Saying Goodbye

Blondie:

Saying goodbye to love even when it has run its course is never easy, but it is necessary. It truly broke my heart to hear that your younger brother sent Anthony a card asking him to come visit him and said that he never comes over like he used to; and p.s. please date my sister again so she can come home.

First and foremost you must call your younger brother today and tell him that both you and your sister (next year) have to go away to school so that you can learn how to make lots of money…and when he grows up, he’s going to go away to school, too. You have to reassure him that you love him and that Anthony’s not dating you anymore isn’t the reason you aren’t home, but school is. That you miss him very much and you’ll come home to see him every chance you get to. He can always call you when he misses you and that you’d love to get a card from him too—that you promise to keep it with you at school.

It also broke my heart to hear that Anthony was crying on the phone when he told you this today. For as tough as men are on the outside, their soul is far more sensitive than a woman’s. That is hard to believe but it is true…a woman will never be as sensitive as a man. It’s a paradox. It’s one of the reasons that I always advise women to be careful with a man’s soul. Pat says that they have a steel door and that what you do and say gets etched in acid—they never forget a hurt. Once that steel door comes down that covers the softness of their soul, there is no opening it again.

There is an important lesson here for you here that I’m not even sure that you’re aware of.

When Anthony became cocky to you because he didn’t want you to have the natural growth and development that everyone goes through he became angry at you. He said that you were no longer the woman he fell in love with and after breaking up with you actually said “against my better judgment, I want to go out with you again”. Kudos to you for saying no to that “offer”. A man will always value you at the price you value for yourself. You walked away; you respected his space to miss you, by saying that doesn’t feel good; thank you, but no.

A man may always want the challenge of fighting for a woman; it is within their nature. That emotion doesn’t translate to a feminine woman. She wants the safety and security of knowing that a man is there for her before she can become vulnerable and dependent on him. If she needs to fight for a man, a feminine woman will always lose interest.

Every woman has to always remember that she is the prize a man is fight for; he gets the privilege of her allowing herself to acquiesce to his leadership by giving him the chance to cherish, protect and provide for her after –ONLY he has proven himself worthy of having her. It is always a woman’s choice to say yes or no, that isn’t a good enough offer.

His cockiness and his angry ego wanted to knock you down a peg and have you believe that HE was the prize that you got to keep. I’ve always said to you that a woman loves herself more than she ever loves a man. You proved that you wouldn’t tolerate anything less from any man—including the one you were considering spending the rest of your life with.

Physiologically men and women’s brains are different. There is a variation for left handed men and biologically gay men, but right handed men cannot think and feel at the same time. I call it tick-tocking…the amount of time it takes men to process the difference between their thoughts and feelings. You must remember that it could take men up to eight weeks to move from one side of a man’s brain—the logical to the feeling side and really begin to feel a woman’s loss. Women can always think and feel at the same time.

If you have not heard from a man after eight weeks, chances are you never will. If a man comes back to you before hand, he is beginning to really FEEL your loss and hopes that he can get you back before he looses you to another man.

I’ve advised you and I would other women as well that although you can date other men during the eight week waiting time, IF you want the relationship back, you must never be physically intimate with any other man. The man from the old relationship will never forgive that you valued yourself less by not having another man work hard for you; not as hard as he did; it will change how he views his prize of having you, forever.

When Anthony called you today, although he cried, he didn’t ask for you to come back. He’s blaming you when the truth is that it is his behavior that had you no longer wanting that what he was offering you was enough; it was not. His words to you were hurtful and undeserved. No one is perfect and it’s unfair to ask a human to be, but his saying “what do you want me to do sit around and wait for you? You threw me out of your life” will be his lesson to learn if and when he examines his part in this break up.

But in my asking you if you would be willing to stop dating your new guy to return to Anthony, you said that you would not; neither would you be willing to date both of them casually and not be exclusive with either.

So you have your answer. The loss of Anthony is a painful one; you’ll have those memories forever. He set the bar and that’s a wonderful position for him to be in. But it is also time to let go make room for someone new in your life.

Your lesson is that you must always ask yourself how it feels to be in the company of a man and listen carefully to anything that feels uncomfortable in your body. Right now D is the man where you feel you are at your best being with. Anthony, through his own behavior lost that feeling in you.

Back to Blondie:

I'm sorry that you didn't take my advice and ended up contacting your ex regarding his facebook "friending" his ex-girlfriend. As you see, it didn't end well.

By downloading pictures of the guy you are currently seeing onto your facebook account, you're in essence flaunting that you've moved on with your life in front of your ex. To then ask him why he is in contact with his ex makes you look bitchy, petty and jealous. His response to you was "lol" and "that you are all over your new guy in every picture".

I understand that it is difficult to see him talking about other girls and getting hammered. It is equally as painful for him to see you dating other guy. That's why I advised you to "unfriend" him. Not because you don't still like your ex, but because you do. You unfriend an ex because it's painful for you to watch him move on with his life without you.

If you get to move on with your life, he gets to move on with his--period. As a single guy, he has every right to be in contact with whomever he wants; again, it's just best for YOU not to see his every move in his day to day life. Do you understand the difference? By trying to protect him from her is about asking him to change his behavior--by unfriending him and not contacting him, you are changing yours.

Yes, you can be pissed that he's being a jackass and you can do what ever you want with your camera; and he can be pissed that you're taking pics of other guys with the camera he bought, but your saying that "if he didn't want me taking pics of other guys he shouldn't have dumped me" makes YOU look like you're instigating and picking a fight with him on grounds that you no longer have--you are no longer his girlfriend.

And truthfully, even if you were his girlfriend, we'd have a conversation about whether or not that was appropriate...because I'm not sure that you have the right to be bitching even if you were his girlfriend. Your behavior looks like it's coming from a jealous place; this looks like you're playing games with him since when he asked for you to come back and be his girlfriend again, you said no.

I'm not telling you not to post pics of a new guy that you're dating, I'm telling you to make a smaller circle of your closest friends and close it that circle tight.

Some years ago, I had a mentor say that to me and it took me a few mintutes to figure out what she was saying.

Most people don't know that the real estate field is incredibly cut throat and at every move, you're swimming with sharks. Twice, I had so called friends try to screw me out of deals; the first one I was able to manover around and made about thrity five thousand in forty minutes. The second deal which would have been worth millions, disappeared.

I later found out that the person who was my supposed best friend at the time was actually stabbing me in the back. This person, with whom I had openly shared all of my real estate knowledge and my life was stabbing me, until I discovered the truth. She learned about this multi-million dollar deal on my birthday. She came over to bring me flowers on my birthday. We talked for hours--defenses down. She wanted my deals--and ultimately my money more than she wanted my friendship. I learned in that moment to cut ties quickly no matter how painful.

In talking to my mentor, she told me that there was a magic in me that my girlfriend didn't have and that no one could steal that--but to be far more careful about who I let in. In telling to me to close my circle what she was saying was no one gets in, no one gets out. And I've never partnered with anyone again in doing a deal. I also had to learn to mentor far less, although I have always hand chosen who I will or won't mentor. I suppose I could teach less than ALL of my knowledge; but I tend to be an all or nothing kind of woman.

In the real estate clubs that I belonged to it was part of the atmosphere of the club that we all talked about our deals openly. In polite society, it's rude to ask someone how much money they made flipping a piece of property--there, we all talked proudly about it without any malice or jealousy. I would have never believed that she would have done that to me, until she did.

After that betrayal, I had to learn NOT to talk about my deals. If my best friend couldn't be trusted, no one could.

I know this is difficult with your being young and having hundreds of facebook friends, but I'm asking you to close your circle. Who are you REALLY friends with that you can trust not to talk to your ex about what you are doing and with whom? Who can you unfriend because they really aren't a part the parts of your life where you need the most trust? How did you ex know that you "unfriended" him? Prune your weeds.

Or, you have to learn to be far more private about what you post on facebook--the choice is yours, but what you're doing is causing youself pain that can easily be avoided by modifying your behavior.

My suggestion to you right now is to clean up your side of the street by telling him that the only reason that you had asked him was out of a genuine concern for his welfare because you knew how much she had hurt him in the past, but of course, he has every right to form whatever relationships are best and then wish him peace in return for the peace he offered you.

I know that you are angry that after all of this last night he dropped whatever things of yours he had off to your house without telling you, but again, this was your doing. Had you not been in contact with him, this fight would not have happened. Be a lady, send him a thank you for dropping off your stuff. Be grateful he didn't throw it away like he did he previous girlfriends. You know his behavior regarding his ex's and her stuff. This is how he behaves, this wasn't news to you.

As painful as it is, you need to move on with your life as if he is no longer a part of it. This is a lesson for you to have learned; the only person who's behavior you can change is your own.

And, as always, sperm chases egg.

I have a question

My ex is making contact with his ex girlfriend Lisa-the one I hate and he befriended her on facebook and all I want to do is scream at him and cry and I don't know what to do...not so much jealousy but I still care for him and I hate this bitch and I don't want her screwing up his life again...what do I do?


Dear Anonymous:

Thank you for the comment! I’d like to encourage any of my readers to bring me a relationship question by clicking on the word “comment” under my blog and filling out the pop up box—I’d be happy to answer it.

To answer your question, in short, do nothing. The hardest thing in the world to do is absolutely nothing when what you want to do is something and you’re looking for what the “right" something is. If you are having any anxiety at all over this, this is what girlfriends are for and show no emotion in front of him.

There are a few things that you have to remember. Although technically he broke up with you, he expected at his whim, you would be willing and available to go back with him. When you grew tired of his pushing and pulling you back and forth, and said no, he became angry with you. He knows that you don’t like his ex, but he is also missing female companionship and it’s easy for him to go back to a place (with her) of comfort and familiarity. Our softened memories have us remember the best of the moments with our ex’s—that‘s why there are so many relationships these days that after failed marriages, people go back to high school and college sweethearts for a “second time around” opportunity.

Right now, whatever his choices are, whatever mistakes he makes, those lessons are his to learn. He is no longer yours. It is not feminine energy to protect him. Protection is masculine--and since I know that you are not, there is something else going on--but first:

My suggestion to you is to delete him from your facebook friends list. It is far easier for you not to know what he’s doing or with whom. Had you not known, you would have saved yourself from this anguish and pain to begin with.

I know that you are afraid that he is going to have sex with her and that you don’t want him to. I know that you’re feeling on this is that if he ever slept with another woman there would be no returning to you. He also knows that. But the truth is that he has every right as a single man to find whatever comfort he needs where ever he finds it.

You also need to remember that men can have sex with a woman that they don’t have romantic feelings for—or even like, or know.

For women in touch with their feelings, they typically bond to a man with their bodies through a chemical that their bodies produce called oxytocin. It is our love drug. Initially, oxytocin was thought to be produced by women who had given birth, bonding themselves with their children. It has been shown that women produce that bond through sexual intercourse. I don’t personally believe that intercourse is necessary. I know women who have bonded with a man by just dancing with him. I know others that have had oxytocin flood their bodies by kissing or even just smelling a man.

There is very interesting science attached to love and attraction. Nature has a beautiful mechanism in place for a woman to protect her fetus and genetic material by passing it on to future generations by survival of the fittest. And what is meant by that survival is adaptability. A woman is either chemically attracted to a man or not based on her liking his smell. The exchange of liking his smell is unconscious—it’s not his cologne or laundry detergent. When a woman encounters a man who’s immune biology is a little like her parents and a little NOT her parents, it begins a chemical rollercoaster inside of her body that binds her to him in what nature hopes is a chance at a good reproductive option.

That oxytocin boding is why men today call women psycho and stalkers…she cannot help herself from wanting to be close to that man. It is a drug as powerful as cocaine addiction that can take as long as two years for a woman to become un-bonded from that man.

Although you are no longer actively dating him, you body is still bonded to him and it will be for a long time. Men can think nothing of spreading their seed far and wide…in fact they are built for it. Women become bonded to a man in nature’s hope of having more than one offspring with stronger genetic material than it started with. Of course, you would be unhappy with the possibility that the man your body craves as a naturally selected mate might choose to plant his seed elsewhere. I'd like to tell you that even after a woman looses her ability to conceive that this bonding process stops; it does not.

The best way for you to un-bond to this man is to continue to date elsewhere—eventually your feelings will catch up with your behavior. The worst thing that you can do right now is to be physically near him. You must not smell him. His scent will have you back at square one to beginning the un-bonding process—again—you have forestalled the up to two years every time you smell him again. Two years can turn to three, three to four unless the process has completely ended.

If he still has your possessions or you end up in a social situation where you are physically in the same room as him, you must remain at least 30 inches away from him as not to be close enough to smell him. Thirty inches is far enough away for your reproductive immunity picker not to choose him again and again. It would be best if you could have someone else do a possession exchange. I know you want to see him but you must fight that urge or you have chosen your own misery.

On a brighter note, serendipity has its own course and time. Let me tell you the story of how my parents met. My mom was young and had an older sister who was dating a guy who wanted to fix up his cousin with my mom. Her sister knew this guy had a bit of a bad boy reputation and said "not a chance". That was 8 months prior to my mother and father meeting.

My mother ended up getting engaged to a guy named Frank (I have more men in my life named Frank than I can shake a stick at!) Anyhow, Frank ended up being shipped out in the military and had a friend who he had asked to show my mom a good time while he was out serving our country. One particular Saturday night my mom and this other guy were supposed to head to out to N.Y. and it happened to be storming. Her mother wouldn’t let her go. It also happened that a neighbor was getting married that particular Saturday night and my grandmother and aunt (her older sister) were invited to the wedding. My grandmother said to my mother that she couldn’t go to N.Y. but if she wanted to get out of the house for a little while, she could go to the wedding with her and her sister.

My mother argued with my grandmother and said that she wasn’t invited. My grandmother said to her to come for the religious portion of the wedding and then she could go home. As soon as my mother attended the service, my father walked right up to her and wouldn’t leave her side. When she told him that she wasn’t invited to the reception he asked her to stay and said that she could sit in his seat and she could eat his meal if she would just stay—so she did—and soon afterwards broke her engagement to Frank.

Had any one of those circumstances changed—that Frank wasn’t off to war, that it hadn’t have stormed, that the wedding was held on a different night, that her mother allowed her to go to N.Y.--with any change in any of those circumstances, I wouldn’t be here. My mother was supposed to have met my father 8 months before she did—nothing that anyone could have done—including her sister saying that she wouldn’t allow the introduction, Nothing was going to change the destiny of their being together until death did them part.

IF it is meant to be that at some other point in time the two of you will get back together, the universe will find a way to make that happen. Even if it means that he’s made mistakes with other women; you’ll find a way to forgive him. Step out of destiny's way.

How do you feel?

I’m kinesthetically orientated. I’ve always known that my whole world emanated from touch and feel. When I was little I was picked on for being “sensitive”. I still am—not picked on; just sensitive. I cried, I grew a thicker skin, hiding who I was on the inside and letting the world see who I became on the outside. Pat says that I’m inside out; that I should be showing far more vulnerability outside and to be harder inside; I’m only learned to crawl where that is concerned—I’m far away from walking that walk.

Being an alpha female—meaning that my view of the world is half masculine energy and half feminine energy and having the kinesthetic orientation is one of the only ways that I know it is easier for me to groom my feminine side and to vanquish my masculine as much as possible.

I’ve spent a lot of time over the last several years hanging out on mixed martial arts websites. I think it’s time that I let that go from my life; maybe for right now; maybe forever.

For those of you that are fans, you’ll know that the UFC bought out Strikeforce—which was a forum for women fighters to have bouts. The UFC doesn’t have women fighters and it has been said that they won’t.

I was recently asked how I felt about women fighters since they were losing a professional platform to engage in their sport. I told them that I’ve tried to watch women fighting—it’s weird to me and I don’t enjoy it all.

What I love about male fighters is the completely masculine aspect of it—that I can watch two warriors; gladiators, filled with a testosterone raged battle like great rams bucking and charging for supremacy; all to bear witness in battle for the right to mate with a female. It’s bloody and raw and muscular and sweaty; it is nature’s ultimate male challenge; watching it, for me as always been a sneaky prurience into the dominant male’s nature driven psyche.

What I’ve come to realize this week is that hanging out on that particular site has made me more masculine than I want to be. There’s a whole lot of keyboard jockey pompousness that brings out the tough girl in me and I don’t want to be that woman. Having my masculine energy to the fore means that my feminine energy is pushed to the back burner and I prefer being a more than woman; being a lady. While I’m there, I want to tell a whole lot of lesser men to go eff themselves. Yes, I’ll admit it, sometimes I’m a better man then the men that hang out there…and then the neurolinguistic orientation of who I am at my core, comes back to remind me that I’m a girl and being there isn’t making me happy.

I was reading something that a girlfriend had written a few years ago because she’s in a married relationship with a man who isn’t the touchy-feely type; although she’s elatedly happy that he does hold her hand and that’s the best she gets from him. She says that they have a different “love language”… I disagree. I think it’s a matter of non-matching neurolinguistic orientation.

Neurolinguistic orientation predicates that one of your senses is the primary one that you experience the world by. Most people are visual, auditory or kinesthetically orientated. Very few are taste or smell—although it does happen. It’s easy to tell who you’re talking to, if you pay attention—it will become apparent in a person’s verbiage. Kinesthetically orientated will say frequently “this is how I feel” or “smooth as silk”--touch; auditory people will say “that’s as clear as a bell” or “hear me out”; visually orientated will say “I see your point” or “picture this”. It’s easy- peasy- lemon- squeezy to find if you know what you’re looking for. (And yes, there are some people that are “neutral”, but it’s rare; they will say things like “I understand”.) Of course, everyone has their secondary and tertiary orientation—but a person’s basic orientation is the easiest to pick up on—after that it’s patterns.

I believe that when you meet someone and you have an instant connection, this is one of the reasons why—you speak each other’s language. When I think about how easy it is to be with others that are kinesthetically orientated, it seems to make the most sense to look for that in a man. But scratching the surface, I think the last thing that I want is a man who femininely “sensitive” and I don’t know if I can find the holy grail of a man who is both feeling orientated and masculine enough to tame me.

Therein lies the dilemma; either to find a man who doesn’t speak my orientation and suffer through the language barrier “happily enough” or to live unnerved by a man who understands “too well”.

My girlfriend who didn’t marry a kinesthetically oriented man has to consistently remind herself that no, he doesn’t touch her the way that she would want to be touch—having her hair stroked or being reached for, but he changes the oil in her car and makes sure that the tire pressure and gas levels are full. He doesn’t view her body as an asset to him in that he needs to her touch but he houses and clothes her. He doesn’t choose to dance with her to quell the desire of holding her close to him, but he takes her on cruises several times per year.

At her soul and spirit, she’s miserable. I would be too. Pat asked her to decide if it was more important to her that she be loved or touched. She has no doubt that she is loved. Pat said that a woman will die of not being liked, of not being loved, but she won’t from not being touched. Pat asked her if she was willing to give up her lifestyle and her marriage in order to meet a man who was willing to touch her.

This is sort of stunning to my sensibilities. In my life, I’ve had many opportunities to marry rich—but who those men were, weren’t enough. I believed the fairy tale that I really could have it all; a husband who I couldn’t wait to make love to, children whom I adored, a career that I enjoyed so much that I would have done for free every day for the rest of my life. I waited and ended up with none of it.

When the neurosurgeon wanted to marry me, my mother sat me down and it was only time in my adult life that she had this conversation with me. She said to me “you need to decide how you want to live”. She knew I loved Puerto Rico (my top spot for the most handsome men in the world!) She said to me do you want a home there? Nice clothes, great jewelry? Marry him, because if you wait to be deeply in love, even if you love him now, ten years from now you won’t be in love anymore anyway. She said to me if he’s lousy in bed, go find yourself a lover on the side—he’s working all day; he won’t know what you’re doing”. I said “oh ma” and poo-poo’d her advice off….I remember thinking how stupid she was for having said that to me. Wealthy men were easy to find—as easy a finding a penny on the street. They were everywhere and it took absolutely nothing for me to find them—they found me. I thought that someday I’d find that magic combination. A man who was smart enough, strong enough, sexy enough, wealthy enough, whole enough, good father material enough to welcome me with pride into his world. That I was the prized he was willing to fight for. That he was man enough to have me let go of my control of the world and let him lead the way for our life together, that I could trust him enough to turn my sails into his wind and let him take me on a journey that I wouldn’t have had, had it not been for him. That someday there would be that man that I could walk away from who I was as “me” to begin a new life as “us”.

I don’t know if I could do what my girlfriend did. She sold her house in Washington, moved down South and made a life with a man that wasn’t perfect, but good enough. She struggles with the reality of what she lost and told me, that given a choice, with all of the pain she feels, the love that she has for her husband makes it all worth it and she would make that choice of him and his lack of touch desire all over again. I don’t know if I could do that. I think it would be agony for me to want all of a man, and only have part of him. But Dr. Pat says to stop wanting; I don’t get to want, I get to “not want” as in I don’t want to spend the rest of my life promising to man that I chose you to be my lover every day for the rest of my life and then not have that. Maybe my girlfriend more evolved than I am. Maybe the fantasy still lives in me and is much more pleasurable than the reality; and yet there is a part of me that’s lonely without sharing the day to day with someone.

I watched the orange county housewives last Sunday. Alexis lives some dream that she’s in a wonderful (second) marriage with a wealthy man, and she claims he treats her well. I watch his actions, he isn’t kind in the least. He humiliated her by making her stand with 10 pieces of luggage in front of a hotel while he took her picture. She said she was embarrassed, he didn’t care. There were five in the family and ten pieces of luggage for three days. Considering that she has twin toddlers and the luggage wasn’t big, I didn’t think it was excessive—he did. They, as a couple went shopping for jewelry; the husband bought himself two watches totaling 27 thousand dollars; she tried on an eight carat diamond. He told her to give the ring back, that the ring would hurt the children. Crappy excuse—he didn’t want to buy her the ring and he didn’t. She didn’t end up with anything but she was pissed off and said that “she worked hard for her diamonds, she deserved that ring”—but she didn’t say it to him. Bingo.

She’s lying to herself. She tolerates all of his crap for money. She chooses lifestyle over happiness—or maybe it was that money can bring you a level of happiness that you are willing to sell your soul for. Humiliation traded for eight carats of diamonds and a wealthy life in Orange county California. Maybe I have a happy enough life that I wouldn’t put up with that crap. Maybe I’ve yet to really understand on a gut level that no one gets it all and that is what Pat’s teaching. Maybe they just chose one kind of unhappiness and I chose another. I’m not sure that I have the answer. Maybe the real question is am I willing to trade?

Broken Choices

Today’s society has degraded. Male role models are virtually nonexistent. Today, who appears to be an alpha male, a tough guy, an uncaring man, a leader is nothing close to the reality of a man that any man should want to emulate. I can’t think of one single man that a male child should want to grow up to emulate. Donald Trump? Nope…for all of his hype, he was a man who repeatedly cheated on women and by his bankruptcy, left his creditors holding the bag for his incompetent choices. Puff daddy /diddy made being “G” or “gangster” cool…children out of wedlock…again, he may have money but he is a failure as a man because he chose not to step up to his responsibility of marrying their mother. What this men gave up for the dream of a better life had them loose their soul in the process.

A few hundred years ago, those children would be called bastards. Those rakish fathers would have been shunned by society rather than revered. Those children had none of the privileges and all of the shame of the result of sexual liaison out of wedlock. They carry with them the foolish and childish choices of the mistakes that their parents made. Those children carry with them the shame of baser instincts over dignity. They carry with them a life with a father who in one way or another abandoned them.

(As an aside, as it turned out, the man who thought my brother might be his father was not my brother’s son; leaving this man to question his own mother’s behavior and leaving him with lack of a direction and the right he had to know his own paternal lineage. Through no fault of his own, that right was taken from him. There isn’t a chance that he looks in the mirror, sees himself and feels whole. He is broken.)

Men and women are different; I get it—I really do. A man has sexual urges that are difficult to contain in a world full of women that are perfectly willing to sleep with a man without a commitment from him. In yester year a man needing sexual gratification married for access to a woman’s body. I believe women today would be far better served to return to that “entrance fee” as a personal choice.

A man’s value is tied to his profession, his ability to provide for his family. But I’m questioning the balance and breaking of the spirit when a man doesn’t take the time each day to solidify those connections.

I’ve recently read two diametrically things written by men. One was part of a blog this man wrote as an open letter to his daughter. She’s six. He travels many days per week across the country lecturing. He asked her would she rather that he helps people or have him at home with her? She initially said that she wanted him but then added through some sense of guilt or being taught of needing to share that it was important to help people, too. It was sort of stunning to me. That in this open letter of his experience with his daughter it would even be conceivable to ask a child to verbalize the adult concept of choosing the sacrifice of whether or not to be with her father and for him to actually justify by guilt his leaving her—again by having it be her choice. He said in this letter that he felt she made him whole and he thanked her. What he didn’t realize was that in leaving her, he left her incomplete.

Childhood is so fleeting. You blink and your children have gone from being two years old and hiding behind your leg to being 16 and wanting to be their friends. He apologized and said that he was sorry that he wouldn’t be there to kiss away the “owies” but he didn’t ever once in the letter say that he loved her. I believe that he does, he just didn’t say it. He didn’t say that he may not always be there when she wants him to be, but he’d always be there when she needed him to be.

Unknowingly, he’s raising his daughter to be broken, because he is. She’s learning every day not to count on a man to be there and he asked a child to justify her broken heart. She said she wanted HIM as her first response, he chose not to hear her until he got the response he wanted. He, as a man, is broken; he believes that choice of money over his family is the right one.

I understand that the money he earns gives her the lifestyle that she has. She has a home and pretty dresses and gets to go to Disneyland. What she doesn’t get is a father that comes home at 6:00 pm and chooses to share his life with his daughter. He doesn’t engage her in his stories of her day, explain a current event, kiss away her tears over a bad dream, tell her stories of when he was little and help her with her homework every day.

I think that most men don’t have a full understanding that for a woman, relationships need nurturing ever day. Women need the connection. Women need the interaction. Given a choice, I would have less lifestyle and more family connection. It is a disease of our lifetime. I grew up in a family with multi-generations living together in neighborhoods where you actually knew your neighbors. There were b-b-q’s and porches and mosquito bites in summer with hours and hours of conversation and interrelating.

There were Saturday night card games and board games and role playing with dolls-- mommies and daddies and children playing house. There were date nights and the excitement of a man who when you hoped would ask you out actually did. But women didn’t hurry to say yes…they said “I’ll think about it” and made a man wait for the possibility of a chance to woo her. He gave her his ring or his pin or his jacket to wear. When I think of most men today, it reminds me of the at Joe Jackson song where he sort of waxes poetic his past experiences and his own shortcomings of what it meant to a man and says “men that always grew up better men then me and you”.

The other story that I read is of a man struggling with the same premise but from a different perspective. That he knew that he had to work to provide for his family and children but was at times jealous of his hedge fund friends who made millions of dollars per year and by comparison, his angst of being a failure. But he shared the ins and outs of his day with his children. They ate meals together, each child had alone time with him. They shared their religious connection by reading from the bible each night. By 9 pm each of the children with whom he had shared the experiences of his and their days were in their own rooms, retired for the night. At that point, he and his wife made the time to share their relationship as friends and lovers. They considered anytime after 9 pm a “do-free” zone. Nothing that needed to be done to the kids, for the kids, for the house, or for their social lives was not already discussed and “done”. This was their time to relate to each other as their sanctuary from the outside world. They chose time each day to refresh their choices as partners and vows as lovers for each other. He considered himself broken as well (for the wanting) but with one difference. When he asked himself would he give up the intimate relationships that he has with his children daily for one million dollars, his answer was no.

From a woman’s perspective it is the right choice. Women need that connection. To be touched, to be stroked, to be smiled at, to have their feelings cherished, appreciated and met. It is the only way that they know every single day, that they matter.

When Bitchy Moves Aren’t Appropriate

I happened to be on one of my social networking sites this morning and noticed that one of the girls who I personally mentor about relationships had made a comment to her recently broken up boyfriend on his status. He was commenting about a little hottie he had noticed in yoga pants and a hoodie.

My mentee said she “liked” his comment status. Ouch. It seems a little angry and inappropriately bitchy.

J.’s every move in her and her boyfriend’s relationship was passed by me for the first 6 months—and after that, when anything went wrong. She always says that she would have never had that relationship without me. The sweetest things that she has done recently are a: to teach what I’ve taught her to another girl navigating the beginnings of a relationship and b: to ask herself when she’s in a pickle “what would Fran do?” I’m smiling.

A. is a great guy—or at least used to be. He did what a man does when he meets a woman that he wants. He courted her. He dated her, he bought things for her, he attended church with her because her spirituality was important to her, he waited to be physical with her until she was ready, and he begged her not to go to school out of state.

A year passed and J. headed off to school; she wondered where her engagement ring was and then she asked me to talk it out with her.

J. is a grounded bright and beautiful girl; she’s lived a life where although she isn’t poor, she’s watched her parents struggle daily. She wants a different life than that—and I believe that she’ll have one.

A., her boyfriend, has told her that he’s contented to live quiet life in a middle class town and have a two week vacation once per year. J. not only wants, but needs more. I told her that I would be happy for her if she were to marry him; I would be happy for her if she didn’t. Only she could decide how big or small she needed her world to be.

I told her that the world was full of men who would be happy to wine and dine her and show her lots of pretty lights. There is a world full of men who would be happy to welcome her into their world and give their world to her in return. I told her of the men that offered me vacations to exotic lands; men that have negotiated with me what size (his minimum was 7 carats) and what color diamond (pink or yellow) I’d like for my engagement ring and whether I’d be interested in being married in the front hotel or the back tower of the Plaza Hotel.

I told her that the next 10 years of her life will be all about experiences and how those will change her. That the things that men shared with me when I was young became a part of who I am today and are still very much things that I love…when I was 21 my boyfriend who was older by 8 years dragged me around looking to complete his 18th century oak furniture collection. That led me to share those experiences with a supervisor who was on the national board of the Victorian society. Every time he (my supervisor) went on vacation I was the only one of his subordinates who received French perfume, jewelry and collection of Waterford crystal. I suppose I must have been blonde-blind at the time, but some years later my brother asked me if I didn’t realize that he was in love with me…I didn’t look at him that way, so no, I didn’t.

J. is beginning her new life of adult experiences and A. isn’t happy about it. She had a beer—one beer at a party and he become angry with her. He told her that she was no longer the girl he fell in love with and that he was breaking up with her. I told her to let him go. A few days later he asked for her to come back but with a snotty caveat he said “against my better judgment”… I told her not to take him back. He needed to understand that she was the prize in this relationship, not him. He needed to work to keep her, not grudgingly take her back. He needed to suffer with missing her in order for him to lose his cockiness and understand what he has in her.

In the meantime, J. has been spending time with someone else—and she likes him. A. has gotten word and he’s angry. He’s acting out by accusing her of all sorts of nonsense that happened between them nine months ago. She asked me what to she should say to him. I told her to say that she’s no longer dwelling on the past but running joyfully toward her future. He doesn’t have the right to be angry, he broke up with her. (Maybe it’s a Jersey thing—insert Ronnie and Sammi’s relationship from the Jersey Shore.)

It’s not that J. doesn’t have feelings for A.—she does—she just feels that she needs time to explore these years and hoped that perhaps at some point in the future, that if he is meant to be her husband, he’ll come back—after she finishes law school. She’ll be ready then to settle down and start her family. But poking an angry bear isn’t going to keep him thinking of her in a positive light. Years from now he’s going to remember this angry bitchiness of her “liking” his relationship status when he’s eyeing other women instead of moving on with her life without him and waiting for him to decide to add to it.

Yes, it’s always a man’s choice; but a woman’s prerogative to say yes or no.

I was doing some reading this morning on Judaism and particularly on Orthodox Judaism. In the Orthodox tradition, a woman cannot remarry unless her husband gives her a secular divorce. A woman whose husband won’t agree to this is considered “anchored” and cannot remarry. It was interesting to me to read that during the 9/11 disaster, men who were resigned to their fate in those last moments of their lives had faxed home copies of their willingness to be religiously divorced from their wives as their last loving act. They gave their wives the freedom to love again.

Dr. Pat also considers a woman who knows her worth and isn’t willing to take a lot of crap from a guy “anchored”. Making unnecessary comments on ex’s status, isn’t.

J. asked me if she could remain friends with A. I told her no. Your friends are friends because they are not your lovers. Lovers cannot be friends until both of you have moved on to relationship where you are both happy and there isn’t any feeling at all of resurrecting a relationship between the two of you.

It is your job to be receptive, joyful and happy to hear from him if he approaches you without malice. That is your practice in learning to maintain your feminine yin womanhood – not to be a coiled-up, snarling bitch ready to strike because you want more from him. You don’t get to “want” something different, something better…more. Today he isn’t willing to give to you what you ultimately need from him… a life that was bigger than what you have, and you have every right to want that for yourself and your family. But this is also your yin practice in grace: to learn to be charming, warm and welcoming; to keep your attraction for him, even if right now it is not reciprocated in a way that you want it to be. But also consider that this ultimately might be a lack of compatibility in a partner. If you both want different things from life, either he’ll step up and provide that for you, or he’ll let you go to find a man who will give you what you need.

But also understand that men test woman constantly. If a woman get’s pissy over what he thinks is little to nothing, he moves on. Train yourself not to respond in impulse. He will either consider you a crazy psycho bitch, desperate for his attention, or you’ll moved into the friend category. No man wants willingly to end up with a woman who’s going to hate being with over every minor infraction. They end up calling you dramatic.

It’s very possible that although you J. still love A., he may not be as masculine as he appears and may not be willing to lead your relationship to a place that you are comfortable; or it may be that ultimately his commitment to a woman will be elsewhere; or that he may be waiting for the seed planted to sprout.

A man may walk away from you when he knows his personal sense of who he is in the world won’t measure up for you and although that is a painful goodbye, it isn’t necessarily a bad thing. You will have less dates because a man may feel that he will be unable to make you happy, but those men who weed themselves out early by their yardstick won’t waste the precious years of your fertility either.

Two days After the Rose

I read this morning that rumors abound that Brad and Emily have already ended their relationship and that Monday night’s reunion was a farce. It didn’t seem that way to me, but I thought about it today and how the couples that had "made it" talked about how difficult Monday nights and Tuesday mornings were for the ultimately chosen partners to handle watching their loved one date others.

What fools. I have a cousin by marriage that had gone on one of those dating reality TV shows. She was one of the final two, and ultimately not chosen. She handled it as well as she possibly could; she liked him. When I talked to her about it, the taping of the show had ended about 6 weeks before. I told her that perhaps it wasn’t over; that perhaps he would be unhappy with his choice and come back to her. She said to me that for her, it WAS over.

I’ve questioned whether as women living in this time have we lost our dignity and humanity for the chance at celebrity or has the dating world become so shallow that we would be willing to do anything for the possibility of love. Perhaps I’ve grown older and wiser but for me, the answer is that I would not.

I had an opportunity to date someone a few weeks ago and ultimately chose not to meet him.

For about 20 years I had perfectly manicured long French polished nails. Last June I decided that I was tired of the look and cut them short and now they’re dark. I like it. My hair is darker than my natural color and there is a ring of dark purple-gray around the outside of my iris. I polish them a very dark purple—most people think that it’s black, but it’s not. There is a sort of matching of my nails, hair and eye and I like it—for as much as I liked the white and how neutral it was, the dark is equally neutral.

So I met this guy online and he asks me to meet him for drinks…and then he proceeds to ask me if I would have extensions placed on my nails prior to meeting him, because it "turned him on". I thought about it for about 10 seconds and turned down the date. He’s asked me out again since then and I told him that we had been all through this, thank you, but my answer is no.

I’ll tell you why. I had never met him, didn’t know if I liked him and here was someone who had the gall to ask me to spend the better part of a hundred bucks to “turn him on”. He wasn’t taking me to the Oscar’s… it was drinks, and that wasn’t anything close to an equal exchange. An equal exchange is the minimum I would be willing to receive from a man who hadn’t met me…but I always expect more. Had I said yes prior to meeting him I could only imagine what he would have asked me for next…maybe a three way with a dog and an donkey.

Here was a man who wasn’t careful around women; he chose to behave carelessly and I, as a woman, didn’t want to be with him because of that behavior. I’m not sure what woman would. I had another guy that I liked very much; after alot of flirting, he told me that he had the value set of a 13 year old. At least he knew himself, but at that time he wasn’t willing to change. Perhaps someday he’ll get that I desired the 43 year old man, not the 13 year old who showed up.

So I look at these women (and men) who might have found their forever love and they are foolishly squandering their chance at the reality of real love by watching a virtual courtship unfold that they have no business watching. I know that I wouldn’t have. Nothing that Brad did with any woman prior to his making a commitment to Emily is any of her business—and yet the media claims today say that what she can’t forgive Brad for, is his “cheating” with the other contestants. There wasn’t any cheating; he hadn’t yet proclaimed his love or devotion—and she certainly had not for him. Foolish women, foolish choices to bring up past behavior that had nothing to do with her. She has his heart, she has her ring; she has his intention.

He has told her by his actions that he may not be perfect, but his love for her is. Foolishly she is asking for him to go back in time and undo what he did. She isn’t allowing (as a man) for the fruit of his love to mature and take its own time to ripen. She doesn’t see the man in front of her willing to take not only her but her child into a loving relationship where he was joyfully, happily willing to step up to the plate and be everything that he could be for her to be happy, safe and secure. She doesn’t see the good in him—that give the proper encouragement and inspiration he would rise to heights that he didn’t know within himself existed to fulfill the obligation he was ready to make.

I wonder how many men like Brad become broken forever after everything he could give her wasn’t enough.

I wonder how many women walk away from a good man because their courtship wasn’t perfect and wait for the fairy tale, while their “sell-by” date begins to expire.

When I look at it from the outside, men, real men, grown men ask so little of women that they love. They live to give to her. They live to make her happy and all they ask for from a woman is the chance to do so; to prove themselves worthy of her love.