Get Along Better has Moved

Get Along Better blog is now available at The Relationship Insider:

 http://www.therelationshipinsider.com/blog/

Thank you,

Sheryl Kurland

(12/09/2012)

Avoid Tempers And Tantrums Around The Turkey

[Cut out article, copy for your friends, post on your refrigerator.]

Ready.  Aim.  Fire!  As the holiday season kicks into high gear, tensions inevitably mount in most loving relationships.  The pressures of family feasts, party roulette, shopping marathons, and obligation overload are enough to make even the best turkey dressing come unglued and ham glaze gummy.  (Historically, January is the months with the highest divorce rate.)  Whether you’re single or married or somewhere in-between, lessons learned by long-married couples who’ve endured decades of holiday stress can help you, your mate, family, and friends keep tantrums and tempers silenced:

Love the one you’re with.  There are so many fine looking men and women attending holiday get-togethers.  Everybody is bubbly happy.  Everyone looks their best.  These observations can magnify the challenges, problems, and issues you and your spouse, partner, or significant other are dealing with on the home-front.  Are you missing something?  Don’t be fooled by all this razzmatazz.  99% of the time the grass is greenest under your own feet.  Instead of wallowing, turn the energy spent in doubt into energy devoted to rekindling the love between you and your loved one(s).

Ignore the braggers (and don’t try to one-up them).  Holiday get-togethers compel people to brag about their gains and make you feel miserable about your life.  People brag about their children’s trophies, their travels to Peru, their stock market gains, their knee replacement, their frequent flyer points, and on and on and on.  With the realization that your list is a lot shorter, you may think: What am I doing wrong?  Or you may gaze into your mate’s eyes and wonder: What are we doing wrong?  The answer: Absolutely nothing.  Whether your accomplishments for 2012 equal 1 or 100, give yourself a big pat on the back.

Does this make me look fat?: It’s the dreaded question guys hate most from ladies, and this is the time of year the ringing echoes.  So many parties.  So many outfits.  So many decisions.  Ladies, don’t ask.  And gentlemen, should they dare, don’t risk ruining the evening (and perhaps the entire next week).  The “correct” answer is to not answer.  A safe, generic response is “Honey, you always look beautiful to me.”  Besides, deep down, every woman knows where her curves should and shouldn’t be.

Never comment about anyone’s weight gain or irritating kids.  If the people are present, you’re stepping on a land mine.  If the people aren’t present, you can be sure the words will somehow very mysteriously get back to them.  These two topics are off the menu unless you want to start World War III.

Never, ever, miss a good chance to shut up.  The venom is certain to come out during family feasts, celebrations with co-workers, and happy hours with friends.  Remember, every comment doesn’t need a retort.  Every issue doesn’t need another opinion.  Speak up when it’s important, and keep your lips zipped when it isn’t.  What you don’t say is often as important as what you do say.

Hug and squeeze, aim to please.  The holiday pace is frenetic and it’s easy to lose your mate and other loved ones in the shuffle.  In the midst of the chaos, don’t forget to nurture relationships.  Everyone can use an occasional hearty hug.  If you’re a couple, discipline yourselves to block out time for each other, just as you do for everyone else.  Actions can be as low key as calling or text messaging to simply say “I’m thinking about you” or taking a 15 minute after-dinner walk together.

Bundling: Here are a few more time-tested relationship tips…Repel little mishaps and misunderstandings with laughter; sprinkle compliments throughout the day; and concentrate on the things you can change and don’t try to fix things you can’t.

These time-tested proven tips will help provide relationship resilience over the next several weeks.  Put them into practice to insure that long after the leftovers are gone, your relationships are still in tact.

Get Along Better provides you relationship tips with a twist of humor.  Want more?  4,000+ years’ worth of advice are documented in Everlasting Matrimony: Pearls Of Wisdom From Couples Married 50 Years Or More, a coffee-table book by Sheryl Kurland.  An excellent gift for weddings, anniversaries, engagements…or just because!

End Of NFL Referee Strike Good For Marriages

Courtesy of Reuters

Now that the referee strike is over and football season kicks into high gear, it’s normally the time condolences are extended to football widows across America.  However, instead of wallowing in loneliness, it’s the prime season for wives to revitalize their marriage.

Wives have 50% of the power in a marriage and ‘alone’ time is one of the best times to take steps to improve the relationship.  This isn’t about putting on a sexy negligée and trying to distract your husband in-between touchdowns.  Instead, wives need to seize the opportunity football season provides to make points in ways that will enhance the relationship over the long term.

5 Marriage Tips For Football Widows

1. Get your own life.  Develop your own personal interests.  Long-married, happy couples say that having both independent and interdependent interests keeps the relationship lively.
2. Fill the refrigerator/freezer with delicious, healthy food.  There’s truth to the saying, “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.”  A husband adores a wife who looks out for his appetite and well being.
3. Send an “I love you” text when his team makes a touchdown.  Get a group together of four other football widows whose husbands are all watching the same football game, and assign each wife to follow one quarter of the game.  Text or call each other when the team scores, which should trigger you to send a quick hurrah cheer or “xoxo” text to your husband.  Your husband will be impressed!
4. Later, ask some questions about the football game experience.  The questions don’t need to be specific to the game, just general, such as “Did you have fun with the guys?”; “That’s great [fill in blank] won” or “Sorry [fill in blank] lost.”  You’ll likely just get responses in small sound bites (how men converse), but, be assured, they appreciate that you care about what’s important to them.
5. When your husband is home decompressing, occasionally give him a shoulder massage or back rub.  Watching all that football is exhausting, afterward.  He will love you all over again with your soothing affection.  But don’t act every time.  The element of surprise will make the stroking even more treasured.

Get Along Better provides you relationship tips with a twist of humor.  Want more?  4,000+ years’ worth of advice are documented in Everlasting Matrimony: Pearls Of Wisdom From Couples Married 50 Years Or More, a coffee-table book by Sheryl Kurland.  An excellent gift for weddings, anniversaries, engagements…or just because!

The One Thing A Man Wants Most – And It’s Not What You Think

What does a man want most?  Your first guess is wrong.  IT’S NOT SEX!  Think ABOVE the waist.

In today’s society, immense pressure is put on men.  They’re not allowed to be seen crying.  Why is it only women sob with grief at funerals?  And only women cry tears of happiness at weddings?

Men are ingrained to be fearful of showing their emotions.  They stuff their feelings way deep down.  Don’t want to be thought of as a wimp.  Or sissy.  Or weak.  Or unstable.

If you think women are objectified in the media, on TV and in the movies, to be skinny and gorgeous, pay attention to how men are treated.  It’s equally sexually abusive, maybe even worse.  Men have two choices: 1) either hunks and smoking hot, or 2) buffoons.  In the movies, the stud gets the voluptuous babe.  TV commercials often treat dads as buffoons, fools, clueless, a total putz.  Take Viagra or Cialis, and you return to #1.  Maybe this explains why the first instinctive answer to the question “What do men want most?” is “sex.”

Good guys will give the shirt off their back to anyone in need.  But they do it quietly, not seeking any attention or recognition.  Good husbands will drop everything in a heartbeat to come to the rescue of their spouse or partner.  Good dads slave to juggle bringing home a decent paycheck and having energy to make their kids feel like a million bucks.  Sex is nowhere in this picture.

What men want most is APPRECIATION.  They feel validated by a simple “thank you” from those they help.  They feel validated by the back rub their spouse or partner gives them after a hard day’s work.  They feel validated by the hugs their children give them.  They feel validated when they fix things and everyone raves over the outcome.  They feel validated by the sound of laughter they triggered by creating fun for others.

A wife called me not too long ago to talk about problems going on between her and her hubbie.  After some conversation, I asked her….

Sheryl: “What has your husband done lately that you ‘appreciated’?”

Wife: “He fixed our stove.  One of the burners wasn’t working and he did the repair work.  It works perfectly now.”

Sheryl: “Did you say to him something like ‘Thanks, Honey.  You did a great job.  I really appreciate it.’  And then give him a kiss on top of that?”

Wife: “No, it didn’t dawn on me.  He just fixes everything.  That’s what he always does.”

A few days later, the wife called me back……

Wife: “I told my husband how much I ‘appreciated’ him fixing the stove.  His eyes lit up.  It made him feel so good.  I think he was stunned that I thanked him. I had no idea that it would have such an impact on him.”

Yes, men like great sex.  And delicious food.  And snazzy cars.  And cool gizmos and gadgets.  But one thing supercedes everything else: APPRECIATION.

Get Along Better provides you relationship tips with a twist of humor.  Want more?  4,000+ years’ worth of advice are documented in Everlasting Matrimony: Pearls Of Wisdom From Couples Married 50 Years Or More, a coffee-table book by Sheryl Kurland.  An excellent gift for weddings, anniversaries, engagements…or just because!

Please Let Us See Prince Harry’s Crown Jewels

Come on.  Prince Harry — the guy is 27, single and filthy rich.  He serves his country honorably.  He does tons of community service.  He’s loyal and loving to his family, especially his brother and sister-in-law.  He just wrapped up his gig at the Olympics, and very dignified and handsomely represented England in the closing ceremonies.  And he knows how to party and live life.  Sounds like every mother’s dream son to me.

It’s making headlines all over the world, nude photos of Prince Harry partying in Las Vegas.  Playing strip billiards.  Cool.  (Where was his security team while the party was hopping???)

Today’s “worry” is whether the Queen is going to scold him.  If I was in her shoes, I would take him privately into a room, point my second finger at him, and say with a BIG smile, “You’re the bomb, Harry.  Such chutzpah I never had.  Luv ya, Harry.”

Our society is so dang hung up on nudity.  Like we don’t know what’s behind the blur and black stripe across the photographs.  It’s the Crown Jewels, and every breathing woman wants to see ‘em.  (And many men.)

So, it wasn’t the smartest thing for the chap to do.  What single, hormone driven, handsome lad hasn’t made a “mistake” or two?  (And woman, too, for that matter.)  Ask any grown man about his 20’s and he’ll get a glazed dreamy look in his eyes, that reminiscent glow scanning through that wild and crazy and wonderful decade.  The stories he can tell.  Endless.  Really steamy, indecent…and fun stories.  When he tells them, he beams with pride.  This is Harry’s story.  The one that will top all others.

I doubt Prince Harry is losing any sleep over this ordeal.  And I kind of think that he and “Wills” have had some good laughs together.  I can pretty well guarantee you that when Harry soon returns to serving in England’s armed forces, there’ll be lots of high fives when no one is looking.

So, Harry, keep living with gusto.  Perhaps be a little more discreet since you are a member of the Royal Family.  Have no regrets.  Learn from mistakes.  Make every day count, for as you know, it can all disappear in seconds.  And please, please continue to keep us commoners entertained.

Get Along Better provides you relationship tips with a twist of humor.  Want more?  4,000+ years’ worth of advice are documented in Everlasting Matrimony: Pearls Of Wisdom From Couples Married 50 Years Or More, a coffee-table book by Sheryl Kurland.  An excellent gift for weddings, anniversaries, engagements…or just because!

Midlife Marriage – Love It Or Leave It?

                                                                                                                                                           

Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones’s new movie “HopeSprings” is about a couple trying to spice up their marriage and reconnect after 31 years of marriage.  When I interviewed couples married 50-plus years for my Everlasting Matrimony book, Helen Tipton, married to Ross on September 25, 1937, advised “Be sure you choose someone you not only love but also will like after the first bloom has worn off.”  In many long-term marriages today, the bloom has died.  In fact, divorce at midlife has become far more prevalent than ever before.  According to a report by the National Center For Family and Marriage Research at Ohio’s Bowling GreenStateUniversity, the divorce rate doubled between 1990 and 2009 among adults 50 and older in the U.S.

What happened between “I do” and “I don’t anymore”? 

Reasons for higher divorce rates at midlife and beyond include:

• Verbal, physical or emotional abuse as well as alcohol or drug abuse.
• Differences in values and lifestyle choices.
• Shift in social attitude toward marriage and divorce.  Shedding one’s marriage has become easily accepted and easy.
• Increased longevity and attention to personal happiness.  At 45, people are now facing another 40 years with their spouse rather than 20 or so a few generations ago.  They don’t want to spend decades longer in an unloving relationship.
• Financial independence of women.  More women today have careers and are therefore more economically affluent than in previous decades.  Gain in financial security contributes to greater self-assurance and fewer fears about going it alone.
• Children have flown the coupe.  Couples who “stayed together for the sake of the kids” now have the freedom they’ve been waiting for to split.
• Onset of “double menopause.”  For both men and women, passage into midlife can stir an emotional rollercoaster.  Spouses simultaneously struggling with aging may take out their inner turmoil on each other in the form of resentment, frustration, and rejection.  Double menopause can wreak havoc on a relationship.

Resuscitation: 10 Tips To Help Save Your Marriage

Today’s mentality of “the couple next door got divorced, so it’s perfectly fine” leads many others to conclude that ditching their union is the only choice.  They think there’s no way back and overlook what might be needed to sustain their marriages.  Contrary to misconception, marriage resuscitation at midlife and later is a viable option.  For a couple whose marriage has hit this juncture, the following 10 pointers will help get the process underway:

1. Accept that neither of you are exactly the same person as when you married.  Experiences and events change us.  Attempting to recapture what once was is futile.  The relationship, much like a faltering business, has to be restructured to meet each other’s needs today.
2. Get to know each other again.  In the busyness of life, spouses forget to focus on each other.  Jobs, professional commitments, community activities, and other obligations can pull a couple apart.  Just as you schedule meetings for these responsibilities, make appointments to be together.  Whether you sit on the patio in the cool evening breeze, go for a walk or bike ride, or share a latté at the coffee shop every Friday evening, make time to re-connect.
3. Look in a mirror.  Would you marry you?  When a relationship hits the skids, natural inclination is to blame the other person.  Instead, takea good, hard look at yourself.  Do you still make an effort to look attractive (not to be confused with being skinny)?  Are you proud of who you are?  Do you have a healthy sense of self-worth?  If you can’t answer “yes” to these questions, there’s work to be done.
4. Notice what’s right, not wrong.  Jump start change by re-establishing relationship basics, such as communication, trust, respect, sharing, caring, humor and so forth.  Count the worth of your mate, not his/her faults.
5. Peel back arguments to identify their roots and modify interpretation.  When a dispute is stripped down to its core, it’s often discovered that the squabble was precipitated due to one spouse possessing a “strength” where the other has a “weakness.”  The person with the strength was more knowledgeable, informed, experienced, skilled, talented or educated than his/her mate on the subject of the disagreement.  A strength pit against a weakness turns into a fight.  Rather than function in opposition, a couple must re-program and “blend” differences.
6. Ditch the same old patterns, routines, and habits.  Predictability causes monotony.  Sit down together and discuss the boring “stuff” and brainstorm new ways to do them.  This gives you a plan of action to spice up the relationship.
7. Get out — together.  Going through the days, we come in contact with people and places that trigger “that would be so enjoyable for us to do together” ideas.  But later, upon trying to recall them, the mind draws a blank.  Capture these idea snippets by keying them into your phone’s notepad or keep pen and paper handy in your car, briefcase, drawer of your nightstand, etc.  Then, when you’re trying to think of something different to do as a couple, you’ve got a ready list.
8. Create a “couple” tradition.  Traditions add excitement to a relationship and help keep the two people connected.  They also serve as an anchor and provide “glue” for the union to remain sturdy when the going gets rough.  Establish one or more traditions that will make your relationship special year after year.
9. Love the one you’re with.  Observations at the office, gym, social outings, and elsewhere may lead you to believe that others are having all the fun.  Don’t be fooled.  How many times have you seen the couple who seemed to “have it all” wind up in divorce court?  Instead of wallowing or thinking the grass is greener on the other side, devote your mental energy to rekindling the romance between you and your mate.
10. Seek professional help with a positive attitude.  For marriage counseling or marriage education to have a chance of success, a couple must start with the proper outlook.  Think “How can we revitalize our marriage?” not “Should we get a divorce?”

Taking action to transform a marriage that has fizzled into a renewed source of joy and pleasure requires time and patience.  In the process, each spouse is likely to discover incredible strengths within themselves and the relationship.  With steadfastness and perseverance, there’s high probability that a couple will come out of the journey amazed to have opened a new world of opportunities with their marriage not only intact, but better than ever.

Get Along Better provides you relationship tips with a twist of humor.  Want more?  4,000+ years’ worth of advice are documented in Everlasting Matrimony: Pearls Of Wisdom From Couples Married 50 Years Or More, a coffee-table book by Sheryl Kurland.  An excellent gift for weddings, anniversaries, engagements…or just because!

The Safe Affair

It’s epidemic! Spreading in bedrooms, board rooms, and hotel rooms across the universe. Seductive. Delectable. Delirious. With curves and cuddles in all the right places.

eHarmony and Match.com, you’ve got serious competition.

“I barely have time for my wife anymore,” men are whispering.

“It’s perfect because he does what I want when I want it,” women are bragging amongst themselves.

Surveys abound on the percentage of married couples who cheat. The Journal of Couple and Relationship Therapy reports that approximately 50% of married women and 60% of married men will have an extramarital affair at some time in their married life. Cheating statistics for unmarried couples are hard to come by, but we all know these trysts are happening, too.

Toss the statistics to the wind. Now there is the “Safe Affair”: the iPad.

Man + iPad = Utmost exhilaration; Woman + iPad = Pleasure perfected.

A touch with your fingertips, and ooooooooooh, aaaaaaaaaaaaah. Ask anyone who owns one or has used someone else’s. Most will agree, few things, if any, are better.

Giggles of joy are heard in odd places. Like in the famous scene in the movie Harry Met Sally, you look around to see who’s so lucky. It’s only one person…holding an iPad.

On one web site forum I found about iPad addiction, comments included, “I tried to figure out a way to bring it in the shower with me”; “I spend way too many hours with it”; “I can’t believe how magical it is. I love it so much”; “I can’t live without it.” How many people say these things about their significant other?

Get Along Better provides you relationship “tips” with a twist of humor.  Want more?  4,000+ years’ worth of advice from“real-life experts” are documented in Everlasting Matrimony: Pearls Of Wisdom From Couples Married 50 Years Or More, a coffee-table book by Sheryl Kurland.  Makes an excellent gift for weddings, anniversaries, engagements…or just because!

Bingo, Bongo, Bonzo

National Pet Week is May 6-12, a little over a week away.  Mark your calendar and celebrate!

“I hate being stuck inside this gate all day, every day.  A dog’s gotta do what a dog’s gotta do.  I want to find myself a new master.  Let me figure out how to break out.  Success!  Aaaaaaaaah, the air.   So much sniffing to do.  So many fire hydrants to…..  I’m going to run around the neighborhood and see what’s up.  Wow!  Look at all the mud puddles.  (Roll, roll, roll, get filthy and stinky.)  This is the life every dog deserves.  Wait, who’s that?  That lady in her front yard pulling weeds.  I’m gonna go check her out.  Maybe I can win her heart.  (I show her my sad-eyes trick.  She approaches me.)  Bingo!”

Bongo
July 2, 2007

I heard a clinking sound, turned around, and saw this adorable, shy dog, obviously lost.  I coaxed him toward me and noticed he had tags on his collar, Bongo.  One tag had Bongo’s address.  I walked him home, about three blocks away.  Bongo walked in heel-mode the entire way, leashless.  My heart is beginning to melt.  I rang the doorbell.  No one answered.  A neighbor was outside and I asked, “Do you know who lives here?”  She answered “yes.”  I asked, “Can you call and see if anyone’s home?”  She did.  No answer.  I compared the phone number on Bongo’s tag to the number the neighbor had called.  Not the same.  I sat in Bongo’s grass a minute pondering what to do next.  Bongo cuddled beside me and patiently waited while I pondered.  My heart is melting some more.  The trash guys drove by and I waved them down,  “Do any of you have a cell phone I can borrow for a minute?”  The driver handed me his and I called the number on Bongo’s tag.  It was a pet rescue organization and the woman on the other end said she would call Bongo’s owner.  I told her I would walk Bongo back to my home and gave her my phone number for the (soon to be former) owner to call me.  I decided to see how smart he was.  “Stop.”  “Sit.”  “Stay.”  “Down.”  Bongo did every command perfectly.  My heart is going pitter-patter, pitter-patter.  Bongo’s master called me and expressed enormous apologies for “her” dog getting loose.  I nonchalantly said, “He’s so sweet, I might keep him.”  Her next words sent my heart almost into cardiac arrest: “If you want him, you can have him.”  She explained to me that she adopted Bongo from the pet rescue organization a year before, and she and her husband recently divorced, and she kept this furry four-legged gem.  But her work demanded a lot of travel and long hours.  She had been looking for a new owner for Bongo but it had to be just the right person.  Grabbing some kleenex to wipe away these tears of joy!

About a year later, I actually bothered to look at the original adoption papers that the previous owner had given me when Bongo became mine.  Deciphering the cursive handwriting of the agency person whose signature was on the form, I realized it read Bonzo, not Bongo!  Oh well, as Shakespeare wrote in Romeo & Juliet, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

Pets:

• Teach us how to Love
• Show us the true meaning of Compassion
• Make us Kids Again
• Support us through the Rough Patches of Life
• Help us Get Along Better

 

Get Along Better provides you relationship “tips” with a twist of humor.  Want more?  4,000+ years’ worth of advice from“real-life experts” are documented in Everlasting Matrimony: Pearls Of Wisdom From Couples Married 50 Years Or More, a coffee-table book by Sheryl Kurland.  Makes an excellent gift for weddings, anniversaries, engagements…or just because!

Silent Voice Is Sometimes The Loudest

Yesterday I spent the gorgeous afternoon working with the 100% Living team at Earth Day at Lake Eola (Orlando, Florida).  100% Living, owned by my sister and brother-in-law, Kim and Darrell Smith, promotes the message of “indulge in the bounty of the great outdoors in harmony with nature.”  We enjoyed introducing a few thousand attendees to the company’s line of 100% organic cotton shirts (the softest shirts ever!) with graphics that ignite the senses.   All different kinds of people stopped by who share a common denominator: preservation and protection of Mother Nature.  We answered questions galore: “What makes a shirt ‘organic’?  How is the cotton grown?  Why did you start the company?  What does ‘100% Living’ mean?  Would you be interested in being a guest speaker?*, etc., etc., etc.”  Very introspective inquiries.

Darrell Smith,
Outdoor Enthusiast

One visitor was particularly memorable.  The young man, on the thin side, probably in his 20’s, alone, walked into the 100% Living tent-booth.  Darrell greeted him.  The man said nothing.  A series unfolded: Feel the 100% Living shirts on display.  Read the descriptive signage.  Look around.  Think.  Feel again.  Re-read.  Look around again.  Think some more.  Then some more.  And more.  The man of zero words repeated these same actions over a period of about five minutes.

We three got the same vibe — this man was doing things his way, leave him be.  It was like an episode right out of Seinfeld.  A bit absurd…not that there’s anything wrong with that!  Then the earth shook.  The man pointed and spoke, “I’ll take one.  Size medium.  The ‘tread’ style.”  He took out his wallet, paid, my sister thanked him, and he was lost back into the crowd.

We three looked at each other and smiled.  Sometimes what you don’t say is as important as what you do say.

 

*Need a guest speaker?  Darrell Smith, outdoor enthusiast and co-owner of 100% Living,” is an expert on a diversity of topics related to environmental consciousness and living an active, healthy lifestyle in unity with nature.  Contact: dsmith@100percentliving.com.

Get Along Better provides you relationship “tips” with a twist of humor.  Want more?  4,000+ years’ worth of advice from“real-life experts” are documented in Everlasting Matrimony: Pearls Of Wisdom From Couples Married 50 Years Or More, a coffee-table book by Sheryl Kurland.  Makes an excellent gift for weddings, anniversaries, engagements…or just because!

Anderson Cooper, Please Call Me

There are some people who have an aura of unconditional positivity and fun.  You want to be around them because you’re guaranteed to feel good.  I can’t exactly pinpoint what the common denominator is among these individuals, but if I had to try, I’d say there’s always a twinkle of joy as well as mischievousness in their eyes.  It has nothing to do with their gender, size, age, or looks.  There’s just a friskiness in their personality and a lilt in their stride.  Something always happens, completely unplanned, when they’re in your midst that makes you laugh — alot. Their laughter is infectious. The atmosphere is consistent even in very serious or sad times.  Whether you see or talk with these individuals rarely or frequently, this feeling always exists when the two of you connect.  In fact, just the thought of them makes you smile.  Remind you of anyone?

(On the flip side, we all have people in our lives who stress us out no matter what.  Tension mounts.  You find it hard to hold your tongue.  The negative energy is exhausting.  You know something is going to happen that twists your insides when you’re with them.  Remind you of anyone?)

One of these magical people in my life is Anderson Cooper; in case you’re not familiar with him, he hosts a news show every night on CNN, “Anderson Cooper 360,” and he has a syndicated daytime talk-show simply named his name.  I’ve never met him.  Maybe someday I will, and if I do I’ll say “Thanks for the good times.”  His news is serious, he tackles tough subjects.  Through them all, he’s still got that Anderson Cooper-swagger.  Watch these 2 videos and you’ll see what I mean: Anderson Cooper Reports On Dyngus Day (if the link doesn’t work, click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V61VWE5P5z4) and Anderson Cooper Reports On Gerard Depardieu (if the link doesn’t work, click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSazc5u5CIw).

I am fortunate to have a lot of ordinary, non-celebrity “Anderson Coopers” in my day-to-day life.  In writing this, I realize I gravitate to them without consciously thinking about it.   These individuals probably have no idea what pleasure they bring to my life.  I’m going to thank them the next time we connect.

Get Along Better provides you relationship “tips” with a twist of humor.  Want more?  4,000+ years’ worth of advice from“real-life experts” are documented in Everlasting Matrimony: Pearls Of Wisdom From Couples Married 50 Years Or More, a coffee-table book by Sheryl Kurland.  Makes an excellent gift for weddings, anniversaries, engagements…or just because!