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From Essence

Dear Dr. Sherry,

I am writing to you for some relationship advice. I am in a happy place in my relationship with my soul mate. We have been dating for quite some time and have been living together for two years. He is in the midst of building a fabulous home and totally has me in his future plans, and I love it all.

The only problem is that he has recently told me that he will be having his teenage son come live with us full time. The teen has a number of issues that they fail to address, like obesity, constant bed-wetting, lack of manners and poor hygiene. Do I put my feelings of happiness on the back burner or try to work out the new living arrangement? I am hoping you can provide me with some help on this one.

Best,
Conflicted

Read what Dr. Sherry Blake has to say about this on Essence.com

Source: WENN

Oh love. There’s nothing else like it, right? It’s magical, beautiful, divine. Love, in any form, is probably one of the best things we can hope for in this life. But if you’ve been around the block a time or two, you know that there’s flip side to this love business. It’s not always a bed of roses. It can enrage you, betray you, deplete you, hurt you. That’s why when you first fall in love it’s important to take your time and guard your heart.

Today, this lesson will be illustrated by singer/dancer Ciara.

It was a couple of weeks ago when we posted the video of Ciara’s awkward interview on 106 & Park. It was mostly awkward because we watched her sit and chat with ex boyfriend Bow Wow, right in front of her current boyfriend, rapper Future. Bow Wow did the best he could, though there were times where he was clearly overcompensating. During the interview, Bow Wow went through pictures from Ciara’s Instagram asking her to describe what was going on in each shot. By the time he got to the second pic, the audience and even Bow Wow started doing that obnoxious “Wooooo” noise folks do when there’s a romantic moment being shared on television. The picture was of Ciara and Future sitting next to each other on what she called a “PJ.” (That’s a private jet for you poor folks.) After the audience settled down, Ciara started describing the picture saying “That’s me and my King.”

Huh?

When you refer to a man, a mere mortal, as your king you automatically lower yourself. Even if Future is walking around referring to Ciara as his Queen, it’s just not quite the same. Everybody knows traditionally the two roles aren’t equivalent. We were discussing the notion of calling a man your king in the office and we unanimously agreed that she took things a little too far. (It would seem that the two have been dating each other for a year max.) The more I thought about this “king” thing, the more I wondered if I could or would use it in the context of a more stable, more committed relationship like a marriage.

I’m not married so I called my mom and asked her if she’d ever call my father, her husband her king. She thought about it for a second before saying no. She said there’s something about the word “king” that is so vivid that you immediately start imagining the man wearing a crown, or a halo and she just didn’t feel comfortable giving that title to a man, not even one she’s been married to for nearly 30 years. She said that when you call someone your king it’s almost sacrilegious, like you’re relying on this man to be your everything. And no man can be everything to anyone. I told my mom about Ciara and she agreed it was too much and homegirl is just young.

I neglected to tell my mom about Ciara’s tattoo featuring Future’s initial.

When Ciara appeared on The Wendy Williams show, Wendy spotted the tattoo and asked Ciara straight out about her tattoo and whether it was the smartest decision. Ciara said she got the tattoo as a way to speak things into fruition.

And I feel so good about where I am. I’m very confident and comfortable with the way he loves me. I say that to say I’m only going to put in the universe positive things. I’m going to put in the universe that it’s only going to get better and better and better.

From YourTango

According to PsychCentral, new research finds that some people are better off not having a spouse than being in a poor relationship. Furthermore, people in bad relationships had more than double the risk of depression than those with the best relationships.

The interesting thing is that most of the psychological community would believe that you are depressed because your husband isn’t doing the things you want him to do or he is doing things you don’t want him to do. This means that he is completely responsible for your depression and the challenges in your relationship.

I’m going to say it a different way. Please bear with me until the end of this article because in the beginning, it might sound like I’m trying blaming you for your depression but that’s not what I’m doing. By the end of this article, you should understand your depression better and have a more empowered sense of what to do about it.

Depression is not something that comes from outside circumstances. Depression is a behavior you generate in your best attempt to get something you want. When you are unhappy in your relationship, you use depression to help your husband see just how unhappy he is “making” you. Of course, he is not “making” you feel anything. You don’t like what he is doing so you use depression as your best attempt to control him to do what you prefer.

Do I actually think you are doing this with malice and forethought? Of course not! Women do not sit around and plot and plan to use depression to control people. This almost always occurs on a subconscious level.

InsideOut Empowerment, based on the legendary work of psychiatrist Dr. William Glasser, tells us that behavior is never reactive; it is always proactive created to help us get more of what we want. You are in a relationship. You aren’t happy because your relationship isn’t the way you’d hoped it would be. You have identified your husband’s behavior as the cause of this unhappiness. Your depression is a behavior your subconscious creates to help you get your husband to change.

Read more at YourTango.com

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From EurWeb

Niecy Nash is giving advice. Watch out now.

The actress recently released a book for single women. Happily married to her husband, Jay Tucker, she offers some friendly dating advice for women to meet their perfect match in her new book “It’s Hard to Fight N*ked.”

In an interview with Sister 2 Sister, she talks internet dating and more.

Jamie: You internet dated?
Niecy: I sure did, girl, with my real face. Let me tell you what. I was on Match.com, Black People Meet. I was on Christian Singles and BlackWomenWithWeavesAndKids.org or something like that—

Read More at EurWeb.com

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From YourTango

I just spent several days walking, dancing, playing and dining in a world of generous succulence. In this world, I had several opportunities to talk with women about sexuality and their relationship with men.It seems that so many of us want the attention of men, yet greet their attention with anger or fear. We want masculine attention, dress for it, flip our hair on the street for it, but when we get a response — we often respond with fear or anger. Our eyes often don’t greet the smile of masculine appreciation with warmth — often we return it with a “how dare you notice!”

Sometimes we just look away and pretend that we didn’t notice. Some of us may snort and think “pigs” to ourselves. And honestly, it is not necessary to do anything with anyone’s response to our sexuality. But what if …

What if we instead chose to allow the compliments that come to us in an appreciative smile or wink on the street from a masculine energy that admires us as we pass? What if we returned the smile? What if you could feel that the warm attention of men as you walked down the street in your sexual power was simply their acknowledging your feminine power?

Read more at YourTango.com

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From Essence

Dear Abiola,

I’m in love and having sex with two men. I’m in a web and don’t know my way out.  

I have never been a woman that cheats or really understood why people do it. I was with a man I gave my all to for six years. I was there when everyone turned their backs on him, emotionally, physically and financially. Oh, by the way, I’m 33 and he is 42. He has done some things that most women would fall apart over. He cheated repeatedly and has been caught in lies. I thought I had gotten over the things he did but I would find myself looking at him in disgust and hating him.

Last year, I had enough. I started a friendship with someone that gave me everything. He made me feel like I was the best thing on earth. I started to cheat emotionally and then it became sexual. I left my ex for him. Now we have been in a relationship for almost a year but I cannot let my ex-boyfriend go. I miss him so much that it kills me. I have gone to see him and we speak on the phone, and now I’m cheating on this good man I have at home that gives me everything.

I find myself in love with two men, one that I know is toxic and the other who just leaves me speechless with happiness. I’m more confused than anything. I have tried to speak to my girlfriends but I just can’t seem to get the words out. 

What do I do before this gets out of control?

Signed,

Split

Read the advice relationship coach Abiola gave on Essence.com.

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I overheard a close friend of mine on the phone with her boyfriend the other day. After a few laughs and reassurances that she was holding it down for him she uttered, “I love you, bae,” before hanging up.  I couldn’t contain my laughter because this boyfriend she’s been “dating” has been incarcerated for two years of their relationship, and they had only met maybe four months before that. I just couldn’t seem to understand when this “love” had happened. I mean besides having sex, seeing a few movies and him sending her “honey-do” lists in the mail about calling lawyers and making sure his mom had a ride to church all before he signed off with “Love always,” it seemed more like he was using her as his personal assistant more than his girlfriend.

It just amuses and saddens me how quick women are to call a man “Hubby” or “Bae” or just to be able to say they have a man, that they’re not taking the time to see if he fits the job description.  I’m sorry but unless you have a marriage certificate on file, he’s not your husband or “hubby,” he’s just your boyfriend and there’s nothing wrong with that.  You deserve to take the time to get to know a man to see if he’s worthy of being in love with.

Maybe I’m a traditionalist, but people throw around the L-word way too casually for me.  I think many women do so because they are so eager to be in that comfortable, committed relationship and they feel like by exchanging an “I love you” before the end of every phone call or before he leaves the bed every morning that it somehow solidifies something, but the truth of it all is all of the pet names and “I love you’s” in the world can’t bring the comfort and confidence in a relationship that time can.  Stop TV dinner dating: You can’t put a 2 month relationship in a microwave and think that you’re going to have the same familiarity and trust that 2 years brings. The honest truth is being in love isn’t as much about comfort as people think.  In fact, any man I have ever claimed to be in love with has always been someone I have been willing to go outside of my comfort zone for.  People are so in a rush to be in love, that they miss all of the great moments that being “in like” has to offer.  Love is not all passion and pleasure, it’s responsibility, discomfort, pain and not everyone deserves you inconveniencing yourself in that way.

“Should I say it first?” or “Does he love me or is he IN love with me?”  I used to be one of those women who made a big deal over the L-word, so much that I started losing sight of the love I had because I was worried about how often it was said.  But as anyone who’s ever watched, “For the LOVE of Ray-J” or “LOVE and Hip Hop” or “Real Chance at LOVE,” we all know that the word can be as transparent as plastic wrapped water.  Love is something that is so easy to say, but difficult to show unless you’re legit.  I can say I’m an astronaut all I want to, but if you put me in the pilot’s seat of a rocket ship I wouldn’t know what the hell to do.

I used to obsess when after several months of dating my man wasn’t texting me “I love you” messages in the middle of the day.  In fact he was absolutely in no rush to say it.  Meanwhile after the third date I had friends whose men were dropping the L-word on the regular and I found myself wondering what was wrong with my man who seemed to be chronically afflicted with an inability to express his emotions.  But like El Debarge said: Time will reveal.  Months later my man was the only one who wasn’t cheating, lying or gone.  I’m not saying love always has to take forever, but I personally like my love slow and right rather than fast and wrong. It’s not about how fast you can get it, but how long you can keep it.

Even if your man isn’t dropping L-bombs all crazy, instead of obsessing over what he’s saying, focus on what he’s doing.  Cheaters and liars have equal access to the word as well.  If a man is taking his time with expressing his feelings, don’t assume that he doesn’t have any.  It could be that he’s just that he’s ready to take on the responsibility that comes with it. And make sure you take the time to enjoy being “in like.”  “Like” may not conquer all but that’s one of the best things about it: It doesn’t have to.

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From YourTango

Change. Do you thrive on it or relish the status quo? Either way, change is the one constant in life and in relationships that can wreak havoc if you’re not able to collaborate and  navigate through it without stress, worry and self-sabotaging talk from your Internal Chain of Command.

When one party grows at a different pace or events both unexpected and planned result in surprising consequences that we hadn’t imagined, there can be challenges and stress. Sometimes seemingly unequal situations can cause resentment and anger. Think of how professional changes, financial losses or emergency health issues can impact you and your relationship.

The relationship can still grow, but sometimes in an unanticipated direction and this can be threatening. When we learn to collaborate with our partner, we come from an open place of “What’s In It For Us?”  Conflict resolutions requires that each party accepts the other for who they are and where they are in life at that moment. Regardless of the curve balls life throws our way, when we collaborate, we always have our partner’s back.

Seeing the power in accepting change as a normal process in relationships and seeing that no matter where anyone is, each person can benefit when invited to be part of a collaborative solution. It can also mean letting your partner come up with his or her own solution and letting go of your agenda. This is where compassion comes into play, too. Remember we all have a higher self if we allow ourselves to hear its voice. We already have the answers within and collaboration serves to bring them out as a team.

Check out the strategies on YourTango.com.

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From Essence

I can’t imagine, even in this hysteria over the scanty supply of single Black men, that any sister’s best bet for a relationship would be with a dude in prison. I just can’t. Barring him being a hubby or a serious boyfriend prior to his incarceration, there is nothing—not his golden-throated promises, not a miraculous behavioral transformation, not even his physical Idris Elba-esque magnificence—that could make sense of picking up a boo thang serving hard time in the pen.

I’m open to dating someone who’s gotten his act together post-release (and I’m not talking about two weeks after he hits the outside, either), but an inside man? No thanks. That’s just me, though. Because last week, news was electric with stories about Tavon White, the gang leader in a Baltimore jail who had 13 female corrections officers smuggling drugs, cell phones and other contraband in so that he and his cronies could continue to run their enterprise out in the liberated part of the world.

This guy was behind bars pulling in—according to his own braggadocio—$16,000 in a slow month. That’s an insult and a bummer. But the real kicker is that, detained and all, homeboy fathered five children with four of those women. (Yeah, somebody double dipped.) He’s been locked up since 2009. For attempted murder. And four women in positions of professional authority were so swayed by whatever the heck they were so swayed by that they risked their health, safety, careers and reputations—because their names are sure ‘nuff blasted all over the internet—to not only participate in his criminal underdealings but have babies by him.

Two of them even got tattoos of the man’s name, one on her neck. Lord Jesus, there’s a fire. I wring my hands in despair.

At this point, we could argue about better prison controls, the corruption of the corrections system, the misappropriation that allowed an inmate to operate a full-blown criminal enterprise from the discomforts of his danky little cell. But I want to know what kind of psychological superiority this man is outfitted with to make him able to pluck out women just vulnerable enough to go along with the go along and become his willing assistants.

Read more at Essence.com.

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If you’re in need of a slight pick-me-upper, we’ve got just the thing to make you smile (and possibly even shed a few tears). A video recently surfaced of a young man explaining why he loves his mother so much and what inspired him to save his money and pay off her mortgage as a token of his appreciation.

“At one point in my life I hadn’t been home two and a half years. I hadn’t spoken to anyone or sent any e-mails. I remember the day I came back. I had all of my luggage with me. I just knocked at the door. She opened it. She said ‘Hi.’ She smiled and just asked me what I wanted for dinner. She didn’t ask me any questions. She just let me know in with everything I had. I guess it’s unconditional love,” the unnamed man expressed at the start of the video.

He proceeded to discuss how much he admired his mother for simply accepting him and how hard she works to take care of her family. As the video continues he reveals that he’s been saving his money to present his mother with a very special gift. The video then cuts to the man presenting his mother with a check to pay off the rest of her mortgage.

“Are you sure?” his mother asked, emotionally taken back by his gesture.

Ironically, the man reveals that he presented his mother with the heartwarming gift on his birthday.

“I realize birthdays are a tradition and that tradition dictates that one should celebrate their existence on the day on which they were born every year. However for me, my life has always been about what I can do for those around me. So for the last two and half years ive been saving my money, hoping to do right by a very special woman in my life. I know a lot of my friends wanted me to go out, to celebrate, but this for me is far greater then any gift/party I can hope for,” he wrote in the video description box.

Beautiful!

Check out the video below. Get your kleenex ready!