8 Ways To Figure Out If Your Partner Is 'The One' Based On Marie Kondo's 'KonMari' Method

If you're a Marie Kondo fan, then you know her KonMari method for decluttering your life is amazing and starts with a simple question: "Does this spark joy?"

But the Marie Kondo method for how to declutter is amazing when applied to other areas of your life too, like love and relationships. Yes, there is a way to use KonMari to declutter your mind and reorganize your thoughts when it comes down to finding out if your partner is really "the one."

"Does it spark joy?" might also be the perfect relationship question. Can you look at your partner — the person you fell in love with — and answer yes when asking yourself, “Does he spark joy?” 

Read more here to see how her method can be used to explore your relationship.

Click here to see my Spring, 2016 Newsletter, with my recent posts and others I've enjoyed on health and wellness, relationships, dating and post-divorce adjustment. And there's news about my new office. Read it here…

For the next 5 days my book, The Post-Divorce Survival Guide. Tools for Your Journey, is available FREE.

My Summer, 2015, Newsletter and FREE Book

The year's top posts on social media, health and wellness, relationships and post-divorce adjustment are all in my newsletter. You will also find a link to my book, The Post-Divorce Survival Guide. Tools for Your Journey, which is available FREE for the next 3 days.

The newsletter starts like this:

Reflecting my continuing interest in social media, this post was published on Care2 Healthy Living and Thought Catalogue:

·         6 Reasons Saying Bye To Facebook Will Make You A Happier Person. People are incensed about Facebook's manipulation of emotional content. Psychologist that I am, I wasn't too upset about it. Since my dissertation involved deception, how hypocritical would that be? And, I seriously doubt that Facebook's research killed anyone, as one Tweeter apparently wondered. 

Read the rest here...

7 Times Love At First Sight Can Actually Happen

Renée Zellweger explained it to Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire with, "You had me at 'hello'." Many of us have experienced it. According to a recent DatingAdvice.com survey, 57% of Americans believe it can happen. There are many reasons we meet someone and later proclaim, "It was love at first sight."

You be the judge of whether these factors behind the love at first sight phenomenon reflect true love:

1.      Your radar instantly detects your perfect match

Be it washed out jeans, dirty blond, slightly unkempt hair and a copy of the very novel you are reading in hand, or a designer suit, expensive haircut and leather briefcase on deck, a quick look reveals a lot about someone. You compare the information with your perfect-mate template in nanoseconds and it's a match, or not. It's not just superficial. Appearance gives you information about a stranger. What you wear and carry signal some of the things you find important.

Read more here...

 Get information and reviews about dating sites here…

People, Work, Love & Dogs

A high school student e-mailed me asking for a professional opinion about love. I thought it was quite resourceful of her. Here’s what I said:

There are many theories of love and there's been a lot of psychological research on the subject. I think there are different kinds of love.

I like the idea that love has 3 dimensions. One is intimacy. You might be intimate with a close friend. Another is passion. That's a feeling you might have for a potential romantic partner, even one that you've just met. The third is commitment. You might feel a commitment to your child or parent. These three dimensions come together in different ways, which are different kinds of love. For example, you might feel commitment, intimacy and passion for your boyfriend or spouse.

How do you know if you're in love? You ask yourself how you feel about the relationship along those 3 dimensions. It's very subjective. I think the manner in which love affects daily life varies a great deal among people. For some it's all consuming, and people have written about this type of obsessive love. For others, it's part of the fabric of life, like work. In my opinion, a good balance between love relationships and work is very healthy.

It sounds good, doesn’t it? I talk to a lot of people trying to figure out if they’re still in love. Often, they feel the commitment, sometimes the intimacy, but not the passion anymore. You know, I love him but I’m not in love with him. People have also talked about passionate love vs companionate love. The latter being the kind of love you have for someone you feel is a life companion, like a best friend and even more. Sometimes passionate love develops into companionate love. Sometimes vice versa.

Part of what we have to decide is what we need from a relationship at this particular time in our lives. It’s kind of like work. We might not always love our work, but at times we really do. When we love it, we can’t imagine being without it. Another decision facing you is whether you can make the commitment, whether it’s to work, to another person, to a dog even. Why is it we forgive our pets and children so much, but not our partners, whether in love or work relationships?

A final note: we need to decide what makes us happy and how to make that happen in all of our relationships with people, work and dogs.