Don't be caught of guard

Despite divorce being so common, many couples are caught off guard when it actually happens to them. They believe that if they just begin to love one another again, everything will turn out fine. This myth, however, lulls them into missing the warning signs that suggest that their marriage is in trouble.  Here are 10 ways to tell if your marriage is over:

1. Sex is consistently boring and a task. A satisfying sex life is vital to health and happiness. A long-term frustration of this basic human need can signal the end of a marriage.

2. There are many problems and only a few solutions. The incapability to negotiate and find workable solutions to common relationship issues turns partners into bitter rivals.

3. Character slaying happens in your marriage. Name-calling, foul language, condescending put-downs, and personal attacks aimed at embarrassing and hurting a spouse are a sure path to divorce.

4. You're angry all the time. Accumulated anger kills love! If you and your spouse don't know how to handle anger and it piles up like a mountain in your relationship, divorce is inevitable.

5. One of you cheats. With a lot of professional help, most marriages survive can when a partner cheats once. Repeated affairs cause so much pain divorce is usually sought after relief.

6. There is selfishness within your marriage. Marriage is a give and take relationship and it's about making your partner's needs a top priority. Self-centered husbands or wives have partners who feel ignored and neglected will eventually want out at all costs.

7. One or both of you always needs to be right. When your partner's always right and you're always wrong, it feels suffocating. When you do not have a voice that's heard and appreciated marriage turns into a dictatorship. Divorce provides you that desirable freedom that you do not receive from your spouse.

8. It's not in the kiss anymore. When you would rather have sex than passionately kiss, your marriage is in deep trouble.

9. The conversations are over. The best way to have a happy marriage is to talk your way through it. This means sharing thoughts and feelings so that you're emotionally in sync. Without this bond, marriage is an empty and lonely place where partners want to leave.

10. There is too little or too much money. When both partners need to work and one earns significantly more than the other, especially if it's the wife, control issues can sabotage the marriage.  However too much extra cash, when partners are not careful, can fuel a party on lifestyle that invites temptations that cause damage to a marriage as well as the lasting values that remind us of what's really important in life.  

Homophobes? You're Probably Gay

That's right, haters. You're more likely to be gay than us tolerant folk.

It's not a secret that if someone outwardly and obsessively hates something it's likely because of one of two reasons. They're either jealous and their jealousy fuels their hatred, or they recognize something they hate about themselves in the thing on which their disdain is focused.

Remember when former Republican senator Larry Craig, who was always so anti-gay rights, got caught "tapping" his foot in a men's bathroom, looking for some man-on-man love? Hypocrite! Even more well-known is Ted Haggard, the crazy gay-hating evangelical Christian who, despite his sermons that condemned homosexuality, was getting busy with a male escort and doing crystal meth to boot. It wouldn't be until 2011, five years after that scandal broke, that Haggard admitted to being "bisexual." Can we be remotely surprised at either of these? It seems like simple logic to me.

Now a recent study has confirmed what many of us already assumed. All that homophobia is just proof that you're repressing some same-sex attraction of your own. That's right, haters, you are more likely to be gay than those of us are of the "live and let live" mentality. Honestly, this can't possibly shock you. All the wasted energy on such vile hatred has to stem from somewhere, and usually it's an inner conflict, especially for those who are raised in religious families and communities.

This study, which will hopefully rip certain right-wingers a new something-or-other, was published in April's Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Thanks to research that was conducted in the U.S. and Germany, scientists found evidence that supports the "psychoanalytic theory that fear, anxiety, and aversion that toward gays and lesbians can grow out of a seemingly heterosexual individual's own repressed same-sex desires." Co-author Richard Ryan, who is a professor of psychology at the University of Rochester, also said that although we can laugh at this "blatant hypocrisy" on the part of these haters, the fact is that "homophobia is not a laughing matter." He's very right.

The study also confirms that children who are raised in a home where they're accepted unconditionally, as opposed to those who are forced to conform, grow up not only more accepting of themselves, but more accepting of the differences in others no matter what their sexual orientation. Again, not exactly news, because we all know that if you raise your kids to hate, then they will more than likely hate. However, it's a heartening confirmation. 

Well, it's always nice to be right. I hope this study changes at least some bigots' minds. Now go forth and allow others to love (and marry) whoever they want.

Crazy lady syndrome

Let’s face it: women have a tendency to overkill reflection. We ponder the “what ifs” to such a degree we talk ourselves into believing all sorts of nonsense. Only a woman would believe, for example, that the reason her man didn’t come home when he said he would was because he was in some horrible accident. The real reason the cute online guy didn’t write you back? Because he accidentally deleted that carefully constructed email you sent, so you had better send him another one—just in case. No phone call? Broken/dead/lost/stolen phone. Sounds familiar?

Occasionally I will regret a few things that just happen to pop out of my mouth OR wish I had avoided doing something-or-other OR totally agonize over some stupid shit I could have experienced if only . . . .

Take these last 72 hours, for instance. I had an absolutely wonderful, successful day and I’m still racking my brain over how much better it would have been had I done things just a wee bit differently. Then I think about how much better my whole life would be if I didn’t repeat some of the same patterns that surface almost on a daily basis. THEN I worry over all of the bullshit things I have absolutely no control over but sort of secretly believe I can affect. Why? 

Anyway, I was able to be a part of a crazy lifetime movie scenario. One involving a taken jealous female and a handsome guy, the whole situation made me think omg those crazy ladies from lifetime are real!! It’s not made up!.lol, seriously though, we as females, and I say we because I know I’ve done it so many times, tend to take this much further in our heads, in our minds, when we’re alone, we fantasize about certain situations, and even though there may be nothing serious going on, and we’ve been told that, we can’t help but have little pretend family gatherings, weddings and future babies in our minds… sounds crazy right?. But it’s true. And we project it, although we feel like we don’t, if I replay scenarios, or over think something in my head, and make it more than what it is, and then I begin to act on it, subconsciously.  And in the end, I’ll end up hurt, because feelings intensify on my end and no one else’s.

So the next time you find yourself doing this, please stop yourself!!!! It doesn’t end well if you’re the only one feeling this way or doing this, especially if the other party has already made their intentions clear. 

Where do you lie

Dating and forming a relationship with someone is less of a spectacle when you are an ordinary person in society, rather than a celebrity, but questionable intentions are sometimes still there. Whether your new beau happens to be a notable partner at the business place, or a respected member of your church, have you evaluated your “true” intentions for dating them? Could you be dating someone for their status and the connections they have, or vice versa?

Although it might not be as noticeable, it should still be evaluated the same. Yes, a relationship is a give and take partnership, but make sure the intentions of both parties are pure, not professionally or personally beneficial. Nobody likes feeling or being used.

Are you benefiting from your partner, or is your partner benefiting from you in the wrong ways? Here are three problems with that type of relationship:

1. It leaves room for speculation 

None of us likes to be criticized for our relationship status or the reasons behind it, but a relationship based on convenience will always be questioned, whether the intentions are pure or not. 

2. What’s really keeping that person around?

While you would probably like to think that your man is with you because you’re just that awesome, if you’re being used, once what he’s trying to get from you is gone or withheld (money, contacts, sex, etc), you’re going to be left real fast. Being used like that and allowing it to happen in the hopes that something real will form can bring on more heartbreak than is necessary.

3. What type of statement are you making about yourself?

And if you are the user in this relationship, how are you representing yourself, taking part in a relationship that doesn’t seem meaningful? It could come across as saying that you are only the type of person who dates for status, money, convenience, etc. I’m not saying that you’re a goldigger, but…hey, you kind of are.

Sorry Guys

Hi darlings! It's been awhile and I'm sorry, I've been busy and sort of out of it, but I'm back :). I hope that all is well and do enjoy what I have written tonight. Love you all and be safe.

Much Love and Kisses
Gabby :*

What you MUST know!

Awwww, you're in a new relationship and all things seem so wonderful! You may be feeling those butterflies in your stomach, you laugh at all your partner's jokes, feel warm and tingly inside. This is the time that you truly feel and believe that you may have met the right one! Maybe he seems to display all the qualities about what women really want in a man. But, we’ve also been there and done that. All new relationships feel great, which is why we call it the “Honeymoon” phase.
That phase doesn’t last forever. Your relationship evolves over time and you want to get off on the right foot. The following 5 Essential early relationship tips will help guide and nourish your relationship in the early stages with your new boo.

 #1: Always be yourself

At any stage, it’s important that you are always yourself. This is not the time to pretend to be someone that you’re not just because you don’t want to risk losing this person. If you are not yourself, you will have a very difficult time pretending to be someone that you’re not for the entirety of the relationship.
If you are going above and beyond and in essence being “phony” just to impress your partner in the early stages, well you’re only making things difficult on yourself because your new beau actually believes that you are sweet and romantic ALL THE TIME. And the minute that you start to relax and return to your normal average niceness, it will be noticed immediately. I’ve heard countless complaints from couples and singles about how their partner changed over time. Well he “used to” open car doors for me and bring me flowers and all of a sudden one day it stopped. Please do yourself a favour and do not false advertise. This is a sure way for your relationship to come to an eventual end, and will be looking for advice on relationship problems.
You are at the early stage of a relationship. If you are thinking long term, you will have lots of time to impress your partner and give them attention and affection and occasional surprises for the length of the relationship. If you pull out all the stops up front, you will be struggling and challenged to keep it up. If you are yourself, you are comfortable and natural and this goes a lot further than pretending to be someone you're not. You will come across as fake and you confuse your partner when you stop with the charade. If your goal is to be in a long-term relationship, then you would want to know that your new partner really likes you for who you truly are and accepts you as is..

 #2: Always be clear

In the early stages you want to make sure that you have very open communication. If you are always clear about your goals, your likes, your dislikes and your feelings, you will always know where you stand in that relationship. It is not a time to “hide” things from your partner. If you have certain habits and regular activities such as smoking, or a regular card night with the boys, or going to Church on Sundays then you want to be honest and upfront and share with your partner things that are important to you and anything that is routine in your life. It is extremely important to communicate and be very clear about your relationship goals. If you are not looking for a long-term relationship or you are ONLY interested in a marriage partner and want to have kids and a family right away, you want to make sure that you are on the same page. This doesn’t mean that you scare this person off by sharing popular baby names for boys or looking in the Real Estate section of your newspaper asking what your partner thinks of the new house you’d like to move into. It just means that before you start to invest time, feelings and financial resources on your partner, make sure that you agree on the important things and that you share core values.

#3: Go with the Flow

Communication and trust are the foundations of any successful relationship. You can read all about the do’s and don’ts and read all the rules out there about dating and still be completely lost or feel that it may not apply to your situation. Everyone’s views on relationships vary slightly or greatly so the best advice I can share with you is to go with the flow and also listen to your gut. You should always be in tune with how this person makes you feel. What does your gut say? What are your thoughts about this person and what are your thoughts about relationships in general? If you’ve been hurt in the past, do not make the mistake of stereo typing your partner as a cheater, or treating them as if they’re guilty because you lack trust. Learn from your past experiences and don’t repeat them. You are in a new situation with a totally different person so playing the comparison game is not good.