Think your husband is cheating? Read how I learned to read the signs to find out if my husband was cheating. I’ve been married for almost 13 years, but I’m not a relationship guru, nor I usually give marriage advice, so take my advice with grain of salt.

I was visiting a luxury spa a while ago, and they had a psychic medium to teach a session about intuition. I’m pretty open to new things but when it comes to fortune tellers and psychics, I don’t have much trust after one psychic medium told me I was going to divorce my husband when I was 8 months pregnant. I was also supposed to have twins this year, and looks like that’s not gonna happen. So I was a little skeptic in this session, but when she told us to do a little practice on intuition on our way home, I decided to do it. She instructed us to send a question out to the universe, and by the time we got home, we would have the answer. Simple enough.

I was trying to think of a good question. Should it be something big? Or just a small thing like “will tonight’s SNL be worth watching”? Nothing big really came to my mind, but I thought the universe shouldn’t be bothered with non-meaningful questions.

Then one question popped into my mind “has my husband ever cheated on me”. Come on, who wouldn’t want to know if your husband was cheating on you? Game on, and my question was sent to the universe.

I was sort of nervous. What if the answer was “yes” – what was I going to tell my husband when I got home? “Dude, I asked the universe if you had cheated on me, and it answered yes, let’s have a talk”. And seriously, my husband would think I was nuts if I said “honey, I saw a big 18-wheeler with text “yes” on the side and it was a sign that you have cheated on me”.

Would this (silly) intuitive exercise impact our relationship? Would I believe my husband or the “sign”? It was from the friggin’ universe after all, much bigger than my husband. The Universe might be the same thing as God, so I better believe what it says, right?

I don’t know. I was just looking for an answer and decided I would deal with the consequences later.

The medium had told us that the answer could come from anywhere. It might be a song you hear from radio, a newspaper headline, a conversation you overhear, text in a billboard. But you would see it, in form of hints or/and loud and clear. The entire drive home I was skipping radio channels and the songs about eternal love and how you are the only one for me would pop up, but I still didn’t get a definite “yes” or “no”. I was getting little impatient and I was getting closer to home, and was worried what if I didn’t get my answer by the time I got home. I might have to engage my husband in a thrilling discussion because now I was all pumped up about the topic and my tongue was sharpened to verbally attack. It wasn’t going to be pretty. My heart was racing because I thought I had to face my husband and ask if he is cheating on me, and I was fearing all of the discussion to follow.

I was thinking can’t I just see or hear simple “yes” or “no”. Dear Universe, just give me an answer, no more of these love songs and leading hints, I NEED to know before going home.
I need to know now, yes or no.
Less than 10 seconds later I drove by a big sign that said North-something.
All I could see was the first two letters, N-O.

Now, I don’t know if this was the universe telling me anything, but all I have to say, I was pretty darn happy with the answer, and decided just to leave it as it is.

I did this probably the first 5 years of my marriage.
Fearing he doesn’t really love me, because his love is different than mine.

I recently wrote a post at Lifetime Moms hoping that an app could help me to do spring cleaning, and while my house isn’t any cleaner now, those phone apps can sure do magical things. I was introduced to a very cool app at SXSWi conference in Austin last month, and I go as far as saying that this is an app that could save your marriage. The app is called Neer (available for iPhone 4 and Android).

Imagine this scenario.

Your husband calls “honey, I’m leaving work now, should be home in 20 minutes” and you say “great, will you stop and get milk on the way home” and while your husband answers “sure thing”, something happens at work right when he is leaving, pulling him back to do some more work, talk to a co-worker about yesterday’s game, or fill the fax machine with paper because the faxes are still coming in – or what ever it may be that holds him back. His honest intention was to come home immediately, and get the milk, but life happens and when he is finally on his way, he just wants to get home fast, and forgets the milk. And you are mad – twenty minutes turned into two hours, and no milk! Sounds familiar? If not – you are probably alone or still on your honeymoon.

We have apps for connecting, we have apps for sharing pictures and words and our locations with numerous “friends” or followers, and many of us are afraid to use these location based apps that will reveal your every location. I for one would never check-in at my kids school publicly, but I would like my husband to know that I picked the kids up from school and we all are safely back home.

Neer solves all of these problems for you.

You will connect only with your “inner circle” of family or friends with Neer and it will automatically send notices to your family where you are. And by this I mean it is so automated that you don’t even have to use the app to check-in at places. So when your husband really leaves work, the app will send you a message he left work, and he didn’t have to do a thing – just leave the building. You can pinpoint important places like work, home, school grocery store in the app, and it will send you notices when your family members enter or leave them. I see this an awesome way to keep track on your tweens and teens!

Oh, and when it comes to the milk at the grocery store… You can leave notes at places for each others or for yourself. For example when your husband enters the store to get the milk, you could have also entered a note “get milk, and bring cookies too” and the moment your husband enters the store, your note pops up. No checking in – all automatic.

Now, this is an app that could totally save a marriage.

My sweetheart and I in 2002.

I am not a big fan of Valentine’s Day. There, I said it. While I love the idea of celebrating love for each others and remembering the people we love the most, I don’t think I need a day in a calendar for it.

Even though I am not a big fan of Valentine’s Day, it is a great time to remind ourselves not only to show our appreciation to each others on this one special day, but every day. I have been married for 13 years this summer, and every single day I feel that I am more in love with my husband. I have to say though, it hasn’t always been this way. We’ve had our fair share of difficulties, like I think everyone does in their marriage. I don’t think happy marriage comes easily, and “just is”, I think it needs a lot of work. And with work I mean watering the plant and helping the love grow, and it’s fun work. I don’t think it just happens, even though I can testify that I believe in the love at the first sight, and I still love him, years after the first sight. But to keep it going – you do need to work for it, and be committed to it, and it takes much more than getting the Valentine’s Day right.

I think Valentine’s Day brings many people pressure to make their Valentine’s Day special, and with that always comes (high) expectations, and sometimes those expectations are not met; whether it’s yours or your spouse’s. And trust me – the way how he handles Valentine’s Day doesn’t equal to how much he loves you.

I almost think my “gift” to my husband is that I don’t require a romantic Valentine’s Day – that means no stress of getting the perfect gift, no pressure to get it right, because most of the time he can’t read my mind what I really want anyways. Nothing ruined my Valentine’s Day more than knowing that only reason he bought me a Hallmark card and flowers because his mom had asked him to do so.

See, I just don’t want a gift, I want the perfect gift. And I don’t want to tell what I want (making it difficult to please me), I want it to come from the heart. But with that I have pretty precise expectations (that he should pretty much be able to read my mind) because we are soul mates. Ideally, he should do exactly what I want and when I want, because that happens when it’s true love, when we are soul mates and it all comes from the heart.
Yeah, right.

See why I much rather just skip it entirely? Because my expectations of a perfect Valentine’s Day are unrealistic and to avoid disappointments I rather celebrate our love in many many other ways.

So my crazy theory is that I much rather not ask my husband to try to read my mind what I want for a Romantic Surprise On A Special Day, because most likely he would not be able to reach my expectations. And then he is able to read my mind or surprise me in a romantic way on a regular Monday and when he does – it is better than anything else; it is a genuine surprise, genuine love, and no expectations to be met, and that’s why it’s perfect. Plus, I get helluva more “Valentine’s Days” this way than once a year. Because yes, my Romantic Expectations are still pretty high even though I don’t celebrate the Feb 14th. That’s just because I believe that we should work on our marriage and our relationship every day, not just on special days. To me having many surprise Valentine’s Days and celebrating our love just because is living life to the fullest. Oh, and by the way – I am perfectly fine getting the heart shaped box of chocolate a week late after it has been purchased on sale…

Whether your Valentine’s Day was perfect or less perfect, remember to continue the romance in your relationship every day. If Valentine’s Day is your thing, I salute you for mastering the day of romance, but I ask you to treat a regular day every now and then just like it was Valentine’s Day and see how much fun celebrating love is “just because”.

I was sitting here reading Jerri Ann’s entry post this evening. She is talking about her husband and her story reminded me a little of my own husband. Originally I was going to enter this contest too. I thought it was so sweet when I hear that Katja had sponsored Amanda. Then I thought it was amazing when she asked who else needed sponsored. She is going out of her way, spending her own money, to help other women. Asking nothing in return, just out of the kindness of her heart. That is unheard of these days! It’s sad, but it’s true. Hardly anyone does something just because they care anymore. It seems everybody forgot that 4 letter word… LOVE. How can anyone live their life to the fullest without love?

I thought of a million things I could say on how I live life to the fullest. I thought about all the people I could ask to vote for me. I thought about how nice it would be to win. Then I snapped back into reality. I cannot afford the plane or any other costs, so I wouldn’t be able to use the ticket. Honestly I couldn’t afford it right now if it was $40. Jerri Ann’s story reminded me of that, but not in a bad way.

My husband and I had just had a conversation about this. He was urging me to go ahead and enter and share how we live life to the fullest. He said I should tell the story about how every time life seems low or every time we are down I remind him, “It’s okay, because we have each other. Our love for each other and Elijah (our son) is all that matters.”

It’s true, we live life to the fullest by filling it with love for each other. The little things don’t matter, the money doesn’t matter, the material things don’t matter. WE are what matter. The love for each other is what matters.

I explained to him that it would do me no good to enter because I couldn’t afford the rest of the trip. I could see it in his eyes that he understood, but he WISHED for that second we did have the money so I could go.  I hugged him and told him it’s okay I will go to a conference eventually, taking care of our family is more important.

My husband loves me so much that he got upset we can’t afford for me to go to BlissDom. That act of love means more to me than ANY conference ever would. I am not sharing this story to enter the contest, I am sharing this because I wanted to remind each of you how powerful and fulfilling love is. Whether you are going to Blissdom or not, live life to the fullest now by sharing and treasuring love.

“Love has no desire but to fulfill itself. To melt and be like a running brook that sings it’s melody to the night. To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving.” ~Kahlil Gibran

Written by Erin Pyle. Erin Pyle is a writer, graphic designer and mother. She enjoys spending time loving her family and playing with her toddler son, social media, organizing and being creative. To find out more about Erin, the other places she writes, and how else she lives life to the fullest, connect with her on her parenting site, www.pyleoflove.com , and on twitter @erinjeany.

This post is part of Blissdom Conference ticket giveaway.

Exactly 11 years ago at this moment I was walking down the aisle standing in the front of a judge in Enterprise, Alabama, getting ready to say “I do”.

There is one picture of our wedding day in the anniversary post I wrote two years ago, but can you believe that last year, on my 10th wedding anniversary my blog post was titled “I Think I’ll Live”? And there was no hint of irony there… My biggest celebration of that day was that I was able to speak & walk five steps & brush my teeth myself, and had hope that I will see my 11th wedding anniversary.

We didn’t really care that we didn’t have a big wedding (I still don’t have any regrets). My family & friends were in Finland, Matt’s in Texas, and having a wedding in either of those places would have left one of us feeling out of place and not knowing anyone. We were getting married to spend the rest of our lives together, I didn’t care for anything else. While I understand the feeling of wanting to shout it down from the rooftops when you are so ultimately in love with someone, but love had hit me so suddenly and getting married felt really intimate and independent decision to me.

Of course there were the factors that my parents hadn’t even met Matt, my friends thought I was crazy, and many of them thought I was “wasting my life” by moving to the other side of the world. While my friends back in Europe thought my decision of getting married to an American soldier was the craziest thing I had ever done, to me it was the decision that felt the most right than any other decision I had ever done in my life. I still think that way.

We got married on a lunch break. The court house was not open during the weekends, and Matt was in the military flight school, unable to even get a whole day off. My mom had made me a dress, but my parents weren’t even there for the 5 minute ceremony, Matt’s family had driven in from Texas the day before. Our witnesses were Matt’s classmates, dressed in army uniforms and green flight suits. My mother-in-law-to-be bought me flowers, which I hadn’t even thought of getting, and we forgot to even get a wedding cake, but got one the night before from grocery story (and of all places I think it was Walmart, if I can remember correctly!). Only things I had really thought of getting to celebrate the day were new lingerie and a bottle of champagne!

So since I don’t have a picture story of our wedding, I figured I will share some other pictures from the past. This is the first 6 years of our marriage….

Of course, since we have lived the skimbaco lifestyle before I even made up the word, this photo collage isn’t even close to describe our life.. like how we moved to Germany after being married for a year, but I went to Finland to have our first baby, while Matt was deployed in Kosovo. Or how we had another baby in Germany, moved to the US when she was two months old, lived in Alabama again, took girls to DisneyWorld. Magically I was pregnant again.. and we bought our first house in New York, lived a while at Virginia Beach, sold the house in New York, Matt got out of army, flew TV news helicopter in Cleveland, Ohio… and we built our dream house in Nashville, Tennessee, but moved to be ski bums, pro moms and rescue helicopter pilots at the Rocky Mountains. Last year travelled 2 months, now we live outside New York City…

And I feel that this is just the beginning. Only thing that has changed since the day we got married is that I don’t care for the lingerie anymore. Today I just want champagne.

Oh, and one more thing. I really love you Matt.