Relationships Advice

Sex means different things to different people, and what it means to you might be having a big effect on your relationship.

To be an essential member of a personally fulfilling group can be very empowering. However, it can also keep you stuck. In order to experience real growth, we need to challenge the sometimes staid comfort of staying put.

A standard is a level of quality, something that is accepted as a norm, and generally used as a basis for judgment. An expectation is a strong belief that something is going to happen in the future, or a feeling that someone or something is going to achieve something.

Ask anyone you know who is in a great relationship and they will tell you that they have at least one role model relationship that they can emulate.

Reigniting our relationships can be as simple as carrying out those small, caring acts that make our partners feel acknowledged and loved for who they are. Taking steps each day to counter these habitual patterns leads us down a path that is much more fulfilling, much braver, and much more real.

Often we take for granted the time we spend with our families, our partners, our friends. Lost in the monotony of routine, we miss out on opportunities to love, to share, to celebrate life together.

Growing your business and personal life together is a challenge that will forever require attention and work, but will also deliver rewarding feelings and memories, while undoubtedly filling your heart with love.

The abundance of choice in our society -- and the advertising and media culture that (quite effectively) makes us feel that we won't be complete until we acquire that next great thing -- is taking its toll on our relationships.

If you ever talk over each other, if your discussions have a tendency to turn into arguments or if you feel you are not being heard, then the talking stick is an excellent way to communicate and can save enormous amounts of time, energy and heartache within your relationship.

A common problem that married couples encounter is what I call the "blame game." By the blame game, I am referring to fights in which each spouse insists on being right and that the other is wrong.

Life is amazing, mysterious, miraculous and extraordinarily complex. Joining two lives together can enhance the joys and multiply the complexities. Being part of a meaningful relationship is an ongoing, and at times, challenging adventure.

Valentine's Day is all about roses, chocolates and thou, and that's all good, but this year do something different for your spouse. Cut worry out of your relationship -- that unmistakable yet invisible interloper that trespasses on the sacred space you call home. Let's see how.

As they say, "To love is to live." Give love freely, willingly and without expectation, and your life will be full of joy -- and love will find you.

Is a spiritual partnership the same as a marriage? It could be, but usually it is not.

So many of us stay in relationships when we're not happy. We want to leave, but we don't think we deserve to be happy deep down. We don't feel like there's anybody better for us, so we settle for somebody that is so wrong for us in so many different ways.

As a therapist, I often hear couples complain that whenever one partner tries to get close, the other pulls away. It's a painful reality that love isn't always as easy to give and receive as we'd like to think.

For all of us still showing up to marriage class (some of us more prepared than others) taking tests, failing quizzes, learning new things or bored with the same old material, remember that as sure as the sun will set on this day, life is guaranteed to change.

Rather than continuing to allow dumb arguments about unimportant things to stress us out and poke holes in our relationship, we can become "conflict-wise" by learning to recognize and sidestep them.

Finding the "voice" to speak calmly and clearly to another person at difficult times is a challenge that does not come easily for most people.

Recognizing that our relationships are our most gentle teachers in life is a great way to approach the work involved in staying with them.

The reasons we fall in love may be a mystery, but the reasons we stay in love are far less elusive. That is why this New Year's, I propose making a few resolutions about what we look for in a romantic relationship.

As a lawyer and couples mediator I have observed the same dumb arguments ruining relationships during the holidays, and year round. Here are the top five arguments that emerge around the holidays, and the smart responses you can use to reject conflict.