romance

All posts tagged romance

Why Men Hide Their Feelings: REASON #5

Posted by James Browning on June 9, 2013
Posted in: Committed relationships, Communication, Feelings. Tagged: , , .

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HE IS WAITING ON YOU: Let’s assume a man gets through the first four reasons for hiding his emotions. He is ready to wear his heart on his sleeve and say those three little words. Now the ball is in your court. The right man will wait for you to show him that it’s okay to fall in love. He will wait until you show him it is okay to share everything he thinks and feels. But once you give him that green light, look out! A man who has moved past the four big reasons for hiding his emotions is a man who is READY to move forward. He wants something real, and he wants it with you. When you’re ready to go, so is he. So be prepared for a truckload of emotion! This is the point where he will start talk. He will tell you everything. The man will NOT shut up. And this is GOOD. No, actually…this is GREAT! http://relationshipabode.wordpress.com/2011/12/24/why-men-hide-their-feelings/

In the end, I’ll regret all the chances
I didn’t take with you. I’ll regret all
the moments I let slip by. I’ll regret
all the times I hid my feelings from you.
And in end, my biggest regret was losing you.
Mahmoud El Hallab

Why Men Hide Their Feelings: REASON #2

Posted by James Browning on June 6, 2013
Posted in: Fear, Feelings, Love. Tagged: , , .

falling-in-love3THEY GET SCARED: What if a man knows he is falling in love? What if he is overwhelmed by those emotions but he KNOWS what they are? What if he’s not confused at all? Then he’s simply scared. This is one reason that everyone can understand. Falling in love is scary, even if you KNOW what you’re doing! Falling in love is a life-changing event. It changes a person on a very deep level. Is it any wonder that it scares men half to death? That’s why he needs your patience. You can’t wait forever, but you can cut him a little bit of slack. Everybody gets scared. He’s going to get scared, too. And that’s okay. The catch is this: Do NOT let him think that it is okay to STAY scared. Sometimes a man will try to avoid moving into a deeper relationship by saying he is scared of those overwhelming feelings. He might ask for more time. This is okay to a point. But always recognize it as a POSSIBLE stalling tactic. If you think he is stalling, it is time to draw back. Give him a taste of missing you. THEN he will have to move forward. A man can get over being scared if he is scared of losing you! http://relationshipabode.wordpress.com/2011/12/24/why-men-hide-their-feelings/

The feelings
that go
deepest
are the
hardest
to express.
Unknown

The Power Struggle Stage

Posted by James Browning on June 2, 2013
Posted in: Committed relationships, Love, Romantic Love. Tagged: , , .

2jbrwax…when you fell in love, your relationship felt like a series of magical moments… each one punctuated by your heart pounding and a nervous excitement that set your spirit soaring and your stomach doing flip-flops just at the thought of seeing him or her? You felt alive and wanted to share every waking moment with your lover, right? Remember those moments of being joined at the hip? Somewhere between 2 months and 2 years into your relationship, the intoxicating feelings of being in love begin to fade and are slowly replaced with a primal panic inside as it dawns on us that we feel trapped or abandoned by the very person we thought would make us happy and look after our heart. This is the beginning of a relationship stage that all relationships face, called the Power Struggle stage. At this point, if you don’t run for the hills and try find a new relationship, you attempt to get your needs met by trying to change your partner to be more like you want them to be (like you) and more like when you first met. Or, you’ll try to punish them for not being who you thought they were. Of course, they do the same to you and before you know it, you begin to feel like you can’t be yourself around your partner anymore. You both walk on eggshells around each other, feeling scared, misunderstood and not knowing what to do to change it. After a while of this power struggle, even the smallest disagreements get blown out of proportion leaving you feeling alone, abandoned and totally disconnected from the one person you love most. Whatever the case, your relationship no longer feels safe. To some degree you lost yourself in your relationship while falling in love and have become dependent on your partner. This is not actually a “bad” thing and is a necessary part of the bonding process that happens when we fall in love. However, it is not a sustainable way to live, so nature forces you to energetically separate and establish a new, more healthy shared power between you. If you succeed, you graduate with flying colors to the next stage of relationship – mature love. If you don’t, you break up. Taken from an article found at http://www.loveatfirstfight.com/relationship-advice/conflict/overcome-power-struggle-stage/

I’ve learned that you cannot
make someone love you,
all you can do is be someone
who can be loved.
Ritu Ghatourey

Cherish the Presence

Posted by James Browning on May 29, 2013
Posted in: Emotions, Feelings, Romantic Love. Tagged: , , .

11762834-antique-rusty-key-and-a-red-heart-for-valentine-s-dayLove, and especially passionate love, should have a place in our life, but its nature and extent may vary in light of external circumstances. People should search for it at the beginning of a relationship; marrying out of compromise may lead to frustration or decrease the little passion that was there. Having affairs retains passionate love, but has the disadvantage of deception. As it turns out, most people cherish the presence of passionate love in their relationship. Indeed, most people are “romantic” in the sense that they say that they would not marry a person possessing all other qualities they admired, but with whom they were not in love. In the mid-1960s men were more “romantically” oriented in this sense than woman, but some twenty years later, women were found to have grown significantly more romantic and had closed the gap with men. This may be due to the fact that women have become less dependent on the institution of marriage for their economic survival and can “afford” to marry for purely romantic reasons. These changes indicate the lesser role of external circumstances in the decision to marry a person, and a greater role for the romantic argument. By Professor of Philosophy Aaron Ben-Zeév http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/in-the-name-love/201105/i-married-because-external-circumstances

…lasting love is something
a person has to decide
to experience. It requires
what, for lack of a better term,
we can call an act of will…
Robert Wright

The Sweetness of Life

Posted by James Browning on May 27, 2013
Posted in: Committed relationships, Marriage, Wants and Desires. Tagged: , , .

632255565A married couple who stays passionately in love is indeed fortunate and has the best of all worlds. But those are the minority (according to some research, less than 10% of cases). There are marriages in which there is neither passionate love nor companion love and the two people suffer a lot while being with each other. For these people, there is no doubt that they should not continue being together while mentally torturing each other. Life is too short to allow such kind of living. The dilemma is more profound for couples who are, on one hand, not madly in love with their partners but who, on the other hand, are having a reasonably comfortable life together. Given that the odds of passionately loving each other for a long time are low, there are several available alternatives: (a) keep searching for passionate love and not get or stay married without it, (b) settle from the beginning for companion love with some traces of passionate love as well, or (c) completely separate the two and have passionate affairs to compensate for the lack of passion in the relationships. There can also be some combinations of these alternatives. In all the above alternatives there is some kind of compromise, and the question is which of them is the least painful. Choice (a), above, emphasizes the Romantic Ideology which assumes that “there is no mountain high enough and no ocean deep enough” to stop our love, and there is nothing “our love couldn’t rise above.” In opposition to this ideology external circumstances play a role in our life and should be taken into consideration, especially in light of the risk of the disappearance of passionate love. Indeed, many people in many traditions assume that raising children (and not love) should be the primary factor underlying a successful marriage. Passionate love may also be absent in arranged marriages when the two do not know each other before the marriage. Giving up passionate love altogether is giving up the sweetness of life. In contrast, completely disregarding reality is also not wise, as after all we do live with day-to-day realities. By Professor of Philosophy Aaron Ben-Zeév http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/in-the-name-love/201105/i-married-because-external-circumstances

It’s true that nothing in this world
makes us so necessary to others
as the affection we have for them.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


Looking For True Love

Posted by James Browning on May 19, 2013
Posted in: Romantic Love, Appropriate Behavior, Committed relationships, relationships. Tagged: , , , .

1257029023e3aOhtEvery individual is diverse and complex and carries with them a unique set of baggage from their past that impacts and informs their close relationships. Given this complexity, one is often left to wonder, “Why do I keep choosing the same partner? Why, no matter how many new criteria I mentally create, do I keep winding up in a slightly varied version of the same, not-so-great relationship?” The answer for every person is to first look at ourselves. The experiences that make us who we are also influence who we look for in a partner. While most of us claim to be looking for true love, real compatibility and no drama, there are often unconscious influences — thoughts and behaviors leading us to just the opposite. One influential factor is that many of us seek partners who help us stay within our comfort zone, even if that zone turns out to not be all that desirable. People seek what is familiar. If our past were filled with feelings of rejection or inadequacy, we are likely to seek scenarios in which we feel the same way as adults. Often, we look for partners who reinforce existing views we have of ourselves. For example, if we had a parent who was not always emotionally available to us, or who was inconsistent in offering us warmth and affection, we may think of ourselves as unlovable on some level. When we look for a partner, we may be initially drawn to someone whose attention makes us feel good about ourselves. Eventually, we may start to notice that this person is resistant to getting close and can be disregarding. Even as we are tormented by feelings of rejection, we often fail to realize that the very reason we were so drawn to this person may be because we sensed that they support those all-to-familiar feelings of being inadequate and undeserving. Dr. Lisa Firestone http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-firestone/relationship-advice_b_824879.html

Humans have a knack
for choosing precisely
the things that are
worst for them.
J. K. Rowling

People Who Love Too Much

Posted by James Browning on May 8, 2013
Posted in: Committed relationships, Romantic Love, Wants and Desires. Tagged: , , .

embarrased_loveLoving too much can be problematic when it hurts the lover, which typically occurs in the long-term. The lover’s intense love might be excessive in the sense that it prevents her from realizing the true nature of their relationship. Lovers may also feel that they love too much when they believe that their beloveds do not love them to the same extent. When a lover feels that she gives more than she gets, she will feel that she loves her partner too much. People who love too much often keep investing in a relationship that has no chance of surviving as their beloved does not love them to the same extent. Loving too much may also hurt the beloved. A typical example of this is when the lover does not allow the beloved to enjoy sufficient private space. It should be noted that the wish to be with each other as much as possible is a main characteristic of love and not an external feature of it. The nature of the private space is determined by the given personalities and by other factors, such as the stage in which the relationship is currently. Thus, this wish may be more pronounced in the infatuation stage, when it makes little sense to accuse lovers of loving too much. Profound romantic love is not in its nature excessively wrong; but some cases of such love has a greater chance of being so. From “ Loving Too Much” by Aaron Ben-Zeév http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/in-the-name-love/200908/loving-too-much

To fall in love is
awfully simple,
but to fall out of love
is simply awful.
Anonymous

Love Can Be Excessive

Posted by James Browning on May 7, 2013
Posted in: Giving too much, Love addiction, Unhealthy Relationship. Tagged: , , .

i_love_you_and_i_hate_you_80005Romantic love is described in idealistic terms as something huge, uncompromising, and without limitations. Statements like “The world has changed, everything is different now,” “Loving him is wonderful; my whole being expands into unprecedented realms,” “I am surrounded by nothing but you” are common among lovers. If “All you need is love,” and “You are everything I need,” then it is difficult to see how love can be criticized as being excessive. Emotions might be harmful when they are excessive. Emotional excess is harmful for the same reasons that other kinds of excess are harmful. As in other emotions, excessiveness in love can impede the lover from seeing a broader perspective. Even normal cases of romantic love tend to create a narrow temporal perspective that focuses on the beloved and is often oblivious to other considerations. Although it is difficult to define what constitutes excessiveness in love, characterizing love as “too much” implies that some damage has been done-either to the lover or the beloved. When intense love blinds our sight and makes us act improperly, people may say that such intense love is too much. A remark such as, “I couldn’t help it, I was madly in love with her,” indicates that sometimes love can be excessive. From “ Loving Too Much” by Aaron Ben-Zeév http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/in-the-name-love/200908/loving-too-much

People always think that the most painful thing
is losing the one you love in your life.
The truth is, the most painful thing
is losing yourself in the process
of loving someone too much,
forgetting that you are special too.
Unknown

Fear of Commitment

Posted by James Browning on May 2, 2013
Posted in: Committed relationships, Dysfunctional relationships, Love addiction. Tagged: , , .

Cheating1A serial monogamist is a person who has many sexual partners in his or her lifetime, but only one at a time. He or she will seemingly form what looks like a lasting commitment to one person, but the commitment is usually only superficial. Some such people are incapable of commitment for a long period of time. The partnership can either be through marriage or a more casual relationship. Usually, the serial monogamist is aware of the pattern that he or she follows, and each relationship may be entered into with a how long will this one last? frame of mind. This does not mean that he or she does not try to commit, but it seems that commitment is not something the person feels comfortable with. Fear of commitment and perfectionism play a large part in the thinking of this type of person. Childhood influences typically also a play a large part, and bad role models may give them an inherent fear of commitment. They are unable to cope with the pressure of the family unit for long periods of time and eventually seek their independence once again. If the partnership begins to show problems similar to those witnessed in childhood, then it will no longer mirror the ideal the serial monogamist has in his or her head. Many people think that they can be the one to change the serial monogamist’s way of thinking, but this is sometimes a futile effort. http://www.wisegeek.org/what-is-a-serial-monogamist.htm

We are the inheritors of a wonderful world,
a beautiful world, full of life and mystery,
goodness and pain. But likewise are we
the children of an indifferent universe.
We break our own hearts imposing
our moral order on what is,
by nature, a wide web of chaos.
Colin Meloy

Are You A Possessive Man?

Posted by James Browning on April 4, 2013
Posted in: Accurate self-view, Appropriate Behavior, Dysfunctional relationships. Tagged: , , .

possessive guyThe main reason that men are possessive is because they don’t feel worthy of the relationship and are afraid of losing the woman in their life. It may start out simple and harmless enough, with him preferring to keep you with him all the time. He may start trying to control your time and get upset if you go out socially with friends. Instead of going out, you may end up staying at home together all the time and he may even start coming up with situations where he needs your help that are merely lies to keep you there with him. In many cases, jealous and possessive men go a step further. They go on to alienate you from your friends and may begin criticizing you and working to lower your self-esteem so you won’t leave him. Then he may tell you that you are so lucky to have him, since he loves no matter what. In this way he builds up dependence in you, and you are left dominated and isolated within the relationship. Men who are confident and happy with themselves will not have these problems with jealously and being possessive. While he will definitely want to spend time with you, he will also be happy that you are independent as well. Relationships should be about being your own person but sharing time together, and trust is important as well. http://maryelena.hubpages.com/hub/Dealing-with-Jealous-and-Possessive-Men

Women marry men hoping they will change.
Men marry women hoping they will not.
So each is inevitably disappointed.
Albert Einstein