The Enduring Nature of Love

Love Endures and we are reminded of this idea during this month of February, when Valentine's Day is celebrated.. Now- a- days, people buy cards and send e-greetings to their beloveds. But long ago, people expressed their love via post or letters delivered on horseback.No telephones, Internet and mass media were utilized to convey the message from one lover's heart to another. I adore the old romantic movies from early US history, where letters are hand crafted with delicate calligraphy to express the heartfelt passion of the lovers heart.The letters are then carefully sealed with wax and given to an entrusted delivery person or mail service to ensure that their beloved, however near or far away will receive it. Upon receipt of the letter, that may have taken weeks or months to arrive,the cherished recipient opens it, and is reminded that love endures through time and distance.
How very different this delayed gratification is, from the immediacy of sending a text, email or Instagram post as we do nowadays.With technology so highly advanced,one can reach out to many people at one time and express their love and they can voice their love many times a day to one or numerous friends and lovers near and far. Also,there is no need to wait for a response, as in days gone by, instead one can receive immediate feedback that their loved ones care for them. But perhaps this instant gratification of love expressed virtually has outweighed the benefits of love that is cultivated slowly and held closely to one's heart over time and space.
I imagine that years ago, before mass communication was available,that love was more tenderly cherished and expressions of love, although more infrequent, were possibly more genuine.The innocence of love that endures over time without the constant need for a barrage of proof that comes from texts, calls, emails and Instagrams that one is loved is a special gift. Consider the friend whom you haven't heard from in many years, who suddenly resurfaces in your life( maybe from a Facebook search) Upon reconnecting with one another,the love that was there may be instantly reignited and a bond that was formed eons ago can come to life again.This is proof that love endures through time and doesn't diminish because of lack of contact. remember that just because you have not heard from someone in a while, that does not mean that they don't love you.
Perhaps you have been lucky enough to connect with a person who feels incredibly familiar to you upon first meeting them. You may have a sense of loving them automatically. This could possibly be a divine union that began in another lifetime, only to be continued in this time and space.When true love is present, the power of that formidable force can transcend all physical limitations.This applies to our loved ones that have moved on to the other side of life as well. Their love is still accessible to us. True love endures ceaselessly.
During this Valentine's month, look deep within your heart and see if there is someone you could reach out to and express your love for them, even though time may have passed since your last encounter. You just might be pleasantly surprised to discover that love endures through time and space.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/10072801

Two Relationship Killers

Consider a primary relationship in your life where you love someone and they love you. This could be an intimate partnership, a child-parent relationship or a very close friendship. Here are the two things to avoid, if you want to make sure love is present at all times.
Relationship killer #1:
Firstly, you should never expect that because someone loves you, they need to sacrifice themselves for you and put your needs first. We often mistakenly think that the degree to which someone suffers is a testimony for the amount of love they have for us. Likewise, we mistakenly believe that if someone puts their needs first, they don't love us. But that is not true at all. If I refuse to sacrifice myself for you, it doesn't mean I don't love you. It simply means I am clear on what works for me and what doesn't, and I don't mess with my own needs. Please don't take this personal. I love you nonetheless, but I certainly don't have to suffer in order to prove my love for you. Besides, if you doubt it, chances are no matter how much I suffer, you will never believe me anyway. Get this: your partner having fun while you are in hardship doesn't mean they don't love you. The people who love you don't owe you any suffering on their part whenever things are not working out for you. So don't be jealous when your loved one is out with friends while you are working hard or cooking alone at home. No one needs to put their own life on hold only because yours is (even when they truly love you!). Of course, you can ask for support. That's perfectly reasonable. But asking someone to sacrifice themselves and to suffer so you can feel loved - that is totally unreasonable. And it is a sure relationship killer.
Relationship killer #2:
The other way to kill a relationship is by trying to prove your love for someone by sacrificing your own needs and suffering as a consequence. See, whenever you suffer, there is no real love to speak of. If you were doing something for someone because you wanted to and because you loved them unconditionally, you wouldn't be suffering. But if you sacrifice yourself out of obligation and/or guilt, the unconditional love is gone and you are likely to expect something in return. In other words, you try to manipulate someone into loving you back by doing things for them which they then have to repay you for. Sadly enough, you are playing a game thinking you can control someone else's feelings and buy their love. Of course, the result is just the opposite - you are slowly but surely killing the relationship. So stop that immediately by starting to put yourself and your needs first. Find your own truth and start honoring it. Understand that you are allowed to have a good time without feeling guilty when your partner does not want to or cannot participate. Of course, you can support them when they are feeling low. But you don't have to suffer with them or else you will become resentful and kill the relationship as a result.
In conclusion:

• Love should be free - no attachments, no suffering, no trading of favors, and no feelings of obligation and guilt.
• Love should be independent - I love you and I put myself first; you love me and you put yourself first; we love each other and we honor our independent needs nonetheless.
• Love should be by choice - I love you how I want to, not how I feel have to.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/10055390

My Husband Says Our Marriage Is Pretty Miserable. And He's Trapped

Sometimes, you have a feeling that your marriage is deteriorating, but you hope that perhaps you are making things worse than they are. That is until your spouse says something that leaves you with no doubt that you were right. Sometimes your spouse uses extremely hurtful adjectives that can leave you unsure as to how to respond or where you go from here. Examples are words like "miserable," "loveless," or "dead."
Someone might say, "I have long suspected that my husband wasn't happy in our marriage lately. Until yesterday, he had not come out and said anything, but he'd just moped around and he was no longer very affectionate to me. Last night, we got in a fight about something that really didn't matter. It was something petty like household chores. I got defensive and told my husband that he'd been very distant to me and then he sarcastically replied, 'Distant? Well I'm still here, aren't I? And this says a lot because honestly, our marriage is miserable, but we're both trapped in it right now, so we just have to endure it.' I was actually very stunned by this. I didn't think that my husband was happy in our marriage. But his words were very harsh. He made our marriage sound like a prison or something and I have no idea why he would even say this because how does it help? How am I supposed to respond to it? How do you even come back from something like this? I don't know if he would tell me this because he just wants a divorce and this was his way of firing the first shot, or if he actually wants me to take action. Perhaps he was just trying to hurt me? When he talked about being stuck, he was probably talking about our kids. Neither of us has ever wanted to break up our family, but that's no excuse for saying what he did."
I think that if he really and truly wanted to hurt you, he perhaps would have actually taken action to initiate some time off. He may have alluded to being "stuck," but at least he's making no plans to leave immediately. So that gives you some time to evaluate what you truly want and how you want to respond. When you evaluate this, try to do it at a time when you can be the most objective. What he said has hurt you, so it would be natural to allow that hurt to cloud your decision making. But it's important that you try very hard to really ask yourself what you would want if you could put the hurt aside. It sounds as if you are both committed to your family, so I'd suspect that what you'd truly want is a happy family where both parents are content in their marriage.
That may sound sort of silly considering where you are right now, but it's important to have your optimal endgame in mind. Then, ask yourself how you can get from where you are now to where you want to be. I am living proof that it is not impossible - even when you have a husband who claims to be "miserable." (My husband used this word several times.) And now that we are no longer separated and I have some hindsight, I realize that what he was really trying to tell me was that our marriage had changed drastically and that he wasn't happy (at all) with those changes. When you take the message at face value, then you have to ask yourself what is valid about that message.
There are some aspects that you won't be able to change - like the fact that you both have to devote time to your kids and jobs. But there are other things that you absolutely can change, like making intimacy and connection a priority and trying to improve the way that you currently interact with one another.
I know that you are concerned with what to do with this or how to respond. As someone who has received this type of hurtful message and then separated before I ultimately saved my marriage, here is my very best advice about that: I would take the message as a call to action. If I had all of this to do over again, I would read the message as my husband saying, "hey, I need you to make some changes before we really go off the rails. I want what we used to have." No these weren't the words that he said, but that is what he meant. I wish my reaction would have been to take an honest look at myself and my marriage and to immediately make the necessary changes. Instead, I got angry and defensive. This is a natural reaction, but it doesn't (and didn't) help.
If I had it to do over again, my reaction would have been to calmly ask him what bothered him the most and what he most wanted to change. That would have served us much better. So you might try something like, "I'm really sorry and hurt to hear you talk this way. But I want to hear the message of what you are really saying. I don't want for you to feel trapped. So what bothers you the most? What can we work together to fix?"
Your husband might be taken aback that you are having such a direct conversation. That's okay. Because you can't start to fix it until you know what is really broken with him. I know that his words hurt, but try to see this is as the necessary beginning to making the needed changes that might make you both happier.

As I alluded to, I reacted in a similar way.  I was indignant and angry.  This made things worse.  It would have been better to read between the lines to hear what he was actually trying to say.  Luckily, I saved my marriage anyway, but not without a lot of delay and pain first.  There's more about that at http://isavedmymarriage.com

The Daily Five to Make Your Love Relationship Survive and Thrive

Many of us struggle with keeping the love alive in our relationships. We have a hard time keeping the fire stoked and burning when after time we've become too familiar, too habitual, and too emotionally detached to create romance and harmony with the person with whom we have sworn our undying love. People in good, loving relationships make it look so easy. They're always happy, they laugh together, talked for hours on end, and truly enjoy and seek out each other's company. The truth is that they work on their relationships everyday and never, never, never take one another for granted.
I have a very good friend who is extremely happy in his marriage. When people ask him how he does it, his standard reply is, "It easy. I never stop dating my wife." Simply, yes, and yet many people forget how wonderful it felt to be so in love during the early days of their relationships. Sending flowers, leaving love notes and post-its, writing poetry, having candle-lit dinners. The list goes on and on but the frequency with which people in relationships continue to do these things dwindles and eventually stops altogether.
Never stop dating your partner is one good maxim to live by in your relationship. I have some other tips as well and I call them the Daily Five for Being In Love Forever.
Say "I love you," Everyday
This is vital. We all need to know we are loved and while there are many ways to show it, our brain needs to hear it. Tell your partner, look her in the eye, and tell her, "I love you." Hold his hand and say "I love you." This should be something that is full of intention and sincerity. It doesn't feel the same when you say it as you are rushing out the door or mumbling it during a TV show without ever taking your eyes off the screen. Make it count and make sure your partner hears you. It does not count and will not be felt if it isn't heard.
Make Love Everyday
Some of you are laughing because you know your partner will never make love everyday. However, there are a thousand ways to make love, and only some of them are sexual. Touch her as you walk past. Give him a long, close hug just because you felt like it. Make her breakfast. Do a couple loads of laundry, not because they need to be done but because it's your partner's turn and you know she' s had a long, hard day. Give back massage, or a foot rub. There are a thousand ways to make love. Be creative.
Make Your Kisses Meaningful
The kiss on the cheek is fine as you are going out the door to work if that is one of one hundred other kisses. If it is the only one for the day, make it count. Go back and plant one on his lips that shows how much you love him, and that you can't wait to kiss him again and again. Of course, kissing can be very sexual(another way to make love) but it can also convey the depth of your love for your partner. Don't assume that your partner will know you want to kiss and be kissed. Make each kiss memorable and meaningful, full of passion and even more full of love.
Laugh Together
This is one of the most important parts of a loving relationship. If you are not laughing together-never at one another, then this is a place where you both need to look to revitalize and re-energize your relationship. In truth, if you are not laughing with each other every day, then you have forgotten how to play, and playing and being playful is what keeps you both from taking your lives together so seriously. Life is hard enough. Laughing together makes it all just a little more bearable.
Listen with an Loving, Open Heart
Listening with an open heart takes practice. You have to be willing and able to suspend your own personal agenda, or your need to fix your partner because you truly know what he or she needs. Most of the time the response partners give is that they don't need to be fixed, they just need to be listened to. Period. It's not your job to fix and it definitely is not your job to judge your partner. Just shut up and listen. Some of us are not used to that, but the important thing and the way to honor your partner is to listen with a loving, open heart.
There are thousands of ways to make your relationship better, or more loving, but I guarantee that if you do these five things on a daily basis, your relationship will change in positive ways you would have never thought possible. Oh, yes and remember-"Never Stop Dating Your Partner!"

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/8072078

Building a Loving Relationship That Lasts

Building a loving relationship - if you are part of a loving couple - may be the most important job in your life. If this isn't the case, stop reading, because the information I'll be sharing in this article will be beyond your ability to comprehend, much less act on!
Love in a relationship is different from anything else, and you can't treat it like something you might have "accomplished" before. Love is pure, it is accepting, it is forgiving, and it is open to the lover's thoughts and needs at all times. Anything else is not love, but only a distortion. Anything not love is simply a relationship of another sort, i.e., a living arrangement, roommate agreement, or work relationship designed to complete a given task, such as raising kids.
If you would like to thrive on finding new ways to love your partner, you need to prepare each aspect of yourself for the rare challenge that building a loving relationship presents.
Since you are reading this article, and are open to building a loving relationship, let's examine some things that those committed to building a loving relationship might already be doing. Use this opportunity to put these practices into your routine those actions that make a loving relationship easier.
Following are some exercises to help you get started:
See that relationship problems are not really your partner's fault.
The most critical error that people make when building a loving relationship is failing to take full responsibility for its success. If your sense of fair play kicks in and you see all the faults in your partner that strike you as "not fair," it is very difficult to love anyone under those circumstances.
Try instead to imagine that relationship problems are not really your partner's fault. This doesn't mean ignoring willful abuse, just overlooking any argument that could be construed multiple ways. This will be challenging, but the rewards are simply too good to pass up!
Find new ways to love your partner.
Finding new ways to love your partner - every day - is something that everyone trying to build a loving relationship should aim for. Do they smile a particular way? Are they loving in bed? Do they walk the dog? Wash the dishes? Dress in the presence of others in a way that makes you look good? Always look for new ways to love your partner until it becomes habitual.
Get consistent feedback on your partner's fears and concerns.
Building a loving relationship is both mental as well as emotional. Mentally, you need to be forgiving and find ways to be grateful. Getting consistent feedback on your partner's fears and concerns every day would help you connect more and love easier. Carve time out of your daily routine to get consistent feedback on your partner's fears and concerns. This guarantees that you will be building a loving relationship over time.
One of the best ways to determine if you are capable of building a loving relationship is to study the habits of other successful couples. You don't need to copy their success all at once, but you can look at their habits and methods in order to utilize these in your own marriage or relationship.
Consider the following questions:
Can you forgive your partner - both consciously and subconsciously - for perceived injustices or slights?
If not, you are holding onto resentments that will kill your love... and your sense of fair play will even be the spear that kills it! You may be experiencing anger or resentment, and you justify that with perceived injustices. Better to release the emotion in a safe way, and simply accept that life is not fair!
Learn methods to forgive - I like the technique of screaming into a pillow and mentally shredding the other person to pieces in my mind while doing it. By releasing the emotional energy tied up in the so-called "unfairness" you allow the anger to dissipate while providing your mind with the "fairness" it seeks, i.e., not letting the offending person off the hook!
This process, by the way, is both powerful and safe. My wife and I have actually come to the point where we beg each other to go use it when resentments arise!
Can you convince yourself that you have "the better deal" in the relationship?
This is a powerful attitude - and one that requires a decision up front to embrace. My wife and I both see the other as the "better half" - really! This feeling that I'm "getting by with something" allows me to embrace the idea of giving to her even more. Since I'm, in fact, "getting the better deal," then giving and loving becomes easier since it is also in accordance with my sense of fairness.
Are you willing to do whatever it takes to make the relationship work?
Building a loving relationship takes considerably more than waking up one afternoon to say, "hey, I need to build a loving relationship." It might start out that way, but the real decision has to do with longevity. You should first prepare yourself both mentally and emotionally to accept things as they come to you over time, and not give up... no matter what!
This, by the way, is the hardest step you will take. It's easy enough to get over short-term conflicts if you know there will be smooth sailing after that. But loving relationships are different; they take a lifetime of commitment.
Everybody has personal problems - some more than others - and real loving relationships are not always possible. Just know that going in.
If you have gotten into an abusive relationship, for example, you may want to re-evaluate before committing to the steps being offered here. Your best bet, in fact, may be to leave the relationship and start over with the right partner later.
A real bond with another person cannot be based on self-deception or denial. There must be safe opportunities for you to say what you really think and express how you really feel; otherwise it's a one-sided affair. If that's OK with you, then you don't need this article. Carry on.
If you know it's for real, however, and you have the opportunity to express yourself, then the points in this article will give you the tools you need to make it work, both now and in the future. But rest assured that everything is not going to be rosy.
Love does not always manifest itself as a loving nature or beauty. In fact, everything that appears to be NOT love will come up between the two of you over time! It's up to you to look past the ugliness to the Holy Grail on the other side!

True love will always last. The question is, will both of you be there with it?