yet.

12. Begrudge each other time with your respective friends.
You can't be everything to your significant other, and why would you want to be? Sounds exhausting. Friends enrich your life, will accompany you to do things that your significant other may not enjoy, and keep you from getting tired of the person you're seeing.

Besides, if the relationship doesn't work out, those friends going to be the ones coming over to your house, dragging you out of bed and helping you rejoin humanity. Be good to them.

13. Lose Yourself
This is easier said than done, especially when the relationship is going really well. As tempting as it is to never leave the house (maybe never leave the bed), you keep doing the work, exercise, volunteering, socializing, networking, and daughtering you were doing before. Remember, these things made you the person Your Person fell in love with. They're part of you. Don't give them up for anyone. You can't afford it.

14. Have a secret plan B.
If you're where you need to be, the following thoughts don't cross your mind: "Maybe he'll dump me," or "If my ex moves back from Mongolia, everything could change."

15. Have much drama.
You know the cliche: The person worth your tears won't make you cry. Usually.


You do...

16. Put it all on the line.
If you're not risking having your heart broken, you're not doing it right.

17. Respect the people he or she is closest to.
You don't have to love them, but you should think they are honest and moral and have integrity. Want to know you're with a good person? Look to the people he or she thinks are good people.

18. Inspire each other to be better.
A good relationship is galvanizing, not in the oh-my-god-I-met-this-amazing-person-I'd-better-hurry-up-and-fix-myself sense (thought there's probably a little of that when you first start seeing anyone amazing) but in the way that knowing someone else believes in you makes you believe in yourself that much more. You want to prove yourself worthy of his or her confidence.

19. Humble yourselves.
You know you can't hide your flaws for long, so you don't try. You recognize that this person is going to have to take you as you are, as foolish or charitable (or both) as that may seem to make him or her. You know you're both going to mess up endless times and have to apologize and be forgiven and forgive. You'll wonder if one of the bigger mistakes is the one that will end it, and you'll have to prove to one another that the relationship transcends that. You recognize that you signed up for all of this.

20. Talk about sex.
Most couples don't instinctively know all of the ways to please each other. You have to talk about -- or at least show -- what you want. If you don't know what you want, you need to figure that out, STAT (step 1? Get thee to Babeland). And after you have talked about it, you do it. Better.

21. Talk about the rest.
The same things you're not supposed to talk about on a blind date -- religion, money, politics, kids -- are things you should discuss with someone you're serious about. What? You just remembered that thing you need to do? Get back here. No one said this was going to be painless. They said it was going to be hard and awesome.

22. Fight.
If you agree on everything, someone's not telling the truth. See #2 and #8.

23. Have times when you don't talk.
Not because you're angry with each other but because you can be quiet together. When you find yourself with silences you don't need to fill, when you find you can just walk along or lie about or work side by side and feel together without needing to verbally affirm that, you've got a good thing going.

24. Have object permanence.
Child psychologist Jean Piaget theorized that when babies get to be 8 or 9 months old, they begin to develop "object permanence," the idea that an object doesn't vanish when they can no longer see it.

In a good adult relationship, you know that you can go out into the world and do your thing, and the bond you've formed with the person you care about will be there when you get back.

This is also known as trust.

25. Take care of your body.
You know that you won't enjoy sharing it with someone else if you don't like, respect, and nurture it. Your partner feels the same way.

26. Divide and conquer.

You're not identical, thank god, which probably means you have certain strengths and he or she has others. Someone is more organized, someone is more outgoing, someone is a born listener. Someone is better with money, someone is more creative. Someone is more adventurous in bed.

If you each play to your strengths, you in all likelihood remember a gift (possibly an inspired one), your home(s) look(s) great, the bills get paid on time, sex is endlessly fun, and you leave everyone at the party thoroughly charmed.

27. Remember to look at each other across the room.
There's nothing more reassuring (or sexier) than glancing up from the interminable conversation with your eighth cousin or the head of operations or the report you can't seem to finish and locking eyes with Your Person and remembering that by some quantity of luck neither of you may deserve, you found each other.

28. Observe.

You notice when the other person is about to lose it, needs to leave even if you've been there only 20 minutes, is talking to someone he or she can't stand, did something he or she feels guilty about, is silently berating himself or herself, is ruminating over the thing his or her boss said, is about to spend an insane amount of money, and best of all, about to crack up in a situation where he or she shouldn't. You pay attention because you care, and because that's the good stuff.

29. Make time.
You realize that if this is it, one of you is going to be around some distant day in the future to lose the other. In that moment, you will not regret not checking your email in this one.

30. Occasionally get over yourself and your cynicism and fear of cliche and do something deeply, unapologetically romantic.

You send the flowers, have the book signed by the author, request the song, write the note, have the damned thing (tastefully) engraved. You call the other person and tell him or her that specific thing he or she did this morning that made you fall that much more in love. When you're not expecting it, he or she dares to say, even though we all know there are no guarantees ever, "When we're X age, want to Y?"

31. Just know.
Reader, marry that. ( huffingtonpost.com )

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Can you make real friends online?

Can you make real friends online? - We all need friends. We always have. Our ancestors found obtaining the basic necessities of life was easier in a group. But can you can have too much of a good thing? It’s estimated that the maximum number of people who lived in early communities of hunter-gatherers was 150.

According to evolutionary anthropologist Robin Dunbar, 150 is the largest number of people you can share trust and obligations with. This value is known as ‘Dunbar’s number’. It is thought to be a cognitive limit to the number of friends we can maintain, not the number of people we know. People can boast thousands of ‘friends’ on Facebook, but Dunbar would say that it is impossible to feed and nourish all these relationships.

‘I have 293 friends on Facebook,’ says John, 36. ‘I count 280 as close – hard to believe, actually.’

Social networking sites such as Facebook have changed the landscape of friendship. It may be the case that the ease with which we can now remain in touch makes Dunbar’s number less relevant. There may well be limits to the number of people we can keep a quality friendship with, the type of friend we phone for advice and help. But it may be that we are able to maintain, at a lower level, additional friendships of a different quality far beyond this number.

Yet how many of this number could you count on in your hour of need? On Christmas Day, Simone Back, 42, from Brighton, announced on Facebook to her 1,082 friends: ‘Took all my pills be dead soon so bye bye everyone.’ There were 150 online responses, including taunts and bickering. No one who lived nearby tried to help her or called 999. Her body was found the next day.

Part of the problem is that the meaning of the word ‘friend’ remains somewhat unclear. While Juliette, 43, regards a friend as someone who provides ‘emotional support both ways’, Mark, 40, considers a friend ‘someone whose life has crossed mine’.

Dunbar’s number might broadly describe the number of people with whom we share trusts and obligations, but it may underestimate the number of people with whom we might associate – whether sharing a drink with someone at the water cooler, or a glass of wine at your sister’s wedding.

Our circle of associates includes work colleagues, people we meet at parties, in the pub, on the train to work. Some associates are much more important than others – our family, our closest confidants and our children. Some are less important – the girls from our old netball team, the people in the office downstairs and Michael from marketing, with whom we went to the cinema once last year. We are capable of exchanging an email with all these people, and may have mutual acquaintances with a good number of them, providing common ground. When we think about it for a moment, the single label of ‘friend’ is not terribly useful. The quality and depth of our friendships is more important.

The difference in definitions of friendship often boils down to a question of needs. For some, friendship is all about affiliation – the need to have a large number of positive connections. For others, friendship is more about intimacy – the need to have a few warm, close relationships.

Having lots of affiliates does have its advantages. ‘A week before travelling, I posted on Facebook: “I’m in New York next week, anyone around?”’ says James, 23. ‘I met up with two old school friends who’d moved there 18 months earlier. It makes travel more random, more interesting.’

While both affiliation and intimacy are rewarding, in the long run, quality makes a bigger difference than quantity. Research suggests that people who choose to stick with a few close confidants in youth are better adjusted by middle age than those who need to chum up with many.

Social networking is a minefield for those with a strong need to affiliate. While it opens the opportunity to connect with the multitude, it also invites the possibility of rejection, where people can be ‘defriended’ by existing connections, or friendship requests can be turned down by prospective ones. People who need to affiliate are more likely to find these rejections particularly crushing. Some people find that social networking contributes to a sense of loneliness and inadequacy. An anonymous blogger wrote: ‘If I post something and no one responds, I feel sad and lonely. If I go on a friend’s page and see that they gave a rose or some other gift to some mutual friends, I wonder why I didn’t get anything. I feel like reaching out, but fear I will come across as needy or emotionally bereft.’

Degrees of comfort with using Facebook as a forum for friendship depend on your generation. In one camp are ‘digital natives’ – those born during or after the introduction of digital technology. They grew up with mobile phones, emails, blogs. When I ask digital native Ashley, 22, to describe someone who doesn’t use Facebook, she looks utterly surprised. ‘Everyone is on Facebook,’ she says, flatly. Tell a digital native you are not on Facebook and you can expect the response, ‘How do you live without Facebook?’

In the other camp are digital immigrants. They were born before the advent of digital technology, and are likely to have adopted it – to some extent, by necessity – later in life. They include the ‘avoiders’, who are suspicious of most social networking sites. They see the phenomenon as exhibitionist, voyeuristic, a threat to personal privacy.

‘It is pointless to collect friends you have lost touch with from your past,’ says Adam, 41. ‘If you aren’t good friends, it is probably for a good reason.’

Digital immigrants also count among their number the reluctant adopters who are likely to go on Facebook because they feel they have to, but try their best to avoid it.

Friends aren’t bound by blood or family bonds, employment contracts or legal obligations. We do things for one another because we want to. Whether writing a response to a photo tagged on Facebook, sending a birthday card by post, or making a hospital visit, the efforts we make for our friends are intentional acts of kindness. It is this voluntary nature of friendship that makes it rewarding – and precious.

In short-term or less intimate relationships, we are more aware of the importance of repaying favours quickly. For our closer friendships it is less tit for tat, quid pro quo – we come to trust that things will balance out in the end and that you will be there for one another when it matters most. We feel good about helping our friend out because, well, we are friends.

Friendships take work, they need to be nurtured, nourished and maintained. We often let our friendships slide because of a lack of time and energy. When carrying a heavy load at work, involved in a serious relationship or married with children, it’s hard to find time for friends. In these situations we need to remind ourselves of what friends are for and why they can be and very often are vital in our lives.

They save us from being overly dependent on one relationship for our identity. Even more than a buffer against what life can throw at us, friends are a source of personal enrichment and growth. In a survey of more than 2,000 married couples aged 55 or older, for both men and women, having friends was the best predictor of being satisfied in marriage – probably because they were more satisfied with their lives as a result of having friends.

Researchers at UCLA suggest social relationships are the reason women live longer than men. Social bonds reduce the risk of disease by decreasing blood pressure, cholesterol and heart rate. A lack of close confidants is as harmful to your health as smoking or being overweight. Indeed, people without friends are more likely to die younger. Not only do friendships prolong our lives, they make us happier, too. People who are socially active are less stressed and depressed – they also tend to feel better about their lives and who they are.

It is estimated that by 2020, one billion people will be on Facebook. Whether you use it or not, it’s worth remembering, friendship is about seeing eye to eye, not counting heads. ( psychologies.co.uk )

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Three Ways to Make Him Fall for You

Three Ways to Make Him Fall for You - When you’re falling in love with a man, it’s natural to want to prove what a great catch you are by being sweeter, funnier and smarter in hopes that he’ll fall in love with you, too. Focusing on what a man wants and ingratiating yourself in this way may feel like the natural thing to do, but it’s the worst way to try to make a man feel romantic about you.

He may feel appreciative when you do things like make plans, offer advice, run errands or give gifts. But sometimes this behavior overwhelms him, makes him withdraw, or see you as just a good friend.

Here are some tips to inspire his romantic side instead:

Tip#1: Don’t give a man more than he gives you.

Inspiring a man to fall for you is all about you being able to receive love. A man is actually turned off when he gets more from you than he gives. When you shower him with affection, attention, dinners, gifts, and always go out of your way to drive to his place, it makes him think of you as a mother or a friend instead of inspiring his emotional desire for you. Don’t pay for dates, either. The moment you pay for a date you turn into a “friend” in his mind.


Tip #2: Don’t give away exclusivity if he hasn’t yet committed.

Being exclusive and sexually monogamous with a man without a “forever” commitment from him puts you in a tough place emotionally. You become completely invested in him because he has all your time and attention. There’s no way you can stop wondering about where the relationship is going.

But the more you wonder about it, the more you push a man away. Rather than talking about the relationship or threatening him with ultimatums, you can continue to keep your options open by dating other men. This way, you keep your class, your power, your boundaries, and he has to work to get you!


Tip #3: Don’t plan dates.

You want to plan the date because you’re uncomfortable with him possibly being clueless. However, you’ll never know what a man is capable of until you let him do what he does, even if that’s nothing.

The amazing thing is that once you get comfortable with your own boundaries and feelings, you can just let a man be who he is and then determine whether or not you want to be with him. This attitude shifts your vibe so dramatically that a man will jump hurdles to be with you. A woman who can respect a man enough to not try to “pick up the slack” for him is the woman he falls in love with. ( mydailymoment.com )

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The new Twilight movie gave some viewers seizures. Whose fault is that?

The new Twilight movie gave some viewers seizures. Whose fault is that? - Several moviegoers who watched the new vampire flick, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part I, over the weekend reported suffering seizures, apparently triggered by a gruesome birth scene that featured black, red, and white flashing lights. What are movie studios required to do to make sure their films don’t trigger epilepsy?

Nothing. Doctors have long known that certain patterns of flashing lights or colors can trigger seizures in a small proportion of epileptics—probably around one-twentieth of the 3 percent who have any form of the disease. Still, until the 1990s, many doctors believed that the light from projected movies would be too dim and far away from the viewer to trigger the effect. (A strobe light or ceiling fan would be more likely to do the trick.) As a result, there have never been rules governing the use of flashing lights in American movies—or in video games or TV programs, either. Nor does the Motion Picture Association of America, which rates movies for content, evaluate a film’s propensity for causing seizures.

Still of Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part I. © 2011 Summit Entertainment, LLC. All rights reserved.

Things work differently in the U.K., where a 1993 television advertisement for Pot Noodle snacks that triggered three reported seizures prompted a government inquiry. As a result, the country’s regulatory authority for communications, Ofcom, set up rules requiring all British broadcasters to avoid scenes likely to cause seizures. The exact stimuli that can set off a seizure vary from one person to the next, but as a rule they involve contrasting lights or colors that flash more than three times per second. (Red, one of the colors in the scene from Breaking Dawn, seems to be particularly troublesome.) Many now pretest their programs and advertisements using a system called the Harding Flash and Pattern Analyser.

The most notorious incident of mass-media-induced epilepsy happened in Japan in 1997, when an episode of the wildly popular kids’ show Pokémon sent 618 children to the hospital. (A later study found only a handful of confirmed seizures.) Video games such as Super Mario World have also been shown to trigger a number of seizures over the years, prompting their makers to print warnings on game boxes. Most of these disclaimers are printed voluntarily by manufacturers, to avoid lawsuits and bad publicity.

In film, some experts worry that the spread of new, brighter digital projectors, coupled with larger theaters that put the audience closer to the screen, could make photogenic seizures more common at the multiplex. Others blame modern special effects and camera techniques that simulate a first-person viewing experience. Still, the number of confirmed cases so far is low enough that there hasn’t been a major push for change. Summit Entertainment, the studio that made Breaking Dawn, has declined to comment on this weekend’s reports.

Seizures are just one in an array of ailments that have been blamed on particularly visceral movies over the years. A projectile-vomit scene in the 1973 horror classic The Exorcist reportedly prompted viewers to follow suit. A scene in the recent James Franco movie 127 Hours in which the protagonist severs his own arm caused a number of fainting episodes. And the blockbuster Avatar was said to leave some audience members depressed at returning to their own workaday lives. ( slate.com )

READ MORE - The new Twilight movie gave some viewers seizures. Whose fault is that?

The Dos and Don’ts of Modern Communication

The Dos and Don’ts of Modern Communication - When I read some of the unnecessarily harsh comments people post on news articles or blogs (thankfully, not usually mine), I become concerned for our collective future. When the cashier at a store is too busy texting to acknowledge my existence, I find myself put off and, again, concerned. And I don’t even want to get started on when I see people texting and driving.

So, I was happy when I recently had the opportunity to chat with Thomas P. Farley, a New York-based manners and lifestyle expert. His website, whatmannersmost.com, provides all kinds of interesting and useful information about contemporary etiquette. He could relate to my concerns and talked about how people’s use of technology often constitutes bad manners and causes problems in relationships. With this in mind, he shared the following “dos and don’ts” of communicating through technology:

Do: Turn off your cell phone when you are with others and give them your full attention. If you need to have it on because you are awaiting a very important call, let them know right up front.

Don’t: Give more attention to cell phones than people. This is rude and gives people the message that they are not important. In addition, constant texting means you are never really involved in your current interaction. Mr. Farley highlighted this point by noting that someone might not be attending to a conversation because he is texting about plans for dinner, and then arrives at that dinner where he begins to text to make plans for something else.


Do: When commenting on blog posts or bulletin boards, be sure that your comments are constructive. You can certainly disagree or make critical statements, but this should be done in a constructive and not unduly harsh way.

Don’t: Be mean-spirited. People too often use their anonymity to say things they would never say in person. Unfortunately, because people are getting used to being less-than-sensitive or have been the recipients of mean statements, this style of communication is trickling out to other interactions – which, of course, is not good for any relationships.


Do: Make every effort to respond to personal communications in personal ways.

Don’t: Overuse texting. People often return phone calls or emails with texts – and not just when they are in circumstances where it is clearly preferable, such as at concerts or on the train. While it’s a quick, efficient way of responding, it also is less personal and keeps relationships more distant.


Do: Write clearly to help ensure that you are expressing yourself well.

Don’t: Overuse abbreviations. This keeps people from practicing their spelling and from writing clear, articulate messages. The result is that people don’t learn to, or get out of practice with, communicating effectively. It can put them at a disadvantage in getting their points across, which can be a particular liability at many jobs.


Do: Make sure that you give thought to, and exert effort with, your close friends.

Don’t: Maintain a vast number of “friends” on social networking sites if it means you wind up spending less time forging close meaningful relationships. Keeping up with a large network of people — though valuable from a business and networking standpoint — takes time and energy. The unfortunate result is often that in their race to rack up virtual acquaintances, many people begin to neglect their real friends; the ones who will be there for them in times of need, and who will give them a deeper sense of connection.

As Mr. Farley finished sharing his thoughts, he explained that people who choose to do these things are respected and liked. And, he added (with an enthusiasm that I really liked), “When you are kind to other people, it comes back to you; AND IT FEELS GOOD.”
What do you think about communication in this technology age? ( webmd.com )

READ MORE - The Dos and Don’ts of Modern Communication

Do women really want to marry for money?

Do women really want to marry for money? - A report from the London School of Economics says that women want rich husbands not careers. A work-weary Judith Woods agrees

Your husband sweeps through the door this evening, Mad Men style, just as you’ve settled at the kitchen table, slumped over some reports. He strides over, encircles your waist and tells you he’s had such a whopping pay rise that his pretty liddle lady Need Never Work Again.

Do you a) feel insulted by his inherently unegalitarian, outdated patrimony: b) politely demur; after all you’ve spend years effortfully hauling yourself up the career ladder, one broken nail extension at a time or c) rip up your spreadsheets in a joyful frenzy and actually volunteer to have conjugal relations – after you’ve quickly logged on and ordered the Aga?

When I heard the news that these days modern women crave a wealthy breadwinner rather than a high-flying career, I had to pause and think about it. For a nanosecond!

Of course we do! Since when did the bleedin’ obvious qualify as news? Past the age of 35, where two or more of us are gathered together in a room, the talk invariably turns to wistful longings of “getting some chickens”, which as we all know is code for “a property porn house in a shire with Cath Kidston tea towels, Emma Bridgewater crockery and a City husband who is so preposterously well-remunerated he can almost afford the outrageous commuter rail fare rises.”

According to a report researched at the London School of Economics and published by the Centre for Policy Studies, women are more determined than ever to bag a partner who will improve their financial prospects – think Jane Austen, but with Dragon’s Den venture capitalist Deborah Meaden as Mrs Bennett.

“Women’s aspirations to marry up, if they can, to a man who is better-educated and higher earning persists in most European countries,” says the report’s author, Catherine Hakim, a senior research fellow in sociology who is no stranger to controversy, having last year coined the neologisms “erotic capital” and “beauty premium” to describe the key professional attribute of our times.

Presumably this is why, to quote the old joke smart girls get minks, the way minks get minks.

“Women continue to use marriage as an alternative or supplement to their employment careers,” she concludes. Cue howls of outrage from the sisterhood.

Jon Hamm as Don Draper and January Jones as Betty Draper in the US series Mad Men

At the risk of being clubbed to death with a copy of the Female Eunuch; what’s so wrong with that? By logical extension, it would appear men are keen to “marry down” , although nobody seems to query, much less gather statistics on, their matrimonial motives.

Apparently in the 1940s, 20 per cent of British women “married up.” By the 1990s that had climbed to

38 per cent, with a similar pattern in Europe, the US and Australia. I would aver this reveals more about social mobility in general than gold-diggers in particular. But even if women are becoming shrewder in their criteria for choosing a mate, surely that makes them sensible rather than cynical?

Look at any female executive returning to work after maternity leave, and once the thrill of wearing proper shoes and being asked her opinion has worn off, a single glass of wine will often see her tearfully confess she’s desperate to get pregnant again so she can give up work, go part-time or set up a kitchen table industry involving local, organic, Fair Trade, biodegradable children’s eco-muffins.

“I was dying to give up work after Number One, but nobody else did, so I felt obliged to stay in my job,” says my friend Elaine, 38, who has two children aged six and two. “There’s an unwritten rule that Number Two means you get to go part-time or give up altogether if your husband earns enough. If you want to make absolutely certain, you brace yourself and have a third, which means you definitely don’t go back to work but it’s murderously hard when they’re all little.”

It’s not then, that women of my generation are lazy (although maybe a little work-weary), just Ready to Reprioritise. Remember you read it here first; and doesn’t it sound intelligently wholesome rather than shockingly retrograde?

For my Girl Power generation, it’s been a bit of a toughie to admit that Having It All really isn’t the same as Having a Ball. As I shoulder-padded my way through the late Eighties, I would never have contemplated marrying for money. Then again, I wouldn’t even let any of my suitors pay for dinner. More fool me.

But does that mean I envy iPhone widows whose high net worth husbands are so immersed in derivatives or mergers they rarely see daylight and forget their children’s names? Yes, but only occasionally, I swear.

Before you judge, let me say I know for a fact – a fact, I tell you – I’m not alone in feeling that I’ve done the whole career thing and now I’d like to try the whole flapjacks and hand-stencilling the nursery thing. If my husband could please just sell a little bit more of his soul?

“I see a lot of previously ambitious women who are very confused by a sudden urge to bake cakes and sew curtains, which totally flies in the face of everything they strived for,” says clinical psychologist Kathleen Cox. “They begin to wonder 'Who am I?’ because they don’t recognise themselves any more. I see it as a positive thing, because society allows women to question their role, whereas men are expected to knuckle down and keep on doing jobs they may hate.

“Does that mean women are hardwired to stay at home and look after the nest? The longer I live the more I think perhaps, yes.”

Seditious talk maybe, but perhaps it’s time we tackled the ultimate taboo and rehabilitated the “H” word; after all, if you look deep into your social circle, you may discover some of your best friends are housewives in all but name.

“I never refer to myself as a housewife,” says Kate Brown, 37, who gave up her job in the retail industry last year to care for her twin girls, aged 18 months. “If anyone asks me what I do, I simply say I’m micromanaging twins, which is pretty self-explanatory. My husband doesn’t earn a huge amount, but it was more than I did, so it made the decision easier.”

Oliver James, author of the parenting book How Not To F**** Them Up, applauds any couple where mother or father takes childrearing seriously enough to take time out. He has written at length about how the first six years of a child’s life are crucial in safeguarding their future mental health and economic independence.

“I want to see a world where women or men want to care for their children, and if that means 'marrying up’ to ensure they are bringing their children up in a solvent household, where one of them can stay at home and do the most important job of all, then that’s fine by me,” he says.

Arguably, there’s nothing surprising in these findings. A study by the National Centre for Social Research, commissioned in 2009 by the Department for Children, Schools and Families, revealed that a third of all mothers would prefer to give up their jobs if they could afford to and three fifths said they would want to work fewer hours.

Life coach Fiona Harrald insists that women are only doing what comes naturally, and have been hardwired for millennia to “marry up”. It’s only relatively recently that they have had any other realistic chance of improving their lot in life.

“My mother’s generation couldn’t even open a bank account or enter into a hire purchase agreement to buy a sofa without a husband’s signature,” she says. “These days we can chose to work or choose to concentrate on being at home with our children – that’s the essence of feminism and we should all just calm down, stop being judgmental and get comfortable with the choices we, and other women, make.”

If all things were equal – looks, charm, humour, a decent head of hair – any sensible girl unencumbered by professional ambition would probably choose a prince over a pauper. Just ask Kate Middleton.

And if I’m honest, if I were still 28 and with the benefit of hindsight, I’d do exactly the same. Yes, I once wanted to smash through the glass ceiling. But now, truth be told, I’d much rather polish it. Pass the Windowlene on your way out to work, darling.

YES, says Jemima Lewis

Women want rich husbands… and this is news? Perhaps we don’t often say it – perhaps we don’t even care to admit it to ourselves – but women are practical creatures. A rich husband gives you options.

One of the perks of being female is that you grow up knowing there’s a chance, however slim, that you might be able to marry a gazillionaire and retire from office life before you hit middle age. If you have babies, of course, you’re in for a different kind of work – every bit as gruelling in its way, but at least a change of pace. Most working men (gazillionaires included) are stuck in Groundhog Day for around 50 years, with no prospect of a significant change in their daily routine until they are fit for nothing but retirement and death. It’s amazing, when you think about it, how cheerfully they accept this.

If he is rich enough, your husband might pay for teams of nannies to look after your children while you busy yourself with pilates and managing the estate. Working mothers like me tend to regard such well-kept wives with a disapproving eye. We call them “trophy” wives, as if to distinguish them from the real thing, but that is partly just to distract ourselves from the boiling envy inside.

Whether you fill your days with pilates or child-rearing, not having to work is… well, less like hard work. Unfortunately, it turns out that rich husbands, like handsome princes, are not so easy to come by. This survey, after all, is about women’s aspirations, not their reality.

Most of us, not moving in gazillionaire circles, are likely to fall in love with and marry a more humble Joe. In the meantime, you might have built up a career that you are proud of, and reluctant to give up. If you then have a baby, you are doomed to an inner life of conflict, vacillation and guilt as you try to find a way to bring up your own child without going bankrupt or doolally.

Like a winning lottery ticket, but one you could warm your feet on at night, a rich husband would solve everything at a stroke, allowing you to calibrate your work/life balance to suit yourself, rather than your mortgage provider.

Myself, I’m thrilled to have found a husband at all, and in real life I would no more swap him for Sir Philip Green than he would swap me for Scarlet Johansson (or would he?). What this survey tells us is only this: a girl can dream.

No, says JoJo Moyes

SO, today’s young women, having observed mothers for whom “having it all” seems to mean “having all the domestic responsibility”, “having the odd nervous breakdown” and “still having to wax one’s unmentionables”, have decided they’d prefer a WAG lifestyle.

Who can blame them? There are times – usually when sick children and deadlines collide – that I think the same thing.

But marry rich, and you may marry a man who views you as a commodity. You may spend much of your time alone; a high-flying career often means an absent husband and father. You can marry for money, but it’s not a marriage. It’s a deal. And I suspect only the toughest of women can see that with the clarity it requires.

The divorce courts are littered with high-earners, as well as the shattered dreams of traded-in middle-aged wives. My children have long played a game called “Who’s got the sourest face?” in Waitrose. It’s always the wives in the really expensive cars.

My husband and I have taken turns as the highest earner. Earning my own money means I don’t have to justify my shoe habit, and he doesn’t shoulder the mortgage alone. And having a career brings me more contentment than a designer handbag.

So, I wouldn’t be delighted if my daughter ended up with a yurt-dweller. But I’d feel worse if she thought the most important thing about a man was his bank balance. ( telegraph.co.uk )

READ MORE - Do women really want to marry for money?

When the going gets tough, women go for softies

When the going gets tough, women go for softies - Contrary to popular belief, when a damsel is in distress a macho man just doesn't cut it, according to new research.

The gentle, effeminate type such as High School Musical's Zac Efron and Hollywood heart-throb Robert Pattinson are the men for difficult financial straits, new findings suggest, while strong silent types are no longer in favour.

The study was conducted to see whether money and health worries affect the type of woman a man finds attractive.

Sixty five young women were given one of three questionnaires to fill in.

One was designed to make the woman feel worry about her finances, another about her health. A third, neutral questionnaire included questions about belief in the paranormal.

They were then presented with a list of character traits and asked to choose those which belong to their ideal man.

Overall, women put most emphasis on the "good dad" traits, which meant they preferred men who were seen as good providers, gentle and kind.

Those who presented high levels of anxiety about their finances shunned masculine, rugged men such as Sean Bean and Kirk Douglas, the Royal Society journal Biology Letters report has found.

The study, conducted by Australian researchers, suggests that women with money woes look for kinder types, seen as good providers who will stick around when times get tough.

Conversely, women who were made to worry about their health were most drawn to attractive, macho men.

The researchers say this could be because masculinity can often be a sign of good genes, which women would like to pass on to their children.

The study concluded there are evolutionary advantages in a women's taste in men being flexible. This would allow the woman to "adapt their preferences to rapid changes in the environment such as pathogen outbreak or a famine," they said. ( telegraph.co.uk )

READ MORE - When the going gets tough, women go for softies

How important is sex to a marriage?

How important is sex to a marriage? - The fact that passion often wanes in marriage is no joke for many couples... so should it be more of a priority? - Many things get lost in the long haul of relationships, among them inhibitions, senses of humour, socks — and, in many cases, libido.

It is a lucky and unusual couple who, decades into a marriage, still feel the same passion for each other that ignited their early relationship.

Far more common is the story of the once-happy sex life that has waned as the years passed — that initial physical bond becoming fractured in the maelstrom of raising children, earning a living, running a house and growing older.

Loss of libido: The older we get, the less we make love according to research

Indeed, the statistics tell a story of decline: the older we get, the less love we make. According to the most recent Sexual Wellbeing Survey, the average British person has sex 127 times a year, and the average married person has sex 98 times a year.

The Kinsey Sex Institute states that the average 18 to 29-year-old has sex 142 times a year; 30 to 39-year-olds 86 times a year; 40 to 49-year-olds 69 times a year; and the over-50s have sex 52 times a year. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Growing older in a committed relationship doesn’t have to mean a slow slide into celibacy and slippers.

Couples for whom the spark of passion still burns bright may be rarer than those whose flame is long extinguished, but they do exist.

‘My husband and I have more sex now than we did in our 30s and 40s, when we were coping with a young son and both of us were working,’ says Carol Shaw, 62.

‘Now, we make love sometimes two or three times a week. Spontaneity is the key to our physical relationship. We don’t specifically go to bed early to have sex — because we have been together so long, we know exactly what each movement, each gesture means. On holiday, we will often make love during the day, and we have experimented with Tantric sex, too.’

'After our son was born we had sex only once or twice a year. Now we've put intimacy back at the heart of our marriage, it's stronger than ever'

(Tantric sex, first practised by the ancient Hindus, is a slow form of meditative sex that’s said to increase intimacy and create a mind-body connection that can lead to powerful orgasm.)

Carol’s relationship with her 67-year-old retired husband, David, has been kept alive because each of them has refused to get complacent — something which damages many marriages.

‘All the evidence points to the fact that an active sex life keeps couples together,’ says Dr Geoff Hackett, a leading expert in sexual medicine and former chairman of the British Society for Sexual Medicine.

‘It promotes intimacy, reassurance, the realisation that both parties are wanted and needed. It is hard to find researched evidence, but most surveys point to the fact that a lack of sex in a relationship is a leading factor in break-ups.

‘Once the sex goes, so many other problems follow. It has also been proven that couples — especially men — will live longer, happier lives if they remain in a steady, loving relationship. There is no doubt that a healthy sex life is one of the most important factors in a thriving and successful marriage.’

Carol and David, who live near Inverness in the Scottish Highlands, agree. After 41 years of marriage, they still regard their sex lives as the ‘glue’ in their relationship.

Carol, a company managing director, explains: ‘A healthy physical relationship brings intimacy and comfort to a relationship, beyond words. If the sex breaks down, everything else in the relationship will suffer.

Close bond: Carol and David Shaw still enjoy regular sex in their 60s

‘We went through a period of “aridity” in our marriage after our son was born in the Eighties, when sex happened only once or twice a year for about six years.

‘It put a big strain on our marriage. We were fractious with each other, had a lot more arguments, and we’d turn away from each other in bed.

‘The reasons were many — a young child, coping with two demanding careers — all the usual problems couples face. Thankfully, we came back together, and getting our sex life back on track was a major factor.’

Carol and David’s relationship began with a powerful physical attraction which has not waned.

‘As we’ve grown older, our love-making has become different — it is slower and more tender,’ she says. ‘But it means just as much to us as it ever did, and I hope we will continue well into our old age.

‘We are both open to experimentation — hence the willingness to try Tantric sex. We’re agreed that the key to a good marriage is sex. It is vital to our relationship. I cannot imagine a world without David, and I am sure we’ve been so happy because we’re so sexually compatible.’

Sexual medicine expert Dr Geoff Hackett stresses that the benefits of sex are physical as well as emotional.

‘It’s vitally important to our overall health,’ he says. ‘Orgasm creates a rush of endorphins within the brain, and a couple are never closer than the moment they’ve just had sex.

‘As human beings, we are programmed to seek sex. If you look at the behaviour of young people, it is all built around the need for sexual attraction. This may wane as we get older, but we are all still looking for sex, and if it goes from our marriage or relationship we will seek it elsewhere, whatever our age.’

Dr Hackett says he regularly sees patients in their 60s and 70s who are still actively seeking sex and the reassurance that they can still function.

‘The desire to have sex is innate within all of us,’ he says.

Rochelle Peachey and her husband Phil, both 46, have been married for ten years. They recognise the importance of putting constant effort into a relationship so that it remains vital and exciting, and enjoy an invigorating physical bond.

‘Sex brings a closeness that is beyond words. It relaxes you, puts you in tune with each other, and smoothes over all the everyday trials and tribulations,’ says Rochelle, who runs a dating agency with her husband.

‘I think it is especially important for men — they need to feel proud of their virility, and know that their wife finds them sexually attractive.

‘Men’s attraction is visual — they need you to be attractive to them. All around us we see couples breaking up or having affairs, and it is nearly always down to a lack of sex in the marriage. Sex can’t become a habit — you need to be inventive, and surprising, and work at it.’

She and David, who have two sons, aged 26 and 18, between them, have both been married before, and credit the success of their second marriage to the intense physical attraction between them.

Rochelle says: ‘I love the fact that Phil still fancies me just as much, if not more, than when we first met. You need to keep the sex in a marriage fresh and interesting, and never become complacent about the way you look. I see women who let themselves put on weight, never wear make-up, then wonder why their husbands are having affairs.

‘I dress in young fashions, wear high heels and beautiful lingerie, and I always have my hair and nails done.

‘When we are out, Phil will say “You are the most beautiful woman in this room”, and that gives me such a buzz.’

Rochelle and Phil, who have homes in London and Florida, enjoy sex three or four times a week, and work hard not to take each other for granted — an inevitable slip-up in many marriages, but one which happens all too easily when the pressures of everyday life bring themselves to bear.

They are proud of the efforts they make to sustain their libido. ‘We have “date nights”, when we go out for meals, and we love to dance,’ says Rochelle.

'If the sex breaks down, everything else in the relationship will suffer'

‘We often put on music at home, and we never restrict love-making to the bedroom. We try to be as adventurous as when we first got together. A bad sex life was one of the things that killed my first marriage. I have learned never to go to bed angry after a row, and never to turn Phil down.

‘We’ve been together for 18 years, so we know each other inside out, but there is no complacency.’

Relationship expert Francine Kaye runs The Divorce Doctor website and counselling service. She agrees that complacency can be the kiss of death to many relationships, stressing that making the time and effort to have sex is critical, even if you don’t feel in the mood.

‘Sex is very much the glue in a marriage,’ Francine says. ‘You simply cannot get closer than having sex. It consolidates the bond which keeps people together.

‘If you break that cycle — through tiredness, illness or career stress — then you break the bond. You have to make time for sex, no matter how exhausted you might be feeling, because it will bring you together.

‘If men are stressed, sex is what they need to make them feel better about themselves. Men don’t express their feelings verbally — making love is their way of showing their partner how much they love them.’

Francine argues that the majority of people can cope with any problem within a marriage if they have the connection of sex. If they don’t, problems can quickly become insurmountable.

Reignite passion: The over-50s only have sex 52 times a year - but it doesn't have to be that way (posed by models)

‘I can put any couple back together if they’ve had sexual chemistry,’ she explains. ‘But if there is no chemistry, it is virtually impossible to save a marriage. If you feel the chemistry has gone but was there once, you can work at bringing it back.’

The rigours of domestic life often serve as a potent anti-aphrodisiac.

There’s nothing like having a long list of chores to do, a couple of demanding kids and several urgent errands in prospect to dim the ardour which might, just a moment ago, have briefly stirred.

So throw in a demanding job and all the other minutiae of life and it’s no surprise that many couples just cannot find the time or energy for physical abandonment.

Children are a key distraction, turning what may once have been a love nest into a family home in which romance can easily suffer.

Jason Heller, 37, and his wife Rachel, 35, are at that critical stage where young children and busy careers have shifted the focus away from life a deux.

They’re running a new business together in London — a shop, café and lounge called Huggle — and have two children, four-year-old Maya and Sam, 14 months. Both admit that their sex life has waned as a result.

WHO KNEW?

One in 20 couples are virtually celebate, rising to one in 10 among the over-45s, research suggests

Rachel says: ‘There comes a time in your marriage when your physical relationship has to take a back seat to bringing up young children. I think it’s a natural part of marriage — it will come and go, and you have to learn not to worry.’

Jason sees sex as a form of communication, a way of reassuring your partner that you love each other and everything is all right, even though life may be fraught with tension.

‘But like most parents of young children, we have less time for each other than we had before, but we accept that as part of the parenting and marriage process,’ he says.

‘We both work hard for the business, and in the evenings life is about feeding and bathing the children and reading stories to them. The days of wild abandon are gone for the moment — but I am sure they will come back.

‘I joke that I am not Rachel’s priority any more, but she knows I wouldn’t have it any other way. You have to remember there will be life again, after the children have grown up.’

Sexual medicine expert Dr Geoff Hackett advises circumspection if a couple’s sex life has waned — and professional help.

‘So much can be done to bring couples back together, and once they rediscover their sex life it is extraordinary how quickly many other issues are resolved,’ he advises.

‘Sex is the vital component in a functioning relationship, but it doesn’t have to be incredibly frequent. A couple just need to know they have those moments of intimacy which only they share, and which bond them together.’ ( dailymail.co.uk )

READ MORE - How important is sex to a marriage?

I ended an affair out of guilt but now the man I dumped is telling everyone...

I ended an affair out of guilt but now the man I dumped is telling everyone... - I had a brief and much-regretted affair with a work colleague six months ago, which I ended. I am married with children, while he is single, so the implications for my marriage were horrendous and I swore him to secrecy.

He said he loved me, so I trusted him. I now find he’s told a workmate all about the entanglement, even though he doesn’t know this woman well.

I’m wondering how many people he’s blabbed to and how I can stop him from talking about it.

Vulnerable: A reader is concerned how far information about her much-regretted affair with a work colleague has spread (posed by a model)

Well, you certainly didn’t follow the advice in the Rough Guide To Infidelity, did you? Obviously the wisest course of action is not to have an affair at all. OK, I made that title up, but if such a book existed this is what it would advise you: keep love affairs out of the office and never have a fling with someone who has less to lose than you do.

Any workplace relationship can rebound on your professional life if it goes wrong, but none more so than an illicit affair where your standing can plummet faster than the Dow Jones on Black Monday. Many a lover believes there is honour among thieves and that their paramour would never spill the beans about their clinches. This is a far easier pact to maintain when an affair is ongoing and everything is rosy between the partners in crime.

Everything changes when the relationship ends — especially if one of those involved is ditched against their will. What you don’t seem to have factored in is that your lover’s feelings about the end of your tryst may be different to your own. You regret the entanglement and seem to have no emotion towards your former lover except for ire and regret for becoming involved.

He, on the other hand, told you that he loved you and it is possible that he harboured desires for the relationship to become more permanent. Then this man suffered the pain and humiliation of you ending it. Yet there is no way he can retreat to lick his wounds, because there you are every working day: a nine-to-five reminder of his heartache.

Most jilted lovers feel a bit crazy in the aftermath of separation, but your man is living under stressful circumstances. So I am not surprised he’s buckled under the strain and confessed all to a mutual colleague.

What you see as ‘blabbing’ and a betrayal seems more likely to be a suffering man seeking a talking cure. It’s hardly surprising he’s talked to someone who has some knowledge of you. And you’d be wise to assume she’s not the only one he’s talked to.

When people are in an emotional state they can become incontinent with the truth, confessing their affairs to the taxi driver, their hairdresser, the office receptionist and strangers on trains.

I feel sorry for you, having made yourself so vulnerable, but anyone who embarks on an illicit relationship should brace themselves for such consequences. Nor are those penalties just applicable to you — as you now see, it’s your family’s happiness that’s most at risk.

If the recent fiascos surrounding celebrities’ super-injunctions (supposedly imposed to cover up details of their sexual misdemeanours) tells you anything, it’s that you can’t silence your exes or the gossiping public. The pledges you make to your lover while in the throes of passion are so often discarded the second the relationship ends.

WORK AND PLAY

Seventy per cent of us have had an office romance while one in three has set up home with a colleague

The crux of the matter is that you feel your former lover owes you his silence, but you have to ask yourself if he owes you anything. You picked him up when it suited you, then dropped him like a hot potato when you realised how foolish you’d been. The more he feels used, the less circumspect he’ll be. If you now berate him, he’ll feel even more alienated.

What to do? The unpalatable news is that you need to support this man a little and give him reasons to remember why he loved you and may wish to grant you some loyalty.

I would sit him down and tell him gently that you’ve learned he’s talked about your love affair to a colleague. Don’t be angry; tell him that while you understand the likely reasons for his disclosures, you would be hugely appreciative if he did not repeat the story.

Maybe suggest that he converses with a friend outside the office instead, or even a therapist. Reassure him that you will always be there to talk to and that you understand how low he must feel at times.

There are no guarantees in this life, but if you display sympathy and goodwill, this man is more likely to respect your feelings. The old saying has it that you should keep your friends close and your enemies closer. If that mantra’s true, then I would keep your former lovers closest of all. They’re the ones who can cause you the real damage. Just ask Ryan Giggs. ( dailymail.co.uk )

READ MORE - I ended an affair out of guilt but now the man I dumped is telling everyone...

Five Ways Relationships Are Good for Your Health

Five Ways Relationships Are Good for Your Health - Whether you're lovesick or sick of love, it's hard not to think about relationships and all they bring during this time of the year.

Difficult dinner reservations and price-inflated Valentine's Day roses aside, a steady, committed relationship does offer some benefits. Here are five ways romantic relationships can be good for you.

Happiness

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Some lovesick couples seem to revel in showing how happy they are. They can't help it — some of them truly are happier than singles. Studies have shown that when we look at the face of someone that we are truly, madly, deeply and passionately in love with, it engages certain areas in the brain.

Brain images from fMRI suggest that early-stage, intense romantic love can activate certain dopamine-rich areas in the brain, according to a 2005 study in the Journal of Neurophysiology. These areas are associated with reward, desire, addiction and euphoric states. In fact, one of these areas, the anterior cingulate, is responsible for obsessive thinking, cognition and emotion — the characteristics of love.

Interestingly enough, the researchers also said the fMRI images of a brain in love were slightly different than the images of brains that were sexually aroused.

Longer life

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Longitudinal studies and census data have shown that unmarried adults had a higher probability of early death than those who were married and living with their spouses. A 2000 study by the U.S. Bureau of the Census of 281,460 people over age 45 found that non-married people had a significantly increased risk of death over the study period compared with married people, even after adjusting for other socioeconomic factors. Similar effects have also been shown in Great Britain, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands.

In fact, a 2011 study published by University of Pennsylvania researchers in the Journal of Aging and Health found that being continuously married (as opposed to being continuously single or transitioning between separation and divorce) led to longer lives among men with low income and socioeconomic inequalities.

Although the researchers cautioned that it's difficult to assess the causal effect of marital status from observational data, it’s possible that married people, even those who have undergone divorces, have more supportive social networks and children that stimulate continuing family contact than unmarried singles, hence extending their life expectancy.

Reduced stress

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It's easy to assume that a low-maintenance, drama-free romantic relationship should be relatively free of stress. To boot, there are studies to back that up.

Recent studies have found that single people are more prone to psychological stress than those who are married or in a steady relationship. Relationship status can affect the production of cortisol, a stress hormone, during stressful events, according to a 2010 study by University of Chicago and Northwestern University researchers.

And a 2008 study in the Journal of Family Psychology found that women with supportive spouses experienced less marital strain and in turn, were better at tolerating relationship stresses. The researchers also suggested that partners who are satisfied with their relationship are in a better position to provide support when the other partner experiences stressful events.

Reduced pain

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Popular ballads might bemoan that "love hurts." However, research has shown the opposite is true — love can actually help numb your pain.

A 2010 study published in the journal PLoS ONE examined the relationship between pain relief, feelings of romantic love and activation of reward systems in the brain. Researchers subjected 15 college students who said they were intensely in love to mild pain — they placed a heat block in the palm of the students' hands — while showing them pictures of a loved one or an equally attractive stranger.

The results showed that a picture of their loved one distracted them from the pain, but a picture of another person of equal attractiveness was not as helpful. Images of their brains using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) confirmed that while looking at pictures of their romantic partner, they experienced increased activity in reward-processing regions of the brain, and decreased activity in pain-processing regions.

The students also performed a word-association distraction task while the heat block emitted moderate-intensity heat. In this case, their pain levels were reduced by an average of 36 percent while they were distracted by doing the task, but decreased by 44.7 percent while they looked at pictures of a romantic partner.

Fewer mental health problems

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Couples may occasionally drive each other crazy — but not literally so. Overall, people in committed relationships experience significantly fewer mental health problems than single people, according to a study done by Florida State University in 2010, which observed 1,621 college students.

In fact, the study showed that those not in committed relationships who had more sexual partners also had more physical and mental health problems.

The same trend can also be found in post-college adults. Compared with those in relationships, single men and women have comparatively higher levels of depression, anxiety, mood disorders, adjustment problems, suicidal behavior and other forms of psychological distress, according to a 2002 review in the American Journal of Sociology.

The study also showed that men and women in relationships experience equal benefits in terms of mental health. However, the author acknowledged that mental health is likely both a consequence and cause of being coupled up — those with mental health issues are also less likely to be in a committed relationship in the first place. ( myhealthnewsdaily.com )

READ MORE - Five Ways Relationships Are Good for Your Health