When most people hear the name James Holmes— the "Dark Knight" shooter who killed 12 people and injured 58 others in July at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado—images of horror and sadness are evoked. But one Colorado woman feels not only sympathy for Holmes, she feels sexual attraction.

30-year-old Misty Benjamin of Aurora, Colorado is one of Holmes' biggest supporters. “When I first saw him, I was physically attracted to him,” she told The Daily Beast. “I thought, oh crap. I think he is cute. I want to say it upset me, but I was conflicted. It was like a burden. I don’t want this. I went into my bedroom and poured out my heart to the Heavenly Father. I didn’t want to like him. I stood up and said, it’s OK. I need to learn something from this.”

She's even dyed her hair bright red as a gesture of solidarity. “It seems crazy, but I’m not crazy,” says Benjamin. “I wanted something that if he saw me he knew it would be me—a supporter.”

“Even after everything I heard, I can

Read More »from Why Women Love Men Who Kill

The strongest unions may be the ones that focus on these five practical actionsSpontaneous getaways and supersize bouquets settle squabbles in rom-coms and other fantasy realms, but in the real world, romantic gestures aren't cure-alls for relationship woes. In fact, unromantic gestures can be the better salve. Because couples are marrying later and living together before they do, continual improvement of the partnership is more important (and effective) than quick fixes, says Lisa Thomas, a licensed marriage therapist in Colorado. Nobody is suggesting romance be killed off completely--far from it. It's just smart to add these unconventional strengtheners into the happy-couple mix.

Consider a Love Contract

The convention: Love should be spontaneous, not scripted.

The counter: "If you negotiate difficult issues up front, your relationship will have a much stronger footing," says Paul Hokemeyer, Ph.D., a Manhattan-based marriage therapist. See: cohabitation agreements increasing 39 percent in the past five years, per the American Academy of Matrimonial

Read More »from 5 Non-Gushy Ways to Strengthen Your Relationship

Brinton Studiosby Lisa Birnbach, Brides

Prodigal plus-ones? Wandering guests? Parental power plays? Lisa Birnbach, author of The Official Preppy Handbook, helps you navigate wedding planning with grace.

Related: 11 Things Your Should Never Do Before Your Wedding

For our head table, we'd like to sit at a regular round table with the bridal party, but what do we do with their dates? -Steph G. of Wenham, Mass., via Facebook

Dear Steph,

Ten minutes, tops. That's the amount of time you and your husband will probably spend at the head table before leaving to mingle with other guests. So may I suggest another shape-long, rectangular, and large enough to accommodate everyone? If you do insist on a regular round, you should seat their dates at a table close to yours, so your best friends can enjoy your wedding reception, too.

More from Brides:
14 Surprising Facts About Getting Engaged
Affordable Wedding Dresses Under $1000
How to Cut Your Wedding Budget in Half
64 Engagement Rings

Read More »from Where Should My Bridesmaids' Dates Sit?

 
Don't know if you can trust your new beau? Look into his eyes.

Guys with brown eyes are deemed more trustworthy than their blue-eyed counterparts—and it all has to do with the shape of their faces, according to the results of a new study conducted by Charles University in Prague. For the study, researchers collected 80 photographs of men and women with either blue or brown eyes, then asked a group of 238 students to rate how trustworthy, attractive, or dominant the people in the photos seemed on a scale of one to 10.

Dating Secrets: Body Language Dos and Don'ts, How To Tell If He's Interested

The results showed that men with brown eyes were judged as more trustworthy than men with blue eyes (Women reflected the same trend but not anywhere as much as men did).

The researchers wanted to make sure it was specifically eye color that determined trustworthiness so they conducted a second study where they took the same faces but used a photo-editing program to swap the eye Read More »from The Weird Truth About Brown-Eyed Men

The Ten of Chalices card reversed suggests that a loss or lack of support or passion might be threatening to upset the comfort of your domestic status. It may be causing feelings of separation, rejection or exclusion. As a result, your family, love life or relationship could be in crisis or incomplete. Trust may be an issue along with disappointed expectations, pride or self-acceptance. Ultimately, this disruption to your plans or dreams might actually be an opportunity for transforming your future, ending the cycle and letting go of self-imposed limitations. Take responsibility, refuse to settle and rediscover simple, spontaneous pleasures. Be more realistic in your expectations, you can enjoy the journey rather than look only to the destination, enabling you to look inward for forgiveness, completion and gratitude.

Free Sample Celtic Love Tarot Reading

Check your horoscope on Shine.

Read More »from Astrology.Com Daily Love Tarot - Monday January 14, 2013

Joined by Elvis on the Way Home
It feels like there are a million articles about having "the talk" and most of them leave me with my voice stuck in my throat instead. I am wondering if maybe, there shouldn't be a talk. Maybe we shouldn't need to say, "Hey, do you actually want a relationship or are we fooling ourselves?" or "Where do you see this going?"

Part of me thinks if I am driving down a lone stretch of road, and there is nothing but gravel and leafless trees lining it with a bunch of unkempt creepy houses lined up in a row, and buzzards resting on tombstones, do I really need road signs to tell me where I am or if this is the place I should be? Will a flickering neon sign reading GHOST TOWN population 0 really tell me anything more than my very own eyes?

I think that is how it is with relationships too. If I am in a state of constant wondering where it is going, maybe "the talk" has already been spoken in the deepest silence. They say men are actions and women are words. Maybe women say so

Read More »from A Little Less Conversation, a Little More Action...Please

by QuickieChick Laurel House

Finding "There are no good guys in my city." "All of the guys I meet are idiots." "Every decent marriage-material man is already married!" "Why is every single guy such a player?"… Sound familiar? It's so easy to blame your location, men in general, or other factors for your inability to get and keep a good guy. I'm not saying that you are at fault either… though you may be. Most likely the issue isn't you or him. It's your strategy. It's those rules, that list, your set prerequisites that have been leading you astray. Well screw them! There are a lot of great, single, dedicated, faithful, totally your type, good guys in your town who are looking for a so fab chick exactly like you. It's time to find, attract, grab and keep him, instead of letting some other chick nab him up while you're looking the other way.

…But first you've got to figure out who you are and what you want; only then can you find the guy who is right for you, and get him to ask you out (or be

Read More »from Screw the Rules and Meet Your Mr. Right This Year

by Gena Kaufman, Glamour

Aside from the ubiquity of "Brown Eyed Girl" on random playlists everywhere, I feel like you blue-eyed folks always get all the attention while us brownies are blandly forgotten. But science is finally giving us some love. Well, at least it's giving brown-eyed men their day in the sun.

After asking 240 people to rate photographs of 40 men and 40 women with either brown or blue eyes for trustworthiness, researchers found that brown eyes were seen as more trustworthy than blue, especially in men. This seemed kind of duh-worthy to me-blue eyes might be more attention-grabbing, but they're often described as "piercing" whereas brown are described as "warm." However, it got more interesting with the catch in the researchers next study...

See more: 31 January Outfit Ideas

This time around, the researchers used the same faces but digitally swapped the eye color of each person. The raters gave the same faces the same level of trustworthiness, despite the new eye

Read More »from What His Eye Color Says About Him