Trust In God !

Grief within Infidelity

What Creates Fertile Grounds for Affairs?

Just like a garden, relationships need to be nurtured and tended. All too often, the garden of our relationship is left unattended; weeds grow and plants die due to lack of water and sun (i.e., care and attention). It is all too easy, especially in child-centered families, for partners to focus on the practicalities of child care to the exclusion of their relationship.

Parents be warned: The seeds for a future affair can all too easily be sown in the early stages of starting a family. Neglecting your partner and your relationship for the sake of the children does not create a happy family. It creates emotional instability, especially if you or your partner start looking to fulfill your emotional needs outside the relationship. Make sure to devote some time to your relationship, too. Your children will be happier and more secure if they see parents who have a strong, loving bond, even if this means the kids don’t always get to come first.

It is also easy, especially in long-term relationships, for couples with or without children to start taking each other for granted or fall into the rut of routine. While there is comfort in structure and predictability, you don’t want to let your relationship become stagnant. Affairs are often a misguided way to seek excitement and aliveness. Unfortunately, having an affair will take you away from your primary relationship rather than toward it. In effect, you are starting a new garden somewhere else and leaving your current garden to wither in the dark. Make the effort occasionally to do something fun and different together. Why? It creates intimacy and brings growth and vitality to your relationship. As with gardening, you want to add fertilizer and occasionally turn the soil so that your plants and flowers will flourish.

Still, you could follow all the above suggestions and tend the garden of your relationship with much care and love, only to encounter the threat of an affair springing up like weeds. As Shirley Glass warns: “A happy marriage is not a vaccine against infidelity.”

To really vaccinate your relationship against affairs, Glass recommends the following guidelines. While some might find them too restrictive—and, as one lesbian couple complained, “too hetero” and another poly couple pointed out, “way too monogamous”—it is worth having them as a reference point. In the guidelines below, poly couples may want to replace the word marriage with primary relationship, but be warned: this list is definitely pro-monogamy.

7 Tips for Preventing Infidelity

1. Maintain appropriate walls and windows. Keep the windows opened at home. Put up privacy walls with those who could threaten your marriage.
2. Recognize that work can be a danger zone. Don’t lunch or take private coffee breaks with the same person all the time. When you travel with a coworker, meet in public rooms, not a room with a bed.
3. Avoid emotional intimacy with attractive alternatives to your committed relationship. Resist the desire to rescue an unhappy soul who pours his or her heart out to you.
4. Protect your marriage by discussing relationship issues at home. If you do need to talk to someone else about your marriage, be sure that person is a friend of your marriage. If the friend disparages marriage, respond with something positive about your own relationship.
5. Keep old flames from reigniting. If a former lover is coming to a class reunion, invite your partner to come along. If you value your marriage, think twice about having lunch alone with an old flame. (This may be unrealistic in the lesbian community, as exes are so often part of one’s community and even friendship circle.)
6. Don’t go over the line when online with Internet friends. Discuss your online friendships with your partner and show him or her your e-mail if he or she is interested. Invite your partner to join in correspondence so your Internet friends won’t get any wrong ideas. Don’t exchange sexual fantasies online.
7. Make sure your social network is supportive of your marriage. Surround yourself with friends who are happily married and who don’t believe in fooling around.

Let’s look at the worst-case scenario. You or your partner has an affair. How can you help your relationship recover?

Share this Candele of Love

On this fine day of July I like to remember all those who have provided experience, love, care, and understanding during the course of my life and career.

Vincent, My Pop!
Salvatore, - Nonno
Rosalia, - Great Grandmother
Blessed Paul VI -  Pope and Educator
Msgr Felix... My Zio and Mentor
Msgr Andrew, Educator and Mentor
Msgr. Patrick, Educator and Mentor
Mother Josefina,  Encouraged and  Mentor

I ask for their Intercession upon me and all my loved ones at this moment.

What stops you from practicing self-compassion?

1. Self-sabotaging thought: Self-compassion is selfish.
To the contrary, self-compassion actually helps you be more compassionate and more helpful to others. Welford writes, “Having become more self-compassionate, people often report having greater strength to deal with conflicts and to become better friends, parents, and colleagues. Lack of self-compassion, by contrast, means that we are more likely to become immobilized or consumed by our own difficulties and therefore less able to help others.”

2. Self-sabotaging thought: My needs aren’t as important as someone else’s.
Many of us think that other people’s needs trump our own. But here’s what happens when we neglect our needs (including the need for self-compassion): we become depleted and even feel angry, resentful and taken for granted.
Plus, remember that here’s no harm in trying out self-compassion. As Welford writes, “If you still think that the needs of others are more important than your own, start practicing self-compassion for the sake of others. You can always revert back to your old ways if you find it doesn’t help.”

3. Self-sabotaging thought: Self-compassion is weak.
Self-compassion is actually courageous. According to Welford, “It involves facing our difficulties and experiencing a range of emotions that are uncomfortable.” (Yes, it does. Self-compassion is about identifying, acknowledging and expressing our emotions “instead of bottling them up.”)
It also involves “the commitment to change ourselves, which requires courage and strength.”
For instance, being self-compassionate might mean standing up for yourself, even though you’re oh-so used to remaining quiet. It also might mean letting people see the real you.

4. Self-sabotaging thought: Self-compassion sets us up for falls or failure.
There’s a common fear that if you don’t expect the worst, you’re clearly not preparing yourself for something big and terrible. As such, people worry about being in a positive mood or being too relaxed. People also worry that positive feelings will somehow attract negative ones.
I’m definitely one of those people.
But self-compassion is actually a helpful way to prepare yourself for tough times. Self-compassion, writes Welford, “…builds your ability to cope with hard situations, and it’s through coping with setbacks that self-confidence in our ability to cope increases.”
And, again, remind yourself that you’re simply going to sample self-compassion. “If fear of falling gets in the way of your experiencing positive feelings, it may be helpful just to think, I’ll give it a go. I can always revert to my old ways.”

5. Self-sabotaging thought: Self-compassion is too overwhelming.
When you’re so accustomed to bashing yourself, self-compassion may certainly feel different and difficult. And that’s OK.
You can start slow. Welford suggests the following ideas: Start gradually, like you would if you were learning how to swim (you’d start at the shallow end, and then slowly move into deeper waters). Engage in fun, healthy activities and experiences, such as hanging out with close friends. If you think you need extra support, see a therapist.

Cultivating Self-Compassion

Here’s a list of how-to posts on practicing self-compassion:

• Connecting to your self-compassion.
• The case for self-compassion.
• Strategies for practicing self-compassion.
• Practicing self-compassion when you have a mental illness.
• More exercises on self-compassion.
• An exercise in self-compassionate parenting.
• Using compassion to cope with anxiety.

What stops you from practicing self-compassion? What’s helped you in practicing self-compassion?

Father's Day for the Doctor !

My Pop departed from me in 1996. The day has never escaped my memory. The day was something unexpected for my Pop was Bigger than big in my life. He was the only that provided me with the tools to become the man I am today.

My Pop is now interceding for me before God's Throne every awaking day of my life.

Happy Father's Day - Papa !!! 

Remember and Never Forget !

June 1 Memory !