Sometimes seeing the beauty that awaits us after a lifetime of love is all it takes to help us gather the courage to take a plunge. I hope these videos of amazing couples who have weathered the storm of life together will inspire some of you to love more deeply and honestly.
Danny & Annie from StoryCorps on Vimeo.
Fred and Lorraine
Sarah Kaye and Phil Kaye wrote and performed this poem about the expectations and realities of love. They beautifully describe the evolution of love, our shifting and maturing expectations, and our attitude towards love found... and lost. It's a beautiful piece. You will be better for watching it.
This couple has learned to support each other throughout the years despite having to endure extreme physical adversity. Warning: Do not watch this video if you aren't ok with shedding some tears.
When a relationship has a fantastic sex life, it adds that extra little silver lining to even the smallest moments of life. But when the sex life is suffering, it can reverberate negativity, induce insecurity, spread doubt and resentment, and even straight up destroy relationships.
Brittany went on a one year mission to regain her confidence, and reinvigorate the passion between her and her husband. In this inspiring story, in under a year, this one couple resurrected their stale sex life and their relationship as a whole.
96-year-old Fred wrote a song for his wife as a response to a local singer/songwriter competition. Fred's wife, Lorraine, had recently passed away after 75 years of marriage. Listen to the story of his relationship and his song:
A Letter From Fred from Green Shoe Studio on Vimeo.
Read the story of a couple that meets on the subway in New York that was published in one of the most unusual places you could imagine... Craigslist. It's a fantastic read. I honestly didn't think it would be that great, but after I started reading, I couldn't stop. It's a fantastic work of amateur fiction.
One of my favorite websites, Brain Pickings, shows off an awesome book illustrated by James Thurber, one of the most beloved artists from The New Yorker. The book is entitled "Is Sex Necessary?" The article is definitely worth checking out... and if you feel so inclined, the book as well.
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Nearly every Friday, Ted and Lucienne go dancing together. It's the desire to be a couple like them that inspired me to learn to dance.
Learning to dance is one of the best things I've ever done. It's not easy, but when you "get it," the joy you experience on the dance floor with your partner is incomparable.
Sometimes thinking of a date is... well, more work than the date itself. So, maybe you're next date night should be to make a jar of dates. Use colored tongue depressors to write down a few dozen date ideas (maybe stealing from the list of date ideas below), and categorize them by price and effort.
Red: Expensive dates out of the house. Stuff like a night at the symphony, or a fancy restaurant go here. Dark Pink: Less expensive dates out of the house. A night at the movies, or dance classes would go here. Light Pink: Stay at home dates. Board games, video games, and dessert showdowns would go here. White: Sex? I don't know. There was no category for white sticks on this lady's blog. But sex seems like a good fit.
Kermit is one of my favorite Muppets, and this is easily one of my favorite quotes. Sometimes you just meet someone, and you share this connection, and you are instantly.... well, there's not a word yet for old friends who've just met.
I've been told that you can always tell which couples at a restaurant are married... they're the ones not talking to each other. After years, or even decades together, it's understandable that you can just plain run out of things to talk about. Sometimes it happens to me after like 3 dates. So, here's a huge list of questions to spark some fun conversation. Or you can check out this cool-looking book* that basically serves the same purpose.
Here's a list of dates (there are actually 79 on the list)... enough to go on one a week for a year.
Don't forget to join the 30 Day True Love Challenge! It's starts tomorrow. [jcolumns]
Join the email list to receive daily inspiration, motivation, and success stories. We'll do our best to make this totally worth your while. Trust us, 30 days is a lot longer than it seems, and a few days in, things start to suck. A little inspiration can go a long way. [gravityform id="6" name="30 Day Challenge Email List" title="false" description="false"][jcol/]
For a bit of extra encouragement, community, and inspiration, join the 30 Day Challenge Facebook Group by clicking the button below:
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Of course you do...
Big deal. Everybody wants true love.
The real question is, what are you doing about it?
We all say we want true love, yet we fill our lives with hollow emotional clutter. We claim to want to experience deep connection, yet we are constantly on the lookout for a new way to numb our feelings.
We're addicted to Facebook, video games, our jobs, porn, The Bachelor, alcohol, and food.
We use our vices to escape.
When we are bored, we tune out the world with a marathon of Arrested Development on Netflix and a bottle of Nutella.
When we're feeling that social anxiety, we numb our fear with booze.
When we're lonely we flip on our computers and pull up some porn and well... you get the idea.
Let's say true love is, well, true. By its very definition, it must not be false, fictional, or illusory. In short, it must conform with reality.
Yet we sit around and complain that we'll never find it while we fill our lives with every empty and hollow counterfeit for love we can get our hands on.
Porn is the opposite of romance.
Facebook is the anthesis of true friendship.
Drunken nights ending in blackouts are the antithesis of late-night soul talks resulting in deep and meaningful connection.
Where's true love? It's out there. What are you willing to give up to get it?
Let's get vulnerable! Let's connect, experience emotions together, laugh, cry, dance, scream! And let's make room to experience true love!
We're starting on Monday, August 19th. You can join our Facebook group, or sign up to get daily emails to help you through this process. Check out more details on this page. Be part of the community that is bringing love back in style!
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Join the email list to receive daily inspiration, motivation, and success stories. We'll do our best to make this totally worth your while. Trust us, 30 days is a lot longer than it seems, and a few days in, things start to suck. A little inspiration can go a long way. [gravityform id="6" name="30 Day Challenge Email List" title="false" description="false"][jcol/]
For a bit of extra encouragement, community, and inspiration, join the 30 Day Challenge Facebook Group by clicking the button below:
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Kissing is good for you. Go do it! Seriously... go...
Ever wonder what it's like to bring a human into this world? Watch as one of life's most beautiful moments is captured for a beautiful couple in a stunningly beautiful way. Check out Armosa Studios for more phenomenal videos like this one.
River Asher from Armosa Studios on Vimeo.
In this video, Garth constructed an elaborate plan to surprise Tess, his girlfriend, with the question of a lifetime. Check out the video below to see how it went, or this link for more details on the relationship:
Kiss me if I'm wrong... but dinosaurs still exist, right?
Sexuality can be a touchy subject. There are those who are extremely conservative when it comes to sex and consider the hint that humans are sexual beings a taboo... and then there's Howard Stern. We all fall somewhere on the spectrum of what we're willing to talk about, and how we want to teach our children about sex and sexuality.
One thing is for sure, demonizing sexuality and instilling fear of ones own desires and body is never a healthy approach. This article beautifully addresses the issue. Read it. Seriously. It was phenomenal.
Popular culture sets up this idea that men are sexual predators who need to resort to trickery and cologne to fulfill their one and only mission, which is sticking their penis in a girl.
It’s sad. It’s insulting. And it’s damaging.
This way of looking at male sexuality conflates sexuality with predation. It means that he who possesses sexuality is assumed a predator.
A great comic via Simple Marriage that illustrates a feeling that is only too real.
[jbox title="Thanks for Reading!" border="5" radius="15"] This Week In Love is a weekly collection of all things love published every Sunday. If you've seen/read/created something you'd like to see featured on This Week In Love, just drop us a line![/jbox]
This video is just the right amount of adorable:
This article is more tailored to the ladies, and contains some lovely advice. Read it. Talk about it with your significant other. What can you do better? What are your "team rules"?
All the crap you read in magazines about honesty, sense of humor, communication, sensitivity, date nights, couples weekends, blah blah blah can be trumped by one word: loyalty. You and your spouse are a team of two. It is you against the world. No one else is allowed on the team, and no one else will ever understand the team’s rules.
There are a lot of things you need to get across this universe. Warp drive... wormhole refractors... you know the thing you need most of all? You need a hand to hold.
Here's a link to the article. It's a fantastic read. Here's one of my favorite excerpts. I have totally felt this way before:
I’m intensely certain that nothing in life has ever made me more angry, frustrated or annoyed than my wife. Inevitably, just when I think I’ve given all I can possibly give, she somehow finds a way to ask for more.
The worst part of it all is that her demands aren’t unreasonable. One day she expects me to stay emotionally engaged. The next, she's looking for me to validate the way that she feels. The list goes on—but never ventures far from things she perfectly well deserves as a wife.
No "Best Of" post is complete without a GIF... and this one is priceless.
Sometimes the best way to be successful is to know where the pitfalls are, and how to avoid them. This study goes over the science of relationships and evaluates some of the most common the signs of divorce.
Some great tips to keep things interesting, and avoid allowing your relationship to go stale.
Don’t be the “That’s Not My Thing” guy. That guy is a total dick and a shitty husband to boot. And please feel free to flip genders here, ’cause the same hostile adjectives apply to the wife who thinks dressing up like fucking Chewbacca at Comic Con is stupid, every bit as much as it does for the dude who refuses to ever sit down in front of a scrapbook. Don’t be a macho dick. Don’t be a mean bitch. It’s all the same in the end. And it’ll ruin a relationship.
[jbox title="Thanks for Reading!" border="5" radius="15"] This Week In Love is going to be a regular thing here on The Loveumentary. If you've seen/read/created something you'd like to see featured on This Week In Love, just drop us a line![/jbox]
I meet and counsel with couples every single day. Each couple has their own problems and struggles. I've realized that, there's a huge issue now that didn't exist 5 years ago.
Advancements in technology now allow us to be in constant communication with someone just by typing in words on a phone, sitting down at a computer, or using an iPad. We have forgotten about the importance of spending time one-on-one with our significant others.
When you text someone or call someone when you're with your significant other - whether you’re meaning to or not - you’re telling the person you’re in a relationship that what you’re doing can’t wait. I’ve seen people cheat emotionally and physically, not because they wanted to, but because they couldn’t put their phone down. Texts and Facebook are just too damn important.
Here’s my advice... you don’t have to follow it:
When you’re with someone you care about, put your damn phone away! Make sure your partner is the most important person in the room, and make sure they know it!
If you want to text someone or call someone don’t hide your phone, do it right in front of her so she can see the screen. If you want to check Twitter or Facebook, look at it together. If he wants to look at your phone let him. Don’t get in the habit of deleting messages, texts or emails.
Be fully trusting of each other, and put the phone away.
I swear, if people could follow this advice there would be so many less problems and so much less heartbreak.
To further reiterate the point, watch this video:
[jbox title="Pro Tip!" border="5" radius="15"]
If you are having a hard time putting your damn phone away, check out The Phonkerchief. Wrap up your cellular device, and give your partner a visual reminder that they are your number one priority.[/jbox]
The leaders of every generation continuously set out to become better than the generation of their fathers. We stive to improve upon their failures and shortcomings. We want to provide our children with more opportunity and a better education, shield our families from the pains we suffered, be more attentive, patient, involved, supportive, healthy, eco-friendly, and tolerant and less bigoted, work-obsessed, over-protective, close-minded, and all the other hyphenated words you can imagine up.
The pressure we put on ourselves and each other to rise above and build upon what we've been given is daunting.
I don't know about you, but I was never given a manual or a training course for how to be an ideal spouse or father. This makes taking the obvious next step in my life an incredibly intimidating one. I mean, if you fail a class in your youth, you can beg for extra credit, or worst-case scenario, retake it. Lose your job? Good thing you're still a dependent of your parents.
There's no real safety net as an adult. Get married and find out you're a crappy spouse? Or worse... find out you're married to one? Tough luck. Work it out, or be branded with the mark of divorce.
Don't spend enough time with your kids? Spend too much time being a helicopter parent? Don't give them enough opportunity? Overwhelm them with too many extra-curriculars? Discipline them too much? Don't provide them enough freedom to act as individuals?
Too bad. You can't un-make your decisions. You can only do the best you can with what experience you've been handed and the resources you have available.
So, what do you do to overcome that fear? How do you come to terms with the fact that your best may not be good enough? How do you stare failure in the face every day, and conquer it?
[Video Transcript] "She's something that we both created. We both still marvel at her. It's most obvious on a song called Jay Z Blue. And it deals with, you know, like, my pop left when I was young, so he didn't teach me how to be a man nor how to raise a child or treat a woman. So of course, with my karma, they're the two things I don't have, right? And I have a daughter. It's the paranoia of not being a great dad."
I’ve helped a lot of incredible people fix frustrating problems in their marriage, and learn the skills to create a relationship more incredible than they thought was possible. Here’s what just a few of them have said:
