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Three Women. Three Glasses of Wine. Three Stories of Betrayal.

Thursday, June 3rd, 2010

Being a Doctor of Psychology I can make academic sense of how successfully and without conscience many people lie. The best of them can go into a little mental compartment where they even believe their own lies as they flow out of their mouth.

I have seen Joran van der Sloot the suspect in the Natalee Holloway murder tell three separate stories about what happened in Aruba five years ago. In my opinion the only word of sordid truth he ever uttered was in Dutch when he referred to sweet Natalee as a “bitch.” The truth is that this young man has extreme anger toward women.

Lying to authorities to save your hide is one kind of deceit but what about the average person who lies to their closest intimates? Just last night, while sipping at a neighborhood wine bar, I heard three stories about men who lie to obtain sex, ego stroking, or even a woman’s trust. And as a woman (not a doctor, now) I have to say, what’s up with that?

In one story, my best friend’s longtime, on-again-off-again boyfriend was found to have fathered three children during the same years they whispered secrets between the sheets. Except he forgot to tell her that one secret — that his sperm, his time and his resources were going another direction.

In another story, a neighbor of mine was reeling from heartbreak after a broken engagement to an NFL football player (Read: He can afford bobbles.) In her loss and misery she thought she might console herself with a little recession era recycling so she marched her three carrot diamond ring to a jeweler, only to discover that a man she had once deeply trusted had given her a three carrot cubic zirconia.

While we continued to muse in disgust about how some men can feign intimacy and trustworthiness so well, the name of one of my old paramours came up. He’s been used as an example of a bad-boy in both my books (The Boyfriend Test and The Girlfriend Test) because this guy is the ultimate player. Over the course of our seventeen year “friendship” he has uttered the “L” word to me but he has also used my heart, my body and my money for his personal gain. He’s good, trust me. I have been out of his mesmerizing clutches for a few years now. Whew! But just a few weeks back I say him hiking with yet another beauty and shook my head to see that he’s still lying and juggling even at the age of, my God, could he be 53 by now? Anyway, my wine partners informed me that he had recently married his assistant. I laughed out loud, saying there is no way his marriage would have slowed down his appetite for frequent new sexual conquests. They assured me he is behaving as a loyal married man.

So I texted him a little “hello.”

And he quickly texted back. What he wrote were words that no married man should ever write to an old flame. My heart broke for his wife.

In the book, “101 Lies Men Tell Women, and Why Women Believe Them,” Dr. Dory Hollander claims that the root of all romantic lying is that women seek emotional connection and men mostly seek sex. The number one lie she sites? “I Love You.”

The saddest thing about my three stories of betrayal and the hundreds of stories in Dr. Hollander’s books is that so often we blame women for believing the lies. I was shocked to see the firestorm of criticism of Rielle Hunter, the mother of former presidential candidate John Edwards‘ fifth child. Somehow the media saw fit to place the bulk of the blame on her as a home wrecker. As the target of many, many lies issued from a male mouth, I can promise you that Mr. Edwards lied through his teeth to poor Miss. Hunter. First of all this slick rick wasn’t even playing in his own intellectual sandbox so getting her to believe his fabrications was probably a cake walk. I can just imagine his best promise to her, “Honey, you’re the one I love. My marriage is a sham to get me through this presidential campaign. Once I am president we can raise our baby in the White House.”  Trust me. His story ran along those lines.

The blame should never be on the recipient of a lie. Gullible people are innocent. Yes, I’ve removed the gender now, because some women lie as well as most men. But the culprit is the liar and his/her the lack of moral reasoning and inability to have compassion for others. The blame lies only with the deceitful person, not the one who trusted. What do you think?


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Posted in Crime Psychology, Emotions, Love, Marriage, Relationship Tools, Sexuality | 2 Comments »

What’s Killing Our Relationships? Fear of Dependancy.

Saturday, May 22nd, 2010

Everyone seems obsessed with relationships these days. When men and women share their relationship stories with me I see one big epidemic in our culture — fear of dependancy.

For instance, last night I was at a dinner party and when word got around that I am the Ph.D. who studies relationships, an inevitable mini group-therapy session broke out. The stories abounded about our curious relationship landscape. And alcohol-fueled questions popped out that amounted to “why am I like this?”

With few social rules forcing people into traditional relationships, many people are beginning to understand that their relationship style whether it be dominated by promiscuity, serial monogamy, an emotionally avoidant marriage, or preference for solitude, lies on them. With few family and friends forcing us into a legal, heterosexual, monogamous union, we are free to live out who we are. And that’s the problem. Many of us do not want to live out our “natural” attachment style and actually long for a closeness that will help us feel secure. Or we long for a relationship that will help us procreate and create healthy offspring.

Time and time again at these ad hoc therapy sessions, I find myself explaining “fear of dependancy.” Because, in my opinion, that’s what most relationship strife boils down to. In order to have a healthy relationship, we have to trust someone, we have to trust love and believe it will be consistent. And partners have to learn to depend on each other. All these beliefs about love are programmed in infancy and early life.

So when pop-psyche writers like myself identify someone as being comittment-phobic or a bad-boy or a cougar, we are actually looking at a behavior that is the outcome of a mistrust of love. A fear of being dependent on another.

For some reason, our culture places great value on independence. It’s one unfortunate downside of capitalism. My suspicion is that large, intertwined family systems are a threat to commerce and politics. But too much independence is a killer of romantic relationships. A healthy relationship is also not a kind of co-dependence where no one can remember who’s problem is whose. Instead, a mutually supportive relationship involves interdependence, where partners takes turns leaning on each other. And like that game of trust where one closes his eyes and falls back into the arms of a trusted friend, are you really convinced that you will always be caught? Because that’s exactly what’s keeping you single or disconnected in your marriage.

Posted in Dating, Divorce, Emotions, Hooking Up, Love, Marriage | 4 Comments »

Why Men Stray More than Women (And How to Prevent Cheating)

Friday, February 26th, 2010

It is estimated that 65% of divorces occur  because of an extra-marital affair. And, despite the sexual revolution and the reduction of the “double standard,” more men still cheat than women. Now science shows us why this gender imbalance might exist.

First, there could be a genetic link. Swedish researchers recently identified an “infidelity gene,” which is present in four of 10 men. This gene can explain why some men are more prone to stormy relationships and bond less to their wives or girlfriends. However, it’s important to remember that biology is not destiny. People born with genetic predispositions to say, heart disease or obesity, make lifestyle adjustments that compensate for the negative gene.

Secondly, men may find it easier to cheat because they feel less guilt than woman. A Spanish study recently revealed that the interpersonal sensitivity of men (especially those aged between 25-33) is low compared to women. This clearly could affect a man’s ability to empathize with his partner. The study also showed that men feel less intense guilt and this difference is particularly stark in the 40-50-year-old age group, a group particularly vulnerable to the mid-life crisis affair.

Finally, more men fear emotional intimacy more than do women. Believe it or not, some men find lovers so they can  avoid any real intimacy. Emotional closeness and the expression of vulnerability that goes with it scares many men, so they distance themselves from their wives by cheating on them. At the same time,  they don’t get too emotionally involved with their lovers. This kind of “watering down of the milk” feels safer to some men.

As always, my solution to bullet-proof relationships is to grow a bond through emotional intimacy. To make a relationship  rock-solid, one must move a step or two closer to the bone, and hone some relationship skills. Compassion can be learned. Fair-fighting is a skill. And stonewalling is a killer of all connection. Intimacy is not easy nor painfree. Extreme emotional intimacy and mutual care may involve squeamish feelings of shame, the forced expression of awkward words, an ability to see the ugly in others and still love them, and worse,  the ability to glaringly see the ugly in ourselves and still feel lovable. But the pay-back is pure kryptonite. An I’ve-got-your-back-if-you’ve-got-mine emotional contract that can make your relationship affair-proof.


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Posted in Divorce, Emotions, Hooking Up, Love, Marriage, Sexuality | No Comments »

Who’s a Better Husband, John Edwards or Tiger Woods?

Saturday, January 23rd, 2010

Of course we are splitting hairs here. Both men can jointly claim rights to the worst husband of the year award. Former presidential candidate, John Edwards had a love affair and fathered a baby out of wedlock while his wife was being treated for cancer. And, Tiger Woods, well, he dipped his stick in a pletheura of “liberated” women while wifey was pregnant and/or breastfeeding.

I appeared on two CNN shows yesterday to debate the hot topic and was surprised that in one not-very-scientific poll, viewers voted John Edwards the biggest skunk, because he was, after all, not only lying to his ailing wife, but he was lying to the voting public as well. Okay, so I get it. With Edwards, many Americans have a personal axe to grind. But now I ask you to stop thinking like a voter and instead think like a wife. Which dog would you prefer, if you had to be married to one?

To help you ponder this Sophie’s-choice, allow me to tell you about an enlightening psychology study. A group of married women were asked to choose which behavior they would prefer they husband engaged in: A) platonic, though emotionally intimate lunches with a co-worker or B) visits with a prostitute. If you’re a woman reading this, you might have guessed already that the prostitute won hands down over the work-wife. Anthropologists suggest that women fear a redirection of family resources before they worry about a little extra-cirricular nooky. And a business transaction with a prostitute represents  a quantifiable amount of resource extraction. Now an emotionally intimate friendship is another matter — he could open the flood gates of the family bank account with that one. His platonic friendship could certainly morph into a full-blown love affair but even if it didn’t, that woman’s close family member might become ill or she might get that Vegas virus  herself and boom, there’s her kind, deeply connected friend — your husband! — to write a check.

So, if you look at that study and place it as an overlay on the Edwards/Woods debate, Edwards still looks like the worst husband. An emotional and sexually intimate affair that produced a financially dependent child to boot. That’s a work wife who clearly opened the flood gates! At least Tiger didn’t put all his eggs in one basket. His liasons with loose women were a simple exchange of sex for a few party invites and souvenir text messages. It seems almost acceptable. Until you add one element that that psychologoical study did not factor in: The HIV virus.

The more sexual acts with promiscuos women (and who knows what else) the more likely one is to acquire AIDS. Just ask Magic Johnson. Now I want you to imagine a slightly different, though highly plausible, scenario in this debate. You have John Edwards on the one hand, grieving over the potential loss of his wife, falling into the arms of a caring woman who accidently becomes pregnant. And the only way to keep the very job that provides income for both his families is to lie, lie, lie. (Still not excusible, but this is a just a hypothetical debate.)

And then you have Elin, a loving wife who is given a special gift from her husband — the HIV virus — and unknowingly passes it through amniotic fluid or breastmilk to her child. Now we have a man who not only had affairs but murdered his family! Enough said.

John Edwards, will you marry me?

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Posted in Celebrity Relationships, Emotions, Love, Marriage, Sexuality | No Comments »

Do You Know How to Fight Fair?

Wednesday, January 6th, 2010

couple-arguingWhen couples tell me they have emotional intimacy I often ask them about their fighting style. If they tell me they don’t ever fight I am quite assured that they don’t have true intimacy. When two separate people join together for common life goals, clashes are inevitable. But conflict alone is not an indicator of a relationship’s health. The better barometer is the nature of repair. How do couples make up after a fight? With apologies, contrition, consoling and even laughter? Or is the aftermath of anger marked by silence, distance and a new rule to never speak about the subject of the fight?

Learning how to have healthy conflict is crucial to having emotional intimacy. But what exactly is healthy conflict?

Well, for starters, fighting fair means using words that identify your feelings rather than blame and point fingers. Easier said than done. Even though psychotherapists stress that we should focus on our feelings rather than level accusations, even the most educated of us resort to blaming sentences that begin with the word “YOU!” That alone doesn’t indicate a “bad fight” unless it is also followed by vicious name calling. Name calling is a bad sign. It indicates that one partner has temporarily forgotten the other’s identity and has substituted it by a skewed stereotype. It’s hard to drop those evil caricatures once our minds have created them. If you see him as a loser and tell him over and over, you are also rewiring your brain to believe this is true. One other thing to consider is the amount of voice time alloted each arguer. If the yelling is terribly lop-sided and one partner gets more air time, then something else is going on. Either intimidation by the loud mouth, or an emotional retreat by the other. Both things are not fighting fair.

As injurious as a fight can be, the biggest determinant of whether it is a “good fight” is the way repair is made afterward. There are many unique ways that couples come back into relationship after a fight. Notes left by the morning coffee pot, flowers at the office, and my favorite — off-the-charts make-up sex. But the important thing to remember is that love and respect can return.

Dangerous aftermaths include icy treatment for days on end. Little jabs thrown into unrelated conversations. Passive aggressive, retaliatory behavior. And worst of all, a fight that morphs into other fights that get flooded with material from old injuries. “Remember the time you…..”

The best way to learn to have “good fights” is to establish ground rules before any fighting begins. Men love rules of the game. It reminds them of sports and makes fighting a healthy challenge rather than a confusing battle with a scary, invisible opponent. Some ground rules might include, no name calling, no stonewalling, no fighting in front of the kids, no going to bed mad, and most importantly, scheduled make-up time the next day. It is also important to understand that each person has their own fighting style that must be respected. A man who walks out the door for brisk walk during an argument may not be rejecting you, he may be protecting you from a shift from words to action. Some people need a time-out to regroup and think during a fight. The time to talk about fighting styles, of course, is when you are not fighting.

Studies on couples conflict style show that the two most important ingredients to healthy fighting are empathy and humor. When you are feeling unheard, disrespected, or on the losing end of a power struggle, try as hard as you can to put yourself in your partner’s schools. Imagine you are on the other side of the dynamic battling with the likes of YOU. Best of all, is to find comedy in your tragedy. If you can muster the brain power, step outside your fight and imagine you are a fly on the wall. Reframe your dialogue as a script from a Saturday Night Live skit or a prime-time sit-com. Now look how silly you sound!

The most important ingredient during an conflict is the knowledge that love can return and that spirited negotiation is all part of building intimacy. When I once commented to my favorite bickering couple that I notice that there is love behind their arguments, the husband winked at me and said, “Not love. Sport.” Even in conflict there can be a bond and a secret agreement to respect each other.

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Posted in Domestic Violence, Love, Marriage, Relationship Tools | No Comments »

It’s Complicated. The Shape of Relationships today.

Saturday, November 21st, 2009

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Not so long ago there were two groups of people: single people who wanted to find the right mate and married people who may or may not have been working on their relationship. Today, virtually every American, no matter their age is in one of three relationship stages: 1. finding and building a relationship, 2. maintaining a relationship, or 3. destroying one. Look at these stats:

• 50% of first marriages divorce

• Up to 80% of second marriages divorce

• Sexual taboos have all but disappeared

• 40% of American babies are born out of wedlock

• More women than men are in the workforce

• Less than 30% of children have one stay-at-home parent

• Hooking up is replacing dating

• It is estimated that instead of til-death-do-us-part, we’ll have three long-term relationships in our lives

Today there is a shopping mall of relationship choices. Some couples marry. Some live together. Some do neither and still maintain committed relationships.  Others live without any kind of commitments yet children pop out of these unions. It is a relationship revolution where rules have yet to be established. It is a place where sexting, hooking up, and expensive white weddings walk side by side.  It is a place where divorce has become a rite of passage, where cougar women enjoy their sexual freedoms, divorced men scramble to figure out what went wrong and young adults try to make sense of their parent’s relationship model. The relationship revolution is affecting everyone.

There are no rules anymore in courting and mating. When a high-school girl has a “friend with benefits” and believes oral sex isn’t sex, when a college student brings a Facebook hookup to her grandmother’s birthday, and when more than half of all American babies are born out of wed-lock, clearly, Dorothy, we are not in Kansas anymore.

No longer til-death-do-us-part, it is estimated that most people have at least three long-term relationships in their lifespan.  Thus the shape of the family has changed. Families are married, unmarried, separated, divorced, blended, and gender roles are fluid. The lack of rules means that romance, marriage and family are a whole new ball game.

And single life is no longer a short rite of passage; it’s an important consumer demographic. For the first time in history, the majority of adult Americans are now unmarried. There’s even a magazine devoted to the lifestyles of those who have made a commitment to be single. It includes ads for commitment rings to purchase for oneself.

But has love changed? In some ways it has. Once a home for the heart, relationships have become a mess of mistrust. A holding tank for insecurity. A place where people tally up each side of contributions and ask too often, “What has he done for me lately?” Too often people wonder what their relationship is doing for them, rather than what they themselves have done for their relationship.

So what’s the answer to this complicated landscape. I think the winners of this paradigm shift will be the people who acquire the sharpest emotional intimacy skills. Like emotional intelligence was in the 1990’s, emotional intimacy (i.e. using empathy, compassion, and honesty to navigate conflict) is the hot skill for the survival of our species. Statistically speaking, children of a long-term committed relationship do better on all levels. The winners of the no-rules relationship revolution will be the people who make their own rules and their own game — where the champion is the relationship itself.

Posted in Dating, Divorce, Hooking Up, Love, Marriage, Relationship Tools | 2 Comments »

Love & Las Vegas (They use the same reward system)

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

imagesTo your brain, there are many similarities between gambling and love. They are both an exciting chemical high with a mixture of hope, profits, and potential for loss. Both love and Las Vegas can be intoxicating. But there is another secret way that gambling resembles certain kinds of love attachment — both are based on a behavioral learning theory called random interval reward system.

Learning theorists like Pavlov (and his dog,) Watson, and Skinner spent their professional lives attempting to figure out what motivates animal and human behavior. One of the things that was discovered is that the most effective way to get an organism (that’s you) addicted to a behavior was to administer the reward in a random way. The recipient of the reward doesn’t know when or what is coming but the very the fact that it is random and pleasurable makes them glued to the behavior. This is the basic principle behind a slot machine. Say you were given a consistent, small reward with every fifth pull of the level. You would probably quickly become bored and move on. And if the reward was exactly one-dollar each time, even though it was given at random intervals, still you would eventually become bored.

The secret is the varying size of the reward and varying the interval rate. If on the tenth pull, for instance, you received a nice pay off, your brain would have “learned” to survive ten pulls. To keep you going, a series of small payoffs might come quickly. In this example, the machine knows that you will continue to deposit money for at least ten pulls if it has rewarded you at least once in that manner. Believe me, the owners of Vegas casinos have calculated all these odds years ago, and they know how to set the random intervals to keep the player addicted to popping in coins. Surprise, surprise, the house always wins.

So what has this got to do with love and courtship? Well, imagine that every contact, compliment, or even intimate glance from a lover is perceived by your brain as a positive reward. Now imagine that it is given in a random way. I like to call this the “Bad Boy Success Formula.” Bad Boys are particularly good at using the random interval reward system. And bad Boys are very seductive to women. It’s because a Bad Boy’s fear of emotional intimacy causes him to dash in and out of a woman’s life in what feels like a random way. In actuality, his pattern of advance/retreat is a reflection of how much emotional intimacy he can tolerate, but who’s looking below the surface when you’re staring at the phone wondering why he hasn’t called?

Each time a Bad Boy feels it is safe to return to a woman, their object is usually to obtain physical intimacy. Since sex is their goal they are particularly savvy at coming on with compliments and making their target feel like a queen — all rewards that women thrive on. Bad Boys are also the very best apologizers I have even met. The apology is part of their schtick to wedge back in your door. Sometimes their words of contrition resemble a kind of emotional intimacy so chicks fall for it, again and again.

But Bad Boys aside, the very uncertainty of a growing relationship with it’s emotional highs coupled with feelings of insecurity, can cause a kind of attachment based on a reward system. Something to think about as you date. Are you getting bored with the nice guys or consistent gals who are on time and available? Maybe that’s because your brain has tasted the pain and excitement of a random interval reward relationship. It might be time to sit back, take a deep breath, and look a little closer at the consistent one. The ultimate pay out might be much greater.

Posted in Dating, Emotions, Hooking Up, Love | No Comments »

Survive This Dating Trend! The LDR (Long Distance Relationship)

Saturday, October 31st, 2009

217294Many blog readers email me with questions about a common trend in love, the long distance relationship. Far from being a new convention, the LDR has exploded in numbers thanks to internet dating and our capitalistic pressure to chase money and jobs around the country, and indeed the globe. But can it ever really work? Can long distance love eventually become a cozy same-city nest? Can a stay-at-home relationship survive a stint abroad?

The answer is a bit complicated. In general the very dynamics that create and sustain a long distance relationship are different from those of a consistent stay-at-home relationship. LDR’s are marked by plenty of autonomous alone time and peppered with a series of “honeymoons” in various hook-up cities. Stay-at-home love is more often about the daily work of love and life. And the players tend to be different. If you’ve read some of my past blogs about the psychological theory called “Attachment Theory” you’ve probably guessed already that emotionally avoidant individuals might really dig an LDR, while more anxious or preoccupied folks like to have a shorter tether.

So, the big question I get asked a lot is what to do if one morphs into the other. And, how to make an LDR come home to roost. My advice: Be prepared for plenty of conflict. All change is painful. Emotional change has it’s own particular brand of sting. But emotional change, when it brings self awareness and/or a new level of compassion, is ultimately good.

First, consider the clauses that the original unconscious contract contained. We all make silent contracts in every relationship. For instance, all my girlfriends know without me having to say it, that they’ll be rescheduled on my calendar if a work obligation comes up. And, most of them also have signed on with their blessings that a great guy comes first. Girlfriends are a supportive bunch and, above all, we want happiness for each other. We’ve never discussed this, but I know it’s true. It has played out in the past.

And what might be in the silent contract of romantic love? Usually it’s about the amount of contact, the kind of contact (email, voice, face-to-face), and the content of the contact. What I mean is, how much commentary about emotions is contained in the communication. Some partners can handle, and even crave, a lot of honest, authentic talk about feelings, and many, many others would prefer to have a root canal.

In the long distance love contract the clauses about contact are very easy to adhere to. If one partner prefers less contact he or she becomes literally unavailable, on a different time zone, with phones turned off. Period. You can’t argue with that kind of communication boundary. In stay-at-home love, it’s a little harder to duck and cover. There he is, walking in the door, ready for love and the F-word (feelings.) If a long distance relationship is filled with strict communication boundaries, the shift to a day-to-day relationship may be extremely challenging.

And what about a stay-at-home relationship that is about to undergo a transition that involves distance? First, know this. relationships are affected by environmental stimuli. And environment affects our perception of ourselves and our partner potential. For instance, let’s say you live in a small town and your guy is one of the best looking, smartest dudes on main street. Then your job takes you to New York. While you may have firm plans for your boyfriend to follow you out within a year, something happens that you were unprepared for. Suddenly your guy looks like chump change beside the crowds of hunky, capitalists on Wall Street. Or, he takes a semester in London and finds that a Kate Moss clone with a comely accent, is more attractive than his high school sweetheart. Take a deep breath people. I’m not saying that all relationships as so superficial. But many are.

And that’s my point. How do you avoid becoming superficial? By getting below the surface. Yes, I’m back on Dr. Walsh’s soapbox. The real glue of every relationship, both LDR’s and the stay-at-home kind, is the degree of emotional attachment. When we have compassion for our partners, when we trust that they have our back no matter what, when we really feel seen and loved, and when we can love our partners even with their vulnerabilities, we have the glue of real love. Real attachment. That will be the thing that weathers the storms of temptation, distance, and challenging communication. Trust. To trust and be trust-worthy. Work on yourself and the world will line up in accordance with your ethics. I ask you today to be brave and begin to create a real attachment.


Posted in Dating, Emotions, Hooking Up, Love | 1 Comment »

Our Secret Obsession — Relationships?

Thursday, October 29th, 2009

857apinktopBefore I had even completed my Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology, I had written two dating and relationship books. When I attempted to shop the titles in the TV world, I was told by more than one television executive that the wave of relationship shows had crested. That was in 2005. Poor darlings. They forgot to look out for the sunami that followed. Today relationship news dominates the web, TV, radio, and publishing. So, why are we so crazed to seek out information about love? Two reasons really.

The first is instability. Love, marriage, and relationships are changing at a fast clip. And this is scary. When the divorce rate for first marriages is over 50% and as high as 80% for second marriages, when nearly 40% of American children are born out of wedlock, and when hook-ups have replaced courtship, it’s time to stop and think. There is so much instability in relationships today that we are scrambling to know more, to understand why, and to stop the bloodshed known as heart break. I mean, sixty years ago when our grandparents married they may have unknowingly signed up for a bumpy road, a little repression, a few lost dreams, but they sure didn’t live with a daily fear that on any given day their partner would just quit! This is terrifying.

The second piece is isolation. Our modern culture is losing it’s safety net of community support, as families chase jobs around the globe away from extended family and move away from traditional church communities and fail to develop true intimate friend networks, we feel isolated. And that means we put an enormous amount of pressure on our primary love relationship to do the work of all our emotional support. Yikes! I’d love to say that I could be that for a guy, but really, it’s not humanly possible to be all things to one person. And then when love crumbles, the very isolation that made us cling to our partner, now makes us feel terribly sad and alone. It’s a vicious cycle.

So what’s the answer? To learn to grow a backbone and a bit of alligator skin and tread back into the world of intimacy — everywhere. Not just in our love relationship (although it’s paramount to survival there.) Learning to love and trust, and feel lovable and trust-worthy is the work of intimacy. I encourage you to start today.

Remind yourself how lovable you are and then reach out to share your unconditional kindness and compassion with someone else. And the key word there, folks, is UNCONDITIONALLY. Don’t expect anything back except feelings of pride and respect for yourself. Do this and you’ll see. Things will start to change. Really. Trust me on this.

Posted in Dating, Divorce, Hooking Up, Love, Marriage | No Comments »

Can Flirting (Online or Otherwise) HELP Your Marriage?

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

woman-whispering-to-mans-ear-pm-thumb-270x270I have this gal pal and she and I do these spin classes together that are far past my cardio ability. This is not a problem for my friend. It turns me into a very good listener. During my near-heaving pants, my friend loves to recant her latest flirtation story. The guy is either an online friend who she knew in a prior life, or someone she just met on Facebook. Sometimes it’s another father at her kids’ school whom she’s been locking eyes with in the real world, often during afternoon pick up. Now, the thing you should know about my friend is that she is married. And, she never, ever would have an affair. This I can assure you. Her marriage is as stable as a rock. She loves her husband a ton.

So, what’s all this flirting about?

I ask her this after class as I attempt to rub a mascara ring from under my eyes. She tells me it’s harmless. It’s a little charge. Then she whispers this one thing, and I finally get it. “Ya know,” she smiles, “It actually helps me make better love to my husband.”

Psychologists and sex therapists have long known that one secret to long-term hot monogamy is an active fantasy life. Men, who are far more visually stimulated than women, may need porn, but we chicks, we just need a sly glance from a gamely male and our wheels of invention start to spin like wild in our minds. And, let’s face it, ladies. Sexual attraction sometimes wanes as the years go by and our partner’s once exciting noveau pheromones become a somewhat tired, familiar background oder in our daily lives. We all yearn for a little excitement, and the wearying business of marriage and kid training is sometimes, well, sometimes, it is anything but exciting.

But can a flirtation be dangerous? Yes, sometimes. There are two instances where I think a little smile and wink can amount to playing with fire. The first is if you have a belief system where thoughts can be sins, and therefore the thoughts are followed by painful feelings of guilt and shame. If your religious conditioning plays negatively on your self esteem and you feel bad for having such “unpurely fun” thoughts, than these kind of extra-marital flirtations are not for you.

More likely in today’s culture, is the other risk. Poor boundaries. If you are the type of person who can’t keep your fantasy life in a jar with a lid, then you are at clear risk for breaking your marital vows. Fantasies are meant to be just that. A complete fabrication. A product of your imagination. That little jar of excitement can be opened and screened like a movie whenever you are romping with your mate, but if you find yourself wondering what it would, really, for real, be like with this dude, then you need to stop yourself girlfriend.

Here’s my advice if you are a novice at this game: Decide where the boundary is. A phone call? A text? A quick brush of each other’s bodies as you dash across the crowded schoolyard? You decide. But when that boundary gets reached, you have to cut it off. Decide well before you have a target. Then stick to your guns. There is much at stake here. And, a good man’s heart hangs in the balance. But non-contact smirks and hair flips are all part of the game. Go for it, mama. Just make sure you bring it home to daddy.


Posted in Love, Marriage, Relationship Tools, Sexuality | 1 Comment »

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