In Gayle’s article on recognizing the flags in relationships, she discusses two types of fear that exist in our lives. One of these is the fear that we make up such as the worst case fears and those that require our help in creating before they can even exist.

We have made no bones about why we are writing this blog. We have two primary goals. The first is to be of assistance to others in the world who may be experiencing difficulties in relationships, be they age gap relationships or others. Secondly, we are using the experience of this writing and responses from our readers to create a useful website and ultimately the definitive book about age gap relationships (There are 900,000+ age gap couples with a 15 or more year age difference and no book on the shelves to help them).

What’s in it for us besides leaving the world in better shape than we found it? Freedom. As a couple, our primary goal is to create the freedom to travel where our hearts lead without constraint. We’re building a source of income that will afford us this freedom.

Our Blog Mastermind mentor, Yaro Starak, strongly suggests that we build relationships with bloggers, forums, and other websites dealing with our topic – relationships (especially those with age gaps.) It’s a win/win – we get to share our experience and wisdom (both professionally and personally) to help someone with a question and in turn it helps us build readership. As you have no doubt discovered, it is a common practice to leave your name and url (website address when you comment on a blog.) It’s the law of reciprocity and generosity of spirit in action. We believe we should take every opportunity to give to and receive from everyone we touch.

Many sites have moderators who, understandably, review posts before allowing them to be added to their site. This makes a lot of sense because there are some crazies out there who enjoy cluttering up the blogosphere with spam and out-right sales pitches. It would be a bummer to be reading one of our favorite blogs Zen Habits and find people trying to sell you insurance or some new and amazing supplement. When we’re out there reading what Leo has to say, we’re interested in his words and any products HE might endorse to help us simplify our life – not extraneous crap.

We left a couple of posts on one of the larger age gap forums a few of nights ago and they were submitted to the site administrator for approval. Imagine our surprise when we received an e-mail stating that our account with the site was being terminated. Not for the content, but because the act of leaving our URL was perceived as competition. We promptly wrote back that we felt we had some things to say to the folks on the forum and would be happy to leave off the URL if it was in violation of forum rules. Additionally, we had been referring our readers to their site. In a few moments we received a very short somewhat rude and condescending reply wishing us luck and totally ignoring our offer to remove any hint of competition and build a complementary relationship.

Some of you may know that we began this writing odyssey because we took advantage of a Hay House “I Can Do It at sea” Cruise. We spent a week cruising the Mexican Riviera on a beautiful Holland American ship while enjoying the guidance of Cheryl Richardson’s classes on writing, and Wayne W. Dyer’s off the cuff lecture on content and how he writes.

Both of these hugely successful authors said the very same thing. There is not enough content in the world for the topics about which we write – making lives and relationships better. If you hide your writing under a bushel to protect it you will never reach your potential audience and the world won’t get the benefit of your unique voice.

Leo proposes the very provocative concept of open source blogging in his blog. He has gone so far as to make his blog content fully available to whomever wants to read, copy or improve upon it. While it’s a controversial approach, it make a lot of sense. Don’t recoil from someone using your words – offer them up as a gift of love to others. If you believe someone has already written what you want to say, know that no one has said it with your voice. In short, it’s a big world with a lot of people looking for advice and help. There can’t be too much content for them. As our BOFitNYC, Dixie says “I may not be able to do all the good the world needs, but the world needs all the good I can do.”

So, if you read something in our blogs that you like, you are welcome to link your site to it. We’d love for you to give us credit and we’d like for you to allow us to link to you. If you have a comment or suggestion for us or our readers, by all means leave it and you can even leave your URL if you have one.

We will still moderate comments, but only to limit spam and offensive content. If we are all truly interested in helping humankind we won’t be competitors. We will be partners.

How does this apply to your relationship? Do you “play” well with others or are you being a scaredy cat?  Look at the impact fear has on your life and the lives of your loved ones. Do you edit the truth to spare feelings?   Do you require others to moderate their comments to avoid offending you? At the core of any successful relationship (especially those with significant age gaps) you’ll find open and honest communication. If you are interested in helping your relationship you won’t be competitors either, you will be partners!

Please note, two of our favorite forums for May December Relationships are:

IVillage Message Board
Ageless Love

You might also like: