5 Types of Relationships You Should Avoid at All Costs.

Love is hard to find. Some people wait years while others never find it at all. Once you’ve met someone you love, it may be tempting to hold on to them with everything you’ve got, but it’s important to remember that not every type of love leads to a happy, healthy relationship. Love should make you the best version of yourself. It should include more highs than lows. Unfortunately, more often than not, being in love can bring out your worst qualities, fears, and insecurities, especially when you’re intimate with someone who’s dealing with their own baggage.

One survey by YourTango found that 89% of people think that half or more of all people have toxic relationships in their lives. These toxic relationships can be hard to spot as often they come in pretty packages that seem wonderful on the outside but are full of issues and hurt under the surface. Not sure where your relationship falls on the spectrum? Skim through these top five relationships to avoid.





1. Passion overload: A romantic relationship would just be a close friendship without passion. This fiery quality plays an important role in love. It’s what makes you care so deeply, love like crazy, and do things you normally wouldn’t do. While passion is a necessary ingredient in a relationship, too much of it can quickly lead to a toxic, unhealthy relationship. Passion is pure emotion, so when there’s too much passion you may experience high levels of jealousy or big blow out fights. As any couple knows, jealousy and fighting is natural, but overly passionate relationships will experience these qualities to the point that they begin to take over and counteract any good in a relationship.

2. Convenient comfort: These relationships are like your favorite pair of sweatpants. They are familiar, comfortable, and make you feel warm and safe. Like a comfortable, convenient relationship that’s hard to leave, it can be hard to pull off those cozy, fleece-lined sweatpants and squeeze into a stiff pair of jeans. Single life can be rough, making that comfortable relationship all the more appealing. The problem is that comfort doesn’t equal happiness. These convenient relationships just hold you back from finding true happiness and love. 

3. Overly controlled: It’s natural to care about someone and want what’s best for them, but it’s quite another thing to attempt to control their every move. Relationships that revolve around one person’s control over the other are dangerous. If you don’t feel free to be yourself, make your own choices, and decide things for yourself, you may be in an unhealthy, controlling relationship. Maintaining these relationships can hinder your personal growth and may even manipulate you into thinking you’re happy when you’re not. 

4. Lies, lies, lies: Trust is the foundation of a healthy relationship, so when a relationship is built on lies, it’s practically impossible to operate as a healthy, functioning couple. Lying may seem harmless at first. Perhaps it’s just an omission of information or a small, white lie that you say to avoid hurting your partner’s feelings. However, no matter how small, lying is a slippery slope. It may seem harmless, but once you start, it becomes easier and easier to for the lies to slip out, harming a relationship built around them. 

5. Being with the bully: Are you in a relationship where one person has significantly more power and control than the other person? If so, chances are high that you’re in an abusive relationship. Whether physically, mentally, or emotionally operated, bullies function by maintaining enough power that their partner is afraid to challenge them. This relationship runs on fear and fear is the opposite of love. If you find yourself in this exhausting, hurtful relationship, you’ll want to find a way out immediately.

Courtesy: Cheat Sheet.

What’s the Matter with the World?

What’s the matter with the world,

has the world gone mad?

(But) nothing’s wrong with the world.

It’s the people that are in it.

You can depend

on the sun (because) it rises every day.

But you can’t rely on the things people say.

Rain falls from the sky

to give water so life won’t die

except you and me.   

A Painful Truth.

"Better to be awakened 
by a painful truth 
than to be lulled to sleep 
by a seductive lie.” 
– Dr. Phil McGraw.

My Husband Doesn’t Know I’m Really a Man.

As usual, I was listening to the Steve Harvey Radio Show this morning when it came to the segment of “Strawberry Letter” which often sounds incredible but absolutely true. The letter read this way:

“Steve I have been married for 2 years and my husband is ready to start a family. My problem is…I was born a man. I had a sex operation before I met my husband…so, he doesn’t know. I’m afraid to lose him if I tell him. Steve what do I do?”

In his response, Steve Harvey admitted that he knew nothing about sex change. He however advised the wo(man) to simply find a way to make the husband divorce her. As far as Steve was concern, if the wo(man) should dare tell the husband the truth, she would have to become a man all over again in view of what a typical man would do upon hearing such an ugly, disgusting truth.

My personal reaction as I listened to this letter was that of “what else is new?” In this society, it's quite normal for a man to meet a woman, both fall in love with each other and before anyone can say “lovey-dovey”, the two are standing before a Justice of the Peace, mumbling "I do”. In the United States, most couples don’t bother to meet each other’s families. Yet, it’s considered rude for one partner to ask about the other party’s age. Asking for her/his birth certificate or some childhood photographs is off limits. In fact, it’s worse when one partner seems too inquisitive about the other person’s background. And that’s why the institution of marriage is being subjected to a lot of abuses every second in God’s own country.



In the above picture, adopted from a BBC Documentary titled "Sex Change Soldier", Ian Hamilton is a Captain of the Parachute Regiment and one of the most highly decorated officers ... in the British Army. He has served in Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq. But in 2007 Ian became the first officer and the first paratrooper in the history of the Armed Forces to undergo a sex-change operation.

Who is The Biggest Liar, Men or Women?

Men lie all the time…but women are the biggest liars.

You get on heels…you’re not that tall.

You get on make-up…your face is not that fine.

You get wig…your hair is not that long.

You’ve got a wonder bra…your tits aren’t that big.

Everything about you is a lie.

And you expect me to tell the truth…F@#$ you!

- Chris Rock.

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Things to Do When You've Been Betrayed.

After being betrayed, most of us want two things, usually at the same time. We want to wound the person who hurt us—as deeply and as excruciatingly—as we've been wounded, and we want to rise above the situation and offer that person forgiveness. But neither of these tactics work. Wounding words tend to boomerang and make you feel as terrible as the person you wanted to hurt. Forgiveness, especially if halfhearted, tends to come off as condescension.

There are actions, though, that you can take to can heal yourself. Every hurt has its own story, and so does every healing. But we can say this: You can heal yourself when you've filled the hole left behind by a betrayal, and you can heal the other person when you sincerely drop the need for revenge.

Remember, the only betrayals that inflict damage are the ones where an intimate bond has been torn. Love makes you merge with another person, able to feel their emotions as keenly as you feel your own. If you have experienced such bonding, you know that it is a kind of higher reality—and when that bond is ripped apart, it's as if you've lost half of yourself. So how can you get out of torment and find yourself again?

1. Gain some detachment. Stand back and view yourself as if you were the helper, not the victim.


2.  Don't indulge in emotions you cannot afford. Don't act as if you’re feeling worse than you really are—or better.

3. Make a plan for emotional recovery. Look at where you hurt, feel wounded or see yourself as victimized, then set out to heal these areas. Don't rely simply on letting time do it for you.

4. Feel the hole inside and grieve over it—but promise yourself that you will fill it.

5. Seek a confidant who has survived the same betrayal and has come out on the other side.

6. Work toward a tomorrow that will be better than yesterday. Don't fixate on the past or what might have been.

7. Counter self-pity by being of service to someone else. Counter regret by seeking out activities that build your self-esteem.

Written by Deepak Chopra.

Travails of the Truth.

Truth is in serious trouble in the Western Hemisphere.

Where I came from originally (in Yorubaland, Nigeria)  there is an adage that "whenever a member of your household is seen eating junk, it's your responsibility to admonish him or her or else when, later in the night, the person starts to suffer the consequence of the wrongdoing, no one in that household will get a good night sleep". Over there, the refusal to tell the truth is considered wrong, nonchalant and grossly disrespectful. It is an obligation one person owes to another. 

This is not so in these parts of the world. And the issue is multidimensional with convenient justifications. At governmental level, the inability to tell the truth is called "political correctness".

In the corporate arena, lying is elevated to a sickening height where the truth is submerged in deceitful splendor called "bait and switch". In its adverts, a company gleefully promises to sell two items for one price by saying "buy one, get one free". This is intended to sway prospective customers to have the impression that they are buying two items for the price of one. The gullible customers however don't know that the price of every item being sold has been doubled. So, the company ends up selling two items to customers who will have preferred to buy one.

In show business, gospel singers are so desperate (for financial gains) to reach as many audiences as possible. Therefore, they try to "eat their cake and have it" by staying far away from the path of the truth. This they do, on the one hand, by placing their music under the genre of Gospel music to attract the interest of Christians. And, on the other hand, they ensure that "too much religion" is not attached to the produced music in a bid to sell their music to both the Christians and the "non-believers".

At individual, personal level, telling the truth is considered so irritating as to be placed on the same pedestal with mischief. To this end, telling the truth is considered as hurting other people's feelings. A good example of the personal side can be seen in Whitney Houston's death. In an interview after the singer's death, Dionne Warwick (her aunt and a great singer in her own right) was asked why she did not advise the younger woman to stop her drug addiction? The older singer said it would be improper for her to do so because she did not want to be "judgmental". But one was tempted to ask if it would not have been better to do some "judgmental counseling or criticism" help the troubled younger singer than to wait till she self-destruct and everyone began to cry?

To tell the truth in the Western world (even if that will result in saving some individuals from themselves) is considered "critical", "preachy", "insensitive" and, of course, "judgmental"! You are better off pretending to be an ostrich with head buried in the sand while waiting till the affected persons destroy themselves.

And there is the issue of too many people in the Western world who think they have too many skeletons in their own cupboards to counsel or advise others to stop or change from their negative ways. That, to them, is hypocritical. Worse, they fear that talking about the faults or weaknesses of someone else may attract attention to their own known weaknesses or faults. For instance, a weed smoker will find it difficult to advise another person to avoid smoking cigarettes. And a woman who was once involved in unwanted teenage pregnancy and motherhood will not readily feel comfortable to counsel her sister or daughter on the issues of birth control and life planning.