Posts Tagged people

By Robbie T. James

Marriage is serious business. After all, for most people the person we marry is someone with whom we share our home, money, and love – and even our kids! And, marriage is forever – or at least that is how most people intend it to be when they get married. Most married people spend a significant amount of their personal time in close proximity to their spouses.

In order to take a lighter view on the serious business of marriage, I have collected some of my favorite funny bits of folk wisdom and advice on the subject of how to keep your marriage healthy, healthy, and strong. So, here is some funny marriage advice to make your marriage stronger:

1. Don’t date anyone you wouldn’t marry:

This one is really more of a comment on how to conduct oneself before marriage. For most people, dating is as much a way to have fun as it is to find a life mate. After all, dating often includes going out on the town, having some good food, maybe a bit of dancing – doing things that are outside of the ordinary, hum-drum of pattern daily life. But, this piece of advice implies something important about dating: it can lead to something much more serious. If you go out on date after date with someone about whom you are not necessarily crazy (but are just doing it to have a bit of fun), the strategy could backfire on you. Things might get serious before realize it, and you could end up compromising and marry the wrong person.

2. Don’t fight about money – there is never enough to go around anyway:

As most married couples will tell you, money is one of the biggest sources of conflict within a marriage. Money – and how we handle it – is so personal and no two people view it in exactly the same way. Combine that with the fact that most married couples share their money; that is, they add to and take from the same “pot” on a regular, ongoing basis. And, for most people, there just never seems to be enough money to do all of the things we want to do. The solution? Realize that there will probably always be a bone to pick between you regarding how each of you handles money – but that is no reason to fight. Just agree to disagree on the small stuff and move on.

3. If you are a woman: do not expect your husband to change after marriage:

Women, be honest with yourselves: if you are like most women, when you married your husband you had all sorts of specific expectations about ways he would become an even better or more pleasing person post-marriage. This is just a huge fantasy, so you need to let this notion go! Of course, married men do change over time. But, such change is not always necessarily for the better, and it is very unlikely that the things a woman dislikes most about her husband are going to magically go away. The best advice for women is to not expect your man to change and to try to accept him for who he is.

4. If you are a man: do not expect your wife not to change after marriage:

Calling all men: when you married that perfect little bride of yours, you formed a mental picture in your mind of what she was (or what you imagine her to be). As time passes, you may have noticed that the gap between the person your wife is today and that mental image of how she “used to” be is getting larger and larger. Fact is, most men start reminiscing about the way things were (or they way they thought things were) with their wives before they got married, lamenting the ways she has changed since then. Here is a little piece of advice: embrace the changes she has gone through and enjoy the ride!

5. Never have breakfast together:

This last one really hits home with me. Neither my wife or I are morning people. When we get up each morning, we need to give each other as wide a berth as possible, lest we risk getting our heads removed by the grumpy monster in the room. That means staying out of each other’s way for at least the first half hour in the morning. And, of course, having breakfast together immediately after getting up in the morning is completely out of the question!

Making a marriage successful requires a lot of hard work and patience. At the same time, keeping a good sense of humor about your marriage can actually be very good medicine.

About the Author: Has the flame of passion in your marriage died? Get some insider advice that has helped thousands of other married couples rekindle their love and passion at: www.in-your-arms-again.com

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The rest is here: Funny Marriage Advice to Make Your Marriage Stronger

Fashion Weeks are events held by designers or fashion houses to display their latest designs and creations to the world?€™s media and fashion buyers. Catwalk shows are the mainstays of these weeks which are held around the world and which attract mass attention globally. The primary fashion weeks are held in the style capitals, London, Milan, Paris and New York, but there are many others that take place in lesser known areas of the fashion world, and are designed to draw people?€™s attention to less prominent designers. These include Australian Fashion Week, Japan Fashion Week, South Africa Fashion Week, and Los Angeles Fashion week. In the main fashion cities, fashion weeks are held twice a year, displaying ?€?autumn?€™ trends and their ?€?spring?€™ collections. These are held a long time in advance of the actual season to allow adequate coverage and previews of the designs before the actual season. This is also done to give buyers a chace to purchase the designers?€™ creations, and so retail stores can use elements of the designers?€™ styles in their mass produced clothes for the High Street market.

Fashion Weeks are attended by buyers for major stores, the media, celebrities, and members of the entertainment industry. In years gone by, fashion weeks were predominantly used as commerical events, and only people in the industry attended them. Today, however they are lavish, exclusive events, attended by many celebrities and cause a media frenzy. The week is a 7-day extravaganza which often includes live music, lavish galas and charity events. Some shows are also open to selected members of the public, as well as some of the events that display the designer?€™s latest handbags, jewellery, shoes, hats and cosmetics. Many important fashion design schools now feature in contemporary Fashion Weeks as well.

Fashion Weeks have been around since 1943, when the first one was held in New York to divert attention away from French fashions during the Second Worl War, when fashion industry insiders were unable to travel to Paris to see French fashion shows. Fashion publicist Eleanor Lamber staged a “Press Week” for fashion journalists to present the creations of American designers, who were not usually paid any attention by the fashion media. The buyers were not invited to these shows but instead had to visit the designers’ showrooms. Press Week was an unprecedented success, and fashion magazines like Vogue, which were normally filled with French designs, beagn increasingly to focus on American fashion.

Some beauty products sponsor fashion weeks, such as the L?€™Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival and the L?€™Oreal Fashion Week held in Toronto, due to the inherent relationship between fashion and beauty. Other fashion weeks are held for one precise type of fashion, such as swimwear, lingerie, or bridal couture. Fashion weeks are viewed as the designer?€™s way of making their collections visible and broadcast throughout the world in a very short space of time. This shortens the time in which it will take for people to start recognising, buying and following the designer?€™s trends, which in the end is the designer?€™s ultimate aim.

See the rest here: Fashion Weeks

By Jonathon Hardcastle

After Friday’s lunch-brake, millions of working individuals around the world are checking their office clocks counting the minutes before it is officially allowed for them to go home, relax with their family and friends and put their minds at ease. After all, it is weekend time! But wait, if you think of it again, I believe it slowly comes into focus that weekend time equals “free” time and “free” time means time for recreational activities. What a bummer! You now seem disappointed to leave the office, which looks like a secure environment, and to be forced to go out, have fun, do shopping, meet people you haven’t seen for at least a week, take the kids to that theme park you have promised at a moment of weakness, clean the house, do the laundry, organize the garage, join your sport club, watch the game from your special reserved seats, organize that barbecue everyone has been waiting for, and so on. Well, I might have been carried away, since some of these activities cannot be considered recreational, but a lot of others, even if not included in this list, are. Before turning back to reenter your office premises, try to maintain your optimistic side alive and realize that yes, weekends are short, but they are still your chance to elude and experience in full the recreational activity of your choice.

You have been waiting for the right time to announce to your folks that you are ready to join your friends and begin those scuba diving lessons you wanted for so long. When you actually managed to convince them that you will be careful and that sharks cannot be found anywhere near your instructor’s pool, you have to squeeze the classes into your busy weekend schedule and still manage to do all the other things you have been postponing for a while. Cut yourself some slack here! You are an energetic individual that has lots of things to worry about during the week. Don’t add to you worries the fact that you will not be able to go out with your female friend and help her select a new set of curtains to match her recently acquired living room leather couch. You hate promising and then breaking a promise, but if you are honest with yourself, your needs, and with your friend, it is more likely that she will forgive you this time. Just don’t make it a habit. What I am trying to say here is that you should put some priorities in your life and select which recreational activity to do when, depending on your needs and wants. You should not become an egoistic person that never considers other peoples’ thoughts and feelings, but at the same time you should not forget that your own time is your own to invest where you see fit. Try to find the balance between what you need for yourself, what others need from you and what you want to succeed at the end of the day; much like the office deal you know how to handle. Guard your weekend time as your precious time to do the things you want the most.

Multitasking and over-committing yourself is a habit you should quit, since it is not healthy for you to always be on the run from errand to errand, visit to visit, promise to promise. Your weekends should be a time of relaxation, rejuvenation, and pleasure, and not a time for you to go crazy for the things you did not manage to complete in less than 48 hours! Nobody should blame you for investing in yourself. Even those who will attempt should know better. Teach them what it is like to lie down on Sunday night feeling confident with yourself and proud of weekend’s recreational accomplishments.

About the Author: Jonathon Hardcastle writes articles on many topics including Recreation, Nutrition, and Games

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See original here: Weekend Equals Recreation

By Michelle Vasquez

Everyone wants a happier marriage yet few people know what to do to achieve it. So many times people look to their spouse to “complete” them instead of looking inside themselves to figure out how they can help their relationship thrive. Here are some ideas to get you started on the road to a happier marriage.

1. Overlook your spouse’s faults like you overlook your own. If you are honest with yourself, you will admit you have faults, just as everyone does. If you’re really honest with yourself, you will admit that you often overlook or dismiss your bad habits, while criticizing your spouse’s bad habits. Decide today to go easy on your spouse. Let go of the need to correct his faults and you may find him less critical of yours.

2. Decide what kind of day you want to have, and then create it. Yes, you can do this. A rainy day doesn’t make you have a “bad day.” You decide how to deal with things that are out of your control, like the weather, other people’s driving, your boss’s micromanaging, etc. You can choose misery or you can choose peace of mind.

It begins with what you tell yourself. For example: if it’s raining in the morning you can fret and tell yourself, “This is going to be a terrible day. I’ll get wet, people will drive like maniacs, and I’ll be late for work. This day is ruined.” Guess what? You’re right. Try this instead: “I am grateful for the rain. I’ll leave early for work and I’ll drive carefully. I can put on my favorite music and I’ll choose calm. This is a great day.” Your spouse will thank you when you decide what kind of day to have and her “bad mood” won’t bother you!

3. A kiss on the cheek at an unexpected time can create goodwill. If you have a habit of greeting your spouse with a friendly, “Where were you? Why didn’t you call? You said you were going to be here by 6:00,” take a deep breath and hold that thought. Try this instead: “I’m so glad to see you. How was your day?” then kiss him on the cheek and enjoy the rest of your evening together. Maybe your spouse will think you’ve gone crazy, but it will definitely be a change from the usual evening sparring match.

4. Always greet your spouse with a smile. Remember why you married her and let that warm feeling create your smile. Smiles are contagious; you’re likely to get one back when you practice this. When he calls you, answer the phone with a smile. You will feel differently when you smile and your spouse can hear your smile in your voice.

5. Add to this a bonus. Smiles and hugs go together like salt and pepper. We need human contact with the one we chose to marry. Hugs can melt away resentment and generate compassion. Virginia Satir, one of the key figures in the development of family therapy, declared that we need twelve hugs a day to maintain our mental health. How many hugs are you giving each other each day?

6. Always be the first to say, “I’m sorry,” even if you believe you were right (especially if you believe you are right). When you believe you are right and you’re willing to create distance between you and your spouse to hold onto your “rightness” you damage your relationship. Ask yourself if you want to win the argument or win the relationship. You can’t do both.

7. Make a daily habit of remembering what made you fall in love with him. If you only focus on your partner’s faults, you will quickly “fall out” of love. You can decide to focus on what you like and appreciate your spouse. This is not something to keep to yourself. Appreciate her and tell her. Daily. Appreciation has a wonderful benefit of coming back to you. People will do more for you when they realize you truly appreciate them and what they do.

8. Make blame an obsolete concept. It has no place in your marriage. Blame is so dangerous to the health of your marriage. Blame says you are a victim and your happiness is totally dependent on your spouse doing everything just the way you want it. Choose to take responsibility for what you can control: your own behavior. Before a blaming statement leaves your mouth, ask yourself what you can do to help your marriage.

9. Total honesty is not helpful. Discretion is better. Focusing on the good things you can say to each other is best. I think some people use the phrase “I’m just being honest” to say some pretty ugly things to each other. Sometimes people say they’re being honest, but they are really only expressing their opinion. Before you decide to say that “honest” thing to your spouse, think about how it will impact your relationship. Can you phrase it differently? Does it need to be said? Is it just your opinion? Think about it.

10. Ask yourself, “What can I do today that will bring me closer to the one I married?” Then do it. Keep it simple, using the examples above or creating your own. You have a creative mind and you can make this a daily habit. You will reap the benefits of a closer, happier marriage. Keep up these habits, building on them, and you can create the marriage of your dreams.

About the Author: Michelle E. Vasquez is a Relationship Coach and a Licensed Professional Counselor in San Antonio, TX. For more tips and tools to help you create relationships that bring you joy, visit http://www.michellevasquez.com and sign up for the free newsletter, Relationship Success, while you’re there.

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Permanent Link: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=159869&ca=Marriage

See the original post: Happier Marriage: Ten Tips For Creating The Marriage Of Your Dreams

By Susanne Pacher

Hotel Havana Libre, Friday, April 8, 2005, 3:45 pm

So, of course, not everything is politics, learning, philosophizing and studying languages. Life also has to include some fun. And Cubans, despite all the hardships, know how to have fun. They love to laugh, to dance, to make music, and they are very sensual people. The women in particular around here are very good-looking (for the most part) and they dress in very tight, sexy clothes. It?s been a true delight observing the Cuban lifestyle.

For me it all starts with the “GuaGua”, the official local Havana transit system: overcrowded, with extremely long line-ups, and people pressed up against each other. I have read that the GuaGua is like the local Saturday night movie: it contains “sex, violence and crude language”.

Yesterday my friend Pedro and I took the GuaGua for the first time. As a foreigner, I would never take the GuaGua by myself and my professor recommended me not to. But with my friend Pedro as a tourist guide and body guard I felt safe. And indeed you have to line up (sometimes for several buses since each one of them is full), and then when you are inside you have to elbow your way to the back exit to get off at the back door. And it?s not surprising that pick-pocketing and some physical groping is quite normal. I certainly clutched my little backpack in front of me and didn?t let anything out of my sight.

2 evenings ago, Pedro and I went for a walk along the Malecon (waterfront promenade) and we had a peak at the “United States Office of Interests” (there is no US embassy here due to the political tension between these 2 countries). The US Office of Interests is a heavily guarded austere looking office building and right in front of it is a square that (I believe it?s called La Plaza Anti-Imperialista) where the Cubans hold anti-American demonstrations and parades, sometimes a million people strong. Another rather ironic constellation….

We then walked through the Vedado area and entered the famous Hotel Nacional, built as a grand hotel in 1930. Although Cubans normally may have problems entering luxury hotels by themselves, we were not held up by any guards and we ended up sitting and chatting for almost 2 hours in the beautiful gardens of the Hotel Nacional. That evening the Hotel also had a concert by the Buena Vista Social Club, but I decided I didn?t want to spend Can$30 plus. Next week I might have a chance to go to the Casa de la Musica and hear music for $5.00 instead.

My friend also explained to me the male-female dynamics in Cuba, that casual relationships (including sex) are very normal and that a young guy and woman can link up for a steamy night and return to being regular friends the next day. The same apparently applies in marriages where the concept of fidelity is apparently not very deeply entrenched. Some very interesting insights which are in quite strong contrast to the official morale in Canada….

Yesterday after class Pedro and I took a private car (which can always be organized in some way through somone) to Havana?s famous Playas del Este area, the cost is not cheap: more than US$25.00 for a few hours. Playas del Este is an area with kilometers of light sandy beaches with light blue and turquoise water, simply beautiful. The area where we went is mostly frequented by Cubans, although we also saw a few middle-aged Russian tourists with young beautiful Cuban jineteras. My friend had not been at a beach for the last 2 years since the public transport is so cumbersome and other alternatives are too expensive. And there are many Cubans who never even leave their local neighbourhoods. Living in such a beautiful country and not even having access to a beach – indeed hard to imagine…

The water was gorgeous, and scarred from the Canadian winter, all my pores opened up and soaked up the sun. But even changing into my bikini was a half hour ordeal! There are no changerooms or washrooms on the beach and I had to wait in front of the lifeguard station for about 30 minutes (since the male lifeguards took their sweet little time) to change into my bikini. Same with drinks: I tried to buy a pop at the beach bar: closed. So I walked to another beach bar: closed. Finally I followed some locals to a goverment-owned store on the street: it was temporarily locked by a guard, supposedly because there were too many people in the store! So I had to wait another 15 minutes to buy the pop….. “Hacer cola” – being in a line-up – is a way of life here and you encounter long line-ups several times a day, in banks, stores, all sorts of places.

I also noticed that the local Cubans at the beach were having quite a lot of raucous fun, drinking beer (unimaginable in Canada: drinking beer in public!) and then tossing the cans into the ocean. Environmental awareness has a huge way to go here…

Tomorrow or on Sunday I am going to meet a professor of mine, a very nice lady in here mid to late 50s, and we are going to go to a local market together. And Pedro and I made plans to do a little excursion outside the city, I am either going to rent a car or Pedro is going to arrange a loal private car and together with his family (wife, sister-in-law and daughter) we are going to have a nice outing outside of the city, something that is very exceptional and a real luxury for local Cuban people. I am already looking forward to it….

About the Author: Susanne Pacher is the publisher of a website called Travel and Transitions (http://www.travelandtransitions.com). Find unconventional travel information, cross-cultural experiences, interviews with travellers and other inspiring people. Submit your own travel stories & win an exciting Amazon River cruise! “Life is a Journey – Explore New Horizons”

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See the rest here: Hello From Cuba (7) – Fun And Recreation

By Ellen Kreidman, Ph.D.

A marriage vow is supposed to be an inviolate thing, a binding commitment between two people to spend the rest of their lives together. This includes through better or worse, richer or poorer and in sickness or good health; we all know the drill. Every married couple repeats the vows or variations on them and, at the time, the vast majority of these people mean what they recite and fully intend to honor those vows. The unwritten assumption is that there are always ups and downs in any marriage, but on the whole, the relationship is assumed to be strong enough to survive these bumps and should in fact become stronger for them.

Yet, it’s a fact of life that nearly half of all American marriages end in divorce. In Canada, it’s over a third of all marriages. In some European countries, divorce rates actually exceed fifty percent! For a society that generally considers marriage the pinnacle of adult relationships and the foundation for a family, these aren’t statistics to be proud of.

Traditional Marriage Counseling has not been particularly successful for many people and that shortcoming is reflected in the dismal marriage failure statistics. It’s not necessarily a lack of commitment on the part of the spouses who are trying to work their way through a difficult time; in fact, traditional marriage counseling can become a multi-year exercise that requires a significant investment in time, money and emotion. People are enduring this in the hope of piecing their marriages back together. Still, that extraordinarily high divorce rate remains.

Many marriage counselors end up creating a dependency, where couples are afraid to make any move without first consulting their therapist. Spouses tend to be of different temperaments and therapy sessions can be overwhelming for one of the partners, creating or amplifying an existing emotional imbalance in the relationship. Sessions tend to focus on the problems, the negatives in the relationship, and that frequently means singling out one partner for their transgressions. There can be a great deal of emotional energy created in a traditional therapy session, but all too often it’s negative energy: resentment or anger. How can that negativity help the couple struggling to save their marriage?

If you are in a troubled marriage, instead of automatically turning to the phone book and stepping onto the therapy treadmill, perhaps you should Save Marriage Counseling as a last resort; at least traditional marriage counseling.

What is it that makes a married man or woman take the risk of engaging in an extramarital affair? While many people assume it’s simply boredom, money or outright sexual attraction, often the root cause can be traced back to the fact that everyone likes to feel special. Consciously or subconsciously, people get married in the first place in large part because they feel special when they’re with their partner. When that partner no longer makes them feel special, they begin to seek a bond with others in an attempt to recapture that “special” feeling.

There are Online Marriage Counseling services available that avoid the pitfalls of traditional marriage counseling. Instead of sitting in an office, re-opening old wounds as you are prompted to go though the litany of ways you and your spouse have hurt each other, the alternative is to listen to an expert as they walk through real-life examples and focus on the positive experiences of marriage. It’s all done in the privacy of your own home (or car, or wherever you choose to listen to the CDs), on your timetable and benefits can be realized even if only one of the spouses chooses to take part. Instead of digging through the relationship’s dirt, the emphasis is on learning how to fulfill each other’s needs so that each partner once again feels special. This is a positive approach that can give a marriage a much-needed fresh start. The approach has been proven successful and leading practitioners have been featured in the media, including appearances on Oprah, The View and The Today Show, not to mention leading publications including USA Today, The New York Times and Cosmopolitan.

In the end the choice is up to you: months or years of ongoing, intensive and emotionally-charged therapy, or a short, positive re-enforcement of why you chose to get married in the first place.

About the Author: This article was written by Ellen Kreidman, Ph.D. for LightYourFire.com, who has shown thousands of couples that you don’t need marriage counseling to bring back the feelings you had when you first fell in love. Article reproductions must include a link pointing to http://www.lightyourfire.com/

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Go here to see the original: Online Marriage Counseling: A Positive Step Toward Saving Your Marriage

By James Wallis

The culpability that would accompany such discussions could be disturbing. Although a lot of people and experts might disagree, it is not good to stay in an unstable relationship for the sake of children because a parent’s unhappiness could have adverse effects on children’s well being, much more than divorce could cause.

Hiding the Truth Will Not Help

Children love to see their parents happy as much as parents want their children to be. They might feel that they’re solely responsible for their parent’s happiness. No matter to what extent you might try to hide the issue from them, they would find it out one day or the other. The realisation that they have been the cause for your sacrifice could bring about more harm than just emotional turmoil to them. “We stayed for your well being” would be of no favour.

Experts who’ve dealt with plenty of mature children found the following to be true:

Children of divorced parents who found happiness in their life after their separation, either being single or by entering a new relationship, are said to have grown up happily. Such children seemed to have positive outlook towards life. The reason is simple. They had taken their parents as role model, who have great amount of affection for them and strength to make their own life blissful.

On the contrary, children of parents who stayed in an unhappy married life are the one’s who seem to lack confidence in themselves. Such children grow up to be adults who have a negative notion about love. They either find complexity in expressing their emotions to their beloved or they consider themselves unworthy of love. This might be so because they have grown up watching people who failed in leading a content and joyous life.

Children Would Understand As They Grow Up:

It is almost impossible to find a grown up kid who would want his/her parents to stay in an unhealthy relationship for the excuse of giving him/her a glorious future. No child would like to see its parents staying in a passionless, despondent relationship. All that would result from this is a faked reality that no child would want to go through once they reach the level to analyse and understand such issues.

It is beyond the scope of understanding for children to treat their parents’ divorce in a normal way but once the children enter adulthood and encounter problems regarding relationships, they would look at your problems under a new light. They would realise the amount of pain you experienced being in an unhappy relationship.

When a group of grown up children was asked on how many of them thought it would have been better if their parents had divorced, half of them responded that they preferred their parents were divorced. After separation of parents the emotional scar might take a long time to heal. But they would realise the truth once they begin to face the outer world.

As a parent, your duty is to decide on what is best for your children. Your child might disagree with your decision of separation but think about all those times when your child wanted to do something dangerous and you were firm in your decision to evade your child from doing it. This same attitude should be exhibited while deciding the future of your relationship. Your children might cry and be depressed for sometime but eventually as they grow up, they would start to look at you as people and not only as their parent. They would realise that you did not arrive upon the decision for your selfish motives alone.

It is important to assure them that your separation in no way would take away the love you and your spouse always had for your children. If this is done perfectly, your child would have no difficulty in coping with the new life.

You owe it to your kids to do the best to save your marriage. But if you arrive at a threshold point after which the relationship would not work, then you owe them a separated life from your spouse. They would surely look up to you with pride for what you did someday in the future.

About the Author: James Walsh is a freelance writer and copy editor. If you would like more information on how to get a quickie Divorce see http://www.quickie-divorce.com

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Permanent Link: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=177904&ca=Relationships

Read this article: Should You Keep Tolerating A Bad Marriage For The Sake Of The Family?