7 Tips for Increasing Romance in Relationships

This “love psychology” is all about reconnecting with your partner and improving your love life. Here are seven practical ways to say “I love you” – you'll soon be enjoying more romance in your relationship!

7 Easy Ways to Strengthen the Bonds in Your Love Relationship

1. Make a gourmet meal together. Whether you both love cooking or never set foot in the kitchen, spend a few hours picking a mouth-watering recipe, shopping for ingredients, and slicing and dicing, shaking and baking, tasting and tantalizing. Have a glass of wine, put on some Diana Krall, and enjoy a long evening of flavors and textures.

2. Indulge your partner. She loves pedicures or bouquets of flowers? Surprise her when it’s not her birthday, your anniversary, or Valentine’s Day. He loves expensive Scotch or tickets to the opera? Surprise him. Indulge him!

Try this before you go to bed: spend 15 minutes a night reading out loud from a book. It can be a sensual novel to get things flowing, or a spiritual book to start deep discussion. Take turns picking books. This "love psychology" is designed to get you focused on each other. You’ll learn things you never knew about your partner, which will strengthen your bond.

3. Read a book together.

4. Get a little domestic. A recent study revealed that men who do housework have more sex. If you’re the sloppy one – whether you’re male or female – look around your house. Are there toys everywhere, dishes in the sink, messy beds, and messy toilets? Get busy! The 10 minutes it takes to take on a chore is one easy way to increase romance in your relationship.


5. Give the benefit of the doubt. Your partner probably isn’t deliberately trying to hurt you with her choices, words, or actions. This is where love psychology can get a little complicated, because couples have history together, and sometimes there’s more to being late, for example, than simply being late. However, the more you assume innocence and sincerity on your partner’s part, the more kindly you’ll view him or her. Once you two are seeing each other with compassion and generosity, you’re on your way to strengthening your bonds of love and marriage.

6. Be spiritual together. Whether it’s hiking in nature, meditating, or going to church together – find ways to connect with the universe together. Talk about God, Buddha, Allah, Jehovah. Explore the possibilities of spirituality in your marriage or relationship.

7. Get back to the basics. Learn the general behavior patterns for women and men, and dismiss them if they don’t apply to your partner. For instance, not all women like to shop and not all men forget anniversaries. Not all women need to talk things out and not all men love sports. Verse yourself in the basics of love psychology or general human behavior, and apply them to your partner – or dismiss them if they don’t fit. But, if you remember that most women need to talk about stuff, you’ll be one step closer to building a great romantic relationship!

BE COMPATIBLE BEFORE FALLING IN LOVE

Long-term relationships fail for many reasons, but one of the most common is incompatibility in important areas of your life. It’s all too easy to overlook major differences in the first bloom of love, but will the traits and beliefs that seem endearing in the first months of a new relationship still be acceptable in five, ten, or forty years? The sad thing is that a painful breakup could have been avoided, simply by having an honest discussion of important issues before the relationship got too deep. If you take a hard look at the ways you differ from your new flame, you can spare yourself a broken heart and a lot of time down the road. Here are five questions that you should ask yourself before your relationship gets too serious.

1. Are Our Politics Compatible?
Politics is an issue which is often ignored in the early stages of a relationship. Who wants to think about global warming when you could be planning a romantic getaway? However, people tend to be passionate about their political beliefs, and differing views can cause relationships to explode. Falling in love with people who share your political tendencies will make a smoother road to travel in the future.

2. Are Our Religious Views Compatible?
Opposing religious views might work out for two adults who respect one another, even if you do have difficulty reconciling your agnostic views with his dedication to spending Sunday mornings in church. However, they can become a strain in a long term relationship, especially if you plan to have children.

3. Are Our Patterns of Communication Compatible?
Some couples frequently flare up at each other, shouting and yelling over every little problem – only to be doting on each other five minutes later. Others would be badly hurt, preferring to discuss disagreements calmly and peaceably. Difficulties often arise when communication patterns within the relationship vary widely.

4. Do We Have Similar Visions of the Future?
When you first fall in love, all you can think about is the next time that you can see your new flame again. However, this is the best time to consider the future as well. If you’ve always dreamed of children and she doesn’t want them, or you envision spending your life in the country while he wants the glamour of city life, it will be difficult to combine your differing views into a comfortable life together.

5. Do We Have Similar Ideas About Love?
Everybody has different ideas about how people who are in love should act. Perhaps you show your affection through your actions instead of your words, or you want your independence while your lover wants to spend all your spare time together. The more compatible these opinions, the easier your life together will be.

With love, honest communication, and respect, any of these differences may be overcome. However, knowing the areas in which you and your new love are not a perfect fit will allow you to address these issues early on. If you are not able to come to an agreement, you will know that the relationship will not work before it is too late.

5 Simple Tips to Help You Fall Out of Crazy Love

Do you have any tips for falling out of crazy love?

I'm going to assume from your question that you are talking about a relationship which ended badly for you. The main theme for "falling out of crazy love" under such circumstances is the theme of healing.

You might want to consider the following:

1. Be aware that you have some grieving to do. Even if the relationship ended in anger, it is still a loss.
2. Part of the grieving process involves getting some clarity in two areas: a. an honest assessment of your role in the problems; b. acknowledging that which you did well in the relationship.
3. Be compassionate with yourself. Say some affirmations. Do an act of kindness for yourself. Nurture yourself a little.
4. Do some journaling. Write angry letters that you don't mail
5. Don't be in a big hurry to get into another relationship. Take some time to heal.

There are times when you still love a person but you are not "in crazy love" with them. Perhaps you have been drained by the relationship and are "out of love" for just that reason.

Love Is a Way of Being

Love isn't something that someone causes us to feel, but a state of being that we experience whenever we are fully present in the moment to whatever or whomever is showing up. Love is our natural state, and we experience our natural state whenever the chattering mind is quiet or simply ignored. This state of being is one of peace, acceptance, and crazy love. The only thing that can interfere with experiencing the love of our true nature is absorption in our thoughts and any feelings generated by those thoughts. When we are lost in our mental and emotional world, we miss out on reality, on the real experience of this moment. In our mental world, thoughts about life substitute for real life. When we drop out of these thoughts about ourselves and how our life is going, life can be experienced more purely, and when it is, love naturally flows to whatever or whomever we are experiencing.

Love is a way of being with others. When we are attentive, curious, and interested in others, love naturally flows to them from inside us. This outward flow of love is the experience of love. This flow of love is not dependent on who or what is in front of us, on what someone is doing, or on whether someone is being loving toward us, but on whether we are fully engaged with and accepting of that person and whatever is happening in the moment. Love is a state of being that is activated by giving attention to something or someone.

Many of us experience an absence or lack of love because we are giving our attention to thoughts about life instead of real life. When we give attention to our thoughts about life, we are loving our mental world, and that mental world isn't real, and it is very often a negative world, where nothing and no one is ever good enough. When we are invested in this mental world, our conditioned beliefs, judgments, fears, desires, and expectations seem really important, and these are what cause problems in our relationships. We think we need people to be a certain way for us to love them and be happy with them, but that just isn't true. It just seems true because we tend to choose to love (accept and give attention to) those who look and do things the way we want.

But crazy love doesn't have to be limited in this way. We can choose to love even when others aren't meeting our desires or fitting our fantasies and expectations. Our conditioned ideas and desires are not more important than love, unless we allow them to be, which is a recipe for difficulty in relationship. When we can move beyond our desires, needs, expectations, fantasies, and judgments, then love is possible with anyone at any time. That doesn't mean you would choose to be in a relationship with just anyone, but it is possible to experience love in relating to anyone, since love comes from being interested in, attentive to, and accepting of someone, which is possible when we are not judging them or finding reasons to close our hearts to them and withdraw our interest and attention.
Love is something we have the power to experience because we have the power to give love. When we give love, we experience it; when we withhold it, we don't. The more we can overcome the judgments and other conditioning that cause us to withhold our love (i.e., our acceptance and attention) from others, the more we will experience love. It is as simple as that, but not necessarily easy to put into practice. We tend to really believe our judgments and other ideas that cause us to close our hearts to others, but we don't have to. We can say no to the judgments and other conditioning that interfere with love. When we do so, our experience of life is transformed. Love is readily available whenever we turn away from our judgments and negative conditioning and allow ourselves to be fully engaged with and interested in the real person in front of us.

Did He Really Say "I love you"?

Have you ever been in a relationship with a guy that progressed to the “I love you” stage? That’s the stage of a relationship when things are going well; you are enjoying each other’s company, and you believe the other person feels the same way.

It’s the point where your relationship can become more than just a friendship – it can become a vessel of long-lasting commitments, tender moments, and soulful intimacy. And you can get so excited about the possibilities of a relationship that you hear things that have yet to be said.

Now, I am of the opinion that 50% of relationships could progress to a marriage. All it takes is a willingness to nurture trust and care in a relationship that has marital promise.

But, the relationship gets off course because the man, woman or both make choices that alter the direction of that naturally progressing relationship. One is the assumption that the other has expressed love for you, when indeed they haven’t.

When you believe that someone has said “I love you” when they really haven’t, you begin to expect the other to be there for you way before they’ve decided they want to be there for you. You get hurt, the other person is confused, and the relationship fizzles away into nothingness instead of progressing forward to marriage. It’s sad, because if more people knew what love was, they wouldn’t jump the gun before its time.

For example, here are some phrases that sound like I Love You but really aren’t.

* I love that about you (I admire that aspect of you).
* I think I’m falling for you (I may love you, but I am not sure).
* I could love you forever (There’s a possibility I could love you, but I haven’t made up my mind yet).
* I love being with you (I love the way spending time with you makes me feel).

I mean, it’s hard to ignore what someone says, and some of these phrases do sound like a declaration of love. But they’re not. Saying I love you is sharing with a person that you care for them, want to aid them in life, and want to be responsible for their well-being. It’s a major step, and one that shouldn’t be ignored. If a person loves you, they can become a reliable companion for you.

The difference between I love you and I’m in love with you.

Many times, you’ll hear someone say to another, I love you but I am not in love with you. This usually means “I am motivated to be there for you, but I am not romantically attracted you”. But did you know that people can be in love with you, but not love you?

Being in love with someone is when you admire their body, character, motivations, personality, habits, or abilities. It’s focused on how that person makes you feel when they are around you and how much better the world is when you get to share their company.

But loving someone requires more than that.

Loving someone requires two things. First, you have to believe there is some way you can help that person. You have to see a way you can show care, and the more opportunities you find, the more you believe you can love them. Second, you have to make a decision to be there for them. Even if you see there’s a way you can nurture, protective, encourage, suffer with, or aid a person, you still have to chose to do all those things, regardless of how that decision will affect your own life. Loving someone is less about what the person does you for, and more about what you can do for them.

So, sometimes, when you “think” you hear a person say they love you, they’re really saying they’re in love with you. They like you, they admire you, or they are aroused by you. The focus is on what you do for them, not what they can do for you. It’s beautiful, but it’s not enough to begin sharing crazy love with that person. You have to wait for the “I love you” both in what they say, and what they do.

Here’s how love acts:

Love hurts when you are injured, and rejoices in your gladness.

Love protects you from the world’s harsh realities and comforts you in the deepest places of your soul.

Love bends.

Love forgives you when you make a mistake, over and over again.

Love needs you to have the fullest life possible, and makes sure it helps you experience that life, one day at a time.

Love gives.

Love sees you at your best when you are at your worst.

Love reminds you of your future more than focusing on your past.

Love hopes.

Love is love and nothing else.

When a man and woman say “I love you” it’s because they want the other person to know they have made the decision to be there for them. And they want to hear if the other person feels the same way about them. It’s a turning point of any relationship, because now you can judge the other person’s intentions based on their actions.

Some people will still say I love you, and not mean it. But many people won’t even go there if they don’t mean it, because now they are really on the line. A friendship can go on for months and months, but once you say I love you, it’s either on or off, yes or no, is you is or is you ain’t!

So please, only say “I love you” when you mean it, and give the benefit of the doubt when someone else says it. If they really love you, you’ll know it because they will begin to treat you with love, if they haven’t already. And until they do say so, enjoy the time you share with your friends, and wait on love to blossom in its own time. If love is there for you, you will have it. And if it’s not, love may be waiting for you in the heart of someone else close by.