Relationships: Relationship Building & Management

Improve Your Relationship Moves: How to Avoid a Destructive Dance

Dr. Linda Miles, our official Marriage & Family Therapist Expert

If you and your partner are struck in a destructive dance, there are crucial steps you can take to create a positive and loving relationship. Both partners play a part in a destructive dance. It usually backfires to assign blame to your partner and ask friends and family to don a black robe and turn into judges. If each of you take responsibility for the part that you play you can stop blaming and start living.

In my work as a marriage and family therapist for over thirty five years, my best teachers have been my clients. When I see new couples in my practice, I give them the following guidelines based on past experience:

* Right-wrong games are counterproductive since no judge drops out of the sky to declare a winner.

* Be open to your partner's point of view and negotiate instead of acting like two opposing attorneys making their cases.

* If your goal is to be on the same team

Read Linda's entire article Positive and Loving Relationship Moves: How to Avoid a Destructive Dance

5 Romantic Ideas for Valentines and All Year Through

Marcia McClure, our official Romantic Novelist Expert

It's Valentine's again, my favorite time of the year! As a romance novelist, my readers often like to hear my suggestions for romantic ideas for nurturing their relationships. Here's five I've shared with my newsletter readers over the last few months.

Love letters! I love, love letters! I don't think anybody writes them enough any more! They're becoming a lost art! So...my romantic tip for Valentine's Day would be to find a moment, sit down and pen a heart-felt, honest, flattering love letter to your sweetheart! If you're sweetheart-less just now...then pen a love letter to a parent, sibling or good friend! Yep! I love, love letters for Valentine's Day!"

Spice it up with Graffiti! Pick up a cheap tube of red lipstick and draw hearts on your honey's car windows! Don't forget to write, "I love you," somewhere that won't impair their driving vision, too much! Messy? That's what glass cleaner is for!

Read Marcia's entire 5 Romantic Tips for Valentines and All Year Through

Romantic Ideas: The Night My Husband Dressed Up As Zorro

Marcia McClure, Our official Romance Expert says

Several years ago I wrote a story entitled  An Old-Fashioned Romance. Released as an e-book just in time for Christmas in 2004 (has it really been that long?), I was overwhelmed by the positive feedback I received! Loosely based on myself and four of my greatest and most treasured friends,  An Old-Fashioned Romance somehow managed to strike a nerve with readers. To this day, many friends still tell me  An Old-Fashioned Romance is one of their favorites of my stories.

Read Marcia's entire article Romantic Ideas: The Night My Husband Dressed Up As Zorro

Sudden Storms - Chapter 1 Part 2

Marcia McClure, Our official Romance Expert says:

Chapter 1, Part 2

"Joelyn! There ain't one pair of clean flannels in my bureau! What do you expect me to do? Catch my death of cold sleepin' in my birthday suit?"

Rivers jumped nervously in her chair as the man strode in and came to a stop directly beside her. He stood with only a towel wrapped about his waist and nothing else to cover him.

Read Marcia's entire article Sudden Storms - Chapter 1 Part 2

Sudden Storms - Chapter 1, Part 1

Marcia McClure, Our official Romance Expert says:

"I'm comin'. I'm comin'," Joelyn Gray called. She couldn't see who was knocking at the front door from where she stood at the kitchen window, so drying her hands on her apron and tucking a loose strand of her tawny hair behind her ear, she went into the parlor to answer it.

Read Marcia's entire article Sudden Storms - Chapter 1, Part 1

You Can't Judge a Book By Its Cover

Marcia McClure, Our official Romance Expert says:

I can’t even tell you when I first ‘noticed’ him, but I think it was during a dance our band played at in the Manwaring Center at Ricks College sometime around March of 1984. He was in charge of the sound mixing boards for the band and worked at the back of the room in the dark, which might account for my not seeing him much before that. But one night…for some reason…the lights were on in the back of the room and from where I stood on the stage, I could see the sound and tech guys standing at their stations.

Read Marcia's entire article You Can't Judge a Book By Its Cover