Working Out Do I Still Love My Ex and What To Do

Everyone struggles with their emotions one way or another. Some people understand their emotions and themselves reasonably well, but for most people understanding what makes them and others tick is difficult. Nothing is more confusing than working out how you feel about people you love and people you had relationships with, especially an ex. Even after a significant period it is not unusual for a person to think, "Do I still love my ex?"

Working out how you feel about an ex is necessary for moving on and building new relationships successfully. Any emotional "baggage" that you carry with you from a past relationship is going to affect your present or future relationships. If there are underlying issues or emotional connections between you and a previous partner it will affect how you relate to a new partner and you run the risk of that "load" adding to the factors that erode a relationships foundation, and it makes your new relationship much harder work.

So it is important to work out how you feel about your ex so that you can resolve the issue and go forward unencumbered.

The next thing to determine is how you feel about your ex and you can do that by checking out the following questions. The answers you give will help you pinpoint your feelings and help you decide what you need to do next.

? Do you still try to see your ex?

When you love someone, you want to see them or speak with them, so if you find yourself calling your ex's number just to hear their voice, or you drive past their home in the hopes of "accidentally" seeing them, then you may still have strong feelings for them.

? Do you still think about your ex?

When you love someone they are on your mind most of the time. Things like your favorite love song or watching a romantic movie will immediately get your thoughts tuned to your ex. They are the first person you want to talk with when something new happens to you and you want to share it with someone.

? Do you feel bad at the thought of your ex with someone else?

When you love someone, the thought of your love interest moving on and being with another person makes you feel really bad. You still feel on some level that they belong with you and to see them with someone else crosses a line, especially if you had been physically intimate with them. It feels like a tearing of a connection, and you would be right, there is a breaking of that connection in that circumstance.

If you have answered yes to these questions it is more likely that you have been thinking "I still love my ex" too, and that you have some unresolved issues that need to be addressed in order for you to move on.

So what do you do now? Do you want to move on and get over these feelings or do you want to try to reconnect with your ex and rebuild your broken relationship? Whatever you decide there are ways to achieve this and it is just a matter of getting the right information to help you make good progress.

If you have just realized that you have been thinking, "I still love my ex" all this time and need some ideas to rebuild the love between you, then go to - http://myrelationshiphelp.info/
(There is also great information in the "Clean Slate Method" to get you back on track, either moving on or reconnecting.)

Find out what thousands of happy couples do to get and keep their flame of love burning hot!
- Wishing you love and success - Jo Baker

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jo_Baker

In Child Custody Cases, Do The Courts Still Favor The Mom?

Child custody cases are filling up the courthouses these days because nearly 50% of all marriages end in a divorce. But does that mean that the courts just give custody to the moms still? Not as much as they used to, but it's still a lot harder for dad to get custody of the children than the moms. It used to be a women's court, but dads are quickly gaining ground, which is great for us. This article will give you 3 simple steps you can take to help you (as the dad) in child custody cases.

Keep Track Of Time Spent With Your Child

Every time you hang out with your child make note of it on the calendar. Every school function you go to, mark it down on the calendar. Every bedtime story, every prayer, every soccer game, put it all on the calendar.

The reason you want to log all this information is so you can show your lawyer and the courts exactly how much time you spend with your child and how important you are in his or her life.

Get Affidavits From Friends and Family

An affidavit is simply a written testimony about your character. When I went to court to win custody of my daughter, I had over 27 affidavits. You should have the same amount or more. Here's what you do. Simply ask all your friends, co-workers, relatives and church members to write a testimony about you and why they feel you would be the better care giver for your child.

After you get all the affidavits, go to a Notary Republic and have them sign and stamp each one of the affidavits. The key thing here is you need to do this without your ex-wife finding out. Otherwise she'll catch on and do the same thing. Either way, the more the merrier. Remember, what somebody else says about you is a hundred times more powerful than what you say about you.

Log Every Time She Says Anything Negative About You In Front Of Your Kids

This one sounds a little silly, but it's been proven to be quite effective. Listen, divorces are ugly. And they get uglier when your children are involved. But you need to at all costs, avoid name calling and ugly talk in front of your kids. Odds are, she'll slip up and say some pretty terrible things about you in front of your child. Make a mental note of it, then write it down later.

What this does for you is shows the judge that if she puts you down in front of the kids now, she'll do it later too. And behavior like this will basically put the child against you and make you out to be the bad guy. The last thing you want is for your ex-wife to speak ill of you in front of your kids. This will make you out to be a buffoon and your kids may no longer respect you. Or worse, your kids may end up hating one of you because of it, either way it's a lose/lose situation when that occurs.

Divorced, But Still Parents

STILL PARENTS... Remember you may have decided to no longer be husband and wife but you are still Mom and Dad to your children. You need to always show your child's other parent respect. This includes how you act around the other and what you say in front of the co-parent and when the co-parent is not present. A major part of parenting is being a role modeling for your children. You need to model for your children respect. Your children will imitate your behavior. Your disrespect for your former spouse will be the role model your child follow when dealing with other people.

One easy way to show respect is to shop with your children for gifts or cards for their co-parent. Make sure your children recognize the co-parent with appropriate gifts or cards. This would include Christmas time, birthday and Mother/Father's Day cards.

CO-PARENTING... The aspects of good co-parenting are very similar to good parenting skills, it just a little bit harder because you are in different households.

Conflicts

Be positive. Learn positive conflict resolution techniques. Conflicts will come up, you can't avoid that. Even the best written parenting plan will not avoid all conflicts. Conflicts are a great opportunity to role model conflict resolution to your children.

Keep the kids out of the ring. The kids are not a tool to get back at your ex-spouse. Make sure your conflicts with your ex revolve around a need of your children. You must clear about your children's needs and don't transfer your needs unto your children. Second, you must compromise when it is possible.

Set Appropriate Boundaries.

Your house verses the Ex's house. This is going to be very difficult but unless the children are in physical or psychological damage, the other parent has the right to use whatever parenting style he/she find appropriate. His/her parenting decisions are most likely out of your control. It is probably a good bet that your ex will not make the same parenting decisions you make.

Both parents should split the various parenting tasks. Try not to let one parent be responsible for all of the day to day parenting and the other only being the fun parent. Share the parenting chores such as parent/teacher conferences, doctor appointments.

Be aware if the kids working one parent against the other. You need to be able to draw the line between what happens at your house, under your parenting style and what happens at the other parent's house. Just because "it" happens at Mom's house does not mean "it" needs to happen at your house.

Communication

Find a way to communicate regularly. This can be by email or phone. Make sure you share as much as possible. As a young child, this communication is about basic activities such as eating, sleeping and eating habits. A daily journal can be a great way for both parents to share information. As the children get older, they can communicate more directly with both parents. But this communication should not be left up to the children only. The parents should have a way of communicating on school activities, church effects, sports events, social events and trips out of town.

Develop an understanding of each co-parent's communication needs.For example, you have a job where you can't be reached by phone; so communication needs to be by email several days in advance.

TO SUMMARIZE

First, respect the co-parent's parenting approaches; accepting that differences are okay. Communicate regularly with respect. Set strong boundaries, children will soon learn what is allowed at each parent's household. Don't let one parent assume the disciplinarian role while the other parent gets to be Santa Claus.

There are many other aspects of successful co-parenting. Each co-parenting situation is different and not all suggestions work for all people. One parent may still be working through the pain of the divorce. But, it is possible for co-parents to work through these issues and develop a way to collaborate with the other co-parent. When you are faced with issues of co-parenting, seek out a counselor who has experience in counseling couples in parenting plans, collaborative dispute resolution and working out issues related to effective co-parenting to help with this stage in your life.