Have any of you gotten to that place, where you’ve woken up one morning in your apartment alone, an empty space beside you where your former spouse used to be, and you realize, “I’m over it?”

Somehow — slowly and yet suddenly — the heavy cloud of mourning, the knots of anguish in your stomach are gone. You never thought they’d go away. In fact, you might have learned to live with that feeling, accepting it as an inevitable imprint of divorce trauma. You’ve stopped fighting it.

And that’s when it goes away.

There is no way to predict when it will happen. The aftermath of a divorce is composed of many painful stages, and each time you think you’ve graduated past one phase, you enter into another one. I suspect it is different for everyone. It is a function of who we are and how long we were married for, not to mention the nature of our relationship and the manner in which it fell apart.

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I dated a guy for two months and everything seemed perfect until he told me that his last relationship was three months ago. That relationship was a year long, so when he started seeing me they had only been broken up a month. Once that was out in the open he started distancing himself and I eventually broke it off because I was over the inconsistency.

I typically don’t like bringing up the past. I feel like the past should be left alone. But after my last experience I think it’s an important thing to know so that I don’t put myself at risk and end up the rebound girl.

So when you should ask a guy when his last relationship/serious dating/fling was? And how can you do it without it coming off in a negative way?

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I wanted to ask for your take on guys who play games in relationships, like the texting game, for instance. I thought people stopped that after college, but recently found out I was wrong.

I hate the whole game of one person sending a text and the other waiting two hours before responding, even if they have their phone and aren’t busy, just so they don’t seem desperate. I really don’t like playing games but this guy I’m involved with is being very confusing and I can’t tell if it’s just a game or not.

Is there a way to break the texting game or is that who that person is by nature and there’s nothing that can be done? How can I beat the texting game?

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Boston University. 2009. Fall. I am a senior and have about four credits worth of actual classes and 26 credits of drinking and partying. But then the worst thing possible occurs: I fall in love.

And I mean IN LOVE! Can’t eat, walk differently, wanna start volunteering in love. She was quite perfect in my eyes and she thought very highly of me as well. It was a relationship based on giving to each other as much as possible, and it doesn’t get much better than that.

The relationship was amazing and intense, but also very new. After a month of bliss I wanted to tell her I loved her. And that brings us to the night when I lost my mind, and nearly my college sweetheart…

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When blinded by our infatuation (which can last anywhere on average from three months to two years), it’s impossible to look at our relationship objectively. We might dwell on their positive attributes at all times and make excuses for them when they behave badly.

We desperately want it to work out and cling to any glimmer of hope that things are heading in the right direction. When something looks like a bad sign, we might ignore it and place even more weight and significance on the good things.

Having an optimistic approach to dating isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It only becomes problematic when we can no longer see a situation for what it truly is and recognize when it’s time to walk away.

To help us get this clarity, here are five ways to know it’s time to move on:

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I know you talk a lot about how men love a happy woman, but I’m having a really hard time being happy with my relationship as is. I always feel like I need to figure out why my boyfriend is acting a certain way, and I can’t help but worry that he’ll leave me for someone else.

I also get really frustrated when he doesn’t do things I ask him to do, like basic chores and stuff. I don’t want to be needy or a nag, but things like that make me feel loved and cared for. I want to enjoy the relationship and bring happiness to it, but it’s hard for me to get there when I feel like he doesn’t care most of the time. I don’t want my relationship to be a constant struggle.

So my question is,  how can I fix my relationship and stop it from falling apart?
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It’s tempting to jump into relationships when we meet someone we believe is wonderful. But if it takes a few months to begin gauging someone’s character, and two to three years to truly know them, we are setting ourselves up for disaster if we commit too soon.

Here are nine essential questions to help guide us: [continue reading…]

If you feel like you’re pulling teeth with two thumbs and no anesthesia every time you try to get your guy to talk about his feelings, well, you wouldn’t be alone. Plenty of men find they can’t, because they’re cut off from their emotions. Society still tells guys, from the time they are very little, to deny their feelings or better yet, not have them at all. Unfortunately, women are simultaneously being primed by society to believe that men should fulfill them emotionally.

So little girl and little boy grow up, get married, and become frustrated with each other. Amiright?

Sigh. We’re here to help you recognize when your man is having a hard time getting in touch with his “feminine side” (see what a sexist world we live in?). Patti Henry, therapist and author of The Emotionally Unavailable Man, writes that there are various behaviors suggesting a man is emotionally shut down.

Here are 16 signs your guy is emotionally unavailable.

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Me and this guy started off as friends but thing quickly turned romantic between us. He was doing an exchange program at my university and after a few months moved back home, but we continued to stay in contact and visited each other several times. Over these last few months we don’t talk as frequently, but we do have occasional lengthy phone calls where we talk about everything.

I don’t know where I stand with him because we never discussed it, plus we are both not very expressive/overtly emotional people, and I never expected (and still don’t) a relationship to blossom from this, but I do have strong feelings for him and want to see him soon. We are both going to be in Vegas next month and he messaged me asking if I want to meet up. Maybe I’m just paranoid, but I feel like he just wants a guaranteed hookup.

I guess my question is, is it normal for an ex-fling whom you were once romantically and sexually involved with to always reach out and initiate long conversations? Is it just to be polite/friendly, does it mean he misses me and still has feelings for  or am I just his “fallback girl”?

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I have been dating a guy for six months, but we’re not official. I like him a lot and really enjoy spending time with him and I know he feels the same about me.  Since we both have busy work schedules and children, we do not see each other often, maybe every other week, and we’ve taken two trips together (including one last weekend). In between seeing each other i person, we text and e-mail sporadically. 

I’m just wondering if this relationship is heading in the right direction, and if it will lead to something lasting. I am also worried about coming across as needy and sometimes I hesitate to initiate texts with him. For instance, is it needy behavior to send the text: “Thank you for yesterday – I like when we see each other, it feels good”?

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Last week, I was witness to an event that has shocked and awed the few men that have had the great, great privilege of observing it. I saw the mind of a girl work as she received texts from her current love interest. It was incredible. I had been hypothesizing what it is that girls think we’re actually doing on the other end of that phone and finally someone pulled the curtain back and allowed me to meet Oz…Oz was a girl. Oz was very confused.

It began Friday night. I crashed at my cousin’s place for the night in Williamsburg and she and her roommate had gone out and done Williamsburg things like drank alcoholic beverages and told boys to go away. That is, until one boy approached the roommate (let’s call her Mel), and Mel did not ask the boy to leave.

Fast-forward through what I could only imagine was heavy bar flirting, them making several plans to hang out the next day, and eventually a semi-awkward goodbye of her telling him no, he can’t come home with her, and then it’s the morning after…and the texting began. And as a guest in the house of these rambunctious 20-something females, I had backstage passes to the show. [continue reading…]

When I meet a guy I like, all I can think about is when he will walk away/get tired of me/declare he doesn’t give a hoot about me. I also keep thinking: How soon before he sees I am not that great a catch?

But with the guys I totally don’t want, I am subconsciously aware this person would be in it for the long haul without me constantly having to prove my worth. Perhaps in those situations, I totally relax and give off a different vibe.

Basically, once I like a man, all I can think about is how much time do I have before everything shatters? A day, a week, a month? I immediately start waiting for the end. Maybe some part of me is tensed up the whole time waiting for him to leave. When I meet a guy I like,

How can I fix this? How can I change my vibe so the guys I like will like me back?

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After scanning the comments on A New Mode, I have noticed a very common topic in almost every discussion. Somehow we always manage to fit Facebook into all relationship/hookup/guy-meets-girl talks. I understand it. The image we portray to the world is now through statuses and pictures.  But how does that fit into our special, or not so special, someone?

I am happy to do my best to shed light on how to navigate the complicated world of The Facebook with the first ever ultimate Facebook rule book!

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It’s been one month since my boyfriend and I broke up.  The other day I learned that he put up an online dating profile- wth?!  I am still going through the phases of our breakup and I can’t even fathom the idea of meeting and talking to a new guy right now. It may seem the norm that guys will do this to avoid their feelings–get sex, boost ego–but it hurts.

Why do guys do this? Why do they seem to get over breakups so much faster than women?

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Attention all girls/ladies/women/anyone with girly parts that’s ever been taken out by a guy with….guy parts: repeat after me – “Thank you.”

These two words, if not used on a date or shortly after, can and even should be a deal breaker for the guy who is taking you out.  It has been known since times of the ancient Egyptians (all historical references will be fictional) that a man’s job is to pay.  We get that.  Thousands of years of tradition, lectures from mom and dad, unsolicited dating advice from friends have been heard.  All of us normal members of the male species have read and checked the box for the terms of agreement.  Now it is your turn. [continue reading…]

I met a guy two weeks ago and we instantly hit it off. We talked on the phone and texted regularly and went out on a few amazing dates. Everything seemed to be going well but then he had to go out of the country for a business trip.

I didn’t expect to hear from him while he was away, but he’s been back for three days now and I haven’t heard a peep!

If he wasn’t interested why not just tell me instead of pulling a vanishing act? This isn’t the first time I dated a guy and things were going great and then he fell off the face of the earth and I can’t for the life of me figure out why. I am a confident, non-needy woman, I didn’t place any expectations or demands on this newest guy.

I just don’t understand, what happened, what changed? How could he go from being so interested in me to gone? And do you think it’s worth it for me to send him a friendly text to see how he responds?

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I’ve been in an open relationship for the past two years and lately my boyfriend seems to have lost interest in sex. He is always saying he is too tired or busy. I try to be patient and understanding because we both have stressful jobs, but it has been two months. Whenever I bring up the topic he accuses me of only wanting sex as if that is the only thing that would make me happy. He still tells me he loves me and we still hang out, but I always feel miserable in the end. I don’t know what to do anymore, why isn’t he sexually attracted to me like he used to be and how do I fix it?

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I met this guy through some friends and started liking him. He liked the girl that introduced us and she also liked him. One night we were hanging out and  he and I almost hooked up. He told her so they are no longer friends due to her lack of trust in him, but now several months later he and I have been getting together almost every night. I finally told him that I like him and wanted it to be more and his response was reasonably better than I hoped for and he said he “kinda likes” me. I told him that I didn’t want to be just a “booty call” and he said he’s not like that, but he won’t make it more.

Now he won’t talk to me– no calls, texts, facebook messages, or emails.  How do I get him to make it more than just “friends-with-benefits” or even go back to being just friends?

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I have known this guy for two years now. We started off as friends, had a bit of a romance, then broke up and we are now starting to be friends again.

I feel like I was always the one who was more invested in the relationship. He is very guarded and emotionally unavailable and has past issues that he doesn’t want to confront. So my question is, how do I support him with that kind of a baggage as a friend now? How can I make him understand that even though we are starting fresh, we still have a past and some things could come back to us in the future unless we solve them now? And how can I maintain my confidence and self-respect now and not get emotionally swept away again, like I did before?

We have come far and I never thought it would be possible to try and be friends again after a romantic history, but I also want to avoid making the same mistakes I did before. What should I do?

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I was dating this guy for a few months and things were great. He was fresh out of a relationship when we met and told me off the bat he wasn’t looking for anything serious. After three months, I got sick of this arrangement and called things off. A few days later, I asked if he wanted to hang out as friends. We had an amazing time and he ended up apologizing and asking to date me again.

Things were even better this time around. He opened up even more and talked to me about his issues and insecurities. Then he ended it again saying things were only going to get more serious and he couldn’t handle it.  After that we would hook up here and there but I wasn’t comfortable with the situation and said we should stop being friends with benefits and just be friends.

We still hang out here and there and text periodically. Every time we see each other we have an amazing time and I feel like we really connect. The problem is he tries to hook up with me when we hang out and I don’t want to do that unless we’re back together.

I was hoping that by staying friends he would be reminded of how well we click and was hoping he’d get over his issues. This plan doesn’t seem to be working, though. Part of me feels like he senses on some level that we’d be great together, but I also feel like if he was going to come back he would have done it by now. Will he ever come back and commit or am I wasting my time?

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How do you find the perfect romantic gift for your man? Just ask him.

This year, we did the next best thing. We partnered with TiVo and enlisted our most trusted guy friends & bloggers to share what’s on their holiday wish lists. Here are 6 gift recommendations that will have him fa-la-la-la-falling for you hard.

Read the rest over at Your Tango- The 6 Best Gifts for Men…According to Actual Men

More from Your Tango:

10 Romantic Gifts For Him (That Aren’t Cheesy)

7 Sex Positions Men Love

Is This Favorite Pastime Ruining Your Relationship?

I really like this guy who I met through mutual friends. Since we’re in similar social circles, we see each other kind of often. I feel like I’ve been a bit stand-offish with him because I get nervous around him and I’m afraid he’s gonna think it means I’m not interested.

I just want to know how to show him enough interest so he asks me out, but not so much that it’s obvious because I know that’s a turn-off. Any advice??

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You guys talk a lot about being the prize and while I agree with the idea, I find it really difficult when it comes to guys I really like. I’m not much into rules and seriously hate any type of action that is not authentically me. But exactly HOW do you remain the prize when the fear takes hold?

And to be the prize, does he have to feel like he’s in competition with other men? Everyone says men love the chase, is this true? If so, how can I get him to chase me without being obvious?

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A few days back, I was at Aroma Cafe waiting for my large coffee to appear when I overheard one woman lamenting to her friend…
At one point she said, “I mean, how could he say that?  He’s supposed to love me unconditionally.”

OK, full stop.

First off, whenever I hear that someone is supposed to do anything in a relationship, an alarm goes off in my head.  The phrase “supposed to” is basically the same as saying the word “should”: it’s a poisonous word for relationships.

It has a tone of blaming, shaming and coercing the other person to do what you want them to do… or else.

More importantly, when I heard her say that he’s supposed to “love her unconditionally,” I thought to myself, “Wait… do women seriously think that?” [continue reading…]

I’m in my late twenties and have never been in a long term relationship. I’ve dated plenty of guys and have had a few boyfriends but all those relationship last maybe three months max. I don’t know if it’s me or if I’m just picking the wrong guys.

I’m at a point in my life where I really feel ready to settle down. I’m just afraid that I’m never going to find a guy who will truly commit to me. What do you think it takes to have a successful relationship that really lasts?

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I’ve read a lot of your articles about how important it is for a guy to treat you like a priority instead of an option, and how a woman has to be the prize…. I’m just kind of confused as to how to do this.

How do you show him that you have options so that he sees you as the prize? I just don’t understand how to do this without coming right out and saying it. [continue reading…]

This summer, it was particularly difficult being single, even for someone like me, who has always embraced being the “single” girl among my group of close girlfriends. For the past three months, I’ve attended three different weddings and witnessed some of my best friends get married.  But as I stood by the altar, overjoyed and excited for my friends’ new lives, I couldn’t help feel alone.  I also want someone to share happy and sad moments with; someone who will inspire me and be challenged by me.

But instead of comparing lives and playing the grass is always greener, I compiled a list of reasons (freedoms!) why you should enjoy flying solo and appreciate moments of solitude. [continue reading…]

I’ve been seeing a guy for about six months now. Everything in the relationship is great- we get along, we have fun together, we just get each other. The only thing is he won’t commit to me. He said he wasn’t hooking up with anyone else, only me, but he’s not ready to use titles.  I know his last relationship ended badly, so that might be part of it. I just don’t get it, the relationship is so great in every way aside from this.

How do I get him to commit to me? [continue reading…]

I’ve been dating my boyfriend for about a year and a half. Things are great aside from the fact that we fight a lot. He loves me, is dedicated to me (and I to him), but sometimes it doesn’t feel like we vibe on the same page.

First, I like to talk about whatever is bothering me and he doesn’t. When I tell him I need more emotional support and he says I’m being needy and unreasonable. He tells me it isn’t his job to maintain my emotions or my happiness.

Second, there are money issue (he works full time and I’m a full time student/working part time). He’s stingy with spending any money on me. He makes comments like “I don’t really feel like spending money for both of us” or “It’s my money and I earned it.” I’m not a gold digger or high-maintenance, but a gesture of love like a card saying sweet things would mean a lot.

I can deal with not getting gifts and such, but being treated like a financial burden sucks and feeling like I’m stuck alone without his support hurts. I don’t know how to get through to him, we’re both stubborn. We love each other and want to make this work though.

How can we solve these relationships problems and stop fighting so much?

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