Advice

Have you ever cheated on a boyfriend or girlfriend, or been cheated on? Is it hard for you to move on from these past offenses to a healthy new relationship, or are you afraid of the scenario repeating itself?

Infidelity is the cause of many relationships breaking apart. It creates heartache because trust is broken. Betrayal has occurred between you and your partner, and sometimes it is difficult to envision positive, happy future relationships. If you did the cheating, you feel guilty and wonder if you'll stray again. If you were cheated on, it's hard to trust others.

While these emotional hurdles are understandable, it's necessary to move past them in order to form a healthy, new relationship. Following are some steps you can take to face your fears and put your love life on track.

Forgive yourself, forgive your ex. If you're holding on to guilt or anger, it will continue to be part of your life. The only way to truly free yourself is to let go of the resentment you have built up from these past mistakes. Forgive so that you can let go and move on.

Understand why it happened. Was your relationship difficult? Did you find it hard to communicate? Did you feel as though your partner wasn't listening to you or considering your feelings? There are many reasons why people stray, and usually there is a problem in the relationship before the cheating starts. Understand the dynamics of the past relationship, how you communicated, and what you could do differently next time.

Stop judging. Your future partner isn't your ex. Don't make assumptions about his or her behavior based on your past. Again, if you're carrying resentment it's difficult to form a trusting, healthy relationship with any new partner. Instead of expecting the same bad behavior from someone new, be open, honest, and respectful of him or her. Give him a chance to prove himself through behavior as well as words. When you're in a positive place, you can build trust.

Have an open heart. Yes, your trust has been betrayed. You've been hurt. You have every right to be suspicious of your dates, but this doesn't mean it's the healthy approach. Instead of building walls to protect yourself from getting hurt again, or assuming the worst of people, vulnerability is required for love to happen. Focus on what you want in your next relationship: honesty, good communication, happiness, and openness. Know that it is possible to have all of these things. Know that you will.

The tools for keeping in touch online are in a constant state of evolution - that means that the etiquette that must be observed by social networking daters is constantly changing, too. To avoid commiting a social networking crime, keep the following four "Do's" in mind whenever you log on:

1. Do keep your inner stalker in check. It can be useful to learn a little bit of information about someone online, particularly if you met them on a dating site and haven't met them in person yet, but it's easy to get carried away. Get to know your date face-to-face, through conversation, not via the pages they've "liked" on Facebook. And remember that once a relationship has blossomed, it's still important to keep your stalker tendencies tucked away. Don't spend hours keeping up with your partner's social networking activities, and don't overshare on the social networking sites you use. Maintaining a little mystery is always a good thing.
2. Do keep your racier photos private. You might love that picture of you and your honey making out in the back corner of the local dingy dive bar, but that doesn't mean that all 758 of your Facebook friends love it too. PDA can be just as inappropriate online as it is offline. And if you're in to sending even more scandalous photos to your partners, do it without an audience, using private albums on photo sharing sites.
3. Do make use of the handy love-life-sustaining tools the Internet provides to keep a long distance relationship alive. Write private blogs to one another so that you feel connected with each other's every day life, even when you're far apart. Send each other cards or surprise gifts ordered online. Use Skype, or a similar service, to keep in touch and keep your phone bill down. Bonus points for creative uses of the camera feature.
4. Do consider deleting old photos of old flames. Letting go of former relationships is hard, and holding on to the past by pouring over all the photos of you and your ex on Facebook only makes it harder. You don't have to remove all signs that your ex ever existed from your social networking sites of choice, but it's wise to cut back on the number of their appearances both for your own sanity and to prevent potential new love interests from ditching you over concerns that you're still pining for your ex.
   

Bonus Technological Tip: If "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Social Networkers" was a book, "drunk texting" would not be on the list. Neither word drunk Tweeting, drunk Gchatting, or drunk status updating. Not only could you say something damaging to your self-esteem or to your relationship, a slew of communiques you don't remember sending might be a sign that you need to cut back on the boozing, if only for your liver's sake. Make use of programs, like the one provided by Google, that don't allow you to send messages during your peak hours of imbibing unless you pass a sobriety test.

For reviews of similar sites that you can use for dating like Facebook and Twitter, please check out our Social Networking category. If you are looking for the flip side of this blog post, you can read the don'ts of social networking.

When you’ve been in a relationship for some time, you begin to hear what isn’t being said, as well as what is. Perhaps you learn exactly the right food to bring home when your significant other is feeling ill, or what they really mean when they say their day was fine. However, that takes time to learn - and in the meantime, trying to figure out the hidden cues and signals can be frustrating and confusing.

First and foremost, don’t read anything extra into your partner’s behavior if you can help it. Even if you suspect your significant other is trying to hint that you should do something other than what they’re saying, it’s better to be safe than sorry. What’s worse - that you weren’t a magical mind-reader, or that you expressly disregarded what was specifically said? Most would say the latter.

For example: Steve and Jane have been together for several weeks. Jane’s birthday is coming up, and she specifically asks for something low-key, something that’s not a big spectacle. Steve thinks Jane is just being modest, and plans a giant surprise party where Jane is the center of attention. In reality, Jane is incredibly shy, and being the focus of such attention is literally painful. Now, even if Jane weren’t shy and secretly wanted a party, would it have been the end of the world if Steve had followed her request to the letter?

Some tips and tricks can be found through simple observation. If your significant other is having a bad day, what eventually made them smile? What movies do they gravitate to when they’re sick? Do they always request the same dessert when they’re celebrating? Making a note of these simple habits can help you earn major partner points.

And finally, if you’re confused about something, don’t be afraid to ask. Communication is key to a lasting relationship; no one should be expected to have telepathic powers. Being honest and direct is often the fastest - and easiest - way to maintaining a clear connection. Why play games instead of enjoying each other?

Almost every adult has some sort of romantic past; battle scars and tales to tell (or not). It’s a fact of life, and, most of the time, one that’s fairly easy to accept; what’s past is past. But what do you do when the past doesn’t always stay there - when the relics of former relationships aren’t just a memory, but might be a co-worker, a neighbor, sending funny emails, or dropping by for lunch?

For some, the news that their new significant other has remained friends with flames from the past can be jarring, particularly early in the new relationship, when insecurities run high. However, there are a few techniques for coping with old flames, without having to resemble an animal staking out their territory.

First, remember that the word “friend” is often loosely applied. Exchanging the odd pleasant word at the grocery store, remaining amicable in a work environment, or staying friendly while co-chaperoning a child’s field trip is socially advantageous and usually doesn’t mean anything more than that. For divorced couples who have children, remaining pleasant or even friendly with each other can make a child’s day dramatically less stressful. More often than not, remaining friendly with an ex has very little to do with friendship.

However, even if the new significant other is truly friendly with their exes, it’s not the end of the world. Some people loathe conflict, and staying ‘friendly’ is a way of easing the guilt of a breakup. Sometimes the romantic aspect of the relationship was an experiment between friends gone terribly wrong, and neither has an interest in rekindling it. Remember: your significant other was searching for someone for a reason. They chose you over any other option. It’s common to be nervous about “rebounding,” but as a relationship deepens, trust in your partner becomes imperative.

Very, very occasionally, you might run into a scenario where an old flame appears to be attempting to light the fire again. If you suspect this, first examine it from all angles; more often than not, it’s simply insecurity. However, if you really feel you’re correct, communication is key. Don’t run around making accusations, but talk openly and honestly with your partner about your fears. Then remember that it takes two to tango; if your partner assures you that they aren’t going anywhere, ultimately you’ll have to trust them. Is it a gamble? Yes, as is every part of trust and human interaction. But it’s better to gamble and lose, than disrupt a perfectly good relationship with suspicion and paranoia.

When Dr. Gian Gonzaga and the research team at eHarmony decided to conduct a study on the relationship between divorce and the way couples meet, they found themselves confronted with a couple of hurdles to clear:

• Online dating is a relatively new phenomenon - it's been around for a little over a decade, and only been popular for the last 7 or 8 years. That's not a significant amount of time for a large number of couples to meet, marry, and then separate, and the sample size would likely have been too small to create an accurate study.
• One method of running the study would be to simply sample the American population at random, hoping that a significant number of people who had gotten divorced met their former spouses on an online dating site. The research team would have to hope that, through sheer luck, they would find a large enough number of people who had A) Married in the last decade, B) Met their partner on a particular online dating site, and C) Gotten divorced from that person. But surveying the entire population of the United States is far from practical, and leaves too much to chance.

Instead, the eHarmony team, aided by Opinion Research Corp., "identified an online panel of 4,000 people who had been married to AND divorced from that person in the last 15 years," with a focus on marriages that began between 2005 and 2009. Though their final sample size was small - only 506 people - their findings are still interesting. In most cases, "the expected number of divorces was very close to the actual number of divorces...observed in the sample," which means that "it didn't really matter how you met your spouse, you were just as likely to get divorced." The most notable results from the study showed that:

• People who met on eHarmony were 66.6% less likely to get divorced.
• People who met through school were 41.1% less likely to get divorced.
• People who met at a bar were 24% more likely to get divorced.
• People who met through unspecified other means were 16% more likely to get divorced.

Their findings are food for thought, but the eHarmony team acknowledges that they are far from definitive: "We realize the numbers of eHarmony divorces is pretty small and this is only one sample of divorces. We don't know if these results will replicate in another sample or generalize to all marriages. Those are important limitations to this study that need to be acknowledged. We're already working on replicating these findings to address these limitations."

It is also important to remember, as Dr. Gonzaga notes, that studies like these show only WHAT happened, not WHY it happened. "How you met your spouse is only one of many reasons for why a couple eventually ends up unhappy or divorced," he writes. "Many relationships that start off shaky end up lasting a lifetime. Others that have a great foundation still end up in trouble. How you meet is only the starting point. You, and your spouse, control where you end up."

Read the original post here and for more details on the matchmaking service which conducted this survey please read our review of eHarmony.

When you’ve experienced heartbreak or rejection, it can make you all the more gun-shy about the next relationship you start. A friend of mine, Steve, has been nearly driving himself crazy with his worries about the girl he’s been dating. “Well, sure, things seem to be going well. But things seemed to be going well last time.” Though he’s one of the least superstitious people I know, Steve eyes the calendar with suspicion and fear as he nears the “deadline” - the length of time of his last relationship.

Steve isn’t the only person I know who worries about what tomorrow may bring. It’s tempting for all of us to want reassurance about how things will end - after all, why invest all this time, energy and love if they’ll end badly? If only I knew I would really be with this person forever, I could just relax...

However, like just about everything else in life, no one knows how their relationship story will end. And why is that so much harder to accept than the fact that we don’t know what the future will bring about anything? Some people might sit and ponder the end of the world, for example, but most go about their day-to-day lives with barely a thought about it. A job might not last forever. Neither might our health. But it seems silly to waste the moments of happiness worrying about what might happen years down the road, doesn’t it?

Now, this doesn’t mean that you should never think about the future, or plan accordingly. Pretty much every adult couple sits down and discusses the future at some point. However, I believe there is a certain amount of “day-to-day” thinking that has to occur in a relationship. Whether or not things will end tragically, enjoy what you have right now.

If you take your relationship day-by-day, focusing on maintaining your current level of happiness, those “deadlines” might just fly by without your notice. And remember: it’s far better to have a bank of happy memories than fear and worry.