Who better to write the world’s most memorable love letters than the world’s most famous writers? We take a look at the most passionate snail-mail the world has ever seen, starting with French novelist and playwright Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850):

My beloved angel,

I am nearly mad about you, as much as one can be mad: I cannot bring together two ideas that you do not interpose yourself between them.

I can no longer think of anything but you. In spite of myself, my imagination carries me to you. I grasp you, I kiss you, I caress you, a thousand of the most amorous caresses take possession of me.

As for my heart, there you will always be – very much so. I have a delicious sense of you there. But my God, what is to become of me, if you have deprived me of my reason? This is a monomania which, this morning, terrifies me.

I rise up every moment saying to myself, “Come, I am going there!” Then I sit down again, moved by the sense of my obligations. There is a frightful conflict. This is not life. I have never before been like that. You have devoured everything.

I feel foolish and happy as soon as I think of you. I whirl round in a delicious dream in which in one instant I live a thousand years. What a horrible situation!

Overcome with love, feeling love in every pore, living only for love, and seeing oneself consumed by griefs, and caught in a thousand spiders’ threads.

O, my darling Eva, you did not know it. I picked up your card. It is there before me, and I talk to you as if you were there. I see you, as I did yesterday, beautiful, astonishingly beautiful.

Yesterday, during the whole evening, I said to myself “she is mine!” Ah! The angels are not as happy in Paradise as I was yesterday!

- Honoré de Balzac to Ewelina Hańska (a Polish countess) in June 1836. Balzac would finally marry Hańska in 1850 – just five months before his death.

Images: Wikimedia Commons / Wikimedia Commons

An exclusive EcoSalon playlist that will make you feel a little better post-breakup.

In a state of semi-crisis post breakup? Here’s the perfect playlist for you. And even if you’re not in an upset disarray, these songs are still pretty good.

Check out the music videos below, or instead of clicking play every time one music video ends and you need to start the next, go even further ahead and listen to all of them nonstop on our 10 Songs for the Post Breakup playlist on 8tracks.

1. Better Things To Do – Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings

2. Bite My Tongue – King Khan and the Shrines

3. Go Outside – Cults

4. Leave Everywhere – Toro Y Moi

5. You(th) – Hollow Pigeons

6. A Long Time – Mayer Hawthorne

7. Gronlandic Edit – Of Montreal

8. A Sentence Of Sorts In Kongsvinger – Of Montreal

9. Liar – Built To Spill

10. You’re Breaking My Heart – Harry Nilsson

ALSO CHECK OUT:

10 Songs to Run To

10 Songs for When it Feels Good to be Sad

10 Songs to be Single To

Image: CarbonNYC

Valentine’s Day is coming! Valentine’s Day is coming!

Time to pull out every cliche in the book! It’s the most romantic day of the year! Obviously! This is what all the PR firms are telling us and we’ve gotten so many pitches over the past two weeks, we’re making this week’s lengthy edition of Better Living Through Publicists a cherry heart bonbon the size of which you’ve never seen, nested in forty million rose petals, floating atop an Olympic-sized bubble bath of edible chocolate froth. In other words, at once absurd and predictable: Just like Valentine’s Day and the publicists’ pitches that come with it!

If Hotel Walls Could Talk

Hotels.com took a “Romance Survey” that uncovered “Both dissidence and harmony between the sexes surrounding Valentine’s Day.” What did they find? Well, of course all couples get a hotel room on Valentine’s Day (thanks hotel.com survey), but what do men and women think about Valentine’s Day hanky-panky?

They want lingerie, they want sex in the jacuzzi (note to self – avoid the jacuzzi next time you travel), they want Filet Mignon and dark chocolate and also, because they hate their partner so much for forcing them to endure this obviously horrible weekend, have opted for celebrities to do this with instead:

It’s no wonder that many couples divorce or break up on the 14th. Steak, anyone?

Doomsday is Coming!

Here’s a book to cheer you up for the impending day of doom. “As stores are flooded with hearts and sappy sentiments, many single women’s hearts are flooded with reminders of loneliness, failure and doom. But cheer up ladies! There is someone out there who is confident that you will find ‘the one’ and wants to remind you to keep the faith.”

Hey thanks, Lindsley Lowell! I bet you’re going to be the one with your truly graphically pleasing book to tell us who it is!
Do you deserve true love? Are you over 35 and therefore “discounted, last season’s fashions?” Do you have the guts to sit it out and wait for a man in metal to come and sweep you off your feet?

Lindsley advises: “Do not settle. Do not let others put you down. Do not think you are crazy. Do not throw in the towel and start crocheting outfits for your cat. There IS hope. Let me be your beacon of hope, your wing woman, your leader in the fight to find your knight in shining armor. Yes, Virginia, he does exist. He just might be stuck in traffic.”

But why does the PR pitch go on to talk about how the remaining available men look “like the used, discarded Island of the Misfit Toys?”

You’re old goods, but don’t settle, but the men left aren’t so great, but they are! And you don’t simply happen to want to be single, obviously.

I’m so confused. Should I just become lesbian? Oh, just call me on the 14th and we’ll figure it out over oysters.

When All Else Fails, Shop HBO!

Because you have nobody to love (because you watch too much TV), get one of these synthetic, toxic shirts to proclaim you love something on the 14th!

By the way, HBO, we heart organic cotton.

Nothing Says Sexy Like Tyrosine!

See this woman? She’s internationally renowned celebrity nutrition and fitness expert JJ Virgin, co-star of TLC’s hit series Freaky Eaters. That’s right, Virgin. Virgin is one of those people who believes food can fuel a love fire, so she advises you to better your V-Day by following a few items on this list:

Feed him celery – a few stalks of celery it raises a man’s androstenedione, which emits a scent women can’t resist

Get your zinc on – zinc-containing foods support healthy sperm production and are high in D-aspartic acid and N-methyl-D-aspartate, which increased testosterone levels

Tyrosine and zinc supplements – increase dopamine levels in the brain, which has been linked to boosting the sex drive

Supplements, baby, supplements – fish oil supports good blood flow, arginine helps with vasodilation, and Tongkat Ali support shealthy testosterone levels

Go nuts – L-arginine enhances production of nitrous oxide (NO) to increase blood flow to the nether regions, and nuts especially are rich in arginine

Yes, chocolate! – dark chocolate contains phenylethylamine, which releases the same endorphins triggered by sex and increases the feelings of attraction between two people

Hot coffee – coffee drinkers have higher libidos and hit the sheets more often than those who don’t indulge, according to a study conducted by Southwestern University.

Get filet-ed – Lean cuts of red meat are great sources of zinc and curb production of a hormone called prolactin, which at high levels can cause sexual dysfunction. Choose deep red cuts with round or loin in the name.

So, to sum up. Nuts, deep cuts of loin. Got it. Totally sexy.

Feeling Unloved? Retreat To Dawn Christie, Spiritual Champion of the Stars!

Image: La Maison Duce, Irina

Susan G Komen cuts off Planned Parenthood using a lame excuse and tries to claim it’s not political.

Shame on the Susan G. Komen Foundation. The organization blankets this country with all manner of pink marketing baubles proclaiming to care about women’s health, yet on January 31, SGK announced that it will cease future grant funding to Planned Parenthood, an organization that arguably does more for women’s health than any other by serving women without health care.

For SGK to claim that their focus is women’s health education and prevention and then to cease to support an organization dedicated to it is completely hypocritical, especially since it has a long history of funding Planned Parenthood. The LA Times reports that “over the last five years, Planned Parenthood has provided about 4 million breast exams and referrals for 70,000 mammograms nationwide. Funding from Komen covers about 170,000 of the breast exams and 6,400 mammogram referrals. Although mammograms and biopsies are referred out, Planned Parenthood doctors manage their patients’ cases.”

SGK tried to wriggle out of it by saying that they recently adopted criteria that prohibits the organization from funding any other that is under federal investigation, and conveniently, Planned Parenthood is the subject of a witch hunt launched by Cliff Stearns (R-Fla). To hide behind this technicality only highlights the fact that they are buckling to pro-life pressure. It shows that their concern is not women’s breast health in its entirety, but aligning itself politically behind a single issue that has nothing to do with breast cancer.

And that, Kivi Leroux Miller points out, is a giant branding mistake for which there is no going back now, ever. Before this, SGK managed to occupy neutral ground in the abortion debate, allowing them to appeal to women and sponsors on both sides of the issue, but now they have taken sides and unleashed “an entirely avoidable and deeply regrettable controversy.”

It started when SGK hired Karen Handel, an anti-Planned Parenthood, pro-life advocate, as VP for public policy in April 2011. Then Stearns launched an investigation into PP in September 2011, and soon after there was a new policy in place that conveniently cut funding to PP. Three sources within SGK told The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg that SGK manufactured that policy specifically to exclude PP, who seemed to be caught completely off guard by this decision.

After Susan G. Komen’s death, her sister, Nancy Brinker, vowed to do everything in her power to end breast cancer forever. Funding Planned Parenthood and its education and prevention services is within SGK’s power, and by ceasing funding, it just took a big step backward in the fight.

Planned Parenthood has taken all of this abuse and funding cuts, and for what? Because they provide a legal service that makes up 3 percent of their services? (And no federal or SGK funds go toward abortions, by the way.) All this does is punish millions of women who rely on Planned Parenthood – the vast majority of whom are not there for an abortion.

What will happen if funding continues to decline for Planned Parenthood and the organization is finally forced to close its doors? Will pro-life advocates calling for the demise of PP feel righteous when all the low-income or unemployed women and men, uninsured adolescents, recent college grads and freelance and contract employees who can’t afford full health care coverage have nowhere to go for competent health care?

As the numbers of the uninsured grow to not only encompass the poor, but creep into the middle class, this attack on PP demonstrates an extreme lack of compassion for a large number of people in this country. Boiling all these arguments down to one issue and mounting a relentless assault on an organization because they provide one service is to be willingly blind to all the other facets of women’s health care. For SGK to place its own political agenda above its stated mission is selfish, especially knowing full well how much PP relies on their funding.

SGK should really rework those marketing materials to say: “We race for the cure for women who can afford not to go to Planned Parenthood.” In big pink letters.

image: ladybugbkt via Flickr cc (some rights reserved)

Column Facts are facts.

It’s Groundhog Day, which, if nothing else, means you have a legitimate excuse to watch what is inarguably the last great film Harold Ramis ever directed. It also provides a thin and tired narrative frame for us to hang an assortment of sex facts from, and for that, we can all be grateful. Congratulations! It’s almost spring. (Oh god, spring is still so far away. There are at least five more weeks of nothing but apple pyramids and Brussels sprouts at the farmers’ markets.)

20%: increase in vitamin D and fertility-related hormones for women after prolonged exposure to sunlight

States that recognize same-sex marriage as of February 2nd: 7 (welcome to the party, Washington!)

35: median male age at first marriage in Sweden, the world’s oldest

$140: amount the average Swede spends in a given year in the pursuit of romance

$94: amount spent by the average Dutch citizen, the lowest rate in Europe

$815: going rate among the Irish

1924: Year the term “sexpert” was coined (yet another thing to blame the Jazz Age for. Thanks a lot, Fitzgerald).

Number of days Phil Connors spent trapped inside of the Groundhog Day loop, according to best estimates: 12,403

2 to 4: Factor by which most men over-report their number of lifetime sexual partners

Image: qmnonic

Be pure. Be sexy. Be a nurturer. Don’t breastfeed in public. Messages to women are more conflicted than ever.

We live in an advanced era of cloud computing, virtual personal assistants and cars that can parallel park themselves. So why is it that women so often feel like we’re still living in the dark ages? The question of whether we should even have access to birth control is still a part of our everyday political discourse. Fathers are symbolically claiming their daughters’ virginity. We’re slammed with objectifying ads that tell us to be more sexy, then shamed for claiming our sexual identities. And perhaps the saddest part of all is that it isn’t just men who are forcing these forms of suppression and control onto women’s bodies; the pressure comes from other women, too.

Purity pledges

Young girls are such delicate, corruptible little flowers that their wise, protective fathers must not only rule their sexuality with an iron fist, but demand that their daughters pledge their virginity to them. So goes the rationale of the Purity Ball movement, engineered largely by Christian fathers as a means of control over their progeny’s blossoming bodies.

What makes this even more disturbing is the fact that these girls are not making this decision for themselves at puberty (and even then, they’re too young to realize just what their fathers are asking of them.) Girls are brought to their first Purity Ball at the age of five, where they prance around in white dresses, listen to sermons about living a “pure life” and pledge themselves to their fathers. Throughout childhood and adolescence, the girls are given ominous warnings of the “terrible consequences” of losing their virginity, and essentially told that they have no input on their own burgeoning sexual identities at all. Many girls receive lock charms on necklaces, the keys held by their fathers, who will pass them over to their husbands on their wedding day in a transfer of male power.

Of course, there’s no equivalent movement that attempts to force young men into pledging their virginity to their mothers. Because that would just be weird.

Virginity tests

Taking control over young women’s vaginas to a far greater extreme, virginity tests are the literal examination of a woman’s hymen to be sure that she hasn’t had sex before marriage. These tests are illegal in many countries, and Amnesty International classifies them as torture. That doesn’t stop them from happening all over the world, both in institutional and private settings. Some cultures require that brides-to-be undergo such a test before their wedding day. Last year in Egypt, female protesters were subjected to them by military authorities; an official explained “We didn’t want them to say we had sexually assaulted or raped them, so we wanted to prove that they weren’t virgins in the first place.”

Because if they aren’t virgins, clearly they’re asking for it.

Think this practice is long gone in the west? The British government used virginity testing for young female immigrants until 1979, believing that if they were virgins, they were more likely to be telling the truth about moving to Britain for marriage.

Gender segregation

Women are told to sit at the back of the bus – in Brooklyn. In Israel’s Beit Shemesh, a growing sect of powerful ultra-Orthodox extremists are fighting to keep women separate from men in nearly all public settings, even preventing women from going to the podium to accept their rightfully earned prizes at an awards ceremony. In many other areas of the world, the segregation of men and women has been going on for so long, and is so deeply entrenched in local culture, that changing it seems like an impossible task. The problem is particularly troubling in Islamic cultures, where fundamentalists place strict limits on interaction between women and men who aren’t their relatives.

In many cases, the reasoning behind segregating women from men is preserving the “virtue” of women and the “honor” of men, the idea being that women are not only helpless against the temptation of jumping on any random men who cross their paths, but that the mere sight of women could corrupt and distract men who are supposed to be focusing on more important things. It also reinforces the idea of women as property, who must be governed by male overlords.

Reproductive rights

Our supposedly progressive president refused to relax restrictions on Plan B, preventing women of all ages from accessing the morning-after pill directly off drugstore and supermarket shelves. Our legislators threaten to cave to fringe groups that want to redefine life as beginning at the moment of fertilization, which would outlaw all contraceptives, including birth control pills. One of our Republican presidential nominees, Rick Santorum, not only believes that birth control damages society, but wants to make all abortions illegal, even in the case of rape or incest, saying women should “make the best of a bad situation.” A bill in Georgia proposed the persecution of women who couldn’t prove that they didn’t cause their own miscarriages.

In other nations around the world, women’s ability to make choices about their own bodies and lives are in even more desperate straits. Women are all too often seen as passive baby-making machines, essentially existing only to further the continuation of the species.

Breastfeeding brouhaha

Breasts are so sexy – except when you’re feeding your baby. Then, they’re just gross. So gross that people will go out of their way to yell at mothers trying to provide her infant with the best sustenance in the world, and shame them into hiding. The problem is, society at large only wants to think of breasts in a sexual context; we’re so far removed from the biological realities of our species that many people feel disturbed by the sight of a baby suckling. Some honestly believe that women only breastfeed in public because they’re exhibitionists or trying to make a statement, not because their babies are hungry. Some even view it as pornographic. It’s a sad state of affairs when a mother is told that a dirty public restroom is a more appropriate place to feed her baby than a table at a restaurant.

The great cover-up

In Saudi Arabia, women who are already shrouded from head to toe in impenetrable layers of cloth, even in the harsh heat of the desert, are being told to cover up their sexy eyes. If a man decides that a certain woman has eyes that are too “tempting,” he has the right to order her to cover them immediately lest she face fines or public lashings. In Israel, the same extremists segregating the sexes are spitting on little girls who are dressed “too provocatively” as they walk to school. There are even movements within America to return to some misguided Victorian celebration of modesty. Women have come a long way since the days when they could be institutionalized just for having a bad reputation, but they’re still treated as if their bodies are weapons with which they might accidentally (or intentionally) bring ruin upon themselves and the men who look their way.

Slut shaming and rape blaming

Well, if you don’t cover up, don’t expect anyone to feel sorry for you when you get raped. That’s the message that’s foisted upon us by modesty advocates and other groups who argue that showing virtually any skin equates to inviting violent sexual assault. And if you dare to claim your own identity as a sexual being, you should be ashamed of yourself. Slut-shaming has everything to do with patriarchal directives for women – how we should dress, how we should act, how we should conduct our sex lives. If we don’t conform, and especially if we dare to be aggressive about our sexuality, we’re ridiculed. Men, on the other hand, get a free pass – the more frequent and public their conquests, the more admiration and approval they gain.

Objectification

On the other side of the coin is the duality of expectations on female roles in society, specifically the wife versus the mistress, the modest and nurturing woman who is practically asexual versus the sex object that only exists for the pleasure of others. Both roles objectify women by removing their personalities and individuality. Sexual objectification is much more in-your-face, pushed on women every day by the mass media, treating women like commodities to be ogled and traded. For all of the pressure to be chaste there’s an equal opposing force pressuring women to be vapid, fleshly blow-up dolls. A prime example is a t-shirt offered by Abercrombie and Fitch (the same store hawking push-up bras for kids) emblazoned with the slogan, “With These, Who Needs Brains?”

Lesbian torture clinics

It’s no secret that homosexuality, another basic biological reality of our species, is seen by certain groups as something to be “cured.” But your jaw might just drop in horror when you learn that some of these “cure clinics” use physical torture and psychological abuse in an attempt to “straighten out” queer women. Ecuadorian activists are speaking out about 200 torture clinics operating under the guise of rehabilitation centers where both men and women are shackled, starved and sexually abused. Thankfully, a Change.org petition has brought about the beginning of the end to this practice in Ecuador, but we’re all too aware that there are still plenty of other groups across the globe that want to dictate who you can and can’t have sex with.

Female genital mutilation

Circumcision is a touchy issue, even here in America where it’s routinely performed on baby boys. Delve into the sticky cultural context of female circumcision as it’s practiced in Africa, and you’re opening a whole other can of worms. Some African feminists maintain that female genital mutilation is part of their cultural heritage, and one that “first world feminists” have no right to condemn – just as Jewish and Muslim traditions dictate that circumcision is a must for boys. But many woomen can’t help but feel that these practices were designed to control women by robbing them of sexual pleasure. Can you imagine a cut to your unanesthetized clitoris as anything other than torture? This is controlling other people’s bodies to the extreme, and truth be told, maybe we should leave everybody’s genitals alone and let them decide what they want to do with them once they reach adulthood.

Photos: progress ohio, tim & selena middleton, rutlo

Column Facts are facts.

It’s almost the end of January, which means that for at least the last 3 weeks your life has been a gray, dull, hopeless blur of days in which you’ve almost certainly been forced to listen to your co-worker’s latest cleanse. Nobody’s drinking, nobody’s going out, and it’s probably raining. Wouldn’t it make you feel better to read a string of sex-related facts?

Number of years since the last time Tim Gunn had sex: 29

$1.30: the price of a gallon of gas in the last year that Tim Gunn had sex

Number of unique combinations of sex acts the average sexually active adult has recently performed, as reported by a recent American study: 40

3 years: Length of time a male lobster’s sperm can survive inside of a female

What happens to the genitals of male honeybees after having sex: they explode

What happens to the genitals of banana slugs after having sex: they are chewed off and eaten

10%: Percentage of office workers who claim to have slept with a co-worker in their building

14: Factor by which having an abortion is safer than giving birth

Reported increase in sexual dysfunction, as related to the use of intravenous drugs: 800%

Column Facts are facts.

This week we’re taking a look at Los Angeles, because Angelenos know how to make headlines, if nothing else.

1: Number of sex-for-McNuggets-related arrests in a Los Angeles McDonald’s

9 to 1: Los Angeles court ruling requiring all pornographic actors to use condoms when performing

Number of Sex and the City spinoffs ordered by the CW for its fall lineup: 2

Number of Pinkberry co-founders arrested for an assault on a Los Angeles freeway brought on by a “sexually explicit” tattoo

$3500: Price of a breast-implant surgery gone awry that resulted in a malpractice suit against an O.C. plastic surgeon

Image: David Jones

Column Facts are facts.

This week, we’re taking a look at the business end of the sex-by-numbers game. It’s all babies, all the time – eat your heart out, Blue Ivy.

Number of births in the United States, 2007: 4.3 million

Number of births in the United States, 2010: 4 million

Average cost of raising a child born in 2007 to age 18, as estimated by the USDA: $269,040

Average cost of raising a child born in 2010 to age 18, as estimated by the USDA: $286,860

13 million to one: odds of giving birth to identical quadruplets without IVF

1 in 53: American twin birth rate in 1980

1 in 30: American twin birth rate in 2009, an increase of over 75%

43: Percentage of women in a recent poll who said they would put off starting a family until after the recession

30: Percentage of American workers who have less than $1000 in savings

4000: Dollars a day to stay in Mt. Sinai’s Central-Park-adjacent luxury maternity suite

Number of incarcerated women in the U.S. who were pregnant or had given birth in the year of their arrest: 1 in 4

Number of royal births in 2011: 4

Image: rkramer62

Don’t stay for the wrong reasons.

Sometimes, relationships are like ugly old sweaters: they’re not flattering, they don’t make you feel good, and they’re actually kind of scratchy, now that you think about it. But they’re so familiar, you just can’t bear to get rid of them. Consider giving yourself room for something better – or just have fun being single for a while. Here are signs it may be time to part with the familiar.

You barely spend any time together.

It’s no surprise that, with both partners often working full-time jobs, modern couples may spend less time together than ever. Some couples juggle a lot of responsibilities and strain to see each other on a regular basis – that’s fairly normal. However, a big red flag should pop up when you find that you just aren’t mustering the effort to make it work. If you’d rather stay home and watch movies alone than go out on a romantic date or even just a casual get-together with your boyfriend or girlfriend, something is not right.

Your partner makes you feel bad about yourself.

You should never find yourself believing that you’re not good enough due to your partner’s words or actions. Even if it’s said in a joking way, a jibe about your looks, your job, your intelligence or any matter that relates to self-esteem can really hurt. Don’t just sit back and take it when the “jokes” keep adding up, or your partner doesn’t even bother to cloak his or her constant criticism. There’s a difference between constructive feedback or advice and comments that are meant to tear you down.

You can’t stop fighting.

He doesn’t help out around the house. You nitpick the way he drives. He ate the last cookie that your mom made for you. You made a funny face that could be interpreted as eye rolling. The sky is blue. If you find yourself getting into arguments over nothing and everything, there’s trouble brewing. Constant fighting is a sign of high tension, and while stress can certainly be a big factor in this, there are often underlying relationship issues causing your conflicts. When you can’t work them out – or simply don’t care to – say goodbye.

Your goals in life don’t mesh.

You’re on a quest for self-improvement, or at least a better life, and he’s content to sit in that armchair playing the latest XBox game until the end of his days. You’re growing as a human being, thinking about getting a better job or moving to a new place or having children, and she’s thinking about doing the same old thing she has done virtually every day for the past five years. Don’t sit around waiting for your partner to change. Unless you settle for less than what you truly want in your life, or your partner has some kind of epiphany, things aren’t looking good.

You try to justify repeated wrongs.

Making excuses for your partner’s ill deeds is not doing anyone any favors, least of all yourself. You tell yourself that he’s cold because of his relationship with his mother, that she doesn’t comfort you in your time of need because she’s distracted, that he cheated those three times because he was drunk and you were working late. If even after discussing these issues, they continue to recur, don’t keep justifying them; it just gives your partner permission to continue hurting you indefinitely.

You daydream about leaving.

You used to get lost in visions of cozy domestic life with your love, and now you’re longing to pack your bags and live like a bohemian artist in Paris. Everyone thinks about these things every now and then, but the danger comes when such thoughts become almost like an obsession. When you’re soothing yourself to bed at night with fantasies about starting fresh, you’re looking for a way out.

You’re staying out of self-sacrifice.

When it comes down to it, you realize that you’re no longer in love, but how can you leave? He just wouldn’t be able to get by without you. Maybe you’ve got children, and you worry about how the dissolution of your relationship will affect them. That’s totally understandable, but you’ve got to give yourself more value. Are you really helping your partner by staying with him or her at this point? Is your unhappiness affecting your kids anyway? Don’t waste what little time you have. Give yourself a chance at something real.

You keep secrets.

Once, there was nothing you kept from each other. You confessed all of your deepest secrets and told each other about virtually every aspect of your day, from the antics of an annoying co-worker to worries about your health. But now, things have changed. You conveniently forgot to mention that you’re back in touch with your college sweetheart, or that you’ve been putting money into a secret savings account that’s just for you. Being in a healthy relationship doesn’t have to mean giving over every little detail of yourself, but there definitely shouldn’t be any deception involved.

You’re not having sex.

Libidos change, and sometimes medical issues can cause serious shifts in sexual desire. If your sex life has gone off a cliff, eliminate any physical causes first. Then examine the state of your relationship. If either you or your partner just aren’t interested anymore, it may be a sign that your relationship changed from romantic to platonic when you weren’t looking. It’s not the end-all be-all issue for every relationship, but for most of us, sex is an integral part of a healthy union. When the spark fizzles out despite all efforts to revive it, you may be better off as friends.

The thrill is gone.

A big part of graduating to the real world of adult relationships is realizing that the early butterflies-in-your-stomach phase is supposed to blossom into something more stable and, perhaps, less exciting. Chances are, even if you’re with your “soul mate,” you don’t feel quite the same way about him as you did when you first met. But what if seeing your partner after an extended absence stirs no strong emotions whatsoever? Stop accepting mediocrity and meting it out in return. It’s time to move on.

ALSO CHECK OUT:

10 Signs It’s Time To Leave Your Town

10 Signs It’s Time To Leave Your Friends

10 Signs It’s Time To Leave Your Job

Photo: illusive photography