Are People Meant to Be Monogamous?

By becksta on 7/29/10 12:16pm
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Chimpanzee LoveChimpanzee LoveIs monogamy the natural way for couples to live? I truthfully don’t know, but Psychologist Christopher Ryan doesn’t think so. He claims that in the past days of the hunter-gatherer, everything was shared because of the close proximity in which people lived. When the idea of personal property came into being, the idea of monogamy gained importance along with the eventual biblical ideas of not coveting another’s wife.  Christopher Ryan believes that agriculture and personal property also led to the belief that women were more likely to seen as property than as individuals contributing to society.


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Never Listen to Dr. Laura's Advice

By becksta on 7/19/10 11:07am
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The Proper Care & Feeding of Husbands by Dr. LauraThe Proper Care & Feeding of Husbands by Dr. Laura

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Marriage Advice from an Infamous Houseplant Killer

By becksta on 6/25/10 12:11am
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Bathroom SinkBathroom Sink

I recently asked a friend for some advice about love and marriage and she offered to write some of her own advice anonymously. She's been married over a decade as have many of her friends and truthfully has some useful advice in the form of a personal story.

Her Story


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Sex and Marriage: Dealing with Infidelity

By becksta on 6/15/10 4:31pm
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Sex and Marriage: InfidelitySex and Marriage: InfidelityDifferent sex drives in a relationship does NOT equal the freedom to cheat at will; however, there will always be those partners who stray while whining about their spouses’ sex drive or lack thereof, which is complete and utter BS. There are plenty of alternatives for partners to explore together to resolve the situation that don’t involve cheating. See HERE for some ideas on how to work with different sex drives in relationships.


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Sex and Marriage: Incompatible Sex Drives

By becksta on 6/10/10 12:48pm
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This is part II (Part I is HERE) in a short series about everybody’s favorite topic- Marriage and Sex and will specifically focus on ways for couples manage the difficulty of non-matching sex drives. Some men (and some women as well) take the low sex drives of their spouses as a license to cheat- John Edwards, whose wife had breast cancer,  is one of the more recent examples of this.

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Sex and Marriage: How Much is Normal

By becksta on 6/7/10 6:42pm
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Marriage and SexMarriage and Sex

This article provides a revealing tell-all tale of a woman who pretends to be drunk or in pain in order to avoid sleeping with her husband- the writer paints the portrait of the woman (Lynn) avoiding sex at all costs because facing up to sex with her husband is such a “chore”. Lynn claims she is still sexually attracted to her husband, but that she is not interested in doing the deed. She admits that the couple has not had sex for five months and blames her lack of interest (and a lowered sex drive) on giving birth.


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The Case of the Dangly Earring

By becksta on 5/10/10 4:59pm
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The Case of Dangling EarringThe Case of Dangling EarringMy Grandpa, whose stories are roughly 60% true, loves to tell a story about his friend, "Bob", who is from the same small town which is about the size of Wasilla. My Grandpa is not the only one to tell this particular tale, so I've reached the conlusion that it's probably true. 
Bob's girlfriend was at his house one day cleaning his house. While she changing the sheets on his bed, she found a lone dangly earring underneath his pillow. It normally would have been no problem, but the earring wasn't hers. 
She reacted a little strongly and started yelling at him to get in the room. Bob didn't let the fact that he lived in a conservative town in the 1980's stop him from thinking quickly on his feet- he told her that the earring was his and that had been planning to pierce his ear for some sometime.
Obviously, she was skeptical. Instead of arguing the point with him further, she marched into the kitchen, grabbed a needle from the sewing kit in the kitchen drawer, and offered to pierce his ear for him. 
He let her pierce his ear and wore the dangly earring for the entire small town to laugh at and mock for the entire two weeks more that their relationship lasted. 
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Luckily, they weren't married or in a long term relationship and neither one of them had any children, so when the relationship ended it wasn't as serious as it could be, but that's unfortunately not always the case. 
What do you do when you find a "smoking gun" in the bedroom, on your partner's cell phone, on their computer or anywhere else for that matter? What do you do when your feminine (or masculine) intuition tells you that your significant other is "out of bounds" for the terms of your marital agreement?
Julia Hartley Moore, who is an expert in cheating spouses, claims that while phones are the most common ways people get caught, there are other ways to find out if your partner is cheating, most of which happen to involve a great deal of snooping, particularly into the finances. http://coaches.aol.com/love-and-sex/feature/_a/investigating-suspected-adultery/20060620104809990001
Once you have what you think is evidence that your spouse or partner is cheating, do you automatically assume the worst and try to end your relationship or are you able to stay calm in the face of overwhelming evidence? How do you handle it? 
 

The Case of Dangling EarringThe Case of Dangling EarringMy Grandpa, whose stories are roughly 60% true, loves to tell a story about his friend, "Bob", who is from the same small town which is about the size of Wasilla. My Grandpa is not the only one in town to tell this particular tale, so I've reached the conlusion that it's more than likely true.

Bob's girlfriend was at his house one day cleaning his bedroom. While she was changing the sheets on his bed, she found a lone dangly earring underneath his pillow. It normally would have been no problem, but the earring wasn't hers. 

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Is Marriage Like a TV Dinner?

By becksta on 5/6/10 4:39pm
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Is Marriage Like a TV Dinner?Is Marriage Like a TV Dinner?I just read a great book about marriage and divorce entitled, "Here Lies My Heart". The book is a collection of personal essays by literary types reflecting on their own relationships over the course of their lives. "Serial Lover" by Rebecca Walker caught my attention.

In the essay, the writer describes a series of five, monogamous relationships and how she grew from each one. Ms. Walker also shares her personal beliefs about marriage in general, which are not altogether positive if this quote is any indication:

Marriage feels like the ultimate delusion, a pre-cooked TV dinner with compartments and impossibilities like 'forever' and 'completeness'.....


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5 Easy Ways to Get Some Alone Time

By becksta on 4/23/10 9:06pm
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I Need Some Space!I Need Some Space!In any relationship, there are times when you just want your significant other to be as far away from you as possible. Unfortunately, it’s not always practical to storm out the door in a huff with no real destination in mind. Aside from just going to the another room (where there is always a chance of being followed by said significant other), there are a few special ways that you can get the frick away and protect your privacy.

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Breaking up With Your Friends

By becksta on 4/21/10 12:42pm
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Broken HeartBroken Heart

W. Somerset Maugham once said, "It's no good trying to keep up old friendships. It's painful for both sides. The fact is, one grows out of people, and the only thing is to face it"

While this quote is not always true, I am a firm believer that people should have the ability to choose who we have close to us (with the exception of our families who we are inherently stuck to like super glue whether we want to be or not) and that we all should be able to put a little distance away from people who aren’t exactly empowering as friends. 

Unfortunately, that is easier said than done.

For many of us, it’s easy to break up with a boyfriend, but not so easy to end a friendship.


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