As much as we would like to have relationships that are always trouble-free few of us do. The fact is that life happens to us no matter how hard we try to make things seem like a fantasy world.  We are humans and humans make mistakes.  Sometimes our problems stem from things that are seemingly out of our control, such as the loss of work.  Other times a relationship may face the difficulty of working through the heartache of one partner having an affair. More on What to Do When Your Relationship Is Facing Difficult Times

Your Life After 50

Dale and I hope that everyone in the US had a good holiday weekend. We did something different and went camping with our dogs, Jack and Jill,  on the motorcycles. The weather was absolutely gorgeous, the dogs behaved but one of the motorcycles had electrical issues so we came home a little early.

Traveling with the dogs strapped to the back of the motorcycle trailer may seem strange but they didn't complain once…However, I'm not sure we will try it again. It is difficult as someone has to be with them all of the time so we can't do much together. You also run in and get fast food as you can't take them into a restaurant and we can't leave them in the crate on the trailer as they might get too hot and someone is sure to report us, if they think the dogs are too hot.

We did have a good time and it was good preparation for our Lake Superior trip in August.  Again, we hope you had a great 4th of July.  Remember that there are many who sacrificed all so that we can have the freedom we have available to us.

Relationship Tip:

No Jealousy Allowed

To have a healthy relationship, caring and concern are fine but when those emotions change into jealousy, this could be the beginning of trouble.  Trust is probably the number one element needed in order to have a strong relationship.  Without trust, things will quickly deteriorate.

If one of you masters something special, receives a promotion at work, or achieves some great feat, there could be a small spark of jealousy on the other personÕs side.  You need to talk about this and ensure that any feelings of inadequacies are permanently put to rest.  Every person needs assurance at some time or another and as long as you can communicate, things will be fine.

However, if your mate becomes withdrawn or irritated, these could be signs that more is going on.  Once jealousy enters a relationship, problems are soon to follow.

Romance Tip

Go to the drive in but instead of sitting in the car, spread a picnic blanket on the ground.  Light a candle and buy popcorn.  Cuddle your partner and enjoy the film.

Are you constantly complaining, then you must believe you have a real need to complain and your life isn’t where you would like it to be.  If you don’t complain, you probably know someone who does and it makes everyone feel uncomfortable.

They probably try to avoid that person as much as possible.  Whether it’s you or someone else who is constantly complaining, what can be done to correct it and get back to positive living?

Complaining is a bad habit.  A habit, whether good or bad, is an urge to adopt that action no matter what the consequences.  The more you feed the habit the more it will take control of your life and the harder it is to kick.

Complaining typically stems from negative thoughts you’ve created.  You realize you’re the cause of your thoughts so you blame yourself and vent it with complaining. More on Stop Complaining and Take Back Control of Your Life

As Dale and I are progressing through the Save My Marriage Today material, we are discovering some very good points on negotiation rather than arguing. By looking at issues in a rational unemotional manner and discussing them with your partner, we are thus trying to find a win-win outcome.

They also bring up good points on dealing with anger. We are getting to some tough issues that we are dealing with and this material is helping with those issues. Stay tuned for more as we make progress. More on Our Journey Progresses

Relationship Tip:

Create a personalized magazine cover for your partner.  To do this, get hold of a good quality photo of her and a copy of a popular entertainment magazine.

Take these two items to a print shop or graphic design agency.  Ask them to scan your partner's photo and develop a magazine cover with the lead story being, "The 30 Most Beautiful Women of 2009".

When you get the cover, stick it on the front of a real magazine and ask your local shop owner whether you can place it in the magazine rack. Organize to meet your partner at the shop before going out.  When she arrives, tell her that you are just looking for a magazine.  Let her browse the rack and discover her magazine.

Romance Tip:

Keep in Touch

If you are in a relationship, where your partner serves in the armed forces and is overseas or in another state on duty, away in a foreign country for school, or separated from you for one reason or another, it is important that you keep in touch with each other often.  There will be stress from the separation but by keeping in touch and informing each other of the things each person is dealing with, how they feel, etc., you will not have any break in your communication. More on Relationship-Romance Tip #33

Hi, this is Dale writing to you.  As you know we started the "Save Your Marriage" course about a week ago. Jerry wanted me to write a little update what we have done so far

We have completed the first six exercises and found most of them to be very enlightening, a great source of conversation. The greatest encouragement is to take what we learn and put it into action, applying the lessons to our lives. We have had discussions on what our expectations were about marriage when we were younger and the impressions other married folks have had on us. We didn’t find much help in exercise 5, but you might find it very helpful.

We are enjoying the process as far as we have come and are looking forward to seeing what else we can learn about each other.   We’ll keep you posted, so keep following along and see what we find.

Dale

If you don’t have any bad habits you can skip reading this.

You’re still here. Good!  You’ve taken the first step in identifying your bad habits by admitting you have them.  They didn’t seem so bad at first.  The bad habits were just insignificant and you could break them any time you want.  You’ve heard about the guy who could stop smoking anytime he wanted.  He’s done it many times.  More on Identifying and Altering Your Bad Habits

Dale and I started an adventure on Saturday.  We started the "Save Your Marriage" course.  We believe that we should know the products that we recommend on this site.  We purchased all the material so not to be swayed with a "free" product.  More on Our New Adventure

Some people are born doers. Some people are born thinkers. Some think about doing and never get anything done. There are many ways to become a person of action and what works for someone else may not work for you.

Action people are usually people who are organized and seem to know exactly how to proceed from one project to another seamlessly and without effort. Others flounder in a world of disorganization, haplessly moving one piece of paper to another location without knowing why. At the end of the day, the doers typically have more energy than at the beginning as they feed on taking action. More on Become a Person Who Takes Action