According to a study published in the journal, Royal Society Biology Letters, women who take the pill tend to choose as partners men who are less attractive and worse in bed; however, these men may be better choices as long-term partners.

The study examined both women who were taking the pill when they met their partner and women who were not. The consequences, according to the results, are both positive and negative.

“Such women (taking the pill) may, on average, be less satisfied with the sexual aspects of their relationship but more so with non-sexual aspects. Overall, women who met their partner on the pill had longer relationships, by two years on average, and were less likely to separate,” says Craig Roberts of Stirling University, Scotland, who led the investigation

Roberts suspects the pill skews the sub-conscious “chemistry” by which a woman makes a mating choice.

In a separate study, he had found that using oral contraceptives altered women’s preferences for men’s body odor. Women who didn’t take the pill experienced the strong hormonal swings of the menstrual cycle. During ovulation, they unwittingly preferred the smell of men who were genetically dissimilar.

The evolutionary explanation for this is that babies that are born from genetically dissimilar couples tend to be healthier and have a better chance of survival. But when women took the pill, they preferred the smell of genetically similar men, Roberts found in this earlier research. This was because the normal hormonal swings of the menstrual cycle evened out under the effect of the contraception.

The hormone levels typically reflected the non-fertile phase of the menstrual cycle, when women “are more attracted to men who appear more caring and reliable — good dads,” said Roberts.

Although such men are a better choice for long-term partnerships, the risk of a relationship breakdown is still there.

“Women who used oral contraception when they met their partner tended to find him less attractive, engaged in compliant sex and rejected sexual advances more frequently as the relationship progressed, and were more likely to initiate separation if it occurred,” the study notes bleakly.

The new research gives an important statistical push to the theory of sexual chemistry but also raises a dilemma.

So who is Mr. Right? Mr. Hunk or Mr. Nice?

One way to have a better understanding of what you need? Going off the Pill and using a condom instead. ”Choosing a non-hormonal barrier method of contraception for a few months before getting married might be one way for a woman to check or reassure herself that she’s still attracted to her partner,” he said.

~Ashley Taylor

Article originally found at discovery.com and study found at royalsocietypublishing.org.

Everlasting Love: How do you know if it’s for real?
Your heart races every time he calls and your palms sweat whenever he’s near. You think he may be “the one.” But how do you know if this is the real thing?

Dennis Neder, author of Being a Man in a Woman’s World (Remington Publications, 2000), says love has three stages: the infatuation stage, the bonding stage and the familiar stage. Dr. Neder, an ordained minister and doctor of metaphysics, says it helps to consider all three stages when determining if you have the real thing.

The infatuation stage is when you can’t wait to be with the other person. This is the romantic stage of love, says Dr. Neder, who warns that this is the stage when people thinks it’s “the real thing.” But this stage lasts only a short time.

The second stage, says Dr. Neder, is the bonding stage. During this stage you get to know the other person and you start planning aspects of your life around them. If you continue through this stage you eventually enter the third stage, or what Dr. Neder calls “the familiar phase.”

In the familiar stage you’ve established a pattern that involves the other person. “Your lives become intertwined and merged,” Dr. Neder says. “You know foundationally how the other person feels about almost everything. And interestingly,” says Dr. Neder, “you also become refocused on your own life, direction and goals.” Dr. Neder says this is where most professionals believe “real love” starts.

The Definition of “True Love”

“Love means never having to say you’re sorry,” or so the famous line from the movie Love Story goes. But when asked to define what true love is, even the experts have to pause and think. Perhaps it’s because true love has different meanings for different people.

Dr. Neder defines true love as caring about the health, well-being and happiness of another person to a greater degree than your own health, well-being and happiness. “When you carefully consider your words, thoughts and actions, and specifically how they will benefit that other person,” says Dr. Neder, “you’re in love.”

Christiane Northrup, M.D., author of Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom (Bantam, 1998) and The Wisdom of Menopause (Bantam, 2003), says “true love is when you care enough for another person to allow them the space and time they need to become all they can be.”

Conversely, if someone says to you: “If you love me, you would …,” that is not love, says Dr. Northrup. According to Dr. Northrup, this is the “second chakra” talking. And when “love” comes from this place, it’s about control. True love comes from the “fourth chakra” and is easily recognized as unconditional support.

Kathlyn Hendricks, Ph.D,. and Gay Hendricks, Ph.D., authors of the upcoming book Everlasting Love, say that true love occurs when you shift from unconscious commitment to conscious commitment. “When you hear people say: ‘Relationships are really hard work,’ this is an expression of unconscious commitment,” says Kathlyn Hendricks. Conscious commitment, say the Drs. Hendricks, means that you reveal your true self to your partner and support your partner through thick and thin.

Laurie Moore, Ph.D., says all love comes from an open heart. “When you’re together, it’s open and safe at the same time,” she says. Moore believes, however, that this doesn’t mean the person you love is necessarily your life partner.

Nine Ways to Tell if Your Love Is Real
So how do you know if you’re in a lasting relationship? Here’s what the experts say:

1. You feel good. A good relationship makes you feel good about yourself.

2. You look forward to spending time with your partner. You don’t need to be with other people or go to events to avoid being alone together. You enjoy spending quality time together even when it’s quiet.

3. You respect your partner. You hear yourself bragging about your partner. You say things like: “My husband is a really talented singer-songwriter.” If you find that you’re always talking about yourself, you’re not focused on your partner or the relationship.

4. You’re interested in what your partner thinks. You ask your partner’s opinion about issues that are important to you. It’s OK if he or she disagrees with you.

5. You accept your partner’s quirks. Everyone has them. Even you! If your partner’s quirks are endearing or tolerable, you’re in good shape. If they really bother you, you should look more closely at the relationship.

6. You’re able to work through your problems. It’s natural to have some bumps in the relationship road to true bliss. People in healthy relationships see disagreements as a chance to learn more about their partner. However, if you’re creating problems, or if you think every fight is the “big one” leading to a breakup, you should probably rethink your relationship.

7. You feel safe. You’re not afraid of losing your partner.

8. You can’t explain why you’re together. Many people coordinate their lives so that they have to be together. But ask yourself if you’re together because you truly want to be. If the answer is “yes,” then you’ll probably stay together. If it’s “no,” you’re bound to have problems — if you haven’t already.

9. You don’t compare your partner to others. There will always be someone more beautiful, smarter or more athletic than your partner, but you don’t care because you only want to be with him or her.
If you still don’t know whether your love will last, try this last piece of advice from Dr. Moore: Make a list of what you require from someone to be happy. If the list is met, you may have found everlasting love.

Originally published on Discovery Fitness & Health.

Everlasting Love: How do you know if it’s for real? by DiscoveryHealth.com writers.
How do you know if it’s true love?

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Casanova’s rule for seduction was to tell a beautiful woman she was intelligent and an intelligent woman she was beautiful.

Psychology Today outlined the top 10 most common dating mistakes we all make. These are my further explanations of why they just don’t work out for us.

1. Game playing
I understand you don’t want to get hurt. But messing around with someone’s feelings because an old flame burnt you is not acceptable. You could be hurting someone that really doesn’t deserve it and by not being honest with them you are also not being honest with yourself. If you don’t like someone let them down gently and don’t string them along just to have company when you’re bored. If they are only ever going to be your friend, tell them. If you like the sex, but not the person…be a good person and move on. Time is precious and you can never get it back.

2. Talking too much about your ex
This is a HUGE red flag too! People who talk about their ex’s are just too messed up at the moment to move on and care about anyone else. Give them time to grieve and move on to the next fast. If this person is YOU, yikes! Stop that now! My ex took me here, that was his favorite food, blah blah…no no very bad! If you’re date knows anything about your ex, you’re in need of a muzzle. Talk to your pals about this crap, never ever bring it up on a date. Never say anything good or bad about an ex. That’s the best rule to live by. Saying something good makes it look like you’re not over them and turns your date off. While saying something bad about them makes it look like you attract a lot of negativity and you may be too hard to please. That really makes you look awful. The best response if you are ever asked about an ex is say something to the effect of: He/She was great, but it turned out we are better off as friends. See how mature and graceful you sound? That sounds like a keeper

3. Fantasizing about the future
We all do it. Give yourself a second of it a day if you must. Talk about it to your best friend…not the one that is secretly jealous of you, the other one. Hopefully, they are still your friend after, but either way it’s better than bring it up to a lot of people or worse…your date. Before a year of dating, you don’t know this person. That’s lust and a bunch of chemicals talking. Don’t imagine the children, the house, where you’ll live. It will change how you act around them and you’ll come off as moving too fast. If you don’t think it, you won’t act like you’re thinking it and that makes you appear sane.

4. Obsessing over details
Anxiety is the opposite of confidence. Confidence is what will make you attractive to your date. Don’t stress about it, remember not every date has to lead someone. They could end up being your best friend and introduce you down the line to “the one”. Always KNOW that you’re OK if it doesn’t work out and you will be. What he said, what she meant, none of that matters. All that matters is how you make them feel and how they make you feel when together. Think about that and you’ll know.

5. Ignoring red flags
This is big. I get it, you’re 38495 years old and you want to play catch with your kids while you’re young enough to not break your hip doing it. But that doesn’t mean you’re going to marry just anyone either. Hello, divorce is 50%! You’re kids won’t be too happy going through one of those. Might as well do the time now and see exactly what’s going on in front of you. Do they never answer the phone when you call? Forget about dates? Watch hours of sports lazy on the couch drinking? Expect you to be supportive of things you honestly are not? Smoke? Do drugs? Have disrespectful friends and family? Dress provocatively and go out weekly for Girls’ Night Out with bad influences? Say they slept over a friend’s house when they didn’t come home and failed to answer when you called and texted? Not motivated and not going anywhere? Overweight with unhealthy lifestyle and eating habits? Seems educated in wine and liquor, but may be an alcoholic. History of cheating. Ex wife hates him. Doesn’t pay child support. If something is important to you and and your values, but they are at odds with it, end the relationship. Relationships never get better than the time before marriage. Don’t think that problems will go away.

6. Interrogating your date
A date is not the time to ask fifty questions to make sure they are not like your ex or exes. Things will reveal themselves naturally over time. Some of the worst dates I’ve been on were because the other person asked me things like…
“So do you expect the guy to bend over backwards for you?”
“Do you return calls quickly?”
“What is your goal of this date?”
“Is this date going well?”
“Do you like what you see?”
“How many kids do you want?”
Yeah, bad right? Don’t be that loser. You will not get a second date. Never ask how it’s going. That has happened to me more than anything. Instead of being so worried be yourself and let the person see the real you. The more you small talk the more you know if you like someone. Just asking right off the bat on a first date is not enough time. Maybe they can go off your looks, but it won’t be an answer of substance.

7. Avoidance of intimacy
Everyone seems to do this nowadays. Pushing someone away early on because you want to maintain power and avoid getting hurt. Get that idea out of your head that you can avoid getting hurt. It’s a fact of life, deal with it. Know that with time and lots of experience it becomes easier to heal and move on. But hurt is like death, unavoidable. Early on it’s fine to hold back emotions a bit. But never to the point where they don’t know if you like them. You need to show you are having fun and enjoy their company, but not be clingy, needy, or call often. It’s a delicate balance and it’s just trial and error if you ask me. Thankfully there are millions and billions of people you can date in the world to practice on.

8. Rush in, rush out
If that sounds like you, you need therapy. No nice way to put it. Too much and too fast is the worst way to start a relationship. It has been proven that if you go in a dating/relationship situation just kinda liking them in the beginning and then slowly letting yourself open up to them and allow them to grow on you. The relationships will be stronger and last longer. Slow and steady wins the race! Sure occasionally it may work the other way around, but those are exceptions not norms. So to rule is see them once per week in the beginning, let yourself date a month or two before getting exclusive and then slowly start to open up more and more and you can see them a little more. Let things unfold naturally. Pushing for that deep connection at fast forward could lead you into something with someone who is unstable and has unhealthy ideas of love. If someone is pushing and you are being turned off, that’s generally a normal healthy response. You must wonder why they want to seal the deal of being exclusive or married so fast if there isn’t something seriously wrong with them or their personality they don’t want to give you enough time to figure out.

An example, I dated this guy who was very polite, had money, nice friends, and a good family. Got along with all of them. But he pushed to be exclusive very quickly. I met his friends and family and they were all so nice and normal that I figured he was too. Then he met my friends. What a nightmare! He started to flaunt his money to them and pulled out all his credit cards and cash. He showed off his expensive sports car like he was challenging the bf’s in the group. I was mortified. I never lived that down to this day. He was instantly dumped after that, but my friends still laugh at me for it. Be careful and make sure you really get to know someone first!

9. Not being honest about your needs
Are you trying to “let something go” that you know in your heart is a big part of who they are? Don’t lie to yourself! This is your life and it is way better to be alone than unhappy. For example…I was dating this great guy who took me to basketball games. It was a nightmare. I was in physically agony the whole time. I hate sports with a passion above all else. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep during the game. It was a BIG part of his life and something he does often. He liked me and I liked him, but I knew that it would be on TV, taking up weekends, etc. for the rest of our lives and I couldn’t stand it.

I dated another guy who’s mother hated me and would talk crap about me in Spanish thinking I didn’t understand. It was living hell. No matter how nice the guy was his mother would never stop and she turned his family against me. I never had that problem with a mother before so it was very hard for me to deal with. Imagine if we had kids and what she would say to them about me? How would holidays be? I couldn’t live that way and ended the relationship.

Well, now I’m with a guy who likes what I like and watches the same shows. We both love our mutual friends and family. It’s great and I would never go back! I would wait fifty years or more to find someone like this, it’s worth the wait hands down.

10. Sacrificing too much to get the relationship
I didn’t want to spend my life watching sports, so I didn’t marry a guy who is into them. I also want someone who likes to travel and try new foods so I didn’t marry the guy who only ate burgers and French fries. You have dreams and wants and needs. Don’t ignore them just so you won’t be alone. It’s true you won’t get everything you want in one person, but you can get a lot of it if you keep looking and don’t give up. It’s not about being picky, it’s about putting yourself first. If you want a large family, don’t date the guy who doesn’t like kids. It’s not wise to go more out of your way than they do either. If it’s long distance, he visits, then you visit…never just one sided! If they always ask for money or expect you do too much, don’t. You’re happiness is important and they should make you feel just as good to be around as you make them.

Never allow someone to be your priority while you’re just their option

“Every time you date someone with an issue that you have to work to ignore, you’re settling.”

Computerized dating can save a lot of guesswork – but so can a bikini. — Ed Parrish

“A man on a date wonders if he’ll get lucky. The woman already knows.”— Monica Piper

A person isn’t who they are during the last conversation you had with them – they’re who they’ve been throughout your whole relationship. -Rainer Maria Rilke

Never assume that the guy understands that you and he have a relationship. -Dave Barry

The formula for achieving a successful relationship is simple: you should treat all disasters as if they were trivialities but never treat a triviality as if it were a disaster. -Quentin Crisp

The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping, even. Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what it was, nor forward to what it might be, but living in the present and accepting it as it is now. -Anne Morrow Lindbergh

The relationship between commitment and doubt is by no means an antagonistic one. Commitment is healthiest when it’s not without doubt but in spite of doubt. -Rollo May

You now you found love when you never feel on your own beside them. -Kat

Oh, the comfort – the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person – having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away. ~Dinah Craik, A Life for a Life, 1859

“Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other. -Unknown

“Don’t smother each other. No one can grow in the shade. -Leo Buscaglia

And something cute:
He gave you eleven roses, & one that was fake…said he’ll love you till the last rose dies.

Sadly, nearly every girl (and a few guys) I know have been there. You are in a “serious committed relationship” and browse through files on their computer, notice them in a drawer, or find them in an unlikely place. What exactly do you do?

Flip out and let them tear you down by calling you names like “jealous”, “a snooper”, “crazy”, etc.
Hear tired old excuses like “they are just memories”, “they mean nothing”, “they are still my friend”, or worse.

After talking to a few guy friends to get their reaction I was told two main things. One, that most were guilty of this and after speaking with me decided maybe it was time to close that chapter in their lives and get rid of them and two, that they kept them but never even looked at them.

The guys that I spoke with and did make sure to delete ALL of the evidence of failed lovers past, did so for one main reason…they would be heartbroken if the girl they were in love with kept anything like that around where they might, God forbid, find. Those guys tend to be the ones who have possibly been on the receiving end of it and know how awful it feels from experience.

In my personal life I’ve been faced with this problem twice. The first time when I brought it up I was met with extreme hostility. Horrible painful and dragged out fights that ended in tears on my end and not much understanding or change in his. The issue of privacy comes up a lot during these fights. But if one person in the relationship is hurt and feels like it’s a form of emotional cheating, then you know what, it is. Cheating is how each person in the relationship defines it and if one says it’s cheating and the other disagrees, you have a mismatched couple and a possibly doomed relationship.

Another thing to note is that when people are so strong in their fight for keeping these so-called memories, that show of emotion is only proof that the person feeling threatened has a clear and logical point. If there was no longer an emotional connection, it would not pose a problem. The problem comes along when someone wants to move on and still hold on to the past. While it may just be to show off later (which isn’t really healthy).

So what about those that have these past mementos and their significant other allows it and in fact shows no emotional response to it. Usually this can happen for one of three reasons.
One: the mementos are SEVERELY non threatening, if you catch my drift.
Two: it is a very open relationship with far different boundaries than more traditional couples.
And finally three: one of the parties involved is not as in love with the other person and therefore has no reason to worry or care. You could even say they think they are better then their partner and that they are lucky to have them and would be stupid to try anything and ruin that. Or they may just be using them in the first place for resources or something else and they may feel expendable. Just look at the most famous scrapbooker of ex lovers in the world…Hugh Hefner. None of his gfs would object to his scrapbooking ROOM filed with ex lovers, most completely naked at that. They would be tossed out and lose all their benefits (both monetarily and fame wise) for being his gf.

I have a great example of this: I won’t say who it is, but I know a couple where the man had a huge scrapbook of his ex lovers and gfs. He would proudly bring it out and dust it off when guests from his childhood came over to brag about all the women he bed and how beautiful they were. His significant other didn’t bat an eyelash at this and appeared to find it funny. So funny in fact that when she left him years later for another man, she admitted to never really loving him much and just feeling that she was above him. How can you show jealousy when you feel so much better than the other person?

Short answer, you can’t. Only exception is if someone YOU are jealous of shows interest in them. But that’s how they actually got together in the first place.

So what are your thoughts and examples? Let’s Debate!

The Most Bizarre Relationship Ever

Strongest proof I’ve found that there is indeed someone for everyone. Just don’t stop living your life until you find them, they usually have a way of finding you when you least expect it.

Juan Baptista dos Santo & Blanche Dumas