Author Archive
Dating Advice For Men: The Dating Do’s and Don’ts
Posted by: | Commentsby Jennine Estes and Dani Graziano
You have ONE first date that either opens or shuts the door for a second date.
Have you have been out of the dating world and preparing to take the leap to start? Or do you have a streak of bad dates and can’t seem to score a second date? You men must enter smart into the scene.
You have ONE first date that either opens or shuts the door for a second date. This is the time to make a great impression. The potential to connect with someone and begin to get to know them can be thrilling and at the same time anxiety provoking. There are a few common sense things you can do to help insure a successful first date that leads to a second one. There are also things that you should avoid doing on a first date and some of them may not seem so obvious. Setting yourself up for a successful date takes some thought and a little effort. Read More→
Dating Advice: Secrets for attracting your dream guy
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Avoid Being A Fake You: Some women put on a fake image of who they are in fear that they will not be liked. Women can actually hurt their chances of attracting their dream guy when they put on this false image because it doesn’t come out as the authentic YOU. Most men can really pick up on the masked identity that a woman displays and it tells them the woman isn’t secure in their own skin. Men want women who are secure, confident, and can express themselves openly. Instead, be YOU.
Give Attention: All humans love attention from others and are attracted to people who give them attention. Plain and simple. Give men attention by asking questions and show interest in them. Make sure not to go over board and appear desperate. The worst thing you can do is freeze up and wait for them to stir up conversation. Read More→
Is my partner cheating on me?
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Do you get that feeling inside your body that “something just isn’t right” in the relationship? Or do you constantly have those annoying and intrusive thoughts run in your mind? “Is he/she cheating? Is there someone else?”
This horrific feeling of worry and mistrust can feel awful and even paralyzing. It can through off your complete mood for the day and make it challenging to focus on your daily tasks.
Let’s take a step back and look at what is going on beneath the surface….
Often in a relationship we find that in the beginning there is an overwhelming sense of connection, happiness, and fulfillment. But then something happens. A few “red flags” pop up, a moment or two of concern, which usually just get pushed aside because of the love and connection. Unfortunately the story doesn’t always end there. For some, and possibly in your case, later on down the road your partner’s stories’ don’t seem to match up or make sense, and a real sense of concern starts to set in.
For many in this situation the investigation then begins… Read More→
Are you newly single?: How to survive a break-up
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Have you recently entered the world of single-hood? This could be a scary, yet liberating, time of your life. Whether you are coming off of a long term relationship, or merely a few months relationship, breaking up is never easy. People tend to put their minds and hearts into a relationship and try everything they can to keep the relationship intact. When things get difficult the emotional pain and energy can be stressful and overwhelming. And even when you try to find some semblance of peace for you and your partner, unfortunately, not all relationships make it through and recover from the hard times.
For some, the breakup may have been something that was coming for awhile, and now that it’s happened, it’s not that much of a surprise. For others, they are left blindsided and bewildered, wondering what do they do now? I’ll be honest, there is no simple solution to stop the hurting, but there are ways to help you get through the recovery process.
Here are a few survival tools to get through this terrible time:
How to keep your Body Image from Hurting The Relationship
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Are you the type of person that stands in front of the mirror reviewing your body? Do you scrutinize every little detail that you hate on your body, such as your “hello kitty” arms, or your “used-to-be-so-flat-mommy-belly?” Do you find that know matter how many times you hear from your partner that he loves your body, or comments from others that you are tiny, it just doesn’t seem to be enough? Are you destroying your relationship because you are facing a struggle with your body? This body image can get in the way of dating and maintaining relationships.
Relationships tend to suffer severely when you become engulfed in your self image. The endless hours of exercise and self absorption can prevent you from connecting to your loved one. Read More→
Get your New Year’s Resolution to Stick!
Posted by: | CommentsMake your New Year’s Resolutions lasts!
Creating a New Year’s Resolutions is to help people improve life; such as losing weight, decreasing spending, improving health, creating stronger business, etc. A frequent problem is that people start off strong; working diligently day in and day out, and have it as an extreme focus. It lasts for a good few days or months, but quickly dwindles down to nothing. This is the “Yo-Yo Resolution;” starting from one extreme (all-in) to the other extreme (all-out). Read More→
Best 50 Relationship Tips of the Year
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I started this year out using my social networking as a place to share free relationship tips to others. For some people, twitter is a huge community and support network. For other people, it isn’t their cup of tea. As a business owner (and a therapist), I decided to create a place for support, providing relationship tips and tools on social networking sites. I thought it would be great to highlight some of my favorite quick tips.
Here are my BEST 50 posts of year 2010 I posted on Twitter.
- Don’t hibernate alone when feeling sad, bring a buddy into your cave to cuddle up with and stay warm.
- Your partner should be your “prince” or “princess”…nothing less. Treat them that way and find out how it helps the relationship!
- Trauma (loss, miscarriages, cancer, etc) can bring back old relationship pains and magnify the problems. Take action to heal the pains & bond.
- Any sentence with the word “BUT” attached will delete the first part of the sentence. “I like you, but…..” Just don’t use the word… Read More→
Relationship Advice: What is an Emotional Affair?
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It all started with an innocent friendship, a simple flirty comment and WHAMO! Chemistry takes over and your internal world ignites on fire, you get excited, and your mind races a thousand miles a minute. Emotional affairs don’t include physical intimacy….it is basically all emotion.
Here are a few items that constitute an emotional affair: Read More→
$20 (or less) Date Night Tips: Recession-Proof your Marriage (Series 2)
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Every one (and I think I can say this as a blanket statement) is impacted in one way or another from the economic stress; businesses closing, loss of jobs, constant worry about job security, foreclosing the home, friends struggling, or simply the news telling you another bad thing. Anxiety may be higher than ever, but this doesn’t mean you have to stop connecting with your partner. In fact, this is the time to support one another through the stress and help alleviate the pain.
A few years back, my husband was in school and I was starting my therapy practice. We didn’t have much money at the time, yet we realized the importance of nurturing the relationship. We started a game called $20 Date Night where every Friday night we switched off with creating the date. The goal is to create a date with only spending $20 or less. To our surprise, we came up with many dates; it just took imagination and creativity. To this day, we continue or date night challenge… Read More→
Relationship Advice: Secrets in a Relationship
Posted by: | CommentsWhy do some women tend to keep secrets from their husbands?
Women tend to keep secrets from their husbands for a variety of reasons; it could be from intense amounts of shame, to fear of losing the relationship, to past relationship wounds, to the fear of the packed away emotions exploding out and losing control, etc.
Some secrets are buried for good reasons….and keeping that secret hidden, kept inside can create a sense of feeling in control and emotionally safe. These deep, dark buried secrets are scary for many to open up and share the vulnerable issue. It can feel as if they won’t be able to maintain control, and that the over flowing emotions may not ever have an “end” in sight. It can simply be scary to open up, to feel the emotion. Feeling the emotion alone can be terrifying, and the unknown of what could happen if they open up Pandora’s Box…and not ever being able to put it back. Read More→
conflicting couples, affairs, communication struggles, etc.