Is your long distance relationship thriving…or just surviving? Are you madly in love with someone but cannot find a way to live in the same city? How do you support your relationship when you have very real physical distance between you?

I have seen couples fall apart because they could not sustain their relationship due to the distance between them, and I have seen others who find creative, romantic ways to keep the love alive. I know people who had a long distance relationship for years, complained about it, and finally got together in the same city, only to break up months after they lived near each other. Some people have long distance relationships and like it that way. And some couples don’t like the distance at all, but manage to still stay close.

How do they do that? Here are some of the challenges that exist when you have an out-of-town romance, and what you can do about it:

* Commitment

If you have just met, take care to spend enough time to truly know each other before you get in a committed relationship. There is no substitute for face-to-face communication. You need to meet each other’s friends, family, and co-workers. You need to experience good times and stressful ones together. Once you do, decide what your expectations are for your relationship. Be open and honest. How much commitment are you willing to give each other? This clarity is important to minimize misunderstanding.

* Trust

Once you can determine if you are both on the same level of investment in the relationship, trust and honesty become paramount to the success of your future. These elements are at the heart of all lasting unions, but distance challenges the security of your connection.

* Communication

Be dedicated to the way you stay in touch. Phone calls, emails, and chatting on-line are important. Set up a regular time to visit with each other, building a routine. But add some surprises such as, homemade videos, collected poems put in a special book, or self-decorated greeting cards. Stretch your imagination further with a lock of your hair in a unique box; an absorbent piece of cloth with your perfume or after-shave scent; your favorite flower, pressed and framed. If the other person does not call often, make time for you, or send appropriate communications, do not hang on. Let go and get on with your life.

* Plan your reunions.

Decide where to meet, how often, and how you want to spend the time when you see each other. Be very clear about what your expectations are for the time you have together. This is where many relationships break down. His idea of the perfect weekend could be sitting in front of the TV with her at his side, watching football. Hers could be visiting friends, attending a romantic movie, and later sharing secrets of the heart. He may expect her to cook his dinner; she may expect him to take her out. We all have old scripts that play out in new relationships, and unless we communicate what we want from each other, this is a recipe for misunderstandings and hurt feelings.

Finally, decide how long you want to live apart, and set a date for the move. It is true that when one of you moves to the other one’s town, you are taking a risk. However, most people say that even when it doesn’t work out, at least they gave love a chance. They didn’t want to spend their life longing to be somewhere else, continuing–a long distance relationship.

Visit http://www.tonjaweimer.com or http://www.singlesdatingtips.com for more tips, skills, and insight on dating, relationships, singles, and love. Subscribe to our F*ree Savvy Dating Newsletter from master single’s coach, life coach, and syndicated columnist, Tonja Weimer. Copyright 2006, Tonja Weimer. (Please note source if reprinting this article.)

Different women experience menopause in different ways. While there are some experiences that everyone can expect to have, for most, menopause is a lonely journey. With such a wide array of potential symptoms, from depression to weight gain to general feelings of unease, it’s hard to create a single form of medication that’s applicable to every woman.

But there is one solution: Bio-identical hormone replacement therapy. Called BHRT for short, it won’t cure menopause, or even put it off, but it will alleviate those unpleasant symptoms. And though it’s been around for almost two decades, BHRT only recently gained popularity as a reliable and healthy way to combat the natural effects of aging.

Before BHRT prescriptions came along, doctors would prescribe synthetic hormones, which were often designed by pharmaceutical companies. But because these synthetics are foreign to the human body, they carried unwanted side effects with them. What’s more, the synthetics couldn’t be fine-tuned to the body chemistries of individual patients, so there was no guarantee that a given symptom would be addressed.

Unlike synthetic hormones, bio-identical hormones are derived from natural sources, and thus match the formula of those hormones already in your body. BHRT prescriptions are designed to mimic your body chemistry perfectly, which makes the entire menopause experience — from beginning to post-menopause — easier on your body and mind. Since every woman’s body chemistry is different, every BHRT prescription is different. A good compounding pharmacist can work with you and your health care provider to determine the best course of action for you.

So how can you decide whether a bio-identical hormone replacement therapy prescription is for you?

Learn the ropes. All women experience menopause in different ways, but there are some common symptoms that can tip you off that it might be your time. Has it been more than two or three months since your last period? (As a corollary to this question: Are you sure you’re not pregnant?) Do you seem to be gaining weight despite eating right and exercising? Are you having trouble sleeping?

Know your symptoms and medical history. Compile a list of your symptoms to bring to your doctor. Figure out your most pressing concerns, and what kind of changes you’d like to see. Your doctor may ask you why you’re pursuing a BHRT prescription — be prepared to answer her.

Talk to your doctor. If you’re between doctors, this may be the perfect time to find one who’s familiar with BHRT. Since it’s still somewhat new, there may be doctor out there who aren’t well-schooled in it, or who don’t support it.

Learn as much as possible. Read more than just this article. Google is your friend here, and so is your doctor. Before making the final leap, learn everything you can about bio-identical hormone replacement therapy.

D. Michael Kirby is a freelance writer living in California. He writes about health and fitness, home improvement, technology, and a wide array of other topics. One of his clients, Beacon Prescriptions, is Connecticut’s premier compounding pharmacy, with locations around the state.

Visit Beacon Prescriptions here: http://www.beaconcompounding.com

If you’ve found this article, I have to assume that you either strongly suspect or know for sure that your spouse has had an affair. I know from experience that in all likelihood you’re experiencing a slew of overwhelming feelings (likely none of them positive) like betrayal, shock, severe hurt, and intense pain. You may also blame yourself, wonder how you could have been so naive, or blame your spouse entirely for his or her actions.  Every single one of these questions and responses are perfectly natural and normal.  You’ve been dealt a harsh blow and there is no right or wrong answer. The days following learning about an affair can go by in a daze or the blink of an eye and it’s easy to feel overwhelmed or lost.  This article will provide tips and prompts to help you deal with these feelings and sort out / deal with the affair.

Don’t Blame Yourself, Beat Yourself Up Or Second Guess Yourself: Until an affair actually happened to me, I used to wonder how in the world a wife could blame herself for a husband’s affair.  I just did not get that at all.  But then, in the days after my husband’s affair (once my shock and rage at him wore off) I started to wonder where in the world I went wrong. How could I be so stupid? Was I not exciting enough? Pretty enough? Sexy enough? A good enough wife and mother? Did I not meet his needs or give him what he needed to be happy? Did he have to go elsewhere for excitement or satisfaction?

I have a friend who kind of went through this same sort of thing but in the opposite realm. When she found out about her husband’s affair – she completed overcompensated. She wanted this thing fixed immediately so she sucked it up and put all of the blame squarely on her shoulders and made drastic changes to herself and her bedroom.  The “crises mode” of the situation actually created a spark between her and her husband. Then, she hated herself because she felt that she was a “door mat” for just wanting her husband back. She asked herself where was her self respect? How could she allow him to do this? So she felt negatively about herself just as I did and her self esteem was hit as hard as mine was, but for different reasons.

Both of these reactions cause all sorts of internal bad feelings that doesn’t help you heal at all. Although these feelings are so perfectly normal and understandable it’s important to understand that no matter what you did or didn’t do – the affair is not your fault. It just is not.  Your spouse is the one who made the decision to be unfaithful.  Whether he / she is going through a mid life crises or he / she thinks their needs are not being met or he’s / she’s having self esteem issues, how they chose to deal with these problems was a decision that THEY made.

There are many spouses with issues who chose not to cheat but to instead communicate and work with their wives and husbands to work through these issues.

When You Are Ready, Evaluate And Understand Exactly Why The Infidelity Happened And Your Feelings On What You Want To Happen Now: I will always maintain that a spouse who cheats is the guilty party.  However, each marriage has certain factors that can sometimes contribute to infidelity.  This is not always the case. Sometimes it’s a simple self esteem issue or stress manifesting itself, but sometimes there can be issues in a marriage or communication style that contributes to infidelity. 

Whether you want to save the marriage or not, it can be helpful to hear (when you are calm and ready) just exactly why the infidelity happened.  However, you don’t have to take these reasons for face value.  Really listen to what your spouse is saying and honestly evaluate if these issues they’re bringing up have any merit or are valid. 

Sometimes, a spouse will just make excuses or refuse to take responsibility, but sometimes, you will actually get the truth as painful as it may be.  In my own case, my husband was not feeling heard in a highly stressful situation.  At first I thought this was all just a silly excuse, but when I evaluated more honestly and closely, I had to admit there was a few slivers of truth there.

What you chose to do with this information is completely up to you.  If you don’t want to save the marriage, at least it is a learning experience that you may revisit later in a future relationship.  If you do want to save the marriage, this information will be invaluable for you in the future so that you can address these things to make the marriage stronger and ensure the infidelity doesn’t reoccur.

Now, it’s important that you really take some honest time on your own when you can be calm and reflective (this may take time) to determine what you really want.  It may be that your spouse has been a good one up until this point and you still love him or her and ultimately want to save the marriage. Or, it may be that a pattern of betrayal and dishonestly is emerging that is a deal breaker for you.  Either answer is valid and OK.

Define what is your best case scenario that, if you could achieve it, would help you heal. For some, this is to just pick up and move on by yourself, without letting this one event ruin the rest of your life.  For some, it’s to get the marriage back to a loving and trusting place. Whatever your “best case scenario” is, always promise yourself that you will keep this in mind from this point forward.

Because if ultimately you want to save your marriage, then it doesn’t make sense to continue to lash out at your spouse and continue to punish them months and months after they’ve said they’re sorry or allow an unhealthy obsession with everything having to do with the affair (or the other woman) to continue to sabotage your marriage and your happiness. If being happily married and at peace again is really your goal, try your best not to engage in behaviors that are going to keep this from happening (while still being true to yourself.)

Don’t Hesitate To Get Help To Deal With The Infidelity If You Need It: An affair can be heavy burden on the party who was cheated on. Your self esteem is likely going to take a huge hit. Although it may feel weird to do so, take this time to focus on yourself and your extreme self care.  See friends. Pursue those things you love.  Do what makes you happy.  This will make you feel better and will show both you and your spouse that you have enough self respect that this isn’t going to beat you. 

You may ultimately need some to help with your healing and with dealing with the infidelity.  In my own experience, although I wanted to save my marriage and to forgive my husband, I was stuck.  I would feel forgiving toward him one second and rage at him the next.  He was patient with me and I was trying to be patient with him, but we couldn’t move forward. 

It’s normal to have difficulty in the early days after learning about the affair, but if you get stuck and can’t move past it, don’t hesitate to get the help you need. There is no shame in it.  Ultimately, I needed out side resources to get me out of this cycle that was just holding me back.  Once I had this, I was able to slowly move forward and today, although it took some work and effort, I can honestly say it hasn’t beaten me in the least.

Dealing with the infidelity in my marriage was very difficult for a time. With a lot hard work and effort, our marriage and my self esteem recovered. I now know myself, my husband and my marriage much more intimately. I no longer worry that he is going to cheat again. You can read my very personal story on my blog at http://saving-my-marriage-after-the-affair.blogspot.com/

This cruise began Abecita us with a two day stay in Istanbul minus one suitcase that Delta Airlines lost. We had been in Istanbul for a couple lingerie days at the end of our last cruise, and my wife fell in love with it. We spent the time checking out things lingerie didn’t see on the last trip, and shopping for underwear, pantyhose, shoes, and other things Kathy needed after the lost luggage fiasco. There we were, at the Grand Bazaar, Kathy in a pair of my boxer shorts and a T shirt the ship gave her. But we found some great bargains on knock-offs.

The Millennium set sail for Kusadasi (Ephesus) Turkey in the early afternoon. The next day we arrived in Kusadasi, known for its very extensive ruins at Ephesus. These are the most impressive ruins we have ever seen, be sure not to miss them when you are in Kusadasi. Cleopatra and Mark Anthony were tourists at Ephesus!

We toured a rug factory which was actually a rug store. However, they gave a very interesting presentation on how Turkish rugs are woven and how to determine the quality of rugs. We saw a demonstration of a young girl weaving a rug.

While in Kusadasi we spotted an internet cafe sign and so we went on in. They were quite excited that we had come in; they uncovered their single computer, taped some cardboard to the window to reduce the glare on the screen, and brought us some cokes to drink. After we finished surfing the net we asked how much we owed. They said “nothing!” and they wouldn’t let us pay for anything. Odd but interesting and nice.

The next day was a day at sea with no stops at any ports. We consider days at sea as our lazy kick-back and relax part of our cruises. So we “bagged some rays” by the pool and checked out the drink of the day.

The next day we arrived in Limasol, Cyprus. Originally we were supposed to go to Haifa Israel, but due to some Middle East unrest, the destination was changed to Limasol. There was an interesting castle that we toured, and then we went looking for an internet cafe. We found one and did a little updating of our website while we were there. Internet cafe’s can be found in most cities and it is truly amazing to see the differences. There isn’t really much in Limasol.

Our next port of call was Alexandria Egypt. The port was HUGE! There were quite a few sunken ships poking up out of the water as we entered the port…wonder what that was about? Our ship was greeted with a giant red carpet and a large band playing music.

We took the shore excursion to the Pyramids, about a three hour bus trip. The buses traveled in convoys with police escorts. I presume it’s an anti terrorist thing. The Pyramids were awesome! We got to actually climb up on one of the pyramids. There were also cool tombs that we toured, and of course, shopping for jewelry and papyrus art.

Our next port of call was Athens Greece. Since we had been to Athens recently we opted not to take any of the excursions and just went to the Plaka. We found yet another Internet cafe where we could update our web site. Although it was about 3 flights of stairs to get to the cafe, were given the “Computer with a view” .. Just out the window was a spectacular view of the Acropolis. And we found another fabulous open air cafe.

We arrive next at Naples, Italy. The day was kind of a whirl wind of a day as we took a hydrofoil to the island of Capri where we toured the island, an interesting and beautiful island and playground for the rich. Then on to Sorrento where we had lunch and wandered around the scenic town, and finally we toured the amazing ruins at Pompeii. There are enough ruins at Pompeii to spend weeks there and still not see everything. Thousands of years ago and they had plumbing fixtures…running water in their homes, taverns, saunas, and all sorts of surprising things. A very busy day!

Next stop, Rome and the Vatican City including St. Peter’s Basilica, and the Vatican museum. At the Vatican, we visited the Sistine chapel which was mind blowing. Following that we visited the Coliseum. The Coliseum was another amazing place. Kathy was really impressed with the Trevi Fountain in Rome (she threw in the required 3 coins so we could come back to Rome).

Our next port was Nice, France. We visited a famous flower market, had coffee at a little side walk cafe, and we took a shore excursion to Monaco. Monaco isn’t very big! We could stand in one spot and see the whole country. There are lots of shops on the tiny narrow winding streets. We had lunch (at an open air cafe) and Kathy liked the Roquefort cheese so much she asked the waiter where should could get some, and he directed her to a market. We bought some and brought it home with us.

The following morning we disembarked in Barcelona and within hours we were on our way home! Another fantastic cruise ship adventure under our belts!

William Lund is an avid cruiser, and he and his wife Kathy cruise at least once a year. Mr. Lund invites you to visit his cruise reviews website: Cruises R Fun Mr. Lund also has a blog at: Pondering Everything

If you are wondering how you can save cash when trying to choose and avail clothes famous yourself or for someone else like your kids and family members, here are some tips where you can follow to be able to do the task.

Find some dispatch shop for they contain clothes which have quality standards and the inventory must shoes the brand specifications. You may see items which already came from the past batch and the costs are certainly less with retails. The factory and retail stores are great in choosing for clothes, but rest assure that you check on the fabric well for some flaws and the size must fit you. If you visit these outlets, try to buy bunch of clothes for the coming season such as white shirts and socks.

Buy clothes during off season. Buy a classic cloth that will never run out of style, in that way the outfit will last for some years. Be sure that the fabric fits you well, and you are capable of buying high standard materials and your closet is also able to store your clothes for long time and not be the reason for the destruction of the fabric.

Try to register for newsletters, to be updated for the latest designs or sales of your local boutiques. Be aware for the sales on designer clothes and some warehouse events. Most areas hold a single day dedicated for selling designer items and bargains wherein you can pick fashionable designs and costs of clothes.

Buy ready-to-wear apparels from a well-known, trusted online store where you can shop for more than 4000 unique fashion products for men, women & kids delivered to you free anywhere in the world. SalwarKameezIndia.com offers hassles-free online purchase of diamond pendant, diamond earring and more.

The fear of being turned down at shoes very first sight, only because of the formal outfits one sports, though unwillingly, at the date table, may soon get a sweet farewell.

The newly designed bi-functional dress will ensure that the tight schedule will not take any toll of one’s sweet evenings. Interestingly, it is a brainchild of famous networking site; DatingDirect.com

Much to the amazement, they have named it: “Work to Flirt dress.” As the name suggests, it is set to bring an end to the post-work hazardous run towards home to wear the sexy outfits suitable for dating.

Rather, some simple steps like : revealing the hidden buttons or tying extra strings to it will give it a much sensuous and different look.

This fashion innovation has provided enough relief to the working women, who are reluctant to go perfumes a date in formals. They are right too because a suitable and exciting dress can do wonders on the date tables.

A survey conducted by DatingDirect.com cites that more than 33% singles admitted to avoid their dates because they did not find their official apparel suitable for the dates.

A prospective dater, when it comes evening, can change her work dress into a fashionable and sexy apparel. She needs to do only things like opening up a reversible belt which will give a short split skirt.

Adding to it, this dress may provide some glimpses of the back of the wearer too. Wonderfully, it is claimed to be one of the best versions of two-in-one’s of any kind.

Also you can see a lot of fashion apparel here too.

To read more of my blogs, please click on ExploringFashion.