Married? No Valentine Love?

The Golden Rule has serious limitations. Sometimes, doing unto others the way you want done unto you is a huge mistake.

You might not care for Valentine’s Day. It may seem like a pointless, made-up holiday created by florists and chocolatiers to rip off as many suckers as possible. Maybe the last token of love you gave your spouse was returned the next day. Or worse, maybe your ex- sent the divorce papers on Valentine’s.

February 14 can be a bitter date for some.

For many people, the day for lovers is an opportunity for disappointment. This isn’t just because she expected jewelry and you got her a peek-a-boo nightie. This isn’t just about how much money you did or didn't spend or the sex one of you expected to get. Your underlying reasoning needs some work. Big moments are often less than desired because you tend to tell your loved one of your affection the way you want to be loved.

This is a case of not doing unto others the way you want to be done. Your lover is different from you. Sometimes very different. (If this isn’t true, you have a whole other set of issues.) I’m constantly hearing from individuals in conflicted relationships how their mates are just like me. Don’t kid yourself. He’s not like you.

He’s a different person with a very dissimilar way of thinking. Just because you love stuffed animals bearing red hearts with “I Wuv You” stitched on them, doesn’t mean he wants these. If you get a non-stuffed-animal-lover this kind of token of your love, you’re likely to find said stuffed animal on the floor in a dusty corner tomorrow. Your mate is different from you. Different kinds of things convey your devotion to him. He may want to be treated to a steak dinner and taken home to get his dessert. This may not mean love to you, even if you like steak.

If you really want to convey your love, you need to think about what triggers your loved one to feel loved. Sadly, most people don’t even know what this is! If you’re in a relationship and your mate is important to you, you need to know what says “I love you” to her. Some women love receiving flowers, but they’re just a waste of money to others.

There is no one-size-fits-all here.

The simplest way to find the secret is to ask. Just ask your partner in a non-attacking, non-defensive way: “What makes you feel most loved?” He may have to think about it, but you need to persevere. Even if the answer is quick and doesn’t seem terribly complex or sincere, you need to listen. It may actually be the truth. Your spouse may not know you really are interested in hearing his experience. You may need to ask and ask again, until you get an answer that’s received some serious thought.

When have you felt most loved? Don’t you think you need to know this? If she feels loved when you cook for her (no matter what kind of a cook you are), this will be a terrific piece of information! Just think, if you know what button to push to trigger your spouse to feel loved and cared for, you’d have relationship power and a great communication tool.

If you want to feel loved, your spouse needs to know what says love for you. This may be flowers and a peek-a-boo nightie. Heck, you may be thrilled for any token of affection on Valentine’s Day. On the other hand, you may crave time alone with him or long for a leisurely walk through a park.

Sure, getting a Ferrari with a big bow on the top makes for a terrific commercial, but if you just drive to get from one place to another, what kind of gift is a sports car? Know your lover. Find out what your spouse needs and wants from you, and tell her what works for you.

Communication is vital. Think of it as a hostage exchange. Give me yours and I’ll give you mine. Don’t succumb to the belief that you automatically know what your lover wants. Most people don’t...and that makes for a rough February 15th.

Relationship Do-Overs

It’s like the fish that got away…. Former lovers. Past relationships that fizzled out or exploded in a blaze of broken hearts. Whether you found each other again at a high school reunion or hooked up once more on MySpace, the temptation to go back to a love from days past can be strong.

Ending relationships is typically painful and difficult. You once loved this person and gave a lot of yourself to the relationship. Whether you left, you got left or you both decided to end it, most of us don’t like saying goodbye. Revisiting a broken relationship can feel like finding a lost valuable. It’s exciting and familiar in all the good ways. But is it all good?

Sometimes, individuals find themselves, not with the same someone, but with a similar someone. Relationships and intimate interaction is half you. Are you driving the same track? Picking the same kind of person? Acting the same in different relationships?

If so, you’re going to get very similar results.

Getting involved with a former lover can be very tempting. But you need to ask yourself what’s different now? If the two of you had conflicting values—different lifestyle preferences, conflicts in communication or different views on what the relationship should be—is this conflict still present?

It’s not enough to say you’re going to try harder or that you know now how terrific he is. You fell in love in the first place and somewhere you hit a problem. If you don’t see how this problem can be fixed, why go back? Going back means revisiting all of the problems, too.

Taking a break from a relationship, only to start it up later, doesn’t solve the issues. No matter how attractive it seems, if you haven’t found a solid way to deal with the issues, they’re still a problem. Sometimes, individuals tell themselves that they’re not going to make a big deal of things this time. They’ll roll with the punches or go with the flow or some other cliché that helps them believe they won’t care about what they cared about before.

If you’ve gone through a major transformation…done intensive therapy, done a huge intrapersonal assessment or retooled your value system, maybe then your experience in the relationship will be different. You may, however, need to accept that some relationships aren’t fixable. People who get together because they make good friends can sometimes make an intimate relationship work. After all, friendship is an important part of a loving relationship. But not all friends make good lovers. You may get along great when you’re not sharing a bed or a financial report. It’s easier being friends, than being lovers.

You need to ask yourself: In getting back into this relationship, are you just going for Round Two? Is this the same story over again? If so, you can expect a similar outcome.

Maybe you screwed up in the first go-around. Maybe there are big things you’d do differently. You can try to learn from every relationship, because you’ve given a fair amount of yourself into each one. Relationships are 50/50, even if all you did was give in to your mate all the time. You contributed something, even if it was passivity (not a good thing in a relationship) .

People do change and relationships can be different. You get to change your own function. This is the personal power we all possess. Before you get into a repeat relationship, though, you need to look hard at your own actions and your motivations. More than anything, you need to give serious attention to the question of what’s different now?

Going With Your Gut

Some decisions just feel right. You have a sense of what you need to do—there may be no question about the choice—but basing every decision on how you feel can lead to a very chaotic life.

Emotion alone doesn’t give you a complete reality. You can feel challenged, unloved or frightened, but this can shift rapidly when you get a different perspective on a given situation. Not everything you feel is true in reality. How you feel, though, is really important. You do need to have an awareness of your emotional experience. Some pieces of information come packaged—wrapped—in emotion. You can’t shut these out and be safe. More and more we are realizing that in many life-threatening situations, victims had an awareness of danger(emotion!) and disregarded this.

You need to know how you feel and not disregard emotion. Then, you need to mix your emotional awareness with some level of objective reasoning. This isn’t easy. When you have strong emotions, rational thought can be difficult.

Particularly with those you love, you may struggle to be objective. Loved ones are the people who provoke the strongest emotions in you—both happiness and anger. But even when you feel betrayed or misunderstood or disregarded, you need to strive for a somewhat logical assessment of the situation. You may feel unloved in a moment when you are actually very loved.

Decisions based purely on emotion leave you vulnerable. Whether you’re making a relationship decision (“Yes, I’ve only known him a week, but I’m moving in with him. He treats me like a queen!”) or buying a car. Make sure you look at the situation as rationally as possible. Just because the car saleswoman seems like she’s really trustworthy doesn’t mean the car is the best deal for you. Similarly, when you’re dating, you need to use your head as well as your heart. How well do you really know the person you’re going home with? Do you even know if he voted Republican or Democrat in the election? Or if he voted at all? Just because you feel close to or loved by someone at the moment, doesn't mean you really know him.

More than fifty percent of marriages end in divorce. The biggest issues are money, sex and dealing with kids. You need to know the person you’re getting involved with or just getting into bed with. Relationships are complicated. Throw in a few ex-spouses and a couple of step-kids and you have a very confusing, distressing situation.

Find some rationality and don’t count only on your friends to help you with this. Friends are friends because they’re on your side. This feels nice, but it doesn’t help you to be objective about which job will be best for you and which ex-lover is likely to have changed his stripes. When you have a big decision to make, don’t go solely with your gut.

Major situations shouldn’t be decided on how you feel. Abusers are wonderfully attentive and flattering…in the beginning. Some jobs look great on paper, but would be hell for you. Don’t think you’re better off finding a situation in which you feel good right now. Experiences change and emotion shifts like the weather. Being able to anchor yourself on reality, gives you a better handle on making choices.

Ask yourself--given all the information in a situation--what you’d tell one of your friends she should do. Step out of your situation and try to look at it as if this wasn’t about you. Think what you’d say to a child of yours, if he were in a similar situation. If you can, talk with a therapist. Being completely outside of the situation, he or she should be able to help you see aspects you haven’t considered.

Finding a complete picture in a situation means including both the logical and the subjective. Listen to your heart, but don’t disregard your head. Both are important.

Can't Be Alone?

Have you ever dated someone you really weren't that into? Ever found yourself hanging out with a member of the opposite sex and stumbling into intimacy…just because he was there? Does going out with a bunch of "coupled" friends make you uncomfortable unless you have a date? Do you sometimes avoid going home because there's no one else there? Maybe you've continued dating a "filler" because there was no one else around who really interested you…and you didn't want to be alone.

The fear of being alone causes individuals to rush out after a break-up and immediately start seeing someone else. Pretty much anyone else. It's like a romantic relay race or a game of musical beds. Hardly able to bear a week between relationships, people start looking around immediately and quickly latch onto someone else. The new dating cycle usually starts by "going out" the weekend after the old relationship ends. Let's be honest, it's not just that you suddenly want to dance or that you just want a drink. You're trolling for the next person to add to your dating resume.

There are various reasons for the growing phenomenon of endless, serial dating relationships. The "can't be alone" conviction may be a way to handle rejection. Your old girlfriend has just kicked you to the curb. "I'll show her!" you determine. "Somebody wants me, even if she doesn't." Please note, in this particular scenario, you always make sure the previous lover knows about the current date. Either you call her to get your video games back or you "run into" her at a favorite restaurant. Sometimes, using no pretense at all, you just call to let your previous lover know you've moved on.

Or the rush to hook up with someone else can simply a way to fill up the empty space left by the departed lover. It hurts to lose love. Even if the relationship had problems, you can feel lost, cast bare-naked into the world. Alone. If you have a good feel for your "type," you might end up dating very similar people with different faces. Then you can continue the same problematic behaviors in the new relationship. Nothing really changes, but the name next to yours on the lease. Successful relationships involve personal challenges for all of us. Doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result has been called a definition of insanity. Then, again…relationships sometimes feel pretty insane.

Maybe you just hate eating alone. It can feel weird to request a table for one at a restaurant or go to a movie by yourself. But are these awkward situations so terrible that we engage in pretend relationships? A large number of people get in relationships that they privately view as "temporary." They're just waiting until someone really good come along and then they'll jump from one life boat to the other.

When did the single, unattached state become a disease? We tend to view others who are dateless as losers and who wants to be a loser? Being in relationships is crazy complicated. Why add to that by letting your desperation be the primary motivation?

Be alone. It's okay. Even if people look at you funny, try to give you dating advice or wonder aloud why you can't find a mate, being single can still be better than being with someone you don't really want to end up with.

Dare to be different. Dare to be alone.

Useless College Degrees

Graduate from college and automatically get a good job? Not necessarily. Students who earn undergraduate degrees in general studies, liberal arts, sociology, and similar majors may find themselves educated, but unemployable when they exit academia. These are just a few college degrees that prepare students for graduate school--you could get into law school with any of these--but which might not earn you a living. Psychology is a tremendously interesting field of study and increasing numbers of students claim this as their major, but a graduate degree is necessary to support yourself if you want to be a psychologist.

Yeppies--the children of the yuppies of the '80s--are idealistic about their futures. Not only do they aspire to changing the world, they're accustomed to pursuing their interests with an Apple Nano Ipod in their $200 True Religion jeans pockets. Unfortunately, a large percentage of them have no concept of how to earn these luxuries.

It is a little known reality that a degree in business can get you a job earning six figures or one working next to people with no college experience. Same with some technology degrees. Going to college and graduating isn't enough. Higher education used to guarantee the graduate an automatic career in his company of choice. Individuals went to school, took a variety of classes as random as their interests, and like the hero of the movie, The Graduate, still had no idea of their place in the work world.

The phenomena of the unemployable college graduate, to a large part, reflects parents' attitude toward the children of the hard-working middle class. We put in long hours and make the most money to provide our families with the little luxuries of life. Kids are not required to earn their own spending money or to work at after-school jobs. We want them to "focus on their studies," we say. Many are in Advanced Placement(AP) or Honors classes. Parents love saying, "My son is in all AP classes." Advanced Placement can be tough, but not necessarily advantageous. Depending on the teacher and the subject, students can be required to produce quantities of academic efforts, and this is frequently the reason they don't have part-time jobs. They stay up long hours working on school projects and IM-ing each other until their sleep clocks get out of whack. Summers are one long blur of sleeping and hanging out. While kids might be prepared for college, they're too often not prepared to lay claim to adult lives in the work world.

The solution? We parents need to encourage kids to begin thinking earlier about the career path they want to pursue. Any real-life experience they can get in their fields of interest is valuable. Volunteering in the professional environment or interviewing a college professor who teaches the subject can both provide important information about the reality of professions. Learning to work, even in menial settings, is also important, especially if we encourage them to take work responsibilities seriously. Even holding an job that a kid doesn't like can help him or her realize fields of study that aren't for them. (It can also motivate them to go to school to earn the kind of career they will enjoy.) Jobs in fast food restaurants and amusement parks can help young people learn what they need from the work experience. Enjoy working with people? Prefer quiet and solitary tasks? Kids need to know these things in order to create a fulfilling, successful career path.

Send them to college, for sure, but get them ready to get ready for a life of professional experience.

Relationship in Trouble? Don't Wait Too Late

Most couples who seek relationship counseling do so one small step ahead of calling a lawyer. You hope it'll just blow over. You've always gotten over conflicts in the past…the same ones you're arguing about now, probably. It's natural to feel a little weird telling a total stranger about the trouble in your relationship. Paying a professional to listen and help is strange, but the sad fact is that relationships are challenging. The hardest, most difficult things we humans attempt on this earth are raising children and maintaining healthy romantic relationships. Yet, we have a tendency to expect both to come as naturally as breathing.

When a relationship is in trouble, we wait to see if things will get better on their own. Maybe one or the other of you were just in a bad mood. You fight, you sulk, you go on with daily living. No resolution.

The problem with this approach is that leaving trouble unsolved almost always leads to bigger problems down the line. Truthfully, we don't fall out of love; we kill it little by little. Like water dripping on stone, we wear away the bedrock of love slowly. One unresolved conflict after another; one reoccurring argument after another. Giving in just to avoid a fight builds resentment

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Before you know it, you're really tired. You may find yourself preferring to spend time with others than with your mate. Love erodes if we don't find functional resolution in relationships. It isn't so much a matter of making sure each partner "wins" the same number of times. Winning is primarily in coming to understand the other's point of view and in coming to terms with the emotions we're experiencing.

Conflict in relationships is inevitable and even functional. Resolving disagreements in a manner where both partners feel listened to and understood leads to tremendous relationship strength.

Learning to get to this point, however, takes character and resolve. It takes a lot of energy to learn how to confront and deal with relationship conflict. To make this challenging reality worthwhile, we need to still find value together. Waiting till all the affection and love is drained out of the relationship frequently means we don't have the motivation to confront the bad spots.

Couples need to learn early how to fight, how to listen and resolve even the largest conflicts. Waiting until we're worn down with the disharmony can mean that even professional help is pointless. When there's no love left, there's less reason to wade into the battle.

Accidental Sex

"It just happened," you say to a friend. "We were kissing…and one thing led to another."

You can say it with excitement or with a grimace. Whether you regret the sex, see it as part of the blossoming of a new relationship or view the experience as just another date, physical intimacy has become another area in which we don't take control. The fact of the matter is that consensual sex is a choice. At some point in the interlude, someone unzipped someone's pants, lifted a skirt or tugged down a thong. It didn't just happen.

Oops, my vagina fell onto your penis!

Sex is a decision and one we're very unclear about. In today's world of AIDS, herpes and elusive, emotional intimacy, sexual contact has never been more carelessly engaged in. Yet, few people are taking ownership of their sexual experience. Ironically, "responsible sex" is simply a phrase that means using a condom. Hooking-up is now in our vocabulary along with making a booty call, but a surprising few claim to just want random sex. Most people say they're seeking a relationship with more enduring qualities, but they're still having sex on the slightest of acquaintances.

You meet, you talk and flirt…you go back to someone's place. It's as casual as going to dinner or taking a walk, only a lot more naked.

People are thinking and talking about sex--random strangers, random internet sites--but as individuals we feel more isolated than ever before. Everyone's doing it and everyone seems to feel bewildered by the struggle to "find someone." The most exciting, fulfilling sex is an act of physical intimacy that is an extension of emotional intimacy. You can't get to it in an hour of superficial conversation.

Spontaneity in relationships can be charming and attractive, but while sexual urges are very natural, acting on them also has consequences. Lots of consequences, actually. Whether the sex leads to a pregnancy, the passing of a disease or a lack of clarity in emotional relationship, it has powerful impact when we drop our pants on a whim.

Sex can be a ton of fun, all there at your fingertips, so to speak. No calories and no cost, if you do it right. But don't forget the emotional aspects of the physical gymnastics. You may not feel like it, but you are in control of your sexual and emotional experience. Maybe it would pay to put a little thought into what, and who, you're doing.