| 917.518.2568By Jocelyn Voo
CNN.com
(LifeWire) — When Barrie Worflar of Bloomfield, New Jersey, was unexpectedly laid off in April 2007 from his job as assistant branch manager of a bank, he found work as a representative in a benefits call center. He also took a $10,000 pay cut.
End result? His wife, Helen Freire, makes almost twice the money he does.
By Jocelyn Voo
CNN.com
(LifeWire) — After weathering a troublesome roommate situation for a year, Dave Sotelo, 26, was ready to move out. His girlfriend, Ngoc Nguyen, had the perfect solution: moving in together.
It’s better to find a new place to live than to move into one person’s established home, says expert.
"Conveniently, an apartment in my four-unit building became available at the very same time," says Nguyen, 26.
There are obvious advantages to cohabitation, both emotional (living with the person you love) and financial (sharing expenses like rent).
The drawbacks are just as glaring, like adjusting to annoying personal habits and accommodating your loved one’s passion for knickknacks that make your cringe.
One thing’s for certain, experts say — the more you discuss before you move in together, the more likely your relationship will succeed. Sotelo’s and Nguyen’s certainly has improved in the year and half they’ve lived together.
"We’re engaged!" Nguyen says happily. The wedding is scheduled for August 26.
The Albany, California, couple is in good company: According to The State of Our Unions 2007, a report by the National Marriage Project at New Jersey’s Rutgers University, "over half of all first marriages are now preceded by living together, compared to virtually none 50 years ago."
By Jocelyn Voo
CNN.com
(LifeWire) — Ahh, warm weather weddings: Nothing evokes a festive mood like triple-digit temperatures and man-eating mosquitoes.
The happy couple’s event planning may have you worrying about the elements, but there are lots of strategies for surviving warm weather weddings without feeling like you’re stuck in the Sahara.
By Jocelyn Voo
CNN.com
(LifeWire) — When it was time for Sabiha Ansari to get married, her parents flew her to India. She met her husband-to-be for less than 20 minutes, with family, then was asked whether she liked him.
"That was really hard for me," she says. "I kind of wanted to have some time alone with him to talk to him, or even on the phone."
But she said yes, and they were married five days later. That was in 1991.
Things were different for Sabiha’s younger sister, Huma Ansari, in 2005.
By Jocelyn Voo
CNN.com
(LifeWire) — They ate lunch together almost every day. They commiserated over professional and personal woes, and when projects ran long at the San Francisco architecture firm where they were both summer interns, they checked building plans together until they were sprung from the office at 10 p.m.
"She was fun to hang out with, and sometimes she would do things that some might consider flirty, like run a hand through my hair to mess it up," says Hayes Shair, now 25. "Sometimes I’d sort of flirt back."
But Shair was dating his college sweetheart at the time. This woman was more like his "work girlfriend" — a coworker with whom one flirts platonically during office hours but without any romantic intentions.
By Jocelyn Voo
CNN.com
(LifeWire) — Whether you offer a sympathetic ear, provide a shoulder to cry on or drag a despondent buddy out for an evening on the town, your responsibilities are pretty clear when a friend goes through a breakup: Listen, lend support, and when it’s time, help your friend pick up the pieces and move on.
But what should you do when you’re friends with both parties? Where should your loyalties lie, and how can you avoid alienating either member of the couple?
By Jocelyn Voo
CNN.com
(LifeWire) — Admit it: At some point, you’ve lied. Maybe it was the time you told your aunt that her hand-knit holiday sweater was "exactly what you wanted." Or when you explained to human resources that you’d missed the big company meeting because your grandmother died … again.
Take heart, though; you’re not Machiavellian. You’re just normal.
By Jocelyn Voo
CNN.com
(LifeWire) — Olga Boyko, 23, has finished her studies at Antioch College and will be graduating in the spring. But she isn’t putting her career on hold while she waits for her boyfriend of more than two years to graduate.
"Though I’m not planning on breaking up with my boyfriend, I am leaving him behind in Ohio," says Boyko, who’s aiming for work in the publishing industry. "It’s hard to get your foot in the door of the field I want to work in. And let’s face it: Nowadays you have to cover your butt if you want to make it anywhere."
By Jocelyn Voo
CNN.com
(LifeWire) — Bad kissers — we’ve all locked lips with one: the lizard, the washing machine, the cannibal, the spelunker.
"I knew this girl that I’ll call Big Tongue," recalls Craig Hinkle, 38, a Westminster, California-based network administrator. "Her tongue was massive, and she insisted on trying to put the entire thing in my mouth. She was very forceful with it, and I started choking."
You can guess that relationship didn’t last. And now, what Hinkle knows from experience is actually backed up by science: Bad kissers have little chance of getting to second base.
By Jocelyn Voo and Margot Weiss
CNN.com
(LifeWire) — RoseEllen Dowdell wakes up in the middle of the night, thinking about her sons, one in the military and one a firefighter. Kristina Zimmerman changes the channel when she hears of another soldier killed — not wanting to worry about her husband, a military policeman.
For them, and for other families of firefighters, soldiers, police officers, miners or anyone else who risks death to do their jobs, anxiety is a part of life.