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Archive for August, 2009

Back in His Arms Again – Now What?

August 24th, 2009 Brian Hendrick No comments

Congratulations! You’ve finally succeeded in winning back your lost love, or getting back your ex. Now what’s the next step to make sure that the relationship works this time? It is but normal to feel anxious, scared, worried that you’ll do something wrong again and would cause another breakup.  After all,  the separation must have brought pain to both of you, an emotion that you would not want to experience again. You would want to avoid anything that could put the relationship at risk again.

If the cause of the separation was infidelity, the one who had been unfaithful would have to work harder on regaining  trust.  The aggrieved party, on the other hand can help improve the relationship by not being too suspicious all the time, not expecting the worst to happen.

A couple who is determined to make the relationship work for the second time should openly discuss their anxieties with each other.  They should not bring up what happened in the past all the time to constantly blame the other person.  What matters more is to develop a relationship that will provide mutual happiness for each other.  If there is constant blaming or if the level of trust is not improved, the relationship will always be threatened and may not  survive a second chance.

Remember that relationships only prosper if genuine love and appreciation for each other is communicated always.  If what caused the breakup in the first place was failure to communicate, then the couple would have to either consult a counselor or openly discuss with each other how they can improve their communication skills.

There would be instances also when your family or friends may not agree with your decision to get back with your ex.   The decision to get back with your ex should be yours to make, not somebody else’s. If you feel in your heart that you had found a soul mate with your partner, then pay no attention to other people who predict the demise of your relationship and do not wish the best for you.  However, if the reason why your family and friends disagree with your decision is because you are in an abusive relationship, it will be best to listen to them, and do not put yourself back in a situation which may threaten your life.

It is often said that “love is lovelier the second time around”, but the truth of the matter is, it also involves more hard work to make a “second chance at love” succeed. It is not easy to start on an empty slate, because there has been pain, guilt, disillusionment that led to the breakup in the first place.   Sometimes, these negative memories can cause the relationship to be fragile again.  The partners involved would have to consider what made the relationship fail the first time and just to make sure that these threats are neutralized the second time around.

There have been many stories of successes of second chance relationships.  The secret of achieving success in the relationship really lies on the couple’s commitment to each other, to avoid the mistakes in the past, to learn from them and to continue to nourish their relationship with love.

Find more tips on how to make your ex come back here.

The Most Common Reason Why Women Leave

August 22nd, 2009 Brian Hendrick No comments

Generally speaking, women all over the world work harder on their marriages than their husbands do. They would be the first one to notice that something’s wrong in the marriage, they would be the first one to seek counseling and not surprisingly, they would, more often than not, be the one to file for divorce.

Oftentimes, when asked what causes their dissatisfaction with their marriage, women are quick to say that “my husband just doesn’t understand my needs”. Even after many years of marriage, it is not strange to hear women say that their husbands are totally clueless with what can really make them happy.

Sometimes, men would feel that their wives have unrealistic demands and they just find it so exhausting to constantly be trying to please their wives. The role of husbands today has become more complicated than it was maybe 20 or 30 years ago – the husband doesn’t just have to be a good provider, he has to be there for soccer games, for parent conferences; he has to be the ultimate sexual partner for his wife and the ideal leader of the clan.

It is not surprising then that men end up disappointed with themselves also for failing to meet their wives’ expectations, which sometimes are just too much for them to handle. Many men, faced with criticisms from their wives, would react the opposite way. They would just stop trying to fulfill their wives’ demands and even accept it as a reality that women are born to complain, and it is just best to ignore them.

When this happens in a marriage, when the husband would often ignore what his wife is trying to tell him, the wife would start feeling that her husband is neglecting her. She would start to feel that her husband is not sensitive to her needs and the communication starts to break down.

Statistics show that there are fewer women who would leave their husbands because of sexual or physical abuse. On the contrary, many women in abusive relationships would not even think of leaving, because they feel even more threatened once they leave.  Most women would leave because they perceive that they are being neglected by their husbands – either their expectations are not met, or their husbands are never there for them.

So where is the common ground here? Is divorce the answer, when the relationship fails to deliver, so to speak?

There should be a point of compromise, where both husband and wife can set their expectations from each other straight and work towards fulfilling these together. It may take years before that level of satisfaction in a relationship is reached, but it is not totally impossible.

Frustrations and disappointments are normal everyday happenings in a marriage. With a strong love and appreciation for each other, a couple can find ways to communicate and resolve conflicts in a way that will not threaten the relationship.

Don’t wait for divorce to happen. Work with your wife to bring back the love in your marriage.

I Want Her Back – But Does She Want Me Back?

August 20th, 2009 Brian Hendrick 1 comment

So you’ve read all the blogs on getting your ex back, on what to do and what not to do and you’ve done a lot of self analysis and came up with the conclusion that you do want your ex back. However, before you make your first step towards winning back your lost love, it will be best to find out first if your ex would also welcome the idea of giving the relationship another try.

Here are a few tell tale signs that your ex is ready to take you back:

1. She has not been seeing anyone else since you separated. Most women take longer than men to get into another relationship after the break up, especially if the relationship lasted for years. It is more common for women to have strong emotional binds to a relationship, which makes it more difficult for them to move on and start a new love affair right away. Your ex maybe dating other guys, but she maybe giving you signals that there is no one she’s going out seriously with. She is maybe telling you subtly that she’s waiting for you to ask her out again.

2. She returns your emails, text messages and phone calls, no matter how trivial they maybe. It may be a short joke you sent to her by email, to which she replies with a simple, “that made my day!” Try and read between the short emails or text messages she sends you. She maybe wanting to reestablish a connection, but doesn’t want to come out too forward or too imposing on you.

3. She maintains communication with your family and friends and frequently asks them about you. That maybe her way of reminding herself of the good times she used to share with you. Your common friends are the best sources you could ask if she has been curious about you since the breakup. She could be looking for signs that you’re as miserable as she has been since the separation.

4. She has kept the love tokens you gave her. Small items like pictures, pieces of jewelry, tickets for movies you both enjoyed, etc. all tell their stories of happy times shared between the two of you. If she has chosen to keep them, then that simply shows you still mean something to her, and although your relationship has taken a sour note, it may still have some hopes of revival.

5. She makes the first move to reestablish communication. She may suddenly call you and ask you to join her for coffee, as “she just happens to be in the neighborhood”. For all you know, she must have planned this meeting, so by all means, go and find out what she has to say!

Women sometimes have a hard time coming straightforward that they would want to give the relationship another try, especially if the separation has been painful and bitter. They sometimes think that it echoes desperation if they try and make the first move for reconciliation.

If you feel in your heart that you would want to make it easy for you and your ex to get back together again, read the signs she’s sending out. These signs maybe her way of saying that she wants you back, too.

Remember though that reading the signs can sometimes be deceptive, as we sometimes see only what we want to see. What is more important is to keep the communication open so that you get validation and not just pure assumptions of how your ex feels.

Get Him to Beg You to Take Him Back

August 9th, 2009 Brian Hendrick No comments

So you not only want your boyfriend to take you back, but you also want him to come begging for you to take him back. This is kind of cruel, but hey, we all have our thing, right? If you want your boyfriend to come crawling back then you have to convince him that he is missing out on a good thing, and not only is he missing out on a good thing, but he will never find someone else like you in his life.

Your boyfriend will be begging you to give him a second chance once he sees or you make him believe that no other women can love him the way you do. Here are a few ways to get under his skin.

Ignore him for a while

This is an old tactic, but it works pretty well. If you ignore your ex boyfriend he will assume you have found someone else. When people break up they often want the other person to hurt for a while, or they want to be the first person to move on. Don’t give your ex boyfriend the satisfaction of seeing you sulk or cry over him.

You’ll only boost his ego and make him believe he must be really something if he was able to have this kind of effect on you. Ignore him completely, don’t try to beg him for a reason why he broke up with you or try to convince him why he should want to be with you in the first place. Ignore him and you’ll attract his attention.

Flirt with other guys

You can wait until he comes around and then flirt with other guys in front of him. This will let him know that you are moving on with your life and not spending time thinking about why he dumped you. Your ex may want you to believe that you’ll never find a man like him again, or that you are not desirable to other men. Let him know otherwise by letting him see other guys beg for your attention.

If he sees that other people want you he may get the sense that he is missing out on something. The more value other guys put into you or the more you can make yourself desirable to other guys the more he’ll want you back if not just to keep you from the other guys.

Put your best foot forward with other people

Put your best foot forward with other people you meet. Here is what I mean – you want your ex to see you making it easier for other guys to get along with you than what you may have made it for him.

Don’t get me wrong; I don’t mean that you should be promiscuous, I just mean giving him the illusion that you are. To add a little insult to injury, try to do it with guys whom you think he believes he is superior to. If the cool hip guy has to jump through a million hoops to get with you, and the nerdy guy seemingly gets you with no trouble at all this will drive him nuts.

These tips to make your ex come back may seem silly, but trust me they do work if you take them seriously.

Top 5 Reasons Why Men Leave Relationships

August 8th, 2009 Brian Hendrick No comments

Is there a secret formula to make a man stay in a relationship? The truth of the matter is there is no fixed 1-2-3 guide that a woman can follow to make sure that her partner will stay with her the rest of her life. Men and women are not just biologically different from each other. They also have different mindsets and different ways of looking at and dealing with their relationships.

Because we live in a world where there are so many personality variations, it is very difficult to get the right combination that will work. The right partnership between a man and a woman should be something that provides each partner optimum happiness, where one can not be complete without the other. However, more often than not, this sense of happiness becomes an illusive dream. We see too many people ending up disillusioned with their relationships or constantly struggling to make them work.

An interesting study shows that men leave relationships more often than women do. This is somewhat related to another study that says about 60% of men will at one point or another cheat on their girlfriends or wives.

So what are the most common reasons men leave the women they vowed to love? Here are just a few:

1. She’s constantly trying to change me.

When a relationship is just starting, it is easy not to see each other’s imperfections. However, after the honeymoon phase is over, a woman may start thinking, “I’d be much happier if only he’ll be more….”  It is quite common for some women to “fix” their men to fit their idea of perfection. Is this impossible to achieve? I don’t think so! I’ve seen many men who would give up a vice or something that irritates their women, and also other men who had completely been “reformed” from their bachelor days. The secret there is to make your man understand that the change will benefit his life. If you use threats or emotional blackmail so that your guy will change as you demand, you are only giving him a good reason to leave.

2. She takes up too much of my time, always wanting me to be there for her.

At the start of a relationship, it may be flattering to a man’s ego to know that he is your “hero” who would cater to your every whim and need. However, your man may get exhausted with your constant whining for attention that he’ll feel your emotional dependency on him is crippling the relationship.

Unknowingly, you may be driving your man away when you declare that your happiness is his and only his responsibility. Your partner will sooner or later realize that the relationship is one sided, and he’ll grow tired trying to constantly please you.

3. She’s always putting me down.

Put yourself in his shoes. You wouldn’t want to be frequently reminded that you fall short of somebody else’s expectations, would you? You may just be focusing on his negative sides that you no longer see the good side of him that you fell in love with in the first place.

Remember that it is human nature to want to be in an environment of love and appreciation. If your man only hears you talking about what’s wrong with him, then don’t be surprised to see him “retreat to himself” or worse, to simply leave one day.

4. She’s become boring.

Too often men fall into the lure of other women because their girlfriends or their wives had become somewhat too familiar to them. The thrill of the chase is gone; there is nothing new and exciting in the relationship anymore. That’s why it’s always important to keep improving yourself and making yourself interesting to your man. It also means finding ways to share fun, laughter and adventure.

5. She’s freaking me out.

There can be so many versions to this, but what’s common, I believe, is when your man just feels too suffocated to continue with the relationship. If he can not find a good reason to stay, then he won’t stay.

If he doesn’t see the relationship adding any value to his life, he will not see it as something he needs or “can’t live without”.

What would help to make your man stay is to keep the communication open and assess whether you both are doing your best to keep the relationship happy.

Don’t deny the possibility, though that your man left or is about to leave because of one simple reason – he is just that not into you in the first place! If that’s the case, then you can either work on making him fall in love with you first or start the process of letting him go.

You Want Your Husband Back? Then Work on It!

August 7th, 2009 Brian Hendrick No comments

It was an unbearable pain that Cindy endured, upon knowing that Mark, her husband of 20 years is carrying out an affair with a girl 15 years his junior. How does one continue to live each day, she asks herself, when a part of her had already died? She feels betrayed and her anger consumes her everyday. She stopped calling or returning calls to their friends. She feels alone and abandoned. Everyday was a struggle to leave her bed and go to work.

She feels self pity, disgust, and hatred for the man she vowed to share her life with. How could this happen? She was caught so totally unprepared. She had given him the best years of her life, twenty years, and all had gone down the drain in a split second – at that moment when he welcomed another woman in his life.

Cindy is just one of the sad statistics that’s part of today’s reality. A relationship that is at risk is one of the most difficult challenges a woman can face. Unfortunately, relationships are threatened too often.

At mid life, Cindy may be feeling that it’s too late for her to start life all over. She has the option of accepting defeat and filing for divorce. On the other hand, she can also try her best to win her husband back. It will be a long struggle and she has to arm herself with enough strength to face whatever the outcome of her efforts maybe.

If you are in the same predicament as Cindy is, here are 4 simple tactics that may lead you to get your husband back.

1. Stop the blame. Face the fact that when a marriage goes down the drain, it is not just one partner’s fault. It’s possible that you had let yourself go and lost the luster he fell in love with in the first place. More often than not, husbands have affairs with women who are younger versions of their wives. Realize that you may also be at fault – either you had neglected him or yourself.

2. Appreciate the love he had given you and your family. Oftentimes a man finds comfort in another woman’s arms because he does not get enough appreciation at home. Another woman can easily fill that emotional void he may be feeling, which could have been avoided if you had been appreciative of his love in the first place.

3. Let him know you’re interested to give it another try. Remind him in subtle ways of the happier times you had. It may make him remember the love you once shared with each other.

4. Work on regaining your self esteem. You can never go wrong if you concentrate on improving yourself, rather than wallowing in self pity. If he decides your marriage is dead, then a renewed self esteem is your best armor to go through life on your own, if necessary.

You should consider your marriage as one of your biggest investments in life; after all you had invested your emotions and time on it. You should then protect it with your life and make sure that it will grow through the years and enrich both your life and your spouse’s.

If you feel you have a good chance of winning your husband back, then work on it. Make yourself attractive and desirable again, appreciate him again for what he is and stop blaming him or yourself. Let him know that you want him back and once he feels loved and needed again, you’ll stand a better chance of winning him back.

3 Sure Ways to Divorce Proof Your Marriage

August 6th, 2009 Brian Hendrick No comments

Running your husband away is nothing new for a lot of women. They run their husbands away all the time, usually because they’re trying to be too controlling or are tying to force the man into a position he doesn’t want to be in. Believe it or not most men would love to be married. The thought of having a mate at home who is faithful, loyal, and dedicated to them and only them is something that any man can respect. The problem comes when the man and the woman aren’t on the same page.

If you’re a woman constantly worried that your husband will one day leave, here are some no nonsense tips to make sure this doesn’t happen.

Stop doing things that irritate him

You probably do things that irritate the hell out of your husband and not even being aware that you’re doing it. It is not your fault though; you probably grew up around a bunch of women who encouraged you to act this way. Acting like a drill sergeant is not attractive; asking your husband to help you clean the house or take care of the kids minutes before the super bowl doesn’t help either; making your man ask permission to spend his money on a toy for himself while you spend freely is also very irritating.

Give him a little freedom

You have to give your husband a little freedom if you want him to stay in the relationship. You can get started by letting him hang out at sports bars with his buddies without accusing him of secretly seeing some other women behind your back. You can let him go to sporting events without you if you don’t enjoy sports. A lot of women try to make their man go everywhere with them even if they don’t enjoy it. If he just wants to get away for a while without you then you shouldn’t have a problem with it. As much as he may love you sometimes absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Don’t control him with sex

Some married women have this bad habit of trying to use sex to control their husbands. This is a bad thing to do in a relationship where sex is supposed to be mutually desired by both partners. If you want to divorce proof your marriage, don’t use sex as a tool to manipulate your husband. Don’t offer it as a reward for a good deed, only to withdraw if he doesn’t do what you want him to do. Your husband will just see through your tactics, and you’ll end up being enemies than lovers.

There really is no room for manipulation in a sincere, loving relationship. Learn to love your husband unconditionally and make him realize that he deserves this love. Divorce is out of the question if the relationship is happy, loving and fulfilling.