Relationship

How To Cope With Loneliness In Your Long Distance Relationship

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The weekends and times around the holidays can prove especially hard for those in a long distance relationship. You may feel like others who are coupled are having the time of their life, all wrapped up and cozy with their loved one. Accepting the fact that you will have periods of loneliness is the first step towards working to overcome them!

It is important to recognize the chain of events that cause feelings of loneliness to set in. This can be doing an activity by yourself that you may usually associate doing as a couple such as seeing a movie, dining out, or viewing a favorite show on TV. By recognizing why you are feeling lonely, you can then work towards meaningful activities that will minimize the loneliness as well as encourage your growth and strength as an individual.

Your long distance relationship can suffer if your emotional needs are not met. As can happen in any relationship, we can become so preoccupied with managing the relationship as a couple, that we neglect ourselves and discount the importance of doing some things alone. The following are a few ideas to help overcome the inevitable feelings of aloneness that will come up during the separation from your partner:

plan a life for yourself outside of your distance relationship

create an active life with friends – this may include renewing past friendships

return to hobbies that used to provide enjoyment (cooking, knitting, ceramics)

try a new sport or resume one that you previously found challenging and fun

indulge yourself by visiting a spa

workout at a gym

volunteer by reaching out to others

try a creative outlet such as painting, writing in a journal, or taking a dance class

visit a new restaurant – you can always order it as “take out”

do something by yourself or with a friend that your partner would not normally enjoy doing

delve into areas of interest that you have previously not found the time for

find a companion who can also serve as an advisor – particularly if this person is also in a distance relationship so that similar backgrounds and feelings can be shared and understood

By keeping an active life style while separated from your partner, you will benefit in several ways – you will come across as a more interesting and fun person to be around, and will find yourself able to contribute and share with more depth when you do get together with your loved one.

Although loneliness can accompany you for some of the ride, your long distance relationship should not suffer as a result. There are many ways to deal with these feelings and by doing so, it will help you become a more compelling and exceptional partner!

Relationship

Importance Of Customer Relationship Management Or Contact Management

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Companies that need customers in order to build a profit need to have a system in place that effectively and successfully manages the customer/client relationship. Many companies are choosing to have some of their employees earn a certificate in customer relationship management or contact management. This type of education will prepare employees to interact with customers and potential customers in a positive way that encourages future communication and the sought after sale. Customer relationship management teaches the tools that are needed to reach a customer in a way that instills trust and confidence. Some of these tools include methods in the way the customer is approached. Building up a level of common ground with the customer is an effective way to start building that confidence. Studies show that people are drawn to what they are attracted to. When a customer is approached by a salesperson that is confident, well dressed, and can communicate well, they are more likely to listen from the beginning to the end.

Contact management is all about teaching companies to successfully manage all the contacts that they initiate over a period of time. Its one thing to develop those contacts, but its important that you know what to do with them when you have them. Contact management teaches tools that allow employees to take those contacts and turn them into profits and sales. Customer relationship management and contact management are effective tools for generating profits that more and more companies are using to improve their leverage in the market. With the level of competition today in any industry, companies need to have the edge up on all the others. This means utilizing customers and contacts as strongly and effectively as possible without losing one along the way. With these types of tools at their disposal many more companies are watching their customer sales improving.

Relationship

The Relationship Compass – Should You Be Headed Into or Out of Your Relationship

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The only investors staying the course are those with a broken compass.”

— from an ad for BNY Mellon

When I saw this ad it immediately made me think about people who enter and/or stay in unhealthy, unhappy relationships. Some people seem to have a broken Relationship Compass. They enter relationships with people they shouldn’t be with or they stay in relationships they shouldn’t stay in. Let’s look at some of the reasons this happens.

The family that you grew up in might have set a model for relationships that isn’t a good model. It could be a family where there was violence, hostility, intimidation, alcoholism, etc. If this is what you grew up with, then this is what you might consider “normal” or inevitable. If that’s the case, then you could tolerate, accept, or expect such unhealthy things to exist in your own relationships.

The culture that you grew up in could have taught you to expect or tolerate things that shouldn’t exist in a healthy relationship — like sexism, alcoholism, violence, etc. In this case, even if you recognize what’s wrong, you may consider those things the “natural” or inevitable components of relationships.

The family or culture that you grew up in might have told you that leaving relationships is unacceptable, intolerable, unforgivable, or immoral. In this case, even if you figure out that the relationship is a bad place to be, you may believe that you must not or cannot leave it.

Cultures in which obedience or submission are values, particularly in women, give the intentional message that the vows are unconditional, and that there is no justification ever for terminating them, since decision-making isn’t within your power.

Cultures or religions in which the vows are considered unconditional compacts make it clear that terminating a relationship is unacceptable without exception. This can be a moral or religious issue where there is never a justification for “breaking a solemn promise”.

Families sometimes say, explicitly, things like, “You made your bed; now lie in it.” In this case the belief is that choices are irrevocable and that mistakes are uncorrectable. There is even a message, explicit or implicit, that you should be punished for having made a mistake.

There could be compelling reasons to stay even if you feel it’s an unhealthy place to be.

If you believe (accurately or erroneously) that you can’t support yourself or your children if you leave a bad relationship, you may feel you must stay. This consideration sometimes trumps any consideration for the toxic quality for you or your children of remaining permanently in an unhealthy situation.

If you fear retribution if you even attempt to leave, then staying may feel safer than leaving. Even with the increasing availability of sanctuaries for people who leave abusive situations, not everyone is convinced that safety can be ensured if they leave.

If you fear that you will be rejected by extended family, friends, or society if you leave, you may stay because you fear ostracism from your support system. It can feel safer, and even more comfortable, to remain in an unhealthy situation and retain your social network than it would be to leave and be isolated socially.

Sometimes people believe that the natural course of relationships involves phases during which the relationship is not good or positive and that this is just the way it is, either temporarily or as a permanent evolution of the relationship.

If this is a temporary situation AND it is addressed by one or both partners, that’s not necessarily troublesome or a reason to consider exiting the relationship.

If it’s been an increasingly negative trajectory, this should not be assumed to be the natural course of relationships. Healthy relationships get BETTER over time, not worse. As partners mature and as they increasingly learn how to be better partners, healthy relationships grow stronger, more positive, and more loving. (Sometimes that’s because there was in fact a rough patch that they navigated in healthy and growthful ways.)

Serious relationships deserve serious consideration and substantial effort before they’re terminated. I am not advocating precipitous action to terminate a relationship because there’s a rocky moment or even problematic behavior or interaction.

I am suggesting that for some people, because of history, training, or personality, or because of fear, loyalty, or unreasoning hope, sometimes the Relationship Compass points IN when it should, more self-respectfully, point OUT.

Relationship

The Weekend Relationship

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During the week there are hundreds of details that need tending to. There are things to do, people to see, places to go. So its not surprising that romance naturally falls to the back of the list of things to do. To many people, romance is a treat that is to be savored only on special occasions; or whenever it feels like we deserve it, usually after denying ourselves of it in favor of a lot of hard work.

As satisfying and renewing as romantic relationships are, we are still not quite at the place to see them as part of a healthy lifestyle. Even though there is a lot of hard scientific evidence to support making romance a healthy part of every day, many people leave it to the weekends to partake of their special treat.

Couples who dont live to together may only have the weekends to see each other or spend any real quality time to together. But even married couples, and couples who live together, put their romance off until Friday after work. This may seem okay to a certain extent, but given the fact that there are other things that need to be done on the weekends, that didnt get done during the week, it might be difficult to give yourself permission to do nothing but take some private time doing nothing but enjoying another persons company. But if there isnt some time and attention given to it, a relationship will suffer. It may suffer in silence for a while, but it will suffer just the same.

If you are at the point that you dont think you have time, even on the weekends, to dedicate to keeping your love alive, its time for you to drop some things off your schedule and make some time. Weekends are a good place to start. At first it will seem like just another task for the week, but it will soon be far from feeling like work. All it takes is some planning and organization. In the same time you could compile a grocery list, you can make a list of things to do that will nourish your relationship.

Start making plans for your weekend on Monday morning. Not only will it give you a good head start on the weekend, but it will give you something to look forward to all week. It also makes it less possible to cancel your plans if you have them all mapped out, and have been doing things all week to get ready for them.

Making time for love can be as simple as putting a load of laundry in after work every day so it isnt piled up to the ceiling by Friday night. Its also a good idea to do grocery shopping on Thursday instead of Saturday or Sunday, so its out of the way. It also helps to do errands on Friday after work so that there will be no real need to even go out of the house on the weekend if you dont want to.

There a lot of ways to structure lifes details so that they do not take over all the good things in life that really should be the rule, and not the exception; its just a matter of doing them. With enough practice you could even learn to include a few week days into your weekend romance.

Relationship

Top 10 Lottery Horror Stories

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Not very many people win the lottery, but of those who win, many lose all their winnings and end up with less money than before they won. Some winners were simply foolish, some were greedy, some had greedy relatives and friends, and some fell prey to thieves and crooks. Here are the stories of 10 people who won the lottery then lost it all.

#1 Evelyn Adams

In 1985 AND 1986, Evelyn Adams won the lottery – equaling a total winning of $5.4 million. However, today – she has no money “Winning the lottery isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be,” says Evelyn Adams, who won the New Jersey lottery not just once, but twice (1985, 1986), to the tune of $5.4 million. Today the money is all gone and Adams lives in a trailer. She lost money in slot machines, and couldn’t seem to say no to relatives and friends. Evelyn’s big win ended in a big loss.

#2 William Post

In 1988, William Post won $16.2 million in the Pennsylvania lottery but now lives on his Social Security. Post’s former girlfriend sued him for a share of his winnings and one of his brothers was arrested for hiring a hit man to kill him, hoping to inherit a share of the winnings. His relationship with his other siblings was also strained and he spent some time in jail. Within a year, he was $1 million in debt and eventually declared bankruptcy. He now lives on only $450 a month and food stamps.

#3 Suzanne Mullins

In 1993, Suzanne Mullins won $4.2 million in the Virginia lottery. Now she’s deeply in debt to a company that lent her money using the winnings as collateral. She borrowed $197,746.15 from this company, but eventually stopped making payments on the loan. She blamed the debt on the lengthy illness of her uninsured son-in-law, who needed $1 million for medical bills. Needless to say, her lottery win did not end in happiness.

#4 Ken Proxmire Ken Proxmire won $1 million in the Michigan lottery. Within 5 years he filed for bankruptcy after moving to California and starting a car business with his brothers. He has now returned to his job as a machinist.

#5 Willie Hurt

In 1989, Willie Hurt of Lansing, Mich., won $3.1 million. Only two years later he was broke and charged with murder after spending his fortune on a divorce and crack cocaine.

#6 Janite Lee

In 1993, Janite lee of Missouri won $18 million. Lee was generous to a variety of causes, including various political organizations, education programs and the community services. According to published reports, eight years after winning, Lee had filed for bankruptcy with only $700 left.

#7 Southeastern Family

In the early 1990s, a Southeastern family won $4.2 million. In almost no time at almost all of their winnings were spent on a huge house, cars, and various requests from family members. They bought a huge house and succumbed to repeated family requests for help in paying off debts. Eleven years after winning, the couple got divorced, the house was sold and what was left of their lottery winnings had to be split.

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