Kiss of my Love
Your beauty overwhelms me
As I wrap my arms around you
I press your softness tight
Great passion fills my inner being
I'm captured in your embrace
Your eyes control my very soul
The touch of your lips, heaven
Forever frozen in time
All else fades into nothing
Why I Love You
You give to me hope
And help me to cope
When life pulls me down
You bring me around
You teach me to care
And help me to share
You make me honest
With kindness the best
From you I learned love
With grace from above
It's for you I live
And I want to give
You are the reason
That fills each season
When I hear love I think of you
You are my world and best friend too
I love you because you are so kind, thoughtful and caring
I love you because you are so pleasant, lovely and sharing
You made me the man I am
Thank you
love is in my thought
Love is blind
Love is eyed
Love is sweet
Love is bitter
Love is care
Love is hesitation
Love is bare
Love is dare
Love is peace
Love is violent
Love is clear
Love is dirty
Love is prominent
Love is contaminate
Love is heaven
Love is hell
Love is crashing
Love is sticky
Love is critical
Love is mythological
Love is brittle
Love is malleable
Love is capable
Love is stressful
Love is innocent
Love is violent
Love is best
Love is worst
Love is nothing
But love is everything
Love is god
Love is devil
Love is evil
Love is shining sun
Love is blinking moon
Love is beautiful earth
Love is the worst larva of earth
Love is hurting
Love is paining
But love is lovable and love is pain clear
Love is like this
Love is like that
Love is too much
I can not describe
Look in side dear reader
You will find love everywhere hidden but prominent when looks closer
Love is not enough to understand but its
For me is love
Friday, November 30, 2012
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Qualities Of Love
Love: we need it, we want it, but how do we go about it? If we knew, our world wouldn’t be war torn, and our relationships wouldn’t be filled with conflict. Love is simple, yet enormously complex. Since learning how to love appropriately is a big entire reason we come to the physical plane, it stands to reason that it would take lifetimes to achieve. Love requires different actions with different people. A parent loves a toddler differently than an adolescent. Partnership love is even different still. Then there is the world to love, other people, plants and animals, as well as loving one’s ideals, one’s higher self, or God/Goddess. Each requires a specific set of actions to produce a specific response. In this article I will be describing the principles of partnership love.
1. CARING: honestly caring about each other’s feelings in the relationship. When you care about someone, you care about how your behavior impacts them physically and emotionally. In order to feel good about a partnership, each person must be getting emotional, mental, spiritual and physical needs met. When this is occurring, the relationship is healthy for both people and adds to each person’s self-worth and self-esteem.
2. RESPONSIBILITY: we must take responsibility for the feelings the relationship is engendering, not for the other person. The most un loving thing you can do for others is to take away their opportunity to be responsible for the impact of their actions upon others. This is called enabling. It prevents all growth and transformation. If you are enabling someone else to be dysfunctional by cushioning them from the impact of their actions, you are not loving them. Rather, you are using the relationship to get your needs met without regard to the negative impact you are having on your partner’s spiritual growth.
You are not responsible for the reality others create, but you are responsible for the reality that you allow. According to Lazaris, we create our reality by either directly causing it through our behavior, (even "accidental" behaviors), or by allowing it. By choosing to be physical, we agreed to allow ourselves to be impacted by all the rules and realities of the physical plane. It is through this impact that we experience the pain or pleasure that motivates our evolution. This means that we agreed to allow ourselves to be impacted by the behavior of others. If a few people create global destruction, everyone allowed it for their growth and will have to deal with the consequences even though the majority of us did not actively create it. On a more personal note, if your partner is wrecking the family financially because he or she is an alcoholic who is drinking up all the money, you must take responsibility for what you needed to learn by choosing to allow this reality into your life. Taking responsibility means that there is no blame. When you process the experience, you must examine how it served you, as well as whether or not you dealt with it authentically. By sharing your feelings appropriately without slandering your partner’s character, and holding him or her accountable for the consequences of their actions, both you and your partner will grow.
3. KNOWING AND LEARNING: In each relationship there is a period of getting to know your partner and learning more and more about who they are, what they want in life, their desires and dreams, and what their agenda is, both hidden and explicit. As you get to know your partner’s likes and dislikes, through your reactions you conversely get to know yourself. For example, as you get to know your partner, you may discover that you have different sexual styles. As your partner leads you into sexual arenas that he or she enjoys but you’ve never tried, you’ll find out very quickly whether or not you share the same tastes. You must constantly seek to learn more about yourself and your partner. Never become complacent thinking that you've learned all there is to know. No matter how much inner work you’ve done, there will always be more to learn about yourself. And no matter how long you are with your partner, there will always be more to learn about him or her.
4. BEING INTIMATE: All conflict is an opportunity to create greater intimacy. When conflict arises, you must state your reactions and feelings without slandering your partner’s character. Then you must be willing to take total responsibility for your feelings by processing them in an open minded way. The “I’m right and you’re wrong” way, and “you’re a jerk because you think, feel and act that way” isn’t intimacy. Rather, that’s a declaration of war that never generates a positive response. Because it’s an attack on the other person’s self-esteem, it generates counter attack. True intimacy is the ability to open-mindedly explore the stories you each tell yourself about the activity that’s causing you to have the conflict. You must also explore what I call the “story beneath the story,” which are hidden beliefs, attitudes, thoughts and feelings the story is based upon. If you can do this exploration honestly and openly, without creating defensiveness or a need to be right and make the other person wrong, you have the opportunity to truly get to know one another.
This is often difficult to do because sometimes what we discover when we honestly explore the story beneath the story are things about ourselves that we may not be proud of, or that are socially unacceptable in the culture at large. It may also force you to reveal a hidden agenda that isn’t loving, such as being in a relationship not because you love your partner but because you like their financial support, which means you are using them for personal gain. It may take great courage to share these things, but when you share them in an atmosphere of open-minded acceptance and are also willing to take responsibility for what you find, it becomes easier.
Problems arise when what is revealed is threatening to one or both people in the relationship. It is in this phase of love that you may discover that you share differing agendas, or what John Gottman, in his book The Seven Principles That Make Marriage Work, calls “irreconcilable dreams.” There is a larger story beneath the story that may reveal unexplored beliefs about personal inadequacy, a lack of self-worth, or an inability to find and live one’s own dreams. This information would cause someone to further explore where the beliefs that create these feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem came from. One must ask oneself if they are true, and what needs to be done to change the mental or circumstantial reality that is causing them if they are. It might also cause a person to explore talents and develop potentials more fully. This kind of honesty can lead to enormous growth and change, which is what eventually produces true love.
In another common example, you may discover that your partner only feels fulfilled sexually in an open relationship where they have access to many sexual partners. You, on the other hand, only feel fulfilled in a monogamous one. Although one’s religion and culture may say that open relationships are immoral, which is why it may be hard for these facts to be revealed, the truth is that as long as no one is being hurt and everyone is open and honest about what they are doing, this activity is merely a matter of preference. It will only destroy the relationship if it’s an un matching agenda or “irreconcilable dream” that the other partner can’t agree to. When we become truly intimate, we discover our unmatching agendas, as well as our matching ones. Once discovered, you enter into the fifth quality of love: respect.
5. RESPECT: This is the hardest and most determined aspect of love, especially if you have a co-dependent relationship with your partner in which property and children are involved. You must respect other people's right to be the way they are without needing or wanting to change them, even if there are parts of their personality that you don't like, don't approve of, or scare you. Trying to change. people isn't respecting their right to be who they are. Because you can't change anybody, you must accept them the way they are. If they have an agenda that you don’t share, or are behaving in a way that isn’t enjoyable to you and they do not want to change this, you must tell yourself the truth about how likely you are to feel fulfilled in the relationship. If you are not likely to feel fulfilled, you probably won’t be happy. You must then decide whether or not you want to stay in the relationship. If you decide to stay, you must do so without resentment or bitterness. If you decide to leave, you can still love them, but you will do so from afar.
Love doesn't involve manipulation. As a loving person, although you can invite change, you don't require it. You can love someone but realize that a life spent with them will ultimately be unfulfilling because you won’t be getting your needs met. In fact, if staying with someone whose behavior is un-enjoyable enables them to be unloving, it is not a loving act. This quality is the most determined, taking the greatest will and determination to do, for it isn't always easy. Anyone can do the first three steps. Step four requires a high degree of responsibility and step five the highest of all. This step challenges us to do the right thing whether it's comfortable or not. People who can do the first three steps but not the fourth or fifth are just acting like they are loving when they actually aren't. Though you may say you love each other, you are actually deceiving yourselves. In fact, if you are confused in a relationship because things aren’t adding up, the chances are good that there are hidden agendas that aren’t being expressed and may even be actively denied.
6. COMMITMENT: This is intricately linked to intimacy. In fact, until you've created intimacy, commitment is meaningless. To be committed to someone is to take intense and total responsibility with them for the reality that you are jointly creating. In other words, the commitment is about continuously creating and maintaining the love that exists between you by authentically expressing your feelings and concerns and processing your conflicts together. When you commit to someone, it means that you are willing to process your conflict with them no matter what they do, how much they hurt you, or let you down. This kind of commitment can only come after you’ve thoroughly engaged the other five actions. You must first have been caring and responsible with and for each other. You must have learned more and more about each other and, when conflicts arise, become more intimate. Then you must choose to respect your partner, either choosing to love them from afar if the relationship won’t ultimately fulfill you, or staying in it without resentment or bitterness and without needing your partner to change. If you stay, you can then make a commitment to continuously care about how your behavior impacts your partner and to express your feelings when your partner has a negative impact on you. Any¬thing prior to this can't be called a commitment because you don't know what you are committing to. It would be like saying you'll do a job before you know what the job entails and whether or not you are even qualified to do it. In other words, commitment is impossible until you’ve really developed the ability to be intimate with one another and to respect your partner for who they really are. I suspect that it will take a couple of years of getting to know someone before commitment is even a possibility. People who commit to a relationship before they fully realize what they are committing to aren't actually making a commitment at all. Rather, their commitment is more likely a manipulation to get their needs met.
7. GIVING: This is the final component of love. Although you can give gifts in the beginning of your relationship, but your gift giving doesn't actually mean anything. Your gifts may even be manipulations to get someone else to love you. When you give gifts after you've made a commitment to love someone in a committed way, the giving becomes an act of love. You can give tangible gifts, or intangible ones, material gifts, or feelings and sentiments by writing love letters, etc. Whatever you do on a daily basis to tangibly show or let your partner know you love him or her is a gift. The more you can give, the deeper the love will grow. The gift giving must be mutual and it must be engaged in twenty-four hours a day.
Love is not something that you only do occasionally, but every moment whether you are in the mood or not. You have to do it because it fascinates you, the very concept and idea of it. Love must become totally compelling to you before you will be motivated to do all that work, and be so honest and self-revealing. As you practice the qualities of love, being loving will become a self-discipline. Once you start loving, you must never stop. If a relationship fails, you must process your failure by analyzing what went wrong and how you either created or allowed it. You must ask yourself what you could have done differently without judgment. After all, you did the best you could with the consciousness you had. Now that you have evolved, you can make a decision to do your next relationship differently. By exploring what went wrong, you are less likely to make those mistakes again. Be patient with yourself. It takes time to master the craft of loving. If you keep trying, in time you will create a truly loving relationship
1. CARING: honestly caring about each other’s feelings in the relationship. When you care about someone, you care about how your behavior impacts them physically and emotionally. In order to feel good about a partnership, each person must be getting emotional, mental, spiritual and physical needs met. When this is occurring, the relationship is healthy for both people and adds to each person’s self-worth and self-esteem.
2. RESPONSIBILITY: we must take responsibility for the feelings the relationship is engendering, not for the other person. The most un loving thing you can do for others is to take away their opportunity to be responsible for the impact of their actions upon others. This is called enabling. It prevents all growth and transformation. If you are enabling someone else to be dysfunctional by cushioning them from the impact of their actions, you are not loving them. Rather, you are using the relationship to get your needs met without regard to the negative impact you are having on your partner’s spiritual growth.
You are not responsible for the reality others create, but you are responsible for the reality that you allow. According to Lazaris, we create our reality by either directly causing it through our behavior, (even "accidental" behaviors), or by allowing it. By choosing to be physical, we agreed to allow ourselves to be impacted by all the rules and realities of the physical plane. It is through this impact that we experience the pain or pleasure that motivates our evolution. This means that we agreed to allow ourselves to be impacted by the behavior of others. If a few people create global destruction, everyone allowed it for their growth and will have to deal with the consequences even though the majority of us did not actively create it. On a more personal note, if your partner is wrecking the family financially because he or she is an alcoholic who is drinking up all the money, you must take responsibility for what you needed to learn by choosing to allow this reality into your life. Taking responsibility means that there is no blame. When you process the experience, you must examine how it served you, as well as whether or not you dealt with it authentically. By sharing your feelings appropriately without slandering your partner’s character, and holding him or her accountable for the consequences of their actions, both you and your partner will grow.
3. KNOWING AND LEARNING: In each relationship there is a period of getting to know your partner and learning more and more about who they are, what they want in life, their desires and dreams, and what their agenda is, both hidden and explicit. As you get to know your partner’s likes and dislikes, through your reactions you conversely get to know yourself. For example, as you get to know your partner, you may discover that you have different sexual styles. As your partner leads you into sexual arenas that he or she enjoys but you’ve never tried, you’ll find out very quickly whether or not you share the same tastes. You must constantly seek to learn more about yourself and your partner. Never become complacent thinking that you've learned all there is to know. No matter how much inner work you’ve done, there will always be more to learn about yourself. And no matter how long you are with your partner, there will always be more to learn about him or her.
4. BEING INTIMATE: All conflict is an opportunity to create greater intimacy. When conflict arises, you must state your reactions and feelings without slandering your partner’s character. Then you must be willing to take total responsibility for your feelings by processing them in an open minded way. The “I’m right and you’re wrong” way, and “you’re a jerk because you think, feel and act that way” isn’t intimacy. Rather, that’s a declaration of war that never generates a positive response. Because it’s an attack on the other person’s self-esteem, it generates counter attack. True intimacy is the ability to open-mindedly explore the stories you each tell yourself about the activity that’s causing you to have the conflict. You must also explore what I call the “story beneath the story,” which are hidden beliefs, attitudes, thoughts and feelings the story is based upon. If you can do this exploration honestly and openly, without creating defensiveness or a need to be right and make the other person wrong, you have the opportunity to truly get to know one another.
This is often difficult to do because sometimes what we discover when we honestly explore the story beneath the story are things about ourselves that we may not be proud of, or that are socially unacceptable in the culture at large. It may also force you to reveal a hidden agenda that isn’t loving, such as being in a relationship not because you love your partner but because you like their financial support, which means you are using them for personal gain. It may take great courage to share these things, but when you share them in an atmosphere of open-minded acceptance and are also willing to take responsibility for what you find, it becomes easier.
Problems arise when what is revealed is threatening to one or both people in the relationship. It is in this phase of love that you may discover that you share differing agendas, or what John Gottman, in his book The Seven Principles That Make Marriage Work, calls “irreconcilable dreams.” There is a larger story beneath the story that may reveal unexplored beliefs about personal inadequacy, a lack of self-worth, or an inability to find and live one’s own dreams. This information would cause someone to further explore where the beliefs that create these feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem came from. One must ask oneself if they are true, and what needs to be done to change the mental or circumstantial reality that is causing them if they are. It might also cause a person to explore talents and develop potentials more fully. This kind of honesty can lead to enormous growth and change, which is what eventually produces true love.
In another common example, you may discover that your partner only feels fulfilled sexually in an open relationship where they have access to many sexual partners. You, on the other hand, only feel fulfilled in a monogamous one. Although one’s religion and culture may say that open relationships are immoral, which is why it may be hard for these facts to be revealed, the truth is that as long as no one is being hurt and everyone is open and honest about what they are doing, this activity is merely a matter of preference. It will only destroy the relationship if it’s an un matching agenda or “irreconcilable dream” that the other partner can’t agree to. When we become truly intimate, we discover our unmatching agendas, as well as our matching ones. Once discovered, you enter into the fifth quality of love: respect.
5. RESPECT: This is the hardest and most determined aspect of love, especially if you have a co-dependent relationship with your partner in which property and children are involved. You must respect other people's right to be the way they are without needing or wanting to change them, even if there are parts of their personality that you don't like, don't approve of, or scare you. Trying to change. people isn't respecting their right to be who they are. Because you can't change anybody, you must accept them the way they are. If they have an agenda that you don’t share, or are behaving in a way that isn’t enjoyable to you and they do not want to change this, you must tell yourself the truth about how likely you are to feel fulfilled in the relationship. If you are not likely to feel fulfilled, you probably won’t be happy. You must then decide whether or not you want to stay in the relationship. If you decide to stay, you must do so without resentment or bitterness. If you decide to leave, you can still love them, but you will do so from afar.
Love doesn't involve manipulation. As a loving person, although you can invite change, you don't require it. You can love someone but realize that a life spent with them will ultimately be unfulfilling because you won’t be getting your needs met. In fact, if staying with someone whose behavior is un-enjoyable enables them to be unloving, it is not a loving act. This quality is the most determined, taking the greatest will and determination to do, for it isn't always easy. Anyone can do the first three steps. Step four requires a high degree of responsibility and step five the highest of all. This step challenges us to do the right thing whether it's comfortable or not. People who can do the first three steps but not the fourth or fifth are just acting like they are loving when they actually aren't. Though you may say you love each other, you are actually deceiving yourselves. In fact, if you are confused in a relationship because things aren’t adding up, the chances are good that there are hidden agendas that aren’t being expressed and may even be actively denied.
6. COMMITMENT: This is intricately linked to intimacy. In fact, until you've created intimacy, commitment is meaningless. To be committed to someone is to take intense and total responsibility with them for the reality that you are jointly creating. In other words, the commitment is about continuously creating and maintaining the love that exists between you by authentically expressing your feelings and concerns and processing your conflicts together. When you commit to someone, it means that you are willing to process your conflict with them no matter what they do, how much they hurt you, or let you down. This kind of commitment can only come after you’ve thoroughly engaged the other five actions. You must first have been caring and responsible with and for each other. You must have learned more and more about each other and, when conflicts arise, become more intimate. Then you must choose to respect your partner, either choosing to love them from afar if the relationship won’t ultimately fulfill you, or staying in it without resentment or bitterness and without needing your partner to change. If you stay, you can then make a commitment to continuously care about how your behavior impacts your partner and to express your feelings when your partner has a negative impact on you. Any¬thing prior to this can't be called a commitment because you don't know what you are committing to. It would be like saying you'll do a job before you know what the job entails and whether or not you are even qualified to do it. In other words, commitment is impossible until you’ve really developed the ability to be intimate with one another and to respect your partner for who they really are. I suspect that it will take a couple of years of getting to know someone before commitment is even a possibility. People who commit to a relationship before they fully realize what they are committing to aren't actually making a commitment at all. Rather, their commitment is more likely a manipulation to get their needs met.
7. GIVING: This is the final component of love. Although you can give gifts in the beginning of your relationship, but your gift giving doesn't actually mean anything. Your gifts may even be manipulations to get someone else to love you. When you give gifts after you've made a commitment to love someone in a committed way, the giving becomes an act of love. You can give tangible gifts, or intangible ones, material gifts, or feelings and sentiments by writing love letters, etc. Whatever you do on a daily basis to tangibly show or let your partner know you love him or her is a gift. The more you can give, the deeper the love will grow. The gift giving must be mutual and it must be engaged in twenty-four hours a day.
Love is not something that you only do occasionally, but every moment whether you are in the mood or not. You have to do it because it fascinates you, the very concept and idea of it. Love must become totally compelling to you before you will be motivated to do all that work, and be so honest and self-revealing. As you practice the qualities of love, being loving will become a self-discipline. Once you start loving, you must never stop. If a relationship fails, you must process your failure by analyzing what went wrong and how you either created or allowed it. You must ask yourself what you could have done differently without judgment. After all, you did the best you could with the consciousness you had. Now that you have evolved, you can make a decision to do your next relationship differently. By exploring what went wrong, you are less likely to make those mistakes again. Be patient with yourself. It takes time to master the craft of loving. If you keep trying, in time you will create a truly loving relationship
Qualities Of Love
Love: we need it, we want it, but how do we go about it? If we knew, our world wouldn’t be war torn, and our relationships wouldn’t be filled with conflict. Love is simple, yet enormously complex. Since learning how to love appropriately is a big entire reason we come to the physical plane, it stands to reason that it would take lifetimes to achieve. Love requires different actions with different people. A parent loves a toddler differently than an adolescent. Partnership love is even different still. Then there is the world to love, other people, plants and animals, as well as loving one’s ideals, one’s higher self, or God/Goddess. Each requires a specific set of actions to produce a specific response. In this article I will be describing the principles of partnership love.
1. CARING: honestly caring about each other’s feelings in the relationship. When you care about someone, you care about how your behavior impacts them physically and emotionally. In order to feel good about a partnership, each person must be getting emotional, mental, spiritual and physical needs met. When this is occurring, the relationship is healthy for both people and adds to each person’s self-worth and self-esteem.
2. RESPONSIBILITY: we must take responsibility for the feelings the relationship is engendering, not for the other person. The most un loving thing you can do for others is to take away their opportunity to be responsible for the impact of their actions upon others. This is called enabling. It prevents all growth and transformation. If you are enabling someone else to be dysfunctional by cushioning them from the impact of their actions, you are not loving them. Rather, you are using the relationship to get your needs met without regard to the negative impact you are having on your partner’s spiritual growth.
You are not responsible for the reality others create, but you are responsible for the reality that you allow. According to Lazaris, we create our reality by either directly causing it through our behavior, (even "accidental" behaviors), or by allowing it. By choosing to be physical, we agreed to allow ourselves to be impacted by all the rules and realities of the physical plane. It is through this impact that we experience the pain or pleasure that motivates our evolution. This means that we agreed to allow ourselves to be impacted by the behavior of others. If a few people create global destruction, everyone allowed it for their growth and will have to deal with the consequences even though the majority of us did not actively create it. On a more personal note, if your partner is wrecking the family financially because he or she is an alcoholic who is drinking up all the money, you must take responsibility for what you needed to learn by choosing to allow this reality into your life. Taking responsibility means that there is no blame. When you process the experience, you must examine how it served you, as well as whether or not you dealt with it authentically. By sharing your feelings appropriately without slandering your partner’s character, and holding him or her accountable for the consequences of their actions, both you and your partner will grow.
3. KNOWING AND LEARNING: In each relationship there is a period of getting to know your partner and learning more and more about who they are, what they want in life, their desires and dreams, and what their agenda is, both hidden and explicit. As you get to know your partner’s likes and dislikes, through your reactions you conversely get to know yourself. For example, as you get to know your partner, you may discover that you have different sexual styles. As your partner leads you into sexual arenas that he or she enjoys but you’ve never tried, you’ll find out very quickly whether or not you share the same tastes. You must constantly seek to learn more about yourself and your partner. Never become complacent thinking that you've learned all there is to know. No matter how much inner work you’ve done, there will always be more to learn about yourself. And no matter how long you are with your partner, there will always be more to learn about him or her.
4. BEING INTIMATE: All conflict is an opportunity to create greater intimacy. When conflict arises, you must state your reactions and feelings without slandering your partner’s character. Then you must be willing to take total responsibility for your feelings by processing them in an open minded way. The “I’m right and you’re wrong” way, and “you’re a jerk because you think, feel and act that way” isn’t intimacy. Rather, that’s a declaration of war that never generates a positive response. Because it’s an attack on the other person’s self-esteem, it generates counter attack. True intimacy is the ability to open-mindedly explore the stories you each tell yourself about the activity that’s causing you to have the conflict. You must also explore what I call the “story beneath the story,” which are hidden beliefs, attitudes, thoughts and feelings the story is based upon. If you can do this exploration honestly and openly, without creating defensiveness or a need to be right and make the other person wrong, you have the opportunity to truly get to know one another.
This is often difficult to do because sometimes what we discover when we honestly explore the story beneath the story are things about ourselves that we may not be proud of, or that are socially unacceptable in the culture at large. It may also force you to reveal a hidden agenda that isn’t loving, such as being in a relationship not because you love your partner but because you like their financial support, which means you are using them for personal gain. It may take great courage to share these things, but when you share them in an atmosphere of open-minded acceptance and are also willing to take responsibility for what you find, it becomes easier.
Problems arise when what is revealed is threatening to one or both people in the relationship. It is in this phase of love that you may discover that you share differing agendas, or what John Gottman, in his book The Seven Principles That Make Marriage Work, calls “irreconcilable dreams.” There is a larger story beneath the story that may reveal unexplored beliefs about personal inadequacy, a lack of self-worth, or an inability to find and live one’s own dreams. This information would cause someone to further explore where the beliefs that create these feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem came from. One must ask oneself if they are true, and what needs to be done to change the mental or circumstantial reality that is causing them if they are. It might also cause a person to explore talents and develop potentials more fully. This kind of honesty can lead to enormous growth and change, which is what eventually produces true love.
In another common example, you may discover that your partner only feels fulfilled sexually in an open relationship where they have access to many sexual partners. You, on the other hand, only feel fulfilled in a monogamous one. Although one’s religion and culture may say that open relationships are immoral, which is why it may be hard for these facts to be revealed, the truth is that as long as no one is being hurt and everyone is open and honest about what they are doing, this activity is merely a matter of preference. It will only destroy the relationship if it’s an un matching agenda or “irreconcilable dream” that the other partner can’t agree to. When we become truly intimate, we discover our unmatching agendas, as well as our matching ones. Once discovered, you enter into the fifth quality of love: respect.
5. RESPECT: This is the hardest and most determined aspect of love, especially if you have a co-dependent relationship with your partner in which property and children are involved. You must respect other people's right to be the way they are without needing or wanting to change them, even if there are parts of their personality that you don't like, don't approve of, or scare you. Trying to change. people isn't respecting their right to be who they are. Because you can't change anybody, you must accept them the way they are. If they have an agenda that you don’t share, or are behaving in a way that isn’t enjoyable to you and they do not want to change this, you must tell yourself the truth about how likely you are to feel fulfilled in the relationship. If you are not likely to feel fulfilled, you probably won’t be happy. You must then decide whether or not you want to stay in the relationship. If you decide to stay, you must do so without resentment or bitterness. If you decide to leave, you can still love them, but you will do so from afar.
Love doesn't involve manipulation. As a loving person, although you can invite change, you don't require it. You can love someone but realize that a life spent with them will ultimately be unfulfilling because you won’t be getting your needs met. In fact, if staying with someone whose behavior is un-enjoyable enables them to be unloving, it is not a loving act. This quality is the most determined, taking the greatest will and determination to do, for it isn't always easy. Anyone can do the first three steps. Step four requires a high degree of responsibility and step five the highest of all. This step challenges us to do the right thing whether it's comfortable or not. People who can do the first three steps but not the fourth or fifth are just acting like they are loving when they actually aren't. Though you may say you love each other, you are actually deceiving yourselves. In fact, if you are confused in a relationship because things aren’t adding up, the chances are good that there are hidden agendas that aren’t being expressed and may even be actively denied.
6. COMMITMENT: This is intricately linked to intimacy. In fact, until you've created intimacy, commitment is meaningless. To be committed to someone is to take intense and total responsibility with them for the reality that you are jointly creating. In other words, the commitment is about continuously creating and maintaining the love that exists between you by authentically expressing your feelings and concerns and processing your conflicts together. When you commit to someone, it means that you are willing to process your conflict with them no matter what they do, how much they hurt you, or let you down. This kind of commitment can only come after you’ve thoroughly engaged the other five actions. You must first have been caring and responsible with and for each other. You must have learned more and more about each other and, when conflicts arise, become more intimate. Then you must choose to respect your partner, either choosing to love them from afar if the relationship won’t ultimately fulfill you, or staying in it without resentment or bitterness and without needing your partner to change. If you stay, you can then make a commitment to continuously care about how your behavior impacts your partner and to express your feelings when your partner has a negative impact on you. Any¬thing prior to this can't be called a commitment because you don't know what you are committing to. It would be like saying you'll do a job before you know what the job entails and whether or not you are even qualified to do it. In other words, commitment is impossible until you’ve really developed the ability to be intimate with one another and to respect your partner for who they really are. I suspect that it will take a couple of years of getting to know someone before commitment is even a possibility. People who commit to a relationship before they fully realize what they are committing to aren't actually making a commitment at all. Rather, their commitment is more likely a manipulation to get their needs met.
7. GIVING: This is the final component of love. Although you can give gifts in the beginning of your relationship, but your gift giving doesn't actually mean anything. Your gifts may even be manipulations to get someone else to love you. When you give gifts after you've made a commitment to love someone in a committed way, the giving becomes an act of love. You can give tangible gifts, or intangible ones, material gifts, or feelings and sentiments by writing love letters, etc. Whatever you do on a daily basis to tangibly show or let your partner know you love him or her is a gift. The more you can give, the deeper the love will grow. The gift giving must be mutual and it must be engaged in twenty-four hours a day.
Love is not something that you only do occasionally, but every moment whether you are in the mood or not. You have to do it because it fascinates you, the very concept and idea of it. Love must become totally compelling to you before you will be motivated to do all that work, and be so honest and self-revealing. As you practice the qualities of love, being loving will become a self-discipline. Once you start loving, you must never stop. If a relationship fails, you must process your failure by analyzing what went wrong and how you either created or allowed it. You must ask yourself what you could have done differently without judgment. After all, you did the best you could with the consciousness you had. Now that you have evolved, you can make a decision to do your next relationship differently. By exploring what went wrong, you are less likely to make those mistakes again. Be patient with yourself. It takes time to master the craft of loving. If you keep trying, in time you will create a truly loving relationship
1. CARING: honestly caring about each other’s feelings in the relationship. When you care about someone, you care about how your behavior impacts them physically and emotionally. In order to feel good about a partnership, each person must be getting emotional, mental, spiritual and physical needs met. When this is occurring, the relationship is healthy for both people and adds to each person’s self-worth and self-esteem.
2. RESPONSIBILITY: we must take responsibility for the feelings the relationship is engendering, not for the other person. The most un loving thing you can do for others is to take away their opportunity to be responsible for the impact of their actions upon others. This is called enabling. It prevents all growth and transformation. If you are enabling someone else to be dysfunctional by cushioning them from the impact of their actions, you are not loving them. Rather, you are using the relationship to get your needs met without regard to the negative impact you are having on your partner’s spiritual growth.
You are not responsible for the reality others create, but you are responsible for the reality that you allow. According to Lazaris, we create our reality by either directly causing it through our behavior, (even "accidental" behaviors), or by allowing it. By choosing to be physical, we agreed to allow ourselves to be impacted by all the rules and realities of the physical plane. It is through this impact that we experience the pain or pleasure that motivates our evolution. This means that we agreed to allow ourselves to be impacted by the behavior of others. If a few people create global destruction, everyone allowed it for their growth and will have to deal with the consequences even though the majority of us did not actively create it. On a more personal note, if your partner is wrecking the family financially because he or she is an alcoholic who is drinking up all the money, you must take responsibility for what you needed to learn by choosing to allow this reality into your life. Taking responsibility means that there is no blame. When you process the experience, you must examine how it served you, as well as whether or not you dealt with it authentically. By sharing your feelings appropriately without slandering your partner’s character, and holding him or her accountable for the consequences of their actions, both you and your partner will grow.
3. KNOWING AND LEARNING: In each relationship there is a period of getting to know your partner and learning more and more about who they are, what they want in life, their desires and dreams, and what their agenda is, both hidden and explicit. As you get to know your partner’s likes and dislikes, through your reactions you conversely get to know yourself. For example, as you get to know your partner, you may discover that you have different sexual styles. As your partner leads you into sexual arenas that he or she enjoys but you’ve never tried, you’ll find out very quickly whether or not you share the same tastes. You must constantly seek to learn more about yourself and your partner. Never become complacent thinking that you've learned all there is to know. No matter how much inner work you’ve done, there will always be more to learn about yourself. And no matter how long you are with your partner, there will always be more to learn about him or her.
4. BEING INTIMATE: All conflict is an opportunity to create greater intimacy. When conflict arises, you must state your reactions and feelings without slandering your partner’s character. Then you must be willing to take total responsibility for your feelings by processing them in an open minded way. The “I’m right and you’re wrong” way, and “you’re a jerk because you think, feel and act that way” isn’t intimacy. Rather, that’s a declaration of war that never generates a positive response. Because it’s an attack on the other person’s self-esteem, it generates counter attack. True intimacy is the ability to open-mindedly explore the stories you each tell yourself about the activity that’s causing you to have the conflict. You must also explore what I call the “story beneath the story,” which are hidden beliefs, attitudes, thoughts and feelings the story is based upon. If you can do this exploration honestly and openly, without creating defensiveness or a need to be right and make the other person wrong, you have the opportunity to truly get to know one another.
This is often difficult to do because sometimes what we discover when we honestly explore the story beneath the story are things about ourselves that we may not be proud of, or that are socially unacceptable in the culture at large. It may also force you to reveal a hidden agenda that isn’t loving, such as being in a relationship not because you love your partner but because you like their financial support, which means you are using them for personal gain. It may take great courage to share these things, but when you share them in an atmosphere of open-minded acceptance and are also willing to take responsibility for what you find, it becomes easier.
Problems arise when what is revealed is threatening to one or both people in the relationship. It is in this phase of love that you may discover that you share differing agendas, or what John Gottman, in his book The Seven Principles That Make Marriage Work, calls “irreconcilable dreams.” There is a larger story beneath the story that may reveal unexplored beliefs about personal inadequacy, a lack of self-worth, or an inability to find and live one’s own dreams. This information would cause someone to further explore where the beliefs that create these feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem came from. One must ask oneself if they are true, and what needs to be done to change the mental or circumstantial reality that is causing them if they are. It might also cause a person to explore talents and develop potentials more fully. This kind of honesty can lead to enormous growth and change, which is what eventually produces true love.
In another common example, you may discover that your partner only feels fulfilled sexually in an open relationship where they have access to many sexual partners. You, on the other hand, only feel fulfilled in a monogamous one. Although one’s religion and culture may say that open relationships are immoral, which is why it may be hard for these facts to be revealed, the truth is that as long as no one is being hurt and everyone is open and honest about what they are doing, this activity is merely a matter of preference. It will only destroy the relationship if it’s an un matching agenda or “irreconcilable dream” that the other partner can’t agree to. When we become truly intimate, we discover our unmatching agendas, as well as our matching ones. Once discovered, you enter into the fifth quality of love: respect.
5. RESPECT: This is the hardest and most determined aspect of love, especially if you have a co-dependent relationship with your partner in which property and children are involved. You must respect other people's right to be the way they are without needing or wanting to change them, even if there are parts of their personality that you don't like, don't approve of, or scare you. Trying to change. people isn't respecting their right to be who they are. Because you can't change anybody, you must accept them the way they are. If they have an agenda that you don’t share, or are behaving in a way that isn’t enjoyable to you and they do not want to change this, you must tell yourself the truth about how likely you are to feel fulfilled in the relationship. If you are not likely to feel fulfilled, you probably won’t be happy. You must then decide whether or not you want to stay in the relationship. If you decide to stay, you must do so without resentment or bitterness. If you decide to leave, you can still love them, but you will do so from afar.
Love doesn't involve manipulation. As a loving person, although you can invite change, you don't require it. You can love someone but realize that a life spent with them will ultimately be unfulfilling because you won’t be getting your needs met. In fact, if staying with someone whose behavior is un-enjoyable enables them to be unloving, it is not a loving act. This quality is the most determined, taking the greatest will and determination to do, for it isn't always easy. Anyone can do the first three steps. Step four requires a high degree of responsibility and step five the highest of all. This step challenges us to do the right thing whether it's comfortable or not. People who can do the first three steps but not the fourth or fifth are just acting like they are loving when they actually aren't. Though you may say you love each other, you are actually deceiving yourselves. In fact, if you are confused in a relationship because things aren’t adding up, the chances are good that there are hidden agendas that aren’t being expressed and may even be actively denied.
6. COMMITMENT: This is intricately linked to intimacy. In fact, until you've created intimacy, commitment is meaningless. To be committed to someone is to take intense and total responsibility with them for the reality that you are jointly creating. In other words, the commitment is about continuously creating and maintaining the love that exists between you by authentically expressing your feelings and concerns and processing your conflicts together. When you commit to someone, it means that you are willing to process your conflict with them no matter what they do, how much they hurt you, or let you down. This kind of commitment can only come after you’ve thoroughly engaged the other five actions. You must first have been caring and responsible with and for each other. You must have learned more and more about each other and, when conflicts arise, become more intimate. Then you must choose to respect your partner, either choosing to love them from afar if the relationship won’t ultimately fulfill you, or staying in it without resentment or bitterness and without needing your partner to change. If you stay, you can then make a commitment to continuously care about how your behavior impacts your partner and to express your feelings when your partner has a negative impact on you. Any¬thing prior to this can't be called a commitment because you don't know what you are committing to. It would be like saying you'll do a job before you know what the job entails and whether or not you are even qualified to do it. In other words, commitment is impossible until you’ve really developed the ability to be intimate with one another and to respect your partner for who they really are. I suspect that it will take a couple of years of getting to know someone before commitment is even a possibility. People who commit to a relationship before they fully realize what they are committing to aren't actually making a commitment at all. Rather, their commitment is more likely a manipulation to get their needs met.
7. GIVING: This is the final component of love. Although you can give gifts in the beginning of your relationship, but your gift giving doesn't actually mean anything. Your gifts may even be manipulations to get someone else to love you. When you give gifts after you've made a commitment to love someone in a committed way, the giving becomes an act of love. You can give tangible gifts, or intangible ones, material gifts, or feelings and sentiments by writing love letters, etc. Whatever you do on a daily basis to tangibly show or let your partner know you love him or her is a gift. The more you can give, the deeper the love will grow. The gift giving must be mutual and it must be engaged in twenty-four hours a day.
Love is not something that you only do occasionally, but every moment whether you are in the mood or not. You have to do it because it fascinates you, the very concept and idea of it. Love must become totally compelling to you before you will be motivated to do all that work, and be so honest and self-revealing. As you practice the qualities of love, being loving will become a self-discipline. Once you start loving, you must never stop. If a relationship fails, you must process your failure by analyzing what went wrong and how you either created or allowed it. You must ask yourself what you could have done differently without judgment. After all, you did the best you could with the consciousness you had. Now that you have evolved, you can make a decision to do your next relationship differently. By exploring what went wrong, you are less likely to make those mistakes again. Be patient with yourself. It takes time to master the craft of loving. If you keep trying, in time you will create a truly loving relationship
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Love And Lust
love is a strong connection between two individuals that can have a sexual connotation but is not limited to one. love is the tie that binds friends family and communities.
lust is a completely biologically-based sexual feeling that serves to fulfill reproductive urges.
the big difference between the two is that love is an emotion and lust is an urge. while the two are often experienced together, both can be felt separately without any hint of the other.
for example: you see a person on the street that catches your eye and you immediately fantasize about having sex with them. just because you are attracted to them and are smitten with lust does not neccessarily mean that you care about their well being and have a strong emotional bond with them.
the converse is also true. you have strong feelings of love for you family (most people do anyway) but you do not want to have sex with them. this is also true of close friends. we all have had a friend or two that we could never picture having sex with. (this is especially true in hetero friendships with the same sex and gay male/ straight female friendships, or vice versa).
so yeah, id say that there is a big difference between the two. but thats just my opinion. feel free to counterpoint.
lust is a completely biologically-based sexual feeling that serves to fulfill reproductive urges.
the big difference between the two is that love is an emotion and lust is an urge. while the two are often experienced together, both can be felt separately without any hint of the other.
for example: you see a person on the street that catches your eye and you immediately fantasize about having sex with them. just because you are attracted to them and are smitten with lust does not neccessarily mean that you care about their well being and have a strong emotional bond with them.
the converse is also true. you have strong feelings of love for you family (most people do anyway) but you do not want to have sex with them. this is also true of close friends. we all have had a friend or two that we could never picture having sex with. (this is especially true in hetero friendships with the same sex and gay male/ straight female friendships, or vice versa).
so yeah, id say that there is a big difference between the two. but thats just my opinion. feel free to counterpoint.
Monday, November 26, 2012
God's Kind Of Love In Marriage
There are very few things in our world today that were ever a part of God's perfect plan for mankind. The elaborate government systems, with all their checks and balances and laws, would not be necessary if it were not for the corruption that sin produced. The monetary system, with all the buying and selling, would not be necessary in a sinless world that did unto others as they would have others do unto them. And many other things that we consider institutions in our society were never intended by God, but simply are ways of trying to cope with and control the perversion that entered the world through sin.
But one thing that God established while man was still in a sinless condition and said that it was not good for man to do without was marriage. Genesis 2:18 says, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet sufficient for him." A perfect man who had none of the pressures or problems that we know of today still was not complete without a mate. And it was not Adam who approached God about the situation and asked for a companion. Adam didn't know what he was missing! It was God who initiated the whole thing because that was His perfect plan. This all emphasises the high priority that marriage should have in our lives. However, it has not usually held that position.
Even we Christians today have put very little effort into our marriages, and therefore, we have gotten very little out of them. We have had our vision of what a blessing God intended marriage to be, dulled by the sorry examples of marriage we see around us today. Second Corinthians 10:12 says, "But they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise." This is what has happened over the years. Most couples have no idea of what God intended marriage to be, so they settle for the same substandard relations that they see others experiencing. They think conflict is just a part of marriage; and a couple that simply coexists without outward battles is considered to be an ideal couple, although that couple may have a cold war raging. After all, everybody is having trouble with their marriages today.
Well, I am pleased to announce that not everybody is having trouble with their marriages today! The Lord is moving mightily in this area, and regardless of what the rest of the world experiences, Christians can have God's best in their homes. God instituted marriage, so He certainly knows how to make it work properly. The only reason two out of three marriages in America end up in divorce is because the people involved don't follow the instructions God gave concerning marriage. It is that simple. The solution is not easy, but it is that simple.
What does God say about marriage? From Ephesians 5:22-33, we get quite a bit of instruction. This article doesn't allow us enough space to deal with everything these scriptures minister concerning marriage, but certainly one principle that is interwoven throughout them all is love: God's kind of love. It is important that you realize that God's institution of marriage will only work with God's kind of love.
In counseling hundreds of couples, I have found that many Christians, even those baptized with the Holy Ghost, are still operating toward each other with the same carnal love they had before they were Christians. In many cases, they have started trying to apply God's love to their brothers and sisters in the body and have developed a "burden for the lost," but are virtually the same in their relationships with their mates. God's kind of love has to be applied to our marriages too.
One of the most striking differences to me between the world's love and God's kind of love is that you can teach yourself to operate in God's love. Titus 2:4 says that the older women are to teach the younger women "to love their husbands, to love their children." Carnal love is completely motivated by the emotions or senses, but God's love comes from the heart, and although the feelings are definitely affected, they don't motivate or deter God's love.
Carnal love is characterized by a naked, little, fat boy who goes around shooting people with arrows to cause them to "fall" in love or to "fall" out of love. That simply is not true love. God's love is the same yesterday, today, and forever. That is the way God is (Heb. 13:8) and God is love (1 John 4:8). People who love one minute and then their mood changes and they act the opposite way the next minute, simply don't operate in God's love. You may feel like reacting in anger, but you can choose to operate in love.
Many people are confused about this and think, I can't act like I love them when I don't feel it. Oh, yes you can! God's Word tells us to even love our enemies (Matt. 5:44). It is a command. He didn't say to do it if you felt like it. If you will choose to do what God tells you to, your feelings will follow. You can teach yourself to love with God's kind of love.
A person who is truly born again desires to do what God says but doesn't always feel like it. Our feelings have been corrupted by our old lives before we came to Christ. Now that we are in Christ, we have His promise that our spirits have been totally changed (2 Cor. 5:17) and have become like Him. Galatians 5:22 says that love is a part of the fruit of the Spirit. This is specifically speaking of the Holy Spirit; but our new man was born of the Spirit, so it has to be true that God's love has been shed abroad in our spirits too. We do have God's love in our new man. Our feelings are not automatically changed, however. Our feelings will continue to act like they were taught to act until we subdue them and bring them under the control of our spirit man. It is not hypocritical to act in love when you don't feel it. It is actually hypocritical to act on what you feel instead of who you really are in Christ Jesus.
God's kind of love is a choice that you make on the basis of what God said, and then act on it in faith until it becomes a reality in your spirit, soul, and body.
If you can receive this basic truth about God's love, then you can begin to be consistent in your love to your mate because your love is based on a choice that you have made, not on the way they act. This is the root cause of nearly all strife in marriage. Everything is fine until one partner does something wrong to the other, and then the feathers fly. Aren't you glad that God doesn't treat us that way? Romans 5:8 says, "God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Praise God! God's love wasn't based upon what we had done for Him or what we deserved but upon His choice to love us. That is all! We didn't do anything to merit God's love. He just chose to give it. We can choose to receive that kind of love and then give it to others in the same way.
Another way to say this is that God's love is unconditional. Jesus didn't wait until we were worth it or had repented before He gave Himself for our sins. He gave Himself for us while we were yet sinners and living a life of rebellion against Him (Rom. 5:8). His love was extended toward Hitler just as much as it was toward us. The difference is our acceptance or rejection of it not His offer of love. God's love is unconditional.
We have to put this unconditional love of God to work in our marriages. If you live with a person for any length of time at all, you are going to find fault with them. If your love isn't unconditional, then you will begin to give them what they deserve, which is trouble. And you can rest assured that when you make a mistake, you will reap what you have sown.
I used to work in a dark room in a photography studio. We had a joke about these ladies who would come in to see their proofs and just throw a fit about how bad their pictures looked. They would say, "This picture doesn't do me justice!" Our answer would be, "Lady, you don't need justice, you need mercy." That's the way it is in marriage. Our mates, who see us at our worst, have to give us mercy, not justice. Failure in this area is the root of most marriage problems. Many couples actually use their conditional love as a weapon to try and motivate their mates to do things. That will destroy a marriage. If the thing that keeps your mate in line is a fear of your exploding if they mess up, then you are tormenting them. That's what 1 John 4:18 says, "Fear hath torment." You may see some results through that method, but it's a fact that you are building resentment and rejection in them, and sooner or later, it will explode. God's love is unconditional.
But one thing that God established while man was still in a sinless condition and said that it was not good for man to do without was marriage. Genesis 2:18 says, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet sufficient for him." A perfect man who had none of the pressures or problems that we know of today still was not complete without a mate. And it was not Adam who approached God about the situation and asked for a companion. Adam didn't know what he was missing! It was God who initiated the whole thing because that was His perfect plan. This all emphasises the high priority that marriage should have in our lives. However, it has not usually held that position.
Even we Christians today have put very little effort into our marriages, and therefore, we have gotten very little out of them. We have had our vision of what a blessing God intended marriage to be, dulled by the sorry examples of marriage we see around us today. Second Corinthians 10:12 says, "But they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise." This is what has happened over the years. Most couples have no idea of what God intended marriage to be, so they settle for the same substandard relations that they see others experiencing. They think conflict is just a part of marriage; and a couple that simply coexists without outward battles is considered to be an ideal couple, although that couple may have a cold war raging. After all, everybody is having trouble with their marriages today.
Well, I am pleased to announce that not everybody is having trouble with their marriages today! The Lord is moving mightily in this area, and regardless of what the rest of the world experiences, Christians can have God's best in their homes. God instituted marriage, so He certainly knows how to make it work properly. The only reason two out of three marriages in America end up in divorce is because the people involved don't follow the instructions God gave concerning marriage. It is that simple. The solution is not easy, but it is that simple.
What does God say about marriage? From Ephesians 5:22-33, we get quite a bit of instruction. This article doesn't allow us enough space to deal with everything these scriptures minister concerning marriage, but certainly one principle that is interwoven throughout them all is love: God's kind of love. It is important that you realize that God's institution of marriage will only work with God's kind of love.
In counseling hundreds of couples, I have found that many Christians, even those baptized with the Holy Ghost, are still operating toward each other with the same carnal love they had before they were Christians. In many cases, they have started trying to apply God's love to their brothers and sisters in the body and have developed a "burden for the lost," but are virtually the same in their relationships with their mates. God's kind of love has to be applied to our marriages too.
One of the most striking differences to me between the world's love and God's kind of love is that you can teach yourself to operate in God's love. Titus 2:4 says that the older women are to teach the younger women "to love their husbands, to love their children." Carnal love is completely motivated by the emotions or senses, but God's love comes from the heart, and although the feelings are definitely affected, they don't motivate or deter God's love.
Carnal love is characterized by a naked, little, fat boy who goes around shooting people with arrows to cause them to "fall" in love or to "fall" out of love. That simply is not true love. God's love is the same yesterday, today, and forever. That is the way God is (Heb. 13:8) and God is love (1 John 4:8). People who love one minute and then their mood changes and they act the opposite way the next minute, simply don't operate in God's love. You may feel like reacting in anger, but you can choose to operate in love.
Many people are confused about this and think, I can't act like I love them when I don't feel it. Oh, yes you can! God's Word tells us to even love our enemies (Matt. 5:44). It is a command. He didn't say to do it if you felt like it. If you will choose to do what God tells you to, your feelings will follow. You can teach yourself to love with God's kind of love.
A person who is truly born again desires to do what God says but doesn't always feel like it. Our feelings have been corrupted by our old lives before we came to Christ. Now that we are in Christ, we have His promise that our spirits have been totally changed (2 Cor. 5:17) and have become like Him. Galatians 5:22 says that love is a part of the fruit of the Spirit. This is specifically speaking of the Holy Spirit; but our new man was born of the Spirit, so it has to be true that God's love has been shed abroad in our spirits too. We do have God's love in our new man. Our feelings are not automatically changed, however. Our feelings will continue to act like they were taught to act until we subdue them and bring them under the control of our spirit man. It is not hypocritical to act in love when you don't feel it. It is actually hypocritical to act on what you feel instead of who you really are in Christ Jesus.
God's kind of love is a choice that you make on the basis of what God said, and then act on it in faith until it becomes a reality in your spirit, soul, and body.
If you can receive this basic truth about God's love, then you can begin to be consistent in your love to your mate because your love is based on a choice that you have made, not on the way they act. This is the root cause of nearly all strife in marriage. Everything is fine until one partner does something wrong to the other, and then the feathers fly. Aren't you glad that God doesn't treat us that way? Romans 5:8 says, "God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Praise God! God's love wasn't based upon what we had done for Him or what we deserved but upon His choice to love us. That is all! We didn't do anything to merit God's love. He just chose to give it. We can choose to receive that kind of love and then give it to others in the same way.
Another way to say this is that God's love is unconditional. Jesus didn't wait until we were worth it or had repented before He gave Himself for our sins. He gave Himself for us while we were yet sinners and living a life of rebellion against Him (Rom. 5:8). His love was extended toward Hitler just as much as it was toward us. The difference is our acceptance or rejection of it not His offer of love. God's love is unconditional.
We have to put this unconditional love of God to work in our marriages. If you live with a person for any length of time at all, you are going to find fault with them. If your love isn't unconditional, then you will begin to give them what they deserve, which is trouble. And you can rest assured that when you make a mistake, you will reap what you have sown.
I used to work in a dark room in a photography studio. We had a joke about these ladies who would come in to see their proofs and just throw a fit about how bad their pictures looked. They would say, "This picture doesn't do me justice!" Our answer would be, "Lady, you don't need justice, you need mercy." That's the way it is in marriage. Our mates, who see us at our worst, have to give us mercy, not justice. Failure in this area is the root of most marriage problems. Many couples actually use their conditional love as a weapon to try and motivate their mates to do things. That will destroy a marriage. If the thing that keeps your mate in line is a fear of your exploding if they mess up, then you are tormenting them. That's what 1 John 4:18 says, "Fear hath torment." You may see some results through that method, but it's a fact that you are building resentment and rejection in them, and sooner or later, it will explode. God's love is unconditional.
Sunday, November 25, 2012
God Loves Us So Much!
The love of God is not based on what we have, what we do, or what we achieve in life. His immense love is not determined by our behavior, our attitude or our conduct. The love of God is not dependent on our personal background, our birth status, or our social standing. God’s love is not influenced by anything that we do in and of ourselves. In all of creation His love is like no other.
Romans 8:35-39
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Wow, what a comfort, what a blessing, what joy there is in the love from our Lord to know that no hardships, troubles, lack of finances, nothing we can ever experience no matter how hard, trying or terrible things get, nothing can separate us from the love of God.
No hardship or distress we might encounter in life can be so overwhelming that Gods love for you does not increase as what you are going through intensifies. At these moments His love grows strong. Such is not the human condition. There is no pain in life so powerful that Gods love does not bring you comfort.
In life there may be times when you are hungry, but you will never hunger for lack of the Father’s love. In life sometimes we are abandoned by those we love as financial dire circumstances beset us. But poverty or lack of finances cannot rob you of God’s compassion, just as even death itself is not capable of robbing us of our Father’s infinite love
Proverbs 3:11-1
My son, do not despise the LORD’s discipline
and do not resent his rebuke,
Because the LORD disciplines those he loves, as a father, we are the children he delights in. As our heavenly Father the love He gives and demonstrates for us is 100% unconditional. Even if we are disobedient, get angry with God, follow our own will, He still loves us, even when we do not love Him in return. John tells us 1 John 4:19 we love because He first loved us. His love for us as “Abba” our heavenly Father is so vast and wide that he has made us heirs and has built a home for us in heaven and awaits the day when our flesh no longer remains, and we are as Paul wrote, absent from the body, and present with the Lord. So these are the thing and definitions of our heavenly Father in the Bible.
He has adopted us and made us his children through the blood of his Son Ephesians 1:5 ….he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—God, “Abba” our heavenly father desires an intimate relationship with us, his children. He is our comfort, and our strength. There are no arms bigger to hold you, and there is no love greater than His.
He alone is “Abba”, dad, daddy, papa, and Father in every sense of the word. What a glorious blessing we have to have Him as our parent, and how precious and wonderful it is to be His child.
Romans 8:15 Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.”
The adopted child’s past from their natural-born family is removed, legally forgotten and sealed as if it did not ever exist once they were adopted. The child then gained all the rights of a legitimate child in their new family. They got a new father, and they became an heir to the father’s estate. The adopted child became equal co-heirs with the other children. In the eyes of the law their old life was completely wiped out. All debts were completely cancelled. That child was absolutely the child of their new father. We are that child; our debt of sin has been cancelled by the blood of Jesus. We are a new child in God, by the Blood of the Lamb. Paul tells us in Corinthians that once we are in Christ we have become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! In that new life we are the sons and daughters of God, part of the inheritance of a royal priesthood, receivers of eternal life. Now that is a heritage to remember. That is a heritage to be proud of. That is a heritage to be thankful for. What a glorious privilege we have to be the absolute possession of God our Father! As his children we take on the name of God—we are His children, His heirs, and His ambassadors.
God chose you and me to be His child. What an amazing, incredible gift. We were taken from a situation which would not have turned out well and in Christ Jesus we are given the opportunity to be adopted and live as God’s own children, and become a member of His family. We have been given a new identity, a new name, a new life, and a new inheritance.
Isaiah 30:18
But the Lord wants to show you kindness. He greatly desires to show you compassion. The Lord is the God who makes everything right again. So those people who trust Him are truly happy.
You are God’s people. Do not weep anymore. The Lord hears your cry for help. And when He hears, He will answer. He will come to your aid. You have suffered much in the past. But the Lord is your Teacher. He will not hide Himself from you. You will see with your own eyes what He will do to save you.
In Isaiah 30:18, we read about the real desire and heart that God has for us. In his Word, we read of His promises to us. It is His desire to give us this and more, if we put Him first and foremost in our lives and lay aside all other things.
Know that you can see the hand of God in your life and experience His kindness. Your life will turn around and everything that has gone wrong will begin to go right. You will find happiness as your worries, stress and fears, vanish. God will reveal Himself to you and you will know Him.
Know that no matter how bad your situation is, whether you are in debt or trouble, God promises to rescue you. It is in His Word…..it is possible, probable, and His desire for you.
We need to realize the honor we have in the love of God, and we need to understand the strength and depth of His love. His love working in us is to every believer as motherhood, apple pie and baseball is to the American way.
When we are troubled, as we all are from time to time, He is our place of refuge; a place where our spirit feels at home. In Him is where the longing of our soul finds rest and peace. When in our own flesh all avenues are blocked, we can always connect with God and be comforted.
If you are troubled, in doubt, confused, needing guidance, direction, correction or instruction, just turn to God. He will feed your soul until you hunger and thirst no more. When you cannot find the words, He will speak for you. When you cannot find the answer with all your human logic, He will enlighten you.
He will bring tears of joy to your soul that wash away all the stress and sorrow from your entire being. There is an unseen language spoken by God to your heart that your spirit comprehends, even though we cannot explain it with our human tongue, it is spoken and imprinted upon our hearts by the Spirit of the living God within us. In that unseen language His word transcends my human knowledge and opens a line of communicate between us and God in all of its glory and wonder. We will find ourselves lost in the depth of His love, as a child nursing at its mother’s breast. We will be compelled by His Spirit, and amazed as we encounter what the flesh cannot comprehend.
The Lord invites you to expand your spirit and see things beyond what your human eyes can behold and you begin to see things through your spirit. This is where the fullness and richness of life lies and awaits you, in God’s love.
He pours out his love upon each one of us every second every day. His love is our everything. Even when we are unaware He is working in love, behind the scenes protecting us from danger and saving us from you from catastrophe. His love gives us strength, energy and the will to go on when we desperately needed it. If we will but look closely at all those many very wonderful and unexpected things that occur in our lives, you will see the deep love of God at the center of all our joy, happiness and success.
John 3:16
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
That is a lot of love, the life-giving love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord who redeems us all from sin.
Romans 8:35-39
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Wow, what a comfort, what a blessing, what joy there is in the love from our Lord to know that no hardships, troubles, lack of finances, nothing we can ever experience no matter how hard, trying or terrible things get, nothing can separate us from the love of God.
No hardship or distress we might encounter in life can be so overwhelming that Gods love for you does not increase as what you are going through intensifies. At these moments His love grows strong. Such is not the human condition. There is no pain in life so powerful that Gods love does not bring you comfort.
In life there may be times when you are hungry, but you will never hunger for lack of the Father’s love. In life sometimes we are abandoned by those we love as financial dire circumstances beset us. But poverty or lack of finances cannot rob you of God’s compassion, just as even death itself is not capable of robbing us of our Father’s infinite love
Proverbs 3:11-1
My son, do not despise the LORD’s discipline
and do not resent his rebuke,
Because the LORD disciplines those he loves, as a father, we are the children he delights in. As our heavenly Father the love He gives and demonstrates for us is 100% unconditional. Even if we are disobedient, get angry with God, follow our own will, He still loves us, even when we do not love Him in return. John tells us 1 John 4:19 we love because He first loved us. His love for us as “Abba” our heavenly Father is so vast and wide that he has made us heirs and has built a home for us in heaven and awaits the day when our flesh no longer remains, and we are as Paul wrote, absent from the body, and present with the Lord. So these are the thing and definitions of our heavenly Father in the Bible.
He has adopted us and made us his children through the blood of his Son Ephesians 1:5 ….he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—God, “Abba” our heavenly father desires an intimate relationship with us, his children. He is our comfort, and our strength. There are no arms bigger to hold you, and there is no love greater than His.
He alone is “Abba”, dad, daddy, papa, and Father in every sense of the word. What a glorious blessing we have to have Him as our parent, and how precious and wonderful it is to be His child.
Romans 8:15 Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.”
The adopted child’s past from their natural-born family is removed, legally forgotten and sealed as if it did not ever exist once they were adopted. The child then gained all the rights of a legitimate child in their new family. They got a new father, and they became an heir to the father’s estate. The adopted child became equal co-heirs with the other children. In the eyes of the law their old life was completely wiped out. All debts were completely cancelled. That child was absolutely the child of their new father. We are that child; our debt of sin has been cancelled by the blood of Jesus. We are a new child in God, by the Blood of the Lamb. Paul tells us in Corinthians that once we are in Christ we have become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! In that new life we are the sons and daughters of God, part of the inheritance of a royal priesthood, receivers of eternal life. Now that is a heritage to remember. That is a heritage to be proud of. That is a heritage to be thankful for. What a glorious privilege we have to be the absolute possession of God our Father! As his children we take on the name of God—we are His children, His heirs, and His ambassadors.
God chose you and me to be His child. What an amazing, incredible gift. We were taken from a situation which would not have turned out well and in Christ Jesus we are given the opportunity to be adopted and live as God’s own children, and become a member of His family. We have been given a new identity, a new name, a new life, and a new inheritance.
Isaiah 30:18
But the Lord wants to show you kindness. He greatly desires to show you compassion. The Lord is the God who makes everything right again. So those people who trust Him are truly happy.
You are God’s people. Do not weep anymore. The Lord hears your cry for help. And when He hears, He will answer. He will come to your aid. You have suffered much in the past. But the Lord is your Teacher. He will not hide Himself from you. You will see with your own eyes what He will do to save you.
In Isaiah 30:18, we read about the real desire and heart that God has for us. In his Word, we read of His promises to us. It is His desire to give us this and more, if we put Him first and foremost in our lives and lay aside all other things.
Know that you can see the hand of God in your life and experience His kindness. Your life will turn around and everything that has gone wrong will begin to go right. You will find happiness as your worries, stress and fears, vanish. God will reveal Himself to you and you will know Him.
Know that no matter how bad your situation is, whether you are in debt or trouble, God promises to rescue you. It is in His Word…..it is possible, probable, and His desire for you.
We need to realize the honor we have in the love of God, and we need to understand the strength and depth of His love. His love working in us is to every believer as motherhood, apple pie and baseball is to the American way.
When we are troubled, as we all are from time to time, He is our place of refuge; a place where our spirit feels at home. In Him is where the longing of our soul finds rest and peace. When in our own flesh all avenues are blocked, we can always connect with God and be comforted.
If you are troubled, in doubt, confused, needing guidance, direction, correction or instruction, just turn to God. He will feed your soul until you hunger and thirst no more. When you cannot find the words, He will speak for you. When you cannot find the answer with all your human logic, He will enlighten you.
He will bring tears of joy to your soul that wash away all the stress and sorrow from your entire being. There is an unseen language spoken by God to your heart that your spirit comprehends, even though we cannot explain it with our human tongue, it is spoken and imprinted upon our hearts by the Spirit of the living God within us. In that unseen language His word transcends my human knowledge and opens a line of communicate between us and God in all of its glory and wonder. We will find ourselves lost in the depth of His love, as a child nursing at its mother’s breast. We will be compelled by His Spirit, and amazed as we encounter what the flesh cannot comprehend.
The Lord invites you to expand your spirit and see things beyond what your human eyes can behold and you begin to see things through your spirit. This is where the fullness and richness of life lies and awaits you, in God’s love.
He pours out his love upon each one of us every second every day. His love is our everything. Even when we are unaware He is working in love, behind the scenes protecting us from danger and saving us from you from catastrophe. His love gives us strength, energy and the will to go on when we desperately needed it. If we will but look closely at all those many very wonderful and unexpected things that occur in our lives, you will see the deep love of God at the center of all our joy, happiness and success.
John 3:16
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
Saturday, November 24, 2012
Download "Murder Dem" by Zubidagr8est
http://t.co/icriQ8lN Have you heard this sound from Zubidagr8test? Its titled "Murder Dem" oh he really killed this one now, download, listen and enjoy! Don't worry thank me later.. *wink*
Download Asa Nwa By Mr Raw!
Download Asa Nwa By Mr Raw!
OH, WHY CAMILA
Camila was only 18 when she met bobby who was 23, they were young and vibrant Lovers and have dated for nine years,they were so inlove that they didn't think of the consequences of an oath before taking one.. They both bound themselves in an oath never to leave each other,their lives were beautiful together and they were the most happy people. Camila turned down suitors as well as bobby turned who down every form of seduction from women cause he was very handsome too but above all dedicated to his woman.
Nine years later bobby was ready for marriage and on the 14th of February he surprised camila by proposing to her in front of his friends and family members,camila smiled and with so much excitement stretched out her fingers as bobby happily put a ring on her finger,their happiness knew no bound and the marriage plan began!
Bobby went to her village and paid her bride price, the both families were happy as well as bobby and camila,loosing each other was their greatest fear,and i call that "power of Love". After their traditional marriage camila still didn't move in with bobby and was waiting for the white wedding which they were preparing for, 2weeks for their wedding-invites to be out it crossed their minds to check their blood groups and geno-type and other necessary tests couples should run before marriage and off they went to the hospital and after the test they went to their houses in happiness.
A day later they went back to the hospital to get their results,the doctor handed over their results to them and happily they read through with smile on their faces only to realise camila's genotype was (AS )and Bobby's genotype was (AS) that's was the greatest shock of their lives,on reading that camila collapsed!
What would you do if you were in their shoes?
Hope you enjoyed this real and touchy story?
You need to know what happened next? I'll tell you, just stick around *wink*
Nine years later bobby was ready for marriage and on the 14th of February he surprised camila by proposing to her in front of his friends and family members,camila smiled and with so much excitement stretched out her fingers as bobby happily put a ring on her finger,their happiness knew no bound and the marriage plan began!
Bobby went to her village and paid her bride price, the both families were happy as well as bobby and camila,loosing each other was their greatest fear,and i call that "power of Love". After their traditional marriage camila still didn't move in with bobby and was waiting for the white wedding which they were preparing for, 2weeks for their wedding-invites to be out it crossed their minds to check their blood groups and geno-type and other necessary tests couples should run before marriage and off they went to the hospital and after the test they went to their houses in happiness.
A day later they went back to the hospital to get their results,the doctor handed over their results to them and happily they read through with smile on their faces only to realise camila's genotype was (AS )and Bobby's genotype was (AS) that's was the greatest shock of their lives,on reading that camila collapsed!
What would you do if you were in their shoes?
Hope you enjoyed this real and touchy story?
You need to know what happened next? I'll tell you, just stick around *wink*
Friday, November 23, 2012
God's Word About Love
What does the good book have to say about everyone's favorite subject at this time of the year -- love?
Describing a biblical view of love turns out to be no simple matter. First off, the Bible was written in both Hebrew and Greek, and each of these languages has multiple words that we translate as "love." (On this count, Hebrew wins out with about a dozen words expressing a range of emotions from sexual desire to intimate friendship, and from covenantal fidelity to acts of mercy and kindness.)
There are also understandings of love floating around among different authors. So what the author of the Song of Solomon says about love isn't the same as what the author(s) of Genesis say, which isn't the same as what John says, which isn't the same as Paul ... and so on. All of which means that not only is there no single view of love in the Bible but any larger scheme you propose by which to organize these various treatises on love will inevitably fall short.
Nevertheless it may still be a useful, if far from perfect, endeavor. To get at it, I'll borrow the classic formula that distinguishes between three Greek words: eros, romantic, passionate love, from which we get our word "erotic"; phileo, the love of great friends and siblings, from which we get "Philadelphia," the "city of brotherly love"; and agape, parental, self-sacrificing love that seeks only the welfare of the other. All three kinds of love are represented in the Bible, which means that all three are considered to be created and blessed by God.
Eros is the emotion we probably think of first when thinking of love, especially the love of Valentine's Day and pop music. While the word itself is not present in the Greek New Testament, it depicts the passionate desire that unites lover and beloved praised in the Song of Solomon. Its presence in the Bible testifies not only that humans are moved by beauty and desire, but also that passion, romance, and sexual intimacy are an essential element of God's good creation and the human experience.
Phileo, in contrast, is a more stable and constant emotion. Constancy not withstanding, however, phileo it is also a powerful emotion that captures the love of great friends. Jesus weeps for Lazarus, whom he loved (phileo) (John 11:35), while Jonathan and David share a bond so strong that it induces Jonathan to forsake allegiance to his father in support of his beloved friend. Phileo is ultimately not about passion as much as it is about commitment, the love that binds one to another in enduring friendship.
Agape dominates the New Testament but is more rare in contemporary literature of the Greek-speaking world of the first century. Scholars agree that it best captures what we might call "Christian love." Agape depicts the self-sacrificing love of a parent for a child and describes both God's love for the world as shown in Christ and the love Christians should show each other and all people. As to the former, think of Tim Tebow's - and, indeed, the world's - favorite Bible verse: "For God so loved - agape - the world that he gave his only Son..." (John 3:16). As to the latter, think of Paul's great hymn to love: "Love - agape - is patient and kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends" (1 Cor. 13:4-8a).
As nice and neat as these distinctions are, however, as soon as you make them you begin to watch them unravel. For many have wondered if Jonathan's friendship with David was not tinged with a hint of eros even as it also embodies the self-sacrificing love of agape. And, truth be told, agape and phileo are often used interchangeably in the New Testament. Jesus, as it turns out, loves Lazarus in terms of both phileo (John 11:35) and agape (11:5). And while Paul at points depicts marriage as a remedy for the consuming, burning passions of sexual desire we associate with eros (1 Cor. 7:9), he - or at least his disciples - also expect husbands and wives to exhibit agape for each other by being subject to each other as Christ loved and sacrificed himself for the Church (Ephesians 5). What, then, are we to make of "love" in the Bible?
But maybe this somewhat blurry picture of love suits the complicated nature of the subject at hand. I mean, even Valentine's Day itself has a peculiar and complex history. Originally named for a saint (or saints, depending on the tradition) that were martyred for their commitment to their faith, over the centuries Valentine's Day came to epitomize the romantic ardor of lovers represented by the Roman god of desire, Cupid (the Romanized version of the Greek god Eros). And today one might be forgiven for thinking that V-Day is mainly about love for chocolate and lingerie.
Perhaps, then, the Bible's convoluted treatment is fitting. After all, isn't this mixture of emotions and motivations pretty representative of our experience? We love our partners and our children and our pets and friend and, if we're lucky, our jobs and hobbies and much more, but not all in the same way. And even our love for a single person varies and changes, not just over the years, but over the span of moments, as passion can turn to tenderness, which can turn to a desire to protect and serve, and then turn back to desire, all between the beats of a simultaneously fickle and courageous heart. In light of this, maybe the best we can say is that love in the Bible, like love in our everyday lives, is important, complicated, and at times a bit squishy. That is, it is too powerful and mysterious to be fully defined or grasped by any of us.
So perhaps for now it's enough to recognize that all the different kinds of love we have explored are part and parcel of our life in this world, that God created and blessed them for our nurture, and that behind and beyond all of our expressions of love is God's love for each of us. That's not everything we could say, of course, but I think that if we get that much straight we've probably gotten the heart of what the Bible has to say about love.
Describing a biblical view of love turns out to be no simple matter. First off, the Bible was written in both Hebrew and Greek, and each of these languages has multiple words that we translate as "love." (On this count, Hebrew wins out with about a dozen words expressing a range of emotions from sexual desire to intimate friendship, and from covenantal fidelity to acts of mercy and kindness.)
There are also understandings of love floating around among different authors. So what the author of the Song of Solomon says about love isn't the same as what the author(s) of Genesis say, which isn't the same as what John says, which isn't the same as Paul ... and so on. All of which means that not only is there no single view of love in the Bible but any larger scheme you propose by which to organize these various treatises on love will inevitably fall short.
Nevertheless it may still be a useful, if far from perfect, endeavor. To get at it, I'll borrow the classic formula that distinguishes between three Greek words: eros, romantic, passionate love, from which we get our word "erotic"; phileo, the love of great friends and siblings, from which we get "Philadelphia," the "city of brotherly love"; and agape, parental, self-sacrificing love that seeks only the welfare of the other. All three kinds of love are represented in the Bible, which means that all three are considered to be created and blessed by God.
Eros is the emotion we probably think of first when thinking of love, especially the love of Valentine's Day and pop music. While the word itself is not present in the Greek New Testament, it depicts the passionate desire that unites lover and beloved praised in the Song of Solomon. Its presence in the Bible testifies not only that humans are moved by beauty and desire, but also that passion, romance, and sexual intimacy are an essential element of God's good creation and the human experience.
Phileo, in contrast, is a more stable and constant emotion. Constancy not withstanding, however, phileo it is also a powerful emotion that captures the love of great friends. Jesus weeps for Lazarus, whom he loved (phileo) (John 11:35), while Jonathan and David share a bond so strong that it induces Jonathan to forsake allegiance to his father in support of his beloved friend. Phileo is ultimately not about passion as much as it is about commitment, the love that binds one to another in enduring friendship.
Agape dominates the New Testament but is more rare in contemporary literature of the Greek-speaking world of the first century. Scholars agree that it best captures what we might call "Christian love." Agape depicts the self-sacrificing love of a parent for a child and describes both God's love for the world as shown in Christ and the love Christians should show each other and all people. As to the former, think of Tim Tebow's - and, indeed, the world's - favorite Bible verse: "For God so loved - agape - the world that he gave his only Son..." (John 3:16). As to the latter, think of Paul's great hymn to love: "Love - agape - is patient and kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends" (1 Cor. 13:4-8a).
As nice and neat as these distinctions are, however, as soon as you make them you begin to watch them unravel. For many have wondered if Jonathan's friendship with David was not tinged with a hint of eros even as it also embodies the self-sacrificing love of agape. And, truth be told, agape and phileo are often used interchangeably in the New Testament. Jesus, as it turns out, loves Lazarus in terms of both phileo (John 11:35) and agape (11:5). And while Paul at points depicts marriage as a remedy for the consuming, burning passions of sexual desire we associate with eros (1 Cor. 7:9), he - or at least his disciples - also expect husbands and wives to exhibit agape for each other by being subject to each other as Christ loved and sacrificed himself for the Church (Ephesians 5). What, then, are we to make of "love" in the Bible?
But maybe this somewhat blurry picture of love suits the complicated nature of the subject at hand. I mean, even Valentine's Day itself has a peculiar and complex history. Originally named for a saint (or saints, depending on the tradition) that were martyred for their commitment to their faith, over the centuries Valentine's Day came to epitomize the romantic ardor of lovers represented by the Roman god of desire, Cupid (the Romanized version of the Greek god Eros). And today one might be forgiven for thinking that V-Day is mainly about love for chocolate and lingerie.
Perhaps, then, the Bible's convoluted treatment is fitting. After all, isn't this mixture of emotions and motivations pretty representative of our experience? We love our partners and our children and our pets and friend and, if we're lucky, our jobs and hobbies and much more, but not all in the same way. And even our love for a single person varies and changes, not just over the years, but over the span of moments, as passion can turn to tenderness, which can turn to a desire to protect and serve, and then turn back to desire, all between the beats of a simultaneously fickle and courageous heart. In light of this, maybe the best we can say is that love in the Bible, like love in our everyday lives, is important, complicated, and at times a bit squishy. That is, it is too powerful and mysterious to be fully defined or grasped by any of us.
So perhaps for now it's enough to recognize that all the different kinds of love we have explored are part and parcel of our life in this world, that God created and blessed them for our nurture, and that behind and beyond all of our expressions of love is God's love for each of us. That's not everything we could say, of course, but I think that if we get that much straight we've probably gotten the heart of what the Bible has to say about love.
Thursday, November 22, 2012
LOVE AND ROMANCE
We've all experienced love. We've loved (and been loved by) parents, brothers, sisters, friends, even pets. But romantic love is different. It's an intense, new feeling unlike any of these other ways of loving.
Why Do We Fall in Love?
Loving and being loved adds richness to our lives. When people feel close to others they are happier and even healthier. Love helps us feel important, understood, and secure.
But each kind of love has its own distinctive feel. The kind of love we feel for a parent is different from our love for a baby brother or best friend. And the kind of love we feel in romantic relationships is its own unique type of love.
Our ability to feel romantic love develops during adolescence. Teens all over the world notice passionate feelings of attraction. Even in cultures where people are not allowed to act on or express these feelings, they're still there. It's a natural part of growing up to develop romantic feelings and sexual attractions to others. These new feelings can be exciting — or even confusing at first.
The Magical Ingredients of Love Relationships
Love is such a powerful human emotion that experts are constantly studying it. They've discovered that love has three main qualities:
Attraction is the "chemistry" part of love. It's all about the physical — even sexual — interest that two people have in each other. Attraction is responsible for the desire we feel to kiss and hold the object of our affection. Attraction is also what's behind the flushed, nervous-but-excited way we feel when that person is near.
Closeness is the bond that develops when we share thoughts and feelings that we don't share with anyone else. When you have this feeling of closeness with your boyfriend or girlfriend, you feel supported, cared for, understood, and accepted for who you are. Trust is a big part of this.
Commitment is the promise or decision to stick by the other person through the ups and downs of the relationship.
These three qualities of love can be combined in different ways to make different kinds of relationships. For example, closeness without attraction is the kind of love we feel for best friends. We share secrets and personal stuff with them, we support them, and they stand by us. But we are not romantically interested in them.
Attraction without closeness is more like a crush or infatuation. You're attracted to someone physically but don't know the person well enough yet to feel the closeness that comes from sharing personal experiences and feelings.
Romantic love is when attraction and closeness are combined. Lots of relationships grow out of an initial attraction (a crush or "love at first sight") and develop into closeness. It's also possible for a friendship to move from closeness into attraction as two people realize their relationship is more than "just like" and they have become interested in one another in a romantic way.
For people falling in love for the first time, it can be hard to tell the difference between the intense, new feelings of physical attraction and the deeper closeness that goes with being in love.
Lasting Love or Fun Fling?
The third ingredient in a love relationship, commitment, is about wanting and deciding to stay together as a couple in the future — despite any changes and challenges that life brings.
Sometimes couples who fall in love in high school develop committed relationships that last. Many relationships don't last, though. But it's not because teens aren't capable of deep loving.
We typically have shorter relationships as teens because adolescence is a time when we instinctively seek lots of different experiences and try out different things. It's all part of discovering who we are, what we value, and what we want out of life.
Another reason we tend to have shorter relationships in our teens is because the things we want to get out of a romantic relationship change as we get a little older. In our teens — especially for guys — relationships are mainly about physical attraction. But by the time guys reach 20 or so, they rate a person's inner qualities as most important. Teen girls emphasize closeness as most important — although they don't mind if a potential love interest is cute too!
In our teens, relationships are mostly about having fun. Dating can seem like a great way to have someone to go places with and do things with. Dating can also be a way to fit in. If our friends are all dating someone, we might put pressure on ourselves to find a boyfriend or girlfriend too.
For some people dating is even a status thing. It can almost seem like another version of cliques: The pressure to go out with the "right" person in the "right" group can make dating a lot less fun than it should be — and not so much about love!
In our late teens, though, relationships are less about going out to have fun and fitting in. Closeness, sharing, and confiding become more important to both guys and girls. By the time they reach their twenties, most girls and guys value support, closeness, and communication, as well as passion. This is the time when people start thinking about finding someone they can commit to in the long run — a love that will last.
What Makes a Good Relationship?
When people first experience falling in love, it often starts as attraction. Sexual feelings can also be a part of this attraction. People at this stage might daydream about a crush or a new BF or GF. They may doodle the person's name or think of their special someone while a particular song is playing.
It sure feels like love. But it's not love yet. It hasn't had time to grow into emotional closeness that's needed for love. Because feelings of attraction and sexual interest are new, and they're directed at a person we want a relationship with, it's not surprising we confuse attraction with love. It's all so intense, exciting, and hard to sort out.
The crazy intensity of the passion and attraction phase fades a bit after a while. Like putting all our energy into winning a race, this kind of passion is exhilarating but far too extreme to keep going forever. If a relationship is destined to last, this is where closeness enters the picture. The early passionate intensity may fade, but a deep affectionate attachment takes its place.
Some of the ways people grow close are:
Learning to give and receive. A healthy relationship is about both people, not how much one person can get from (or give to) the other.
Revealing feelings. A supportive, caring relationship allows people to reveal details about themselves — their likes and dislikes, dreams and worries, proud moments, disappointments, fears, and weaknesses.
Listening and supporting. When two people care, they offer support when the other person is feeling vulnerable or afraid. They don't put down or insult their partner, even when they disagree.
Giving, receiving, revealing, and supporting is a back-and-forth process: One person shares a detail, then the other person shares something, then the first person feels safe enough to share a little more. In this way, the relationship gradually builds into a place of openness, trust, and support where each partner knows that the other will be there when times are tough. Both feel liked and accepted for who they are.
The passion and attraction the couple felt early on in the relationship isn't lost. It's just different. In healthy, long-term relationships, couples often find that intense passion comes and goes at different times. But the closeness is always there.
Sometimes, though, a couple loses the closeness. For adults, relationships can sometimes turn into what experts call "empty love." This means that the closeness and attraction they once felt is gone, and they stay together only out of commitment. This is not usually a problem for teens, but there are other reasons why relationships end.
Why Do Relationships End?
Love is delicate. It needs to be cared for and nurtured if it is to last through time. Just like friendships, relationships can fail if they are not given enough time and attention. This is one reason why some couples might not last — perhaps someone is so busy with school, extracurriculars, and work that he or she has less time for a relationship. Or maybe a relationship ends when people graduate and go to separate colleges or take different career paths.
For some teens, a couple may grow apart because the things that are important to them change as they mature. Or maybe each person wants different things out of the relationship. Sometimes both people realize the relationship has reached its end; sometimes one person feels this way when the other does not.
Moving On
Losing love can be painful for anyone. But if it's your first real love and the relationship ends before you want it to, feelings of loss can seem overwhelming. Like the feelings of passion early in the relationship, the newness and rawness of grief and loss can be intense — and devastating. There's a reason why they call it a broken heart.
When a relationship ends, people really need support. Losing a first love isn't something we've been emotionally prepared to cope with. It can help to have close friends and family members to lean on. Unfortunately, lots of people — often adults — expect younger people to bounce back and "just get over it." If your heart is broken, find someone you can talk to who really understands the pain you're going through.
It seems hard to believe when you're brokenhearted that you can ever feel better. But gradually these feelings grow less intense. Eventually, people move on to other relationships and experiences.
Relationships — whether they last 2 weeks, 2 months, 2 years, or a lifetime — are all opportunities to experience love on its many different levels. We learn both how to love and how to be loved in return.
Romance provides us with a chance to discover our own selves as we share with someone new. We learn the things we love about ourselves, the things we'd like to change, and the qualities and values we look for in a partner.
Loving relationships teach us self-respect as well as respect for others. Love is one of the most fulfilling things we can have in our lives. If romance hasn't found you yet, don't worry — there's plenty of time. And the right person is worth the wait.
Why Do We Fall in Love?
Loving and being loved adds richness to our lives. When people feel close to others they are happier and even healthier. Love helps us feel important, understood, and secure.
But each kind of love has its own distinctive feel. The kind of love we feel for a parent is different from our love for a baby brother or best friend. And the kind of love we feel in romantic relationships is its own unique type of love.
Our ability to feel romantic love develops during adolescence. Teens all over the world notice passionate feelings of attraction. Even in cultures where people are not allowed to act on or express these feelings, they're still there. It's a natural part of growing up to develop romantic feelings and sexual attractions to others. These new feelings can be exciting — or even confusing at first.
The Magical Ingredients of Love Relationships
Love is such a powerful human emotion that experts are constantly studying it. They've discovered that love has three main qualities:
Attraction is the "chemistry" part of love. It's all about the physical — even sexual — interest that two people have in each other. Attraction is responsible for the desire we feel to kiss and hold the object of our affection. Attraction is also what's behind the flushed, nervous-but-excited way we feel when that person is near.
Closeness is the bond that develops when we share thoughts and feelings that we don't share with anyone else. When you have this feeling of closeness with your boyfriend or girlfriend, you feel supported, cared for, understood, and accepted for who you are. Trust is a big part of this.
Commitment is the promise or decision to stick by the other person through the ups and downs of the relationship.
These three qualities of love can be combined in different ways to make different kinds of relationships. For example, closeness without attraction is the kind of love we feel for best friends. We share secrets and personal stuff with them, we support them, and they stand by us. But we are not romantically interested in them.
Attraction without closeness is more like a crush or infatuation. You're attracted to someone physically but don't know the person well enough yet to feel the closeness that comes from sharing personal experiences and feelings.
Romantic love is when attraction and closeness are combined. Lots of relationships grow out of an initial attraction (a crush or "love at first sight") and develop into closeness. It's also possible for a friendship to move from closeness into attraction as two people realize their relationship is more than "just like" and they have become interested in one another in a romantic way.
For people falling in love for the first time, it can be hard to tell the difference between the intense, new feelings of physical attraction and the deeper closeness that goes with being in love.
Lasting Love or Fun Fling?
The third ingredient in a love relationship, commitment, is about wanting and deciding to stay together as a couple in the future — despite any changes and challenges that life brings.
Sometimes couples who fall in love in high school develop committed relationships that last. Many relationships don't last, though. But it's not because teens aren't capable of deep loving.
We typically have shorter relationships as teens because adolescence is a time when we instinctively seek lots of different experiences and try out different things. It's all part of discovering who we are, what we value, and what we want out of life.
Another reason we tend to have shorter relationships in our teens is because the things we want to get out of a romantic relationship change as we get a little older. In our teens — especially for guys — relationships are mainly about physical attraction. But by the time guys reach 20 or so, they rate a person's inner qualities as most important. Teen girls emphasize closeness as most important — although they don't mind if a potential love interest is cute too!
In our teens, relationships are mostly about having fun. Dating can seem like a great way to have someone to go places with and do things with. Dating can also be a way to fit in. If our friends are all dating someone, we might put pressure on ourselves to find a boyfriend or girlfriend too.
For some people dating is even a status thing. It can almost seem like another version of cliques: The pressure to go out with the "right" person in the "right" group can make dating a lot less fun than it should be — and not so much about love!
In our late teens, though, relationships are less about going out to have fun and fitting in. Closeness, sharing, and confiding become more important to both guys and girls. By the time they reach their twenties, most girls and guys value support, closeness, and communication, as well as passion. This is the time when people start thinking about finding someone they can commit to in the long run — a love that will last.
What Makes a Good Relationship?
When people first experience falling in love, it often starts as attraction. Sexual feelings can also be a part of this attraction. People at this stage might daydream about a crush or a new BF or GF. They may doodle the person's name or think of their special someone while a particular song is playing.
It sure feels like love. But it's not love yet. It hasn't had time to grow into emotional closeness that's needed for love. Because feelings of attraction and sexual interest are new, and they're directed at a person we want a relationship with, it's not surprising we confuse attraction with love. It's all so intense, exciting, and hard to sort out.
The crazy intensity of the passion and attraction phase fades a bit after a while. Like putting all our energy into winning a race, this kind of passion is exhilarating but far too extreme to keep going forever. If a relationship is destined to last, this is where closeness enters the picture. The early passionate intensity may fade, but a deep affectionate attachment takes its place.
Some of the ways people grow close are:
Learning to give and receive. A healthy relationship is about both people, not how much one person can get from (or give to) the other.
Revealing feelings. A supportive, caring relationship allows people to reveal details about themselves — their likes and dislikes, dreams and worries, proud moments, disappointments, fears, and weaknesses.
Listening and supporting. When two people care, they offer support when the other person is feeling vulnerable or afraid. They don't put down or insult their partner, even when they disagree.
Giving, receiving, revealing, and supporting is a back-and-forth process: One person shares a detail, then the other person shares something, then the first person feels safe enough to share a little more. In this way, the relationship gradually builds into a place of openness, trust, and support where each partner knows that the other will be there when times are tough. Both feel liked and accepted for who they are.
The passion and attraction the couple felt early on in the relationship isn't lost. It's just different. In healthy, long-term relationships, couples often find that intense passion comes and goes at different times. But the closeness is always there.
Sometimes, though, a couple loses the closeness. For adults, relationships can sometimes turn into what experts call "empty love." This means that the closeness and attraction they once felt is gone, and they stay together only out of commitment. This is not usually a problem for teens, but there are other reasons why relationships end.
Why Do Relationships End?
Love is delicate. It needs to be cared for and nurtured if it is to last through time. Just like friendships, relationships can fail if they are not given enough time and attention. This is one reason why some couples might not last — perhaps someone is so busy with school, extracurriculars, and work that he or she has less time for a relationship. Or maybe a relationship ends when people graduate and go to separate colleges or take different career paths.
For some teens, a couple may grow apart because the things that are important to them change as they mature. Or maybe each person wants different things out of the relationship. Sometimes both people realize the relationship has reached its end; sometimes one person feels this way when the other does not.
Moving On
Losing love can be painful for anyone. But if it's your first real love and the relationship ends before you want it to, feelings of loss can seem overwhelming. Like the feelings of passion early in the relationship, the newness and rawness of grief and loss can be intense — and devastating. There's a reason why they call it a broken heart.
When a relationship ends, people really need support. Losing a first love isn't something we've been emotionally prepared to cope with. It can help to have close friends and family members to lean on. Unfortunately, lots of people — often adults — expect younger people to bounce back and "just get over it." If your heart is broken, find someone you can talk to who really understands the pain you're going through.
It seems hard to believe when you're brokenhearted that you can ever feel better. But gradually these feelings grow less intense. Eventually, people move on to other relationships and experiences.
Relationships — whether they last 2 weeks, 2 months, 2 years, or a lifetime — are all opportunities to experience love on its many different levels. We learn both how to love and how to be loved in return.
Romance provides us with a chance to discover our own selves as we share with someone new. We learn the things we love about ourselves, the things we'd like to change, and the qualities and values we look for in a partner.
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Advice on Lying, Infidelity and Cheating Spouses
The truth is rarely pure and never simple.--Oscar Wilde
Discovering infidelity, or deception by a loved one, creates a lot of uncertainty. We try to help couples work through their questions and concerns by providing an in-depth look at lying and cheating in romantic relationships.
We offer information and advice for dealing with a cheating spouse or a boyfriend or girlfriend who lies. We also provide information about rebuilding trust, dealing with jealousy, resolving conflict, falling in love, and creating a healthy relationship.
Dealing with a Lying and Cheating Spouse
Initially, most people approach the topic of lying and infidelity somewhat reluctantly - driven by their curiosity or by a recent, unexpected discovery.
For better or for worse, our romantic relationships are not always as straightforward as we would like them to be. From time to time, our intimate relationships can become complicated and complex - full of contradictions and inconsistencies.
When it comes to love and marriage, people expect a spouse to be completely honest. But, at the same time, everyone values their sense of freedom and privacy. So while romantic partners typically want to please each other, at other times, couples experience competing goals which can make telling the truth more difficult (see, when lovers lie).
As it stands, our close relationships involve a lot of truth telling as well as some dishonesty.
If love was straightforward and unchanging, that would be easy to acknowledge. But, when you take a close look at the nature of love and romance, one thing becomes clear: Love creates both happiness and heartache, opportunities and constraints, joy and sorrow.
For the most part, spouses are considerate, honest and kind (see, healthy relationships). But at the same time, husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends, betray those they love. Deception comes in handy when people want to limit their partner's choices, avoid conflict or punishment, or when people want to influence their partner's behavior.
While it is not uncommon for people to lie and cheat, it is difficult to accept that one's own husband or wife might be doing so (see, cheating spouse). Who hasn't caught a boyfriend or girlfriend lying only to have him or her deny it - "I would never lie to you."
Not only can our close relationships sometimes cause heartache and anxiety, but it's also difficult to discuss lying and cheating out in the open. When you mention the possibility that love and betrayal might go hand-in-hand, people tend to get angry or they become defensive.
We know how disheartening it is to deal with these issues. But, disheartening or not, deception and infidelity are important to understand.
As such, this website provides an opportunity to explore this fundamental, but rarely discussed aspect of our intimate relationships: How to deal with a lying and cheating spouse.
Even in the best of circumstances, it can be difficult to know what to believe. Many people struggle with their suspicions and concerns (see - for facts and advice on a cheating husband or a cheating wife).
For example, people often wonder...
Is my husband just being flirtatious or could he be tempted to cheat?
When I ask my wife a question, why doesn't she look me in the eye?
How come my girlfriend doesn't answer her phone?
Why is my partner working so late?
What's causing my boyfriend be so distant lately?
Is there an innocent explanation for everything that happens? Or could you simply be reading too much into what's going on? The truth is not always easy to discern (see, signs of a cheating spouse).
Actually having to investigate a spouse can quickly turn into a never-ending challenge. More often than not, this happens because a cheating spouse will rarely admit the truth even when confronted with evidence of his or her guilt (see, how to catch a cheating spouse).
Sadly enough, some level of suspicion might actually be warranted from time to time. Research indicates that if you want to look for deception in your own life, the best place to start is close to home. Lovers often lie about their true feelings for each other, the feelings they have for others, their level of commitment, their whereabouts... And people tend to tell their most serious and consequential lies to those they love (see, what lovers lie about and secrets lovers keep).
At one extreme, some husbands and wives never plan on being faithful. While millions of other husbands and wives, who never intended to commit infidelity, nevertheless, still end up doing so (calculate how closely your spouse fits the profile of someone who is likely to cheat - infidelity quiz or take our cheating spouse survey).
To make matters more complicated, detecting deception, or infidelity, is never as easy as people think (see, detecting deception). Not only can it be difficult to investigate a spouse, but doing so also raises a host of relational, ethical, and legal concerns - issues which are important to consider before starting to monitor a spouse (see, gps cheating spouse).
In any case, most of the lies lovers tell go undetected because people downplay the risks that a partner would lie and most people over estimate their ability to spot their partner's lies (see, tell if a lover is lying).
For the most part, the strategy of "assuming the best" works fairly well, until the day comes when it does not, and with little warning or preparation we have to confront the reality that our close relationships are not exactly what they appear to be.
Eventually, almost everyone will catch a partner in a lie. Often, it amounts to uncovering nothing more than catching a spouse telling a small, white lie. Of course, sometimes it also involves something much more serious such as infidelity (see, why men cheat and why women cheat).
When deception is uncovered, even finding out the truth about a small, white lie can lead to problems such as increased suspicion and doubt. If your spouse is willing to bend the truth about something trivial, what about something that really matters?
When something much more serious is uncovered, people have a difficult time coping with what they have learned and dealing with the fact that someone close to them has betrayed their trust (see, steps for rebuilding trust).
It’s not so much that coming to terms with deception will solve all of the problems that people are going to encounter, but it will certainty help to reduce the stress, anxiety, and uncertainty that occurs when deception comes to light.
Discovering infidelity, or deception by a loved one, creates a lot of uncertainty. We try to help couples work through their questions and concerns by providing an in-depth look at lying and cheating in romantic relationships.
We offer information and advice for dealing with a cheating spouse or a boyfriend or girlfriend who lies. We also provide information about rebuilding trust, dealing with jealousy, resolving conflict, falling in love, and creating a healthy relationship.
Dealing with a Lying and Cheating Spouse
Initially, most people approach the topic of lying and infidelity somewhat reluctantly - driven by their curiosity or by a recent, unexpected discovery.
For better or for worse, our romantic relationships are not always as straightforward as we would like them to be. From time to time, our intimate relationships can become complicated and complex - full of contradictions and inconsistencies.
When it comes to love and marriage, people expect a spouse to be completely honest. But, at the same time, everyone values their sense of freedom and privacy. So while romantic partners typically want to please each other, at other times, couples experience competing goals which can make telling the truth more difficult (see, when lovers lie).
As it stands, our close relationships involve a lot of truth telling as well as some dishonesty.
If love was straightforward and unchanging, that would be easy to acknowledge. But, when you take a close look at the nature of love and romance, one thing becomes clear: Love creates both happiness and heartache, opportunities and constraints, joy and sorrow.
For the most part, spouses are considerate, honest and kind (see, healthy relationships). But at the same time, husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends, betray those they love. Deception comes in handy when people want to limit their partner's choices, avoid conflict or punishment, or when people want to influence their partner's behavior.
While it is not uncommon for people to lie and cheat, it is difficult to accept that one's own husband or wife might be doing so (see, cheating spouse). Who hasn't caught a boyfriend or girlfriend lying only to have him or her deny it - "I would never lie to you."
Not only can our close relationships sometimes cause heartache and anxiety, but it's also difficult to discuss lying and cheating out in the open. When you mention the possibility that love and betrayal might go hand-in-hand, people tend to get angry or they become defensive.
We know how disheartening it is to deal with these issues. But, disheartening or not, deception and infidelity are important to understand.
As such, this website provides an opportunity to explore this fundamental, but rarely discussed aspect of our intimate relationships: How to deal with a lying and cheating spouse.
Even in the best of circumstances, it can be difficult to know what to believe. Many people struggle with their suspicions and concerns (see - for facts and advice on a cheating husband or a cheating wife).
For example, people often wonder...
Is my husband just being flirtatious or could he be tempted to cheat?
When I ask my wife a question, why doesn't she look me in the eye?
How come my girlfriend doesn't answer her phone?
Why is my partner working so late?
What's causing my boyfriend be so distant lately?
Is there an innocent explanation for everything that happens? Or could you simply be reading too much into what's going on? The truth is not always easy to discern (see, signs of a cheating spouse).
Actually having to investigate a spouse can quickly turn into a never-ending challenge. More often than not, this happens because a cheating spouse will rarely admit the truth even when confronted with evidence of his or her guilt (see, how to catch a cheating spouse).
Sadly enough, some level of suspicion might actually be warranted from time to time. Research indicates that if you want to look for deception in your own life, the best place to start is close to home. Lovers often lie about their true feelings for each other, the feelings they have for others, their level of commitment, their whereabouts... And people tend to tell their most serious and consequential lies to those they love (see, what lovers lie about and secrets lovers keep).
At one extreme, some husbands and wives never plan on being faithful. While millions of other husbands and wives, who never intended to commit infidelity, nevertheless, still end up doing so (calculate how closely your spouse fits the profile of someone who is likely to cheat - infidelity quiz or take our cheating spouse survey).
To make matters more complicated, detecting deception, or infidelity, is never as easy as people think (see, detecting deception). Not only can it be difficult to investigate a spouse, but doing so also raises a host of relational, ethical, and legal concerns - issues which are important to consider before starting to monitor a spouse (see, gps cheating spouse).
In any case, most of the lies lovers tell go undetected because people downplay the risks that a partner would lie and most people over estimate their ability to spot their partner's lies (see, tell if a lover is lying).
For the most part, the strategy of "assuming the best" works fairly well, until the day comes when it does not, and with little warning or preparation we have to confront the reality that our close relationships are not exactly what they appear to be.
Eventually, almost everyone will catch a partner in a lie. Often, it amounts to uncovering nothing more than catching a spouse telling a small, white lie. Of course, sometimes it also involves something much more serious such as infidelity (see, why men cheat and why women cheat).
When deception is uncovered, even finding out the truth about a small, white lie can lead to problems such as increased suspicion and doubt. If your spouse is willing to bend the truth about something trivial, what about something that really matters?
When something much more serious is uncovered, people have a difficult time coping with what they have learned and dealing with the fact that someone close to them has betrayed their trust (see, steps for rebuilding trust).
It’s not so much that coming to terms with deception will solve all of the problems that people are going to encounter, but it will certainty help to reduce the stress, anxiety, and uncertainty that occurs when deception comes to light.
Advice on Lying, Infidelity and Cheating Spouses
The truth is rarely pure and never simple.--Oscar Wilde
Discovering infidelity, or deception by a loved one, creates a lot of uncertainty. We try to help couples work through their questions and concerns by providing an in-depth look at lying and cheating in romantic relationships.
We offer information and advice for dealing with a cheating spouse or a boyfriend or girlfriend who lies. We also provide information about rebuilding trust, dealing with jealousy, resolving conflict, falling in love, and creating a healthy relationship.
Dealing with a Lying and Cheating Spouse
Initially, most people approach the topic of lying and infidelity somewhat reluctantly - driven by their curiosity or by a recent, unexpected discovery.
For better or for worse, our romantic relationships are not always as straightforward as we would like them to be. From time to time, our intimate relationships can become complicated and complex - full of contradictions and inconsistencies.
When it comes to love and marriage, people expect a spouse to be completely honest. But, at the same time, everyone values their sense of freedom and privacy. So while romantic partners typically want to please each other, at other times, couples experience competing goals which can make telling the truth more difficult (see, when lovers lie).
As it stands, our close relationships involve a lot of truth telling as well as some dishonesty.
If love was straightforward and unchanging, that would be easy to acknowledge. But, when you take a close look at the nature of love and romance, one thing becomes clear: Love creates both happiness and heartache, opportunities and constraints, joy and sorrow.
For the most part, spouses are considerate, honest and kind (see, healthy relationships). But at the same time, husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends, betray those they love. Deception comes in handy when people want to limit their partner's choices, avoid conflict or punishment, or when people want to influence their partner's behavior.
While it is not uncommon for people to lie and cheat, it is difficult to accept that one's own husband or wife might be doing so (see, cheating spouse). Who hasn't caught a boyfriend or girlfriend lying only to have him or her deny it - "I would never lie to you."
Not only can our close relationships sometimes cause heartache and anxiety, but it's also difficult to discuss lying and cheating out in the open. When you mention the possibility that love and betrayal might go hand-in-hand, people tend to get angry or they become defensive.
We know how disheartening it is to deal with these issues. But, disheartening or not, deception and infidelity are important to understand.
As such, this website provides an opportunity to explore this fundamental, but rarely discussed aspect of our intimate relationships: How to deal with a lying and cheating spouse.
Even in the best of circumstances, it can be difficult to know what to believe. Many people struggle with their suspicions and concerns (see - for facts and advice on a cheating husband or a cheating wife).
For example, people often wonder...
Is my husband just being flirtatious or could he be tempted to cheat?
When I ask my wife a question, why doesn't she look me in the eye?
How come my girlfriend doesn't answer her phone?
Why is my partner working so late?
What's causing my boyfriend be so distant lately?
Is there an innocent explanation for everything that happens? Or could you simply be reading too much into what's going on? The truth is not always easy to discern (see, signs of a cheating spouse).
Actually having to investigate a spouse can quickly turn into a never-ending challenge. More often than not, this happens because a cheating spouse will rarely admit the truth even when confronted with evidence of his or her guilt (see, how to catch a cheating spouse).
Sadly enough, some level of suspicion might actually be warranted from time to time. Research indicates that if you want to look for deception in your own life, the best place to start is close to home. Lovers often lie about their true feelings for each other, the feelings they have for others, their level of commitment, their whereabouts... And people tend to tell their most serious and consequential lies to those they love (see, what lovers lie about and secrets lovers keep).
At one extreme, some husbands and wives never plan on being faithful. While millions of other husbands and wives, who never intended to commit infidelity, nevertheless, still end up doing so (calculate how closely your spouse fits the profile of someone who is likely to cheat - infidelity quiz or take our cheating spouse survey).
To make matters more complicated, detecting deception, or infidelity, is never as easy as people think (see, detecting deception). Not only can it be difficult to investigate a spouse, but doing so also raises a host of relational, ethical, and legal concerns - issues which are important to consider before starting to monitor a spouse (see, gps cheating spouse).
In any case, most of the lies lovers tell go undetected because people downplay the risks that a partner would lie and most people over estimate their ability to spot their partner's lies (see, tell if a lover is lying).
For the most part, the strategy of "assuming the best" works fairly well, until the day comes when it does not, and with little warning or preparation we have to confront the reality that our close relationships are not exactly what they appear to be.
Eventually, almost everyone will catch a partner in a lie. Often, it amounts to uncovering nothing more than catching a spouse telling a small, white lie. Of course, sometimes it also involves something much more serious such as infidelity (see, why men cheat and why women cheat).
When deception is uncovered, even finding out the truth about a small, white lie can lead to problems such as increased suspicion and doubt. If your spouse is willing to bend the truth about something trivial, what about something that really matters?
When something much more serious is uncovered, people have a difficult time coping with what they have learned and dealing with the fact that someone close to them has betrayed their trust (see, steps for rebuilding trust).
It’s not so much that coming to terms with deception will solve all of the problems that people are going to encounter, but it will certainty help to reduce the stress, anxiety, and uncertainty that occurs when deception comes to light.
Discovering infidelity, or deception by a loved one, creates a lot of uncertainty. We try to help couples work through their questions and concerns by providing an in-depth look at lying and cheating in romantic relationships.
We offer information and advice for dealing with a cheating spouse or a boyfriend or girlfriend who lies. We also provide information about rebuilding trust, dealing with jealousy, resolving conflict, falling in love, and creating a healthy relationship.
Dealing with a Lying and Cheating Spouse
Initially, most people approach the topic of lying and infidelity somewhat reluctantly - driven by their curiosity or by a recent, unexpected discovery.
For better or for worse, our romantic relationships are not always as straightforward as we would like them to be. From time to time, our intimate relationships can become complicated and complex - full of contradictions and inconsistencies.
When it comes to love and marriage, people expect a spouse to be completely honest. But, at the same time, everyone values their sense of freedom and privacy. So while romantic partners typically want to please each other, at other times, couples experience competing goals which can make telling the truth more difficult (see, when lovers lie).
As it stands, our close relationships involve a lot of truth telling as well as some dishonesty.
If love was straightforward and unchanging, that would be easy to acknowledge. But, when you take a close look at the nature of love and romance, one thing becomes clear: Love creates both happiness and heartache, opportunities and constraints, joy and sorrow.
For the most part, spouses are considerate, honest and kind (see, healthy relationships). But at the same time, husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends, betray those they love. Deception comes in handy when people want to limit their partner's choices, avoid conflict or punishment, or when people want to influence their partner's behavior.
While it is not uncommon for people to lie and cheat, it is difficult to accept that one's own husband or wife might be doing so (see, cheating spouse). Who hasn't caught a boyfriend or girlfriend lying only to have him or her deny it - "I would never lie to you."
Not only can our close relationships sometimes cause heartache and anxiety, but it's also difficult to discuss lying and cheating out in the open. When you mention the possibility that love and betrayal might go hand-in-hand, people tend to get angry or they become defensive.
We know how disheartening it is to deal with these issues. But, disheartening or not, deception and infidelity are important to understand.
As such, this website provides an opportunity to explore this fundamental, but rarely discussed aspect of our intimate relationships: How to deal with a lying and cheating spouse.
Even in the best of circumstances, it can be difficult to know what to believe. Many people struggle with their suspicions and concerns (see - for facts and advice on a cheating husband or a cheating wife).
For example, people often wonder...
Is my husband just being flirtatious or could he be tempted to cheat?
When I ask my wife a question, why doesn't she look me in the eye?
How come my girlfriend doesn't answer her phone?
Why is my partner working so late?
What's causing my boyfriend be so distant lately?
Is there an innocent explanation for everything that happens? Or could you simply be reading too much into what's going on? The truth is not always easy to discern (see, signs of a cheating spouse).
Actually having to investigate a spouse can quickly turn into a never-ending challenge. More often than not, this happens because a cheating spouse will rarely admit the truth even when confronted with evidence of his or her guilt (see, how to catch a cheating spouse).
Sadly enough, some level of suspicion might actually be warranted from time to time. Research indicates that if you want to look for deception in your own life, the best place to start is close to home. Lovers often lie about their true feelings for each other, the feelings they have for others, their level of commitment, their whereabouts... And people tend to tell their most serious and consequential lies to those they love (see, what lovers lie about and secrets lovers keep).
At one extreme, some husbands and wives never plan on being faithful. While millions of other husbands and wives, who never intended to commit infidelity, nevertheless, still end up doing so (calculate how closely your spouse fits the profile of someone who is likely to cheat - infidelity quiz or take our cheating spouse survey).
To make matters more complicated, detecting deception, or infidelity, is never as easy as people think (see, detecting deception). Not only can it be difficult to investigate a spouse, but doing so also raises a host of relational, ethical, and legal concerns - issues which are important to consider before starting to monitor a spouse (see, gps cheating spouse).
In any case, most of the lies lovers tell go undetected because people downplay the risks that a partner would lie and most people over estimate their ability to spot their partner's lies (see, tell if a lover is lying).
For the most part, the strategy of "assuming the best" works fairly well, until the day comes when it does not, and with little warning or preparation we have to confront the reality that our close relationships are not exactly what they appear to be.
Eventually, almost everyone will catch a partner in a lie. Often, it amounts to uncovering nothing more than catching a spouse telling a small, white lie. Of course, sometimes it also involves something much more serious such as infidelity (see, why men cheat and why women cheat).
When deception is uncovered, even finding out the truth about a small, white lie can lead to problems such as increased suspicion and doubt. If your spouse is willing to bend the truth about something trivial, what about something that really matters?
When something much more serious is uncovered, people have a difficult time coping with what they have learned and dealing with the fact that someone close to them has betrayed their trust (see, steps for rebuilding trust).
It’s not so much that coming to terms with deception will solve all of the problems that people are going to encounter, but it will certainty help to reduce the stress, anxiety, and uncertainty that occurs when deception comes to light.
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
11 Red Flags Women Should Look Out For
Women all over the world are dreaming and praying about their “Knight in Shining Armor”. However, how many of these women are truly taking the time to get to know their potential knight? Many women fall head over heels for a man based on emotion or a need to gain something. Thus, it is extremely important that emotions and selfish desires are not a decision-making tool when getting to know a man.
Now, before I begin to discuss red flags, I want to make it clear that I am not a fan of fault-finding. However, I am a fan of allowing people to be human. When you allow people to be human, you develop realistic expectations that foster healthy relationship development. When getting to know someone, you have to realize everyone is deeply flawed and no one is going to be perfect, but they may be perfect for you. You have to know your common values and what you stand for to truly know what you need versus what you want.
Everything a man says, does (or doesn’t do), and the things from his past are a part of getting to know him… the good and the bad. Please note: a red flag does not mean you run, but it does mean you avoid a serious courtship.
Here are a few red flags (causes for concern) you should be mindful of:
1. Lack of respect – It is definitely a cause for concern if a man shows a lack of respect for you. Anything you decide is not for you should be respected by him.
2. Rushing to wine and dine you – I know a lot of you will not think this is a cause for concern, but it is. If he is rushing to wine and dine you, he is doing it because he is after something. A man with pure motives is not in a hurry to do anything but wait. He will take his time getting to know you. Adore a man who takes his time and don’t allow your emotions to cloud this truth.
3. Excess – Going overboard in his attempt to charm you.
4. Low expectations – He has limited or no expectations of you. A man who is interested in you for the right reasons expects you to bring something to his life. He is not looking for a trophy or someone to control, but a woman to be an important part of his growth, life and purpose.
5. Drug or alcohol abuse – I don’t drink or do drugs at all, but what we are talking about here is someone who can’t have fun without drinking and has an obvious drug or alcohol problem. Although you cannot have a healthy relationship under these conditions, it would not hurt to suggest help in a tactful way.
6. Anger problems – Uncontrollable anger will always destroy a relationship. It’s very important that we all manage our anger in healthy ways. “Healthy” means the anger should not cause hurt, pain, or destruction. Anger problems are a cry for help. The key here is that he seeks help for his anger and roots out the causes. (Proverbs 22:22-25)
7. Control – A man with control issues is trying to resolve a deep-rooted wound from his lack of being affirmed in love as a child. Just like anger, control issues are a cry for help. “If someone is more like me they will not hurt me” is often the voice a controlling person hears in their head.
8. Dishonesty – Truth is important because it gives you a choice. When people lie it takes away your choice.
9. Selfishness – People who are selfish should never attempt relationships because, unless they change, their relationships will fail. The opposite of selfishness is love. Love is the direct polar opposite of how selfishness operates. Love gives, but selfishness takes.
10. He is fresh out of a relationship – Avoid rebound relationships at all costs.
11. Poor past behavior – Be aware of patterns of past behaviors. Ask about his past relationships
Hope this will help!
Now, before I begin to discuss red flags, I want to make it clear that I am not a fan of fault-finding. However, I am a fan of allowing people to be human. When you allow people to be human, you develop realistic expectations that foster healthy relationship development. When getting to know someone, you have to realize everyone is deeply flawed and no one is going to be perfect, but they may be perfect for you. You have to know your common values and what you stand for to truly know what you need versus what you want.
Everything a man says, does (or doesn’t do), and the things from his past are a part of getting to know him… the good and the bad. Please note: a red flag does not mean you run, but it does mean you avoid a serious courtship.
Here are a few red flags (causes for concern) you should be mindful of:
1. Lack of respect – It is definitely a cause for concern if a man shows a lack of respect for you. Anything you decide is not for you should be respected by him.
2. Rushing to wine and dine you – I know a lot of you will not think this is a cause for concern, but it is. If he is rushing to wine and dine you, he is doing it because he is after something. A man with pure motives is not in a hurry to do anything but wait. He will take his time getting to know you. Adore a man who takes his time and don’t allow your emotions to cloud this truth.
3. Excess – Going overboard in his attempt to charm you.
4. Low expectations – He has limited or no expectations of you. A man who is interested in you for the right reasons expects you to bring something to his life. He is not looking for a trophy or someone to control, but a woman to be an important part of his growth, life and purpose.
5. Drug or alcohol abuse – I don’t drink or do drugs at all, but what we are talking about here is someone who can’t have fun without drinking and has an obvious drug or alcohol problem. Although you cannot have a healthy relationship under these conditions, it would not hurt to suggest help in a tactful way.
6. Anger problems – Uncontrollable anger will always destroy a relationship. It’s very important that we all manage our anger in healthy ways. “Healthy” means the anger should not cause hurt, pain, or destruction. Anger problems are a cry for help. The key here is that he seeks help for his anger and roots out the causes. (Proverbs 22:22-25)
7. Control – A man with control issues is trying to resolve a deep-rooted wound from his lack of being affirmed in love as a child. Just like anger, control issues are a cry for help. “If someone is more like me they will not hurt me” is often the voice a controlling person hears in their head.
8. Dishonesty – Truth is important because it gives you a choice. When people lie it takes away your choice.
9. Selfishness – People who are selfish should never attempt relationships because, unless they change, their relationships will fail. The opposite of selfishness is love. Love is the direct polar opposite of how selfishness operates. Love gives, but selfishness takes.
10. He is fresh out of a relationship – Avoid rebound relationships at all costs.
11. Poor past behavior – Be aware of patterns of past behaviors. Ask about his past relationships
Hope this will help!
11 Red Flags Women Should Look Out For
Women all over the world are dreaming and praying about their “Knight in Shining Armor”. However, how many of these women are truly taking the time to get to know their potential knight? Many women fall head over heels for a man based on emotion or a need to gain something. Thus, it is extremely important that emotions and selfish desires are not a decision-making tool when getting to know a man.
Now, before I begin to discuss red flags, I want to make it clear that I am not a fan of fault-finding. However, I am a fan of allowing people to be human. When you allow people to be human, you develop realistic expectations that foster healthy relationship development. When getting to know someone, you have to realize everyone is deeply flawed and no one is going to be perfect, but they may be perfect for you. You have to know your common values and what you stand for to truly know what you need versus what you want.
Everything a man says, does (or doesn’t do), and the things from his past are a part of getting to know him… the good and the bad. Please note: a red flag does not mean you run, but it does mean you avoid a serious courtship.
Here are a few red flags (causes for concern) you should be mindful of:
1. Lack of respect – It is definitely a cause for concern if a man shows a lack of respect for you. Anything you decide is not for you should be respected by him.
2. Rushing to wine and dine you – I know a lot of you will not think this is a cause for concern, but it is. If he is rushing to wine and dine you, he is doing it because he is after something. A man with pure motives is not in a hurry to do anything but wait. He will take his time getting to know you. Adore a man who takes his time and don’t allow your emotions to cloud this truth.
3. Excess – Going overboard in his attempt to charm you.
4. Low expectations – He has limited or no expectations of you. A man who is interested in you for the right reasons expects you to bring something to his life. He is not looking for a trophy or someone to control, but a woman to be an important part of his growth, life and purpose.
5. Drug or alcohol abuse – I don’t drink or do drugs at all, but what we are talking about here is someone who can’t have fun without drinking and has an obvious drug or alcohol problem. Although you cannot have a healthy relationship under these conditions, it would not hurt to suggest help in a tactful way.
6. Anger problems – Uncontrollable anger will always destroy a relationship. It’s very important that we all manage our anger in healthy ways. “Healthy” means the anger should not cause hurt, pain, or destruction. Anger problems are a cry for help. The key here is that he seeks help for his anger and roots out the causes. (Proverbs 22:22-25)
7. Control – A man with control issues is trying to resolve a deep-rooted wound from his lack of being affirmed in love as a child. Just like anger, control issues are a cry for help. “If someone is more like me they will not hurt me” is often the voice a controlling person hears in their head.
8. Dishonesty – Truth is important because it gives you a choice. When people lie it takes away your choice.
9. Selfishness – People who are selfish should never attempt relationships because, unless they change, their relationships will fail. The opposite of selfishness is love. Love is the direct polar opposite of how selfishness operates. Love gives, but selfishness takes.
10. He is fresh out of a relationship – Avoid rebound relationships at all costs.
11. Poor past behavior – Be aware of patterns of past behaviors. Ask about his past relationships
Hope this will help!
Now, before I begin to discuss red flags, I want to make it clear that I am not a fan of fault-finding. However, I am a fan of allowing people to be human. When you allow people to be human, you develop realistic expectations that foster healthy relationship development. When getting to know someone, you have to realize everyone is deeply flawed and no one is going to be perfect, but they may be perfect for you. You have to know your common values and what you stand for to truly know what you need versus what you want.
Everything a man says, does (or doesn’t do), and the things from his past are a part of getting to know him… the good and the bad. Please note: a red flag does not mean you run, but it does mean you avoid a serious courtship.
Here are a few red flags (causes for concern) you should be mindful of:
1. Lack of respect – It is definitely a cause for concern if a man shows a lack of respect for you. Anything you decide is not for you should be respected by him.
2. Rushing to wine and dine you – I know a lot of you will not think this is a cause for concern, but it is. If he is rushing to wine and dine you, he is doing it because he is after something. A man with pure motives is not in a hurry to do anything but wait. He will take his time getting to know you. Adore a man who takes his time and don’t allow your emotions to cloud this truth.
3. Excess – Going overboard in his attempt to charm you.
4. Low expectations – He has limited or no expectations of you. A man who is interested in you for the right reasons expects you to bring something to his life. He is not looking for a trophy or someone to control, but a woman to be an important part of his growth, life and purpose.
5. Drug or alcohol abuse – I don’t drink or do drugs at all, but what we are talking about here is someone who can’t have fun without drinking and has an obvious drug or alcohol problem. Although you cannot have a healthy relationship under these conditions, it would not hurt to suggest help in a tactful way.
6. Anger problems – Uncontrollable anger will always destroy a relationship. It’s very important that we all manage our anger in healthy ways. “Healthy” means the anger should not cause hurt, pain, or destruction. Anger problems are a cry for help. The key here is that he seeks help for his anger and roots out the causes. (Proverbs 22:22-25)
7. Control – A man with control issues is trying to resolve a deep-rooted wound from his lack of being affirmed in love as a child. Just like anger, control issues are a cry for help. “If someone is more like me they will not hurt me” is often the voice a controlling person hears in their head.
8. Dishonesty – Truth is important because it gives you a choice. When people lie it takes away your choice.
9. Selfishness – People who are selfish should never attempt relationships because, unless they change, their relationships will fail. The opposite of selfishness is love. Love is the direct polar opposite of how selfishness operates. Love gives, but selfishness takes.
10. He is fresh out of a relationship – Avoid rebound relationships at all costs.
11. Poor past behavior – Be aware of patterns of past behaviors. Ask about his past relationships
Hope this will help!
Retaining the Sweetness of Love
To keep love it requires a united effort from both partners
To put the matter concisely:
(1) Love is caused by some attracting vibrations emanating from the two participants which draw each to each.
(2) Thus love depends, not upon the will of the individual, but upon what attracting power is in the other person.
(3) Thus obviously it lies with each to cultivate and continue to project the emanation if either desire to retain the love emotion of the other.
(4) When these points are clearly understood, intelligence can suggest the most suitable methods to use to accomplish the desired end, namely, the retaining of the power to draw love mutually.
So, as in everything we do in life, is it not well to use some intelligence and though over the great matters of Love?
For cynics may say what they please ~ Love is the supreme and only perfect happiness on earth. Everything else is second best ~ often a very good second, but nowhere near the real thing.
So why, when love is bound to come to us all sooner or later, not try to retain its sweetness?
To put the matter concisely:
(1) Love is caused by some attracting vibrations emanating from the two participants which draw each to each.
(2) Thus love depends, not upon the will of the individual, but upon what attracting power is in the other person.
(3) Thus obviously it lies with each to cultivate and continue to project the emanation if either desire to retain the love emotion of the other.
(4) When these points are clearly understood, intelligence can suggest the most suitable methods to use to accomplish the desired end, namely, the retaining of the power to draw love mutually.
So, as in everything we do in life, is it not well to use some intelligence and though over the great matters of Love?
For cynics may say what they please ~ Love is the supreme and only perfect happiness on earth. Everything else is second best ~ often a very good second, but nowhere near the real thing.
So why, when love is bound to come to us all sooner or later, not try to retain its sweetness?
"The Greatest" by Mr Raw officially released today!
Friday, November 16, 2012
OMG!New Single"Murder Dem" by ZubiDagr8est,you don't wanna miss
Whoops whoops! Hey guys! ZubiDagr8est has just dropped a new single "Murder dem" Oh this is so pleasing to the ears and i'm sure you don't wanna miss this, open,download and listen to this beautiful sound by ZubiDagr8est_Murder Dem. http://t.co/Z1URLQM .
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
What Is True Love
True Love is the greatest gift God ever gave man. Love is not wanting to go anywhere without her. Love is not caring what other people think about the two of you. Love is when you feel depressed and sickly when you're not with her. You feel like your life has no meaning or purpose without her. And that if she wasn't holding your hand you would float away to heaven from where she came. Love is caring for her physically and emotionally. It's telling her everyday, anytime, anywhere, anyhow, for no just reason that you love her. Love is telling her u want to spend the rest of your life with her. Love is wanting to marry her even tho ya'll haven't been dating that long. That you would do anything and everything for her. It's the feeling that you would give up everything just to see her smile or look into her beautiful eyes or hear her soft, soothing voice. Love is pure happiness. Love is the feeling you get when all you have to do is think of her and it brings a smile to your face and a yourning to your heart. Love is not being able to think about nething but her. Love is having the sweetest dreams about her and waking up with a smile on ur face. Love is an overwelming feeling of pure bliss when the 2 of u kiss. Love is wanting to hold her in ur arms till the end of time. Love is wishing ur time with her never ends, that your lips would be locked together forever, that she'd be in ur arms till the end of time, that u could cuddle with her for all of eternity. Love is being real.
It only happens once in a lifetime but is the most wonderous thing to ever happen. When your eyes first meet you know deep within your heart that they are the perfect match for you. It is a mutual feeling. Although there may be bumps along the way, true love always wins in the end. True love is also respecting your mate....not putting sexual pressure on them. It is the type of love that still lasts even if your mate loses their legs or suffers terrible burns. It lives on no matter what. True love also is fidelity,honesty, honour and respect. It is where the male follows a code of chivalry, meaning a respect for women, and the woman honours her husband. Apart they are two but together they are one. True love is not based on looks and there is no feeling of lust. If someone has true love they will wait until the bonds of marriage to have sex. They are unselfish and care more about their partner than for themselves.
girl-"This is not a fake love mom, I swear I am truelly in love. I feel no lust or jealousy. Even if I never see him again I would stay true to his memory."
It only happens once in a lifetime but is the most wonderous thing to ever happen. When your eyes first meet you know deep within your heart that they are the perfect match for you. It is a mutual feeling. Although there may be bumps along the way, true love always wins in the end. True love is also respecting your mate....not putting sexual pressure on them. It is the type of love that still lasts even if your mate loses their legs or suffers terrible burns. It lives on no matter what. True love also is fidelity,honesty, honour and respect. It is where the male follows a code of chivalry, meaning a respect for women, and the woman honours her husband. Apart they are two but together they are one. True love is not based on looks and there is no feeling of lust. If someone has true love they will wait until the bonds of marriage to have sex. They are unselfish and care more about their partner than for themselves.
girl-"This is not a fake love mom, I swear I am truelly in love. I feel no lust or jealousy. Even if I never see him again I would stay true to his memory."
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
"HAWKERS" Another Plus For Nollywood
Four Simple But Bad Things That Can Destroy Your Relationship
You have been together for two years and everything is going perfect up to a point. It seems as if you have reached the apex and the only place left to go is down. You are now asking yourself, “What did I do wrong?” Here are four things that can destroy your relationship.
1. Cohabitation—It might seem progressive, but in actuality this can cause your relationship to take one step backwards. Despite the fact that you go out together every week and talk on the phone continuously, this is not a substantial reason for you to live together. Everyone has their unique home regiments that are hard to adapt to; they may be peculiar as to how they arrange their furniture or what time they go to bed. Whatever it is, co- existing within the confines of a home is always something challenging. Try spending some weekends with the person first to see if you could live together.
2. The Blackberry Phenomenon—Have you ever been with someone and they are constantly on their phone sending emails or reading text? It is most annoying. You are not in a relationship with your phone; you are in a relationship with a person. Couples need to spend time together to make the relationship successful. If you need to use your phone, use it appropriately. When you are spending quality time with the one you love, put your phone on silent or turn it off!
3. Unplanned Pregnancy—Be honest with yourself; if you are in a relationship just for sex or basic companionship, make sure that you are using a reputable contraceptive plan. If you are going to have sex in a consistent manner, use a contraceptive plan other than a condom. Condoms can break, especially the inferior ones, and if this happens when she is ovulating, this can mean trouble. Whether we want to admit it or not, pregnancy changes a lot of things and if we are not prepared to adapt to the changes, it can be quite frustrating.
4. Being Argumentative—Don’t try to make an argument out of every conversation. If you are having a casual discussion, the things that are said are not intended to be taken seriously. If you are having a verbal dispute everyday, it is a clear sign the relationship is going down the wrong path.
1. Cohabitation—It might seem progressive, but in actuality this can cause your relationship to take one step backwards. Despite the fact that you go out together every week and talk on the phone continuously, this is not a substantial reason for you to live together. Everyone has their unique home regiments that are hard to adapt to; they may be peculiar as to how they arrange their furniture or what time they go to bed. Whatever it is, co- existing within the confines of a home is always something challenging. Try spending some weekends with the person first to see if you could live together.
2. The Blackberry Phenomenon—Have you ever been with someone and they are constantly on their phone sending emails or reading text? It is most annoying. You are not in a relationship with your phone; you are in a relationship with a person. Couples need to spend time together to make the relationship successful. If you need to use your phone, use it appropriately. When you are spending quality time with the one you love, put your phone on silent or turn it off!
3. Unplanned Pregnancy—Be honest with yourself; if you are in a relationship just for sex or basic companionship, make sure that you are using a reputable contraceptive plan. If you are going to have sex in a consistent manner, use a contraceptive plan other than a condom. Condoms can break, especially the inferior ones, and if this happens when she is ovulating, this can mean trouble. Whether we want to admit it or not, pregnancy changes a lot of things and if we are not prepared to adapt to the changes, it can be quite frustrating.
4. Being Argumentative—Don’t try to make an argument out of every conversation. If you are having a casual discussion, the things that are said are not intended to be taken seriously. If you are having a verbal dispute everyday, it is a clear sign the relationship is going down the wrong path.
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