Every relationship is unique and what works for one couple does not necessarily replicate for every other couple out there!

Having now worked with hundreds of romantic couples from all sorts of backgrounds, beliefs and experience levels, I’ve started to discover more and more trends that DO span across a variety of different relationships and more specifically, how those relationships develop over time.

In this article, I am going to present to you a simplified version of this relationship development in the form of an illustrated time line. It portrays two of the core elements behind every happy and fulfilling long-term relationship… I call it The Happy Relationship Time Line! [Continue reading this post...]

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This entry was posted on Saturday, October 30th, 2010 at 12:58 pm by Samuel McCrohan and is filed under Relationships.
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Criticism is defined as the act of passing judgement on both the merits and faults of something someone does, although in a relationship it is associated predominantly with negative feedback:

“You never do…”

“That’s typical of you…”

“You’re useless at…”

Criticism is something that is rife in all areas of life, from family to business, but it is in a long-term relationship where criticism can feel particularly hurtful and can easily develop into something far more sinister… [Continue reading this post...]

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 21st, 2010 at 6:47 pm by Samuel McCrohan and is filed under Relationships.
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Ask any relationship expert what they believe the foundation to a lasting relationship is and chances are that “trust” will appear near the top of the list.

Second to that, the most popular article on this website by some margin is one I wrote last year titled, ‘Dealing with your girlfriend getting hit on’. The comments section of that article currently features over 100 in-depth questions and answers and the recurring topic throughout is that of ‘trust in a relationship’.

This article aims to condense some of the advice given in response to those real-life relationship concerns, as well as give some further insights as to why trust can become such a big issue in a relationship and how you can learn to be at peace with it at all times… [Continue reading this post...]

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This entry was posted on Thursday, August 12th, 2010 at 6:04 pm by Samuel McCrohan and is filed under Relationships.
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There are several factors that contribute towards how attractive you are… or more precisely, how attractive people perceive you to be. The two overriding factors though are your internal beliefs and your conveyed personality.

Internal beliefs are generally constructed through life experience, from infancy onwards… If you experience positive messages and attention from others, you will generally have a lot more self-belief and confidence by default than if you rarely receive validation of that sort.

Conveyed personality is an extension of that inner confidence and is basically how we come across to other people, including first impressions and social skills.

Internal beliefs and conveyed personality are closely correlated, with each one directly affecting the other. This means that by improving one aspect of these attraction variables, you proportionally improve the other.

This article is going to focus on the latter of these two variables, with the intention being that by paying attention to certain aspects of your personality, you can increase how attractive other people perceive you. This will in turn improve several internal beliefs.

Note that this article is not implying that you change your core personality, more that it is suggesting ways to CONVEY your personality in the best way. Also remember that attraction doesn’t stop when you’re in a relationship… presumably you want to remain attractive throughout your relationships too!

Without further ado, here are three steps to being more attractive… [Continue reading this post...]

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This entry was posted on Thursday, July 15th, 2010 at 6:42 pm by Samuel McCrohan and is filed under Dating.
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It is widely recognisable that there are two distinct stages during the first few years of a new relationship.

The first of these stages is the attraction, lust and romance stage, which develops from when a couple first start dating and can last anywhere from a few months to several years. This continues whilst a couple discover each other fully and build intimate rapport together.

The second of these stages is the commitment, management and awareness stage, which continues thereafter. This stage usually develops around the time there is a prominent gesture of commitment, such as deciding to live together, or simply the period where a couple become deeply and emotionally close to one another.

The power shifts that develop across these two stages are unavoidable but the degree to which we let a power struggle affect a relationship can most certainly be handled… [Continue reading this post...]

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This entry was posted on Friday, June 11th, 2010 at 11:01 am by Samuel McCrohan and is filed under Relationships.
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You may be familiar with the term polygamy, which refers to a married man or woman having more than one spouse at a time: a practice that is illegal in many cultures and frowned upon in others (although not all). Polyamory is a modern adaptation of this, which simply refers to someone having more than one loving or sexual relationship at a time.

Modern-day polyamorous relationships, or ‘open relationships’, have a somewhat negative reputation in modern society and I think this is largely because they are misunderstood.

I thought I would share some of my own insights into polyamorous relationships and explain how, whether you approve of the underlying principles or not, they can help enrich how you approach your own relationships and the attitudes and mindsets surrounding them… [Continue reading this post...]

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 28th, 2010 at 5:34 pm by Samuel McCrohan and is filed under Relationships.
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As Sparklife.info gets increasingly popular, I receive more and more requests from advertisers and affiliate marketers wanting my endorsement. For some reason, the most common request is from ‘get your ex back’ type programs.

There are specific reasons why I am reluctant to promote any program or service that deals with getting back with an ex-girlfriend or ex-boyfriend that I will explain shortly, but this third-party interest does show that it is a common enough issue for me to cover.

This article will give a few tips on how to get back with an ex but will first address what I believe is a far more pertinent question… [Continue reading this post...]

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This entry was posted on Friday, April 2nd, 2010 at 3:34 pm by Samuel McCrohan and is filed under Relationships.
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Hello everybody! Well, believe it or not, Sparklife.info is officially one year old, woohoo!! It has been an immensely enjoyable year, where I’ve continued to develop a lot of my theories regarding dating and relationships. I hope you’ve enjoyed what I have published so far and here’s to many more years!

Before reviewing the articles from the last six months since the last review, I would like to quickly thank everyone who has read, shared and commented on any of my articles so far. Notable regular readers and contributors include Elena (if you’re a dog-lover then make sure you check out her website ‘Too Kool Doggies’), Joan, Eva, Pyrax, Dean, Fluffosaur/Starsparkle, Jon, some cute Canadian chick I know and everyone else!!

Without further ado, here are all the articles from the last six months… [Continue reading this post...]

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This entry was posted on Friday, March 5th, 2010 at 5:06 pm by Samuel McCrohan and is filed under General.
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A lot of people say, when put on the spot about dating someone specific, or when deciding to end a relationship, that they are just not “compatible” with this other person.

The truth is that compatibility is created and we can learn to be compatible with just about anyone.

It is the art of connecting with someone that we base this compatibility supposition on: some people connect with each other far more naturally than others, which is generally how we get into romantic relationships.

It is for this reason, that when a couple come to me, adamant on staying together and working on their relationship, that helping them to connect with each other is the number one priority. If you can positively connect with someone (and I will explain what I mean by positively connecting in this article) then the basis of a fulfilling relationship is already there… [Continue reading this post...]

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010 at 3:41 pm by Samuel McCrohan and is filed under Dating, Relationships.
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Whilst the general advice I give when dating or in the early stages of a new relationship is to ‘lead and guide the interactions’ and ‘bring them into your world’, some people take this far too literally when they are actually in a relationship. Doing these two things dogmatically, you will become the selfish, unreasonable partner.

Every healthy relationship needs compromise! Humans are extremely complex and varied creatures, so no matter how suited you feel you and your partner are, you will always have differing opinions on certain things. It is unlikely you will ever have someone who always confidently agrees with you and decidedly wants to do whatever you want to do and let’s be honest, how fun would that actually be! My standard rule for compromising is:

If something doesn’t hurt me or go against my core beliefs and principles then do it.

There is a lot more to a healthy compromise between a couple than this though and this article aims to break it down to its core components… [Continue reading this post...]

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This entry was posted on Friday, February 5th, 2010 at 6:12 pm by Samuel McCrohan and is filed under Relationships.
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