What Makes A Marriage Work Long-Term?

 

Ready to get back out into dating and relating? 

In "25 Experts Explain What Choices Make A Marriage Actually Work Long-Term," you'll find suggestions for making your new relationship be the best it can be. My recommendation is:

Always make new memories. Communicate, compromise and connect. 

Talking and listening lead to essential compromise on the changes that inevitably occur as the years go by. 

Connect by doing things together, creating new memories, and you keep things fresh!

Read more here...

Relationship Advice For Men: 62 Tips From 62 Experts

So now that you're divorced, you're considering dating or you're already dating.

From EliteManMagazine, read all 62 really helpful tips, including a few from yours truly.

The article starts like this:

Guys are often left shaking their heads in pure bewilderment when it comes to different aspects of their relationship.  Their wives, girlfriends, or partners of some sort or another, just seem to constantly throw curveball after curveball at them, and their left wondering what to do.


Without giving up on their loved ones, they fight back; but this often leads to more stress and even more relationship imbalance. 

You see men aren’t schooled in this department of life.

Read the rest here... 

9 Important Steps To Avoid Becoming A Tech DINOSAUR

So you're divorced, or about to be. Maybe you're 50ish, give or take. If you've shunned technology before, communicating with friends, potential lovers and dating all demand that you move into the 21st century. Here's what I wrote about embracing the new technology:

When I went to college I felt estranged from my parents.

The only way we could communicate was with a landline, which I had to stand in line to use. Now I can shoot texts back and forth with my son, with links to interesting news bits, YouTube videos or music, and pictures of the cats doing dumb things while looking cute.

I get that you want to do things your own way, perhaps what you consider the "right" way. I completely understand. But there are some anachronisms in the 21^st century that are just plain annoying, even to a dinosaur like me. Making them will affect your relationships, dating and work life, and prevent effective communication.

Pretty please heed my advice and avoid these nine 21^st century faux pas:

1. Don't Leave Voicemail Messages

If you don't know this by now, here's the thing: No one under 35 listens to them. And if you do get a call back, don't expect the person to know what your message said because, and I hate to be redundant, no one listens to voicemail.

Read more here...

10 Ways Your Cell Phone Keeps You Disconnected

Following a few cell phone rules will help you develop your presence in the moment. You’ll need this post-divorce to be more engaged, empathetic and confident with others.

My article starts like this:

Being present in the moment means you experience things in real time without being sidetracked by interfering thoughts, worries or distractions. If you’re with someone, it means you’re connecting and listening. If you’re alone, it means you’re more engaged with your activity, relaxed or in flow.

Recent research suggests that our biological ability to connect with and have empathy for others can be affected by cell phone use. When interacting with someone, the cell phone becomes like a third wheel vying for attention. Even when you’re alone, your cell phone is like a 5-year-old, or worse, a group of them, constantly interrupting.

Want to improve your presence and connection? Don’t do the following with your device: 

Use it when you're having face time. I know you can multitask, but that doesn’t make it any less annoying. You cannot truly engage with someone or with a group of people while responding to your virtual world. This includes meetings; so annoying to wait for someone to weigh in while they’re finishing their text. If you’re speaking loudly on your phone while in a group, you’re as involved with what the groups thinks as you are with the person with whom you’re speaking. 

Read more here...

Lose the Pros and Cons and Hire Your Next Partner

Have you ever made a list of the qualities you want in your post-divorce boyfriend? If you have, you're definitely not alone. Many of my clients come in with such lists. Some have the list in their heads, while others whip them out on pieces of paper, like a grocery list. 

Snarky, sexy and un-pierced may have replaced the old tall, dark, handsome, but we still like to list the pros and cons. We struggle to decide whether or not someone is boyfriend-material.

I'd like to propose an alternative: hire your next boyfriend like Google hires its staff. Thomas L. Friedman's recent piece explains what Google looks for when they're interviewing. I think they're looking for exactly the type of person you're looking for. My take on these qualities includes: 

Humility. People who are humble don't blame others for their own mistakes. Read more here...

 

Contact With Your Ex During And After Divorce

This guest post is contributed by David Williamson.

 

It’s hard enough these days to be one of the 50% of married couples who get divorced, but now in the digital age we have to worry about communicating with them through all different mediums, times, and places. The horror stories run rampant: Ex wives stalking husbands on Facebook, Ex-husbands tracking down new boyfriends on Twitter, the list goes on. To delve deeper into the topic we interview Mary, a divorcee of 3 years and self-described digital media fiend, to glean some insight into how she handles the burden of communicating with her ex husband.

 

Welcome Mary; tell us about your divorce.

It was hard. My ex husband and I were married for 25 years and had 3 children. He was a lifelong friend with my brother, which is how we met. It was kind of a fairy tale, actually - we married young, straight out of college, started successful careers, loved our children and had a vibrant marriage. Problems began about 20 years in as the kids were heading off to college and I became severely, clinically depressed. I should have exercised and taken control of my life, but instead turned to psychiatric assistance and was put on a galaxy of antidepressants. My husband began taking them too and our marriage began to crumble. I popped pills and went shopping, and he popped pills and found a mistress. In retrospect I don’t blame him; I was pretty awful, bankrupting the family and almost sinking his business. At the height of my addiction I initiated divorce proceedings. They encouraged me to seek real medical help to address my depression and thank God I had good legal counsel during those trying proceedings.

How did digital communications then factor into the equation following the divorce?

My job as a marketing and communications manager for a legal team had already forced me deep into the digital media and communications world. So when we began the divorce, it was a firestorm on Facebook. My family and kids were posting about it, my ex was posting about it, and I was posting about it. My ex was tweeting about it, badmouthing me to the world and my clients. My children were posting videos on Youtube and Vimeo about how they were feeling about the divorce. It was a HUGE mess - and humiliating to have one’s personal life floated out to the world like that. My advice for anyone getting a divorce is to discuss digital media with your ex and your children right off the bat. Don’t wait for everyone to start doing their own thing. Nip it in the bud with an agreement to not post anything personal about the proceedings at all, ever. It would have saved our family a lot of heartache.

What about more traditional forms of communication like texting, calling and emails? What role did those plays in your divorce?

It was painful. Sometimes a late reply to a text or even more telling, no reply, can mean far more than a tangible reply. My ex would sometimes take days to respond to my emails. They would be important, doctor appointments for the kids, etc. but he let me know loud and clear that he did not want to be in regular contact once the digital media firestorm hit. I would call him to schedule visits with the kids and my parents and he wouldn’t call me for days at a time. My advice is to communicate as little as possible in the beginning, then feel things out. He’s more comfortable responding now, 3 years late, but the first few years it was too fresh and painful. It was for me too, especially since he started dating my ex best friend.

 

Would your communication ever blow up into a fight? How did you deal with that in a positive manner?

 

Yes. It was difficult to talk the first 2 years without fighting. Everything is still so raw in those first few years. I mean, we had known each other since we were little kids and I had bankrupted the family and he was living with my best friend. It was a tough situation. We had a communications meeting one day via Skype - I suggest everyone do this - talk to your ex about the ways you both need to communicate in order to peaceably take care of pressing concerns that need to be dealt with. He needed me to refrain from making any mention of the divorce, or him through social media, and I needed him to never ever refer to my ex best friend or their current relationship. We follow these guidelines strictly and are able to communicate within them. It has made the whole thing much easier to handle.

Final words of advice regarding communication for people going through divorce?

It’s a paradox: you don’t want to communicate with your ex, in fact they’re probably the last person you want to talk to, but you have to. So take the positive step of establishing ground rules for the communication. If you don’t you’ll just hurt each other over and over again until you do, and that doesn’t help anyone.