What you should really be afraid of?

The swine Flu pandemic has provided us with more untruths than one can imagine. First, the fatalities have not been elaborated upon in terms of the actual cause of death. What caused the death, what were the circumstances surrounding the death. We are told by most media, that this flu can engulf the world and kill many millions but we are given no further information than that. We are told that this flu can be transmitted from human to human like a common cold. Oh, maybe this flu is a common cold. We are told by a few reliable sources, that every year, several hundreds of thousands of people die from the flu. So what makes this flu different? The media has created a monster and WHO is supporting Roche, who now says that this swine flu has a vaccination for when it gets to epidemic proportions in the fall and winter. Who will make the money from selling their antivirus medication and the vaccination? A culture of fear has now been established and when so many people are frightened they become vulnerable to unscrupulous organizations who want to line there own pockets. People’s immune system becomes less effective when they are in a state of fear and they are more likely to buy antiviral medication and vaccinations that potentially are much more dangerous. In 1976 more people died from the vaccination than the actual flu, if it was an actual flu. Shame on the World Health Organization for there connection to Roche and for agreeing to take kick backs from Roche.

We should all congratulate Mexico for their honesty in disclosing the Flu as they saw it, to protect the rest of the world. They are now in a deep economic recession because so many potential tourists have elected to buy into the world’s media, which thrive on sensationalism. These tourists have cancelled their Mexican vacation by the thousands. Please, make no mistake that Mexico has paid a dear price for honesty. We all need to see this as a noble deed and travel to Mexico. You will not get sick from the flu. The WHO and Roche will always subscribe to personal gain at the expense of the vulnerable. This is nothing different.

The following is from Dr. Mercola’s site – http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/04/29/Swine-Flu.aspx

“According to other sources, a top scientist for the United Nations, who has examined the outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in Africa, as well as HIV/AIDS victims, has concluded that the current swine flu virus possesses certain transmission “vectors” that suggest the new strain has been genetically-manufactured as a military biological warfare weapon.

The UN expert believes that Ebola, HIV/AIDS, and the current A-H1N1 swine flu virus are biological warfare agents.

In addition, Army criminal investigators are looking into the possibility that disease samples are missing from biolabs at Fort Detrick — the same Army research lab from which the 2001 anthrax strain was released, according to a recent article in the Fredrick News Post. In February, the top biodefense lab halted all its research into Ebola, anthrax, plague, and other diseases known as “select agents,” after they discovered virus samples that weren’t listed in its inventory and might have been switched with something else.”

You do the math.

Happy marriages come when you grow your love after marriage-Ken Johnson

After reading “What is Love?,” you know that real love is a collection of memories of positive experiences connected to your partner. You start your marriage with a vast bundle of feelings connected to the memories. We call this bundle “real love.” If you haven’t read that, please stop now to read the whole story on what is real love, then come back here. What is Love?

Remembering and reliving a memory

Memories fade over time, unless they are remembered and relived. If you are terrifically organized, you might make a list of your top 100 memories of you and your partner. Then, you could start at the top of your list and remember and relive each experience that made you happy.

Photos, scrapbooks, diaries all contain links to those memories. Even without those links, you can remember many, many times when you shared a connection to your partner.

By remembering and reliving the memories, you keep them fresh and you keep them close. Each time you refresh a memory you’re adding to your bundle of love.

Sharing a memory with someone else

Every time you share a memory with your partner or a friend, you are reliving it and refreshing it. You are adding to your bundle.

Each telling brings the memory more alive. You get to experience the good feelings attached to that memory again and again.

Writing about a memory

You bring a memory to life when you write it down. You could start a diary of loving memories. You could begin a journal of your memories. You could start a blog and share your happy, loving memories with anyone who happens on it.

One wonderful woman told me, “Because of the war, he shipped out soon after our marriage. I kept my love alive by remembering and reliving the happy experiences we shared before we were parted. I wrote him daily, recounting my memories and the love I felt. When he returned, our love was stronger than when he left.”

Create New Happy Memories

You add to your bundle of love by adding positive shared experiences throughout your marriage. You sometimes have to fight all of the other demands on your time to make sure you put aside time to do something with your partner that you both enjoy.

If you keep the romance alive in your marriage, you can have regular dates, you can dance, you can do the things that lovers and loving couples do to keep the fires of love alive. Keep adding new memories and your love bundle will keep growing.

Rewrite History — Turn Bad Memories Into Good

Studies of the happiest people show clearly that they have the ability to take bad memories and find the good in them.

If you have any bad memories of shared experiences with your partner, find some good in each one. Something you learned. Something that made you better or stronger. Something that helped make you more resilient.

Anytime one of the bad memories comes to mind, pair it with the good you found in it, and with time and practice you’ll only have good memories associated with your partner.

Cope immediately with any bad feelings about your partner

Coping takes the sting out of a fight, harsh words, or other marriage-damaging event. Coping switches immediately away from the strong negative emotions and uses questions and reason to handle bad experiences.

The opposite of coping is reliving or re-experiencing the bad experience. Every time you mentally replay the harsh words or damaging actions by your partner, you are eroding your bundle of love. Your goal is to grow your love. Mental replays of bad experiences don’t do that. The goal is to protect your love. Coping helps to do that. (Be sure to read all the Coping articles: click on “How to Cope.”)

The goal is to protect your love. Coping helps to do that. (More later on how to cope.)

Practice Accepting, Forgiving, and Forgetting

Accepting, Forgiving, and Forgetting are the strongest tools in your arsenal. They will help you grow your bundle and keep it from eroding.

As Ruth Graham Bell said, “A good marriage is the union of two good forgivers.

A happy marriage — that lasts — is built on an ever-growing bundle of love. Sometimes it takes distorting history, accepting the unacceptable, forgiving the unforgivable, and forgetting the unforgettable. All of these are a small price to pay for the genuine joy that comes from a happy loving marriage that lasts.

Continue with the next page in the series
“Love and Marriage: The Ten Marriage Killers”
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How to Grow the Love in Your Marriage

Acceptance and appreciation go hand-in-hand. When loving, it’s important to not just focus on the negatives.

BY DR. NOELLE NELSON

Love is both a feeling and an action. As a feeling, it is often mysterious—why you love the woman someone else divorced is a mystery; why you love a sweet goofy guy your best friend would never even consider dating is equally unknowable. But the action of love, the “doing” of love, is not mysterious at all. The miracle is, that as we perform the actions of loving, the feeling of love (which may or may not include “falling in love”) blossoms. This is true whether you’re in the first flush of love, or settled into an established couple—the “doing” of love brings about the feeling of love.

What is the “doing” of love?

First, when you set out to love someone you spend time with them, getting to know them as they are and you do this in a spirit of curiosity and acceptance. You recognize they may do things or act in ways unfamiliar to you, but you take these differences as interesting, not as good, bad, right or wrong.

Second, you are concerned about the person’s well-being. You care about whether or not they are happy or well taken care of and you take active measures to support their well-being.

Third, you appreciate them. You value the person you have chosen to love. You are grateful for all they are and do, and you let them know it—from kind words and affectionate kisses to bragging loudly about their qualities to friends and family.

Gratitude can be considered the bottom line “doing” of love. When you appreciate and value someone you will automatically be concerned about their well-being and be willing to get to know and accept them. When you don’t value someone why bother?

If the quickest way to grow a love is gratitude, the reverse is also true. The quickest way to kill a love is to fail to appreciate. Our tendency, all too often, is to get caught up in the inevitable problems and difficulties of the relationship and to stay stuck there—endlessly blaming, criticizing and fault-finding. We ignore what’s going right and the love dies. And the more you dwell on your unhappiness the more flaws you find in your mate until you lose your love of him or her entirely.

For example, your spouse fails to take out the garbage, has to be dragged unwilling and in a grumpy state to family events and falls asleep when you want to cuddle. You focus on these shortcomings and forget that this is the same person who sat by your bedside when you were sick for days on end, who loves your body even when you hate it and who will hold you when you cry even if they don’t understand why you’re crying. You focus righteously on your disappointments and forget to appreciate, to be grateful for what is good. After a while, you don’t see anything to be grateful for and the love dies. How sad!

Don’t let the love die. Be grateful and express your appreciation often, loudly and with gusto, both to yourself and to your sweetheart, and watch the love between you grow and grow!

Noelle C. Nelson, Ph.D. is a psychologist, consultant, speaker and author. Her most recent book is “The Power of Appreciation in Everyday Life” (Insomniac Press, 2006). Her new book, “Your Man Is Wonderful” (Free Press) will be released in January 2009. For more than a decade, she has helped people live happier, healthier lives through appreciation—at work, at home and in relationships. For more than a decade, she has helped people live happier, healthier lives through appreciation–at work, at home and in relationships

10 Ways to Grow Your Marriage

By Charlotte A. Michie, MS, MSW, LCSW

Relationships are like gardens; they can be thriving with lots of flowers, or overrun with weeds. Marriages, like gardens, need tending for them to prosper.
Ten ways to cultivate your intimate relationship are:

Be open to change. Change is something that can not be avoided. Learn to embrace it by focusing on “what is” rather than on “what should be”.
Learn to listen. Real listening is based on intention. If your intention is on getting your needs met, then you are not doing real listening but pseudo listening.
Be open to new ways of being together. Consider doing different activities as a couple as a way to add zest to your relationship.
Take care of yourself. The ability to love another person is based on how well you care for your self.
Be grateful, each day, for one thing about your companion. Accent the positive rather than the negative. Your relationship will thrive.
Be generous. Difficulties arise when the focus is exclusively on what is wrong in the relationship. Remember your spouse, like you, is doing their best.
Ask for support. Your spouse is not a mind reader. Let your spouse know how you want to be supported.
Risk being vulnerable. Be willing to let your spouse know how you feel rather than pretend or avoid your feelings.
Make time for each other. Scheduling time together, on a weekly basis, will alleviate stress in your marriage.
Learn to respond to each other rather than react. Reacting is an impulsive act. While it may provide immediate relief, it will often have long-term negative consequences.

The Effectiveness of Couples Counseling

by: Misty Will, MSW

Couple’s counseling is based on the premise that individuals and their problems are best handled within the context of the couple’s relationship. Typically, both partners in the relationship attend the counseling session to discuss the couple’s specific issues. The aim of couple’s counseling is to help a couple deal appropriately with their immediate problems and to learn better ways of relating in general.

Couples therapy or couple’s counseling is a useful modality of help for couples who are experiencing difficulties such as repetitive arguments, feelings of distance or emptiness in the relationship, pervasive feelings of anger, resentment and or dissatisfaction or lack of interest in affection or in a physical relationship with one another.1

According to the 2000 Census the majority of American society chose to reside or live with a partner. 52% of US households are maintained by married couples, and there is an increase in the number of couples living together from 3.3 million in 1990 to 5.5 million in 2000.2 Nationwide in 2000, there were 21,000 marriage and family therapists helping couples work through and deal with their relationship issues.3

In a review of the literature through mid-1996, Pinsof, Wynne, and Hambright (1996: Pinsof & Wynne, 1995) concluded that significant data exists support the efficacy of family and couples therapy and that there is no evidence indicating that couples are harmed when they undergo treatment.4

Research outcomes on couples counseling suggest the following:

At the end of couple’s therapy, 75% of couples receiving therapy are better off than similar couples who did not receive therapy.
Sixty five percent of couples report “significant” improvement based on averaged scores of marital “satisfaction.”
Most couples will benefit from therapy, but both spouses will not necessarily experience the same outcomes or benefits.
Therapies that produce the greatest gain and are able to maintain that gain over the long amount of time, tend to affect the couple’s emotional bonds and help the spouse’s work together to achieve a greater level of “differentiation” or emotional maturity.5
In determining as a couple what type of therapist that you wish to receive treatment from keep in mind that according to a large-scale survey of over 4,000 Consumer Reports readers showed in 1995, people in therapy generally rated psychologists, clinical social workers, and psychiatrists about as equally effective in helping their clients.6

Couples today feel increasingly isolated and are expected to manage their lives and families without the community supports that in the past were a primary resource in raising children and meeting family needs. Couples in our present culture are less bound by family traditions and are freer than ever before to develop relationships unlike those of the families that they were raised in.7

With the aid of a qualified clinician, couples can bring peace, stability and communication back into their relationship thus affecting their lives and the lives of those most impacted by them and their relationship.

My husband has a big attitude problem and wants to rule me!

Tagged as: Marriage problems, Troubled relationships
Question – (5 May 2009) 2 Answers – (Newest, 5 May 2009)
A female age 30-35, *indum writes:

Hi,

Recently my husband has been having high ego and attitude problems.
He wants me do things exactly he says, if not done that way there are fights.
He wants to rule me. If i take any decision he says “you have to ask me before you do anything” (regarding business that i am handling)!
I am an adult, and I can do things myself, the problem is if i do it my way either he will fight with me so much that i have sit and cry or leave him.
Please help

Reply to this Question

How Well Do You Know Your Spouse? – A Quiz
by Courtney Mroch
22 AUG 2008 12:57 PM

I’m back with some more questions that’ll let you test how well you know your spouse. See how many of these you know right off the top of your head.
And for those you don’t…”You’re welcome.” What’s that about? Because I just gave you something to talk to your spouse about this weekend.

The Questions
1. Do you know if they have a favorite color? If you answered yes, do you know what it is?
2. When was the last time your spouse ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? (Do they even like them? I always forget Wayne doesn’t…until I make one and he says, “Gross! How can you eat those things?”)
3. Speaking of sandwiches, how does your spouse feel about BLTs? (Last week I learned Wayne likes them. Something I never knew!)
4. Revisiting the topic of peanut butter…if your spouse likes PB, do they prefer it chunky or smooth?
5. How does your spouse get dressed? From top to bottom or bottom to top? (Top meaning putting their bra, blouse, or shirt on first; bottom meaning putting on underwear or socks, then skirt, pants, or shorts first.)
6. What’s your spouse’s favorite song?
7. What concert would your spouse fork out big bucks to sit front row at?
8. What radio station does your spouse listen to most?
9. What CD is in his or her car’s CD player right now?
10. What’s your spouse’s dream job? (If your spouse even knows. Wayne’s still trying to figure out what that might be. It’s always changing. But becoming a professional triathlete is always near the top of the list.)
11. Speaking of sports, do you know if your spouse had a sports hero growing up and who it was?
12. Sticking to sports, do you know if there’s an athlete your spouse would like to meet? (Misty May and Kerri Walsh top my list!)
13. Have any movies ever made your spouse cry? Do you know which ones? (Ladies, this might be a hard one to get the guys to fess up to if you didn’t actually see the tears flowing. Expect denials if you have to ask of the likes: “I’ve never cried over a movie in my life. That’s something only girls do.”)
14. What expression does your spouse use most?
15. How would your spouse dress 24/7 if they could? (This one was inspired by a comment Valorie left on another article.)
16. What did your spouse eat for lunch yesterday?
17. Whose email addresses are stored in their computer’s address book?
18. Whose phone numbers are stored in their cell phone?
19. What kind of burial preferences does your spouse have? (Yep, you guessed it, a question inspired by another of my articles.)
20. Has your spouse ever wanted to know how to speak another language? If so, which one?
21. What’s the longest book your spouse has ever read?
22. What’s their favorite book?
23. Who was their favorite author as a child?
24. What was their favorite book as a child?
25. Did their parents read them bedtime stories?

Marriage: 5 Clues To My Cheating Wife
(Wed Sep 12th, 2007, by Tim Denio)

If your suspicions are aroused and you are wondering – how do I catch my cheating wife – as hard as it might be, you need to buckle down and look out for signs of cheating, followed by getting actual proof before you start brandishing accusations, or initiate heated confrontations.
It is quite common to find men dealing with the thoughts of an unfaithful wife so unnerving and hurtful, that they might initially be reluctant to deal with either the situation or their emotional turmoil.
Lets be honest, discovering your wife is engaging in infidelity, strikes and rattles the very core of being the protector and provider. However, you can’t ignore it and push it under the carpet just because you feel so unsettled and uncomfortable.
Failing to know the truth sooner rather than later will only make it worse for you when the reality rears it ugly head, which it inevitably will.
If you feel that your wife is cheating on you, then it is time to look for these five clues of a possible affair she may be having:
Suspicious chatter – In our current times it is virtually impossible you will find that she is having an affair without using a phone to communicate with her lover. Watch out for sudden changes in her pattern of phone usage and behavior. She may have got a new cell phone and gave you some excuse for it, may be she is receiving mysterious calls at unexpected times…or the very common clue is watch for her getting nervous when you unexpectedly walk in the room.
She’s a new woman – Do you find a sudden change in her activities? Has she picked up apparent new hobbies, or seeing her friends more often, or any other activities that allows her a reason, or rather excuse to explain her unusual change in her routine?
Isn’t she pretty – Do you find your wife taking a sudden interest in her appearance and dressing up to look more attractive? For most people, especially women will make sudden efforts to look better, if they have a reason to appear more attractive for their new lover.
Looking the other way – One of the most common warning signs of a cheating wife is to avoid eye contact with you when she’s lying. It’s a reflex most of us have, to be unable to look directly at someone and lie with a straight face. Look for signs of her diverting her eyes when she answers certain questions you may have asked, for e.g. her whereabouts at a certain time.
Moody woman – While it’s not uncommon for a woman to have mood swings, look out for a sudden increase in them. Does she apparently need more space and time for herself…and is she more hostile and getting into squabbles with you?
Despite your urge and persistent thought of – I want to confront my cheating wife – you must be more observant and patient in how you go about finding and exposing the truth. Look for the above clues, and then make sure you get actual proof of her affair before confronting her.

About the Author
Tim Denio has helped over 27000 of men and women learn to discover the truth about infidelity in their relationship. Visit his site to end your suspicions, and find out if you have a cheating spouse using proven shortcuts at : http://www.cheatingspousecaught.com

Do You Need Couples Counseling for Conflict Resolution?
By: Lisa Bower

Sometimes, people might scoff at the suggestion of couples counseling for conflict resolution. In many circles, counseling has a stigma attached to it. Attending counselling means admitting that things in your relationship need to be improved upon. On the surface, it seems that counseling for couples is best for those teetering on the verge of divorce, not for those who might have only a few problems.

However, if you wait too long before identifying a problem in your relationship, it can fester and burst. If you think you’ve hit a rocky patch in your relationship, counseling might help you and your loved one make it to the next stage of your relationship.

How’s Communication?

The number-one sign you may need to see a counselor is that communication between you and your loved one is strained. How do you feel when you talk to your partner? Do you feel as if the conversation is exciting, or do you feel as if you are talking to a brick wall? Do you feel satisfied and believe your partner has listened to you, or do you feel frustrated or upset? Sometimes counseling can teach two people important communication skills that will help both their romantic relationship and their relationships with friends and family.

Read on