Dating and Relationship

Archive for the ‘Love’ Category

There are whirlwind romances and there are long, thought-out love affairs that conclude with the much-anticipated engagement. There are also a million variations of love affairs falling between those two extremes.

Whether you’re crazy in love and rushing into a commitment, or whether you’ve waiting for years until the time was right, getting engaged is a big deal. And if you’re a romantic, you’ll want the setting where you propose to be memorable.

Letting the Love Grow

If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be. Taking your time to get to know the person you’ve fallen in love with is always a good idea. Some of the best marriages are the most unlikely pairings of people–in the best case, a long friendship that has turned into love over time.

Love that is going to last happens between people who respect and enjoy each other, and accept each other exactly as the person is at that moment.

Engagement

When is it time to get engaged? This is different for every couple. Some people skip the engagement period and just get married. More traditional approaches suggest a stretch of six months to a year of engagement before the actual wedding.

If you’re going to be planning a big wedding, you’ll need a year to get everything arranged. The engagement period is a committed time, a time to try out getting serious, sort of a practice for marriage.

Will You Marry Me?

The man on one knee, opening the box with the ring–this is the classic romantic scenario for getting engaged. If you’re the man in a traditional couple, it’s up to you to come up with the unique plan for how to propose marriage.

Picking a spot that has meaning to the both of you, choosing a day that has special meaning, or fitting the engagement into an activity you both enjoy are popular ways of becoming engaged. Don’t forget that ring. Diamond rings are customary engagement rings–and even if you’re marrying a non-traditional woman, she might secretly like a diamond.

Most little girls dream of that moment when someone asks to be with her forever, ring or no ring. Know what would mean the most to your lover, and then blaze forth.

When people fall in love they often seek advice from those around them about how to proceed with the relationship. The high rate of relationship failure and the pain of past breakups makes relationship advice highly valuable.

Significance

Love advice can be formal and professional when it is given by a therapist or trained counselor. The advisor may use assessments and professional techniques in diagnosing any problems of compatibility or adaptation that may be occurring.

Many people get informal advice from friends, parents and other family members who know them well in helping them make a wise decision.

Function

Love advise is wise because it serves to keep those involved from being blinded by emotion. Self-interest and the desire to avoid loneliness can cause a person to ignore problems that are apparent to an outside observer. Love advice can keep people from making self-destructive decisions.

Types

Love advice is available through personal counseling, reading books, attending seminars and informal conversations. It may be given by professional psychologists, ministers, marital or relationship counselors, parents, friends and other concerned people.Love advice can be informal or formal. It may be generalized to all relationships or customized to your particular set of circumstances.

“Trying to make someone fall in love with you is about as pointless as trying to control who you fall in love with,” states an anonymous but wise speaker. Sure, loving someone who does not love you back is a painful experience, but going through it helps you mature.

Though the pain may feel unbearable, consider the process of coping a rite of passage until time converts the feeling into a distant memory.

Acceptance

A pit you may fall into is imagining a chance for romance when all signs point to “no.” Sometimes your love interest may keep you on the hook so you hold out hope indefinitely.

A clear sign she isn’t interested is if she responds to your advances by saying things such as “I’m just not ready to date anyone,” or “I need to date someone like you.”

Both of these statements are signs of rejection without letting you off the hook. She isn’t interested if she continually says these things but dates other people.

It’s a harsh reality to accept, but knowing she will never return your love is the first step to coping — and eventually curing — an agonizing love.

Look Ahead

Once you realize yours is a fruitless love, begin acknowledging a future without her. Look past your current obsession and remind yourself of the age-old saying, “there’s more fish in the sea.” Certain exercises, however, can help you get out of your unreturned love funk.

For instance, every time you’re feeling down, write down exactly how you’re feeling and the precise cause. Next, write down possible solutions to help avoid feeling that way. This will take some time, but you’ll become self-disciplined and learn to avoid falling into the same routine with your love interest.

Remove the Pedestal

Tell yourself that this love is not real love even though it may feel counter-intuitive to do so. To feel attracted to a woman solely because she rejects you is perfectly human — and highly illogical.

Consider the characteristics of your ideal lover– does your unrequited interest exhibit these characteristics, or are you simply projecting feelings of love onto the first person vaguely fitting the bill? Make a list of ideal traits contrasted with your unattainable love’s traits. If she doesn’t match the ideals, then you are probably not in love with her but most likely infatuated with something out of reach. Read the rest of this entry »

How do you know if a man loves you? What are the signs of true love? The following article will answer these questions.

Is It Mutual?

Love is not one-sided–it can only happen in the context of a relationship. If you’ve been admiring a man from afar, there’s a very good chance that he doesn’t love you. If you want to know if a man loves you, you have to interact with him.

Show him that you want to get to know him, and go on a few dates if he seems interested in you. And don’t confuse love with infatuation.

You may be drawn to him, but that doesn’t mean you love him. Love is something that will develop over time; it requires patience.

Don’t Hide Anything

Love is an act of will. It requires two flawed people to dedicate themselves to each other regardless of any imperfections the significant other may exhibit.

If you really want to know if he loves you, wear your heart on your sleeve. Don’t be a slob, but be honest about your flaws. True love is not shallow. If he knows about your flaws and still expresses his devotion to you, there’s a good chance that it might be love.

Love Languages

According to Dr. Gary Chapman, there are five languages of love: words of affirmation, quality time, gifts, acts of service and physical touch. If your love interest speaks to you through these methods of communication on a regular basis and without obligation, he probably loves you.

But remember that love is mutual, and he will probably only speak to you with these love languages if you speak back to him in the same language.

Love and Respect

Dr. Emerson Eggerichs describes the relationship between a man and a woman as the exchange of love and respect. That is, while a woman needs to feel the love of her man, he needs to feel that his woman respects him.

This may sound like a qualifier at first, but a man will not love a woman who doesn’t respect him. Of course, a woman will have a hard time respecting a man who doesn’t love her, but that brings us back to the necessity of mutuality within a loving relationship.

To know that he loves you, you must go out on an emotional limb and express your love for him sincerely. Only then will you be able to find out if he loves you too.

How do you know if a loving relationship is real love or merely an infatuation based on some physical attraction? This article may help you make a decision whether your loving relationship is real love or just a fascination.

Figure It Out

1. Figuring out why you enjoy being with your partner can go a long way in determining if this is true love or just an infatuation.

One needs to examine if her partner makes her feel giddy and excited about spending time with them, or is the time you spend together mediocre at best.

2. Question how your partner makes you feel. In a true love relationship, you look forward to spending time with this person and know you cannot consume him.

Infatuation relationships usually involve at least one person wanting to consume the other person, demanding all of his time and attention so he cannot have friends or perform his work.

3. Supporting one other is easy in a true love relationship but it gets shaky in an infatuation relationship.

True love relationships have partners who compromise while infatuation relationships usually consist of one half of the couple doing all the compromising.

4. Being comfortable in all areas is a sign of true love but, in infatuation relationships, something is missing. Is the relationship a total relationship where you support each other in all ways in the bedroom as well as outside the bedroom?

True love encompasses all activities for the couple; they are the ones who hold hands in public as well as in the bedroom. In an infatuation relationship, it doesn’t seem that all the needs are satisfied for the couple in all of these areas.

5. Having clear, open, honest communication is part of true love but in infatuation, it simply is not present. The couple who is in true love can have peaceful silences as well as heated debates and it’s fine either way.

The infatuated couple does not have the ease of open, honest communication. Usually one or both of them is simply too scared to admit to honest feelings.