Tracking down your Soul Mate

The Seven Stages of a Romantic Relationship

Learn to listen to your intuition when you're in a romantic relationship. It will help you to make smart decisions!

The 7 Stages of a Romantic Relationship
By Michelle L. Casto, M.Ed.

There are seven stages in a romantic relationship: avoidance, meeting, dating, breaking up, establishing exclusivity, commitment, and keeping the love you find. Each of these stages vary in length and intensity. At each stage, there are thoughts and feelings telling you what to do and when to do it. You need to learn to listen to your intuition in each stage, so that you can make smart decisions.

It is important to note that the breaking up stage can happen at any time within the other stages; i.e., at any time you or the other person decides to exit the relationship for whatever reason.

In all seven stages, you always have these choices:

1. Continue moving forward
2. Stagnate
3. Slow down or go backwards
4. Exit

By taking notice of the signals from your head and heart, you will be better able to interpret what your intuition is telling you. At each stage, consider, “What am I thinking and feeling?” Are you receiving conflicting messages? Is your head saying one thing and your heart another? This is often the case, particularly in romantic relationships. What happens is there is an agreement error, a contrast between your thoughts and your feelings. This is perfectly normal.

Just remember that you have your very own internal system of checks and balances. This system was designed to keep you safe. For the moment, it is temporarily out of order, probably due to stimulation overload. So, before making any decision at this time, go somewhere quiet’ the answers will come with reflection and focus.

Cheating Men


Learn how to spot cheating men and find out if the guy you're dating is married.

Cheating Men - How Can You Tell if the Guy You're Dating is Married?
Cheating Men ImageOnly about 1% of married men who have affairs leave their wives, and many men cheat on their wives. With the Internet, there's even more chance to be elusive in the early stages.

Of course you're concerned and want to know if that guy you just met who's coming on to you so delightfully is married before you get involved. But how can you be sure he isn't married and just fooling around?

Make no mistake, married men who are fooling around can be wonderfully attentive and romantic. He can be emailing you and calling you on his cell all day long, filling your hungry heart with the wildest affirmations you've ever dreamed of, showering you with gifts, and making rapturous love to you when you get together.

It can be the stuff of which fantasies are made and here’s why: to cheating men it IS a fantasy.

If you've experienced it, you'll wonder how a man could do that to his wife. That's a topic for another article. Meanwhile, it's important not to delude yourself.

Here are 10 ways to know if the guy you're dating is one of those cheating men:

1. You're suspicious. If you generically suspect every man you meet of this,

10 Tips to Build Trust in Your Relationship

10 things you can do to build trust in a relationship.

10 Crucial and Surprising Steps to Build Trust in a Relationship

1. Be predictable to build trust
this article is relatoinship related.
When do seeds of suspicion emerge? When one begins to think, "What's up? Why is he doing that? He's never done that before? That is so unlike him? He loses 30 pounds, buys a new wardrobe and comes home late from work. He changes his patterns. His behavior becomes unpredictable. You get the picture? Any movement away from predictable behavior can become suspect and trust can deteriorate.

Focus on acting predictably if you need to build trust. Be consistent in what you do.

This doesn't mean you must be boring. If there is a twinkle in your eye and a dose of spontaneity every so often, for goodness sakes be spontaneous and fun loving. But, be spontaneous consistently! Be true to who you have always been and be that consistently, whoever you tend to be and you will definitely build trust in your relationship.

2. Inform your significant other when you become "unpredictable."

No one goes through life the same person. We all make shifts and changes. Frankly sometimes we may be fairly clueless about what is happening and where we are going. Those times may be very intense and we do some silly things or make some downright dumb decisions. Life can get very squirrelly and unpredictable. (I have a favorite phrase: Gold is refined through intense heat.) Growth in an individual, marriage or family often is accompanied by a little chaos.

Welcome these shifts, for there is a part of you searching for something better/different/richer/deeper, but for heaven's sake, inform your partner of what you are experiencing. Say, "I really don't know what is going on in me right now, but I'm moving in a different direction. Be a little patient with me while I figure this out. I might do some silly things, but my intent is not to harm you or scare you. Accept some of my wondering and wandering and please be there for me? I may need to run some of this by you every so often!" Communicating honestly is a great way to build trust.

3. Make sure your words match the message.

Mean what you say and say what you mean in order to build trust. When your partner hears one thing in your words but your tone of voice, body language and facial expressions are really saying something else, you open the relationship to some crazy making days. Which message is she to believe? This can waste a tremendous amount of energy and she learns not to trust part of what you are saying. This is not a great way to build trust in your relationship.

Here's a very simple but common example. You are getting ready to go to a formal dinner. Your wife comes to you and says, "How do I look?" (And she's wearing a dress you don't particularly like and her hair is pulled back in a way that turns you off.)

Not to spoil the evening you enthusiastically say, "You look great." You don't really mean it and a part of her knows you really don't mean it. But, you leave it at that.

This might not seem like a big deal - we all have done something similar - but if trust is shaky to begin with, it is even shakier now.

Here's how to match the words with the nonverbal: "I think you are a beautiful person. I want you to know that. I love you dearly and it will be wonderful to have you by my side tonight. Others will see your beauty. (As you say this, you look into her eyes as you put your hands around her waist.)

She's not concerned so much with how she looks but is expressing a need for affirmation. She's not talking about her dress or hair, but about wanting to know the evening is going to go just fine. You respond to the real message.

You can take this one step further, if you like. At some point you might bring up her need for affirmation and talk about that. Ask her is there anything you can say or do so that need is met.

Trust is awareness of the intent beneath the obvious message and responding to that!

4. Believe the other person is competent.

I hear this phrase very often: "But, I don't want to hurt him." A couple things are at play here. First, she may not have the skill of confronting the other with the truth in a way that brings reconciliation and understanding. She believes truth telling is destructive or entails some sort of drama. Neither is true. The truth is never destructive and can be conveyed in loving ways. (With that said, what

Marriage Myth: Communication will Solve All Your Problems
By Marina Benjamen, Ph.D.

Concealed issues suddenly brought to light can explode.

Michael and Gwen enter the counselor’s office and nervously take their seats. Michael fidgets and stares at the floor while Gwen sits upright, looks toward the therapist and utters the words that marriage counselors hear so frequently, they can almost say them in unison, “Doctor, we’re not like most of the couples you see… we don’t have any really serious problems; he doesn’t drink or beat me or chase other women—nothing like that. Our problem is that we just don’t communicate.”

“We just don’t communicate.” The cry is frequent and the assumptions are clear: