Tuesday, July 28, 2009

While a couple was eating breakfast, the wife saw her neighbor hanging the washing outside. "That laundry is not very clean", she said. "She doesn't know how to wash correctly. Perhaps she needs better laundry soap." Her husband looked on, but remained silent. Every time her neighbor would hang her wash to dry, the young woman would make the same comments.
About one month later, the woman was surprised to see a nice clean wash on the line and said to her husband: "Look, she has learned how to wash correctly. I wonder who taught her this." The husband said, "I got up early this morning and cleaned our windows."
And so it is with life. Morale:

What we see when watching others depends on the cleanliness of the window through which we look.

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Beautiful you

picture by Ideago

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Let your light shine
Don’t hide behind a guy
Don’t put on a fake smile

Beautiful you, precious soul – hurt so many times -
Trust the world
Let your light shine
Don’t hide behind a guy you don’t love
Don’t let your passion die
Don’t pay the price.

You are gorgeous, wonderful
You are intelligent, amazing
Don’t lose yourself
doing things for others
but nothing for yourself .
Don’t punish yourself

Beautiful you,
Warm, caring friend
Don’t be more TO others
FOR others
Then FOR yourself

Gracious,
Be you
Let your YOU be
Allow your YOU to be
Love you

( June 2009)

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Women = Chameleon in relationships


I had an interesting discussion with one of my guy friends. He ‘complaint’ about women in relationships. He said he always feels betrayed by women in relationships because women change so dramatically when they get into a relationship. My first reaction was to defend all of us ;-) and to deny that it was true and that his generalization was absolutely nonsense - but it gave me food for thought. So here a couple of my thoughts and also thoughts other people shared with me. Why do women change in relationships?

One of my married friends raised a very interesting point. He is married for a couple of years and he said he discussed it with other married friends that their wives have changed so drastically after they got married. They feel that women loose a lot of the things that in the first place actually attracted them to them.

As a counter argument I would say that everyone changes in a relationship and that people in relationships generally change. I think it is natural that one gets older, that you don’t dress up as much, that you don’t go out every weekend, that you don’t really like partying and that couples rather have dinners or host at their place.
Then, thinking about it, I actually realised that couples where both stayed relatively independent and remained very much who they were, when they met, are the happiest couples.

Another thing that guys seem to pick up is, that very independent women become ‘pleasers’ and let the guy take all the decisions – where to go out, what to eat at a restaurant etc…..
I do understand the thing of having babies and being more at home, but let’s be honest, before we have babies, and even before getting married, many women turn into a couch potato….why? Is it because we have found HIM so now we don’t have to try anymore? I know myself, once I’m in a relationship, clubs and going out does not seem to be so appealing anymore. Party and dancing, yes ok, once in a while; live music and concerts also ok…. But staying out till dawn? No thank you. In contrast, I heard from women that they feel very comfortable having a relationship and spending time together as two people. They are very ‘self sufficient’ as two people and they really don’t mind just hanging out as two, they don’t argue a lot, neither don’t work on each others nerve, they are just fine as two people. 

Here the collection of ideas collected over the last couple of weeks
  • Have each your own life, your own hobbies, your own friends
  • Do not fall into the pleasing trap
  • Do not try to think into ‘his head’ and ‘what he likes’ and what ‘he would do’
  • Insist in your choices and decisions
  • Have me time – at least once a week
  • Have a date with your partner/husband at least once a month
  • Have a girls night out (a real one and not checking your cellphone every five minutes for an sms from HIM or going home after dinner back to the couch)
  • Keep your girl friendships alive
  • Don’t try to hang out at all the events/parties he does and don’t try to do everything together as a couple rather choose one or two projects/activities/hobbies that you do together
  • ‘get/have’ a life
Some more ideas? Contradictions?