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I was reading through one of the love and relationship articles on my website, when I noticed one of the ads on the side.

I glanced at it with a little inner chuckle. It was advertising love and love potions–and they were guaranteed. I scrolled on down, double checking my article for spelling and appearance. As I scrolled back up, I confronted the same ad for love potions again with a fresh thought.

I was struck with the picture of an advertisement on the internet for love through a love potion. The ridiculousness of the thought turned into a hilarious thing to me in a moment.

Here we are with the technology to interact at a world wide level with people from all walks of life in an instant. Was it not a strange irony to find this extreme technology being used to advertise a love potion?

With just a very little thought, I can force this question into realms of human spiritualism, belief systems, and Harry Potter style uses of technology that seem the very heart of irony.

We have come so far, not to have come so far.

Or, perhaps, we want technology to enhance what makes us human rather than remove it.

Well, I don’t know about love potions, but I do know a few folks that find the love and relationship in their life with this technology. And, like anything, just as many use it for false love and relationships.

It seems we can’t create anything good that isn’t all at once as bad as it is good. But, it isn’t the creation. It is the user.

So, do love and be loved. Find a relationship and give to it. Use whatever you have as a good tool in good hands. Love through technology is as magical as all the love potions ever were. To many of us older folks, these levels of technology are rather magical in themselves.

Regards.

Today marks one week since I watched my dad die.

I called mom again yesterday. We talked about how she was feeling and how the family back home was doing. She said she was going to clear out dad’s stuff. She just couldn’t bear it being around anymore. I told her she might want to give it a little time first. It would seem a shame to get rid of everything and then wish you had it back.

Then we chatted about her hobbies and things she could do now. I told her she should take the time to do things she had always wanted to do. I told her not to even give the slightest thought to expense. It didn’t matter to my brother or me if there was even one penny left. My brother and I both live just fine. She should take some time with a friend and travel the world–enjoy the things she always wanted to see and do.

I started naming places to visit and friends she could ask along for the trip. She had a reason not to consider each friend. She had a reason not to see each place. After a bit, when I had just about narrowed in on the perfect place, and the perfect friend, she started crying. She couldn’t speak for a moment. Then she sobbed over the phone.

She sobbed, “I don’t want to go anywhere anymore. I don’t want to do anything. We always went everywhere together. I can’t imagine going anywhere without him.”

Well, now I had done it. What I wanted to be a consoling call from her son had turned into a painful reminder of lost love.

All the wonderful stories of puppy love, of first love, of happy ever after had lived out between my mom and dad. They would have completed fifty wonderful years together within just a year and a half. Now, suddenly, it was all over. We were at the fairy tale’s end. We had discovered the ‘after’ that follows ‘happily ever after.’

This wasn’t a romance gone sour. This wasn’t a wanton dream of forbidden fruit that had faded from hope. This wasn’t an ideal dreamed and forever out of reach. This was the romance. This was the dream. This was the fruit fully enjoyed. And now that it was lost, this was the greatest kind of lost love. This was a thing to savor, now gone, now stolen. What was left was the deepest emptiness one could fathom. A hole in the soul.

Mom’s soul mate was gone.

This last week has brought some things home to me. I have looked at my daughter with a new look. I have considered priorities with a new born arrangement. I have genuinely examined my wife from this new vantage and found that I love her all the more.

Let me challenge you to make every effort to bask in the relationships you have, while you have them. You are living each moment for the last time. Taste it. Smell it. Relish it with all the desperation of the deepest breath drawn at the surface of the water from a dive to the furthest reaches your consciousness would allow.

Know the time. Know the riches of this moment’s passing. Heap up the pleasure of being and of being known. Love one another.

Regards.

It’s funny how we have so many misconceptions throughout our lives. The older we get, the more we learn. The more we learn the more we know we don’t know.

I often joke about how someday I will have learned so much, I won’t know anything at all.

I also poke fun at my marriage in similar ways. It is a familiar question to ask someone you don’t see every day, “How are you doing?” Or, “How’s it going?” I commonly respond to this with something like: “Fine. Well. . . I think I’m doing fine. I haven’t talked to my wife yet today. Sometimes when I think I’m doing fine, she’ll let me know I’m mistaken.”

Little quips like this are fun to play with and usually harmless. Many of us tend to develop a number of such quips that we use to avoid a serious conversation. Usually because we are too lazy to really get to know someone, as if we needed another person in our lives to worry about.

So, we go about our lives with a set of superficial relationships with their respective superficial interactions. It’s not that we don’t care about people. It’s that we care TOO much, and don’t need another person’s problems tearing at our hearts. At least that’s what we tell ourselves. It’s probably closer to the truth that we are so selfish, we don’t want someone interfering with our life. Maybe it’s in between the two extremes. Let your own guilt trip tell you where you’re at.

Anyway, I’ve noticed how easy it is to develop a crust over our true selves. Sometimes it happens because we’ve been hurt. But, it can also happen because we have filled our time up with being busy. Between work, home responsibilities, TV time, computer time, and personal time, we don’t have time for relationships.

Now, this is tough enough when it comes to people outside our inner circle. The problem with many of us is that it is creeping in on our inner circle as well. Worse, it is becoming the definition of our generation. We don’t have time for others. We don’ have time for our family. And, we don’t have time for our spouse.

A while back, my wife’s and my friend married after many years of living single. A few weeks ago, she sent an email out to her entire address book with a change of email notice. That’s all fine, but she went on and on about how special her man was, how she changed her name, and wasn’t it so-o-o special how she changed her email to the absolutely perfect man’s name. She had changed her email to MRS.HisLastName@her.net and it was so scrumptious and sweet and—-my goodness, it was just stinking and reeking of sweetness over-full of giddy, puppy-like love. For crying out loud! Wasn’t she old enough to be past that!?

Shortly after, I realized how sad it was that any of us ‘get past that.’ I talk an awful lot about relationships. And, here was an example of what mine could be [it once was]. And, I was tromping it down in my mind as silly.

Well, we should all be so silly. I’m gonna open my wife’s car door all the time from now on. Even when we’re in my old beat up pick up truck, and it doesn’t seem as appropriate.

Anyway, you do it too. Do what it takes to keep your spouse feeling special. And, it wouldn’t hurt all of us to scrape away a little of the crust we have to reveal softer hearts toward others in our lives as well. We may find there’s a few folks out there that would make some really good friends.

Regards.

What I am about to share with you could save your marriage or relationship. 

For you men out there, this might hurt. It might even make you feel a little like gagging. Believe me. The payback is tremendous. You will want to make sure you take steps in your life to follow the instruction I give you here to the best of your ability.    

I know there is no surprise when someone says that women are in control. That is why I am about to really burst your bubble. 

The truth of the matter is this: the man is in control of the happiness in a marriage. OK, ok. I won’t argue the finer points of who wears the pants. I’m just telling you that the sooner you realize that you as the man control the level of happiness in your relationship, the better off you’ll be. AND, the sooner you’ll see a shift in the one you love, when you put to practice the steps for real love to grow. 

A few weeks ago, my wife and I were returning from some busy thing in our lives that I can’t remember. It was very cold outside, being the dead of winter. We were in her car, and the oil light had come on. So we pulled into the convenient store around the corner of our house for me to go in and get some oil. As we pulled in, I asked if she needed gas while we were there. 

“Sure,” she responded. “That would save me having to do it in the cold.” 

So, I filled her car up and opened the hood to check the oil level. When I went in to pay for the gas and get a quart of oil, I noticed they had some clipped roses packed as singles by the counter. 

Now, pay attention to this. This was an opportunity. You want to practice seeing and recognizing opportunities like this. This is critical to maintaining and developing a thriving relationship where the right kind of sparks fly. Earlier in our marriage, I used to allow most of the opportunities to pass me by. Don’t make the same mistake in your marriage. Making the most out of every opportunity to make your wife feel special will make all the difference between happiness and dullness. And when your wife feels special, you can count on it. You’ll be treated special and the happiness will ignite all kinds of little rewards that go both directions in your relationship.   

You guessed it. I bought her a rose. 

But, you can still ruin the whole thing if you don’t get it right at this point. I didn’t just tromp back out to the car with my oil in one hand and a rose in the other. NO, that just won’t do. I carefully placed the rose inside my coat and walked out as if nothing was special at all. I put the oil in the car, closed the hood, and tossed the empty container in the trash all without event. 

Then, I walked to her car door and motioned for her to open her window as if to tell her something that couldn’t happen in the car. The moment she opened the window, with all the skill and grace of a Robin Hood wielding his sword, I stooped and kissed her before she could realize what was happening, pulled the rose from my coat and very, very sweetly–almost whispered, but with great conviction–told her, “I love you.” 

Now, have you ever seen a woman melt? Trust me in this. This will make her melt right before your very eyes. This is guaranteed.   

OK, now the men out there that are gagging right now can continue down the dismal road of a marriage that has lost all of its pizzazz and mystery. Remember, you are making your own road. In deed, you are in control of happiness in your marriage. 

Do you ever find yourself thinking of your life in a different set of circumstances with longing in your heart for things to be different? This is one of the main signs of a lack of happiness. I’m telling you it is under your control. If you keep feeding dreams that shouldn’t be, then you will destroy what you have and likely never get what you were dreaming about either. You’ll be left with nothing.   

Romance doesn’t just happen. No. That’s called lust. You have to practice romance. It’s an art with great rewards. Understand this. No amount of romance, no amount of sweetness, no effort of any kind can fix what you hurt with harsh words spoken in anger or spite to the one you love. Harsh words cut to the depth of the soul. They destroy utterly and completely. They can be forgiven, but they will never heal without leaving a mark.   

Do not ever get into the you-hurt-me-I’ll-hurt-you syndrome. First of all, you’re a selfish baby if you do. Secondly, a relationship built on being compelled to do what the other partner wants in order to avoid being treated in this childish manner will never last. The cycle has to stop somewhere. Always be quick to say you’re sorry. 

Now here’s a hard one for all of us. But, this is possibly the strongest remedy for the tough times in any relationship.   

Be willing to be wrong. 

I’m not talking about some pitiful act. This isn’t a feel sorry for me quest for patronage. I’m talking about a life changing humility that is actually WILLING to be wrong.   

You’ll find most the situations that come your way, which could go badly, will never materialize if you live life with this kind of attitude. This isn’t just true in your relationship. 

Finally, before I go, NEVER ever never get into a fair trade relationship. “You do this. I’ll do that.” Or, as it usually goes: “I would do that if YOU would do this!”  That is a dead end. It doesn’t work. It never has worked. It never will work.    

You have heard it said that marriage is a 50/50 proposition. Well, I’m here to tell you ”that’s stupid.” That’s a formula for failure from the beginning. That’s a fair trade relationship. 

Remember this: A marriage is a 100/100 proposition—each giving to the other without expecting anything in return. And, the beauty of it is that both get blessed with happiness.   

So, remember. You’re in complete control of happiness in your relationship. Never let the romance die. Practice romance. Give 100%. It’s worth it. 

Regards.