Are you able to build trust?

Madly in love,  Rebeca and Julia decided to live together after a few weeks of being dating. Both were young but Rebeca was ten years older than Julia. She had also had more experience in her love life. Before Julia, she had two other relationships which ended after Rebeca met someone new and cheated on her partner. There she was, beginning a new relationship, thinking that this time would be different. As for Julia, she was just coming out of the closet and Rebeca was her first relationship with another woman.

Seven years later, Rebeca began to go out secretly with another woman. One day she left Julia for this new love. Julia was devastated. Although she found support in her friends and family, she would always be wounded by this traumatic experience. One of her main challenges would to be able to trust again another partner. Until the day she would open to love again without the phantom of infidelity.

Rebeca kept on repeating the same story over and over again. Unable to become a trustable partner,  she built a reputation of being unfaithful. Sooner, nobody wanted to take the risk to initiate a relationship with her. As my best friend said, an intelligent person learns from her own experience but a savvy one learns from others' experience.

To tell or not to tell: the challenges of infidelity to family and friendship

Laura and Kathy both worked in the same place. Beside being Co-workers, Laura was Kathy's brother girlfriend and was about to marry him. So, they became close friends and seemed to get along very well. One day, a scandal happened in their work place: Laura was discovered having an affair with one of her male colleagues by the senior management. Kathy was devastated and felt betrayed by Laura. Kathy told Laura: "are you going to tell my brother about your affair or should I?" Laura was between a rock and a hard place, so she had to confess  to her boyfriend about her affair. They broke-up.

Months later, Laura and Kathy's brother reconciled and tried to save their relationships, but  in order to do so both decided to distance themselves from Kathy. At the end, Kathy was the scapegoat for the whole story. As Unjust as it seems, it was easier for the couple to put the blame of their separation on Kathy rather than taking a thorough exam of their relationships. What the future would bring to this couple? What would be the basis for their relationships?

Kathy had to face a dilemma between being the accomplice of her future sister in law by keeping the secret of the affair or being loyal to her brother by unveiling the infidelity.  Kathy decided to stand up for her brother and to be coherent with her values. What would have you done in her place? There is no a black and white situation, but different tones of gray.

Love and War: two brothers, one woman

Adam was two years older than Tom. The two brothers grew together but had different personalities. Adam was easygoing and relaxed. He was very popular at school and had a girlfriend that was madly in love with him. Her name was Caroline. As for Tom, he was shy, very responsible and not as handsome as his brother. Dating was not one of his strenghts. He felt he was not lucky in matters of the heart.

One day Adam invited Caroline to meet his familiy. When Tom first saw her, she inmediately fell in love with her, but kept it secret. He never tried to make any advances on her. The mother of Adam and Tom knew very well what was going in the heart of her sons. He suffered seeing Tom in pain because of his secret love and at the same time was happy for adam's relationship with Caroline.  "How strange is Life" she thought as she analyzed this situation. How was it possible that same reason that made so happy one of her son was the cause of the unhappiness of the other.

Years passed and Caroline got married. 'With whom?" you might be asking. Tell me what would be the correct way of ending this story. I really don't know. It is up to you. What I am more certain about is that love and war seem to be in opposite sides, but  have one thing in common: both of them leave winners and losers.

Broken promises: will we be together forever or not?

We all wish to be with our partner for the rest of our life. We don't start a relationship thinking that one day you or your partner will leave. This sense of insecurity is present consciously or unconsciously in some cases and in others it vanishes as we take our partner for granted. But at the end of the day, we do not where life is going to take us: will we be together forever or not?

Adele met Mike when she was in her thirties. They seemed inseparable. They shared passions, projects, travels and goals. Not everything was perfect, they had their differences but not anything that could drift them apart. They spent almost thirty years together, until the day they separated because Mike had another relationship with a young woman. Adele didn't see it coming. By then, she was sixty years old, entering in a period of her life where she felt vulnerable and need emotional  support since she had to accept that she was old. Once she told me sadly. "I thought Mike and I will grow old together. It doesn't make any sense to me to be separated from him at this point of my life when I need him the most". 

With time, Adele continued with her life surrounded by her friends and family. Fortunately, she was not alone. She didn't stop missing Mike though. I wonder if Mike misses her too. I wish this story will end with Adele finding love again in the arms of someone loving, loyal and committed. I don't believe Mike is a bad person. Life is complex and it is understandable that we try to seek our own happiness, but sometimes the costs are high and they are paid by the people around us. I would say to Mike : the most important thing is not having regrets at the end of our life because of the things that we did or didn't do.  As for Adele, I would share with her the old adage: "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger".

Let go of the past, take the risk of living in the present

Jane was a girl when her father decided to leave her mother. He fell in love with his assistant and was unfaithful to his wife. He decided to end his marriage to start a new life with his lover. Jane saw her mother suffering for this breakup for a long time. Jane promised herself that this situation was not going to happen to her.

When Jane became an adult, she established a relationship with a guy that loved her deeply. The guy wanted to marry her but she wasn't ready to commit because she remembered the situation she lived with her parents. Many times her boyfriend proposed to her, but the answer was always the same. The boyfriend gave up the idea of marrying her but this time he wanted to have a child with her. Of course the idea was not accepted by Jane. They lived together for ten years until the day the boyfriend realized that he was going nowhere with Jane and that this wasn't the kind of relationship he wanted to have.  So, he left Jane and afterwards started a new relationship, got married and had a girl with her new partner.

For Jane, the separation with her boyfriend was extremely painful. Loosing him made her analyze her life and realize that she hadn't been able to commit because she was stuck in the past, trapped in the memories of relationship of her parents. The cost of not letting go of the past was the loss of her love. To overcome this loss took her several years, but she was in the process of recovering from her childhood trauma.

Being stuck in the past didn't allow Jane to enjoy and to be fully present in her relationship. You cannot be in two places at the same time. You have to choose between being in the past or in the present,  or between let your fear determine you life or take the risk of deciding for yourself.

The first and unforgettable love

These days I was going over my facebook and I noticed how many pictures of mother and daughters/son were posted. No wonder! We were celebrating mother's day. I couldn't help to think how important our mother is or has been for our life. Therefore, she is our first and unforgettable Love.

You may think that this is obvious, but the truth is that to arrive  to that conclusion, some of us had to go through almost half of our lives to realize this. When I was a child, I knew that she was the greatest love of all, but as I entered the adolescence I couldn't feel the same way. I was uncomfortable around her, and everything else, friends, dating, etc., seems more important than her.

As the years passed, I grew old and she did too. Suddenly, one day I saw her walking with difficulties, her back was curved, her hair was gray, and her movement were slow as if she was afraid to fall down. At this exact moment, I realized that she was old and that she wouldn't live for ever ( I wouldn't too). In the face of this reality that one day I would loose her, I told my self that I would take care of her until the end of her life ( or my life). I could feel grateful and blessed that she was my mother.

Love dresses in so many different ways. In this case is the love between a son/daughter and her/his mother, the first and unforgettable love of our life. Hopefully we may discover this sooner that later, or at least before we say goodbye.

An Unusual Love Story

This time I would like to share with you a very personal post. Since love is the main topic of this post, this story fits perfectly with our editorial line, but it is not exactly the kind of love you imagine. This a very special one: a feline love.

I must start by telling you that a few years ago two cats entered my life: a gray and a black one. They loved me and taught me how to understand them and loved them back. They sat in my lap and kept me company while working in my computer. They played with each other and I played with them.  Sometimes I scolded them because they seemed to be fighting but they were really playing, They slept together side by side during the day (Cats spend most of the day sleeping and part of the night). They cleaned each other. Don't you think all between them was perfect: the male cat used to chase away the female cat so that he could eat her food. But beside that, they got along very well. they spent 14 years together. A lifetime from a cat perspective!

Two months ago, the female cat passed away. She had a kidney disease. We saw her deteriorating until the day we decided to put her to sleep to prevent her for further suffering. Since then, the male cat has become weepy. Today in the morning, before leaving for work, I found him under the blankets of my bed as if he was hiding from something. I guess he was hiding from a sad reality: that his female partner is gone and that he miss her a lot. I miss her too.

( To Sombra, our dearest black cat)

Dead Bed: when sex becomes a painful issue for the relationship

Jane and Mark used to have a regular sex life. After eight years of marriage, they usually found time to have sex once or twice a week, despite all the pressure Jane had in her job. But when she started to face new challenges at work and didn't feel Mark's support with the domestic work, her desire for sex almost disappeared. She     gave in to Mark's insinuations for sex once a month, but usually avoided the ocassion.  She went early to bed, argued that she had a headache or that she was tired, but after rejecting him many times she felt she should please him once in a while for the sake of the relationship. She felt sorry for Mark because she could feel his pain with every failed attempt to initiate sex and at the same time she was angry with him for pushing her to comply with his advances without even try to fix what was really going wrong with the relationship.

How many times have we heard dead bed stories like the one of Jane and Mark? These stories are very common and they usually pose a great challenge for the relationship. The situation is not quite easy, neither for the one that avoids sex nor for the one who demands it. There is a lot of pain going on in the relationships, and the self-esteem of both parties suffers. They ask themselves if the other person still cares or loves them. There is one more ingredient that adds more tension to this situation: our  inability to talk openly about our sex disatisfaction with our partner. It is important to talk, not to find out who is guilty, but to understand what is happening in the relationship and the causes behind this dead bed situation.

Avoindance and isolation won't bring any solution. Ignoring the issue will make the problem stronger and can increase the chances that something solvable becomes unsolvable. Sex is supposed to bring intimacy to the couple but on the opposite side sex can become a painful issue for the relationship.

Is it possible to revive passion and leave behind the dead bed issue? 

Is this love? when your most loved one become your worst enemy.

Mary wasn't sure about marrying Paul, but it was too late. She was already walking down the aisle, unable to stop the marriage ceremony. Six years later she decided to divorce but the process wouldn't be easy since they already had a four-year old daughter. Paul did not agree with this decision and one day he took the little girl and disappeared. Mary looked for her daughter for years. She travelled to different countries and searched for her everywhere unsuccessfully. But one day, she found her in the social networks. Thirty years had passed and her child had become and adult. Mary lived almost half of her life without her child, fighting anguish and praying each day to find her, or at least to get some information about whether she was dead or alive.

When I first heard this story, it struck me how a person is capable of doing something that could bring so much harm to her/his partner, and, as in their case, to her/his children. Off course, it is important to analyze the situation case by case, but more important is to be aware that love is not infallible and that your most loved one can provoke you harm in some point of your life. There is no need to have a divorce or separation to trigger a behavior that could result in an harmful experience to the partner.  To love and being loved is not a guarantee that you will be in a safe relationships.

You cannot predict if your most loved one will become your worst enemy in the future, but as a couple you can reduce the chances that this happens to you by starting to build three important things: empathy, a friendship and the respect to each other boundaries. As an individual, you must trust yourself and trust your partner, but not blindly. Finally, make your wellbeing a priority but not at the expense of abusing your partner.

Two stories and a love App

It is amazing how life gives you the right information at the right place and time. I would't name it destiny, but it certainly is the expression of cause and effect.

The first story. I was reading an e-newsletter from missrepresentation.org when my attention was drawn to a story that compared a nine year-old girl to a company. What both had in common? Both had designed an App. The article pointed out a contradictory situation. In one hand,  a nine year-old girl designing an app was a great news because it meant that girls and women where entering in a male-dominated field as Information Technology (IT). More representation of women in IT will increase the probability that technology takes into account the needs of women. In the opposite side, a company launched an app game which contents promoted more violence against women. This kind of technology poses a great risks since almost one third of ever-partnered women in the world are still suffering intimate partner violence.

The second story. While surfing in the internet, I ran across the information of a Hackaton that took place in Washington in 2013. For the first time, IT specialists and experts on violence against women gathered together to find solutions in technology to address this social problem. What an important initiative! Imagine what we could do if technology and other social topics found a common ground.

The result. After giving some thoughts to the two stories, my business partner, a young and talented IT specialist, and I decided to created an App that would represent the best of these stories. The result was our Healthy Love App for iPhone (https://itunes.apple.com/sv/app/healthy-love/id841472988?l=en&mt=8). we consider that this is an app for love for two reasons. First, it is a tool that will give you some clues to find out if you are with the right partner. And second, we strongly believe that small things can change the world, so this app is a small contribution for a large problem that sometimes hides disguised as love.

Follow us in Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/socialInclusionApps) and Twitter(@SocIncApps). 

 

 

5 things that couples should avoid if they want a long lasting love

There is not a magic formula for long lasting love, but there are things that you might want to avoid if you don't want to put your relationship in jeopardy:

1. Prevent your partner from seeing her/his friends and family. Obviously a relationship is to enrich your life not to put limitations into it.

2. Insist on knowing where your partner is all the time. People want to have a partner not a bodyguard.

3. Become jealous or get mad if he talks to another woman or if she talks to another man. It is inevitable to talk to other people from the opposite sex since they are half of the population. 

4. Suspect that your partner is unfaithful, specially if this is not real. Be careful with the self-fulfilling prophecy. You think so much about one thing that it becomes a reality in your life.

5.  Go over her/ his cell phone without her/his permission. She/ he has the right to her/his intimacy. (source: healthy love app for iPhone, in the App Store)

All of these are controlling behaviors that in the long term might open the door for abuse in the couple. It also discourages your partner to be open and intimate with you. At the bottom line, these behaviors are signs that you don't trust your partner and that you are feeling insecure about your relationship. Look for counselling to find out why you are trying to control your partner. It is never to late for a change that can lead you to long lasting love.

Can You think of others things to avoid?