A continuing series on the ways people prevent themselves from finding the loving relationships they say they want.

I got this letter last week from a man named Murray in Georgia,

Here’s my dilemma. I started dating a wonderful woman about 3 weeks ago. It was one of those relationships that felt like magic from the first moment we saw each other. We’re not kids and are taking things at a reasonable pace, but it’s hard for me not to dream about a life with this woman.

Last week she said something that has weighed heavily on me ever since. We were having a serious discussion about what a future might be like for us.  She has two children, ages 7 and 9, and during our talk she said quite matter of factly, “Well of course, my children will always come first.”

I just nodded at the time, but since then I’ve begun to think about that phrase. I have no children. I really love her boys and would consider it a privilege to help raise them, but the idea that I will NEVER be first is something I can’t get past. Do I want to be in a relationship with a partner when I am always her third priority? I would be curious to hear your thoughts.

Best,
Murray

I must admit I typically hear this from men, although it applies to both genders. Of course, the knee jerk reaction tends to be, “How selfish! Of course, the kids come first!” But the more you sit with his concern, the more you understand that feeling like the least important person in the family puts a real damper on the enthusiasm for the relationship — and with good reason.

In fact, I’ve come to believe that announcing to your date that “MY KIDS COME FIRST” is a sure-fire way that people unknowingly sabotage a potential relationship. I think it usually comes from some kind of misguided attempt to be “honest” with this potential mate. But it’s one of those mistakes that is easy to fix.

The fix? Don’t say it. Ever. Here’s why:

1. It’s not always true.

It may be true that “your kids always come first,” but there are times when your kids don’t need you. There are times when your entire attention is focused on your partner, and that person is “Number One.” Your kids may be with their other parent. They may be at school or with their grandparents. You may be on a romantic weekend with your new love. When you say, “My kids come first,” it sounds like you’re saying, “You will never be my number one priority.” But that’s not true. There are many times when your partner can easily be your top priority.

2. It’s already assumed.

Every thinking person assumes that your children are already your top priority. Caring for children is life’s most demanding responsibility and it’s natural that you get the latitude to take care of them. Making a point of saying, “My kids come first” makes one wonder, “Just how low am I going to be on the priority list?”

3. It makes you sound like someone who needs a pair of helping hands more than a romantic partner.

The early stages of dating are a time when people are trying to make decisions with relatively little information. We are all trying to figure out, “What would it be like to be in a relationship with this person?” and, “Why does this person want to be with me?” It’s easy to see how Murray can wonder, “Does she want to be with me because she’s madly in love with me, or because I can help out with her top priority.”

Lastly, I would add the simple reminder that your children are “passing through.” It may seem far, far away when they are small, but if all goes well, they will walk out your front door some day and into a life of their own. You’ll need to have a new top priority. Be sure that you don’t lose a great partner by hammering home a point that needs no emphasis.

What do you think? Agree? Not?

The post I Really Want a Relationship…but My Kids Come First! appeared first on eHarmony Blog.

In honor of Labor Day, eHarmony took a look at online dating communication trends and how they related to one’s profession. So who’s talking to who? See below:

The post Your Profession and Your Love Life appeared first on eHarmony Blog.

A continuing series on the ways people prevent themselves from finding the loving relationships they say they want.

The world of online dating gives you the amazing opportunity to rise above the local pool of single people, and to zoom around the globe. You can create a list of “must haves” because you’ll now be starting with a pool of millions of daters, rather than a few thousand or hundred. The common side effect of this process is that you’re introduced to a person who lives outside your immediate area – sometimes the person is hundreds of miles away or more.

I spend a lot of time talking to single people about their search for a relationship, and it’s not uncommon to hear this interesting statement, “Yes, she was awesome, but she lived too far away.”

Really? How awesome was she? Was she the “I want to live with her, love her, have children with her, share my entire life with her” awesome? How far away did she have to live to have you forgo on that chance of a life of loving happiness?

There’s no question that traveling to meet, date, and start a relationship with a romantic partner is difficult. There are few things in life that turn us upside down like moving to another town. But, depending on where you live, insisting that you will never leave may have a powerful effect on your chances of finding love. I’ll take my own hometown — Hartselle, AL. Hartselle has a population of approximately 14,000 people. Doing a little rough math, I end up with 81 women between the ages of 30 and 40. How many of them are single? Probably less than 20. I can promise you that layering on just a couple of dimensions of compatibility will mean the chances of any of these 20 women being right for me is very, very small. (I probably dated all 20 of them before, anyway.)

What does this mean for a resident of my hometown who wants to find a great relationship partner? You gotta travel, or you gotta get realistic about your search. I don’t say this lightly. I know that children and jobs and exes and elderly parents and responsibilities mean that for some people traveling to date, or moving to a new town for a relationship is very, very difficult. If that’s you, logic dictates that you be brutally honest about the criteria that you’re using. If your pool is small, and you’re insisting on a man who is your height or taller, maybe it’s time to re-think that or some other standard. To do otherwise is to constantly beat yourself up with poor online dating results. Online dating isn’t magic, of course, and the smaller the number of candidates the harder it is to match someone with extremely detailed standards.

If we move this example to a big city, often, the problem doesn’t get much better. We’ll avoid New York because its geography makes it such an unusual example. Let’s take Los Angeles. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve heard who live in Santa Monica say, “Oh, I would never date someone from Silver Lake.” It’s 14 miles from Santa Monica to Silver Lake. Should it be possible to find a great match in Santa Monica? Maybe. That depends on who you are and what you want. The question is, if you were served a match in Silver Lake and he was a wonderful person and a great fit for you, don’t you want to know about it? Isn’t the potential for a life together worth that effort? (Yes, I live here and understand how much effort we’re talking about.)

Finally, what about those who have no responsibilities, but just don’t want to move. It is a free country, as they say. If you want to live where you are and try to date the indigenous population, there’s nothing wrong with that. If you want to live where you are, and be happy without a relationship, there’s certainly nothing wrong with that. But I would encourage anyone who wants a relationship and hasn’t meet the right person to consider a wider geographic range. After all, if you met someone who lived in the next state, and ended up in a loving long-term relationship that included a move, wouldn’t that be worth the trouble?

There’s an old adage that says, “You can curse the darkness or you can light a candle.” I think for many daters geography is the candle.

The post I Want a Relationship But…I Won’t Live Anywhere Else! appeared first on eHarmony Blog.

The post The Dating Games of 2012 appeared first on eHarmony Blog.

I know a woman, Madison, who has indicated in her online dating profile that she “must be able to maintain her opposite sex friendships,” and let’s just say she’s having a little trouble meeting a great new guy. I wondered if there was a connection between this profile statement and her difficulty, so I asked her about it. “Most of my opposite sex friends are exes,” she told me. “AHA!” I said. “You tell your potential new loves that you have ongoing relationships with your ex-loves and that you insist on seeing them?” she nodded, and in an instant I knew why this beautiful woman was batting .000 in the online big leagues.

When I explained to her that many, many people don’t want their partner to maintain a relationship with ex lovers she was indignant, “Why do I want to end a great long-term friendship because I’ve started dating a new person who doesn’t like it?” I explained, “Can you see that a man doesn’t want you to go have dinner with someone whom you’ve seen naked?” “But NOW WE’RE JUST FRIENDS!” she yelled. “HOW MANY MEN ARE WE TALKING ABOUT?!” I yelled back. “IT’S ONLY SIX. WHATS THE BIG DEAL?” My jaw hit the floor. She wants to maintain close friendships with SIX ex-lovers? What person is going to be okay with that?

I’m not totally blind to Madison’s point. I have old girlfriends who are now friends of mine. We might have a chat online occasionally, or exchange a Facebook post. They aren’t my best friends, but I value them and the small place they have in my life. Madison is a great person who decides early on in a relationship that she isn’t that interested in a guy and typically ends it amicably. Because she is a good “breaker-upper” the men don’t hate her and they quickly move to the friendship stage. It makes perfect sense.

The issue isn’t the old relationships and whether those friendships are wrong. The issue is “What can a new love reasonably ask you to do for the sake of the relationship?” Can she/he tell you who your friends should be?

Years ago my modern, liberal, cool guy response to this question would be “of course not.” Aren’t we all adults? Can’t two people of the opposite sex be friends without any residual spark? How dare a person tell me who I can see? But the years have taught me a few things:

1. Extinguished fires have embers.

If you’ve been intimate with a person, even if it was years ago, there is some kind of connection between you. You may know that this connection is dormant and unlikely to ever come to life, but you must acknowledge that it has come to life many times for many other people. It’s so common that it isn’t unreasonable that your new partner has some concerns about it. After all, he/she is putting his/her heart into this new relationship. They may love and trust you, but chemistry and sex are mysterious and powerful forces. People who never thought they’d cheat end up deep into something they cannot control.

2. Emotional affairs are more likely to happen with people whom we’ve had a deep connection.

I think there are many people who have their physical selves in check. They would never “cheat”, but when you meet your ex for dinner do you talk about your new relationship? Do you talk about the pet peeves you have for this new love? Is an emotional affair cheating? I say it is. Giving yourself a confidante of the opposite sex to hear your relationship woes is courting trouble.

3. You have a commitment to put your emotional energy into your partner.

There are certain responsibilities that come with relationships, even new ones. One responsibility is to channel your emotional energy into your new love. If you’re giving away parts of that energy to others, you’re not putting your all into the new relationship, and again, this new partner has reason to be worried if there’s a good chance you’re going to be sharing this emotional energy with six other people. In my opinion, one of the causes of our high modern relationship casualty rate is a cavalier attitude toward this aspect of love.

Of course Madison just sees a man trying to tell her what to do. What he’s really saying is, “If you want to do this, I can’t be with you.” In fact, dozens of men are saying this to her and she can’t understand what’s wrong with them. “Don’t they trust me?” She asked. I suggested what I thought was the easiest solution to the whole dilemma. “Take your new guy to these lunches and dinners with your old boyfriends. Introduce him. Bring everyone together and show him that there’s nothing to fear.” I could see she wasn’t buying it.

In the end, I suggested a simple test, take this pronouncement out of her dating profile, and mention to men only after they’ve had a couple of dates. Let him see her charms before she reveals her demands. At least that way he might think she’s worth the frayed nerves.

What do you think about Madison’s position?

The post ‘I want a relationship but…I HAVE to Maintain Friendships With My Exes.’ appeared first on eHarmony Blog.

The Truth:
The obvious truth is that whatever I’m going to write below won’t stop all men from cheating. This is because some people (men and women) are simply psychopathic. That’s a word that gets tossed around but its strict definition is – a personality disorder characterized by a pervasive pattern of disregard for the rights of others and the rules of society. Psychopaths have a lack of empathy and remorse, and have very shallow emotions. They are generally regarded as callous, selfish, dishonest, arrogant, aggressive, impulsive, irresponsible, and hedonistic.

If you’re with a psychopath, he/she is going to have little to no regard for you. These are people who can murder someone and eat dinner next to the body. No appeal to their humanity is going to stop them from destroying you so they can have a little fun.

The Scenario:
In our scenario, the guy in question is sitting with me having a drink and he gets a text from some sweet young thing telling him to come on over. He is married and has two small children. He’s got a pretty good job, and is a pretty good person, but after 6 years of marriage he’s a little bored at home. This woman who is waiting for him is very beautiful, and he can likely take part in this act without getting caught.

What I Would Say to Him:

1. The chances are very high that you’re going to cause tremendous misery for yourself, your wife and your children.

Every cheating man you’ve ever seen on the evening news with his life in shambles thought he wouldn’t get caught. Nobody thinks they are going to get caught, but whatever your chances of getting caught are, the risks are off the chart. You will take the people in your life that you love the most, especially the innocent children, and drag them through the worst sewer of pain available to human beings. In fact, you may well ruin your children’s ability to trust when they are adults. If you’re not a sadistic madman, the idea of hurting your family should at least get your attention.

2. If you’re like most good people, you live with a deep well of positive regard and trust from your family. Living without that is going to be very hard.

As human beings, we often take for granted things that we see as common. I don’t think about the fact that my home is heated on a cold night, because it just happens without much thought. Chances are you currently live with a deep well of trust and love from your friends and family. You come and go, more or less, as you please. You probably could call your wife and say, “After work I’m going to go to Joe’s and watch the playoff game.” Your family and friends assume the best about you. That, my friend, is a powerful life circumstance. A man who is caught cheating will take that and flush it down the toilet. The freedom you’ll have to give up to reestablish your trustworthiness is so substantial that many men just leave a relationship rather than submit to it. If you cheat, you’ll be taking one of the most valuable resources in your life and destroying it.

3. If you have a terrible sex life at home, you deserve better. Demand better.

Maybe the guy in our scenario says to me, “I hear you Grant, but my sex life with my wife is non-existent.” That’s a bad situation for a man to be in. In fact, that’s not an acceptable position to be in. We have a right to expect that our sexual relationship will continue throughout our marriage. So, go and do something about it. Tell your wife that you’re willing to do whatever is necessary to mend your sex life. Don’t be shy or ashamed to bring it up. If she refuses on unreasonable grounds, it’s time to get help. Cheating, however, is not the answer. If after counseling your wife absolutely refuses to ever have sex with you again, then it’s fair to say that you won’t be married much longer and you can have a healthy sex life with someone else.

4. If you really want a variety of sexual partners, get a divorce. Be a man and own it.

Sometimes people say, “Be a man.” What does that mean? To me it means, “Stand up, take responsibility for your decisions, and do what you have to do, fully accepting the consequences.” If you’re one of these men that cannot live without a large variety of sexual partners, then you need a divorce. You don’t need to sneak around and drag your family through a life of lies and sexual risk. Divorce is terrible and a person who gets married and then just decides, “This isn’t for me,” isn’t necessarily a great person. But if I’m ranking bad behavior, the guy who never cheats and asks for a divorce is higher up the ladder than a man who just pretends he’s a faithful person and has lots of sex outside his marriage.

5. Once you have sex with this woman, you’re giving her the power to destroy you at any minute. You’re handing the keys to your life over to another person.

The moment you participate in a secret act with this person is the moment you no longer have control over your life. Sure, if this woman is married with two kids, just like you, you may have a kind of “mutual assured destruction” situation, where you both have a lot at stake. But even then, you’ve given someone else the ability at a time of their choosing to turn your life upside down. Most people fight their entire lives to have a certain amount of control over their destiny, and for you that will be gone. She can demand things. She can blackmail you. She can and often will begin to imagine a future with you that you may know nothing about, until you’re presented with an ultimatum. I won’t even mention the word “pregnancy.”

6. You’re a good person and this is going to slowly destroy you from the inside out.

You’re not a bad person. You have a conscience, and stepping out on your marriage is going to take its toll on you. You may think it won’t. You may think you can compartmentalize it, but at the very least, your assessment of who you really are will change. You’re not the honest, committed guy everyone admires. You’re a liar and a cheater, and your self-respect will diminish in a considerable way.

7. You may think this is a one-time thing, but it will be so much easier after this.

That first time you walk through the door and sleep with her, is the hardest time. After that, you’ll remember the bliss, and the lies, and the fact that you “got away with it” and you’ll be hooked.
If after all this the guy says, “I hear you, but I really want to go and sleep with this woman,” he probably is a psychopath.

What do you think? Is there anything you would add to Grant’s anti-cheating talk?

The post How I Would Prevent a Guy From Cheating… appeared first on eHarmony Blog.

Maybe you watch too much reality TV? Maybe you aren’t confident enough at work? Maybe you’re eating too many sweets? Whatever it is, make a video telling us about it and showing us how you’re going to send it packing.

Everyone who submits a video will get one FREE month of eHarmony. The best video will get six FREE months.

We’ve even made a sample video to show you what we want. Take a look and then click here to get started on yours.

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Make it funny, silly, heartwarming or witty. Remember Debbie the Crazy Cat Lady? That’s a woman laying on a bed with an iPhone camera, and it has had millions of views. Below is an example of a great viral video, but whether you make it lavish and polished or simple and low-budget we want to hear from you.

Here’s how it works:

• Submit your video before January 6, 2012
• We’ll pick the top four
• The public will vote on the finalists
• The winner will get $8,000!

Visit the Contest Site for more details!

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Understanding the odds really comes into play when we talk about relationships. Each person is an individual and each relationship is unique, but there’s still some sort of aggregate likelihood that certain events will occur. If two 21-year-old people decide to marry, they may indeed be forging a relationship that will last for the ages.  The odds tell us that this relationship is very likely to fail. Therefore, based on that fact, I would counsel these two not to marry now. I know they are in love, but if they wait just three or four years ,the odds say that the chances that their relationship will succeed go way up.

Male infidelity in a relationship falls under this same system. Any person can cheat, that we know, but it’s easier for some men to cheat than others. There are three factors that play into a man straying sexually in a relationship:

1. His ability to convince other women to sleep with him.
2. His opportunity to cheat.
3. His sexual energy.

So, let’s imagine a man who works in a store with his wife. They ride to work together, come home together, and on the weekends they work on their house and socialize together. Imagine that this man is extremely unattractive, by objective standards. He is shy, and has a hard time talking to strangers. Let’s also say that he has a very modest sexual appetite. This imaginary fellow is on the low end of the cheater scale. He has little to no opportunity. He has little to no game with women. He has little physical desire for sex.

We can quickly go to the other end of the spectrum. He travels for work. He is very handsome, and has a magnetic attraction to women. He has a very strong sexual appetite. His wife knows he wants to have sex every day, maybe more than once. It doesn’t take a genius to see that this fellow is more likely to cheat than our shy guy.

So, what are you to do with this information? It is certainly true that the shy man COULD find a way to cheat. It’s also true that the sexual guy COULD be a monument to fidelity. But if you’re playing the odds in the situation, it’s hard not to recognize what outcomes are more likely. There are, occasionally, people who get hit by a bus and live, but I’m not going to jump out in front of a bus, because I don’t think the odds are in my favor.

Some people think the odds don’t apply to them. “Yes, I know that is a possibility, but it won’t happen to me,” they often say. And of course, statistically there is a chance that they will be right. But in situations where the odds are heavily against them, they won’t be right very often. And with some of these life decisions, the consequences of a poor decision are so drastic that placing your money on the long-shot seems a little crazy.

So, the next time you’re dating a man, take a moment and think about these three factors and how your guy rates. It’s no guarantee of how he will behave in the relationship, but you’ll have a better sense of the odds.

The post Women – The Odds Your Man Will Cheat appeared first on eHarmony Blog.

Whenever you start a relationship with a new person there are 3 ways in which you can mix your defining characteristics with your new partner’s.

1. You combine them – If he’s into art house movies, she goes and participates. If she’s into triathlons, he goes and cheers her on. They take the traits and passions and mix them all up together. There’s room for separate activities, no doubt, but on the whole each person retains their interests and participates in the others’.

2. You enjoy them separately – He goes to his art house movies with his friends and she skips it. She does triathlons and he skips it.

3. One person gives up their passions – He quits going to the art house movies and become a full-time triathlon fan.

Some people have a tough time hanging on to themselves in a relationship. It may be that they aren’t that passionate about the things in their life. They may feel that dating someone who has a big interest finally gives them something to do. The end result, however, is that they fall headlong into the relationship and often take on the traits of their new partner. If the relationship ends and this partner moves on the person can feel not only that they’ve lost a lover, but they’ve also lost an entire life.

This happened to a woman I know who fell in love with a race car driver. She was a normal sort of person and his glamorous life just overtook her. She threw herself into racing and abandoned the typical hobbies that she had loved – hiking, live music, and Pilates. She became a racing fanatic. I remember seeing her and asking about a live music festival that she always attended. ”Oh, I don’t have time for that stuff anymore,” she laughed. You know how it ended. Two years later he broke up with her and the door to the world of racing slammed shut. She was lost. Her heart was broken and the things and people that she loved before the relationship started had drifted away. It was very painful.

Many people have no problem with this issue. They have a strong set of interests and friends. A new romantic interest never seems to pull them away from what they love. Others find that again and again they get lost in the life of their new love. If you’ve found that’s been an issue with you, here are some simple tips to manage this tendency.

1. Do the Work of Building Your Own Interests
The great news about this is that it can happen long before you even have a partner. Some people just work, watch TV and sleep. If that’s you, it may be time to break out of that cycle and cultivate some new interests. There are so many new ways to find people and pursue interests. Carpe Diem!

2. Invite Your New Partner into Your World
When you start dating make sure that a new person feel welcome into your world. Help them understand why you love the things you do. (Some activities are easier to promote than others.) For many people context is the key to appreciation. If you love jazz, and your new partner is lukewarm, talk with them and help them understand the music.

3. Insist on Keeping the Things That You Love in Your Life
Don’t jettison your life because it doesn’t fit in with your new love’s plans. INSIST on making time for the things you love. If you feel that your interests are constantly being set aside, raise your hand and say “Hold on. We need to talk.”

4. Realize the Limits
Once you’ve tried to share your life accept that some activities will remain yours alone. Also, feel free to say, “I just can’t get into this with you.” Establish which activities are WE items and which are ME items.

The post The Love Chameleon – Keeping Your Identity in a Relationship appeared first on eHarmony Blog.