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From YourTango

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From YourTango

By David Wygant

Marriage in your twenties is for the birds! I know, I never talk about marriage. Not that I’m against marriage, nor am I commitment phobic. I’ve been married. It lasted three years and one day. It was basically like a lease. At the end she still had low mileage, that “new wife smell,” and she still looked great when I returned her to the dealership. She was like a certified pre-owned Lexus. Now this is not the part that will offend you – it’s this next part that will get under your skin. For those of you who got married in your twenties, I think all of you got married too young. Yeah I know: “I want to be a young mommy,” or “I want to be a young dad.” But a young mom and a young dad still have no idea who they are as a person.

If you’re a woman, you really don’t know who you are until you’re thirty. And, sorry guys, but if you’re a man you really don’t know who you are until you’re at least thirty-five to forty. This would make all of you old dads and older moms – not exactly Warren Beatty old but older and, may I add, wiser. Now I could go online and grab you a bunch of statistics about divorce rates and everything else, but why bore you with statistics that you can research on your own.

This would also mean that families would be smaller and the worlds population would slow down to something more manageable. This is not an Al Gore thumping blog post but we are running out of key resources in the world and a few less kids would really help the issue.

From all my years of coaching, I have just found that women don’t really know who they are until they’re thirty. Your twenties are all about finding yourself. And as for men, we’re just way too immature until we’re at least thirty-five to forty.

Read more at YourTango.com

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Is there a perfect way to enter into a relationship?

The reason I ask this is because of a film I saw the other night, I watched a Natalie Portman film on Netflix called The Other Woman. The synopsis for the film, as accurately described by IMBD, goes like this:

“In Manhattan, twenty-two year-old Harvard lawyer Emilia Greenleaf has a crush on her boss, Jack Woolf, and they have an affair. Jack’s marriage is a sham but his son, William, is his pride and joy. Emilia soon discovers she’s pregnant, and Jack divorces his wife, Carolyn, in order to marry her. His son is poisoned against the partnership by his mother, and resented by his stepmother. Emilia, who has issues with her womanizer father, delivers Isabel but the baby dies. The marriage begins to suffer and William unexpectedly steps in to help.”

As you have read, there is a lot of plot happening in this film but for the purpose of this conversation, let’s just focus on the affair-turned-marriage. Here’s a story, which begins with a single woman involved with a relationship with a married man. Eventually their affair would lead to the dissolution of his marriage and a union between the two. Naturally there are problems but what struck me about this film was how little the problems had to do with how these people got together. And despite the less than honorable way the two began their relationship, without spoiling it, the film does end on a happy note. This is not how affairs are usually handled in films.

Matter of fact, in real life, conventional wisdom is that no good can come from a relationship built upon infidelity – or any other situation where two people joined together in less direct ways including one-night stands, false pretenses and other non-traditional partnerings. Yet the reality is that there are tons of relationships that begin in this fashion and they don’t all in doomsday fashion. Some, like in The Other Woman, actually end in long-term loving relationships including marriage. For instance, I had a girlfriend, who met her husband while he was engaged to someone else. They actually knew each other casually for years and decided at that moment to go for it – unfortunately it was horrible timing. She swears up and down that they kept the relationship platonic until he was able to gingerly remove himself from the situation. But nobody believed it, including his former finance, who spread around town that my girlfriend was a home-wrecker. Despite the condemnation they received from family, friends and even strangers, they persevered in their relationship and went on to not only marry but have two children and a house in the suburbs. Even though my friend found the happiness that had eluded her in previous relationships, it was bitter sweet and couldn’t be celebrated in its entirely – at least without the fear of judgment anyways.

I don’t want to romanticize infidelity. I am a firm believer that you don’t cheat on a person if you are not happy and that all unhappy relationships should cease before beginning a new one. It’s just fair to everyone involved. However I am also aware that life, including interpersonal relationships, can be flawed and is often messy and does not always follow social grace and etiquette. As such, it would be foolish to think that a relationship founded on infidelity can’t work, right?

“Well when you deal with relationships, you can never deal with absolutes,” said Hasani Pettiford, best selling author of Black Thighs, Black Guys & Bedroom Lies and Pimpin’ From The Pulpit. “If I ever give you an absolute, you will just give me a situation and an example that disproves the absolute that I just tried to sell you on. So there is the preferred method, there is the correct method, there is the proper method and then there are the alternatives for that.”

Pettiford, who has also co-founded (with his wife Danielle) the Couples Academy, acknowledges that real genuine relationships can come out of what he called “trifling-ness” including witnessing first hand multiple year marriages spawn out of one-night stands and infidelity. Likewise, he said the more preferred method of taking one’s time and getting to know each other doesn’t necessarily guard you against a broken relationship. However he said that there should be traditional wisdom and advice that guides our relationship in order for us to make healthy decisions.

“It’s like if you go to a doctor and they say that you want to live long; don’t eat fried foods, sweets and don’t get three hours of sleep and stop eating at 12 o’clock in the morning. But there are some cultures that eat nothing but pork and live to be 100 years old. I mean, look at George Burns. He smoked cigars until he was a 100 years old. So there are always going to be exceptions to the rule but that doesn’t mean that everyone, who smokes cigars throughout their lives will reach the same milestone.”

I can certainly understand the point about establishing guidelines for a healthy relationship however what accounts for the anomalies? And how are these improper relationships able to flourish if they go against the general guidelines of what is supposed to be a healthy relationship? According to Pettiford, even though a relationship, which began from less honorable means, might have longevity, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it is without its problems. He says that there is always the possibility of issues arising based upon the relationships origins. However, he says, “If you implement proper couple skills within that relationship than it can work. If you don’t it will fail. I don’t care how great you start off. IF you don’t know what it takes to be a husband or a wife – or if you don’t know to be faithful and loyal and committed, you are always going to have issues.”

Generally speaking, relationship experts tend to make my skin crawl; however Pettiford does raise valid points so I guess not all relationship experts are bad – but then again he could very well just be an exception to the rule. (See what I did there?) More to his point, all relationships have challenges. And as such there likely is no definitive “right way” to enter into, or even maintain, a relationship other than having a willingness to work at whatever challenges that might arise within the union. If not, we shouldn’t be surprised when there is an The Other Woman, or man for that matter, waiting in the wings.

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From YourTango

It’s spring and love is in the air. You might have caught the love bug, too. But even if you’re head over heels for someone, the thought of uttering those three little words — “I love you” — can be incredibly nerve-racking. What’s the right time to do it? What if he doesn’t say it back? We talked to YourTango dating expert Dina Z Colada on ILY etiquette so you can make the moment as special as your partner is.

1. Know The Difference Between Lust And Love
When your relationship is new, you can’t keep your hands off each other and every other sentence begins with, “So, my boyfriend …” That’s fantastic. Is it love? Maybe. “When you’re in lust, you’re wearing rose-tinted glasses and seeing the person as perfect,” Colada says. “When you’re in love, you’re making a choice to accept someone and all their flaws.” Before you say, “I love you,” think long and hard about whether you mean it.

2. Pick The Right Time
“Don’t call your man at 1 pm when he’s busy at the office to profess your love. Do it at a time when you are both having fun and don’t have the pressure of work, kids or washing dishes,” Colada says. The ideal moment might be on a lazy weekend morning, when you’re spending time together before bed, or according to a new study, Saturday nights at 10 pm.

3. Privacy Is Key
“Don’t tell someone you love them in front of a crowd! Do it in private so there is no pressure on them or you,” Colada says. Dropping the ILY bomb for the first time in public, like at a crowded party or a restaurant, makes everyone uncomfortable — including the person you’re saying it to.

Read more at YourTango.com

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Sometimes it seems like groupies get all the press. But not all celebrity men fall for fame hounds. These celebrity women hooked up with their men when they had nothing. Then they played the woman behind and beside the man. They started from the bottom and now they’re here…enjoying the limelight with the love of their lives.

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From Essence

Dear Abiola,

Is sexting cheating?

I am a 54-year-old woman married to my second husband for almost 14 years. Prior to this marriage, I played the field a few years. I was with my first husband almost six years before I left him and moved on.

For the past few years, I have been having a texting relationship with my ex-husband. A lot of it has involved sex. He was unfaithful, lied, did drugs and even hit me a couple of times but, I just can’t seem to stop myself from ”sexting” him. We also have made plans to meet up. I cared very, very deeply about this man and attributed some of his ”bad boy” behavior to the fact that he was only in his 20’s when we were married. I was eight years older. We had our great times together, and I have never felt I could love any man as much as I loved him. When our relationship was going well, we had a great amount of love for one another. But when it got bad, it got very bad.

My current husband has a quick temper but he doesn’t cheat. He works hard and he is generous and goodhearted. We have problems because he is a poor communicator and is rather caustic at times. I love him but I almost left him last year. He would never, ever hit me or cheat on me.

Am I crazy? I feel guilty but I rationalize my behavior by convincing myself that unless we are really sleeping together, there is nothing wrong with my behavior. I know in reality there is but I just can’t seem to stop myself. He makes me feel better over the phone than my husband does here with me. What is wrong with me?

Help please,

Sexting Queen

See what Abiola Abrams has to say about this situation on Essence.com.

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From YourTango

Our culture promotes sex everywhere from magazine covers to product advertisements. When sex sells, it sets us up to objectify ourselves and others. When we objectify someone, we really don’t see the other person. We lose out on the most intimate loving parts of a relationship and we look to magazines, books and blogs to help us get the relationship we’ve always wanted. What we fail to realize is that the best person to consult about our beauty is ourselves.

When a person owns her innermost self — and is happy with who she is — she projects a beauty radiating with confidence. People naturally are drawn to those who make them feel good. Healthy sexuality and intimacy is about having the courage to love and be loved in return. Here are some ways in which people benefit from sex:

Having a healthy attitude about your sexuality promotes beauty from within. Experts say, “a sexually healthy person is someone who feels comfortable with his or her sexuality.” This means, a person doesn’t view s*x as something naughty, bad, improper or sinful and can engage in it without feeling guilty or anxious. When you’re comfortable with who you are on the inside, your attractiveness is infectious on the outside. Others want to be around you and have what you have.

Read more at YourTango.com

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From Essence

I never believe anyone who says, “I don’t have a jealous bone in my body.” Everyone has experienced some form of jealousy in life, whether it is amongst siblings, friends or even successful people we don’t know. Experiencing jealousy, however, does not make you a jealous person.

My sister-friend has been dating a guy for two months and it has been going great. So much so, she was pretty sure she was ready to take it to the next level with him. Two weeks ago, we were having lunch and she was constantly wondering what he was doing while he was out of town. If he took too long to return a text, she’d repeatedly check her messages and then ultimately send new text messages until he responded.

Four days ago, the guy suggested that they take a break after he caught her going through his phone following a night out where she’d questioned him about every woman to whom he spoke. Infidelity in my sister-friend’s past relationships was one part of the reason she was acting this way. The larger issue was that her insecurities were running rampant and because she really liked this guy she was afraid of losing him. Ironically, her own jealous actions lost him faster than another woman ever could.

Read more at Essence.com

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The dating world can be unpredictable, to say the least! Sometimes there is no telling who you will hit it off with and who you won’t. This means that you may end up dating an older man, without intentionally doing it. If you’re in a relationship with an older guy, there are some definite do’s and don’ts as well as some advice you’ll want to know. Here are 14 tips if you are dating an older man.

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Most of us have been there. We break up with a man and vow never to speak to him again. But in the back of your mind you silently hope that he still wants you. And proves this fact by trying to get in touch with you. That may be what you want to happen; but it’s not going the way you planned it. Homeboy has not reached out. You’re wondering if he still cares, if there’s a chance you can make it work etc. So what do you do? You call him. We asked our Facebook followers if this story sounded familiar to them. This is what they had to say.

Tia: Yes I have.. No regrets but I should have kept my word to myself

Lina: Yes but I came to my senses and left him alone but still love him

Damita: I ended up regretting it because he has issues he has to fix on his own. Plus, I found out he had a hidden addiction! #OnlyGodCanFixHim!;(( very sad sight!

Brenda: I didn’t go back 2 him but I slept with him & I felt so dirty so NEVER EVER AGAIN.

Myisha: Just reached out to my deadbeat baby daddy today. Smh, why!? I don’t know. Got me nowhere!

Nita: Yep called him today. Picked back up like we never left off. Can’t help who your heart loves.

Alicia: Yes I have and no regrets. He is my husband now and we are happy together.

Tezra: Yes I did. I explained I just wanted to be friends but he couldn’t respect that so I cut the cord. Never again I told him that I should have stayed away but my heart wasn’t clear but when I expressed my feelings I ended it forever.

Monique: I have someone now I would like to call but.. .it’s not going to happen. I learned my lesson. But I miss the person I fell for…not the person he proved himself to be.

Samantha: Yup. a few years ago I was in a verbally abusive relationship & broke up with him. Thought I made a mistake, then reached out to him and made up with him. The relationship got worse & almost became physically abusive then I ended it for good. I can’t say that I regret it because if I never had that experience I wouldn’t be able to recognize red flags in future dating situations. Besides when Mr. Right does come along, I’ll be that much more grateful for him!

Jasmine: Yes. Can’t help what the heart wants but our only issue is we were too intense to be so young and it didn’t work. Sure, at least once a week I am shaking my head at him but we love each other, are great friends and find it hard to be away from each other too long.

Jacqueline: Yes…when I did let him come over after 13 months of being apart, he got drunk and peed on my floor….

Aj: Nope, I’m like Rosa Parks….I refuse to go back