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!

Give A Man 5 Extra Seconds

Matt Lauer and crew are now in London broadcasting Olympic coverage for NBC’s Today Show.  He and his cohorts have been there all week at different venues and some crew is still in the New York studio.  When the broadcast switches locations, I’ve noticed a sizable delay, a silence, a very pregnant pause.  It’s because of transmission between satellites, but somebody always ends up staring blankly on-camera.  This gap of silence reminds me of a rule I learned interviewing couples married 50-plus years regarding communication with men: “Honor The 5-Second Delay.”

It’s a well known fact that men and women are wired quite differently in the ways we communicate.  Men want the quick facts, condensed version, get to the point.  Women gorge in details, elaborate descriptions, the more the better.  Plus, we interpret what we hear quite differently.  For example, you might say to a man, “I heard your cousin John was in a car accident yesterday.”  The man will want to know “What kind of car was he driving?  Did the air bags inflate?”  Make the same statement to a woman and she will want to know “Did John get injured?  Does he have a family?”

Now, about the Honor The 5-Second Delay rule…..Ask a man a question, any question — “Where would you like to go to dinner?”; “What did your Mom have to say when she called?”; “When does your football game come on TV?”  There’s silence.  A pregnant pause.  If you’re a man asking a question to another man, that pause is perfectly comfortable.  If you’re a woman waiting for an answer, that pause triggers anxiety.  Your blood pressure rises.  Your body seizes up with stress.  The veins in your neck tighten.  You wonder, “Did he hear me?  Should I repeat the question?”  You struggle, “I don’t want to make him mad by repeating the question.  I don’t want to sound like a nag.”  To every woman, this is what you need to do….

When A Man Pauses

Instructions:

1. Ask Man question.
2. Breathe.
3. Count backwards slowly, and I do mean very slowly, 5-4-3-2-1-0.
4. If you get to “0” and Man hasn’t answered, it is safe to ask the question again.

These steps will save every woman a lot of frustration and irritation when talking to a man.  So, ladies, while, you’re watching the Olympics over these next few weeks and hear a “pause” in the broadcast, give it meaning.  Remind yourself of your new daily habit: Honor The 5-Second Delay.  When we honor our differences and adjust accordingly, we get along better, much better.

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!

5 Easy Ways To Dig Your Way Out Of A Relationship Rut

B-O-R-I-N-G.  Every relationship gets boring.  No matter how madly in love you are, one day it will happen.

In my interviews with long-married couples to write Everlasting Matrimony and through my own nearly-23 years of marriage, I’ve learned there are guaranteed ways to dig your way out of a relationship rut.  Most people, myself included, want easy and fast solutions.  Here are five:

1.  Make a list of the things that annoy you about your mate.  Turn the list on yourself.

Reasoning: Often the behaviors that bother us about our mate and make us feel we’re stuck in a relationship rut are a reflection of ourselves.  When you change your behavior, by osmosis, your mate will change his/hers.  The result is renewed energy in the relationship.

2.     Do two things you’ve never done before, one alone and one together.

Reasoning: Relationships get stale when there’s nothing new happening.  Doing something new provides fresh material.  If it’s by yourself, you become a more interesting person to be with.  If it’s together, then you’re adding a new dimension to the relationship.

3.     Surprise your mate with something that’s creative and nonmaterialistic.

Reasoning: Simple personable things, like hiding a few lovey-dovey or funny greeting cards in places he/she will discover, putting mints on his/her pillow along with a hand-written note, or writing a message in the foggy bathroom mirror after showering, will make your mate feel special.  Surprises like these can give a relationship a boost.   

4.     Don’t say “I’m sorry.  Instead, act “I’m sorry.”

Reasoning: When you trace back to “How did we get into this rut?” sometimes the tailspin started when you got mad at each other and then stopped putting effort into the relationship.  Put on your big-girl panties or big-boy briefs and act like an adult.  Even if you can’t bring yourself to utter the words “I’m sorry,” you can act them.  Go tickle your mate or flash a private body part.  Initiate some laughter!

5.  Jot down “fun things to do” as they come to mind.

Reasoning: As the days go by and you have conversations with your mate, one of you will say “We should do ‘xyz’ sometime.” But later on, when you try to remember what “xyz” was, neither of you can recall.  The trick is, when ideas pop up, write them down in a designated spot, i.e., in your iphone notes, a particular computer file, a specific notepad.  When you can’t think of anything to do, you can refer to your list.  Now you have many things to look forward to doing together.

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!