If You Could Have One Wish About Your Next Partner...

If you could have one wish regarding the next partner you date, what would it be?

Example - I would want the next woman I meet to be 100% honest with me, even if she thought what she was going to share would hurt me. I don't want to be with someone who hides stuff b/c she doesn't think I can handle it.

What about you...what would you wish for?

Part of the reason I'm asking this is also about the Law of Attraction. That is, you'll attract to you that which you think about. So putting a sincere 'wish' out there to the Universe may do more for you than you may initially think. And the other part is that I'm just curious to hear people's answers.

I would want the next person I be with to be honest with me and open up. I want the next person to be open about their feelings and not hide it for a long time thinking about possibilities with me. I don't want the next person to only be honest when they are out drinking.

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Online Dating Advice That Could Land You A Lasting Marriage

ProConnect Subscribe to Experts Blog By Nina Atwood

On the plus side, it's easy to recreate your first date. Can you click your way to true love?

A new study by the University of Chicago that surveyed over 19,000 couples who met online and then got married found that their breakup rate was 1.7 percent lower than for those who met offline, reports the Wall Street Journal. Also, the overall marital satisfaction rate for couples who met online and later married was slightly higher than for those who met offline. The same study found that over one third of couples who married between 2005 and 2012 met online, a staggering percentage. Does all of this mean that online dating leads to a better marriage?

Online dating still has a bit of a bad rap, though not as bad as it once did. Many singles are leery about going online to search for a mate because the negative stories abound — primarily about con artists and people who vastly misrepresent themselves. But the positive results from research on online dating continue to grow, suggesting that going online may actually increase your odds of a good match, and thus a lasting marriage. Here's how to put the odds in your favor.

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1. Knowing potential partners better helps you make a better choice. If you choose a site that does personality testing, such as eHarmony or that requires extensive surveying like Match.com, you'll know more about someone before you date. Can people fudge? A little, but most personality tests have fail-safe questions that inhibit your ability to fake. Knowledge is power. When you marry someone you know really well and accept for who she/he is, you are far more likely to stay married, and to be happier over time. Bottom line: know yourself and know others before you become romantic. Using sites like Match.com and eHarmony can help you do that.

2. Having lots of choices makes you less desperate. Let's face it, if your dating strategy is to randomly meet someone offline, you can go through a lot of disappointments before you find the right person, and it can take a long, long time. That's because most busy singles today don't have the time to go out and scour the urban landscape for other attractive singles on a frequent enough basis to have lots of choices. If you use online dating wisely, however, you can have one to three dates every week with a variety of viable people. Having all those choices helps you relax, be yourself, and feel less anxious. You become more attractive because you're not needy or desperate. More attractive means more people want to date you, thus giving you even more choices. It's a positive upward spiral that inevitably leads to success.

3. Having more choices leads to better choices. The number one reason people choose partners poorly usually goes something like this: "It's been months/years since I've dated someone seriously, and he/she was good enough. It was much better than dating no one!" But the fact that you haven't dated in a long time and feel lonely isn't a good enough reason to date someone. Why? Because dating leads (very quickly) to attachment; attachment leads to falling in love, and that leads to a long term relationship. When you bind yourself to someone who is not right for you out of loneliness or desperation, it can take months or even years to detach and move on.

Dating online, when done wisely, can give you lots of choices of very viable potential partners, making you less desperate, and allowing you to be appropriately choosy. While that doesn't guarantee a great marriage, it definitely increases your odds!

About the author: Nina Atwood, M.Ed., LPC, is a nationally known psychotherapist, author of five self-help books, and frequent expert media guest. Read the transformational book that will change your life and your relationships with men: Temptations of the Single Girl: The Ten Dating Traps You Must Avoid. To successfully date online, get Nina’s $0.99 cent eBook Internet Dating for the Savvy Single. Get loads of free advice and Love Strategies at www.singlescoach.com.

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Specialties: Communication Problems, Couples/Marital Issues, Dating/Being Single SupportOther Articles/News by Nina Atwood:By Nina Atwood

So, you've finally met a guy who is husband material, marriage-minded and wants to make a commitment to you. Wow. Now that you have this unpolished gemstone in your hand, you can either bring out the brilliance, or you can seriously waste the opportunity. You may be tempted to rush forward, but if you do, you'll likely blow it. Here's how to ... Read moreBy Nina Atwood

Fourteen years ago when I met my husband, we were both failures. Relationship failures, that is. He was divorced twice and so was I. We were in our early forties, fearful of making another mistake, yet still hopeful that maybe this relationship would be the right one. We both had a healthy dose of skepticism, but we forged ahead. Good thing we did because ... Read moreBy Nina Atwood

Join Relationship Coach Nina Atwood on our Facebook page Thursday, January 3 at 2 p.m. EST to ask all of your questions about love and relationships! Kanye West announced this week that his girlfriend, Kim Kardashian is pregnant. And while everyone enjoys a good love story, and all babies are blessings, is this particular union headed for disaster or ... Read moreSee More

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Why Tonight's Blue Moon Could Cast A Love Spell On You

I saw you standing alone ... Learn why this rare, but regularly occurring, occasion is widely associated with love.

If you never click on the science section of your favorite news site, you may not know that there's gonna be a blue moon tonight. No, it's not just a song or an expression meaning "infrequently"; a blue moon is the second full moon in a calendar month, and it only happens once every 2.7 years. So, if you miss it tonight, you'll have to wait until the middle of Obama's second term (or, heaven forbid, Mitt Romney's first) to catch the next one.

And, if you're so science-phobic that you never click on the science section of your favorite news site, you may also believe that the blue moon casts a lunar spell, causing unsuspecting singles to fall madly in love under its inescapable power. But while there's no scientific evidence to support this theory, pop culture has certainly embraced it.

From the classic tune written by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart in 1935, and made famous by The Marcels, to the Belgian-style wheat beer that bears its name, the blue moon is widely associated with romance. And, there are two noteworthy facts about this particular occurence of the blue moon that give us pause to wonder: Does the blue moon really have magical powers?

First, American astronaut Neil Armstrong, who was the first person to walk on the moon, passed away less than one week ago — coincidentally (?) in the same month as the blue moon. Second, this blue moon falls on the weekend widely considered to be the unofficial end of summer. Up All Night: Top 10 U.S. Cities With Sleepless Singles

"What's so significant about that?" you may wonder. Well, as one YourTango staffer pointed out with regards to Neil Armstrong's passing, "it's like the moon is keeping an eye on him." And, since summer is often associated with fleeting flings, this weekend implicitly marks the transition from temporary trysts to prolonged passion.

So, sure, the blue moon may be as romantically (ir)relevant as any other astrological occurrence. And, if you're a science-minded skeptic, you may find it difficult to accept that this rare, but regularly occurring, occasion is anything to get sentimental about. Nonetheless, we think you should keep an open heart, especially if you're a jaded single who's been beaten down by the dating scene. After all, great love doesn't come along every day, but, if you pay close attention, it will cross your path once in a blue moon.

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Was he just "not that into me" or could he be a commitment phobe?

I dated an older guy for 6 months. I'm 38; he's 60. He's not some 20-something player. He is losing his hair and uses Cialis. (Didn't matter to me.) He has been divorced for 15 years. That marriage lasted for 19 years. He said he took her for granted and focused too much on their 3 kids. She cheated on him, and he caught her. He has hardly dated for the past 15 years and hasn't been in a relationship, according to him and to my friends who have known him longer than I have.

He told me we were “made for each other” and that he didn’t believe in fate but would like to when it came to me. He said he never knew sex could be as special as it was with me because it hadn’t been that way with his wife of 19 years. He sent sweet text messages. He wanted to be exclusive and suggested early on we spend our weekends together. We went to France for a week in May, and I had dinner with him and his parents several times and met his 3 grown children.

The last few weeks he grew distant. At first, he didn't text as often. I sent him a text, asking if he was ok and telling him I missed hearing from him. He texted 3 hours later, saying he had not been sleeping well and was exhausted. After that, he stopped texting. I sent him a Facebook message a couple of days later, asking if I had done anything to offend him, and he replied the next day, saying I had not; he had "just been having to sort through some things."

After ignoring him for a few days, I received an e-mail from him early Monday morning. I guess this is a break-up letter? Here's his e-mail:

"I don't know what the right forum is for this, or whether it is just better to say nothing at all, but my feelings about my relationship with you are complicated. I'm not seeing anyone else, and that's not an issue, and I'm not upset about anything that you've done, but I began to examine what was going on between us, and it seemed clear to me that you were bringing a lot more emotion and passion into the relationship than I was. This wasn't anything intentionally deceitful on my part, it just was the emotional hand I was dealt. But, I began to feel a little uncomfortable with this, maybe a crisis of conscience, but it didn't really seem fair or right to you.

"As I'm writing this, I think maybe I need to have my head examined, for you're a beautiful lady, smart, interesting, we have so many things in common -- I couldn't go to the drawing board and some up with a more ideal woman. And the sex -- that's been pretty incredible. The time I have spent with you has been wonderful.

"But, something was missing for me. Why, I don't know. I'm not sure I can explain the reasons. I'm not sure if it had to do with the fact that I hadn't really had a real relationship in 15 years and the thought of it still kinda scares the hell out of me, if I'd kinda gotten set in my ways during this time, if it's that I was having a hard time opening after my divorce (I know I have a problem with this; defense mechanism, I guess). It's certainly nothing you did or didn't do. All I know is this is what I'm feeling, and it has been troubling me.

"I certainly don't relish hurting you -- I'm sorry about that -- but I haven't really known how to address this issue, and I didn't think things needed to go on as they were. I guess maybe it would be better to address these issues in person, rather than by e-mail, but I'm not sure I could remember all this if we were talking in person and things got emotional. I told you this was complicated; at least it is for me. I don't know whether addressing these issues like this makes you feel better or worse, but I'm hoping trying to explain things will be better in the long run. I do think you are a special person."

In the middle of the day Monday, when I hadn't responded, he sent me another e-mail, saying, "For what it's worth, you did look beautiful Saturday night." As I mentioned earlier, we saw each other at a musical event in our small town but did not speak because of the awkwardness.

I sent him an e-mail Tuesday, asking, "So where do we go from here?" He responded last night (Thursday): “Don’t know right now.”

I'm beginning to think commitment phobia may have been the problem. He seemed really "into me" for almost 6 months. And now he feels as if his "emotional barriers" might have been the problem, but, at any rate, his feelings are "complicated."

Looking back, I see some red flags. He told me that during his childhood years, his father (who's now 85 and was very sweet to me) was very hardened. He was a doctor who worked long hours, and this man felt like he was never good enough for his father or that sometimes his father didn't even want him around. He dated his ex-wife for 7 years before they married. He said he was an indecisive person, and it was really hard to get into that relationship and then really hard to get out when it broke apart. When their first son was born 29 years ago, he had a really hard time dealing with the commitment and suffered from anxiety. Of course, he hasn't had a "real relationship" for 15 years, but he did tell me that the women in whom he got interested were usually "inappropriate" for him: "gum-smacking waitress types" with whom he nothing in common and it usually wouldn't work out--until he met me.

Still, I find it hard to understand why someone seem so invested and affectionate for the first five or six months and then turn so quickly. So was he just not “into me” after all, or does he sound like a potential commitment phobe?

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Could This Goldfish Help You Get Laid?

Could This Goldfish Help You Get Laid?

This may be the craziest video I?ve ever seen in the dating/pickup community:

When you watch it, you?ll uncover one of the biggest biological mysteries behind feminine attraction - and how to use it to your advantage.

In fact, this ?gold fish secret? is THE #1 thing you MUST understand if you?re serious about creating instant attraction with your ?type? of woman, no matter how hot she is.

(I?m pretty jealous that my friend Josh was the guy to
discover it )

The best part is, this technique is the ultimate ?equalizer?
-- meaning that it allows you to beat out guys who are taller, wealthier, better looking or even more well-endowed.

Even if you?ve barely kissed a girl before - it doesn?t matter.

Because when women sense you have the traits he reveals on this video (which btw, have nothing to do with being ?alpha?)... they can?t help but want you uncontrollably.

Be sure to watch to the very end - because he reveals three things you can try out on any woman TONIGHT (including a very specific way to look at her, that will make her want to kiss you!)

Gold Fish Secret Video

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