Dating Someone With Children: Meeting the Kids
Dating when you (or your new love) have children from a prior relationship is much different from dating when you are the only person to consider. When kids enter the mix, a new relationship aspect is added, creating new challenges and rewards. One of the biggest worries when dating as a single mom or dad […]
Dating as a Single Mom
Dating when you have children from a prior relationship can be challenging, but taking it slow helps everyone get acclimated to the new people in their lives. Important: when dating as a single mom, you should wait at least three months before introducing your new love interest to your kids. Why? Because, if you have […]
Tips on How to Dress for a Date
Are you going on a first date and wondering what to wear? The answer isn’t as easy as you might think! Do you know where you are going and what you will be doing on the date? If so, that takes a little of the pressure off, although you still need to figure out how […]
Improving Listening Skills
Do you ever find that you are the one person in the room who is doing the most talking? Chances are that when you do this you are nervous, but it doesn’t endear you to others. When you listen more and talk less, you show people that you care enough about them to really hear […]
Step Parenting: Talk About Expectations
Step parenting can be challenging, but there are ways to blend families with children from prior relationships so that the process is easier. Very important: the new couple should talk about their expectations of both family life and their individual roles within the new family. Most people never take the time to do this before […]
Dating Tip: Stress Management Techniques
Don’t you hate it when you are on a date and are feeling nervous? One of the stress management techniques that can help is if you take a quick minute to close your eyes and do some positive visualization. “See” the date going well and envision you and your date laughing and enjoying yourselves. This […]
Blended Family Obstacles
Are you blending step families? This can be a source of conflict from a surprising corner – the prior in-laws! Maybe they are close to your ex-spouse and still feel some loyalty to him or her or perhaps they aren’t giving your new love a chance to prove themselves. Either way, exercise patience. It take […]
Talk Less, Listen More
In personal relationships, as well as in life, most people listen to others with an intent to respond, not with a focus on really listening to what the other person has to say. This is often the area where relationships fail – because people aren’t “hearing” what the other person is telling them! One way […]
Dating Stress? Focus on Fun
On a date and feeling stress? Remember, first of all, that it’s “just” a date! Focus on having fun and getting to know the person you are with, but keep in mind that dating is a process and a chance to learn and grow when connecting to another person. That’s the great thing about dating […]
Family Patterns: Are You “Dating” Your Family?
Have you ever thought about how your family patterns can affect your love life? Strange to think about, but if you look at your past relationships, you often can see a pattern emerging and it generally ties back to the family dynamics you experienced as a child. Maybe your mother was super-neat, and you find […]
Settling For Less? Relationships Take Compromise!
If you are constantly backing away from what you need when interacting with your sweetheart (in other words, you are putting their needs before yours because it’s “just easier” to avoid the conflict you would have to go through in order to get what you want), you are probably settling for less in a relationship! […]
How Does Body Language Affect Relationships?
Most of us don’t spend much time wondering, “how does body language affect relationships?” We just go through our day-to-day lives interacting with other people but never really considering if what we are saying is really what we are “telling” others. We use non-verbal cues to express ourselves between 60% and 80% of the time […]