Yeah, sure, you love each other, but remember back when you were dating and your future spouse was totally hot? They still are! These easy tips will help you get your marital mojo back.

By Riann Smith

1. Flirt like it's your first night together.
Think back to those early days of dating. Every laugh, lingering look, or under-the-table leg brush was a guaranteed goose bump-giver. Well, you can turn back the clock to that supercharged premarried state by making a simple shift: Start flirting again. Ditch typical dinner convo topics like work, in-laws, and home renovations for entertaining stories or provocative questions like, "Imagine you could go anywhere in the world, right this second — where would it be?" If you're at a party, slink away, get a couple of drinks, and flirtatiously introduce yourself to your spouse like you're strangers. It may take them a second to catch on, but once they do, it'll set a sexier tone for the rest of the night — and remind you both that there's still a lot to discover about each other.

2. Make your spouse do a double-take.
It's a miracle that you find each other attractive in ratty sweatpants, but yep, you do. That's one of the brilliant things about being a couple—being so at ease in each other's company. But there's a line between being comfortable and letting yourselves go. (Hint: If you frequently show up to the dinner table in sweaty gym gear or go to bed with zit cream and prickly cactus legs, you're guilty as charged.)

We're not saying you need to haul all your loungewear to the nearest dumpster, but make a few tweaks to your routine that will give your partner a chance to ogle you. Break out that lingerie crammed in the back of your drawer. Wear something backless. Shave and put on a nicer shirt than usual when you go out to dinner. It's about showing your significant other that they're still worth looking sexy for. Chances are, they'll return the favor and both of you will reap the benefits.

3. Try something new (channel surfing doesn't count).
You and your better half love your Saturday morning routine (gym plus Starbucks) followed by your evening routine (Thai takeout plus Netflix), so why mess with scheduled perfection? Well, shaking things up every once in a while keeps the zsa-zsa-zsu in your relationship. According to a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, couples who participated in activities that they both considered highly exciting but moderately pleasant had a bigger boost in marital satisfaction than those who did activities that were highly pleasant but moderately exciting.

So ban takeout-and-a-movie night once a month and jump outside of your comfort zone. Check out a concert you'd never think to get tickets for, explore a totally different part of town, or dare yourselves to try a new sport like rafting or repelling. The adrenaline rush you'll have from trying something new will be an aphrodisiac.

4. Pounce ... even when you're not in the mood.
If you're like most couples, weekday mornings fly by in a haze. You're rushing out the door and can barely remember to grab your car keys, much less say "bye" with half a bagel in your mouth. Then, at the end of an exhausting workday, it's a "hey babe, I'm home," followed by a flop-down on the couch. Sex? Who has time for sex? You're just too busy to get busy. But by skipping the most intimate act you and your spouse could possibly enjoy together, you're not doing your relationship — or your libido — any favors.

Here's why: Intercourse and orgasms trigger oxytocin, the "love hormone," to be released in your bodies, which makes you feel incredibly fused as a couple. Sex is also the gift that keeps on giving: The more you do it, the more you'll want to do it, so it actually stokes desire. So set that alarm clock a little earlier for some wake-up action, and put down that pint of mocha pecan postdinner and enjoy another kind of bedroom treat (better yet, bring in the ice cream too). You don't need Olympic-level performances — just enough enthusiasm to get that married mojo going.

Nestpert: Patti Britton, Ph.D., certified sex therapist and author of The Idiot's Guide to Sensual Massage

More from MSN Lifestyle Site Search: For additional articles on satisfying marriages, click here.

© 2009 The Knot Inc. All rights reserved.

By Tom Chiarella for Esquire
Updated: Apr 14, 2009

A man carries cash. A man looks out for those around him -- woman, friend, stranger. A man can cook eggs. A man can always find something good to watch on television. A man makes things -- a rock wall, a table, the tuition money. Or he rebuilds -- engines, watches, fortunes. He passes along expertise, one man to the next. Know-how survives him. A man fantasizes that kung fu lives deep inside him somewhere. A man is good at his job. Not his work, not his avocation, not his hobby. Not his career. His job. It doesn't matter what his job is, because if a man doesn't like his job, he gets a new one.

A man can speak to dogs.

A man listens, and that's how he argues. He crafts opinions. He can pound the table, take the floor. It's not that he must. It's that he can.

A man can look you up and down and figure some things out. Before you say a word, he makes you. From your suitcase, from your watch, from your posture. A man infers.

A man owns up. That's why Mark McGwire is not a man. A man grasps his mistakes. He lays claim to who he is, and what he was, whether he likes them or not.

Some mistakes, though, he lets pass if no one notices. Like dropping the steak in the dirt.

A man can tell you he was wrong. That he did wrong. That he planned to. He can tell you when he is lost. He can apologize, even if sometimes it's just to put an end to the bickering.

A man does not wither at the thought of dancing. But it is generally to be avoided.

Style -- a man has that. No matter how eccentric that style is, it is uncontrived. It's a set of rules.

A man loves the human body, the revelation of nakedness. He loves the sight of the pale bosom, the physics of the human skeleton, the alternating current of the flesh. He is thrilled by the wrist and the sight of a bare shoulder. He likes the crease of a bent knee.

Maybe he never has, and maybe he never will, but a man figures he can knock someone, somewhere, on his bottom.

A man doesn't point out that he did the dishes.

A man knows how to ridicule.

A man gets the door. Without thinking.

He stops traffic when he must.

A man knows how to lose an afternoon. Playing Grand Theft Auto, driving aimlessly, shooting pool.

He knows how to lose a month, also.

A man welcomes the coming of age. It frees him. It allows him to assume the upper hand and teaches him when to step aside.

He understands the basic mechanics of the planet. Or he can close one eye, look up at the sun, and tell you what time of day it is. Or where north is. He can tell you where you might find something to eat or where the fish run. He understands electricity or the internal-combustion engine, the mechanics of flight or how to figure a pitcher's ERA.

A man does not know everything. He doesn't try. He likes what other men know.

A man knows his tools and how to use them -- just the ones he needs. Knows which saw is for what, how to find the stud, when to use galvanized nails.

A miter saw, incidentally, is the kind that sits on a table, has a circular blade, and is used for cutting at precise angles. Very satisfying saw.

He does not rely on rationalizations or explanations. He doesn't winnow, winnow, winnow until truths can be humbly categorized, or intellectualized, until behavior can be written off with an explanation. He doesn't see himself lost in some great maw of humanity, some grand sweep. That's the liberal thread; it's why men won't line up as liberals.

A man resists formulations, questions belief, embraces ambiguity without making a fetish out of it. A man revisits his beliefs. Continually. That's why men won't forever line up with conservatives, either.

A man is comfortable being alone. Loves being alone, actually. He sleeps.

Or he stands watch. He interrupts trouble. This is the state policeman. This is the poet. Men, both of them.

A man loves driving alone most of all.

A man watches. Sometimes he goes and sits at an auction knowing he won't spend a dime, witnessing the temptation and the maneuvering of others. Sometimes he stands on the street corner watching stuff. This is not about quietude so much as collection. It is not about meditation so much as considering. A man refracts his vision and gains acuity. This serves him in every way. No one taught him this -- to be quiet, to cipher, to watch. In this way, in these moments, the man is like a zoo animal: both captive and free. You cannot take your eyes off a man when he is like that. You shouldn't. Who knows what he is thinking, who he is, or what he will do next.

Reprinted with permission of Hearst Communications, Inc.

(OPRAH.com) -- Physical attraction may be as old as time, but new studies are beginning to uncover the science behind sex appeal. Unexpected factors -- like biochemical odors, face shape and voice pitch -- just might have more to do with your choice of mate than anyone ever expected.

Karl Grammer and Elizabeth Oberzaucher are leading the research on the human scent's influence on sexual attraction. They've found that when women are ovulating, they produce copulins, a scent that attracts men.

The researchers believe when a man gets a whiff of copulins, his testosterone levels rise. As a result, he secretes androstenone, an odor that repels women who aren't ovulating.

"Bars and nightclubs across the world are the battlefield for this invisible biochemical war," Oprah Winfrey says.

Sex therapist Dr. Laura Berman says attraction has a lot more to do with science and evolution than people might think.

"We are innately all puppies in heat," she says. "We are capable of discerning 10,000 different scents consciously. But then there's a whole realm of unconscious scents that we're not even aware that we're smelling." Oprah.com: Get Dr. Berman's 5 steps to better sex

These odors let people know when a woman is fertile and when a man's testosterone levels are high, Berman says. As a result, individuals can tell when someone else is most ripe for reproduction. "It's all about survival of the species," she says.

One common complaint Berman hears among women with relationship problems is that they love their partner, but they're not in love with him.

"There is a difference between love and chemistry," Berman says. "Take a really good whiff of him without cologne when he's relatively clean. If that smell turns you on, that's a really good cue of chemistry." Oprah.com: Can the chemistry come later?

In one recent study, Berman says, researchers had women smell men's T-shirts. The women were most attracted to the shirts of men with a different major histocompatability complex (MHC) from them. MHC is a collection of genes that are related to immune systems.

"We unconsciously want to mate with someone who has a different immune system than ours because that helps with the survival of our offspring," Berman says.

The T-shirt study also found that women taking hormonal contraception were attracted to men who had similar MHC as they did.

"If you're on the pill, your body is being tricked into think you're pregnant, so you're not ovulating," Berman says. "The bad news there is that they have looked at these couples who have similar MHC, and not only do they have higher levels of infidelity and higher levels of marital discord, but they also have higher infertility issues."

Another unexpected factor that has been found to directly affect attraction is voice pitch.

Gordon Gallup, Ph.D., a professor at the State University of New York at Albany, says that women with higher estrogen levels have higher voices, which makes them more desirable to men. "When females are midcycle, when they're the most fertile, the most likely to conceive, their voices are rated as being significantly more attractive," he says.

It's hard to pinpoint what distinguishes a gorgeous face from an average one, but some researchers are getting pretty close. Psychologist Lisa DeBruine, Ph.D., of the University of Aberdeen in Scotland says she's found that women's faces get more attractive to men when they are ovulating. "We're not entirely clear why there's this difference, but we think that the women might look healthier, have a bit of a healthier glow when they are ovulating."

Symmetry is another factor that determines a face's attractiveness. Kendra Schmid, an assistant professor of biostatistics at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, says there is a formula for the "perfect" face. She uses 29 different measurements to determine someone's appeal on a scale of 1 to 10.

To start, Schmid says the ratio of the length of the face to the width of the face should be 1.6, also known as the golden ratio."The face should also be divided into three equal pieces vertically," she says. "The forehead, then [the bottom of the forehead to] the nose and then from the nose to the chin."

Who's face is the most "perfect," according to Schmid's measurements? No big surprise here! "Brad Pitt's is the highest that I've ever used the [formula] on," she says. "He was a 9.3 [out of 10]."

Brad's partner, Angelina Jolie, didn't fare too badly either. "Angelina was a 7.67, and that's pretty high," Schmid says. "Most people rate about 4 to 6. ... The thing that is probably lowering her score is the thing that she's most famous for -- her full lips." Schmid says that ideally the width of a mouth should be twice the height of the lips.

Other celebrities Schmid tested were Halle Berry, who scored a 7.36, and Hugh Jackman, a 6.45. "There's never been anyone who was a perfect 10," Schmid says. "If you're out there, we're looking for you!"

Not everything that goes into finding a partner is biological. Researchers have also found that if a woman looks at the face of a man whom she knows nothing about, she will give it a rating on a scale of 1 to 10 that's different than if she is shown the same face and a corresponding income. When a man makes a lot of money, a woman will rate him higher on an attractiveness scale than she would that same man with a smaller income. Oprah.com: What do women really want?

Berman says this isn't a case of women being gold diggers.

"It goes back again to evolution. When we were having babies who were very dependent on us, we couldn't hunt and take care of ourselves, so we were looking for the man who had the most social status, who was the best hunter, who was going to bring home the biggest chunk of meat for our babies," she says. "It's the same thing today."

Smell, voice pitch and face symmetry might be unconscious detectors of attractiveness, but if you're trying to consciously assess the future of a relationship, Berman says there's one surefire way.

"You really learn a lot from a kiss. ... Sixty-six percent of women say they would dump a guy after a bad first kiss," she says. "It's not only because you're getting that good whiff of him so you're seeing if you like the way he smells. All your senses are engaged, and you get a sense of his sensuality, his connection, whether he's a take-charge kind of guy or more of a stepping back kind."

When it comes to relationships, Berman says kissing frequency is a direct indicator of happiness. "It turns out that couples who kiss and cuddle regularly are eight times less likely to be stressed and depressed than couples who don't get that," she says. "You have to have a minimum of a 10-second kiss every day."

From The Oprah Winfrey Show

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TM & © 2009 Harpo Productions, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

All AboutRomance

Nine women spill the secret words of wisdom that keep their relationship blissful.
By Sara Anderson for Redbook Photo: iStockphoto.com/© Kevin Russ Updated: Apr 3, 2009

No doubt, there are days when you feel as though you deserve the "Best Partner in the World" award: You make sure dates with your mate stay fun, you settle arguments with amazing grace and you don't always go into whining mode when you find his dirty socks next to, rather than in, the hamper. How did you get so smart? You were given some stellar advice from friends and family. Here, the nuggets of relationship wisdom you've stayed faithful to over the years.

#1. Polite Fight

"On my wedding-invitation RSVP cards, I left space for guests to write their favorite wedding wisdom. The tidbit that rings truest after almost nine months of marriage is: 'Attack the issue, not each other.' How it works: If my husband and I disagree about something, we stay focused on the issue and skip the personal put-downs." -- Melissa Gitter Schilowitz, 31, Metuchen, NJ

#2. Fit to a Tee

"My grandmother insisted that I learn how to play golf. 'If your husband loves to play, you can go along and spend hours together,' she said. So I took lessons, and now my husband and I hit the links once a month. We both love the game and are thrilled to share a hobby, even when we spend half an hour looking for my out-of-bounds balls!" -- Aimee Borders, 27, Houston, TX

#3. Tabletop Trick

"My aunt told me that if I'm running late when it's my turn to make dinner, just set the table. That way my husband thinks he'll be eating any minute, so he doesn't start complaining, which buys me some time. It's a silly trick that sounds straight out of the 1950s, but I have to admit that I've tried it a few times in the three years I've been married -- and it works!" -- Dawn Clayton, 34, Holdrege, NE

#4. Boob-Tube Brilliance

"Because my husband is such a remote-control freak, my mom suggested that we have 'my turn' TV nights. That means three nights a week I get to hold the remote and watch whatever I want, and on the other nights it's his turn to hold the remote and watch whatever he wants. Now when he starts flipping through the channels, it doesn't get on my nerves like it used to." -- Angela Clayton, 27, Odenton, MD

#5. Pop the Question

"My sister-in-law passed this helpful hint on to me, and it has served me well for our five years of wedded bliss: 'Marriage is not mind reading, so ask your spouse what he/she wants and believe what he/she says.'" -- Clare Graca, 27, Dallas

#6. Nix the Nit-Picking

"Before I said 'I do,' my mom (who's been married to my dad for 55 years) told me to take out a piece of paper and write down the top three things that bugged me about my husband-to-be. Then she told me to forget the things on that list and forgive him for not being flawless. Once you make a commitment this big, she explained, you can't let petty things get in the way. In our eight years of marriage, my husband and I have had two kids, tackled cross-country moves and started two businesses -- and so far, so great."-- Rebecca Hart Blaudow, 31, Jacksonville, FL

#7. Space Smarts

"Always have separate closets, my best friend told me. It may seem silly, but I listened to her and made sure to find a one-bedroom apartment with two closets (mine being the larger, of course). Now my husband and I each have our own private space, and we respect that: If he wants to keep his shoes in one huge heap or leave his dirty clothes in a pile on the floor, the mess doesn't bother me a bit!" -- Patricia Bontekoe, 26, Lake Hiawatha, NJ

#8. Agree to Disagree

"Before we got married, my minister told my husband and me, 'You are two imperfect people making an imperfect union, and that's wonderful.' This advice made me ditch my belief that in a happy marriage, the couple always agrees. My husband and I have learned to appreciate our differences (yes, even differences of opinion!); in fact, we encourage them because we realize now that those differences are what makes each of us unique and special." -- Beth Swanson, 28, Chicago

#9. Comic Relief

"Before I headed down the aisle, my stepfather told me to always laugh and never take myself too seriously. After four years of marriage, I know that this trick works. My husband and I often play practical jokes on each other and always try to crack each other up, even in the middle of an argument. Hey, if one person laughs, a fight tends to fizzle, doesn't it?" -- Lisa Giassa, 31, Bogota, NJ

Anti-Pop Advice From the Experts

You've probably heard a few of these pieces of marital pop wisdom before. If so, these marriage experts say to promptly forget 'em.

Love means never having to say you're sorry. "Oh, please! In marriage, love sometimes means having to say you're sorry even if you don't know what you did or you didn't mean to do it." -- Trisha Taylor, psychotherapist, Houston, TX

Always be totally honest. "What are you going to do, tell him that he's just too short and you can't stand his mother? Sometimes you need to temper the truth." -- Tara Fields, Ph.D., marriage, family and child therapist, Marin County, CA

Children come first. "This is bad advice if it means your husband always comes second. Of course you should love and care for your kids, but you should never lose sight of your couple-ness. The best thing a child can have is happy, fulfilled parents who are deeply in love." -- Mary Pender Greene, chief of social work services, Jewish Board of Family and Children's Services, New York

Always keep the peace. "No, no, no. If you don't face a hot issue head-on, you'll stockpile negative feelings. And before you know it, 20 years go by and you're still fighting over the same thing because you never resolved it in the first place." -- Rebecca S. Ward, M.S.W., psychotherapist, Little Rock, AR

Never go to bed angry. "Forget it. Often a couple needs time to calm down before they can rationally wrap up an argument. And that may take a few days, so in the meantime, get some sleep!" -- Gilda Carle, Ph.D., psychotherapist, New York

Reprinted with permission of Hearst Communications, Inc.

(OPRAH.com)

One of the original Kings of Comedy, Steve Harvey is the host of one of the most popular radio shows in the country, "The Steve Harvey Morning Show." His first book, "Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man," is shooting to the top of the best-seller lists, and Oprah Winfrey says she loves everything it has to say!
Harvey says this book has a special meaning for him. "This is the first project that I didn't do for money," he says. "Other than my foundation -- mentoring programs -- everything I do is for money. I tell jokes for a check; I'm on TV for a check. ... But this [book] right here I did purely to empower women."
In his book, Harvey says the way a man introduces you gives good insight into the status of your relationship. If a man introduces you as a friend or says your name with no title at all, Harvey says you have nothing. "We're very protective. We mark our territory. If a man loves you...he's willing to profess it. He'll give you a title after a while. You're going to be his lady, his woman, his fiancée, his wife, his baby's mama, something," he says.
"If he's introducing you after six months, 'This is...Oprah,' you should be standing there going, 'This is going nowhere.'" Oprah.com: Read an excerpt from this best-selling book!

Man with a plan
Another thing women need to understand, according to Harvey, is that every man has a plan. "Men don't come up to you to just talk. We come up to you with a plan," he says. "We're looking across the room at you, and we don't care about your hopes and dreams. We don't care about what your future holds. We saw something we wanted."
When a man approaches a woman, Harvey says, he already knows what we wants from her, but he doesn't know what it will cost. "How much time do you want from me? What your standards? What are your requirements? Because we'll rise to the occasion no matter how high you set the bar if we want to," he says. "The problem is, women have stopped setting the bar high." Oprah.com: What's your love type?

The cookie
Though a woman might want many things from a man, Harvey says men only need three things: support, loyalty and sex. Or as Harvey calls it, "the cookie." "We've got to have your support. Whatever adventure we're out on, whatever pursuit in life, we need your support. Then we need your loyalty. That's your love. We've got to know that you belong to us," he says. "And we've got to have a cookie. Everybody likes cookies. That's the thing about a cookie. I like oatmeal raisin...but if you've got vanilla cream, I'll eat that too."

Kickin' it
In his book, Harvey tells the story of his father-in-law's first introduction to one of Harvey's daughter's boyfriends.
"[My 26-year-old daughter] was dating this guy who was about 30. He had been over to the house about four, five times. And my father-in-law was visiting from Memphis," Harvey says. "He's in the kitchen and he's eating and [my daughter's] boyfriend is in there, and [my father-in-law] goes: 'So, son, sit down. Tell me, what's your plan for my granddaughter?'" After plenty of hemming and hawing, Harvey says the boyfriend finally said that the two were just "kickin' it."
Harvey was pretty confident his daughter didn't have the same interpretation of the relationship, he says. "I said: 'Cool. Let's bring my daughter in there. Let's inform her that she's just being kicked...let's see if that's what she wants to do," he says. "They broke up the next day."

Gone fishin'
Harvey says men are like fishermen -- but women are actually the ones looking for a good catch. You won't be able to find one, though, until you up your standards. "You've got sports fishermen, and you've got guys out there fishing to eat. You've got guys that are fishing to keep the fish, and you've got guys that are fishing to catch them, unhook them and throw them back," Harvey says. "You've got to determine along the way which one of the fish you're going to be."
Without ironclad standards, Harvey says you'll always end up back in the dating pool. "You've got to quit lowering your standards," he says. "Set your requirements up front so when a guy hooks you, he has to know this is business."
And don't let the man set the pace of the relationship -- Harvey says it's always the woman who has total control. "With all that power, why do you suddenly relinquish this power just because you want a guy to accept you? That's stupid," he says. "Say: 'Look, if you want to be with me, this is what you got to do. This is what it takes to get to me.'"

When should you sleep with your new boyfriend?
As an auto plant worker, Harvey says he had to wait 90 days to receive benefits -- and says the same probation period should apply to dating. "In 90 days they checked me out. They determined if I was easy to work with, if I got along well with others, if I showed up when I said I was going to show up, if I was worthy."
Women, Harvey says, hold the greatest benefit of all -- the cookie -- so there's no reason to give it away until you know your man deserves it. "Slow down, ladies," Harvey says. "Look, you cannot run us off."
So what if you don't want to wait 90 days? Harvey says if you change the probation period, you do so at your own risk. "You all keep changing the rules. And men are aware of the fact that you are changing the rules. We're aware of the fact that you act desperate. We're aware of the fact that you think there's a good shortage of good men out there," he says.
"We play on all of that. ... We created the term 'gold digger' so you won't ask us for nothing. We created the term 'nagging' so you can quit badgering us. These are terms that we created so you can require less of us."

Mr. fix-it
Harvey says four little words can strike fear and dread into any man: We need to talk. "You just drove a nail in his forehead," Harvey says.
Men are fixers, not talkers, Harvey says, so it's better to get to the point. "When you say, 'We need to talk,' we put up the barriers," he says. "I tell ladies, just sit down and strike up a conversation." Oprah.com: How to talk to a brick wall

Turn off the text
Social networking Web sites and text messages can be a great way to keep in touch with friends, but Harvey says it's not the best way to date. "You have nothing if you're texting a guy in a relationship," he says. "We can text six women a minute. We can text it and push 'reply all.' I mean, since we're lying, we might as well lie to everybody."
If you want the relationship to be more, take it face-to-face. "Women talk about [how] chivalry's dead. Chivalry's not dead -- it's just not required anymore," he says. "You've got to get a guy in your face. Look in his eyes. ... God has given you all this incredible thing called intuition. You've got to use that."

Safety first
You know you've got a keeper when your man wants to make sure you're always safe, Harvey says. Every man wants to protect his woman, and Harvey says this instinct kicks in when his wife, Marjorie, scuba dives. "I can't go home without her. We've got seven kids between us," Harvey says. "They need their mother. I'm not a good mother at all."
Although Marjorie is a certified diver, Harvey isn't a swimmer. "I have a security guy who can swim," he says. "So [he puts] on the snorkeling gear and when she goes down, I tell him, 'You swim over and just keep an eye on my wife.'"
Harvey also has instructions for everyone else on the boat. "I told all the dive masters on the boat: 'If she does not come out of that water in 30 minutes, everybody in the water. Everybody. We're doing a dive search right here,'" he says. "I don't care if nobody [else] on the boat goes home. She goes home." Oprah.com: How to read his body language
From The Oprah Winfrey Show
E-mail to a friend

TM & © 2009 Harpo Productions, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Dating Question: Are You Having an Emotional Affair?

An email here, a smile there. Maybe that 'innocent' friendship with your guy friend isn't so innocent after all...

By Heather Johnson Durocher for Redbook
Photo: Pavel Losevsky Updated: Mar 24, 2009

Relationship alert: 82 percent of affairs happen with someone who was at first "just a friend," according to noted infidelity researcher Shirley P. Glass.

So... despite any obvious signs of cheating in your so-called friendship, ask yourself: Are you having an emotional affair?

You've Probably Crossed the Line if You...

1. Touch your male friend in "legal" ways, like picking lint off his blazer.

2. Pay extra attention to how you look before you see him.

3. Think crush-like thoughts like "He'd love this song!"

4. Tell him more details about your day than you do your partner.

5. No longer feel comfortable telling your mate about this person and begin to cover up your relationship.

6. Experience increasing sensual tension; you admit your attraction to him but also insist to yourself that you would never act on it.

It's About to Get Physical When You...

1. Find yourself feeling vulnerable and turn to the other man for support rather than to your mate or a trusted relative or girlfriend.

2. Accelerate the level of intimacy through sensual or suggestive talk over email or the phone.

3. Put yourself in a situation where the two of you could be alone.

You Can Avoid the Potential Affair if You...

1. Stay honest with your partner. Share with him all your hopes, triumphs, and failures -- as well as your attractions and temptations, which will help keep you from acting on them.

2. Make time for just the two of you on a regular basis -- away from the kids, your friends, and family.

3. Surround yourself with happy couples who don't believe in fooling around. Having positive, emotionally connected role models will help you stay on track.

Readers Reveal: "I Knew I'd Gone too Far When..."

"The guy who I was flirting with regularly over email attended the same event as me and my fiance. When I introduced them, my face flushed as red as a tomato -- I felt embarrassed and guilty about my fiance meeting this guy, so I knew what I was doing was wrong." -- Carolyn, 31, Westfield, NJ

"During one night of partying, my best guy friend and I confessed we had always liked each other. He was a perfect gentleman and left my place before we crossed the physical line. The next day I was completely embarrassed and knew that I didn't want to jeopardize the relationship with my boyfriend so I ended the friendship. And now the boyfriend is my husband, so I'm glad I did." -- Allie, 29, Yonkers, NY

"The cute tech guy who I'd been flirting with at my office said to me, 'You're not going to invite me in?' after I accepted a ride home from him. I liked the attention of him buying me vending machine snacks and complimenting me, but my husband would've had a heart attack if he knew." -- Amy, 38, Chicago

"My best guy friend and I were snuggled on his couch underneath a blanket when I realized that neither his girlfriend nor my boyfriend would be happy if they saw us -- and that our platonic relationship wasn't as platonic as we thought." -- Kim, 35, New Orleans

Reprinted with permission of Hearst Communications, Inc.

Mom's Song

by Rich Santos, Marie Claire, on Mon Mar 16, 2009 8:05am PDT

http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19980202,00.html

Why do I find it so easy not to cheat?Maybe I'm not very attractive, so my options are limited. Maybe I'm too jaded to go for the cheating opportunities. Maybe I still have some mental wounds lingering from when my dad temporarily moved out because he had met another woman. Maybe I'm too afraid that I've reached my sin quotient and one more big sin will keep me out of heaven.

Cheating is not a caught in the moment thing if you are really into your significant other, you miss them when you are not with them, you don't look for a way to hurt or deceive them.I am just now patching up a friendship with someone I was seeing while they had a boyfriend (that may make me a cheater). At different points she told me that she had broken up with her boyfriend, that they were back together, and that he was boring and I was fun. It was total confusion.I told her she wasn't being fair to herself, me, or him.Finally, she said, "you just don't understand, there are things you don't know." Thing is she's been cheating on him for a couple of years with different guys, and he keeps taking her back.So, are cheaters born cheaters, or do certain situations cause people to cheat? Probably a little bit of both. Here are some situations that make people cheat:
1.Bored
I'd say this is the most common reason that people cheat. It's tough to keep that edge throughout a relationship. Things start off grand and then level off and then you both realize that it's still real life. When you meet someone else, that inaugural excitement of a new relationship kicks back in.

2. Dependence
At first glance, cheating seems like independent behavior. It could be interpreted as doing what you want, when you want. But I would argue that cheating is a dependent behavior. A cheater is dependent because they are not strong enough to break up with their significant other in order to get with the new person.

3. Confusion
Sometimes life or a particular situation can get to you. When the perfect storm of confusion is going on in your head, you make mistakes.

4. Because They Let You
If any girl ever cheated on me, I'd break up with her immediately. Forgiving a cheater is putting up with it, and starts a vicious cycle. That person who cheated may lose respect for you and might continue to cheat-because they know they can get away with it, because you'll continue to take them back.

5. Nurturing
If someone is mistreating you, then your first instinct is to get away from him or her. But sometimes it's not that simple-maybe you are raising kids together. If you feel trapped in a bad relationship, it's only natural that you will run to the open arms of a person who treats you well.

6. Revenge
This is quite simple- an eye for an eye. Cheat on them if they cheat on you. If they continuously hurt you or abuse you in some way, you do it to get them back.

7. Confirmation of Attractiveness
Sometimes when you're in a long relationship, or if your significant other is taking you for granted, you begin to wonder if you're still attractive. Perhaps, because you were out on the dating circuit, you felt more attractive when you were single. If you have an affair, you've proven that a new person can be attracted to you.

8. The Thrill
Some people just enjoy the thrill of cheating: running around secretly, risking getting caught, and creating thrilling moments with a forbidden romance.

9. They Don't Consider It Cheating, Even Though You Might
Relationships have that grey area, usually right before you become exclusive. He thinks date #4 is when you're "together," and you think date #2 is when you're "together." If you haven't talked about exclusivity, someone may think they are well within their rights to see other people, even though the other person in the relationship may not.I don't understand why people don't break up as soon as they have an urge to cheat. Is it natural to have temptation, or is temptation a sign that the relationship is losing its fire? What reasons would you add to this list, and do you disagree with any? If you've ever cheated, why did you do it? Could you forgive a cheater? If you are single, but seeing a person who is in a committed relationship, does that make you a cheater?

Posted by Rich

Top 10 Relationship Tips

Beginning a relationship is generally the easy part; it's maintaining the connection that gets a little tricky. That's why a growing number of twosomes (whether or not they've tied the knot) are going into couples therapy as a preemptive strike against the tough times that will inevitably hit... and to learn how to keep the good times flowing. To give you a leg up in your love life, we asked the country's top relationship experts to share the most crucial things they've uncovered over the years -- from big-picture philosophies to little gestures that go a long way. These practices will help keep your union in a happy, healthy place.


1. Act Out of Character.
Couples develop a particular dynamic: the way they relate to each other that repeats itself over and over. If you break that pattern and act against type -- in a positive way -- you inject new life into the relationship. For example, if you always get angry at your guy when he doesn't follow through on some chore, try addressing him in a nicer, more friendly tone, then thank him when he does a good job. It works every time. -- Toni Coleman, psychotherapist and relationship coach in McLean, Virginia

2. Get in Touch a Lot.
No doubt you hug and kiss each other. But simple acts like stroking his arm while you're watching TV and taking his hand when you're walking down the street are also ways to bond. Touching your partner throughout the day triggers your feel-good hormones, which reinforces your affection and makes you feel closer on an instinctive level. -- Psychotherapist Barton Goldsmith, PhD, author of "Emotional Fitness for Couples"

3. Take Turns Talking.
To make sure you both get a chance to state what's on your mind during a disagreement -- and get your points across -- alternate playing reflective therapist, where one listens while the other talks. -- Psychologist Diana Kirschner, PhD, author of "Opening Love's Door"

4. Find the Intersection.
When making decisions together, try to find common ground. You each should write down exactly what you want. Let's say you're angling for a vacay in San Francisco to see the sights and hit up the cool shops and restaurants, while he wants a tropical getaway where he can veg out by the pool and sip drinks with umbrellas in the glass. Now that your desires are clearly laid out on paper, you can pick a place that will satisfy both your needs. A cool city, a little sun... how about Miami? -- Paul Dobransky, MD, author of "The Secret Psychology of How We Fall in Love"

5. Be More Positive Than Negative.
There's a more effective way to air grievances than to file an angry complaint. Sandwich your negative comment between two positives. If you want to complain about how he's always late, for example, try something like "You know, I love that you're so laid-back and easygoing, but it really bothers me when you show up so late. I'm sure you can still be the fun guy I adore and also be on time." -- Los Angeles psychologist Yvonne Thomas, PhD

6. Echo Each Other.
When you and your man are having a serious relationship talk, it's easy to get so caught up in how you want to respond that you're not really listening to what's being said. That's why it's important for both of you to repeat each other: so you know you've been heard and you feel understood. -- Yvonne Thomas

7. Take a Time-Out.
Neither of you is perfect, and the quirks you both have are here to stay. So rather than let those annoying traits work your last nerve, try to get in touch with the upside of those particular flaws, even if it's not immediately recognizable. Instead of getting annoyed when he starts screaming at the TV, for example, remind yourself how much you love his passion. Or if his shyness with new people bugs you, think about how refreshing it is to be with a chill, genuine guy rather than a blowhard who needs to chat with everyone in the room. -- Denver psychologist Jennifer Oikle, PhD, dating coach for Coupling Connection

8. Have His Back.
You might not agree with your guy when he's had a riff with a friend or he thinks his boss is being unfair, but you should always be on his side... and vice versa. Otherwise, you'll both feel like you can't count on each other. That doesn't mean you have to take the "you're so right" route all the time. Just hear him out, and let him know that you'll support him no matter what. -- New York City psychotherapist JoAnn Magdoff, PhD

9. Spend a Little Money on Each Other.
You don't have to wait for a special occasion to give small presents to show your love. In fact, gifts are more fun -- and meaningful -- when they're not expected. Try to get into the habit of exchanging sweet tokens of appreciation for no particular reason. Don't go and blow your paycheck though. It's not about being extravagant; it's just a way of showing that you really get -- and think about -- each other. Maybe you buy him a tee of his favorite band that you saw on sale or he gets you a pair of pajamas in your favorite color. -- Barton Goldsmith

10. Be a Good Date.
Face it, no one can stay fascinating forever. After being together for a while, the initial excitement fades, and your guy can start to get kind of boring sometimes. Hey, don't think you're off the hook -- if you're feeling a little ho-hum about him, the feeling is likely mutual! To combat the blahs, take turns coming up with an interesting date idea every month. Keep the time and details to yourself, and try to think outside the box -- dinner and a movie is not exactly innovative. An awesome concert or a snowboarding lesson, for example, is a much less predictable treat. -- Jennifer Oikle

Reprinted with permission of Hearst Communications, Inc.

Lover's Leap: Falling into True Intimacy

Why are many of us so frightened to reveal our true selves, be fully open and fall in love?

Columnist Martha Beck examines the issues and offers tips on how to get past our fears, be truly intimate with another and leap into love.

By Martha Beck from "O, The Oprah Magazine"

Psychologists tell us we're born afraid of just two things. The first is loud noises. Do you recall the second? Most people guess "abandonment" or "starvation," but neonatal dread was simpler than that: It was the fear of falling. Today we all have a much richer array of consternations, but I'll bet falling is still on your list. Why give up the prudent concern that brought your whole genetic line into the world clutching anything your tiny fists could grab? Fear of falling is your birthright! Perhaps that's why most of us, at least some of the time (and some of us most of the time), are frightened by another deeply primal experience: intimacy. Allowing yourself to become emotionally close is the psychological equivalent of skidding off a cliff; hence the expression "falling in love." This gauzy phrase usually describes a sexual connection. But love has infinite variations that can swallow the floor from under your feet at any moment.

You're securely installed in a relationship, marching through life, keeping your nasal hairs decently trimmed. Then boom! You hear a song and know that the composer has seen into your soul. Or you wake up, bleary with jet lag, in a city you've never seen before and feel you've come home. Or the wretched little mess of a kitten you just saved from drowning begins to purr in your arms. Suddenly — too late — you realize that your heart has opened like a trapdoor, and you're tumbling into a deep, sweet abyss, thinking, God, this is wonderful! God, this is terrible!The next time this happens, here's a nice, dry, scientific fact to dig your toes into: The sensation you're feeling is probably associated with decreased activity in the brain region that senses our bodies' location in the physical world. When this zone goes quiet, the boundary between "self" and "not self" disappears. It isn't just that we feel close to the object of our affection; perceiving ourselves as separate isn't an option. Some being that was Other now matters to us as much as we matter to ourselves. Yet we have no control over either the love or the beloved. The horror! The horror! We focus attention on stories about people, from Othello and Huckleberry Finn to the lusty physicians on Grey's Anatomy, who trip into versions of intimacy (passion, friendship, parental protectiveness) they can neither escape nor manage. These stories teach us why we both fear and long for intimacy, and why our ways of dealing with it are usually misguided. Two of these methods are so common, they're worth a warning here.

Bad Idea #1: Guard Your Heart
There's an old folktale about a giant who removes his own heart, locks it in a series of metal boxes, and buries the whole conglomeration. Thereafter, his enemies can stab or shoot him, but never fatally. Of course, he also loses the benefits of having a heart, such as happiness. The giant sits around like Mrs. Lincoln grimly trying to enjoy the play, until he's so miserable he digs up his heart and stabs it himself.
This grisly parable reminds us that refusing to love is emotional suicide. Yet many of us fight like giants to guard ourselves from intimacy, boxing up our hearts in steel-hard false beliefs. "I'm unlovable" is one such lockbox. "Everyone wants to exploit me" is another. Then there's "I shouldn't feel that" and "I have to follow the rules," etc. Whatever your own heart-coffins may be, notice that they're ruining your happiness, not preserving it.
As poet Mary Oliver puts it, Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?… For how long will you continue to listen to those dark shouters, caution and prudence? Fall in! Fall in!If you've buried your heart to keep it from hurting, you're hurting. You're also in dire danger of using …

Bad Idea #2: Control Your Loved One
"If you don't love me, I'll kill myself. If you stop loving me, I'll kill you." Some people believe such statements are expressions of true intimacy. Actually, they're weapons of control, which destroy real connection faster than you can say "restraining order." Though few of us are this radically controlling, we often use myriad forms of manipulation and coercion. We can say, "Sure, whatever makes you happy," in a tone that turns this innocuous phrase into a vicious blow. To the extent that we try to make anyone do, feel, or think anything — whether our weapon is people-pleasing, sarcasm, or a machete — we trade intimacy for microterrorism. So, if neither control nor avoidance works, what does?

Good Idea #1: Be Willing
In The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams reveals the secret of flying. Just launch yourself toward the ground, and miss. "All it requires is simply the ability to throw yourself forward with all your weight, and the willingness not to mind that it's going to hurt … if you fail to miss the ground. Most people fail to miss the ground, and if they are really trying properly, the likelihood is that they will fail to miss it fairly hard."This is the best advice I know for coping with fear of intimacy. Avoidance and control can't keep our hearts from falling, or cushion the landing. Why not try throwing yourself forward, being willing not to mind that it's going to hurt? Please note: "Being willing not to mind" isn't the same as genuinely not minding. You'll mind the risks of intimacy — count on it. Be willing anyway.
How? Simply allow your feelings — all of them — into full consciousness. Articulate your emotions. Write about them in a journal, tell them to a friend, confess them to your priest, therapist, cab driver. Feel the full extent of your love, your thirst, your passion, without holding back or grasping at anything or anyone (especially not the object of your affection). The next suggestion will show you how.

Good Idea #2: Go
"Whoo-Hoo"Author Melody Beattie took up skydiving and was scared senseless. Another diver told her, "When you get to the door and jump, say 'Woo-hoo!' You can't have a bad time if you do."
This phrase works as well when you're falling emotionally as when you're falling physically. When fear hits, when you want to grasp or hide, shout "Woo-hoo!" instead. While there is never — not ever — a sure foundation beneath our feet, the willingness to celebrate what we really feel can turn falling into flying. You don't need an airplane to practice woo-hoo skills. For instance: I'm writing these words at 2:15 in the morning, because writing, like other intimate pursuits, often occurs at night. As I type each word, I come to care about how it will be read — about you, there, reading it. Caring is scaring. It makes me want to stop right now, or spend years composing something flawlessly literate. Unfortunately, my deadline was yesterday, and Shakespeare I ain't, so … woo-hoo!
Now it's 2:20 a.m. My writing partner, a fat, aged beagle named Cookie, snores contentedly at my feet. I'm revisited by a worry that was born the day I fell in love with his puppy self: the dread of the moment that snuffly breathing stops. This is my cue to throw myself forward, drop deeper into my affection for this ridiculous dog. Tomorrow I will let Cookie teach me to roll in the grass, to howl in ecstasy at the sight of good food. Of any food, actually. Woo-hoo! It's 2:30 a.m. Upstairs, my son, Adam, is dreaming dreams I'll never quite understand, because his brain is different from mine. Shortly before his birth, I learned that he has Down syndrome, which put mothering him well above skydiving in my Book of Fears. I yelled a lot during Adam's birth. Eighteen years later, I'm still yelling "Woo-hoo!" And so far, the only consequence of that particular plunge is love. Which takes me to my final point.
In Preparation for LandingWhat I really panic about nowadays isn't falling; it's landing. But even that concern is fading, because I've realized there are only two possible landings for someone who embraces intimacy, and both are beautiful. The first possibility is that your beloved will love you back. Then you won't land; you'll just fall deeper into intimacy, together. This is how bald eagles prepare to mate — by locking talons and free-falling like rocks — which is deeply insane and makes me proud to call the eagle my country's national bird. The other possibility is that you'll throw yourself forward, yell "Woo-hoo!," and smash into rejection. Will it hurt? Indescribably. But if you still refuse to bury your broken heart, or force someone to "fix" it — if you just experience the crash landing in all its gory glory, you'll create a miracle. A Jewish friend told me this story: A man asks his rabbi, "Why does God write the law on our hearts? Why not in our hearts? It's the inside of my heart that needs God." The rabbi answered, "God never forces anything into a human heart. He writes the word on our hearts so that when our hearts break, God falls in." Whatever you hold sacred, you'll find that an unguarded broken heart is the ideal instrument for absorbing it. If you fall into intimacy without resistance, despite your alarm, either you will fall into love, which is exquisite, or love will fall into you, which is more exquisite still. Do it enough, and you may just lose your fear of falling. You'll get better at missing the ground, at keeping a crushed heart open so that love can find all the broken pieces. And the next time you feel that vertiginous sensation of the floor disappearing, even as your reflexes tell you to duck and grab, you'll hear an even deeper instinct saying, Fall in! Fall in!

More from MSN Lifestyle Site Search: For more great content on intimacy, click here.By Martha Beck from O, The Oprah Magazine, © 2009 Harpo Productions, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
© 2009 Harpo Productions, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

What Makes a Man Fall and Stay in Love

Love has many facets and can deepen and grow with time. Here, men at various stages of relationships share how they fell in love initially, how their love deepened, and for some, how love has only grown richer after 40 years.

A man in love keeps surprisingly good mental records. Sure, he may occasionally forget your anniversary, but he can still conjure up the transcendent feeling of the first kiss, exactly what you wore when he picked you up at the airport after your European backpack odyssey, and the time he finally confessed how little money he earned and you didn't flinch, making him feel like a million bucks (after taxes).

As a man who has been truly, madly, deeply in love with the same woman for longer than I ever would have imagined possible, I can tell you that the feelings a man has for his dream girl change, evolve, spike and deepen — and when it's the real deal, stay fundamentally, well, true. Paul Newman once attributed his marital success with Joanne Woodward to "correct amounts of lust and respect." I got six men to pause and explain how that ratio shifts and recalibrates from the first minute to the fifth anniversary and beyond. But let me go first ...
At one minute: I was sitting on a bench outside the American Museum of Natural History. She was already 15 minutes late for our blind date. Then a girl in blue jeans started jogging up the stairs, full of life and swaying hair. I had never seen anyone so beautiful. I was finished. I have not recovered.

At one year: She was living in Paris — her dream come true — so we were in love long-distance. Her first several months over there had not been as fun or fulfilling as she'd expected; meantime, they'd killed me. She was considering coming home early, but something told me that if she did and we got married, she'd always feel she'd left something unfinished. So though the words felt almost repulsive coming from my mouth, I told her, "You should stay."
At seven years: In the operating room, moments after her C-section, when our newborn was held up, like Simba in The Lion King, I felt humbled. She was the one who had spent nine months carrying him. She was the one — even with her superhuman tolerance for pain — who winced and moaned in agony as the baby stretched her insides like some Incredible Hulk angling for more space. But she couldn't see him because a curtain blocked her view from the chest down. So in awe of my exhausted, glowing wife, I had the honor of describing to her our firstborn son, Sam.

"She Charmed My Niece"
Adam Zimmerman, 27, lobbyist, Washington, D.C., with his girlfriend for 15 months
At one week: We met online through eHarmony.com. We talked and e-mailed for a week before the first date. As I was walking to the restaurant, I saw this girl in tight jeans in front of me. Man, she looked hot from the back. I thought, "Wouldn't it be cool if that was Julia?" And it was.
At six weeks: I invited her to Pennsylvania for a weekend to celebrate my brother's thirtieth birthday. The next morning Julia went over to my niece Sydney, who was about one and a half, sat down and started telling her a fairy tale about Princess Sydney and all these animals. My niece was mesmerized. And I was thinking, Holy smokes, I've known this girl six weeks, and it's the most natural thing in the world for her to act like an aunt to my niece.
At two months: She said I was holding back, and she broke up with me. I was a wreck. I didn't shave for a week. I barely remember going to work. My only thought was: I have to get her back. A week later she finally agreed to see me. I laid it all out — how much I wanted her, how much I wanted us and that I'd do anything to get her back. That night, the sex was extraordinary. When you're really in love, sex is a thousand times better. I'd never experienced that before.

"She Taught Me the Meaning of Faith"
Chris Heuwetter, 27, law school student, Palm Beach, Fla., married six months, dated for two years
At two days: We met online, then in person at Starbucks. After coffee we went to a New Agey store, and she showed me these crystals, put my hand on one and said, "Can you feel the energy?" I thought, Wow, who is this crazy girl? But it was the start of something new for me. She makes me think more spiritually. To have faith in things I can't see.
At three months: We were sitting on a bench eating ice cream, and I said, "I have to tell you I'm in love with you, and I think I've been in love with you for a while." I told her I was surprised it hadn't slipped out of my mouth yet, since I'd been saying it over and over in my mind.
At one year: We went back to the same coffee shop, and at our table was another couple. They looked cute and nervous. "Are you on your first date?" we asked. "Yeah," they said, "how did you know?" We said we'd had our first date right there, exactly a year before, and were now planning to get married. We went back on our second anniversary, and we'll go back on our third, because it's our place, the place where we began.

"She Made Me a Better Man"
Jerry Clampet, 66, retired, Philadelphia, just celebrated his fortieth wedding anniversary
At five minutes: It was December 28, 1965, at Ohio State University. Mary was working in the office. She was extremely cute, but I remember one unusual feature. She was wearing a hairpiece — an extra chunk of hair that kind of stood up on top. I've heard her refer to it as a ... chignon? Frankly, I don't know what you call it. She just had extremely long hair that she piled up into whatever you call it. But it wasn't her real hair. I was confused ... and fascinated.
At 18 years: Our teenage daughter had health problems, including cancer; the closeness of Mary and me, and the power of our love, became even more evident during that trial. Everything turned out OK, but going through the turmoil proved we needed each other. It was strengthening rather than disrupting.
At 40 years: My only regret after all these years is the very inappropriate Christmas gift I bought her early in our marriage: a vacuum cleaner. It wasn't so smart. I didn't recognize how hurt she was that I'd given her a household necessity rather than a personal gift. At the time I thought, Hey, it has lights on it! You can see in the corners! She didn't want to be thought of as just the dutiful housewife. I didn't know for a long time how stupid I was. But I've learned. It feels wonderful to be married 40 years. I highly recommend it.

"She's Adventurous — Sexually and Every Other Way"
Zach Fischer, 24, does IT for a design firm, Boston, in a two-year relationship
At six months: I was casually dating a woman, and she suggested "adding a girl." I said sure — I'm no fool. It turned out the "third" was the girl for me. I just liked her more every day. Meghan wears mismatched socks, plays advanced Rock Paper Scissors and is a founding member of a fire performance and circus troupe. She's funny and charming.
At nine months: I was moving to another city. The truck was packed, and we were doing a final sweep of the apartment. I found myself sitting on a suitcase in an empty room, looking at this girl and knowing how easy it would be for her to slip out of my life. I had loved and lost before, but suddenly I wasn't so sure I could handle it. I said, "This sucks. I don't feel like I'm finished with you." She started crying and told me, "I'm not done with you either."
At one year: Even in a long-distance relationship, you have to reconcile reality with fantasy. In the long run, you can't live off of the ideal. My girlfriend is one of the most chronically late people I've ever met. She's often irresponsible, sometimes even dirty (she believes that too much showering depletes important oils from your skin and vitamins from your hair). But that doesn't detract from the fact that she is perfect in every way.

"She Feels Like Family"
Doug Matejka, 35, film producer, New York City, married four months
At one day: We'd known each other for a while when season four of The Sopranos started. I invited her over to watch it, but we hadn't seen the first three seasons. I knew that if we watched all that together, watched these characters evolve, we'd probably start dating, even become serious. A college friend who got sucked into watching Twin Peaks with a woman he ended up dating warned me, "Be careful what girl you watch episodic TV with."
At one year: The honeymoon phase — where we couldn't get enough of each other — lasted a year. More than anything else, I felt peaceful. Here was this person who put family above all else, knew when we needed time away from each other and hated going out with large groups of people, just like me.
At five years: Marriage gave everything kind of a shinier coat. We're somehow a little happier now. We don't have children, but we have a dog, and we definitely feel like a family.

"She Stood By Me"
Eric Kim, 38, TV executive, Los Angeles, engaged after one year
At three months: She was cute and funny, and we became friends quickly, but I was still dating other women. Then one night I called Janny and had this epiphany: I'm attracted to her, I'm always talking to her, why don't I ask her out?
At six months: It wasn't that I didn't love previous girlfriends. I just wasn't ready. But when Janny came along, it was the perfect storm. She makes me laugh like no one ever has, and she gives so much of herself — to family, friends, the kids she mentors. She's my dream woman, but also, I was older and in a better place in my career.
At one year: My getting laid off made us much more open and honest. I told her things about my finances that I might not have said so early — and she was thrilled. "Oh, my God!" she said. "We're having our first conversation about money!" I realized that if she didn't freak out, she's not going anywhere. It meant there was this amazing trust between us.

HOW MEN AND WOMEN SHOWER DIFFERENTLY . . .

How To Shower Like a Woman
Take off clothing and place it in sectioned laundry hamper according to lights and darks. Walk to bathroom wearing long dressing gown. If you see husband along the way, cover up any exposed areas. Look at your womanly physique in the mirror - make mental note to do more sit-ups/leg- lifts, etc. Get in the shower. Use face cloth, arm cloth, leg cloth, long loofah, wide loofah and pumice stone. Wash your hair once with cucumber and sage shampoo with 43 added vitamins. Wash your hair again to make sure it's clean. Condition your hair with grapefruit mint conditioner. Wash your face with crushed apricot facial scrub for 10 minutes until red. Wash entire rest of body with ginger nut and jaffa cake body wash. Rinse conditioner off hair. Shave armpits and legs. Turn off shower. Squeegee off all wet surfaces in shower. Spray mold spots with Tilex. Get out of shower. Dry with towel the size of a small country. Wrap hair in super absorbent towel. Return to bedroom wearing long dressing gown and towel on head. If you see husband along the way, cover up any exposed areas.

How To Shower Like a Man
Take off clothes while sitting on the edge of the bed and leave them in a pile. Walk naked to the bathroom. If you see wife along the way, shake wiener at her making the 'woo-woo' sound. Look at your manly physique in the mirror. Admire the size of your wiener and scratch your butt. Get in the shower. Wash your face. Wash your armpits. Blow your nose in your hands and let the water rinse them off. Fart and laugh at how loud it sounds in the shower. Spend majority of time washing privates and surrounding area. Wash your butt, leaving those coarse butt hairs stuck on the soap. Wash your hair. Make a Shampoo Mohawk. Pee. Rinse off and get out of shower. Partially dry off. Fail to notice water on floor because curtain was hanging out of tub the whole time. Admire wiener size in mirror again. Leave shower curtain open, wet mat on floor, light and fan on. Return to bedroom with towel around waist. If you pass wife, pull off towel, shake wiener at her and make the 'woo-woo' sound again. Throw wet towel on bed. -- sh, it happens

Before the marriage:

He: Yes. At last. It was so hard to wait.

She: Do you want me to leave?

He: NO! Don't even think about it.

She: Do you love me?

He: Of course!

She: Have you ever cheated on me?

He: NO! Why you even asking?

She: Will you kiss me?

He: Yes!

She: Will you hit me?

He: No way! I'm not such kind of person!

She: Can I trust you?

He: Yes. *?*?*?




Now after the marriage, you can read it from BOTTOM to up !!!!

Bad joke ha!

Honey not tonight

I have never understood why the sexual urge of men and women differ so Much.

FOR EXAMPLE: One evening last week, my wife and I were getting into Bed, the passion starts to heat up, when she eventually said "I don't feel Like it, I just want you to hold me."I said "WHAT??!! What was that?!"So she says the words that every husband on the planet dreads to Hear..."You're just not in touch with my emotional needs as a woman enough for me to satisfy your physical needs as a man." She then responded to my puzzled look by saying, "Can't you just love me For who I am and not for what I do in the bedroom?" Realizing that nothing was going to happen that night, I went to Sleep...The very next day I opted to take the day off of work to spend Time with her. We went out to a good lunch and then went shopping at a very big Department store. I walked around with her while she tried on Several different very expensive outfits. She couldn't decide which one to take so I told her we'd just buy them all. She wanted new shoes to complement her new clothes, so I said "Let's get a pair for each outfit". We went onto the jewelry department where she picked out a pair of diamond earrings. Let me tell you...she was so excited. She must have thought I Was one wave short of a shipwreck. I started to think she was testing me because she then asked for A tennis bracelet when she doesn't even know how to play tennis. I think I threw her when I said, "That's fine, honey." She was almost nearing sexual satisfaction from all of the excitement. Smiling with excited anticipation she finally said, "I think this Is all dear, let's go to the cashier." I could hardly contain myself when I blurted out, "No honey, I Don't feel like it." Her face just went completely blank as her jaw dropped with a baffled "WHAT?" I then said "Honey! I just want you to HOLD this stuff for a While. You're just not in touch with my financial needs as a man enough for me To satisfy your shopping needs as a woman." And just when she had this look like she was going to kill me, I Added, "Why can't you just love me for who I am and not for the things I buy you?" Apparently there's no sex tonight either.

Mean Moms

Someday when my children are old enough to understand the logic that motivates a parent,

I will tell them, as my Mean Mom told me:
I loved you enough to ask where you were going, with whom, and what time you would be home.

I loved you enough to be silent and let you discover that your new best friend was a creep.

I loved you enough to stand over you for two hours while you cleaned your room, a job that should have taken 15 minutes.

I loved you enough to let you see anger, disappointment, and tears in my eyes.

Children must learn that their parents aren't perfect.
I loved you enough to let you assume the responsibility for your actions even when the penalties were so harsh they almost broke my heart.

But most of all, I loved you enough to say NO when I knew you would hate me for it.
Those were the most difficult battles of all. I'm glad I won them, because in the end you won, too.
And someday when your children are old enough to understand the logic that motivates parents, you will tell them.

Was your Mom mean? I know mine was.

We had the meanest mother in the whole world!
While other kids ate candy for breakfast, we had to have cereal, eggs, and toast.

When others had a Pepsi and a Twinkie for lunch, we had to eat sandwiches. And you can guess our mother fixed us a dinner that was different from what other kids had, too.

Mother insisted on knowing where we were at all times. You'd think we were convicts in a prison. She had to know who our friends were and what we were doing with them. She insisted that if we said we would be gone for an hour, we would be gone for an hour or less.

We were ashamed to admit it, but she had the nerve to break the Child Labor Laws by making us work. We had to wash the dishes, make the beds, learn to cook, vacuum the floor, do laundry, empty the trash and all sorts of cruel jobs. I think she would lie awake at night thinking of more things for us to do.

She always insisted on us telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. By the time we were teenagers, she could read our minds and had eyes in the back of her head.
Then, life was really tough!

Mother wouldn't let our friends just honk the horn when they drove up. They had to come up to the door so she could meet them. While everyone else could date when they were 12 or 13, we had to wait until we were 16.

Because of our mother we missed out on lots of things other kids experienced. None of us have ever been caught shoplifting, vandalizing other's property or ever arrested for any crime.
It was all her fault.

Now that we have left home, we are all educated, honest adults. We are doing our best to be mean parents just like Mom was. I think that is what's wrong with the world today.
It just doesn't have enough mean moms!

A Soulful Relationship

by Reverend Ronald McFadden

If you're not married yet, share this with a friend.
If you are married, share it with your spouse or other married couples and reflect on it.

An African proverb states, "Before you get married, keep both eyes open, and after you marry, close one eye."

Before you get involved and make a commitment to someone, don't let lust, desperation, immaturity, ignorance, pressure from others or a low self-esteem, make you blind to warning signs. Keep your eyes open, and don't fool yourself that you can change someone or that what you see as faults aren't really important.

Once you decide to commit to someone, over time his or her flaws, vulnerabilities, pet peeves, and differences will become more obvious. If you love your mate and want the relationship to grow and evolve, you've got to learn to close one eye and not let every little thing bother you. You and your mate have many different expectations, emotional needs, values, dreams, weaknesses, and strengths. You are two unique individual children of God who have decided to share a life together.

Neither of you are perfect, but are you perfect for each other? Do you bring out the best in each other? Do you compliment and compromise with each other, or do you compete, compare, and control? What do you bring to the relationship? Do you bring past relationships, past hurt, past mistrust, past pain? You can't take someone to the altar to alter him or her. You can't make someone love you or make someone stay.

If you develop self-esteem, spiritual discernment, and "a life", you won't find yourself making someone else responsible for your happiness or responsible for your pain.

Manipulation, control, jealousy, neediness, and selfishness are not the ingredients of a thriving, healthy, loving and lasting relationship! Seeking status, sex, wealth, and security are the wrong reasons to be in a relationship. What keeps a relationship strong?

Communication, intimacy, trust, a sense of humor, sharing household tasks, some getaway time without business or children and daily exchanges (a meal, shared activity, a hug, a call, a touch, a note). Leave a nice message on their voicemail or send a nice email.

Sharing common goals and interests. Growth is important. Grow together, not away from each other, giving each other space to grow without feeling insecure. Allow your mate to have outside interest. You can't always be together. Give each other a sense of belonging and assurances of commitment. Don't try to control one another. Learn each other's family situation. Respect his or her parents regardless. Don't put pressure on each other for material goods. Remember for richer or for poorer.


If these qualities are missing, the relationship will erode as resentment, withdrawal, abuse, neglect, dishonesty, and pain replace the passion.

The difference between 'United' and 'Untied' is where you put the i.

Say 'I love you' -- in so many ways

Every day is a good day to perform acts of love that touch, change lives
Love can be found in smile, a wink, a song, a poem or batch of cookies
Acts of love and kindness remind us what really matters
Visit sick friend, help build house with Habitat for Humanity

By Sandra Magsamen


(OPRAH.com)



A man from Vermont got into the habit of leaving his wife little notes. Nothing elaborate -- just sweet sentiments like "I love you" or "I can't wait to get home to you tonight," jotted down on Post-it notes and then hidden in places where he knew she'd stumble over them throughout the course of her day.
She'd open a drawer or reach into a kitchen cabinet and find a hidden note. From inside the dog food bin, to the laundry hamper, to the driver's seat of her car, the notes were everywhere.
He was in the military and he was shipped out during the early days of the war in Iraq, where he was killed in action. On the morning of the funeral, his young widow put on her winter coat, placed her hands in her pockets, and found the last two notes which he had hidden there for her before he had left home. Knowing exactly what they were, she slowly pulled them out of her pockets.
The first one read, "I will always love you." And the other read, "We will always be together." Did he know the circumstances under which she'd find them? It was hard to say. You can imagine the sorrow she felt as she read them, but think how lucky she was to have had a husband who managed to reach out with a final, loving gesture.
Like this wonderful man, all of us can create ways everyday that say, "I love you." I know it's almost Valentine's Day, and we have come to think of only this day as LOVE day but instead, I am suggesting that we think of EVERY DAY as an opportunity to put a little love in the world.
There is an old saying that goes something like this, "Love doesn't make the world go round, but it sure makes the ride worth while." You see, real joy and true happiness are found when we tell someone we care and show them how special they are in our lives.
When I say love, I do not only mean the kind where two people are locking lips and coming up for air every 10 minutes or so. I am talking about the kind of love that embraces everyone who has a presence in our lives. The kind of love I am talking about extends throughout our circle of life, touching family, friends and co-workers. Oprah.com How to show your loved ones you care
I am talking about the kind of love where a woman gives her birthday bouquet away to a co- worker because the co-worker has had some rough financial times and can not afford to purchase a gift for her niece. The woman believes her birthday bouquet will be even more special when the co-worker gives it to her niece.
Or, when everyone at a hair salon contributes to making a quilt for their friend who has just been diagnosed with ovarian cancer. The quilt was filled with their well wishes and served as their own special way to cover their sick friend with love.
An act of love is present when a woman grows out her red silky hair, just so that it could be pulled back in a pony tail and cut to be donated to Locks of Love, a company that makes beautiful wigs for women who have lost their hair to chemotherapy treatments as they battle cancer.
Love is also found within a retired woman who decides to raise money so she can go to Africa where she can best tend to and take care of orphaned children who are affected by HIV and AIDS.
We all know stories like these and we each have our own stories to tell, to inspire us and remind us what really matters. It is in these acts of kindness where the joy of living is found. These acts of love are everywhere, and when we turn our eyes and hearts to them, they touch and change our lives forever.
Defining what love is has been the work of poets and philosophers throughout time, but it's our job too. It is something we all know when we feel it, but words simply are not adequate enough to define it.
Love is so many things -- a feeling, an intention and a thank you. It is compassionate, it is generous, it is funny, it is serious, it breaks our hearts and yet it heals all things. Love is expressed in a trillion ways, it is found in a smile, blowing a kiss, a wink, a song, a poem, a word or even a batch of chocolate chip cookies. There is so much to say about love, but the heart of the matter is, we all want to be loved and we all want to love. Oprah.com: Great ways to celebrate Valentine's Day
This Valentine's Day, remember that there are so many ways to say, "I love you." Be a mentor. Teach someone to read. Sit a while with someone who is lonely. Volunteer. Serve food at a shelter. Make art with kids. Compliment someone. Listen to what someone has to say.
Visit a friend who is sick. Wave to the women sitting in the window at a nursing home. Tell someone you are thinking about them. Be a role model. Work to build a house with Habitat for Humanity. Lend a hand at the local fire hall. Use your money generously. Walk for what you believe in -- peace, breast cancer research and life. Comfort someone when they are sad. Walk your neighbor's dog. Participate in a food drive. Bake or buy something from a bake sale. Donate the clothes you do not wear from your closet, and you will have loved with all of your heart.

By Sandra Magsamen from the Oprah.com Exclusive "Valentine's Day" © 2009
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