There are therapists and dating experts who teach those of us who are still entangled, bound, wrapped up in and held by a lover who is no longer a happy part of our lives, how to let go.

It is said that you can’t enter a new relationship while you’re still tied to the old. That you must release this person to leave room in your life and your heart for your true soulmate to come on in.

It’s a fact that our bodies and hearts get connected to those we love and have sex with. It’s chemical, and spiritual, and emotional, and it doesn’t just go away because we say goodbye. And it’s true that every time we have the same thought about that goodbye, we experience the same feeling we felt when it happened.

And yet, it’s romantic. Lost love is romantic. Pining is romantic. Yeats and Keats and Lord Byron are romantic. Singing about love isn’t as romantic as singing about the love that got away. Longing makes me feel alive. It taps into my imagination and takes me to a place of romance and lust and passion that this daily life of recycling, cleaning the kitchen, working and cuddling don’t even graze. And it taps into my pain. What is it about pain that feels so, well – romantic?

Many of us have pain and love hooked up in such a way that easy-going men don’t feel romantic to us. Nice men who don’t intend to hurt us feel like old shoes. The pointy, spindly ones that’ll kill our backs and crunch our toes are the shoes and the men we want. Even while we’re wearing running shoes, we’re dreaming of stilettos. And we fault men for thinking like this.

Letting go, to me, is a moment by moment act and triumph of courage. Not just letting go of a person, but of a state of mind, a thought of pain that leads to a feeling of pain that then feels so powerful, passionate, poetic and sexy that it trumps everything else around.

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If you are constantly fighting and getting into conflicts with the love of your life, and are always wondering why your girlfriend or wife can never understand you, you can do something to bring back the passion in your relationship with her. The results you want may not be instant; in fact, anything which promises you overnight success is always bogus. However, your desired results will come surely and certainly, just as the sun would rise from the East every morning, if you would put in the right effort, patience and concentration.

Here are some simple strategies to get you started, and before long, you should be able to break the barriers of stubborness, of blindness, and of bitterness in your relationship with your loved one, and replace them with feelings of affection, warmth, laughter and love for you.

1) BE the solution Find out for yourself and understand the reasons which bring about all the fightings, arguments, and even break-up. You have the power to turn the relationship around to your favor and create that long lasting and harmonious relationship which you so desire. Whatever difficulties or obstables you are facing in your relationship right now, know that if you change your attitude, your outer environment will change as well. Be the solution, and start watching miracles happen.

2) It’s about being the Right man If you take your relationship seriously, are sure you want to love this woman all your life, and even keep her by your side, you have to decide to be the right man to her. By this, I do not mean to say you have to change drastically into something else and not being yourself anymore. Trust me, if you are not being yourself, no women would ever want to be with you. Women love honest, trustworthy, and committed men.

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When it comes to fighting and disagreeing with men, women frequently make a critical mistake which ends up causing them to feel hurt and lonely. Here is the scenario that typically happens. During a routine conversation there is a disagreement between the woman and her husband/boyfriend. It starts out in a logical manner with two competent speaking adults simply talking about a problem or disagreement. Then at some point in the discussion that woman gets her feelings hurt and responds in an emotional manner. All of a sudden the entire dynamic of the conversation has changed and the man feels he has been betrayed.

While the discussion was logical and factual, it had the similar feel of a business meeting where everyone has the sole goal of finding the answer to the problem. No one would dare interject their feelings into such a discussion for fear they would be viewed has weak and childish. In the business world, accomplishing the task is the primary goal, not making everyone feel good. This is how a man views a discussion that is logical and factual. He believes that if her idea is so good then she should be able to prove it. “She wants to prove her point so I’ll prove mine. May the best man win,” is how he thinks and has no idea that she only wants to be heard/understood. When women interject their feelings into a discussion that has become competitive, it makes men feel as though they are being blamed for being logical which causes them to react in anger. Men say to themselves, “She ask me to prove my point and when I do she gets her feelings hurt!” He has been blind sided by the one thing that makes him feel powerless, a woman in pain. The man feels tricked by acting strong only to pull the feelings card out when she was starting to loose the argument so now he feels entitled to punish her. That really is how most men think in that scenario.

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Looking for a way to ignite the sparks in your marriage? Want to feel closer and more loving towards your mate? Practicing praise increases the love energy in any relationship at any age.

Using this valuable tip from our workbook Second Time Around: Reinventing Your Retirement Marriage makes the love light glow!

Motivating with Praise

In your marriage, one partner may exhibit behaviors the other partner doesn’t like. Undesirable situations can occur. Trying to change or clear away what you don’t want in your marriage is never as effective as focusing on what you do want.

Here are several reasons change works this way:

1. When you try to change an undesirable behavior, you are telling your partner her behavior is wrong. None of us accept being wrong as easily as being right.

2. Often criticism is backed by anger that puts your partner on the defensive. No one is at his creative best when forced to the defensive position.

3. When you seek more of what you want, you are in fact praising yourself or your partner for what is going on. Praise is one of the best motivators to encourage people. Remember to apply this to yourself; praise yourself often.

4. Negativity, either expressed or just thought about, causes you to lose your feeling of power. Check this out; experience how you feel when in your mind you criticize your partner. Now, in your thoughts, give praise and notice the difference in how you feel about yourself. You feel more powerful in the praise scenario.

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Why was the ABC show Dancing With the Stars, which pulled over 22.4 million viewers for its final episode, so popular?

Star power was one reason.

From suave thespian George Hamilton, long-legged pro wrestler Stacy Keibler, and soap opera actress Lisa Rinna to NFL great Jerry Rice, rap mogul Master P and the winner, entertainer Drew Lachey, the show’s celebrity quotient was high.

Pairing celebs to train and dance with world class ballroom dancers in front of a studio audience was a novel idea playing off the allure of competition and the reality show craze.

Another reason the program is a hit is audience interaction, as with American Idol. The show’s judges have a say, but audience votes via telephone were worth half of the votes.

Executive producer Conrad Green, quoted on ABC’s 20/20, identified yet another basis for the high ratings: “People love to see partner’s dancing.”

The surge in swing dancing since the ‘90s is proof that Green’s claim is true. Couples swirling, twirling and swinging in tandem to music reprises a duet as old as Adam and Eve.

The 2004 film Shall We Dance?, starring Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez added fuel to current dance vogue, and the documentary Mad Hot Ballroom (2005), which follows a group of New York City students as they compete for a dancing title, helped people across the nation become aware of this wonderful art. On April 7, 2006 New Line Cinema releases Take the Lead, a dramatization of the same story as the documentary, starring Alfre Woodard, and Antonio Banderas in the role of ballroom instructor and competitor Pierre Dulaine.

Perhaps parents witnessing their children dancing solo to today’s popular music released nostalgia for truly social dancing as with the ballroom and Latin American styles featured on Dancing With the Stars and the films above. This is true not just in the United States; the North American version of the series was based on the BBC’s international smash, Strictly Come Dancing.

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