Better Marriages

Toxic relationships are a fact of life for many people, men and women alive, both young and older. Often family and friends can see the effects in the relationship but the one living in it cannot or will not. Some want someone to ‘love’ them so badly they think most any type of attention is love and fail to see that they are in a toxic relationship, one that may not necessarily be abusive, but one that is dragging them down and is not healthy.

One of the first steps to healing is to admit there is a problem. There is always a chance and hope that the spouse will change, but the reality is that change is unlikely for someone who only knows how to hurt another person. It can be said that some spouses do not realize what they are doing, and they can be helped. It can also be said that some know exactly what they are doing, leaving getting out of the relationship as the only healthy solution.

A spouse that loves you is not going to spend their time tearing you down, making you look foolish, talking down to you, or saying hurtful and derogatory things. Rather the one that loves you will want to be near you, they uplift you and encourage you, and they never seek to hurt you or make you sad.

Signs that you might be in a bad relationship:
* You and your spouse spend the evening with another couple. Your spouse goes out of his way to make jokes most of the evening, using you as the main target in all of them. When back home, he says he is sorry, yet this isn’t the first time he has done this.

* You make it a point to have dinner ready and waiting when your husband comes home from work. He never misses an opportunity to tell you what’s ‘wrong’ with the meal. When the two of you visit his mother’s home and there’s a meal served, he always tells her what a delicious meal she served.

* You work hard to provide for your family. Sometimes that means working overtime and not being able to spend as much time as you would like to with your spouse. Your wife constantly nags you that you work too much. In front of mutual friends, she makes comments to them about how you don’t ‘really’ love her, criticizing how you dress, going on about how you love your job more than her, making it a point to make you look bad every chance she gets.

* You’ve gained some weight and are working on losing it. Rather than be supportive and encourage you, your spouse tells you how fat you look and makes wise cracks in public about your appearance. She tells you that she won’t make love to you until you lose weight, in front of mutual friends.

* Your spouse makes it a regular habit to check your cell phone to see who you have called and who has called you. He checks your email, opens your mail before you are allowed to see it, goes through your purse when you are sleeping.

* Your spouse makes it a point to bring up things that will make you cry, knowing that saying certain things will hurt you.

* You work at saving money and planning for a vacation with your wife. You’ve had the time off planned for six months in advance and she has known the dates for the vacation all along. Two days before you are to be off to take the long planned trip, she announces she is going to the beach with friends during the vacation time. You’re not invited.

* You sit down to talk with your spouse about how you feel about certain things, being open and honest, pouring out your very soul and heart to them. Your spouse laughs at you at almost every comment you make, demeans you, and blames you for their bad behavior. Instead of listening to you, the spouse makes a joke of your feelings.

Perhaps the most hurtful thing about a toxic relationship is the fact that this is the person that is supposed to love you and care for you, but instead they seek to hurt you and cause you emotional distress and pain.

A person in a toxic relationship might have a difficult time letting go of it. Sometimes they feel as that there is no one else for them, thinking that they aren’t good enough for someone that will truly love them and care for them. Often a person caught in a bad relationship stays because even though it is a terrible relationship, their spouse has convinced them that no one else could possibly want them.

This cycle of thinking has to be broken. There is hope and there is healing. In order to obtain the happiness that is waiting, the person living in this type of relationship must make the decision to get out of it. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. There is hope.

A healthy relationship can be obtained once the person in the bad relationship recognizes the need for a better life and gets out of the abusive relationship. The first step in healing is removing yourself from the relationship.

A loving relationship allows no room for toxic behavior. In a healthy relationship, a spouse listens to the other. The spouse doesn’t seek to hurt you, to make fun of you, to use you as the joke of the party. The spouse in a healthy relationship wants to be with you, doesn’t check up on you all the time, doesn’t use any excuse to make you look bad, doesn’t seek to embarrass you in front of family and friends, doesn’t try to control you.

A healthy relationship finds a couple who are happy with each other and understand each other, who know the other isn’t perfect but accepts and loves the person as they are. They don’t seek to change each other, they stand with each other through anything and everything, and the only tears they want to cause the other are tears are happiness.

There is a wonderful and adorable creation known as Man. There’s even a 50/50 chance that you are one of these men. Down through the ages, Man has sought to know more about Woman, how she thinks, what makes her tick, what she wants, and how to satisfy her. While there has been some success among the male persuasion in identifying what females want, there are still a significant amount of men who are at a total loss on just what a woman wants.

While these relationship tips cannot possibly speak for all of the female persuasion, they might possibly speak for at least 99.99% of all womankind, or perhaps one.

Most women, if given a choice, would much prefer hugs and snuggling over making love. This isn’t to say we don’t enjoy sex or want it, but most of us actually prefer the romance that comes with cuddling on the sofa and watching a nice movie with our man. We love it when we can give hugs and kisses and it just be because we want to hug and kiss our man, and not necessarily be doing it because we want sex. The sex act is great, but it’s second fiddle when it comes to what we really want, which is just spending quality time with you. And while admittedly we don’t generally care much for the manly action movies, we watch them with you because we love to see how excited they make you. The same goes for a football game.

Women love it when her man thinks of her in ways that don’t involve hopping into bed or spending money on material things. Women like the idea that their man is thinking of them. Little notes left for us, an email to say hi, or a message left on the answering machine are sweet and thoughtful ways to show you care while telling your woman you’re thinking about her. Again, this isn’t to say we don’t enjoy making love to you, this just shows us that you see more to us than a body.

The Toilet Seat dilemma has been raging since the invention of the toilet seat lid. Throughout the history of the toilet seat lid, women and men have fought over up or down. The truth is most women don’t really care if it’s up or down, they just argue with the man over it, so that they can give in, to make the man feel as though he has won the Toilet Seat battle. Women love their men so much that they want the man to feel that the Toilet Seat is their victory, so we let you keep it up so that you don’t have to reach down and pick it up when using it, thereby showing our love for you by reducing the amount of work you must do to use the bathroom.

We love the idea of being around our man all the time, as much as possible. But because we know that, as females, we tend to nag, we know you want your space so we give it to you. But we do it in subtle ways so as not to make it obvious that we know you want your space. So we ask you to do things like take out the trash or mow the grass or go to the store for us. This works great for the women because something gets done that needs doing and we show our love for you yet again by giving you space and time away from us.

Women love it when you want to cook for us. What woman would turn that down? But as much as we love the idea of our man cooking, we really prefer that you don’t attempt this at home unless you are trained. We are just as happy with take out, delivery, or roughing it for a weekend on the lake and living off the fish you catch and clean and fry.

Females are not the least bit upset when her man is driving and gets lost. Well, most are not, but of course there is always the wild woman exception. Women though, do tend to get a bit peeved when her man insists that he isn’t lost and refuses to ask for help or directions from anyone, and when he insists that the map is wrong and he is right. While most men are surely not this way, there’s always a chance that a stray man might happen upon this tip and need to be reassured that it’s okay to ask for directions and help when lost, and okay to actually admit that he is indeed lost.

The one main thing that women want men to know is that when she is in labor and having a baby, it’s never okay for the man to tell the woman that he understands her pain and suffering while she is pushing that baby out of a place that surely was never intended for such a thing to pass through. The closest a man can ever come to knowing that a woman is going through is to swallow a grapefruit and then attempt to wee wee this grapefruit out of his body, all the while his woman at his side holding his hand and telling him what a good job he is doing and how she understands his pain.

Men should always bring his PMSing woman chocolate. While it’s a great thought when she is PMSing, keeping her stocked with chocolate shows just how much you care, even more.

Letting the woman you love know how much you care is really a simple matter. It’s not about saying you love her all the time. It’s the little things like accepting her for herself, letting her know she is pretty even when she thinks she isn’t, talking to her and telling her how you feel, being there for her when she needs someone to lean on, letting her hold you up when you need someone to lean on, and just treating her and loving her the way you want her to treat you and love you.