Are you being the man she wants in her life?

A woman wants to know that she is loved and cherished.  She wants to feel that her man is paying attention to her.  Are you doing the little things like an occasional bouquet of flowers for no reason?  Do you regularly plan an evening or weekend get-away of things that you both will enjoy without her having to make all the decisions or arrangements?  Do you hold her hand as you walk down the street?  Are you allowing her time to pamper herself with manicures and pedicures without complaint and on her own without you?  These are important things to most women.  They are simple and don't take a lot of effort.

Women love a man that is intelligent.  This doesn't necessarily mean that you need to have a PhD.  What it does mean is that you need to keep learning, to keep educating yourself on things other than work and sports.  This means picking up a book (not a magazine) and reading it from cover to cover.  What should you be reading?  Whatever interests you.  For me, I enjoy learning about relationships and how to improve them.  If you enjoy history, read about that.  If you enjoy cooking, read about that and perfect your cooking skills.  Whatever your interest, there is plenty to learn about.  The key is to keep learning.  As life coach Anthony Robbins puts it, learn the art of CANI; Constant And Never-ending Improvement.

Make sure she knows that you value her and your relationship.  She is not there just for service to you and to make you happy.  You also need to be there for her.  Listen to her attentively when she wants to have a serious conversation.  When she asks you for help, whether it is to fix something around the house or to help with daily chores, do your best to accommodate her request promptly.  Don't put it off as being less important than watching the news or your favorite sports team.  Show her that she is the most important person in your life.

Be a gentleman!  Open the door for her.  Walk on the curb-side of the street so she is protected.  Stand when she enters the room.  Seat her at the table first and stand until she is seated.  This sounds like a lot to remember.  It really isn't.  Your woman will be grateful and proud to have you in her life.  And guys, here is one of the biggest benefits, her girlfriends will be extremely jealous because they don't receive the same attention from the men in their lives.

It is so easy to be on good behavior for the first date or even the first few dates.  Be the best you can be for her every day.  Make your best behavior your everyday behavior.  You will develop a much deeper and committed relationship and she will love and appreciate you for the effort you put in.

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5 Key #Characteristics to an #Extraordinary #Relationship

As a dating coach, I get to talk to singles and couples daily to discuss what an extraordinary relationship should look like.  While each relationship is different and has it's own unique characteristics, there are some universal traits common to every extraordinary relationship.  Here are the key characteristics that I have found to be important in each of the couples I talk to.

#1  Communication
Communication is, by far, the most important characteristic for an extraordinary relationship.  Couples that have great communication are able to talk about anything and everything.  This doesn't mean that every conversation is going to be easy and that feelings won't be hurt from time to time.  What it does mean is that these extraordinary couples provide each other with a safe and nurturing environment to share important thoughts and ideas without fear of ridicule or retribution.

#2  Mutual Respect
Extraordinary couples have a mutual respect for each other.  They respect their similarities and their differences.  They are each other's biggest cheerleaders.  Because of this respect, they don't violate the trust of their mate.  This means no secrets and nothing to hide.  They work through life together as a team.

#3  Four Cornerstones of Relationships
Soul mates (or extraordinary couples) will develop deep connections in the following areas: Intellectual, Spiritual, Emotional and Physical.  There is no one cornerstone that is more important than the others.  However, one cornerstone may become more dominant than the others for short periods of time.  Overall there will be balance between all four cornerstones.  Picture your relationship as a four legged table.  If just one of the legs (cornerstones) is missing, you will naturally have an unstable relationship.  These connections take time to fully develop, but will be evident from early on in the relationship. 

#4  Love Languages in Common
 In his book, The 5 Love Languages, Gary Chapman identifies the different love languages we all speak.  From experience, I have seen that extraordinary couples will naturally have their top one or two love languages in common.  Is it mandatory to have the same primary love language?  No, but it seems to make communication much easier and takes it to a deeper level if you do.

#5  Your "Must Haves" and "Deal Breakers"
This is one of the most important, yet most neglected aspect when searching for a new relationship.  Make a list of all of the non-negotiable characteristic you are looking for in your next relationship.  Also, make a list of the characteristics that are deal breakers.  It is important to write these lists out so you can refer back to them regularly to make sure your judgment is not clouded by infatuation.  Your extraordinary mate will have all of the characteristics that are on your Must Have list and (obviously) none of your Deal Breakers.  If even one of your Must Haves is missing, it will not be an extraordinary relationship because you are settling for someone less.  (Note: This doesn't mean that there is anything wrong with someone that doesn't meet all of your Must Haves.  It just means they are not the right person for you.)

There are other aspects to consider when looking for a mate but, these are the most influential in a healthy relationship.  For an in depth discussion of the Four Cornerstones of Relationships and the Must Have and Deal Breaker lists, check out my book Dating Backward: A practical guide to dating and finding your soul mate.

Letting go of a great #relationship to find #extraordinary #love.

One of the hardest things to do is to let go of a great relationship and to make yourself available for extraordinary love.  I can hear the critics already!  "Why would you give up on a great relationship in hopes of something better?" Answer; "Because I'm not willing to settle for less than extraordinary love!" 

Our inability to let go of this relationship anchors us in a place we wish to escape.  We know the relationship isn't extraordinary so we live with the fact that it is not exactly what we want.  We can spend years...even a lifetime in this relationship all the while knowing it isn't the best we could have.

If we truly desire an extraordinary relationship, a soul mate, we first have to know what we want.  There are plenty of arguments to suggest that we need to leave our relationship choices to God, serendipity or whatever randomness you choose to believe.  However, without a clear thought of what you seek in a relationship you can never (or rarely) find extraordinary.  Why?  Because you wouldn't recognize it if you saw it!  As for God, He knows what you need and want.  But, if you're not clear about it, you will miss it every time.

Eventually we have to come to grips with the fact that no matter how good (or even great) our current relationship is, if it isn't extraordinary we are settling for less than we truly desire.  The biggest hurdle I find in relationships is that often times we don't believe we can have everything we want.  Another argument I hear often is that the person we seek doesn't exist.  We need to set ourselves free from this line of thinking to be able to find our soul mate.

When we shop for a car, most of us spend a lot of time figuring out exactly what we are looking for.  We spend more time planning a vacation than we do trying to figure out what we want in a relationship.  Vacations are events that will only last a week or two.  Cars are things that we will have for only a few years.  A serious long-term relationship is something that should last for a lifetime.  Yet, sadly, most people never invest the time to know and understand what they are looking for in a relationship.

How do we change this pattern?  We have to learn to take a more active roll in our dating lives.  We have to learn to date consciously and with purpose.  What does dating consciously and with purpose mean?  It means spending time writing down the key characteristics or 'Must Haves" that your extraordinary mate will have.  Why write these things down?  You want to have them handy so you can review them often and not get caught up in infatuation or loose sight of what is truly important to you in a relationship.  We also have to spend time and actively seek out our extraordinary mate.  We cannot sit at home waiting for the right person to magically appear on our doorstep.  We have to be out and about being social, doing things that interest us and that put us in places to be seen and found by that special someone.  It takes time and effort on your part and you will eventually be rewarded.

The questions is; Are you patient enough to wait for your soul mate?  Or, are you going to settle for less than extraordinary?

Lonely like me!  Thoughts about being single and lonely.

 

Loneliness is common among singles.  We all have our reasons why we are not in a relationship.  Some are single by choice, others are forced into it through death or divorce.  Loneliness creeps up on all of us at different times for different reasons.  For some of us, it is thoughts of a lost love.  For others it is missing the closeness of a special someone.  What are your reasons for feeling lonely?

For me, loneliness most often creeps in on the weekends.  During the week I have plenty of opportunity to interact with people at the office, on line, at the grocery store, the post office and any number of other places that bring me face to face with people.  On the weekends, I don't have my weekly business contacts.  There are weekend events that can fill some of my time, but generally they will only account for no more than a few hours of a 48 hour weekend.  This is when I start falling into the desire to reconnect with a past love.  Why?  Because it is easy to do.  It is usually comfortable when I reconnect; not because it is a great relationship, but because it is with someone I know.  I'm not starting the learning process all over again with someone new.  The problem with this is that the relationship ended for a reason and odds are, that reason didn't change.  The big problem with reconnecting with a past love is that it will eventually end and you have to start the breakup all over again.

So, how do you cope with loneliness when it sets in?  Some turn to alcohol (or drugs).  Some turn to family and friends for company.  Others turn to church or social organizations to fill their time by being of service to others.  There are those that turn their attention to pets.  And then there are those that just tough it out on their own.  However you choose to deal with your loneliness, it is a choice.  There are a multitude of options available to all of us to help deal with loneliness.  The question is; how proactive are we going to be in dealing with our loneliness?  Sitting around feeling sorry for ourselves is rarely beneficial and complaining to others about being lonely is not much of an endearing quality.

One thing I have learned is that as lonely as I feel, I am not the only one feeling that way.  There are thousands of others that feel the very same thing.  The odds are that when you are feeling lonely, one of your single friends is feeling the very same way.  Make a phone call to one or more of them and do something spontaneous and different.  Reach out to others; focusing outside of ourselves, focusing on others is a time proven way to combat our loneliness.  This point was driven home to me after having a conversation with a friend that over the past weekend we were both struggling with loneliness.  A simple phone call would have made a difference for both of us.  Yet, we both chose to tough it out and both had a mediocre weekend.

How do you deal with your lonely times while you are searching for the right person to come into your life?