The Nation Newspaper

Category: Pillow Talk

  • Swinging with a lovable heart

    THERE are indeed two sides to the emotional coin. The first side is sweet and it comes with great expectations and hopes. When you are on the side of the coin, you are likely to be tipsy and happy you have found the heart of your dream. Hopefully, you begin to dream about how to make it down fantasy island and be together in love forever.

    If life and love stay on this side of the coin, then every heart would happy. Who would not like to savour emotional bliss with the one you love? So, it’s fun, it’s exciting and filled with adventure and, somehow, we all want to stay in this emotional comfort zone.

     Unfortunately, a lot of emotional jolly good fellows do not stay on this side of the coin for too long. Just when they think they have it all, their partners swing over to the other side in search of emotional greener pastures. It is at this point that reality comes in and the lover boy or girl is saddled with tales of deceit and loneliness.

    The next question would be if it is safer to hang in the emotional balance. Don’t give too much so that you don’t get disappointed when they pull the emotional carpet from your feet. The truth of the matter is that you can stay in between and enjoy the best of the two worlds. It really isn’t easy to stay on the fence with your emotions. If it is not love, then it is only a matter of time before the harsh realities hit you on the wrong side.

    Love is not just about the physical, material things or just getting or taking something away from the other person. A great heart is a generous heart; a heart that loves to give and give. From experience, you find two incompatible persons swinging the emotional pendulum in directions you never imagined and making love count. This, of course, depicts the fact that love can be complex, unpredictable, as well as survive more on things that are unseen than those that we see and imagine on a daily basis.

    In Brazil, the tallest man, described as a gentle giant, finally found love with a tiny woman. Joelison Fernandes Da Silva, 28, hid at home for half his life and found love with a woman three feet smaller than his massive 7 feet 8 inches. Most times, she needs to stand on a chair to give him hugs and kisses. While still pondering on that, you run into another contrast with the love story of Sean Stephenson and Mindie Kniss. Kniss shows total love to her tiny husband who was born with osteogenesis (imperfect or brittle bone disorder). The couple shows that love knows no bound, by living a normal life despite the fact that he is 2 feet 8 inches.

    Usually, this is what should happen if love is genuine and you are not only after the benefits.

     The memories from a sincere and lovable heart should linger positively and stay in our hearts forever. This happens from the time you set the emotional ball rolling, identifying a lovable heart, going out together, cherishing this heart and caring for one another.

    Yemi and Joshua actually broke up about eight months ago and she was really looking forward to a new relationship, but somehow she appears stuck for now. “For me, I did not like his attitude to women and, somehow, I knew that it was better to get out before it is too late.” She moved to another neighbourhood, but somehow he traced her to the new place.

    “He still wanted me in his life, which made me think there was hope. So I gave him another opportunity and we were together for another eight months. The experience turned out to be worse and everything finally fell apart. It was at that point that we came to the realisation that there was no hope and we just had to go our separate ways with hearts totally battered.”

    Sadly, she continues: “Then a friend came to tell me about a girl that he was dating in the neighbourhood and I was really shocked. Instead of confronting him, I did a few investigations and confirmed that he was actually seeing three other ladies and not just one. So, I sent him a text message, confronting him with my finding and he just did not deny anything. Instead, he apologised and told me that cheating was one habit he found difficult to drop, wished he could but now that he had come to the realisation that he can’t do away with the girls, it was better to end our relationship. He also told me that the other girls were aware of his restless emotional nature and it was just okay with them.

    “He then agreed that there was no hope for us but he would still like us to be friends. It was very hurtful and the fact that precious time, energy and emotions had been wasted. Tears and more tears. Of course, yours truly can’t be friends with this emotional traitor. Deep down, however, I knew that I was still so in love with him.”

    But this love certainly has become polluted and contaminated, something she wished she never experienced. Later, she got herself together and wrote a goodbye letter, hoping that their paths will never meet again. “Maybe someday I will be more mature and better prepared for whatever comes my way, but I cannot handle the pain he has caused me these past months.”

  • Sipping from the affectionate stream

    FOR the first six months, Teniola could not really fathom what was going wrong in her relationship. Of course she knew that something was wrong, but she just did not know what it was.  Now that it is all over, the whole episode flows smoothly and now she knows that it was not meant to be from the outset. Flashback down memory lane, she discovered that she only got caught up in a flirtation that led to an affair.

    Why not! Having those unsuccessful trials, just anything would do. Thirsty? It was sweet sipping from the affectionate stream. It wasn’t clean and didn’t taste right, yet it was better than nothing at all. Relaxed, she allowed herself to imagine that this was love and it was better to be blind to all the inadequacies.

    It felt so good at the time and it all happened so quickly. This lovebird  felt attractive, sexy, and alive for maybe the first time in years. Teniola allowed herself to get lost and just did not stop to consider the consequences of what she was doing. Now that she is back to reality, this heart wished she never made it this way because her heart has been disorganised more than ever.

    For some people moving in and out of relationships can be real fun. For those in this category, life is simply sweet. They know how to manoeuver themselves, having an easy time creating the kind of connection desired. Some great heart here understands the emotional environment and knows how to turn and transform a few typical “dates” into the beginning of an amazing relationship.

    Conversely, you also have those who are not as emotionally gifted as the first set of hearts. Unfortunately, if you fall into this category, then you are likely to find it more difficult than you think it should be to find a great heart and go from the person just feeling “casual” about dating you to wanting and needing you on both a physical and emotional level.

    Therefore, if you fall into the latter category, it is better to reorganise and restrategise to get better emotional results to win the right man’s heart. Interestingly, those things that matter on the emotional roundtable are little details. They are the things that a lot of us do not talk about but they are also the emotional ingredients that we just cannot do without. It is important to pay attention to these details because they can actually drive your partner wild when they recognise them and experience them in you.

    So when you discover these details and put them to use in your love life, the right heart would melt for you and the person would always see you as that unique and special person that the heart just has to have and behold forever.

    Real men are mature and grounded on a physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual level. They might not have everything they want in their life. But they are on a great path and open to growing on a deeply personal level. If you are unlucky to fall into the hands of the opposite of a real man, then your heart would constantly be in a dilemma. Handing your heart over to a boy is the greatest disservice you can do to yourself. Unfortunately for those in this category, you may not discover the emotional tide that you are running against until it is too late.

    So, the next question that you are likely to ask yourself is how you know if what you have is a heart for a man or that of a boy. Well, the first thing you would notice is that a boy will become uncomfortable when he gets too close to his own emotions, or too close to a woman who truly sees him inside and out, for better and worse.

    The story, however, is different with a real man. This kind of heart certainly knows his emotional onions. It is a heart that knows who he is and will listen, learn, and communicate even when he sees or senses that the woman in his life is unhappy or disapproving of something about him or his actions.

    The things that will make a real man appreciate and admire a woman are often things that a “lesser” man would be annoyed, frustrated, or put off by.

    Understanding these issues means that we all need to appreciate people for their differences and relate with them appropriately. For a lot of women, you must know how to talk to a man about your feelings and needs.

    The easiest and most straightforward way for a man to engage in his emotions with you is by doing things with him that do not require talking, but allow you to be playful with him to dial up the emotional intensity to make him more attached to you.

    Not all men love sports or are great at them, and you might not like them either, but that’s not the point here. The point here is to play a sport with a man because it involves aspects of a “game”.

  • Fishing in troubled emotional waters

    HAVE you been to love’s molehill? Making a mountain out of love’s molehill reminds you of the idiom that refers to making too much of a minor issue. It could also refer to exaggerating the importance of something. So in relationships, you discover that a number of people fall apart because of things that they should have overlooked; things that should have been inconsequential to the love matter.

    Instead of showering the one they claim to love with affection, what we do is to look out for their mistakes, what they left undone as well as what we think they are likely to do. Unfortunately, that is why we always run into problems, instead of holding on to the power of positive thinking. Love’s molehill is usually clustered and cluttered with negatives. The molehill interestingly is a conial mound of loose soil raised by small burrowing mammals, including moles.

    The love animal thinks like these burrowing mammals, we keep on unearthing things that break the heart. You keep on fishing in trouble emotional waters and result is the heartbreaks we have these days.

    It’s actually a long, tiring journey and you need perseverance to survive the odds. You also need a trusty road map and guidebook to benefit from the experience of those who have been through the bumpy road, climbing emotional hills with stress, getting lost in a valley of lust while a few make it to the mountaintop.

    Solomon is looking for a babe, someone he can be happy with 24/7. Happily, he tells his friends the type of gal he is looking for and they laughed at him. Dreamer? “You are just too ambitious, you need to look around and if you find someone who fits into your target. If the babe meets up at least 50 or 60 per cent, then you are okay. But if you insist on having all the details a 100 per cent, then it may just be a wild goose chase.”

    A gap tooth and every smiling chic; this can really be a great source of inspiration in any relationship. A frowning babe is not a great companion. She’s going to drag to the bottomless pit and make the whole idea very uninteresting. A bad bargain, any day.

    What is he going to do with a babe whose eyeballs are flat? “No way. It’s more exciting when you are in a relationship with someone that excites you. The eyeballs is the first contact, you must be able to connect positively at this point. If the one you want to spend the rest of your life with possesses eyeballs that are not attractive, then it’s not likely to work.”

    That is not all. This dude also wants his babe to be intelligent or close to a genius at work.

    Insatiable? Not really. A guy with class should go after what his heart desires. His dream is unique; not for ordinary souls. This dream gal must be a pot pourri of some sort; an angel in the midst of other angels, something worth having forever. A diamond must be forever.

    Well, we can’t really blame him. So, are we saying that it may not be possible to have just one babe with all these assets? No, we just can’t make that lazy assumption. Let him try, try and try again. He may just be lucky to find this missing rib somewhere and somehow.

    Like a molehill, love can be very difficult to define.

    Most times, you may just have to make something out of nothing. You need to make the best of whatever situation you find yourself and make things work, if you can. Things are different from what we used to have in the past; obviously signs of the love times.

     Two young lovebirds decided to go in search of a good love nest. Somewhere, they can live happily thereafter. Of course, they were not sure where true love was, they went to a love doctor for diagnosis. The doctor did the necessary tests to be sure that they were compatible. Once there was a confirmation that they both had enough of cupid’s arrows in their veins to take them through this strenuous love journey, it was time to be practical.

    Here, he took them though a shimmering path that got higher and deeper with every step. It was fun and the two lovebirds laughed, sang, danced and shed tears of joy. The sun was shining brilliantly and fragrant wildflowers were blossoming abundantly all around them as the skipped merrily around the path of love.

    Just when you thought they had found love, the unexpected happened; the euphoria was interrupted by a voice from the past.

     “Susan, how can you do this to me? How can you bite the love fingers that fed you? Why did you break a loving heart?” Yes, that was the voice of an old flame. It was a sad voice and it was also warning the new Romeo. The message here was that he had been a victim and the new guy was going to fall prey soon.

    Our queen is a fair weather lover, the type who shows affection only when there are goodies in the emotional bag. Once the bag becomes deflated, then she is going to take to her heels. Utopia? Well, you would find out as you sink deeper and deeper into this love quagmire.

  • Stepping out of the valley

    CAN two broken hearts melt into one? Yes, sometimes two ‘cracked’ hearts can be resuscitated and you could have something that would last forever. A lot of people who have suffered heartaches can still find their missing ribs, if only they look around carefully. Naturally, their emotions have been blown with the winds and they are just managing to hang on. But from this emotional valley, it is still possible to move out and rediscover something new and adorable.

     This can only happen when the new bird is sincere and willing to flow with you. Interestingly, this is the situation Noami is experiencing at the moment and she is happy that she allowed her heart to step out of the ‘box’. At a distance, Naomi seemed to have the world in her pocket. Friends and neighbours admired and held her in high esteem because of her rare qualities. She was beautiful in and out. A pretty face, great physique and a large heart. Yet, there was just one snag: there was no Romeo in sight. And so everyone made it his or her business to be a great matchmaker just to find our dear friend a Mr. Right.

    “It wasn’t as if I never really found a guy I loved or admired. Unfortunately, he died three months to our wedding. That was a fatal emotional blow, one that I never really recovered from. It actually took me a long while before I started picking the bits and pieces together because my world crumbled at that point.”

    He must have been a wonderful guy, the type that you wish to spend a lifetime with. “Yes, he was a rare personality and he transformed my life while we were together. When I got the news from his younger sister, I was shocked.”

    She kept on wishing it was all a dream and that someone was going to wake her up from this emotional slumber. “Most times, I kept on talking to myself and tell me that it wasn’t true.” Sadly, that never happened and the poor lady’s heart kept on sinking. “By the time I woke up it was almost too late. All the guys I ran into and admired were all married. I was stuck and the ones that desperately wanted my hand were not the kind of guys that I desired.”

     From that point, yours truly was on the receiving end and hung on to life as an emotional beggar with little or no choice at all. Just when she thought that her emotional gates had been padlocked for life, another heart came passing by. “We met at a friend’s wedding anniversary. I knew that all our friends would be at the event and they would all be popping the same question at yours truly. But again, I was lonely and I needed something to fill up this vacuum. To make things easy for me, I had told myself not to take any question seriously and just make myself happy.”

    Like she imagined, almost everyone turned out for the event. Two great minds locked together as one sure deserves everyone’s time and attention. “I sat in a corner and tried to tuck myself away from familiar faces. Unfortunately, one of the busy bodies finally caught up with yours truly. She was clutching a male hand bag and because I hadn’t seen her in a long while, I imagined he was her ‘property’.

    “Well, it turned out that my assumptions were wrong. This was actually another matchmaking episode and yours truly was at the centre of the script. ‘Hello dearie! How are we today? I just saw that you don’t have any company and I thought I should introduce my cousin, Ajibade, to you.’

    “Nonsense! Can’t these people realise that life is not all about having a partner. Who says that I am lonely without a busy body around me?” Trust Shade, she zoomed off almost immediately and didn’t wait for my opinion on the matter. “What am I going to do with this emotional garbage that she dumped on me? We kept starring at one another liked dundies and I felt like running away.

    “Wait a minute! It is not fair to sit on the fence and assume that you are better than the other person. So, I had this desire to help. Poor heart, only God knows who has wounded him this badly. But can two broken hearts melt into one? Then, suddenly, he opens his mouth and started talking. Well, he wasn’t as bad as I thought and in a short while this familiar stranger wormed his way into my heart.”

    The truth of the matter is that a man can be just as afraid or even more afraid of rejection than you are. In order for a man to overcome “shyness” or even his fear of rejection, he has to feel pretty confident in himself or in the idea that if he were to ask you out, you’d respond with a “yes.” Secondly, if you’re always surrounded by a group of people, he may not have the opportunity to be free with you.

    If he’s never had a one-on-one conversation with you, where you’re leading with attraction and flirting back, he may not feel too sure of the situation. This is why it’s important that if you want to maximise the chances that a man will follow up with his attraction for you, you may just have to find a way to engage him. This way he would definitely discover that you are both interested and available.

  • Coping with the odds

    To be or not to be. That obviously is the question you ask yourself when you want to go into a new venture, a relationship or a career path. First you need the conviction to go on because that would be the foundation on which so many other things would be laid.

    Once you are sure that you are on the right path, and then it would be smooth sail. But if for some reasons you just cannot find a good answer to your question or questions, then you may be at the crossroads.

    This scenario also plays itself out in our relationships. Most times, a lot of lovebirds are at affection’s crossroads. Yes, you admire someone very well but there are some unanswered questions.

    This is exactly the stage in which Lauretta is at the moment. She has a crush for this guy but there are so many odds against the survival of that relationship. Should she forget this dream or pursue her heart’s desire and damn all the other consequences. Somehow, she decided to be a dreamer and the dream came with memories of gains and pains.

    Scroll down memory lane and you find her recalling some of the happy moments.

    It started on a bright afternoon at a Lagos registry with some friends. Wedding bells were certainly ringing in style here and in a couple of minutes these lucky hearts were tied together and admonished to live happily together forever. They were happy for a while but it was not forever.

    Riveting in your mind are questions about the real status of lovebirds. Are they truly in love? Would they be ready to make the necessary sacrifices required to make it to the end? Or could this just be a public show of affection, a show that would likely come to an abrupt end.

    Well, the truth of the matter is that it takes only two hearts to determine how far they are going to go in a particular relationship. It can be a continuous marathon love race if they are both sincere, determined and have the same emotional dreams about the future.

    Even though you just couldn’t take a look at the different hearts to know exactly what they are thinking or imagining, you realise that this lucky fellows have finally scaled the first hurdle.

    Also at another registry recently, you find Kate and Henry hanging onto each other so passionately. They walked out of the registry smiling and smiling.  The photographer clicked on and on, trying to keep the memories for posterity. Images they could turn to and remember the very beginning. Images children from the union are likely to laugh about, pass the usual comments and compare notes.

    Apart from the smiles, there was nothing really interesting about the new couple. They looked so different in outlook and you wonder if they were really meant for each other or was it one of those arrangements? All this may not really count; the most important thing is if the hearts were united.

    United in love forever. They are not alone. It’s D-day and 12 marriages have been fixed and everyone is eager to sign the dotted lines. Take a deep look into the crystal ball and you find gaps in different areas of their lives. These include age disparity, height, weight, class and dress code.

    Anyway, what has age got to do with love? It is just a number and it does not guarantee whether a relationship is going to work or not. If you have two people who are both in the same age bracket, you would expect them to share certain things in common. Interestingly, this does not guarantee the success of their relationship, there was some other cogent reason to hold on to each other in love.

    Also when you talk about the height of the couple, you can also imagine what people dream or desire. Women naturally would want a guy who is taller than they are whilst the prince charming would prefer same height or slightly shorter than he is. But the truth of the matter is that all these grand rules of affection have been broken and replaced with other reasons based on the expectations of the lovebirds. It is always important to weigh the options and select what would be best for you. It is not about sympathy, you must make sure that you are going to fit in and enjoy this new beginning.

    When you finally make up your mind, then you are in charge. If this is not the case, then we can say that you have been boxed into an emotional corner. It is not the best because you are going to be complaining and grumbling all the time.

    So it is better to cross check and be sure that you have played the right game, you need to be sure that your heart beat is chanting the right love anthem and this would help to reconcile your love account.

    But if the love pendulum is not balanced, then the lovebirds need make use of the positive love currents to get back on track. It is a very pertinent stage and you must be sure that it is what you really want.

    For all you know, it may just be mere infatuation, something that would only carry on for months or a few years. When it lapses and you may just want to run away. However, the truth of the matter is that you would have created a big vacuum, a vacuum nothing or nobody can ever fill again.

  • Memories from the past

    For Cecilia, the past few months have been chaotic indeed. The lady in her mid thirties has had to work on so many projects and family engagements that could not be shelved. Personally, her philosophy in life is that what must be done must be done well. So, she put all her resources and energy into the activities and made sure everything was in order.

    By the time she was sure that everything was okay, Cecilia realised that the stress had taken a toll on her health. She decided that it was better to take a break for two weeks. Naturally, travelling came to her mind and she made arrangements to go out of town for a while.

    It was fun and Cecilia met new friends. Fortunately or unfortunately, two days before the end of this memorable holiday, Cecilia slipped and got a dislocation in the right arm. What a pity! The pain was simply unbearable and the trauma made her forget the sweet memories she had just experienced. She then had to ask for an extension of her leave to sort out this silly arm that now became the centre of attention.

    Her boss granted the leave extension and advised her to take things calmly. The first few days and weeks were very traumatic for her. The arm ached so badly and she wondered why it chose to happen at this point. As a matter of fact, the strain reminded her about the bitter memories from her last relationship. “Emeka was an ungrateful idiot. When I met him, he had no job, no house and was nothing except his degree. At that point, he looked very humble and appeared to be righteous.” She strongly believed in impacting people’s lives and she began to help him open doors that had been closed for so long. “I had some savings in the cooperative society of the organisation that I was working for and I was allowed to borrow twice as much. I gave the money to Emeka to start a business and he was very happy at that point.”

    Was that a smart thing to do? Well, we can’t really blame her because love is about giving and sharing. “He used the money to start a business and things went right. I also introduced him to a number of friends and acquaintances and he got a number of contracts in the process.”

    Two years down the lane, Emeka’s fortune changed, and for his sweetheart, this was the best time to show gratitude. She was wrong! Just before she realised that she had made a mistake, he began to tell her that she was not fit to be his better half. “Suddenly, he began to complain about my dress sense and a number of other things. I told him that I would change and he agreed to give me another chance.”

    Was this lover boy truly going to give our friend a second chance? “About six months after, I got a letter from Emeka, saying that he had travelled to the United States and that he had married someone else.” Poor Cecilia, she was devastated and her heart sank. She promised never to fall in love again. Thinking about this grand betrayal now made her health deteriorate. Interestingly, the doctor on duty took a keen interest in her. It turned out that he was another victim of love and somehow they got closer and closer. He turned out to be the man she had been waiting for all this while.

    The big question here, is how do you find your bearing when you are at an emotional crossroads? First, it is important not to play the blame game. Assigning blame will cause the other person to either get defensive or feel worthless. Neither of those feelings promotes peace in a relationship. When blame enters into the conversation, then one person becomes the victim and the other becomes the reason why bad things are happening. Does that sound like a platform for a loving and peaceful relationship? You are in this relationship together and assigning blame just creates a separation in your partnership.  Resist the temptation to assign blame, band together, and work through the situation like partners.

    One other thing that you need to do is to remember why you fell in love with them in the first place. When we are upset with our partner, it is easy to focus on what we think they did wrong, or even what we think is wrong with them. How productive is that mindset? What we focus on expands and becomes more noticeable. Wouldn’t it be better to remind yourself what you love about this person and why you fell in love with them in the first place? If you want a happy and peaceful relationship, apply the life skills of positive thinking and positive focus.

    If you find yourself feeling moody and argumentative, focus on the blessings in your life. Focus on the deep value that your partner has added to your life. By shifting your focus, you shift your state away from the negative and toward the positive.

  • When she truly sees him inside and out

    FOR the first six months, Teniola could not really fathom what was going wrong in her relationship. Of course she knew that something was wrong but just did not know what it was.  Now that it is all over, the whole episode flows smoothly and now she knows that it was not meant to be from the outset. Flashing back, she discovered that she only got caught up in a flirtation that led to an affair.

    Why not! Having those unsuccessful trials, just anything would do. Thirsty, it was sweet sipping from the affectionate stream. It wasn’t clean and didn’t taste right, yet it was better than nothing at all. Relaxed, she allowed herself to imagine that this was love and it was better to be blind to all the inadequacies.

    It felt so good at the time and it all happened so quickly. This lovebird felt attractive, sexy, and alive for maybe the first time in years. Teniola allowed herself to get lost and just did not stop to consider the consequences of what she was doing. Now that she is back to reality, this heart wished she never made it this way because her heart has been disorganised more than ever.

    For some people, moving in and out of relationships can be real fun. For those in this category, life is simply sweet. They know how to manuevre themselves, having an easy time creating the kind of connection desired. Some great heart here understands the emotional environment and knows how to turn and transform a few typical “dates” into the beginning of an amazing relationship.

    Conversely, you also have those who are not as emotionally y gifted as the first set of hearts. Unfortunately, if you fall into this category, then you are likely to find it more difficult than you think it should be to find a great heart and go from the person just feeling “casual” about dating you to wanting and needing you on both a physical and emotional levels.

    Therefore, if you fall into the latter category, it is better to reorganise and restrategise to get better emotional results “to win the right man’s heart.” Interestingly those things that matter on the emotional roundtable are little details. They are the things that a lot of us do not talk about, but they are also the emotional ingredients that we just cannot do without. It is important to pay attention to these details because they can actually drive your partner wild when they recognise them and experience them in you.

    So, when you discover these details and put them to use in your love life, the right heart would melt for you and the person would always see you as that unique and special person that the heart just has to have and behold forever.

    Real men are mature and grounded on physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual levels. They might not have everything they want in their life. But they are on a great path and open to growing on a deeply personal level. If you are unlucky to fall into the hands of the opposite of a real man, then your heart would constantly be in a dilemma. Handing your heart over to a boy is the greatest disservice you can do to yourself. Unfortunately for those in this category, you may not discover the emotional tide that you are running against until it is too late.

    So, the next question that you are likely to ask yourself is how you know if what you have is a heart for a man or that of a boy. Well, the first thing you would notice is that a boy will become uncomfortable when he gets too close to his own emotions, or too close to a woman who truly sees him inside and out, for better and worse.

    The story, however, is different with a real man. This kind of heart certainly knows his emotional onions. It is a heart that knows who he is and will listen, learn, and communicate even when he sees or senses that the woman in his life is unhappy or disapproving of something about him or his actions.

    The things that will make a real man appreciate and admire a woman are often things that a “lesser” man would be annoyed, frustrated, or put off by.

    Understanding these issues means that we all need to appreciate people for their differences and relate with them appropriately. For a lot of women, you must know how to talk to a man about your feelings and needs.

    The easiest and most straightforward way for a man to engage in his emotions with you is by doing things with him that do not require talking, but allow you to be playful with him to dial up the emotional intensity to make him more attached to you.

    Not all men love sports or are great at them, and you might not like them either, but that’s not the point here. The point here is to play a sport with a man because it involves aspects of a “game”.

  • On a slippery slope

    ABIODUN and Motunrayo have been together for about four years. Everything went smoothly from the outset, but about six months ago their emotional wall began to crumble. Motunrayo ran into an old flame at the airport while she was returning from a training and in a short while the relationship was resuscitated. She started seeing the other guy frequently and Biodun discovered.

    When he confronted her about this side attraction, she did not deny it at all. This led to some “heavy” talks with her, trying to figure out what went wrong and what he could do to get the love back again.

    The talks made her really upset, and even angry at times. But the man was deeply in love with Motunrayo and persisted, because he felt they could talk things through and make her see how much he still cared for and loved her.

    “I realised that I was the one that had been forcing myself on her all this while. She was very eager to end the relationship, and everything I did or said was not appreciated at all. So, I just had to let go and move on with the hard truth that it was over,” Biodun recalls.

    For a lot people, having the happy ending to romance is good. Unfortunately, it is not every experience that ends this way. However, when you discover that things aren’t going as smoothly as you would want them to go, then you have to go back to the emotional drawing board. Here, you would need to identify what the problem really is, as well as look for solutions to revive what you think that you are about to lose.

    If you are the one on the receiving end then, you must try and address the situation so that the emotional scale does not continue to tilt this way for too long. It is also important to not in some relationship take the other heart for granted. Here you would discover that even when you express your sincere opinion and try to share this with the other party, it may be difficult to get the kind of cooperation that you desire.

    Experts say trying to be the one to fix your relationship by convincing the other heart about your intuition may not often resonate the same way it does for you when you talk about what you’re seeing and feeling.

    In fact, sharing your own intuition about him or her and your relationship could also make the person resist you more or even want to get farther away from you and your old relationship.

    When things fall apart you may not be in the right frame of mind to make certain discussions, and so it is better to remain calm and give yourself sometime to figure things out. It is a period when you start feeling unfulfilled, anxious or worried that you’re not getting what you want and need from the relationship. It is also a time when you do not know how to say what you’re feeling and what you want in a mature, honest way, so you say nothing at all or you drop “hints” that are misunderstood or ignored.

    Sadly, you would discover that your frustration builds up even more and this is likely to bring you to an emotionally destructive confrontation with your partner. If you give an ultimatum, it is likely to make the other person angry and even when you are silent, there would be tension and some negative feelings that make you act distant and disconnected.

    No matter what you are passing through, the most important thing is to be honest with yourself first, before you can be honest with anyone else in your life. Next, you need to understand what you really want from the relationship because this would also determine how far you can go. You also need to stop pretending about your status in the relationship. You also need to stop pretending that you only want a “casual” fun fling when what you really want is to have a committed, serious relationship that’s “going somewhere.”

    Even if there have been signs that things have been wrong or difficult for some time, often it comes as a big shock when things reach crisis point and  things aren’t working anymore. The most important thing is to handle every step with care. At this point, there would be so many mixed emotions and it may be hard to see things clearly and gain some perspective on what the issues are, as well as what each of you wants and needs from a relationship and from each other.

    If you are at the receiving end, then you are likely to experience overwhelming waves of sadness, grief, hurt and pain. However, if you are the person who is facing being ‘left’, somewhere in the mix there is often also disbelief and anger, or even a feeling of betrayal that the person you have committed to is thinking about letting go of the relationship and ‘giving up on you’.

  • Is it dead or in a coma?

    TO every relationship, there is a season. A time to laugh and a time to shout; a time to love and a time to hate; a time to share emotions as well as a time to hide your feelings and emotions from the heart that you loved or still love. The crux of the matter is that life, love and relationship are not beds of roses.

    It is a mix bag and you have to keep adjusting and adapting to the rules and roles that it dishes out to you from time to time. A lot dwell so much in dreamland and expect everything to fall in place according to our plan. Unfortunately, it does not work out this way and it is when a number of hearts get to this emotional crossroads that they get stuck and frustrated.

    The confusion at this point is usually unbearable and before you know it, hearts sink and it is all over. The truth of the matter is that a crisis can happen to any relationship at any time. It is therefore important to have a strong foundation in place; this would certainly help you to deal with the impact of any traumatic experience or event.

    So, argue that problems and breakups occur because some lovebirds do not know how to deal with crisis. The truth of the matter, however, is that there is no right or wrong ways to react to crisis. People deal with issues differently and at such moments, you may feel angry or frightened, or just confused.

    However, there are still a number of people who are unable to cope no matter what. If you fall into this category, you can find help with someone who can help you and your family to stay strong.

    Understanding the different phases of your relationship and dealing with the issues accordingly will help you to forge ahead positively, no matter the odds. A number of our local and international celebrities have issues with their relationships which often lead to breakups. However, we have some who have kept the love boat floating in spite of the difficult times shared together.

    Recently, Will Smith took a look at his love story and he confesses that it’s not been easy.  Smith’s marriage has had “some stormy days.” The American celebrity who wed Jada Pinkett Smith in 1997 admitted that his relationship had “died” multiple times in the past.

    His words: “Whatever you have is gonna die and you are gonna have to rebirth something new. You have to be willing to ride the waves. There’s gonna be some flat days and some stormy days, and that has to be ok.”

    Meanwhile, Jada who has daughter Willow, 14, and son Jaden, 16, with the 46-year-old actor is ever ready to tell anyone who cares to listen that  Will is more than just a husband to her.

    Jada adds that:”We used to have all these rules, [but] as you go on in your relationship; you just get into a flow. Will, to me, encompasses everything. It’s almost as if calling him ‘my husband’ is too small of a word for what he means in my life. I think I had a very stuck idea of what a husband looks like, what a wife should be. Once I broke all of that, a whole new world opened for me and man, oh, man, I got to see him in all his glory. And so that’s what it’s evolved into. And I’m just ecstatic about it.”

    When your relationship is in crisis and you do not understand the phase that you are in, then you need to tread cautiously. First, you need to know if it is over, or if you can save the situation. It is an incredibly difficult time and you may find yourself struggling to cope emotionally, which of course has an impact on your ability to deal with work and day-to-day life.

    Added to this is the dilemma with your personality and you may have trouble with sleeping or eating. Interestingly, some people may start to over indulge with food as a way to stuff down the feelings and numb the pain. You also have the other group of people who would start to drink more than usual to block out their feelings, something that inevitably makes them feel worse once the alcohol wears off.

    Of course, you also have hearts that would simply throw themselves into work and try not to think about what is going on in their personal lives. You find a few in this category and the truth is that a lot of people have difficulty focusing and functioning as normal at work. This category at this stage would be feeling very anxious and suffer from panic attacks, at the thought of the

  • Escaping from a dead heart

    THE sea brings to mind lots of water, different species of fishes and other creatures. Naturally, the picture that comes to mind is an environment that is rich physically depicting all kinds of emotional gestures. Its natural environment is bound to be a booster for affection, attraction, infatuation and fondness.

    However, if your affection is located on the Dead Sea you are not likely to go far. No matter what you do and the efforts you put in, you are not likely to find any fish (heart) not to talk of locating your dream fish (heart).

    The Dead Sea historically has attracted visitors (hearts) from all over the world for thousands of years. It is known as the salt lake famous for incredibly high levels of salt. The deepest hypersaline lake in the world. This salinity makes for a harsh environment in which animals of any kind cannot flourish.

    However, it has been the supplier of a wide variety of products like balms for Egyptian mummification, potash for fertilizers, cosmetics and herbal products.

    The scarcity of aquatic life in the Dead Sea can be compared with relationships that have no future from the outset. The question here is how do you get into dead relationships? How do you determine who or what to avoid in the search for a befitting heart? A heart that would bring joy and not tales of sorrow, tears and blood; a loving heart and not a cheap sadist masquerading to be sweet and nice just because he or she is planning to rip you off someday.

    32-year-old Josephine’s heart is sinking miserably on the affectionate Dead Sea. She has actually given up all hope of finding love again after three cases of misplaced affection. “The last relationship was the most painful. We had saved some resources together to rent a house and start a family. We also travelled to see his parents and family members about three months before everything crashed like a pack of cards. It was at that point that I realised that he had been deceiving me all along.”

    On his part, he did not wait to give this poor heart any explanation about the whole emotional mess. Instead, he got a ticket and travelled out of the country, far away from this dying or ‘dead’ heart.

    Now she thinks that she has found love again but sadly her affection sadly is with the wrong heart.  “I am in love with my sister’s husband and I don’t know what to do about the situation. The man keeps making flirtatious gestures towards me and I am so confused. Deep inside, something tells me to say yes because he is what I have been wishing for all my life.”

    That is not all! “I think that my sister is very ungrateful and she treats him badly. Each time you pay them a visit, he is always complaining about how tired he has become of her. It is sad that my sister does not appreciate him at all and she does not value what she has.”

    Emotional traitor! There are so many of them around looking for hearts to be stolen and hijacked for themselves. Sadly, a lot of people live, wine and dine with traitors. They entrust their lives and hearts to charlatans who end up plotting their betrayal in a very wicked way. Hearts that hide mischievously in the background planning how to steal what belongs to the other.

    How can you continue to smile sheepishly at somebody, seduce him or her and not expect a reaction? Whether the reaction is positive or negative is another matter entirely. “How can she smile cheaply at your man claiming that you do not appreciate what you’ve got?”

    How on earth can someone stoop so low and lose her heart to a sister’s boyfriend, fiancé or husband?  Or even a friend’s husband for that matter? What kind of friend could that be? Here it would be better to hug the enemy instead of settling for this kind of friendship.

    Besides, who made you the judge of whether or not she appreciates him or not? Are you the emotional spy, the forerunner who must step into her emotional shoes? As a good and loyal sister or friend, your only duty is not to be trusted, be loyal and stop looking for excuses to justify your lust for her man.

    She continued: “I have been in four different relationships in the past six years but I have not succeeded in having any stable relationship. The relationships all start on a very bright note but when I think have gotten it right, things just begin to fall apart.”

    However, she noticed that men who have a soft spot for her are usually already engaged. “When my best friend got married a few years ago, I met the best man and I really liked him. Then I began to pray that she would throw the bouquet in my direction. There and then he would begin to propose to me and marry me later.”

    Was this a dream come true? No, it wasn’t! “When I made enquiries from my friend, I realised that he was already married. To my utmost surprise, he also liked me so much and he wanted us to be friends. Unfortunately, we both knew that we weren’t going to go far.”