PERFECT STORY

The first thing a person should do in any relationship is to throw out the old cliché of “Love means never having to say you’re sorry” because love should mean wanting to say you're sorry. If your loved one is hurt, even if they are at fault, apologizing for your part in the fight can get you a lot farther then blaming. Honey does catch more flies than vinegar.

If you honestly feel that you are completely in the right you can still say that you are sorry for the reactions you and your mate had towards the situation. No matter what, I am sure that upsetting him or her was the last thing that you wanted to do. This does not mean to minimize your feelings in anyway only to take the focus off “who’s to blame” and put it where it belongs- on the problem at hand. Once the other person is off the defensive, it makes the issue something that you’re facing together instead of at odds. By doing this it will help the two of you to remember that you are both on the same side, with the same ultimate goal in mind- mutual happiness.

This moves us on to another old cliché that I absolutely despise- “Always fight fair”. When it comes to relationships, your main objective should be to not fight. I am not talking about a perfect fairytale where you never disagree with your significant other because fights will happen, even in the most secure of couples. I just do not understand why people prepare for a fight like they would a political debate or, worse yet, like they are going into combat. So, choose your words carefully and plan ahead of time how you can be considerate of your partner’s views, do not dismiss them.

The key to any relationship is honesty. If something is really bothering you, then by all means, say so. Before opening your mouth, ask yourself if what you’re about to say is truly what’s wrong. Make sure that you are not just turning your loneliness into something else. The biggest mistake that people make in a long distance relationship is to channel their feelings of longing for one another into a trivial matter, then end up fighting.

If the main complaint is being apart from your loved one, then tell him or her how you feel. It takes a strong independent person to have a long distance relationship and it also takes a lot of strength to admit that it is not enough anymore. If you and your partner are constantly fighting, it may be time re-evaluate and re-structure the relationship. It may only take a few more phone calls or chat sessions during the week to improve things between the two of you immensely. Maybe, using some saved up vacation time is in order. Both of you taking time off is preferable so you can renew your love. But if only one of you can skip work, still go and visit the other. (Who knows? That person may end up loving it and decide to stay.) If it’s been a truly good relationship, loneliness very rarely means an ending to it all. In fact, it can “make the heart grow fonder” as long as you stay truthful in your communications with one another.

If the distance between the two of you has become a major issue, then it may be time to talk about one of you relocating. But before starting this conversation makes sure that you have tried everything else to improve the relationship and that this kind of life altering commitment is what you truly want. Remember, it is a long distance relationship for a reason. Whether because of a job, family or a mixture of things - one of you will be giving up something that was important enough to warrant being apart in the first place.

For the estimated seven million U.S. couples currently in long distance relationships, sex and intimacy come with a whole different set of challenges. Instead of a simple “your place or mine?” you’ve got plane tickets, work schedules and much more to contend with. It’s no wonder many couples just can’t handle the distance. But if you’re stuck spending time apart there are ways to still feel close—and even keep your sex lives thriving. Check out these tips from women who kept their long distance relationships healthy and sexually satisfying.
Change It Up.
Couples stuck without the benefit of regular face-to-face contact have to find alternative ways to connect in order to keep their relationship going. For Tina Snyder, 37, starting a relationship with a man living 170 miles away meant long phone calls, frequent e-mails and a mutual commitment to open communication. “I believe our communication held us together during the first year of our relationship,” says Snyder, who recently became engaged. “We would talk for hours every night. We talked about everything: work, children, careers, our future. And we had a lot of phone sex.”
While inexpensive webcams and voice chat programs have made it easier to hear the sound of your loved one’s voice, Dr. Marianne Brandon, Co-Director of The Sexual Wellness Center in Annapolis, Md., warns that it’s not how often you communicate but how well that counts. She also advises couples not to be shy about their desires—sexual or otherwise. As long as everyone’s comfortable, phone sex, cybersex, or leaving sexy answering machine messages are all healthy ways to connect with someone who’s not around.

Get Personal.
According to the Center for the Study of Long Distance Relationships, the average couple involved in a long distance relationship lives 125 miles apart, visits each other 1.5 times per month, calls each other three times per week and, perhaps most importantly, exchanges three hand-written letters each month. In fact, studies show that couples who stayed together through their long-distance relationship wrote snail mail letters to each other twice as often as long distance couples whose relationships failed.

When Elizabeth Whitmore, 19, moved to England for a year, leaving her boyfriend in Washington, D.C., she relied on the postal service to sustain her relationship. “It was a good way to communicate because you really had to think about what you were saying,” she says. “We would write three- and four-page letters, sometimes erotic. And when he went on tour around the United States, he sent me 180 post cards. It was fun and personal.” Getting personal is exactly what keeps couples together. While generic gifts such as flowers and chocolate are nice, handmade gifts that come from the heart make a lasting impression.

Maximize Your Time.
Dealing with the distance is only half the battle; learning how to maximize what limited time you do spend together is the other half. Dr. Brandon says that when couples do reconnect, they should establish some guidelines for quality time together. “If he thinks quality time means taking her out with his friends and showing her off at a club and she thinks quality time is going to an intimate restaurant and then going to bed, there’s going to be a problem,” Brandon says.

To solve this problem, 29-year-old Mary-Beth Ellis and her boyfriend have developed an informal ritual. “The first thing we do is we hug each other, then we go to the couch and start talking,” she says. “We reconnect with each other first.”

It’s certainly not impossible to stay together when many miles separate you—it’s all a matter of keeping connected in new ways. If you’re both willing to communicate when you’re apart and reconnect when you reunite, then your relationship and your sex life will survive wonderfully.

Heal A Broken Heart

It takes time! Here are some basic tips. Make sure you also read the articles, which you can access from the side menu.

* Honor how you are feeling. This means that you should not pretend that you are ok, when you really aren't. There is nothing wrong with crying.

* Communicate with people that care about you. Make sure you share how you are feeling. Do not underestimate the support that these people can provide.

* Exercise regularly and take care of your health. Often times during the period of having one's heart broken, health may be neglected. If you aren't careful, this can only make things worse.

* Some people like to travel.

* A great way to move through a broken heart is to spend a lot of time doing something you really love. This can be a hobby, work, or anything! If you keep yourself busy you will find yourself moving through the pain faster.

Above all, give yourself time. This type of healing can't be rushed. If you want to restore the relationship, make sure that you figure out why it went wrong before you rush back into it.
Begin To Heal

There is nothing funny about having a broken heart. If you are reading this, I am sure you know that. Your stressed body will begin to accumulate all sorts of feelings on top of the depression.

Perhaps you lack positive focus and you are having trouble moving away from looking at the negative, leaving you almost completely unable to function. It is important to try to change this, as in a very direct way we experience the emotions that we focus on.

Here are a few steps to consider:

* Grieve
This is the best thing to do after your loss. Try not to avoid this step. It it best to do it immediately, or it may take you longer to heal. Do whatever you need to do to express yourself in this stage, so long as you don't hurt anyone else.

* The Plan
Healing is a journey that needs a plan. This means that you should write down some ways which (you think) will help you - right now! Think about it, and keep thinking about it.

* The Action
Once you have written down some things, make specific plans to act on them soon - and stick to it!

* Suggestions
Accept that you are responsible for your own healing, and take as much time as you need for yourself.

Take action when you are inspired.Forgive people and recognize that we take in what we focus on. This concept is recognized by some people as the law of attraction.

Do not hang around people who make you feel negative or people who complain all the time. Perform any spiritual work that feels right to you, perhaps include affirmations and visualizations. Be grateful.

Health Of Your Heart

Our hearts can be tormented and troubled. They can be squashed and pressured, both from a psychological and emotional point of view. This can be to such a point where they actually begin to result in physical health problems, thus, a broken heart can be considered quite literal. Losing someone you love can cause major problems to our hearts.

Over the course of a life time, most people (at one time or another) will experience a long trial of sadness or loss.

Much research has proven that hearts living under this pain don't just suffer emotionally, they all suffer physically. Deep feelings of depression, loneliness, and sadness can actually lead to problems like heart disease.

Researchers have found that what we all feel and the way we think directly effects the health of our heart. A study showed that people living under this pain can literally even die from a 'broken heart'. It is important to try and overcome the pain so that it doesn't drag on longer than it has to.

Consider the lessons that you have learned, and how you are smarter as a result of the experience. Think about this often, as it will help lift you and let you see some positive signs.

Find a treatment that works for you - this can be talking with those who care about you, other groups of support, perhaps something like psychotherapy or meditation. There are lots of techniques available to help heal your heart.

Get busy doing what it takes to become well!

Let's face it - being in a long distance relationship sometimes just sucks. There's really no other way to put it. The lack of physical intimacy can put a real strain on long distance couples. Things that other couples may take for granted like just holding hands can feel like a dream waiting to come true. Due to this huge intimacy gap in an LDR, it's important to keep the sexiness alive and have both partners still feel wanted and desired. To help ease the pain, here are five ideas to help keep you feeling more sensually connected no matter how far away you may be from each other.

We have grown apart so much these past few years. I thought when we split apart at the beginning of the year, a change was going to happen, but it didn’t. We got back together only after three months and basically picked up where we left off. Nothing changed at all. Okay, so you say that incident that happened with, need I not say her name, wasn’t supposed to happen, but maybe she was placed into my path to actually see how much of an ***hole you really are. I felt I got back with you on my terms, but to this day I don’t know why I really did get back with you.


My heart burns to know that the light we once inflamed, together, is disintegrating. My soul empties to feel like, us is just a term abbreviated to lesser standards. Love feels like a relevant term. Just knowing you, I’m afraid to know what real love feels like. I realize that it comes in different “packaging,” but if love comes with your type of “postage,” then I don’t want to feel love. My soul yearns for that young man I once fell in love with, but will never happen. What you and I had a once upon a time was so poetic and just. It almost felt like the greatest love tragedy of all, Romeo and Juliet. You were my Romeo and I was your Juliet. If you ever get the time, I encourage you to read that story. It really does feel like us, from beginning to end.


Is love really tender? I think it’s too rough, too rude, too rowdy, and it pricks like a thorn. You were the type I shunned completely; for the idea of being with someone like you jolted me. “Love is a monster for making me fall in love with my worst enemy.” The love we had was much like lightning which flashes and then disappears before you can say “it’s lightning.” Strands of old tears still stain my cheek from the many promised promises, many given, but never kept, always broken. The sun hasn’t melted away the fog I made with all my sighs. Sometimes I couldn’t help but wonder that you were too much acting like you were in love without really knowing what love means. I’ve heard people say that sudden joys have sudden endings. They burn up in victory like fire and gunpowder. When they meet, as in a kiss, they explode. “We should have loved each other in moderation.” I think that was the key to our “long-lasting love.” (Too fast is as bad as too slow).


When someone does the smallest thing to make you angry, you get angry. And when you’re in the mood to get angry, you find something to get angry about. Just the thought of her being alone with you at the home you got to “show me the ‘adult’ in you” weighs on my memory like sins linger in guilty minds. Maybe pain likes to have company and can’t come without bringing more pain. No words can and never will express the true pain I feel inside that night I looked into your eyes and realized…this is the beginning of the end. I feel whatever was left of you, you had given utterly and selfishly to her and I was left with none. All the wounds you cast upon me is being washed out with hot, salty tears…my tears; And, it burns horribly to the depths of my soul. How could you? I thought we said to the end? I guess that was the end. I kept you warm when you were cold. I kept you fed when your stomach drew of hunger. I was once the girl you ran to when there were no one else. Have, or did, you lose sight of that?


You were blinded by your distasteful desires…I spit on your pity. That night, I died. We died. My soul was doomed for banishment from my body. Banishment is death by the wrong name. Calling death banishment is like cutting my head off and smiling with I’m being murdered. You…you played the part of my executioner. Damned souls use the word banishment to describe hell. Maybe we’re just getting a sense of what our hell is to be like in the afterlife. We’re both tainted from our past adversities, of one another’s adversities. Life is the union of soul in body through the miracle of birth, but you would throw all that away. You bring shame to your body, your love, your mind. You have so much natural talent, but like someone who values money-not your body, not your love, not your mind. Your body is just a wax figure, without the honor of a man. The love that you promised me was just a hollow lie. All these troubles have given us stories to tell each other, these despicable stories.

I always hoped that one day you would was me out of the grave you sent me to with your tears. A little bit of grief shows a lot of love. But too much grief makes you look stupid. Every time I was with you, I would gaze into your eyes and just witnessed all this infidelity you had, whether it is with your inability with drugs, your many women, or just outright lies! Our love was like the blissful aroma of a rose. Our love was rose, so beautiful and pure, lovely to the eye, yet horrible to the scent. You say that your “so-called friends” think I’m mean; well, that’s nothing compared to the monster my “so-called” friends came to see that you created.

I loathe you. I carried your child, your only begotten son, in my womb and yet you still deny to this day. You see him, and you see someone else. I’d much rather you’d say nothing at all than someone else. In the sights of my soar eyes, my daughter seems to loathe you, also. She doesn’t know what to make of this sometimes. But yet, when I see my daughter and son having the time of their lives playing with a basket attached with a string, I can’t help but to look over at you and wonder if we’re having the same joys of contentment and happiness. That is where I want to stay ever more; though that is very obsolete.


You say you want the love your parents have, and so I ask you what exactly is that? Could it be the way your dad resents your mom from time to time? Could it be that your dad wasn’t a strong enough man to be the rock for his family? Or could it be that he never truly taught the morals and values of life to his three sons? I ask only what exactly kind of love you would like to bestow? If it involves pain, discomfort, and tension, then blind fold me and push into on-coming traffic because that’s exactly what I feel.

I surrender; you win!! Now what? More pain, more tears…do you care? At all? I’ve lost control and sometimes wonder where I am. What am I doing here? How did I get here? And mostly, why am I still here? I always feel like I’m a nervous wreck when I’m with you; even without. All these mixtures of feelings; is it love? What is love? How does it feel? And ultimately, how does one know if there in love? Love is friendship set on fire, and we sure set this thing a blaze. But as a flame does; it must die out, turns with dust, and eventually gone with the wind.

Oh, my love! How I long for the compassion…the tenderness. I wish I had wings to fly away from here. My children would be that wind taking a brethren upon my feathers as I soar through the sky. And you…you would be my wings, coming…helping to whisk me away as I take that last leap into the air, but my wings have failed me…you have failed me. Why must this untimely humiliation go on? Why couldn’t the world just end three years ago when “our world” was so pure and just? I guess that’s where our enjoyment ended. It was doomed from the beginning, and like all good things, it must come to an end; just like every other story has a sad ending. At least we can say that this roller coaster was invigorating, but still…has to come to an end.

My family is filled with screw-ups and break-ups. Now I can say that we fit right into the “clan.” I had fun while it lasted. We had some times, huh? I’ve realized that after doing my best to hold a grudge—something I’ve never been good at—a peaceful wave washes me away from it, even if a friend did something that feels like absolute treason to me. I wake up feeling compassionate, and ready, finally, perhaps to accept your apology. Still, while forgiving is a good idea, it’ll be quite difficult to forget.

That, my friend, my love, is called wisdom, and it comes with experience. So, as our trials and tribulations come to an understanding, we will know how this experience, we’ve lived together, came to pass; we will always recall this point in our lives as the idea of Love and Hate, Hate in Love: A Poetic Just.

My heart will always remain with you, my friend!!