Articles on Relationship

A rather loooong article. But I bet you''ll like it.
The 2 Kinds of Husbands (Which Did You Marry?)
Is he steady and calm, sweet and loving? Or simply the ***iest guy you''ve ever met? Here''s what you need to know for the future -- whichever husband you chose.
Which Husband Did You Marry?
Most of us were brought up to believe there was a single entity called a Good Husband. Yet there are actually two very different kinds of good husbands. The Boyfriend and the Husband. The former is everything you''ve wanted since you were 15: ***y, spontaneous, irresistible. He makes you laugh, makes you shiver, makes you mad as hell. The thing is, he never quite pictured himself as a husband and father, and deep down he still doesn''t. When you''re trying to explain the concept of equal parenting or picking up his wet towels from the floor, you wonder: Did I make the biggest mistake of my life?
The Husband is your best buddy, a man you can count on to walk the baby at 3 A.M., research Consumer Reports for the safest car, and even buy you tampons on the way home. Yes, *** is more tender than thrilling, but isn''t that to be expected with time? Still, sometimes you wonder if this cozy security is all it''s cracked up to be. Shouldn''t marriage have more pizzazz, electricity, mystery?
Well, yes. And Boyfriend husbands should stay home more often, too. But just as there is no one good marriage, there is no one good husband: Even the best have a B side. But how do you live with your doubts and still love and nourish the good marriage you''ve got? Read on to find your kind of guy, and the road to happiness with him.

He''s Such a Bad Boy!
From the outside looking in, we all envy the Boyfriend Marriage -- and from the inside out, it does feel as good as it looks. Romantic. Spontaneous. Magical. Right. "At its best, it feels the way you were always told marriage should feel," says psychologist Ju***h Sills, Ph.D. No matter what else is going on -- kids, work, family -- the marriage itself is always front and center.
"Our relationship is intense and has been from the very first minute," says Jane. "Kenny is a guy''s guy. I love that he loves fast cars, that he finds the female psyche a complete mystery, that he hates to wear a tie. At the same time, I feel he knows me in a completely visceral way. I couldn''t have married a ''best friend'' kind of man. I wanted to be swept away, and I was."
Eight years and two kids later, the intensity is still there -- in and out of bed. Theirs is a rollickingly connected kind of marriage, like a radio that never gets turned off. They''re on each other''s frequency all the time. And that''s wonderful when the magic is working. "But these days, to be honest? I''d rather be sleeping than making love," says Jane.
Kenny doesn''t understand this, which can sometimes lead to arguments. "Of course he doesn''t understand," says Jane. "We both work long hours, but I''m the one who''s on kid duty. So when he''s raring to go, I''m in meltdown mode." Sometimes, though, the situation is reversed: Jane will want his attention at a time when he''s too busy and he''ll be dismissive, which can also lead to fights. "When you start out that passionate, there''s an expectation level that gets established. You''re both accustomed to getting a certain amount of attention, and when you don''t get it or can''t give it, feelings get hurt."
Indeed, if the highs are higher in this marriage, the lows are also lower. "I adore my marriage 80 percent of the time, but a lot of the time it''s exhausting. We each register every little disturbance," says Jane. "Sometimes I''d like to forget about my relationship with Kenny for a while, to be a little less in love."
Passion -- the glue of the Boyfriend Marriage -- has a downside, and it resides in its very origin: The flame that fuels it is either unfamiliarity or uncertainty. And much as we love our husbands, they do not remain an endless series of brand-new revelations. Which leaves us uncertainty: Maybe you''ve got a mortgage and a station wagon now, but the dynamics haven''t changed much since your dating days. The same questions still rivet you, just beneath the surface of your everyday lives: How does he feel? How do you feel? Is he still attracted to you? Do you still love him?
Most of the time, you don''t feel the uncertainty, just the pleasant fizz it gives off, the way your heart jumps when you first catch sight of him, the way you feel walking into a room together, the rightness. Then something happens, and the balance tips -- and you''re back in the land of does-he-or-doesn''t-he? "To feel rejected by the most important person on a pretty consistent basis can wear away one''s spirit and sense of self," says Dr. Sills. " When uncertainty is what is sustaining the passion, that can feel like an ordeal."

He''s As Comfy As a Teddy Bear
There''s no question: Being married to a Husband is easier on the psyche than being married to a Boyfriend. "Every one of my affairs before marriage began passionately and ultimately self-destructed," says Victoria. "I don''t blame passion for those earlier experiences, but I came to understand that what ignited those feelings for me was a certain kind of man: emotionally elusive and withholding to one degree or another."
Her husband is none of the above. "Our romance began at a different tempo entirely. Ellis wasn''t familiar to me on that primitive, we-met-in-another-life level. I wasn''t wearing myself out by having to chase him down emotionally all the time. He was very much present and available to me from the get-go. It felt real good, but I had to decide to pursue it. I wasn''t swept away." Their ***ual connection evolved out of steadily growing regard, an intellectual rapport, a similar sense of humor, and a profound romantic attachment. They didn''t so much fall in love as walk into it, hand in hand.
Experts tell us that the best predictor of marital success isn''t ***ual passion at all, but a couple''s ability to negotiate conflict and resolve differences. Nor does *** top the charts when most of us name our most important quality in a mate. "One of the things we seek in marriage is a haven. We want the feeling that home is a safe place to go. Friendship seems to provide a more stable base for that than ***ual passion and uncertainty," says Dr. Sills. By definition there is a certain amount of tension lacking, which is freeing. As one woman puts it: "Because I know my husband is there for me, I can grow as an individual."
The downside of the Husband Marriage? The yearning to be swept away by a tidal wave of lust. "When people say that ***ual passion declines after three years, the Friendship Marriage is what you have left," says Dr. Sills. "And although that might be a good trade-off, it doesn''t mean there isn''t a sigh, a pang, and sometimes more for what you lost or had to let go of." And it can feel a lot worse when you''re going through a period of doubts ... or when an actual person comes along who reminds you of the passion you once knew. "Last year I heard from an old boyfriend," says Victoria. "We met for lunch and I felt that attraction again -- I had to talk to myself the way I talk to my ****er spaniel: ''No!'' And on the way home in the car, all I could think was, thank God it''s Ellis I married. So no, I can''t say I don''t miss it. Of course, I also miss being 17. But I wouldn''t go back there for anything."

How to Love the One You''re With
No matter what the style, good marriages are based on chemistry, commitment, and communication. And optimism: It helps to look at your marriage as half full rather than half empty. "Loving your husband and yourself at the same time depends upon seeing him as clearly as possible, trying to forgive him for what you see that you wish you didn''t, and trying to live with him in spite of it," says Dr. Sills. Ironically, the very qualities about him that bug you may be what you secretly wish for yourself. "Developing that other side in yourself can change the balance in your marriage for the better," says Dr. Carter.
Given how different the Husband Marriage is from the Boyfriend Marriage, you''d think they''d require vastly different strategies for long-lasting happiness. Not so. "There are two ways to change your relationship: Talk to yourself differently and talk to your partner more effectively," says psychologist Steve Brody, Ph.D. "Don''t compare him to your best friend''s husband. Stop catastrophizing every small disappointment. Above all, don''t expect your marriage to satisfy all of your emotional needs. Realize that a good marriage has intimacy and independence."
It pays to cultivate a network of friendships and interests outside the marriage. In the Husband Marriage, you need to find something that stirs you -- painting, travel -- and allow your enthusiasm to invigorate your marriage. In the Boyfriend Marriage, you need that independence to nourish your self-esteem and to see you through rocky times.
Whichever kind of husband you married, if you want change, say the experts, take the initiative. Don''t wait for him to read your mind. If you want more time for yourself, say so. If you want a hotter *** life, make the first move.
There''s one other important way to cherish -- and protect -- the marriage you''ve got: Stay away from temptation. "If you want to love the one you''re with, keep yourself away from the head-spinning moment of someone reaching for your hand across a table," says Dr. Sills. "If you think you''re too weak, don''t go to that dinner. Build safeguards into your marriage."
Which brings us to the tricky part. If the task of the Passion Marriage is to maintain a friendship in which the fiery connection can be sheltered without burning down the house, the work of the Friendship Marriage is to generate enough ***ual heat to keep the marriage hot. How? By letting go of that early, narrow definition of passion -- the one fueled by novelty, distance, or uncertainty -- and replacing it with ***ual satisfaction based on a heightened appreciation of your husband and your changing ***uality as a couple.
Indeed, experts encourage couples to think of a drop in ***ual passion less as something lost than as a natural change in their marriage, a next stage. "Magic can be maintained -- maybe not with the desperate anxiety as in courtship, but talked about and planned," says Dr. Carter. "People think *** has to be spontaneous and natural rather than thought out and protected. But it''s like learning any new behavior. It feels artificial at first, but once the behaviors become more regular, the feelings follow."
Deliberate behavior can turn out to have its own surprises. "When I was single, I''d just close my eyes and trust the feeling to carry me away. It almost didn''t matter who my partner was, passion was easy -- maybe because that''s really all a new relationship offers," says Victoria. "With my husband, there''s room for talk, for play and experimentation, for a bad mood or an off night. It''s as though my ***uality has come out of the dark and into the light. And because our ***ual love is so connected to our day-to-day bond instead of a wildly incongruent exception to it, it feels healthier."

Friendshifts: Keeping Close Through Life''s Changes
By Dr. Jan Yager
I''m made up of the people I know and the friends I keep. I''d be nothing without them. --20-year-old Penn State male freshman
One Sunday afternoon about a year ago, I called my close friend Joyce just to say hello, but she was not home. A few hours later, Joyce returned my call. She started our conversation by sharing with me that she had a job interview the next day. It seemed she was up against 90 others. She was feeling depressed, anxious, and scared. Then she gave me the highest compliment a friend could give to another friend: "Just hearing your voice makes me feel better."
Without even trying, I had helped lower Joyce''s stress level. It is just that ability of friends to reduce the stress related to life''s tougher events that has led researchers to confirm that friends extend our lives as well as improve the quality of our lives.
Joyce and I find comfort in talking to each other because of our ongoing close friendship as well as our shared history, which began the summer of 1969, when we first met in geology class at Temple University in Philadelphia. From the very start of our relationship, Joyce always laughed at my jokes, bringing out a whimsical side in me that too few others see behind my intense, driven, and studious facade. I shared in Joyce''s grief when her mother died too young; I witnessed Joyce''s joyful wedding, as she did mine. I was at the surprise shower many years later for her newborn daughter, a blessed event that much sweeter since this pregnancy had not ended in a miscarriage at five months as so many others had.
FRIENDSHIFTS
Although we lived in the same city for just three years-- I moved back to New York, then to Connecticut-Joyce and I have kept up our close friendship. Friendshifts is a word I have coined for the way our friendships change as we go from one stage in our life to another, or even relocate from one school, job, neighborhood, or community to another. It is a variation on the old adage "Make new friends but keep the old; one is silver, but the other''s gold." Whether the need to form new friends is caused by a change in interests, a move to another city, a promotion to another level or into another profession, or the death of old friends or even of a spouse, shifting to new friendships that serve current needs makes it possible to feel connected even if old friends are seen less frequently, if at all.
The variety of roles that we must play throughout our life--as student, worker, spouse, or parent--changes, as does the place that friendship holds in our life. But we still need friends, ranging from casual to close or best friends, and of both ***es. Friendship plays a continual role, although at different stages it will be less or more important to our emotional stability, depending upon the other primary attachments in our life.
When I gave the eulogy for my 83-year-old dearly beloved grandmother, I was saddened to look out at the small cluster of family members in the funeral parlor chapel. I did not see even one of the friends my widowed grandmother had cared about for most of her life, since they had already died or moved far away. But my grandmother also failed to develop new friends, and consequently she was lonelier in her last years than she had to be. She needed to understand the concept of friendshifts so her later years could have been fuller; her family was too busy with their own lives, unable to give her the daily intimacy she so desperately needed.

EVERYONE NEEDS A FRIEND
Even if you are lucky enough to be raised in a very responsive and loving family, it is inevitable that you will someday leave home. But friends-old friends whom you have cultivated over the years or newer ones whom you develop in your new communities-will always be available to you for affirmation and companionship.
Friends can be a source of self-esteem, affection, and good times. In times of despair, friends offer hope: a class of youngsters in California in 1993 shaved their heads so their friend and classmate, who was undergoing treatments for cancer, would not feel self-conscious about his bald appearance. His dozen friends kept their heads shaved until they learned their friend''s cancer was in remission.
Friendship. It''s something many people take for granted. They are unaware how powerful and positive friendship can be, or they would take it more seriously. The right friends can help you feel worthwhile. The right friends can even help get you elected president. School, work, parenting, and even old age are better and more fun when shared with friends.
I asked 46 college students at St. John''s University what factors must be present in a close friendship. Almost all agreed that trust and honesty (44 and 43, respectively) were paramount, followed by faithfulness, loyalty, and being a good listener (35, 32, and 3 1), and, finally, having ideas in common and love (28 and 24). Just one wrote that attractiveness counted; only two felt age was a factor; only 10 considered intelligence, and only 8 deemed being a good talker of any significance.
What a glorious relationship friendship proves to be, where trust, honesty, faithfulness, loyalty, being a good listener, having ideas in common, and love are what count. These are all traits or feelings you can acquire. Age, attractiveness, and intelligence, largely a question of birth and luck, are considered unimportant for a close friendship.
Similarly, you are born to a family; you can choose your friends.
You would probably agree that friendship is crucial for schoolage children or for singles who are between romantic relationships. However, friends count for even the happiest couples: friendship affirms and validates in a more distinctive way than even the most positive romantic or blood tie. It is now known that friendship is vital throughout life.
"You quickly find out who your good friends are when you are down or when you need them most," writes a 36-year-old married vice president of sales who lives in Cincinnati. "A good friend won''t desert you when you are down," this mother of two preteen daughters continues. "Nor will she turn away in jealousy when you succeed."
Another theme of this book is that friendship, like love, requires an investment of time and effort. Even children need guidance in how to develop and maintain friends. Until they are old enough to make arrangements on their own, they need their parents or caretakers to set up play dates for them with their friends. Playing with the kid next door is fine, but it is not enough. They need to cultivate friendships based on likes and dislikes, not just proximity and convenience. They need to be taught how to keep a friendship going even if a friend moves away, or if they have a disagreement.
If you do have a mate or romantic partner, it is ideal to be best friends with your mate as well as lovers. However, even when you attain that ideal, you need platonic friends where shared income, living arrangements, or the roles of spouse or parent are less likely to complicate the relationship.
Furthermore, even if you are fortunate enough to have the most sympathetic opposite-*** relationships--spouse or friends---certain gender-specific experiences, such as the onset of menses, the physical act of childbearing, becoming a father, or menopause, can only be shared vicariously. Same-*** friends add a commonality of experience that enriches your life.
Friendship can determine where you live and how you live. A survey by the Roper Organization reported by Diane Crispell in The Wall Street Journal discovered that Americans chose friends as saying the most about them (39%)---way ahead of their homes (26%), their jobs (12%), or their clothes (12%).
Consider these ad***ional facts about friendship:
ã Children with friends do better in school.
ã Medical researchers found that those with friends are more likely *****rvive a heart attack or major surgery and less likely to get respiratory infections or cancer.
ã Friends offer a continuous relationship to singles, according them the high status once given only to family.
ã A nine-year study of thousands of Californians by Berkman and Syme discovered that those with friends live longer.
WHY FRIENDSHIP HAS BECOME SO POWERFUL
There are reasons friendship is more important than ever before, and will continue to grow in significance:
1.The trend toward smaller nuclear families is continuing. I know personally five women and men in their 30s or 40s who have seven to eleven siblings; it is rare for anyone of my generation or Younger to have more than five children of their own. Only children, or two, at the most three, is more the norm.
For the only child, friendship offers an opportunity for intimate peer interaction unavailable in the home. "I would die without my friends," says only child and mother Carol Ann Finkelstein, whose parents died within a year of each other in the late 1970s, when Carol was not even 30. "I couldn''t function without my friends, even now that I''m married," she adds.
2. Retirees as well as other nuclear family members are increasingly relocating due to work, educational, or romantic choices. Because of the relocation to another town, state, or country of working and retirement-age relatives, parents, grandparents, and siblings, family members may not be around in adult years for frequent contact. Although you cannot replace members of your family when someone moves, you can always form new friendships.
3. The number of working mothers of school-age children continues to rise. Friendship offers these children an alternative intimate relationship--at school or after-school play-to the maternal one.
4. Friendship offers the elderly opportunities for close relationships. As life expectancy increases, so does the likelihood of living a decade or more cut off from the day-to-day interaction offered by a job, or the intimacy provided by a wife or husband who may predecease his or her mate. Friendship may mean feeling wanted and useful in your older years instead of alone and isolated.
5. Friendship offers intimacy to singles. For unattached and unmarried, divorced, or widowed singles, friendship will impact on your mental health until you start a family of your own, or if you remain or become single for much or all of your adult years.
6. Even the best marriages may benefit from the emotional and intellectual stimulation of friendship. For the married man or woman, friends may offer "another self'' to those who need to relate intimately to others outside the all-consuming and sometimes one dimensional roles of parent, spouse, or worker.
7. Friends provide each other some of the career continuity once offered by lifetime employers. As companies downsize and few people have the guarantee of lifetime employment, friends offer continuity to a career or even the inside scoop on available jobs.

FRIENDSHIP TRAINING BEGINS AT HOME
You probably already know that how you relate to others is based on the early patterns you learned in dealing with your mother, father, and siblings. Knowing that fact, and recognizing those patterns, is a crucial first step in changing your current friendship patterns, if you are displeased with them. It will also help you to be a more compassionate and understanding friend if your friends disappoint you. They may be unwittingly reenacting a pattern from their childhood that has nothing to do with you. For example, a friend who becomes very competitive with you may be doing it because she was always being compared to her two older brothers. You could reject your friend because of her competitiveness, but you would then both lose.
Since the only person you can be assured of changing is yourself, start there. Why does her competitiveness strike such a negative chord in you? Is it really your friend''s behavior that is the problem, or your inability to effectively deal with it and with her? Welcome this opportunity to work this conflict out with her and with yourself, or you will find yourself facing the same unresolved conflict over competitiveness with another friend.
FRIENDSHIP OFFERS HELP TO TROUBLED FAMILIES
Their father hit Kurt and his younger sister several times a week, beginning when Kurt was four. As Kurt explains in the CBS TV special, Break the Silence: Kids Against Child Abuse, "The abuse finally stopped when my sister told some of her friends what had been happening. Her friends told a grown-up who they could trust, who called the child abuse hot line." Kurt and his sister were reunited with their parents after three years in foster care after their father stopped the drinking that precipitated the physical abuse. Both their parents learned how to discipline their children without hitting and causing black eyes or bloody noses.
Whether or not you were born into a nurturing family, your friends could offer what you need. That is one of the themes of this book: that friends are an underused source of help for troubled families, especially neglected or abused children, adolescents, and young adults. Friends can offset the low self-esteem and loneliness caused by abusive or dysfunctional families before, or in ad***ion to, intervention by therapists or family services. As then-president George Bush pleaded with America''s youth in September 1989, if they had a friend with a drug problem, "I''m asking you not to look the other way."

MY BACKGROUND AND HOW I RESEARCHED THIS BOOK
I have always been fascinated by human nature, but my formal training began in 1970, when I attended Hahnemann Medical College for a graduate internship in psychiatric art therapy. Over the next decade, I taught college courses, completed a masters degree in criminal justice, and wrote several nonfiction books, including Victims (Scribner''s, 1978), The Help Book (Scribner''s, 1979), and Single in America (Atheneum, 1980).
My serious interest in friendship began when I was a graduate student and I dated a man who had a very powerful and supportive friendship network with his best friends from high school. Although I have always had girlfriends, it was usually just me and that one other friend. I would usually have numerous unrelated "friendship pairs"; I longed to have a similar female network of "buddies" with whom I too would feel genuinely connected. My only sister''s imminent relocation with her husband to Washington, D.C.-for several years, after a decade of living in distant cities, they had been living in an apartment just a block from my Manhattan residence also caused me to take stock of my friendships. My sister and I had developed an especially open and intimate kinship during those years she lived close by; what girlfriends would be there for me now that my sister would again be far away?
In 1980, as I began to study friendship as the topic for my doctoral dissertation for my Ph.D. in sociology (City University of New York, 1983), I was initially fascinated to discover differences between male and female friendships. I also wanted to explore why friendships end; I soon realized that to learn why friendships ended, I had to understand friendship beginnings and maintenance.
My dissertation was an in-depth empirical study of the friendship patterns of 27 young, single women living alone on one randomly selected block on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. A nine-month analysis and interpretation of those in-depth interviews dispelled several clichâs about female friendships, namely that they often involved rivalry over men, were mostly pairs or one-on-one friendships, and were based mainly on sharing confidences.
By contrast, my research discovered that of the closest friendships of the women I interviewed, less than half (41 %) were between two women or friendship pairs. The rest were part of a three-way friendship (22%) or a network of four or more friends (37%). The majority of friendships were based on sharing activities and emotional support (85%), with only 7% basing their friendship on sharing confidences. Despite the prevailing myths, only two friendships of the women I interviewed had actually ended because of rivalry over a man. (Some of the findings from my dissertation were discussed by Letty Cottin Pogrebin in Among Friends, Eva Margolies in The Best of Friends, The Worst of Enemies, and Linda Wolfe in "Friendship in the City," published in New York magazine.)
Over the years, I have followed up my dissertation with more than 250 extensive in-person or telephone interviews on friendship with a wide range of married, divorced, and widowed men and women as well as children, teens, workers, and executives. I researched and published a scholarly bibliography with 693 entries, Friendship: A Selected, Annotated Bibliography (Garland, 1985), a popular booklet on friendship, and magazine articles for Modern Bride, McCall''s, and American Baby. I also surveyed over 500 students, married men and women, and never-married, divorced, or widowed singles from throughout the United States as well as from Canada, Japan, Switzerland, India, and the United Kingdom, including a survey from 1990 to 1992 of 257 randomly-selected members of the Society for Human Resource Management about work and friendship; since 1994, I have been conducting an in-depth study of more than two dozen adult survivors of childhood and adolescent ***ual abuse and how those early experiences impacted on their friendship patterns.
WHAT YOU WILL LEARN FROM THIS BOOK
No one is born shy or gregarious. There is no such thing as a friendship "gene." Friendship is a skill you can learn; this book will help you enhance your friendships as you learn:
o Sympathetic and empathetic ways to bring your friends closer
o Why some men have twice as many friends at work as do women and why women might want that to change
o The art of self-disclosure-what to reveal, when, and to whom
o How to be for others the kind of friend that you want others to be for you
o How to increase the likelihood of befriending those who share your values (a better predictor of long-lasting friendships than doing things together or being nearby).
I have certainly benefited from all I have learned about friendship. My life is fuller and more rewarding than it has ever been because I put into practice every day the friendship principles I share with you in this book.
Marriage is relatively easy to define, but what does it mean to be someone''s friend? As a relationship, friendship itself has been shifting in the last few decades; today there is an eagerness and quickness to call almost anybody a friend. The next chapter explores definitions of friendship that should help give you a better grasp of what you mean when you call someone your friend.

Blame His Star Sign: Why Men Do the Weird Things They Do
If you find yourself blaming the full moon for your man''s bad behavior, you''ll certainly benefit from learning more about his star sign -- especially the dark side of his sign. In Born on a Rotten Day, author Hazel Dixon-Cooper points out the trouble with some guys born on certain days. If you''re confused by the antics of a particular man, match his birthday to his sign below and find out what the stars have to say. Harsh? A little. Entertaining? Very. True? That''s up to you.
Aries (March 21-April 19)
Taurus(April 20-May 20)
Gemini (May 21-June 21)
Cancer (June 22-July 22)
Leo (July 23-August 22)
Virgo (August 23-September 22)
Libra (September 23-October 23)
Scorpio (October 24-November 21)
Sagittarius (November 22-December 21)
Capricorn (December 22-January 19)
Aquarius(January 20-February 18)
Pisces (February 19-March 20)

Aries (March 21-April 19)
"Arrogant. Pompous. Vain. Cruel. Verbose. Show-off. I''ve been called all of these. Of course, I am." --Howard Cosell (March 25)
Passionate, idealistic, and sentimental, the Aries man is part hero, part child, no matter what his age. He''s as friendly as a puppy, downright fearless, and rather like one of those weighted clowns that children punch. You can knock him down, but he will always bounce back. And, for as long as he loves you, he will be faithful, ***y, and attentive. If you feel weak in the knees, make sure there''s a sofa handy to fall on, because by the time you''ve swooned, this Romeo will have moved on to his next conquest. Aries men are in love with love. The appeal is in the art of romance and the thrill of the chase, not your charming smile.
Some astrologers compare an Aries man to a knight in shining armor. However, you are just as likely to get run down by his charging steed as scooped up in a pair of loving arms. Sir Lancelot may have been bold and honest, but he was also a royal pain in the butt, all Aries traits. His ego ruined a kingdom when, in his eagerness to run his hand up Guinevere''s dress, he conveniently forgot his vow to King Arthur. In Lance''s point of view he was a hero, and to an Aries man, his point of view is the only one that counts. The Ram fears mediocrity more than death. He would rather be the biggest jerk in town than just another anonymous working slob. He is subjective, bossy, and has a caustic wit he flings with careless abandon. He takes pride in being more self-centered than Scorpio and more obtuse than Taurus. He''s sure he''s right. Especially when he is wrong.
Male Rams come in two types. Bold, brash, and ready for action or shy, quiet, and ready for action. Don''t be fooled by the shy type. He may come on all "Aw shucks" and toe shuffles, like Aries Dennis Quaid, but under that poker face, or enigmatic smile, his brain synapses are firing at 1,000 per minute, concentrating on the best way to get you into his bed in the shortest possible time.
On the door of the original Playboy Mansion in Chicago was a brass plate with the inscription Si Non Oscillas, Noli Tintinnare--If you don''t swing, don''t ring. Aries Hugh Hefner, the flip, hip, big daddy of hedonism, is still alive and well, and still the quintessential bad boy at 76.
Remember all of this before you buy your wedding dress. After the ceremony, he will expect you to worship the ground he makes you crawl on while he declares his need for freedom. He will require you to have the house sparkling, the grass mowed, and the cars washed, all before he gets home from his latest adventure. He''ll leave a trail of dirty clothes from the front door to the shower, while shouting his dinner order over his shoulder. When he appears at the table, he''ll expect you to have a gourmet''s delight in one hand and his favorite cold drink in the other. And, you''d better look like you just stepped out of the pages of Vogue. This man chases the ideal. He doesn''t want a real woman, with real needs. He wants the adoration of Mommy and the ethereal qualities of a fairy princess, all wrapped up in the figure of a Playboy centerfold. He thinks he is indestructible, but he''s extremely accident-prone and seldom gets through life without a few broken bones, several concussions, and a couple of totaled cars. He is restless, fidgety, and has frequent head aches.
Just as he is either brash or shy, he''ll either be a spendthrift or paranoid about starving to death. You''ll have to clip coupons and buy pork and beans in bulk while he plays Mr. Fix-It with the plumbing. You''ll learn to sew and to raise your own veggies while he attacks his latest moneymaking scheme with the same fierce energy that makes him shout at the TV and practice road rage in the church parking lot. If he''s loose with cash, you''ll have to work two jobs to keep the cre***ors off your back and a roof over your heads.
Mr. Ram communicates by temper tantrum. He will smash the glasses and put his fist through the wall one minute, then want to screw your brains out the next. And he will be genuinely surprised when you resist his ardor as you''re bent over the dustpan, sweeping up shards of crystal.
Your favorite martian will start a little war to have an excuse to slam out of the house and stay out until all hours. A Leo would announce that he''s going out with the boys, and a Capricorn would tell you he''s working late at the office, but Aries needs to rationalize his bad behavior. If you''re the bitch, then he is still the hero. The Greeks christened him the Ram. You can call him Butthead.

Taurus (April 20-May 20)"
The great question -- which I have not been able to answer -- is ''What does a woman want?''" --Sigmund Freud (May 6)
He''s patient, prudent, and persevering, a tower of strength on whom you can lean. You''ll fall for his shy charm and those big, sad eyes. He may remind you of a slow-talkin'', slow-walkin'' hero like Gary Cooper or Henry Fonda. His needs are simple: home and hearth, a good woman, and a nest egg for that rainy day. Before you start drooling, read on, sweetie.
Taurus may offer old-shoe comfort, but what you''re likely to get is an army-boot mentality. Hook up with the Bull and either do things his way, or do your thing alone. He won''t mind your independence, if it benefits him in some way, and as long as dinner is ready when he appears. Don''t expect to be showered with praise and lavish attention. Do expect to be cast into the role of the little woman. Of all the men in the universe, this one expects the 1950s textbook version. He will buy your clothes, pick your friends, and criticize your beliefs. He is judgmental and fixed in his ideas, attitudes, and prejudices. Nothing you can say or do will change him. You''ll have the distinct feeling of being boiled alive slowly, just as the proverbial frog, and you will be right. Mr. T invented the smothering relationship.
He is jealous, possessive, and obsessive. Piss him off and he''ll hold a grudge. Unfortunately, it''s not a silent one. He will snipe and pick and make nasty remarks until you want to bash his head with the nearest blunt object.
William Randolph Hearst provides a classic example of the Taurean love of possessions gone berserk. He spent tens of millions of dollars to build himself a real castle filled with priceless art and furnishings from all over the world. According to Hollywood legend, Hearst built the castle for his ladylove, Marion Davies, because his wife refused to divorce him. Talk about a gilded cage and a grim fairy tale. You would think a guy with all that power and dough would have no trouble buying off a wife. Well, Marion didn''t get a wedding ring and she didn''t get the castle. It was his castle, filled with his possessions. She was just a living adornment for the furniture.
The Taurean love for food is renowned, and the Bull likes to eat. By your second anniversary he could be wearing triple-X sweats and a truss. He is capable of eating himself into multiple heart attacks and will expect you to play nurse for real.
His idea of excitement is switching from the food channel to Wrestlemania. It''s convenient, not too far from the refrigerator, and best of all, doesn''t cost anything. You may be irresistible, and he may love you madly, but he will never understand why you need any other company but his. If he does take you out, it will be to one of his favorite restaurants, where he''ll be too busy stuffing his face to make decent conversation.
He''s a cheapskate. Only a Taurus could live on a beer-and-beans budget unnecessarily. He may have millions, but you''ll never see the bank accounts, although you might get an allowance. If you do get his money, it will only be because you outlived him, or murdered him in his sleep. The latter will become a tempting idea as time goes by.
Sigmund Freud''s use of psychoanalysis was a breakthrough in the field of psychiatry. But only a Taurus man could be at once so obtuse and so egotistical as to define a woman''s frustrations and unresolved emotional distress as ***** envy. Freud''s Scorpio ascendant only fueled his obsession with ***. Virtually all of his theories held *** responsible for all the emotional ills of mankind. Including Sigi, who had a lengthy affair with his wife''s younger sister. The original Freudian slip.
The Bull''s favorite game is Grand Inquisitor. He will expect you to report every detail of your day. He will also rummage through your private papers and read your diary at the first opportunity. If you have a past and are foolish enough to reveal it, he is capable of using it against you at any time for the rest of your life. Your best bet is a safe-deposit box, and to lie your ass off.
He is so stable, he''s inert. Work and home are all he knows, or needs. Although he''s marathon man between the sheets, what he really wants is a housekeeper, and is so insensitive that you must hit him with a skillet to get attention. If you''re the type who needs excitement now and then, you could lick the light socket or have an affair. With a Taurus man, I''d opt for the former. The Bull is not the forgive-and-forget type. Although he hates change, he is perfectly capable of tossing you out on your ear one day and moving in your replacement the next.

Gemini (May 21-June 21)
"I wouldn''t be caught dead marrying a woman old enough to be my wife." --Tony Curtis (June 3)
He is simply irresistible. The Gemini man is a fun-loving, independent, roguish romantic who has a doctorate in flirting. He can cook an exotic dinner. Then dance with you in the starlight, point out the constellations, and capture your heart with his beautiful version of their myths. Don''t invite the wedding guests yet. While you are mentally compiling the guest list, he will excuse himself to get you a fresh glass of chilled wine, and while in the kitchen, manage to phone three other girls for dates next weekend. The only thing this schmoozing, womanizing, party animal is interested in is adding your phone number and bra size to his ever-increasing list of victims.
Gemini movie star Errol Flynn was long regarded as the black sheep of Hollywood. The phrase "in like Flynn" was coined as tribute to his ability to score. His real-life adventures, rebellions, and general unruliness rivaled those of the swashbuckling heroes he portrayed. Flynn was married three times and cheated on all of his wives. His first wife, French actress Lily Damita, said, "You never know when he''s telling the truth. He lies for the fun of it." His life was one of cheerful excess. But, by his late forties, his hurricane-force existence had taken its toll, and he was a burned-out shell of his former, lively self. Flynn died of a heart attack at 50.
Your Twin will probably not be quite as bad, but all Gemini men have a gypsy moth''s fatal attraction to a pretty face. Totally faithful Gems do exist, but are rarer than a shy Sagittarius. In fact, the word faithful has a different meaning to a Gemini man. Think of Gemini Brigham Young, the Mormon founder of Salt Lake, who had 27 wives. I''m sure that, in his mind, Brother Brigham considered himself a devoted and faithful husband. In my mind, he was in Gemini paradise.
Yours will have five hobbies, four careers, and an assortment of friends that resemble a mini-United Nations. But, his intellectual prowess is limited to his memorization of the various versions of Trivial Pursuit and entertaining his friends by tearing you to pieces with his merciless, acerbic tongue. He lives to put down people, and will call you fat ass in public, or snap his fingers at you when his glass is empty. Cold-hearted and calculating, he is a blatant social climber and will propose on the first date if he smells money. As a husband, he is ambivalent. The only thing this guy''s passionate about is being entertained.
If you think love means being together at least some of the time, sharing dinner, and watching the tube, you had better find yourself a homey Cancer, or a quiet Virgo, and send this horny hound dog packing. Or you could look on the bright side. You may be hysterical and freaked out half the time, but you''ll never be bored.

I decide to stop posting the "star signs" articles, coz I don''t think they are really helpful and don''t necessarily apply to most men
If you are interested in reading them, though, PM me, and I''ll send you the link.
Below is a new article I find rather interesting.

Sure Thing: Knowing When It''s Really Love
Dear Sherry:
How can I tell if I am definitely in love with somebody? I''ve had three pretty serious relationships with men that I thought I was in love with. After each of the relationships ended I looked back and realized that I wasn''t really in love with them. I''m currently dating a man, who is wonderful. I have never known anybody like him. I love spending time with him and I feel good about the time we spend together. Even when I don''t see him for a couple of days, I smile when I think of the last time we were together. We can talk about anything and he is very sweet and caring. I think I''m falling in love with him, but how do I know for sure?
Kim

Sherry Amatenstein


Dear Kim:
It''s terrific to hear a woman associate the word "love" with a man who makes her feel happy versus a man who makes her pathologically insecure and miserable. That is definitely a sign of mature love: having your mood lift just because you''re remembering the last time you were together. It''s also great that he is sweet and caring, and that you can talk about anything and want to share almost everything.
However, it sounds like you''re "newbies;" meaning new lovers, meaning you''re still in the lust or honeymoon stage. You know, the stage where whenever you see each other you want to just jump each other''s bones, and the other person''s strange habits are endearing rather than supremely aggravating. Didn''t you pass through this stage with the men from your past? What factors made you ultimately decide you weren''t in love with them?
Will this relationship morph itself into true love? Maybe. To me, love is about commitment on both sides to making things work when things are no longer new and easy. Love is about sharing similar goals and dreams, and it''s about wanting the person you adore to be happy, even if what makes him happy isn''t necessarily something that will make you happy. But love is something you can''t truly feel for another person until you feel it for yourself - for in the romantic equation, it''s not two halves that make a whole, but two wholes that gloriously come together.

18 Body Language Clues That Say He''s Interested
By Tracey Cox
Dating is hard, largely because meeting new people can be nerve-wracking. When you first meet a guy -- at a bar, a friend''s house or even church -- the facts remain: You have to wonder what he''s thinking and whether he really likes you. But did you know that -- whether they like it, know it or not -- men are pre-programmed to send out physical clues when they''re interested in a woman? Read this and learn how to read any guy''s body language with ease.
1. He''ll serve you an eyebrow flash. When we first see someone we''re attracted to, our eyebrows rise and fall. If they like us back, they raise their eyebrows. The whole thing lasts about a fifth of a second and it happens everywhere in the world -- to everyone regardless of age, race, or class. Lifting our brows pulls the eyes open and allows more light to reflect off the surface, making them look bright, large and inviting. A flash might be easy to miss but they''re so reliable, if you do spot one, you may know someone likes you before they''ve even registered it themselves. Deliberately extend it for up to one second and you''ve drastically upped the chances of him getting the message you''re interested.
2. His lips part.
If he likes what he sees, his lips will automatically part for a moment when your eyes first lock.
3. His nostrils flare and his face generally "opens". The raised brows, parted lips, flaring nostrils and wide eyes give the whole face a friendly "open" expression.
4. He''ll try to attract your attention.
For some men, this might mean a subtle tie adjustment along with a silent prayer that you''ll notice the flash of movement. Others turn into Bippo the Clown and become so loud and boisterous, they''re practically juggling and doing handstands. Any exaggerated movement or gesture usually means he''s trying to stand out from the group. Another giveaway: he''ll unconsciously detach from his friends by standing slightly apart, hoping to be seen as an individual.
5. He''ll stroke his tie or smooth a lapel. We all know what these preening gestures mean. They''re the equivalent of the female lip lick -- "I want to look good for you."
6. He''ll smooth or mess up his hair. Which gestures he chooses depends on his hairstyle and what''s going to make it look more flattering. Guys do this involuntarily and more often than you think. Glance back next time you trot off to the restroom and I bet his hands will be on their way to touching his hair.
7. His eyebrows remain slightly raised while you''re talking.
A slightly surprised, quizzical expression means he finds you fascinating. Or completely nuts. Quite frankly, either are preferable to a man who looks at you with a smooth, relaxed brow and eyes. That one simply finds you boring.
8. He''ll fiddle with his socks and pull them up. In the old days, men only dressed up on special occasions, and while the suit might have survived months in mothballs, the socks invariably continued to get worn (to death). Hence, why he spent half the night pulling them up, in an attempt to look the part. It''s an extension of preening and it''s astonishingly accurate. If a guy pulls up or adjusts his socks in your presence, it''s an almost 100 percent sign he''s interested and trying to look his best.
9. Everything is erect.
Ahem.
What I mean is he''ll stand with all his muscles pulled tight, to show his body off to best advantage. He''ll also stand directly in front of you to show full attention and lean forward to get closer.
10. He''ll let you see him checking out your body. Some experts call it "visual voyaging" -- his eyes take a little cruise around your body, stopping momentarily at the prettiest ports. Don''t kid yourself: he scanned your body automatically the second he laid eyes on you. The difference here is that he''s letting you see him do it. The message: I''m considering you as a ***ual partner.
11. He''ll spread his legs while sitting opposite, to give you a crotch display. He''s letting you have a good look at what''s on offer. Hopefully, he still has his jeans or pants on at the time.
12. He''ll stand with hands on hips.
This accentuates his physical size and suggests body confidence. It''s also a pointing gesture. We point with our hands at our own best ***ual assets and also at the parts of our body where we''d most like to be touched. If he spends the night with his hands on his hips, fingers splayed and pointing downward, he''s willing you to look, touch and admire the part he''s proudest of. All subconscious, of course. Well, it is in most cases...
13. He''ll play with the buttons on his jacket, buttoning and unbuttoning it. It''s a displacement activity (fiddling) because you''ve made him a little nervous, plus an unconscious desire to remove his clothes. The next stage is to push the jacket open and hold it there by putting his hands on his hips. If he takes it off completely, he''s imagining his shoes under your bed.
14. He''ll touch his face a lot, while looking at you.
If he''s interested, he''ll stroke his cheek up and down with the back of his fingers, touch his ears, or rub his chin. It''s a combination of nervous excitement, preening and autoerotic touching. When we''re attracted to someone, our skin (most noticeably our lips and mouth) become increasingly sensitive to touch and other stimulation. If you smoke, you''ll take more drags on your cigarette. If you''re drinking, you''ll take more sips. You start touching your own mouth more because your lips are ultra sensitive and it feels good. Plus, it plants the idea in the other person''s mind that it could be a good idea to kiss you.
15. He''ll start squeezing his glass or can or roll it from side to side, slightly squeezing it as he does so.
When men are ***ually interested, they start playing with circular objects. Why? They remind him of your breasts: his body is "leaking" what''s happening in his subconscious mind.

16. He''ll perch on the edge of his seat to get closer.
And if he crosses his legs, the top leg will point in your direction
17 He''ll guide you by putting his arm on your elbow or in the small of your back.
The arm guide isn''t just good manners and a polite way of guiding you through a crowd; he''s making sure he knows exactly where you''re going by taking you there. He doesn''t want to lose you! It also shows you''re being "taken care of" so no other men need volunteer. Along with the arm guide, there''ll be lots of accidentally-on-purpose touches.
18. He''ll lend you his coat or sweater.
Few guys would be happy to return from the bar to find their girlfriend''s evening dress covered by another guy''s jacket. Never mind if her teeth were chattering from life-threatening hypothermia. He wants it to be his jacket because it''s a protective, ***y, ownership gesture. It says "what''s mine is yours," something that''s been close to their skin is now close to yours (and vice versa when you give it back). It smelled of him to begin with; it''ll smell of you when you return it. Plus, it links you: he has to hang around to get it back.

There''s No Good Excuse for Cheating -- Ever
Dear Sherry:
My boyfriend is an admitted past cheater who wants to change. However, during the past month it has become difficult. A young woman is after him. He told me he informed her that he is involved. But she replied that she is not concerned about that. Basically she wants to know what sleeping with him feels like. Now basically he is trying to avoid her and finding it hard since they have the same group of friends. Now every time he sees her she offers. My dilemma is, I feel so helpless. I told him he can''t avoid her. He says he has to because he is afraid if she gets too close his body may betray him. So what do I do? Sit here and wait to see what happens like I am a bystander in my own life?



Dear
"His body may betray him?" Let me place that little gem beside "the dog ate my homework" and "the check is in the mail" on my Whoppers Wall of Fame. Does that mean he expects carte blanche if he cheats because his erection will have made him do it? Sheesh.
Tell him if he cheats you will blame HIM for the misdeed, not the provocation. Inform this "past cheater" that you''re well aware that if a man really wants to discourage a woman, he''s got the tools to do it. Add that it''s crucial to you that your lover be a man you can trust. If he can''t be that man, you can''t be his woman. Period. End of story. No second acts. See you later, Charlie.
Just as his body can''t betray him without his mind''s consent, it''s up to you whether to play the role in your life of bystander or pilot. Choose wisely.

5 Secrets of Getting a Man to Open Up
by Dr. Brenda Shoshanna
"I don''t know what he''s thinking because he never tells me what is going on."
Sound familiar? In a recent poll, 42 percent of women say that they have a hard time getting their partner to share his feelings. When that happens, she feels shut out and he feels misunderstood. But in my years as a therapist and author, I''ve discovered something that many women don''t realize. Men want to talk. Under the right con***ions, they''ll talk all night long. Most men desperately need to unburden themselves. So what''s the secret to getting your guy to share?
5 Secrets of Getting a Man to Open Up
- Real Men Fear Rejection -- Really!
- Sharing Your Secrets Helps
- A Man Who Feels Guilty Will Never Speak Up
- You Have to Be Ready for the Truth (Are You?)
- Setting a Willing Example Can Save Your Relationship