New Relationship Advice

What qualifies me to hand out new relationship advice? Well, I tried it the “old way” twice and it ended in divorce both times. So I figured I better learn and do something differently then I did before if I was ever going to have a relationship that worked.

So the questions became for me:

• “What wasn’t working?”
• “What should I do differently then I was doing before?”
• And “How do I do it differently?”

Of course, I didn’t know I was asking those questions consciously but I was asking and searching – as you are – to get some new relationship advice.

My previous teachers were my parents. Their relationship sucked. Very unconsciously I married at 22. Basically I knew nothing about how to succeed in a relationship. I just knew I didn't want theirs.

I’ve been asked recently if one person can work on a relationship and expect improvement. It depends on many things.

• How bad is it?
• Did you get into this relationship because you desperately needed to be in a relationship?
• Did he?
• Is their basic love and respect back and forth to each other?

I did not understand that I needed to communicate how I felt or it would grow into bigger and bigger unmanageable resentment and lower self esteem than I already came to the relationship with.

New Relationship Advice:

• Find out how to communicate effectively. Go to a marriage counselor or search online or let me teach you but find out how to do it without blame so  you’ll be heard.

I knew nothing about a partnership where both parties honored what the other wanted and who they were. Now I know that in 2014 in the Western world (and maybe everywhere), partnership is what it’s about. We each bring some special things to a relationship and we need help with other things. Who is better to be your partner than someone who loves you and wants the best for you?

New Relationship Advice:

• Learn how valuable you are as a person and that your wants and needs matter. Do not think that “7 Steps to Good Self-Esteem” is going to solve your self image and self esteem issues - the issues that keep you making poor choices for potential partners.

I have spent the last 30 years figuring out how to do that for myself and what I’ve learned works quite well. It does work and has taken work but I am worth it – and so are you. I came into my relationships with a past. It needed to be worked on and healed. So does yours.

I didn’t know that defending myself was not how to be understood by another. It just put up a wall – of fear, of feeling misunderstood, of disconnection and fueled by deep shame. Nothing good came out of that for me. Now I know that I can trust the feedback from my partner of where I fell short somehow because I want to hear. I want to improve. And so does my partner.

New Relationship Advice:

• If you don’t value yourself, how can you expect anyone else to do so? The core of a good relationship is the coming together of two people who value themselves and are open to growing along with each other.

I didn’t even know that any relationship advice existed. Now, in the age of the internet, advice abounds but you wisely chose to look for “new relationship advice” and you got it. Hope it leads you into a new relationship with yourself and with anyone you choose to partner with.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching

Healthy Relationships – The Coming and the Going

Healthy Relationships

It is a scientific fact that healthy relationships make us healthier and happier. And this includes all different types of healthy relationships - friends, family, partners and colleagues. All different types of relationships but bottom line - no matter what type of relationships you have, when it's healthy, so are you. The healthier they are, the happier you will be and the less stress you will have in your life.

Anyone whose ever been in any kind of  relationship knows there are sometimes (or often) challenges. You might get disappointed by the other but by accepting the people that we love for who they are and not expecting them to change for you, you have a good start towards having healthy relationships in your life.

Take the time to really talk to the people in your life and actually listen to what they are saying – you know, communication - a key factor in maintaining healthy relationships with anyone.

In recent years my disappointments in relationships have been about certain people disappearing from my life. I've kind of been mourning the loss of a couple of people from my life recently and lo and behold! – I was sent this reminder by one of my clients:

People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime.
When you know which one it is, you will know what to do for that person.
When someone is in your life for a REASON, it is usually to meet a need you have expressed.
They have come to assist you through a difficulty, to provide you with guidance and support,
to aid you physically, emotionally or spiritually.
They may seem like a godsend and they are.
They are there for the reason you need them to be.
Then, without any wrongdoing on your part or at an inconvenient time,
this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end.
Sometimes they die. Sometimes they walk away.
Sometimes they act up and force you to take a stand.
What we must realize is that our need has been met, our desire fulfilled, their work is done.
The prayer you sent up has been answered and now it is time to move on.

Some people come into your life for a SEASON, because your turn has come to share, grow or learn.
They bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh.
They may teach you something you have never done.
They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy.
Believe it, it is real. But only for a season.

LIFETIME relationships teach you lifetime lessons,
things you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation.
Your job is to accept the lesson,
love the person and put w hat you have learned to use in all other relationships and areas of your life.

Yesterday I was talking to my husband about my feelings of loss and not understanding why these people left our lives and he said he's given this a lot of thought and this is what he concluded: friends have a certain give and take. When the give and take no longer works for one, they usually disappear. They don't always disappear forever. They may come back into your life when they see they can get what they are looking for again. Depending on interpretation of these words, that can sound very cold but, on the other hand, it takes the pain and judgment out of it. It requires a very wide perspective to be able to see that.

Remember that everything and everyone changes and although that may be scary, it doesn’t mean that it is a bad thing. Be sure to make plenty of time for yourself and take care of yourself especially because if you have been putting someone else’s needs ahead of your own. Eventually, this will become a habit until you begin to resent the other person even though you are choosing to put their needs ahead of yours. They aren't choosing it for you. Preferably do not focus your life on just one person rather than yourself and the other people in your life.

Keep your own identity as long as it is not at someone else’s expense.

Another important factor in healthy relationships is following through when you tell someone you will do something. It is crucial to the trust in relationships to do what you say you are going to do or don’t say that you will do it to begin with.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching 

If Your Partner Is Your Best Friend, Who Do You Turn to for Relationship Advice?

Relationships are hard work and come with a lot of questions and uncertainties – hence the title. Some people warn women not to make their partner their best friend because then they have no one to talk to if they are having relationship trouble. Now what's wrong with that relationship advice? Seems to make sense on the surface but here are the fallacies:

• If there is relationship trouble between the two of you and you can't sort it out with your partner or at least feel safe talking about what's going on with your partner, you have deeper issues underlying that problem. You have a basic flaw in the communication and trust areas of your relationship.

• One of our (my husband and I) secrets is: Make Your Commitment to the Power of the Relationship I suggest making that kind of commitment so that if there is a problem in the relationship, you will not feel like running out the door away from your partner to get away from the problem. Instead you will remember that the relationship is bigger than the both of you and you will at least both be willing to find a way to work it out.


• The second thing wrong with that relationship advice is that it assumes you can have only one best friend. Friends wear different hats. I might not talk to my single friends about a problem in my relationship, but I will talk it over with a friend who's relationship skills I respect.

Many people don’t have the someone else in their lives and when things are rocky in their relationships, they may feel like they have nowhere to turn.

If you do find yourself looking for some relationship advice, be very careful. It is easy to find relationship advice all over the place. Magazines, books, the internet and other complete strangers will freely give their advice about all sorts of relationship issues. During my first really bad marriage of 15 years, people asked me for advice all the time. Now I know that's just the kind of person I am and has nothing to do with my relationship understanding at the time. I shudder to think what I might have told anyone at that time.

And, unfortunately, not everyone has your best interests in mind. They are trying to sell their magazine or book or some may even be trying to push their organization. Many churches and political organizations may offer free counseling services for people but you must keep in mind that they have very specific ideas and motives and they may be trying to convince you that your relationship should be the way they feel it should be or it is wrong, while this may be very different from what you truly want out of your relationship.

If you decide to hire a life coach or a therapist, don't be intimidated by their expertise. You are hiring them and you have the right to interview them – even on the success of their own relationships. I would think it strange for someone to hire me as a coach to help with their relationships if my own marriage was a shambles.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching

Is it narcissism or is it self-care?

You Might Have to Change Friends

I have a client who is successfully navigating a healthy relationship with a man for the first time in her 46 years! Her work on herself is wondrous. She has healed a scarily abusive childhood, healed very damaged self-esteem and most recently lost over 80 pounds. In chatting with her today, she commented that she is a "bit narcissistic". When we discussed what she meant by that, I realized she was really talking about self care.

I am not a therapist and I'm not going to look for a definition of narcissism that a therapist might use. I'm going to define narcissism to be what I understand from my therapist friends. As far as I understand narcissism is pretty much not being able to see beyond your own belly button. It's all about you. You are never wrong. All roads lead to you.

This is very different than being a person who observes their behavior and wants to see where and whether she is acting from self love.

If she is truly taking care of herself - most particularly when she has never really had a good relationship with a partner in her whole life and wants some very positive change, then deep, thoughtful, very observant self care is vital. That is not narcissism. That is not whatever else others have accused you of when you wanted to take care of yourself.

You were with the wrong people. People who truly love you, want and celebrate for you as you care for yourself. That means they support you having boundaries. That means they want you to express yourself authentically. They love you. Find and hang out with only those people.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching

Insecurity in Relationships

Insecurity in relationships starts inside yourself and generally shows up in a whole variety of ways in the relationship. Generally that happens because you didn’t speak up about what you wanted or what might be bothering you from the very beginning. Of course on your first date or even 3 months into it, it’s natural for there to be some insecurity. You don’t really know each other yet and relationships unfold over time but looking back at my first major relationship, it didn’t take more then six months for me to see the problems in our relationship. But I was so insecure, I was afraid of speaking up. I might lose the relationship altogether and my precarious self esteem was dependent on the world seeing me as a winner because I felt like such a loser.

I’ve worked with many people as their coach and seen the insecurity in their relationships. But I’m an expert on that insecurity inside my young self and I can now tell you where it came from and how it showed up.

It came from the lack of security I had with my parents. I was yelled at, compared in a losing way to other girls and criticized unmercifully and often - by my mother. I was always afraid my girlfriends would think I was a loser – so insecurity in relationships with peers showed up first.

Then there was the pressure to be popular, date and marry – all, for me, fraught with insecurity and self-doubt. Imagine you were looking at this beautiful young woman who thought she was a loser – who probably tried too hard and took almost any little attention by a male as good enough. She gets asked out by a good looking boy in her freshman history class. She’ll never have to worry about not having a date again. And so it went. And so we married and stayed together in our really lousy relationship for 19 years.

Some of the reasons for insecurity in relationships lay in childhood as they did in mine. Until I began to gain some self esteem and learned that I was important enough to say what was bothering me and how I felt about another’s behavior toward me, I would continuously experience insecurity in relationships. So will you.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching

The Biggest Reason Relationships Fail

I didn’t speak up but I was totally aware how I felt about him but right along with knowing that, were the many fears about how I look to the world with the star one being “nobody will want me”.

What I mean by “not telling the truth” is not telling the truth about my emotions and how I was feeling about him and in the relationship. Sometimes I’m just in denial about something but this I knew absolutely. If I was in denial about anything, it was that I was an attractive and acceptable woman.

There is the “sports, news and weather” kind of communication about jobs, kids, friends, family, colds, the news, etc. That is not what we are talking about here. What we are talking about here is the communication that happens between people in a relationship that starts out as “being in love” and can deteriorate into wanting to end the relationship or living in what feels like an armed camp or a monastery with no communication."

So the question might be, “If I’m feeling angry, should I just express it?” The answer is “yes” and “no”. If you just express it, it will only be part of what is true and will cause an argument or a shutdown in communication. If you don’t express it, you might end up with years of unexpressed emotion piling up and creating separation. The tool I will teach you will help you in both ways - to fully communicate and also prevent lack of connection.

I was taught, while on my journey of learning, how to have a relationship, to “tell the truth quickly”. I took that on as a if I were enrolled in a lifesaving course of study - which it has proven to be.

Anger covers over love with lots of different feelings in between. Anger is sort of the first emotion so that even if I feel afraid or sad in a situation, it is really because I am angry.

Did you ever watch a baby get angry over not getting what they want? As soon as they get it, they are all smiles again. They do it quickly and easily. We, however, have been socialized away from that. If I am 5 and want the red dress and get angry because I don’t get it, most parents and teachers tell us that “it isn’t nice” or “don’t do that” or “it is not ok to get angry at adults” or ...whatever you were told. And so being the smart little beings that we are and wanting to please our adults, we begin the comply and create habits of a lifetime.

This is the biggest reason why relationships fail.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching 

Is a Relationship Doomed if You Have Different Interests?

Compatibility or Commitment?

Thinking back to the beginnings of our relationship, we had some similar interests – spirituality, personal growth. And there were certainly things that the Martian was and is interested in that I'm not, for example, fixing and learning about cars, skiing, physics (which I blush to say I got a D in in high school) and airplanes to name a few. Here's what's happened with me on those subjects:

•    I now share his interest in cars - green cars.

•    I've never become an athlete but I am using WII FIT regularly and enjoying it.

•    I've found an interest in quantum physics because it veers right into spirituality so that has become a shared interest.

•    Haven't developed an interest in airplanes except for how they may impact my travel.

But do interests really create compatibility? To some extent I suppose they do but what seems much more important to me is shared values. We both value honesty, strong family relationships, forgiveness, change, commitment, meaning, accountability, responsibility, creativity, fun, laughter, freedom, gratitude, generosity, generosity of spirit, integrity, peace, abundance, prosperity, personal growth. With all that in common, how could we go wrong?

Relationship advice: If you are new in a relationship, begin to have conversations about your values and see what comes of it.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching

Relationship Communication

Supposedly, relationships are easy in the beginning.

Relationships are easy in the beginning.  At least that's what everyone says. In some ways that was true of ours. Sex was easy and plentiful. Newness, excitement and freshness was easy. But I assigned to myself a very big challenge - that I was going to tell the  emotional truth quickly in this relationship. That was one scary deal. I had never done that in relationship communication. As a matter of fact, I went out of my way to be as pleasing as I could be. It didn't work out very well two times before. So I had to take the chance that it was worth it to be in a relationship with me and that if the Martian didn't like me and my emotional truth, we weren't meant to spend our lives together.

And in the beginning it seemed pretty easy for him to hear my emotional truth. Our relationship communication was well in hand.  We've talked about it since that time and my conclusion is that because he wasn't very emotionally tied into me, he could be the perfect listen-only Martian. He didn't take any of it personally. But as we became more and more emotionally connected, it became more difficult to not take it personally.  We probably both need a quick re-read of The Four Agreements.

Then there is the statement: "When you begin dating someone, it is fun finding out all you can about them and the quirky little habits that they have just make you find them all the more attractive."  Most of us have experienced that once the relationship begins to mature, things that were once cute are sometimes aren't so cute anymore. As a matter of fact, they can be down right annoying.

I believe quite strongly that the Universe is in balance meaning that who we are in partnership is no accident and that we "fit" together. If the fit is uncomfortable, then there is growth needing and wanting to happen. Sometimes that growth takes the form of a different way of communicating. Sometimes it requires outside help in the relationship. And sometimes it means leaving the relationship all together. It's your choice.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching

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Is There Respect in Your Relationship?

Happy Marriages Have Issues, too

I really love my husband. I respect him. I am proud of him. I am proud to be in a relationship with him. So where does the evil little bitch that I can be come from? Is it from my past? Is it hormones? Is it morning blues? YUK!!!!

Here's what happened this morning. I got up earlier than usual which for some reason brought me to my computer. That's always a mistake first thing in the morning. I get pulled into work so now on top of the usual duties I've assigned myself in the morning - putting dishes away, making the Martian's lunch, making his breakfast.  By going to my computer, I now subconsciously have taken on my career duties as well.

So the Martian, who had gotten up before me and was relaxing with a cup of tea on the couch started sharing stuff from work with me. He teaches high school science and physics. He asked me a couple of times if I was listening and I said "yes" although truthfully his talking and relaxing was beginning to annoy me because I was working, stressed, blah, blah, blah - you got it -

Now why would I think that working at 4:30 in the morning is more important than connecting with my husband and hearing a beautiful story about one of his students. It was so moving to him, he was choked up with feeling and I was WORKING!

Oy! Well, fortunately I saw my stuff quickly, apologized and - HOPEFULLY - learned something.

I promise to respect my husband. I promise to respect and appreciate my husband. And I love myself with my pimples, foibles and wrinkles anyway.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching

How Do You Act on Your Dates?

Relationship Advice

Are you one of those people who think that they have to show the people you date that you have the same interests they do? You probably read a magazine article that suggested you do just this type of relationship advice. DON'T DO THAT. Be yourself. Relationships come in all types but the strongest relationships have proven time and time again certain things. Following are two of them:

1. One of these things is that you need to do is to stay true to yourself and who you are. Dating is difficult but it is even more difficult if you waste your time trying to be someone that you aren’t. You see it happen all the time. People begin dating and like each other but try to convince each other that they have many things in common whether they really do or not. For example, a women might claim she is a huge football fan when in reality she knows nothing about the game and could care less. For this relationship to go anywhere, sooner or later she is going to be found out and have to come clean and admit she isn’t a football fan. You may not realize it but this is lying. Is this any way to start a relationship that has any hope to survive? And how can you ever be sure you are loved for who you are if you don't show who you are?


2. Another important piece of the relationship of relationship advice is to keep your humor. You need to be able to laugh together and about yourselves. This keeps your relationship fun and playful and there is less chance that you will be hurt over silly little things that don’t really matter. Supposedly men especially don’t like women that take life too seriously and make everything a matter of life and death. I agree the less drama in the relationship the better but I don't want my partner to take every little thing too seriously either. I hate it when he takes things personally that I never meant that way,

The better you are able to be yourself with each other and laugh with each other, the more you prove that you can work together even when things aren’t so great. A positive relationship can only really happen when both partners are happy with themselves first and then with each other and laugh a lot.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching

Relationship Advice Series

Why do we always fight when...?

One of the things I love to help transform in a client's life, is the way of their intimate relationship. The relationship advice  I give is based on  my experience. My own path wound through a 19-year first relationship which produced much pain and 4 kids, a short 1 1/2 year relationship which taught me what I didn't know about what a relationship could be but wasn't and, 30 years ago, the one that has it all.

My husband and I have an amazing intimate  relationship - amazing if it was the only one we ever had but most amazing because it is a 3rd marriage for us both. "The Martian",  aka  my  husband, promises to comment on my entries on this topic. We're calling him Martian because he's a high school teacher and doesn't want his students to find him on the internet.

I haven't fully figured it out but almost every time there's a weekend or a vacation, the first thing that happens is - we have a fight - small and dumb - but a fight nonetheless. Somebody wrote a song that says something like, "why do we always fight when I ....... something? "

 Relationship advice:  Maybe we feel safe enough to bring our frazzled energy picked up from the rest of our lives to each other to dump out so we can refill it with the love that we share the rest of the time. It's like removing the sediment of life so pure, fresh love has room to flow.

I always thought we'd get over it but we've been together for 30 years and we did  it not long ago at the beginning of a weekend. But we always work through it and find our way more easily and more easily to our everyday love and respect.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching

Married and Sex

Senior Sex Drive

You've probably read or heard stories like I have about how much sex seniors have - in retirement homes, in movies. Anyway, somewhere I picked up the idea that my senior sex drive would be strong because I love and am attracted to my husband. And that's me. And he's a man. Need I say more?

Well, it just ain't happening that way. When we were first together I think we stretched the "all you think about is sex" part of our relationship to about 5 years whereas the old adage is "put a bean in a jar for every time you have sex in the first year of marriage and then it'll take the rest of your life after that to empty it if you take one bean out for each time you have sex". (I just noticed how exactly opposite these two tall tales are.)

The way it is happening is, over the past 2 or 3 years, we don't have a lot of sex. First it was upsetting to talk about with a bit of blame, guilt and responsibility floating around for each of us but, as is our way, we don't let things like that stay problematic. We keep dealing with them until we're satisfied that we are on the same page about it. We are on the same page about it. We are both in consternation and desire to have it be different.

So yesterday we were having a conversation about it - a thing we do often on the weekend - and I think I realized something about it. I need you to imagine a line drawing here. Imagine a line across the lower part of the page and imagine that that is the level at which I lived. It basically represents at what level of happiness and fulfillment I lived in my life - particularly the intimate relationship part. Now along comes the Martian and that level sharply rises. Now one could think that the level of not too much sex represents the level at which I live but that isn't true. If you've read this blog or know me, you know I live at a very high level of fulfillment and happiness. So I'm thinking that that big jump that I made when the Martian came into my life which was out-pictured by the intensity of my sexual experience is now the level at which I live.

So maybe I'd have to have another gigantic spike in energy to give to sex but our lives are so full of other things and our love isn't new. It's deep but we are used to it.

I think at the point we currently are, people who don't have really fulfilling relationships or lives, probably put all their energy somewhere else. Often with another person. Neither of us is about to do that.

So we'll keep talking and having sex when we do in the loving way that we do.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching

Marriage and Money Communication

I haven't written anything about marriage and money so far but I think it's a good topic since I believe most marriages have big issues around money.

Like other areas of our lives, we each have our stuff (definition: Ego + Unheard, Unprocessed Emotions + Unmet Needs). I come from a family where there was a lot of fear and denial around money. My mother was very afraid of not having enough. I believe my father was also afraid but he covered it with many layers of denial. So I come by my stuff quite honestly from the environment I unconsciously absorbed for the first 22 years of my life. I've certainly experienced fear around not having enough and in some ways covered that over with denial – a fine combination of both my mother's and father's emotional imprints.

The Martian has his own but I'll let him comment on that. Anyway, since we both believe we attract into our lives at the level of vibration our emotional selves are at (Law of Attraction), we've done just that. We've always had enough even when we lost it all in 2001 at which time we both experienced intense fear for months. I'm guessing that to some extent our financial situation right now is reflective of all those months of fear.

I'm not aware of much, if any fear, about not enough these days but I only know the full truth about it by looking at the results in my life.

So back to money in our relationship. It's never been an issue. Because of our high level of honesty and communication, money issues fall under the topic "Everything We Talk About" and we know where the other is. Also, because we have a real partnership attitude, it's never mattered whether I was earning more or he was earning more. When I was earning more doing work I hated, I was very honest about my resentful feelings that he could not do this kind of work and got through them to the benefit of enhanced closeness and communication.

I guess money issues are only a separate issue if you don't keep them open and honest and communicate whatever is going on with you about them with your partner.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching

First Self Exploration Then Relationship

Self Exploration in the Movies?

We saw a movie last night that made me think of some things  Sometimes we jump into relationships or jump from encounter to encounter looking for something.  Only to realize that what we have been looking for can be found from within ourselves.  A little time and self exploration we could have saved ourselves months or sometimes years of horrible or worthless relationships.

Back to the movie: Pretty New York young woman with no purpose other than to find a man. She’s got a good job but doesn’t particularly like it. She just does it. Goes from man to man - drinking too much, having sex too fast and not having any relationships that last and feels worse and worse.

She finally does meet a nice man who comes from another country and wants her to come with him after knowing each other a few days. She declines and, as the plot unravels, ultimately takes a trip to that country, loses his contact information and decides to be there just for her own self exploration.

At the end of the movie she’s on her way to the airport when missing young man walks onto the train but doesn’t see her. My husband and I wished the movie ended with her choosing to not go over to him but that’s not what happened. She goes over to him and allows herself to be taken off the train by him and in the end chooses to miss her plane. It is a big step for her to make that choice based on the personality that’s portrayed but wouldn’t it have been a bigger step (and very non-Hollywood) if she just continued to create a life where she got to know herself through self exploration and became a full person first before she partnered with someone?

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching 

I Made My Own Relationship Support and You Can Too

Appreciating Each Others' Gifts

The year my family and friends celebrated my 65th birthday with me, we had about 16 people including 3 noisy little boys ages 8, 4 and almost 3 in my not that big living room. It was joyful mayhem at its best.

I was discussing the wonderfulness of it all and the Martian said he realized that one of the things he wants to learn from me is how to create a loving family and friends as I have done.

He reiterated how both his mother and father left their families behind and subtly and not so subtly gave him and his sister the message that people and particularly families are too much bother and trouble. We all know that families are bother and trouble.  To me there is so much happiness from the relationship support I have with my family and friends. There is great joy and richness in working out of the bother and trouble.

Here's a couple of quotes from my step-daughter's special birthday gift to me 70 Things I Love About You. (Are you curious why it's 70 not 65? When I was 60 she mistakenly made a list of 65 which we all laughed about but I wouldn't let her take any away so now she's creating a tradition of giving me 5 extra. I like it!)

#14. Your unconditional love for all your children and grandchildren

#15. The pride you have in your children for both large and small accomplishments

#50. The way you allow others to be themselves

This is one of my gifts but it was not always this way.  My family was a crazy one including a cheating dad who molested me and a raging mother who focused a lot of that rage on me. But along with their dysfunction I also saw how they made their best friend's family into their own. The Martian saw almost no one ever even visit his childhood home. I  had to take the lessons and gifts from my childhood and create my own relationship support.

I love having this gift but how extraordinarily wonderful it is that my husband not only appreciates the gift in me, tells me he appreciates it but wants to change his ways and develop this talent in himself?!

So the next Saturday he invited my daughter, his step-daughter for 29 years to have breakfast with us and I noticed he went out of his way all day yesterday to give out more special hugs than he often does.

Even if your family is scattered or dysfunctional and you want nothing to do with them, you can create a family of loving friends and have the joy that family can bring.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching 

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Learning How Not to Be Responsible for My Partner's (and Others')Feelings

My Love Relationship

I am a kind and loving woman.  I  require a love relationship with the ones close to me.  I care about many people and show them and tell them - including my husband. This morning he is here even though it's Monday morning and I usually have quiet to work. My office is right out in the middle of the house and a lot of what I do is write - just like I am writing right now. He went out to get the car smogged and came in while I was writing. I greeted him and thanked him for taking care of the car. I listened for a few minutes while he talked about what was happening in the apartment across the way - and he kept talking to his daughter about stuff that is not important that she know or I listen to at this time. Maybe he wants to spend a little more time before he settles into his working on work-related stuff. However, I need quiet when I write. I requested that he stop and he got a little bent out of shape. Although he stopped talking.

I kept writing for a minute or two and then asked if we could talk a minute. I explained my situation more fully. I did this because I have a nagging need inside for peace. I don't like it when there are ruffled feelings.

Do I go overboard on this - on easing them? I'm not sure. I have a need for  a love relationship. I'm noticing that as I continue to write here, my mind keeps going to the bedroom where he is. I see myself wanting to go make nice or talk or check to make sure he's ok with me. This is all my childhood stuff. Or maybe I'm just hardwired this way. Whatever.

What I know after 29 years with this man is that he is fine; he would let me know if he needed more from me; that this no big deal; and that I will likely just follow my desire to check in with him when I'm done writing this.

Now that you're done, I have one thing left I'd like you to do.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching

Are you in a love hate relationship?

I’ve been thinking about what a love hate relationship is. The operative word to me is “love”. If one is calling it “love hate”, it must mean there is first love. So where does that take you? Well, if this love hate relationship is someone with who you are having romantic relationship or marriage with, you’ll want to be investigating, understanding and dealing with where the hate is coming from. Here are some questions to ask yourself:

1)      Am I carrying resentment because of behavior in the relationship that has gone unaddressed?

2)      Do I feel I hate the person I also love because we have issues and they aren’t being dealt with?

3)      Is this relationship about failed expectations?

4)      Am I always in a love hate relationship? (Is it because I like the drama?)

5)      Is this relationship very similar to my parents relationship or my relationship to either of my parents?

There are serious issues underlying the questions above. The first three questions have to do with communication in the relationship. If one is to have a healthy long term relationship that succeeds, communication needs to happen. Yelling is not the kind of communication I mean. I am talking about expressing appropriately the feelings and emotions that occur when one is in close connection with another person. Feelings get hurt. Mistakes happen. Misunderstanding happens. Bad days happen. Big and small events happen. Other people and situations impact what is happening between the two of you. If children are involved, everything is multiplied. And all problems have a solution but if the reason you call it a love hate relationship in the first place is because communication is poor, it is likely it will eventually end up becoming a totally hate relationship and end.

If your answer to question 4 is yes, I’m betting the answer to number 5 is yes also. If this is the case, it might not be enough to just express emotions appropriately within the relationship, it might mean you will have to deal with your relationships with your parents before you can turn your love hate relationship into one you’d call a love relationship, there’s a lot of healing work that needs to be done. With large and unresolved issues from the past, it is most likely that every relationship you ever have will continue to create problems until you realize that you are worthy of a love relationship and do not need to settle for love hate.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching 

Boundaries - Building Healthy Relationships

Boundaries. You hear people talking about them but maybe you aren't sure what they mean. A boundary around a piece of property is the outer limit or can be a wall or fence that is there to keep others out. For you, personal boundaries are your limits for other people in relationship to you. It is the key to building healthy relationships.

Boundaries are an important part of life for everyone. If you do not set boundaries in your personal life, you may find yourself unhappy and resentful. Learn to say no when your boundaries are being pushed too far. For example, your friend often wants you to pick up her kids from school and do a little shopping for her but today you had planned to do your own shopping in a different part of town. It is within your rights to say no. Don't allow anyone to take advantage of you. That doesn't mean you'd never do a favor for your friend. It doesn't mean your boundaries can't be flexible. But unless her need is based on serious circumstances of incapacity of some sort, allow yourself to feel uncomfortable with no , but say it anyway.

Don't let yourself be one of those who time and time again are taken advantage of by the people in their lives. It is unhealthy. You must love yourself and realize that you can't do everything and although you may not like saying no to someone, you have to find a way to get comfortable with saying it. Or maybe you'll never be totally comfortable but you will train those people in your life to think more carefully before they ask you to take on their responsibilities. Boundaries are an integral way to building healthy relationships.

Some people will try to take advantage of you and push your boundaries to the breaking point anytime you allow them too. Don't allow them to. Take care of yourself first and the way to do that is to decide what is acceptable to you and be courageous enough to say no when it is in your best interests. You have to do what is right for you, not your mother, not your husband, not your sister or your neighbor, but you. Only then will you truly be able to continue to help others with love and even enjoyment and without hurting yourself. If this is a tremendously problematic area for you, you might ask a life coach for help.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching

Love Compatibility Test: How will I know he's the one?

It would really be great if such a thing existed out there in the world. All you’d have to do is get out your trusty credit card, put in your number and the perfect questions to tell you each whether you were compatible would pop right up. And off into the sunset you’d go – either together or apart - depending on the results of the test.

That might have worked when you were 14. Some teen magazine created the test. You took it and found out yes or no.

Or you might count on the info you get from your local or online astrologer. Maybe they do know but truly, how to know if he’s the one or not is not that hard. The information is right there inside you.

Every time he makes you happy, he’s the one. Every time he does something that upsets you, angers you, hurts your feelings or makes you feel small, he is not the one. If he continues to hurt your feelings and make you feel small, he is not the one.

Now I am not so naïve as to think it’s that simple. But it could be. Here’s what you have to do to make it that simple. You have to find a way to listen to, discern and trust the emotional feedback your body gives you. You know what I’m talking about although you may not realize it.

Next time you get angry or feel sad, notice what’s going on in your body. Next time you are wildly happy, notice that and what it feels like in your body. What are you feeling right now? Are you having what you’d call a good day? Or are you having what you’d call a bad day? It isn’t the events that usually make the day good or bad. It is your emotional reaction to the events that make you interpret it as good or bad. When you start looking internally, you will know the information you are looking for when it comes to the person you are trying to know your compatibility with.

I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase, “It’s an inside job.” It is an inside job because human beings have a full range of biochemicals that flow throughout our bodies and let us know if we are happy or sad, angry or joyful. So that’s where the compatibility test answers are – inside you.

But you searched and found this article because you aren’t clear - which means something is blocking you from knowing your own truth. These are the kinds of things that block women from knowing:

1. They have a hard time understanding their emotions.


2. They started a physical relationship before they really knew the guy and become confused because their hormones and emotional vulnerability is totally triggered. This is not a moral judgment but rather a reality for women.


3. They are carrying a lot of emotional baggage from the past and it is confusing the current situation.


4. They have low self esteem and want to hold onto anyone as long as someone will stay with them.

So if you want to know if he is the one, you have to allow yourself to feel your feelings and acknowledge what they are telling you. If all this idea does is leave you feeling confused, then I can promise you you need some help in getting back in touch with your feelings. Go seek help before you make any decisions about who is “the one”.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching

Is it SEX or is it INTIMACY? The View from Mars

by Maia's Martian

Yesterday evening Maia and I were talking  and she brought up the topic about how having sex too soon (whatever that means) in a new relationship sometimes seems to confuse things for women and not always in a good way.

Because I am wired and socialized as a Martian my first impulse was to think “the more sex the better and the sooner the better, what’s wrong with that?”

As I thought about my own experience however, I realized that there is more to it than that and so here is  the view from an older Martian after 30 years in a successful relationship:

The word intimacy usually is a more polite way to say “sex”.  Here is a more inclusive meaning of intimacy - INTO-ME-SEE -  which maybe means “through sex we are able to know each other.”

And that is the gift of an intimate long term committed relationship. You develop  a mirror to each other’s Soul. In simple terms you get to see the Real You and the Real Her reflected  through each other’s eyes on a daily basis. How incredible is that? Maybe women already know this but I know from being a man for almost 80 years that most men don’t know that is even possible.

Think of sex as a door that opens into a room where you will find this gift of discovering each other's Soul.

The difficulty is that Martian DNA  is only about opening as many doors as possible. However, if doors are too easy for a man to open then they will never venture into the room and discover the gift.

Opening the door is easy, finding who you and she is (the Real You) takes a long term committed relationship.

So, in answer to the question of how soon to have sex in a new relationship, it is and always was totally up to the individuals involved and hopefully after reading this you are able to make a decision that comes from a higher consciousness.

Radical Self Acceptance/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching