Brothas! If you are cheating be prepared to answer these 7 questions!

Photo by Road Trip with Raj on Unsplash

Brothas, if you want my advice about marriage and relationships, there is one thing you should definitely know. If you are cheating on your woman, more likely than not that she already knows about it, or at least has an idea.

Most girlfriends and wives are highly in tune with their boyfriends or husbands mannersisms and behaviors not just towards them, but other women as well.

If you disagree with me and you feel you can continue to have an affair without ever facing the wrath of your partner, then you do you. I can pretty much guarantee that there will, indeed, come a time when you walk through the door and find her wide awake and waiting in the dark to ask you a full laundry list of questions.

So fellas, be prepared to ask these 7 questions if your partner suspects you of cheating.

Keith Dent is a relationship, life coach at Strive2Succeed Coaching. He is the author of the In The Paint: How to Win at the Game of Love and his work has appeared on sites like The Good Men Project, MamaMia, and The Real Dad’s Network. If this is you and you feel you are having trouble telling your partner about that you are cheating, contact me via email and let’s have a chat.

Why Are We So Consumed by Infidelity?

We as a society may be consumed by Infidelity because couples have a difficult time answering these questions that are about to be examined in Esther Perel’s new book The State of Affairs.  The book goes on sale this Tuesday.

1. Are we still passionately in love with our spouse?
2. Are there some fulfillments that even a good marriage can’t provide?
3. Do erotic desires sometime trump emotional needs?
4. Is it okay to love more than one person?
5. Are we a nation that can no longer be monogamous?

 

These are just some of the questions that are affecting our ability to step beyond the boundary of marriage.

What other challenges do you think we face as a society?

 

The 3 B’s to Restoring Her Trust!

How many times have you betrayed your spouse’s trust. If I asked you that question, you probably would say, “Only a few times, but it wasn’t that bad.” Man, you are fooling yourself.

If I asked your spouse, she would proabably surprise you with the the number of times you have betrayed her. There are instances she just didn’t mention, because it was expected.

One major reason is that we gain our spouse’s trust through our action and not our words. How many times have we missed the boat on that (me included). It could be as simple as forgetting to lock the doors at night, or something more egregious like cheating on your spouse.

Trust must become a verb in your life. What you say will not have the impact you want if there isn’t action behind it. You can tell you wife, you are working on compromising, but if you continue to undermine her point-of-view then you come across as insincere. You can say you put her first, but if you don’t do them, your word have little meaning and trust is destroyed.

Believe you can change.

Countless marriage have been saved, even transformed when the person that violated the trust was able to restore it. It take a change in mindset. It will help if it become a sense of purpose and you spare no effort to please your wife and enjoy her.

Build up the Trust Bank

You have destroyed trust by withdrawing from the trust bank, now you have to put it back. This may take longer than you expect. One reason is the usually the withdrawals are larger than the deposits you put back in and your deposit may also not have a great a value a you realize. For example, if you have the tendency to be late for events that involve your spouse, then all of sudden you turn that around and start to come on time, you may expect a thing to be all good. What you fail to realize is you not coming on time, may mean something deeper than you know yet.

Be patient

And above all else, try not make anymore withdrawals that will erode the progress have already made.

Over the next few week we will examine 13 plays you must do to build back her trust.

If you feel you have exhausted all of your opportunities and you still haven’t regained her trust, contact me at info@strive2succceedcoaching.com. We will come up with a game plan get her trust back and have the relationship you want and need.

 

A May-December Romance – A Tragic Love Story!

V. Stiviano and Los Angeles Clippers owner, Donald Sterling had a May-December romance that has gone tragically wrong. Ms. Stiviano was being sued by his ex-wife even though she was aware of their arrangement. Mr. Sterling’s remarks about his feelings about African Americans was recorded which led him to being banned by the NBA for life. 

Read more here on why this love story went tragically wrong. 

When a kiss is more than a kiss! (Beyond Parenthood)

I usually don’t blog about the latest events on TV unless absolutely necessary, but a show that I watch had a very important topic that I felt my fellow Strivers would want to discuss.

In last night’s episode of Parenthood, Julia Braverman-Graham, played by Erika Christenson, best known for playing the crazy young Madison Bell on Swimfan confesses to her husband, Joel Graham (Sam Jaeger) that she was kissed by Ed (David Denman from The Office).

What struck me about the issue was the raw emotion that was portrayed when a partner s feelings that their marriage isn’t right becomes realized when the truth is revealed by the other.

Later in the episode, as Julia attempts to reconcile with her husband and to “fix” things as she so often does mentions that she has contacted a marriage counselor for help. Joel vehemently admits that counseling isn’t necessary. He states, “No, I don’t want to see a marriage counselor because the problem isn’t the marriage, the problem is you!” “Ever since you lost your job, I don’t even know who you are.” He ends with, “You want to fix it, but I don’t think it can be fixed.”

http://www.nbc.com/parenthood/video/can-this-marriage-be-saved/n44863

Powerful words coming from the man who originally wasn’t the breadwinner in the family due to his wife’s profile job, but was given the opportunity to do step up and he paid for it.

One item I would like to discuss was that he felt that his wife hadn’t been the same since she lost her job, but he never discussed it with her?

Should he have done so? If that happened in your relationship, how would you have address the life change?

5 Lessons about your marriage kids Learn by your Example: Part 2 (Integrity)

In part 2 of 5 Lessons about your marriage kids learn by example is dealing with integrity. As parent, we can’t always choose the type of influence we have on our kids. We can influence them negatively, or positively. So the best thing we can do is to remain true to ourselves. But we must realize how our integrity plays a part in influencing their lives.

Integrity to our spouse. 

In your wedding vows, you usually shout, or some of you reluctantly utter these words, “I take you to be my husband or wife to death do us part.” Currently, only a little more than  half of us take that part of our vows seriously. We live in a society that says, “If it’s broke, don’t fix it, get a new model.”

There may be circumstances that you choose as the reason to get divorce, but you may be showing your kids that if it’s okay to quit divorce, then it’s okay to quit almost anything in your life.

When we decide to get married and then move on to have a family, we are making not only a promise to our wife/husband, but to our kids that we will do whatever it takes to keep the family intact. Since we as human beings aren’t perfect and make mistakes, we may have to work very hard to ensure our children that we won’t  hold those mistakes against our spouses.  

Integrity in our promises to our kids.

Another way our kids learn about integrity is when we make promises to our kids. If we promise to take them on vacation, attend their extra-curricular activity, check their homework, we better keep those promises. When we break them, it shows our kids that integrity isn’t important and it chips away at the type of integrity they should have for themselves. .

Integrity for people in authority.

Finally, the way we talk about people in authority; our President, our public officials, our bosses show our children the type of integrity we have for them. We can teach our kids about integrity not just by what we say, but what we don’t say. Has there ever been a time where your kids repeated something negative you said about someone else?

Are you living a life of integrity for your kids? As an iLoveStrong reader, what are some changes do you have to make to ensure you do?

Why are people having affairs, their sex lives are unhealthy.

There are many reasons why people are having affairs. According to private investigators featured in Friday Night’s 20/20 Caught in a Bad Romance,  they see just as many women as men stepping out on their partners.  Several reasons people have affairs are for excitement, adventure, revenge, companionship, attention or just plain lust. In essence the reason for the affair can be wrapped up in one single sentence. MY RELATIONSHIP ISN’T HEALTHY, THEREFORE MY SEX LIFE ISN’T HEALTHY.

In our society, sex is considered the pinnacle of our relationships. An excellent article on WEBMD’s website reflects the reasons why people have sex. It’s mostly around selfish reasons and not for the good of the relationship. In reality, sex should be used as a barometer for the relationship, not the indicator. Your sex lives should be good and healthy because your relationship reflects the same thing. On the flip side, if your sex life is one-sided, it’s because your relationship is also one-sided. Let me make something clear, I didn’t say sex should be plentiful. If you have a family and a job, the odds that you are “hittin’ it” every night or every weekend for that matter is unrealistic. But when you do have sex, it should be enjoyable and satisfying for both you and your partner.

In the book Rescuing your Love Life  by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend, the Hebrew word for “having sex” means “to know”.  In order to have a healthy sex life, you must truly know your partner.

How do you truly know the person you wake up next to every day? Over the next four days, we will examine how you must know your partner in the most intimate way, absent from fear, shame, hurt, or guilt. So we can get back to having healthy sex lives.

Strive 2 Succeed’s Favorite Things – Gift of Perseverance

As we are headed into the homestretch before Christmas there is some alarming things going on! Folks are giving out ‘gifts of divorce’ for Christmas. I’m not surprised that this is happening, but I am surprised right before the holidays.

In the past couple of weeks Kobe & Vanessa stated they were ending their marriage, and just this past weekend Deion Sanders let all of his FB friends know that he would be single this Christmas. Celebrities aren’t the only one’s getting divorced. I just heard of an acquaintance of mine that was headed to divorce court. It’s already stressful enough deciding what to get the kids for the holidays, you are also going to add the fact that you also will be staying in a different house.

Divorce is not on Strive 2 Succeed’s list. Coach Keith is giving out the gift of perseverance as one of his favorite things.

Anyone can begin the marathon of marriage, but it takes great perseverance to finish one.  We quit when things get difficult, so the difficulty wins and we lose.  When we keep at something in spite of the difficulties we encounter, we’re beginning to win!

It’s similar to owning a home, when you first open the front door for the very first time, it’s a wonderful thing. You can’t wait to decorate it, add new furniture and have your first party. As the years go by, and you live in your home long enough, things start to break down, or even worse your house suffers major damage due to a natural disaster. Do we abandon our homes? No! We salvage what we can until we rebuild. We perservere. Marriage should be the same way.

Marriage and other close relationships require perseverance. In the beginning marriage is great. Left to itself, a marriage will wind down and the couple will drift apart. As soon as that storm of constant arguing, or infidelity, the natural disaster of marriage, lands in your marriage, we  cut our losses.

It takes perseverance to keep a marriage, or any relationship, alive and growing deeper. For Christmas and in 2012, I challenge those of us who are married to persevere at making it work. If you have allowed yourselves to drift away from saying nice things to each other, treating each other with respect, making each other laugh, and providing delightful moments for each other? It’s never too late to turn things around. We all know our mates very well. Think of just three things you could say or do that would please your mate.

 

Strive 2 Succeed’s Favorite Things – The Gift of Protection

When you get married, you become comfortable. For some of us, too comfortable and we let our guard down. So when attacks come, you often wonder how did this happen to me? You didn’t exchange the ‘Gift of Protection’ with your spouse. This is essential if you want to maintain a healthy successful marriage.

What are 5 bows are needed to wrap around our ‘Gift of Protection’

Emotional Integrity

This is a very delicate subject, since in general woman are known to be emotional, and men tend to be emotionless. In reality a women wants a man with emotional depth, but she herself may not be at the level. The main reason, the relationship is based on fear. According to Don Miguel Ruiz. author of The Mastery of Love, he states, “When we are in a fear-based relationship or marriage it’s full of obligations. In the track of fear, whatever we do is because we have to do it, and we expect other people to do something because they have to do it. We have the obligation, and as soon we have to, we resist it. The more resistance we have, the more we suffer. He later goes on to say..”in a relationship there are two halves..your half and your spouse’s half. Of those halves, you are only responsible for your half; you are not responsible for the other half. So in essence, master the half you can control, and not the half you can’t.”

Escalating Conflict

You must agree how you will talk to your spouse when the storm of conflict arrives. Reduce the f-bombs when possible. Determine where and what time of day you will work out your conflicts. Seek a win-win solution by using such techniques as pro vs. con lists or 1-10 importance values. We use them in the boardroom, why not the bedroom?

Infidelity

When we think of protection, infidelity immediately is the first thing that comes to mind, but it’s usually other factors that cause infidelity to occur. Here are some things that you can do to minimize steppin’ out.

• Make a commitment to grow in your marriage (inside and out).
• Use positive talk to help aid the choices you make. Utilize a daily poem, a song, or prayer that helps you focus on importance of your marriage.
• Talk to your spouse about what actions are off-limits and make a pont not to get close to it. If you have ever been on a subway, or train, there is a big yellow line that says, “Please don’t cross.” (I guess Herman Cain never took the subway!)
• Find someone with integrity that will hold you accountable.

Time

This can be challenging especially for all the obligations you have to give to the kids, the job etc…Neglecting this protection mechanism can easily lead to the one I just mentioned.

Tip: Find at least 3 activities that the both of you enjoy doing and make a point to engage in at least one of them a week.

Friends and Family

Friends and family can implode your marriage from the inside-out if you don’t quickly respond to threats. Friends and family at times are very selfish and can impede upon your boundaries. Don’t let them under any circumstances derail your marriage with negative talk  or disrespectful actions toward your spouse.

If you give the “Gift of Protection’ to your spouse with these wonderfully wrapped bows on them, you will have a wonderful marriage filled with joy and peace.

Coach Keith

Are we letting I-Phone Apps handle our Marriages?

If you haven’t seen the news in the past week or so, there is a new I-Phone app call ‘Find My Friends’  which allows you to easily locate your friends and family from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

Unfortunately, this app was used to capture a woman in a lie when she was confronted by her husband in a text message. He asked her where she was in NYC. Instead of telling him, her exact whereabouts in the East Village. She was confirmed by the spouse tracking device to be uptown. The problem with what is being reported by the man tagged ThomasMetz. We aren’t sure what she was doing, she just lied about our whereabouts.

Are we so, quick to assume the worse without even talking to our spouses? What’s next, will there be an app. that will determine if our spouse spends more money while shopping, or an app. that will snuff out that our spouse is really ‘faking’?

Whether it be infidelity, intimacy in our marriage, or finances, we should be able to talk to our spouse as opposed to using our Smart Phones to do it for us.

Are we relying too much on our smart phones to manage our lives?

Strivers! Why can’t we talk to our spouses anymore when it comes to difficult discussions?

Coach Keith