ALONE BY CHOICE?

Why give yourself the grief of one more failed relationship? Why not opt out on the whole thing and embrace personal isolationism? Dump the significant other search, let your kids(if you have any) go to the devil and live all alone? It sounds like a relief, if you've been beating your head against relationship walls. So why not?

Because humans need relationships. Just look at the statistics and you'll see that humans in contact with others live longer, happier lives. Sometimes, it sucks, but we need one another.

You were born needing the care of others to keep you from dying and you still need it now. But relationships--romantic or not--are complicated and sometimes hard. Being alone might seem easier and much more simple, but that doesn't mean alone is healthier. Aside from the consideration of your physical well-being and your cardiac health, you need relationships to help you grow as a person.

It's like exercise. You need the gasping, wheezing, heart-pounding part to keep yourself from sliding into physical decay. The benefits are well-documented. Your doctor may have told you to get up off your keister and move. All to stress and strengthen the pump in your chest. There is lots of advice available to help guide you through good dietary choices and help you know which is the best activity for your lifestyle.

This isn't to say that exercise is always fun. Aside from the odd individual who loves running, biking and mountain-climbing into their seventies and eighties, exercise is generally something you do because you know it's good for you.

This is an attitude which will benefit your relationships, as well.

Being alone can be tempting, at times, but it puts you at risk. Relationships are challenging, but they can bring positives that aren't immediately visible. Just as not exercising can harden your arteries and make your heart less effective, being alone makes you vulnerable to becoming encased in your own perspective.

We all have individual ways of seeing the world, some parts of which are accurate and some inaccurate. Very few people are uniformly bad. Most of us have good qualities along with the not-good behaviors. You have your own take on stuff and part of this is incorrect. Part of your beliefs/thoughts/feelings are completely accurate, but not all. When you interact with others in relationships, your perspective bumps against that of others. The resulting conflict is supposed to give you a reason to do some self-examination.

You're not always right or always wrong, but you need someone who cares about you enough to argue this out, in order for you to see beyond yourself. Relationships can be worked out. It does take effort, but this effort isn't beyond you. You can do this.

You might not realize you're in self-protective mode. If you can't find anyone (who's not an idiot)to date, you need to look at your own willingness to wade into the water. Maybe you're fearful of being hurt. If you're not investing in others' lives, they won't invest in yours and you need them.

Believe in yourself and believe in your fellowkind. Others are stumbling along, too, and they need you. Whether you need to date outside your comfortable pool or create mentoring relationships with those still coming up, you'll benefit by opening your life.

It'll make you healthier and give you good things, along with the challenges.

PORN--THE DISCONNECTED CONNECTION

Looking at strangers doing sex acts can have an odd sense of intimacy to it. You're watching erotic images which triggers your own arousal. It's not exactly auto-eroticism because you're not completely by yourself. You can get into lots of variations from just looking at images on your monitor or in magazines from having sexual interactions via webcam. There may be phone calls and emails. You might actually hook up with strangers in motel rooms or you may sit in your bedroom at home searching for more and more on-line videos.

It can get to feel like an addiction you've tried to stop, but found yourself getting pulled back into.

The thing about on-line porn is that it's so easy and so comfortable. Heck, you're in your pajamas or you can sit totally naked and cruise the net. You may have a spouse in the other room asleep or a girlfriend at work and this porn thing feels more okay than actual cheating. Your mate may have even dabbled in it with you, at one time, but much of your viewing pleasure is alone and you may find you're going to porn instead of dealing with real life relationships.

Porn feels real without the mess of being real. At least, that's how it seems.

In actual relationships, you have disagreements and conflicts that don't feel good. You might not think your mate listens to you or cares what's important to you. If you forget to take out the trash or you're not thrilled to have her relatives around, she cuts you off and doesn't want sex. With porn, you don't have to jump through hoops for sex.

The problem is that you also don't real connections. Emotional intimacy is complicated and frustrating, at times, but it offers benefits you can't get from living your sexual life in a dark room in front of a glowing screen. In the real world, you have relationship challenges that, when faced and dealt with, strengthen you. You have a real person who cares about you and, while she argues with you, she also laughs with you and teases you and enjoys your successes.

Meeting a stranger in a parking lot and doing the nasty in your car carries risks that can seem exciting. It also leaves you empty inside.

You deserve better.

Invest in the real world. As messy as it can be, the rewards are much greater. With the challenge of communicating comes the success of learning to say what you need and of seeing her point-of-view. If you don't currently have a relationship and porn is your substitute, you're missing out. You need a living, breathing person in your bed who actually cares how your day went. Someone who gets your jokes and thinks you're smart. Get out there and start dating. It can feel as stressful as going on a lot of job interviews, but making the connection is worth the effort. Sometimes a session or two with a therapist can help you see what you're doing to trip yourself up.

Don't give up on yourself. Real life relationships can be messy and painful. They also can give you what you really need. Someone to be with. Someone who thinks you're hot and sexy and terrific. Someone to hold your hand when you're lonely (and other parts when you're feeling frisky) and rub your back when you're tired. A whole, complete relationship.

You can't find that through porn.

MAKING UP RIGHT

You're starting to think about her calling without wanting to throw your cell phone out the window and the blow-up has blown over. Now, what? While it's very tempting to snuggle up to your squeeze and pretend the whole thing never happened, this would be a mistake.

The problem with letting bygones be bygones is that you still don't get it.

What caused the problems in the first place? You guys might have gotten to the yelling point over a number of things--she was acting like she digged another guy at the club. Or she found out that you'd texted another woman(just as friends). Or you got tired of her nagging you. Maybe she acted like she didn't have time for you. You might have wanted to hang out with your dudes(and she got mad) or you just found out she bought another new pair of shoes and spent an ungodly amount on them. Whatever.

If you get friendly again, hoping this won't happen again, but not doing anything about the problem,...it'll happen again.

Even if this relationship has been hot and has lasted longer than most of your relationships--even if you love her more than you thought you could love a woman--the trouble spots don't just go away. So, make this fight up, but make it up right.

This is about solving the problem.

The first thing is to figure out what the problem really was. It may seem obvious to you(see above list of arguments), but the two of you were fighting about something more central. It may seem too girly to think about this, but what really matters is what you felt about whatever happened. Whether this fight was about money, sex or what you do with your free time, the emotions involved are where it lives.

Money hits down to the core for most people. It means security or having choices or power, but whichever, it's never unimportant. Sex is about feeling loved, powerful, desired or free. You need to figure out--when you were in the middle of the fight--what were you really mad about. Getting to this can be challenging. You'll probably have to do some serious thinking. This is an internal, generally by yourself thing, although sometimes a close friend or a therapist can help by telling you what they see. You need to know what got you hot(in a bad way).

Knowing what bothered you is the first step. You also need to find out what really bothered her--why she got all pissy. If you felt threatened and not important to her when she danced with another guy(several times) at the club, does she get mad back at you because you don't trust her? Maybe the guy asked her to dance and she didn't want to seem like she was blowing him off or you'd gone off to hang with your dudes and she wanted to dance. There are lots of possibilities, but you can't get to the core of the problem until you figure out your own reaction and try to understand hers.

Fighting is an art. Do it well and you have a good chance of being happy in a relationship. Don't resolve things and you'll almost certainly be looking for a new relationship eventually.

WHAT YOUR KIDS SAY ABOUT YOUR RELATIONSHIP

Your kids may actually want you to get a divorce, particularly if you and your mate are fighting a lot or if your fights are ugly. Don't think your children don't know when the two of you are arguing. They may be plugged into their MP3 players and texting on their cell phones while playing video games, but they know. They pick up tension between the grown-ups like Bounty towels absorb spills.

Even though you have to remind your kid a hundred times to pick up the wet towels off the bathroom floor, he remembers every time you and your mate get into it. He may not seem to take sides, but he knows about the fights. He may even mention them in a very offhand way to his friends, but don't freak out that the neighborhood has all the details of your bigger blow-ups. When this is referred to between themselves, kids are commiserating--their friends' parents are fighting, too.

Your child is into his life. He's got his friends and his sports. He's living his own life. Don't think that means that yours isn't effecting him.

Of course what the kid really wants is not to have to worry about you. He cares about your unhappiness, but doesn't want this to intrude on his. He wants to go on with being immersed in his own life. If he mumbles "Thanks, mom" when you pick him up from a late movie or remembers to wish you happy birthday, you probably feel touched. But you may not be aware that the relationship choices you're making have an impact on him. And not always in the way you think.

Kids usually don't want their parents to split, but sometimes they think it's best.

If you and his dad are already divorced( or never-married-and-now-broke-up) he's aware of when you're angry with his father and he hears--no matter how careful you are--what you say about his dad.

When you decide to stay in a relationship "for the kids", make sure this is best for the children. Even when divorce involves financial changes, if you're better off and healthier, your children will be happier. While divorce doesn't magically lead to you finding a golden life, it can lessen the day-to-day stress both you and your child live with.

All parents fight...even the ones who don't "fight" have disagreements. But make sure your conflict with your mate is productive and that the two of you are enjoying each other, too.

EASY ISN'T EASY

Hard is no fun, but taking the easy road will buy you some ugly consequences. Whether we're talking relationships or jobs, be suspicious of those that don't require anything from you. Nothing that comes cheap is worth much.

This isn't to say you should climb Everest or look for impossible suitors. Just know that easy breezy is a great look, but not a great motto. Don't sell yourself short. You can do the hard stuff that's worth doing. You can earn the degree that will net you the career you want and you can face fears that have haunted you too long.

Doing scary, hard things doesn't require you to be particularly fearless, it just takes you moving forward even though you're afraid. Heros aren't built with no fear; they do what needs to be done inspite of fear. Believing in yourself isn't having a lack of doubt--most of us doubt ourselves, at times. The belief part comes from considering that you might have what it takes to do what you know needs to be done.

There are tons of things that aren't particularly fun, but which can get you into a better place--interviewing for a job you want, going on a first date with someone in whom you're interested, completing a degree. None of these are easy, but all can be worthwhile.

Easy as a life motto can cost big.

Taking the easy road can mean engaging in behaviors that are conflict-avoidant. Get real. Conflict is a part of life. Avoiding conflict on principle makes you a bad bet for a relationship and a bad risk as a friend. Participating in others' lives involves having to face unpleasant or challenging moments. You don't have to ask for them, but conflict needs to be faced when it arises.

It takes courage to admit the truth when a lie looks like the way to avoid consequences. The problem with this choice is that consequences are vital to the learning process. You need them to get verification for the right steps and realization of the wrong steps. Whether your cheating your way through an exam or a relationship, you're risking yourself. Facing up to the music can be ugly, but not facing it is even uglier.

Risk big; earn big. The harder moments in life usually involve lessons you need to learn. Go there. Believe in yourself enough to jump the high hurdles--tell your mate your true feelings. Tell your boss if you think you can handle the promotion. Tell the truth.

Ask yourself questions, even though you're afraid of the answers. Be brutal. The pay-off is that you're better equipped to handle the hard stuff. Knowing yourself will enable you to make better choices and take bigger risks with others. Don't put off paying the piper. You can handle this. You can do the hard thing. Be honest with yourself about what's really at risk and what you're really afraid of. You don't get to make others take the risks they ought to take, but you are responsible for the ones you avoid or embrace.

Moral courage is a tough choice, but you'll feel better about yourself at the end of the day.

Easy isn't easy. You may push your consequences off until another day, but they come roaring back, bigger and badder than ever. Do the hard thing--the right thing, now.

YOU DON'T GET TO TELL YOUR EX

Divorce is tough on kids, but parents who are divorcing get a real shock, too. While you might not think about this while you're dealing with property settlements and child support, you need to realize that co-parenting with a divorced parent isn't the same as co-parenting with a mate with whom you're still involved.

The break-up period can be really confusing. First, you have the challenge of coming to terms with the fact that the two of you aren't going to make it. There may have been some back-and-forth to this, with one or both of you changing your minds several times about whether things are bad enough to warrant severing the relationship. This can be exhausting. You don't always hate your ex; there was a time when you loved(and liked) her. Most people don't wish their ex dead, so separating can be difficult.

You've probably heard the maxim that once you've had children together, the other person will always been in your life. This is true, at least while the kids are minors. When they reach adulthood, things generally get easier, holidays and weddings aside. This isn't true when the children are young, though. To some degree, you'll have to interact. Some people get very creative with texting and email, never actually speaking to their ex-partners.

A reality of divorcing or breaking-up when you have kids together is that you have to let go of most input into how the other parent does her job. You have a legal say in matters of health and education, but beyond that, you usually don't get to say squat. It may seem like you should be able to say who she should(or shouldn't) date or at the least who should (or shouldn't) be around your kids.

You don't.

You usually don't get to tell you ex who sleeps over or who keeps your kids when your ex isn't there. You also don't get to tell your ex how to discipline or what pets they keep or how much they drink when the kids are with her. In some parts of the country, you may get a legal injunction against your mate having dates sleep-over, but you don't get to say who she marries. Most counties don't even have much to say about the sleep-over issue. You don't have a vote about your ex-wife embraceing a new religion--or leaving the one you've raised the kids in. She can get wild and go out every weekend. You can't make her live like you want.

All this may seem wrong. After all these are your kids, too. But the hard cold reality is that she doesn't get to tell you how to parent and you don't get to tell her how to parent. She may be lenient when you think the kids need her to follow-through or you might think she's too hard on them.

You have opinions about all of this, but you don't get to vote.

You have legal rights, of course. Depending on the divorce decree, she'll probably have to live within a certain distance of your residence. But you don't get to tell her whether she can spank or not; whether she should drink and stay out all night(as long as a responsible person is with the kids) or whether she "dates" a guy who's in prison.

Divorce or breaking up with your co-parent automatically puts all your parenting on another level. But staying together for the kids is only good when you can resolve your couple problems and get back on track. Your kids don't want you together if you're fighting constantly and unhappy all the time. They'll be unhappy, too.

If you do split, make sure you know what this means in regards to parenting choices.

RELATIONSHIP POISON

If you want to kill your relationship, never resolve conflicts. When you argue, make sure you repeat your points over and over and never listen to his. When he's talking, be thinking about what you have to say next. Get mad when he yells, and make sure you don't hear what he's trying to say.

True, no one likes being yelled at. It's rude and scary.

But people yell when they don't feel heard or when they're very upset about something. Yelling isn't the best way to get someone to listen, but it is a natural tendency. Listen to him. Hear his feelings, not just what he's saying. What he's feeling. People yell when they feel threatened or frustrated.

Then talk about what you feel. If he doesn't listen to you, tell him you love him and you need him to hear your concerns. If you have to, say the same words again calmly--like a broken record. Talk about your feelings rather than making accusations against him or telling him what you think he feels. Neither of these work.

It's natural to just want to stop fighting, to hope that not talking about the problem will give it a chance to go away. Problems don't go away, though. They sit and fester, growing uglier in the dark.

You won't get over arguments. It may seem like this is a functional way to deal with issues, but the fact that the same fights pop up over and over is an indication that the original problem didn't just go away because you stopped fighting about it.

There are two parts to giving the relationship a chance to resolve disagreements--talk and listen. Both are really, really important. You need to hear not just what he's saying, but what he feels about the situation. Let's be honest: Most individuals don't say what they feel. They make accusations and blame one another for various things.

The other really important part is to Ask yourself what you feel. Hurt, mad, disappointed, unloved, disregarded, scared--whatever. Then tell him your feelings. Both listening and talking are vital to working through a relationship problem. You can't find effective resolution if you don't start with what matters. You're upset. Figure out why.

Figure out how he feels. Ask him. Then listen to what he says. You may have to sort through his words. He might say "I feel that you are...." which isn't really a feeling. It's more of an accusation. What does he feel?

If you can fill in the blanks, this is an effective communication: "When you do this ____, I feel ____."

Don't let problems sit unresolved. They eat at the foundation of the relationship and soon enough there's nothing left of your love for one another.

Unsettled issues poison the relationship. Deal with them or deal with the consequences of not dealing with them.