An Eye-Opening Confession About Bad Relationships and Marriage from the Comfortably Unhappy

One of your fellow readers offers a compelling confession of her 15 years of being comfortably unhappy – nearly half her lifetime! Look to see if you see any part of yourself in her confession…

A very dear friend in London wrote to me confessing having spent nearly half her life in this condition before she finally broke free of her husband, a philandering, abusive, substance-abusing codependent wussy parasite who thought her purpose in life was to provide for him and his was to take advantage of it. Meet Heather:

David....sorry but I read your lesson about “Comfortably Unhappy” from yesterday and do you realise that was me for a long time before I contacted you, comfortably unhappy? You could use me as a perfect example of how not to do what I did and waste years of your life.

I was evaluating how long I was truly unhappy and you know what I came up with..............I was with [him] for 15 years.......at 7 years I had an affair with an older man (gosh how I wish I'd run away then, but things wouldn't have led me to the other things I have today, like my career, if I'd done that, so it’s ok really!!) and I'd been miserable for a good year before that so and the friendship with the guy had been growing through that time where we were meeting each other in a plutonic way before we got it on so to speak and that means I was comfortably unhappy for 8 years David......why I stuck it for so long I do not know and all that happened is things got worse and worse even after I stayed after the affair as his possessive controlling behaviour escalated so how do we explain why people dont 'wake up' to what's going on for so long.............

I mean I didn't properly think about leaving when I was caught in the affair at that time it was easier to stay in the comfy situation than change everything, and I felt awful for the hurt I'd caused [my ex] despite the fact I knew the reason I had done it was because I was being taken for granted and treated like a maid even back then. Is that weird or what?!!

I think after embracing the change I had this time I'd be the first one to say if you’re not happy, run! Do whatever it takes! Just don’t waste life.

Life is a precious gift that is far too short already and the only thing I have grieved for through all of this isn't my failed marriage or my lost childhood love/sweetheart. It’s my wasted years of my life that I cannot ever get back, years literally spent being comfortable but unsatisfied and unhappy in every way.

Do you think if people realised how much you actually kick yourself afterwards they would wake up and sort out their own situations now, rather than waiting and waiting and watching the years of their life ticking away until they can't take it anymore?!!!!

Just my thoughts on the newsletter and if you want to use any of them feel free.......

Heather

Guys, it’s no different for us. We get in a rut, we spend years seeking a woman’s approval, or looking to her for our self-esteem when we should be looking to ourselves and she has none of her own, let alone any to give us. We mistakenly think that things get stale and boring because that’s the way they are supposed to be, and that’s the price we pay for sex, and then the sex stops, too, but we look at the calendar and think that we’re better off putting up with it and having an occasional affair than to give up half or more of everything we’ve earned and a big chunk of our future earnings to get out of it and have a life. What a load of crap that turns out to be!

For starters, unless you are with some kind of parasite or predator, or someone with whom you are grossly mismatched and never should have married, life doesn’t have to be like that at all. The truth is that she probably got bored at the same time you did, or even before, if she’s like most women, and would love for things to be fun and exciting again. Women are nesting creatures, right?

They don’t like crises that cause major changes in their life (like divorce!) any more than we do, even though you will see them craving the adrenaline it causes to combat their eternally-tormenting boredom. It is foolish, not to mention catastrophic, to let a little drama convince you that the average woman would destroy her household and her marriage just to get a little adrenaline rush. According to the best information I’ve been able to find, only one in two thousand is that insanely damaged.

And no, it’s not easier to have an affair than to fix things with your wife if you have the foundation of a good marriage. That’s a myth that I’d like to strangle somebody for propagating, not because I think everybody should be married, but because it’s simply not true and has ruined so many marriages that could have been fixed. What does it take?

It doesn’t take much at all! It takes knowing whether you have the foundation for a good relationship, which is a matter of answering a few questions that I have for you. It takes knowing how you and your wife differ as man and woman, and using those differences to enhance your relationship instead of allowing them to remain points of contention, competition, and frustration.

It takes learning three simple rules that govern all communication with a woman, and using them to hear things she’s been telling you for years that you never knew you were being told. It takes shedding the “nice guy” programming that you’re drowning in, and getting back to being the “real guy” that your Y-chromosome has set you up to be, strong, competent, fun, and feeling good about yourself.

It’s the easiest process a man can go through, because it’s a return from your current unnatural self to your natural self, and a process that gives you the answer to questions you’ve spent a lifetime thinking you’d never see answered, like “What do women really want?” and “What makes women tick?” not to mention “Why did she just get mad at me for answering her question???”

So what do you say? Are you comfortably unhappy? Are you ready to learn things you never thought possible to know and enjoy your life – and your wife – like you never thought possible? Start the new year right! Go now, right now, before you do another thing, to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," and see just how easy enjoying a great life can be!

In the meantime, live well, be well, and have a wonderful day!
David Cunningham

Do Her Chores Include YOU? Being a Treat for Your Partner In Your Relationship or Marriage

There’s a word for forced intimacy born of duty or guilt instead of passion: CHORE. Make your sex life – and HERS – a treat, not a chore! Here’s how…

It’s a happy day, Ladies and Gentlemen! Here’s another couple who have used "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" to make their relationship one of passion and excitement instead of a torturous, miserable, boring coexistence, and you can learn a lot from them. Meet Marti:

Dear David,

Due to changes in our marriage and the feeling my husband and I had for each other, a few months ago we decided that we either had to make major improvements or call it quits. In doing research for help and talking to friends your book was recommended to us. The couple that told us about you is one of the happiest couples we know, and they said that it is because they have simply used what they learned in your book. So we decided to dive right in and see what you could do for us.

My biggest problem was that I felt as if sex with him was a chore, not something to enjoy or even want. Please close your mouth, yes I said I felt like sex with my husband was a chore. I had even compared it to mopping the floor one time while talking to a friend and she was in shock. Is that not one of the worst things you have ever heard? I guess maybe you have heard it all by now, but I felt like maybe I was not the only woman that had ever had these feelings and in writing you maybe you could share this with other women.

What made it worse was that I tried and tried to tell my husband that the passion was gone and that we were in a rut, but I couldn’t get through to him. I asked him countless times how he felt about our relationship and our intimate life, and he would just say that he didn’t have or see a problem, and that was the end of the discussion, never giving me the chance to tell him what I needed to tell him. I just laid there, thinking about other things, sometimes other people, waiting for him to finish so I could go to sleep.

Since we have now completed your book and have put into our everyday life what we learned in it I can say I shocked myself. Everything in our relationship is better than it’s ever been! There is nothing about sharing myself with him that even comes close to a chore now. In fact is just the opposite. He listens to me, and we really talk now, not just about our sex life, but about everything! When we started tuning into each other it was like our dating and marriage up to that point had just been a practice run. We finally REALLY know each other, all the time, and it’s wonderful!

As for the bedroom, now all he has to do it give me that look or touch me in the small of my back or just on my arm and I find myself wanting him as close to me as possible. And when he teases me and cracks that naughty grin I just want to eat him up! Sometimes he starts in on me before we even get out of bed in the morning, caressing and teasing, and then laughs and jumps out of bed and tells me if I’m good I’ll get more when he gets home. I daydream about him touching me, kissing me, enjoying my body as I enjoy his throughout the day every time he does that. Oh God right now just thinking about it I feel like calling him to come home for lunch!

WOW how different our lives are now! Now I am always looking forward to bedtime instead of looking for excuses not to have to go to bed until he is asleep. I do things to get his attention instead of avoiding him, because he is fun and exciting to be around. My friends even comment on how much they enjoy being around him now, and they used to tell me that it was time to move on because he was such a stick in the mud and I could do better. You have saved our marriage in more ways than one and I just wanted to say “Thank you” for all your hard work and for making it easy for us to save what we had and get back what brought us together in the first place - and then some!

Love ya,
Marti

My reply:

Thank you for that, Marti! It always makes my day when I get a success story like this, one in which the couple has followed my recommendation to use my book together, and learned from each other as the process continued. "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" was written for men partially because they have the most to learn, but also because it is the man’s job to take the lead, because taking the lead, even in the pursuit of enhancing attraction, is attractive to his female partner. You’re on the right track; just stay on it!

Take care, and keep in touch,
David

Notice that Marti doesn’t just talk about their sex-life reaching new levels. Their improved communication skills have brought them closer together, making their emotional intimacy more intense in addition to their physical intimacy. Being attractive to the woman you love obviously enhances your sex-life, but it also enhances the rest of your life together as well, often being the catalyst in escalating relationships between married couples (being pulled together by attraction makes couples want to explore other aspects of each other) who were functionally just roommates and/or business partners to true LIFE PARTNERS, friends, playmates, adventure partners – even better parents!

Or had it not occurred to you that it would be much easier to be better parents if you could communicate with each other more effectively and prepare a more unified front to present to the kids? And guess what else there, DAD…your daughters are “women-in-training,” and what you learn to communicate better with their mother will also help you to keep from drowning in that estrogen ocean when their hormones start surging and “Daddy’s little girl” turns into “Daddy’s little drama queen”!!! Daughters in their teens grow away from fathers for the same reason wives grow away from husbands, because he doesn’t understand them when they try to talk and they just get frustrated and give up. Don’t let them give up on you!

Gents, there is no downside here, and an unlimited upside. Opportunities like this don’t come along often, so take advantage of this one while you can. Go to http://www.makingherhappy.com and get your copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" for less than the cost of a good meal for two, and start reading, right now, before you waste another minute of your life, because life’s too short to be regarded as a chore, and if your wife regards you as a chore for long, she’s likely to tender her resignation, and take half or more of “the company” with her!

In the meantime, live well, be well, and have a wonderful day!
David Cunningham

Avoiding Holiday Violence in Relationships and Marriage

Police say that this time of year is when they get the most domestic violence calls. It doesn’t have to be that way…

I hope everyone who celebrated Christmas had a great one. According to the following letter from a reader and friend, it appears that some certainly didn’t. Meet Dave:

Merry Christmas David!

I was talking with one of the Sheriff's who come in on a regular basis and he was telling me they have the highest rates of domestic violence this time of year. Sure, they have the usual party animals and drunks, but by far their top call and worst ones are the domestic violence ones.

It's so sad when you think how close they can be to getting the right info and changing things around like a couple of recent testimonials you’ve recently shared have said. It just makes you want to shake them silly and get them to wake up. You can lead a horse to water...

Have yourself a GREAT Christmas!
Dave

Testimonials? Those I have, in abundance. I just received this one today, from another reader. Meet Jackie:

Hi David!

Merry Christmas!

We're in full-on Christmas swing here, but I wanted to take a moment and send loads and gobs of gratitude your way for your role in what has been a stellar Christmas for Stephen and me this year. We are all about the lovey-dovey stuff today, and I also wanted to tell you that Stephen was shining star in the gift-giving department for me. A+ across the board. :-D I told him I was going to send you a good report about that, and he grinned and said, "You'd better."

I hope you are having a wonderful Christmas. The barbecue sounds wonderful. I can smell it from here...LOL!

Jackie

These two were at each other’s throats in near-constant frustration, not to mention celibacy, just a couple of months ago, and they’d spent years looking for help, with only very limited success. It wasn’t until they learned a few basic things about communication, attraction, and each other that it was possible for them to improve, but when they did learn, well, I’ll just say that this is one of the more “tame” letters I’ve received from this couple recently.

Holidays can be a terrible source of pressure and resentment, or they can be a wonderful time of celebration, love, and intimacy. Which one they turn out to be for you is entirely your choice, too.

New Year’s is a week away; what’s it going to bring you? Are you going to get drunk to try to forget about your life and your wife, and end up in a fight or in jail? Or are you going to celebrate having completed a good year and having another one ahead of you?

Or maybe just celebrate having stopped a divorce that was trying its best to happen before the end of the year? I’ve had several readers turn things around that quickly, and if you’re in such a predicament, I strongly recommend you join them! Come see me at http://www.makingherhappy.com and let’s see what I can do for you…

In the meantime, live well, be well, and have a wonderful day!
David Cunningham

Creating Attraction in Relationships and Marriage: Not an Act, but an Attitude!

What works? And why do men, when they know what they are doing isn’t working, continue to do the wrong thing? What’s the right thing to do? Big hint: being attractive isn’t about an act, or a series of acts; it’s about attitude!

Let’s talk about why we do things, both right and wrong, when it comes to our interactions with other people, especially those of the opposite sex. It is said that there are only two reasons people don’t perform, ignorance (not knowing how) and apathy (not caring). Ignorance is treatable, simply by teaching, but apathy is much more difficult to treat, because it involves changing someone’s value system, which in turn is defined by their guiding philosophy. For most people, this is a place where fools rush in and angels fear to tread. Why?

It’s not very difficult to change someone’s perception of value of a particular thing if it already meets the requirements of their value system, because all you have to do is show them how it meets their needs. But when their value system says something is unimportant, you’re literally dealing with what makes them tick, their guiding philosophy even, the mechanism behind every decision that they make in their life. People resist changing their value system because if they do, then there’s going to be a whole lot of bad decisions in their past that they now have to acknowledge, and possibly feel guilty or atone for.

Not a pretty thought is it? And the older we get, the more choices we’ve made, and the more we might have to admit to as a mistake. (Objectivists are the only people I know who seem to be immune to this en masse, but that is because we treat mistakes as a resource for learning – an value the rest of the world could benefit from indeed.)

What about when a value system contradicts reality? That’s a pretty disturbing question, isn’t it? Reality always prevails, and people make bad decisions, and then try to blame them on something or someone else – “You just don’t understand,” “It’s the system,” “You just don’t care enough to see it my way,” etc. Spare me.

When I hear, “But you just don’t understand,” after giving someone a dose of reality, I know that whatever follows will be a direct contradiction with reality, and any further conversation with this person is a waste of my time and energy, because their purpose is now to drag me into their fantasy for validation. The same goes for when they keep asking the same question over and over, because they aren’t hearing what they want to hear, as if the answer would change to suit them if they ask it enough times. They’re seeking validation of the past, not improvement for the future.

What does this have to do with attraction and dealing with the opposite sex?

For how many years, decades, even centuries, have we been saying ridiculous things like, “I want to be liked for who I am,” when “who I am” is pretty disgusting? (I’ll address approval-seeking behavior in several other newsletters.) Guys, we’re visually stimulated more than anything when it comes to attraction. Like it or not, that’s just the way it is. Sorry Ladies, we may eventually evolve out of it, but for the time being our first impressions of attraction come from visual stimuli. Yours do too, but to a lesser degree.

Men are biologically wired to be excited about seeing a woman who looks healthy and able to bear healthy children, hence the triggers of ample breasts, wider, rounder hips, which are necessary for birthing and feeding, and good skin, hair, and teeth, which speak to one’s health and ability to nurture and raise children. Again, it’s not logical, it’s biological, primal – INSTINCT! Once that initial attraction is there, it is enhanced or diminished by personality factors, and ultimately can be replaced entirely by personality factors, but that first impression is often physical, and if not made by curves, is made by pretty eyes or a striking smile.

Women are wired to appreciate the alpha male, the guy who can take a club and bring down a buffalo or lead other men to do it for him or with him, but for most women, that is only the beginning of attraction, more on a level of curiosity or intrigue than attraction. It makes a man a candidate, not a target. A woman sees an obvious alpha male and wants to know more, where a man sees a sexy woman and subconsciously wants to mate, now, because curves equate to sex, which in turn equates to procreation – our biological purpose. To seal the deal with the man as far as attraction goes, especially in the early stages of a relationship, you don’t have to do much more than walk up to him, or smile when he walks up to you. Pretty boring, huh Ladies?

Ask them, Guys. Most of them are sick of men being such easy prey. Women like a good challenge as much as we do, especially in terms of building self-esteem. A man who is not a challenge is boring, and often perceived as desperate and weak. Remember that…

Once you have aroused the woman’s curiosity by exhibiting alpha male behavior, you still have a way to go. She’s already made up her mind whether you are a candidate for attraction, and at this point is testing to see if you blow it. You’ve still got to show that you have enough guts to approach her, which is intriguing, and then seal the deal by showing you can entertain her with a good sense of humor, at a bare minimum; charm, polish, savoir faire, etc., don’t even come into the picture until at least these three criteria are met. No if’s, and’s, or but’s, this is it, stark reality, no arguing about it.

And again (yes, I’m preaching, because this is that important!), this is BIOLOGICAL, not logical – primal and instinctive, and contrary to some really ridiculous crap that some of you readers have recently shown me in some other newsletters, not the result of “social conditioning.” Women don’t “lubricate” or men become erect at the sight of their attraction triggers because of “social conditioning;” biological responses come from biological causes. (Damn! There’s that pesky law of cause and effect again!)

So what do you do to make yourself attractive to this woman you love?

Exactly what I just described! Show her that adventurous, heroic, fun-loving guy she was first attracted to when you met, or even better that REALLY adventurous, heroic, totally independent fun-loving guy that you were born to be, before you were poisoned with all of the wussy programming you’ve been exposed to over the last forty years or more, by everyone from your mother to the media. If she has ever been attracted to you to any degree, it has been to the degree that you did what I was just describing. If you don’t think so, ask her. If you ask, be prepared for the truth, and accept it; it doesn’t do any good for her to try to soften the truth or for you to try to ignore it. Here’s where the problem starts.

Many men, including at least some of you, are at this point saying, “I don’t want to have to act differently just to make my partner interested in me again! She should like me and respect me enough for who I am to be attracted to me. Why else would she still be with me?” Good grief! I’m about to barf after typing that load of crap. LOL! Let me help you with that.

Imagine the most grotesque woman you can imagine. Seriously. Somebody you wouldn’t have sexual relations with using even an enemy’s genitalia. Let’s say about 500 pounds, dirty, stringy hair, rotten teeth and breath, warts all over her, a nice thick beard growing, and to top it all off, she has an affinity for cheap cigars and Polish Kielbasa and suffers from chronic flatulence, the kind that peels paint, in the house next door. Doesn’t bathe or brush her teeth, or shave anything and has more body hair and nose hair than you. Gross enough to guarantee that there’s no way you’d ever sleep with her? Good. Now imagine her saying, “I don’t want to change my looks and hygiene habits. I think men should get hot for me just the way I am.” Whaddaya think? Up for some of that? No? Hell no? I didn’t think so. Why not?

Because she didn’t trip your attraction triggers. Indeed, she negatively impacted most if not all of them. Now imagine that she was a hottie when you married her and this is what you have 20 years later. Any questions? So if you don’t want to straighten up and act a bit different to be attractive to the woman you love, why in the world should she be expected to respond positively to you when you’ve become lazy, or a wimpy girly man who bores her to tears, smothers her, seeks her approval at every turn, can’t make a decision about anything and defers them all to her, shaves his body but not his face (just like she does), and either uses more hair and facial products than she does and out-dresses her or doesn’t bathe and groom regularly and dresses like a homeless guy or “gangsta”?

In a nutshell, just like the 500-pound woman, the guy I’m describing demonstrates a total lack of self-respect and self-love, and that’s poison to a woman’s sense of attraction, turning every switch off and sending her running. You can’t expect her to go against her natural programming or wiring any more than you could be expected to do the same thing. If you want her to respond differently, you have to behave differently. End of story. Here’s a cool little rhyme to keep the idea fresh in your mind at all times:

If you always do
What you’ve always done
You’ll always get
What you’ve always got.

No, it’s not today’s latest rap, but it gets the point across. Dare to be different. Now, you can go about this one of two ways, one of which will fail miserably, while the other succeeds every time. You can fail by trying to put on a cool act for her. An act might get you a date, and might even get you in the sack once or twice in a dating situation, but with a woman you’ve lived with for awhile and who knows you? Guess again. Ain’t happening. You’re going to get caught being a wuss and the attraction is going to die right then and there, and in the meantime, you’re going to live in fear of being discovered. Now, what if I told you that the way to succeed was far easier than the act that would surely fail? Want to give it a try?

The thing you can do is to simply BE a better man! Learn what it is to be an alpha male. Recognize that this is really who you were born to be and get the alpha male attitude. Be SOMEBODY! Be a leader when you are qualified to do so, even if it’s just in a conversation about something you like. Have fun, and don’t be afraid to be seen having fun. Tell anybody who would interfere with you truly enjoying your status as a man, your job and your ability to be competent, or try to diminish your self-image by telling you that it’s not politically correct to enjoy being a guy to take a bloody hike! Any wussy behavior will fall away and be replaced by the confidence in knowing that as an alpha male, people will seek your company and your counsel, especially the woman you love and live with, because you are what she wants! You don’t have to put up an act. All you have to do is be a guy.

Then, you can take a look at yourself and engage in a little self-improvement exercise by taking a look at the things women respond to, like charm, charisma, leadership, public speaking ability and comfort in a crowd, sense of humor, etc., and if any of these things aren’t a natural part of you and you like the idea of having them be part of you, you can develop them in yourself, and enjoy doing so. You study for other things you enjoy, don’t you? Athletic statistics, woodworking methods, fishing, camping, starting a fire in a charcoal grill, are all things you pick up to enjoy other parts of your life, so why not learn a few things about women so you can enjoy them more???

Public speaking is a biggie when it comes to tickling a woman’s fancy, and one of the most fun experiences in my life was joining the Toastmasters’ Club. There were a lot of wonderfully interesting people there who told funny stories and jokes, taught tips and skills, and even recited some pretty decent poetry, all just to get used to being and speaking in front of a group of people, and since everyone was there for the same purpose, the entire group was very supportive, and I made friends that I wouldn’t trade for the world. I could have cared less if I ever made a public speech; I just wanted to be able to confidently and calmly address a group, like telling a good story at a party or explaining to a group of peers something I’d learned, and it was great to finally be able to do that. The point?

Self-improvement should always be enjoyable; both achieving it and having it should be a true pleasure. And, once you have achieved it, it’s there, naturally, not just some act to be seen through, but genuine and enjoyable for those around you as well. Hence, if you target self-improvement efforts at things you enjoy and your partner finds attractive, improving your relationship, and consequently, your sex life, while a most serious pursuit, can be as enjoyable as any hobby, and the effects are forever useful, unlike a lot of self-improvement fads that change with the seasons (anybody remember “Total Quality Management” from the 1980’s, followed by “Continuous Quality Management,” and then “Continuous Quality Improvement,” all of which were replacements for the “Zero-Defect Standard” preached through the 1970s?)

The behavior women are attracted to might spawn different deeds as trends come and go, rather like raising a car door in the future (gull-wing doors) instead of swinging them outward as we do today, but the attractive attitude that determines the behavior hasn’t changed in centuries, and due to the extremely slow pace at which we biologically evolve and given that attraction is based on biological responses, you can be sure that it won’t be changing in your lifetime, either. So invest a little time and effort in your future…

I’ve given you the general lay of the land, but for the detailed map, how to travel it (including creating anticipation), and how to talk and listen along the way, go to http://www.makingherhappy.com right now, and download your copy of my book “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage”. It’s so named not because it sounded cool or catchy, but because IT WORKS. Period. Get your copy today and get back to being that real man you were born to be because life is too short to spend it acting like a wuss, not to mention being treated like one, which among other things, means being mostly celibate, frustrated, and lonely – not a good way to spend the holidays!

In the meantime, live well, be well, and have a wonderful day!
David Cunningham

Choosing the Perfect Greeting Card for Any Woman: Surviving the Holidays in Your Relationship or Marriage

We’ve talked about choosing the perfect gift for any occasion, and a reader notes that finding a great card to go with a gift or express a holiday wish is difficult to impossible. But! You still have options that will surprise and delight her!

We’re in the middle of a bunch of religious and cultural holidays right now, and greeting cards are making life rough on the postman and his shoes, as well as a lot of people who are trying to find something that really expresses what they are feeling. Selections are really pretty crappy, and one could wear out a good pair of shoes just trying to find something that comes close. “Lorne” does an excellent job of summing it up:

David,

I have to share with you an observation I made today. I'm sure many of your readers have noticed this as well. The selection Christmas cards we men have to give our wives' is horrible. I was at the local Walgreen’s [a drugstore chain in the U.S.] today to pick up a card for my wife and another from the boys for her, and honestly I couldn't much tell the difference whose was whose.

The “'From Husband” cards all portray us as either bumbling idiots who are just lucky to have a woman in our lives, or needy men willing to do anything just as long as we can spend time with our wife. Now, don't get me wrong, I love my wife and believe that she is a great person, but the message these cards sends out is "Thanks for putting up with me, I really don't deserve you." How can that be attractive to a woman? For one thing, if I knew I was that big of a goof, I should be shot for not doing something about it.

To me the message shouldn't at all be about me, but more about her. Something as simple as “I love you and am looking forward to a great holiday season with you and our family” seems to me much better than anything I found at the store. I've always had a hard time selecting Christmas cards that I felt had conveyed the right message, but now that I am really in tune with your writings, I finally understand why. Maybe I should start an online website for smartass Christmas cards, at least that way we'd have some options.

Anyway, thanks for all your work, I really look forward to reading your newsletter everyday.

Happy Holidays,
Lorne

Lorne’s experience is identical to my own, and I’ve received numerous complaints from others. I don’t know what’s going on in the creative department at Hallmark, American Greetings, and other greeting card companies, but the evidence could easily make the case that the greeting card business is all about getting women to say, “Oh, how sweet,” as if “sweet” is a term that any man would ever want used to describe him if he knew what it meant.

Wussitude alert: According to female readers and support staff, “Sweet” means “Nice, mushy, child-like, weak and wussy.” It has nothing to do with “considerate” in the female dictionary. Think “Fredo” from the movie “The Godfather.” Michael Corleone’s sister Connie refers to him as “sweet” as she pleads with Michael to not cut him off from the family business because he’s too big a wuss to survive on his own.

So we’re clear that you don’t want to do anything that earns the title of “sweet,” right? Good. Now that we’re all clear on that, Lorne says something that has a blinding flash of inspiration for those who have the sight to see it. He says, “Maybe I should start an online web site for smartass Christmas cards…”

You don’t have to start your own web site, but get this: any woman worth having would be far more pleased with even a poorly made self-made card that was your best effort than with anything that you can buy off the shelf, no matter how extravagant, as long as it looks like some time and effort went into it.

What???

Yep. Sure ‘nuff. Now pull your jaw back up to where you’re mouth will close and I’ll tell you why.

How many thousands, or hundreds of thousands, or possibly even millions of each card do you think a greeting card company prints? And in how many languages? Do you really think you’re going to make a woman feel “special” by giving her something that a great many women all over the world have?

Now add in the “lame verse” factor that Lorne mentions. So the upside is that she notices you remembered the occasion, the downside is that you handled the occasion by buying her something that lots of other women have and gets you the title of “sweet” instead of “my MAN!” That’s the bad news…

Now for the good news! The women I surveyed said they’d rather have a sticky-note that said something sincere and a bit romantic than an expensive card that said little or nothing and was mass-produced, because it would make them feel special and have a piece of their man in it for them to hold onto when they felt bad. And it was a free-form answer box, not a multiple choice that limited their selections. In other words, these are their words, not mine.

Such notes go into a woman’s “treasure box,” that secret stash of mementos that she drags out when she feels bad, especially when she’s missing you or she’s locked herself into a room after the two of you have been fighting. Pay attention here guys! The stuff that goes into her treasure box (which might actually be a shoe box, a drawer, a book with stuff pressed between the pages, one of the felt bags off of a bag of Crown Royal (Canadian whiskey) – literally anything that can be used to store and hide small, special things) is what she uses to bring herself closer to you, and you would be wise to make sure that she gets several things over the course of the year that would be a candidate to go in there.

(And you’d already know that if you’d read "THE Man's Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage"!)

Now, for even better news. Anything is fair game. You can use greeting card software to create and print something as long as whatever is written inside is genuine, and preferably hand-written. About any kind of paper or card stock is acceptable, as long as it’s not had fish wrapped in it or soaked in some kind of oil. One of the best-received cards I ever created was made with crayons and brown butcher paper cut from a paper grocery sack.

The recipient was a 42-year old woman whose car was worth more than my house at the time, owned and ran three companies, and was as tough as nails. Like all women, she was simply so accustomed to receiving generic, mass-produced gifts and cards that she was overwhelmed by somebody taking the time to make something especially for her.

Now for a word of absolutely golden advice: if you’re not particularly creative and uncomfortable even starting such a project, enlist some help from somebody who is. DO NOT, under any circumstances, enlist the help of one of your wife’s friends, or even from any woman who knows your wife (or girlfriend, of course). This sounds counter-intuitive, but there’s a good reason for it.

The short version is that women are highly competitive, and even someone who is supposed to be your wife’s best friend might be jealous and competitive enough to sabotage your effort to “one-up” your wife or create some drama if she’s feeling bored. If you think not, just ask a few female friends.
Or better yet, just realize that this is one of the ways in which men and women differ. For us, the title of “best friend” goes to the person we feel closest to and feel most protective of, a combination brother, buddy, comrade-in-arms, and even soul-mate to a degree. For women in general, their best friend is whomever they spend the most time with and share the most information with, regardless of depth; it’s based on quantity of social interaction, not quality of emotional bonding.

(There are exceptions to this, and studies show a correlation between brain structure, testosterone levels and aberrant behavior, as in nearly any case where a woman displays more masculine behavioral tendencies – higher than average testosterone levels in women will change behavior long before obvious physical symptoms, like heavy facial hair or a masculine swagger, can be seen.)

Like the best gift for a woman, the best card is one that shows thoughtfulness and personal involvement, a gift of self, not the most brightly colored or catchiest sounding mass-produced thing on the shelf. Like a hand-picked bunch of wildflowers or a live plant you have grown yourself, a hand-made card shows that you cared enough to give your time to her instead of just blowing her off with money. And there’s a word for that: ROMANCE. And it works for all seasons, and all occasions. Except when the woman is a parasite or predator, that is.

So there you have it. If you want more, come see me at http://www.makingherhappy.com. For now, I’ll simply wish you “Happy Holidays!”

In the meantime, live well, be well, and have a wonderful day!
David Cunningham

Why Is Breaking Up So Hard? Surviving the End of Relationships and Marriage

We’ve talked about stopping a break-up in my free “Break-Up Busting 101” report, but what about those times when a break-up really is the best thing for both parties? Specifically, why is it so damned hard? Would you believe it doesn’t have to be?

This is one of those newsletters that had to be written; one that a fool would hope that none of you would ever need, but which reality says nearly all of you will find useful, either in surviving your present or some part of your future, or in understanding something very painful in your past, the difficulty of breaking up, even when it’s the best thing for both parties and everybody, including the two parties in the relationship, know that it’s best.

Some people get into relationships that are based on things like faith and hope instead of reality. Others based them on need, attraction, or simple lust instead of love. These couples ultimately find themselves painfully mismatched and moving apart is the only solution to the problem they have caused themselves. You can’t put a mongoose and a snake in the same place and expect them to just bend to meet each others’ needs and get along, nor can you expect incompatible men and women. Compatibility doesn’t come from the choices you make, but from the values and tastes that cause you to make the choices you make. Those things just don’t change that much over the course of an entire lifetime, and they certainly don’t change because somebody else wants or needs for them to.

I’m not like most of today’s “relationship guru’s.” I won’t tell you that all relationships can or should be salvaged, and have no respect for those who would. That’s why you’ll find the list of other relationship gurus I do respect and endorse very short. I maintain a list of those who have been recommended to me by my readers in this newsletter and in the margin on my blog, and those are the only others offering advice on the emotions and issues of relationships that I would have any of you read, because they do embrace this self-evident truth instead of trying to convince you to buy what they are selling to have you save that which should not be and ultimately cannot be saved. (That’s a very short list of resources taken from a very large pool of authors. Sad, isn’t it? And by the way, feel free to help me add to it by letting me know if you have had a positive result with any product.)

I’ve been working closely with one of your fellow readers, one whom at this point is facing the possibility that the break-up his wife initiated may indeed be the best thing that could happen to him because they are so grossly mismatched and she’s carrying a ton of baggage that she may well choose to hang onto, in spite of the fact that right now she’s facing the greatest opportunity of her life to drop all that baggage and make some incredible improvements in her life.

I’ll spare you the intimate details of their problems, but the bottom line is that he’s on solid ground, logically, morally, ethically, and every other way I’ve been able to observe, while she is hyper-creative and rejects reality with impunity, morally ambiguous, and is thirty-nine years old going on about seven.

He’s highly analytical and disciplined, knows what’s before him and how to react to virtually any word or action from her now (he read "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" and is a very quick study, and we’ve been talking a lot as well), and yet, there are times when he still has a hard time accepting what he knows to be reality, that in all likelihood, they never should have come together and he made a bad choice, because his wife appears incapable of growing up and becoming responsible enough to rejoin him as his wife, or indeed as anything more than a chronic, irresponsible and dangerous dependent.

He asked me why it was that he was having a hard time accepting and emotionally committing to that which he knew to be irrefutable reality, and why people generally found breaking up so hard even when it was painfully obvious that it was the only option that could allow either of them to ever be happy.

I answered, "We all make bad choices, and being human, we tend to try to make the best of them and pick up a lot of good memories along the way that end up confounding us when we finally are faced with the reality that our bad choice is working against us."

It struck a chord in both of us. I did not, until the very instant that I wrote that to him, understand why I had had trouble with break-ups in the past, and those who know me closely would describe me to you as the most ruthlessly logical person they have ever met. I never stopped to ask myself while I was going through it why it was so hard. I was too busy asking myself another ridiculous question: “Why does this have to happen?” when I already knew the answer.

His reply to that pearl was as profound as the pearl itself:

“That needs to go in the evaluation section of your book - over and over! The main struggle in deciding whether it [salvaging his relationship] is a go or no-go is in sifting through all the wonderful memories to decide if they were ‘real’ or not...”

That’s the real rub, isn’t it? Were all those “good times” born of real love, friendship, respect, and loyalty worth celebrating? Or were they just born of two people trying to make the best of a bad situation they had created and didn’t want to face? Or was it something somewhere in the middle? Trying to resolve those questions, and cope with the reality the resolution presents, is what makes breaking up so hard when every available fact tells you both that there is no other alternative.

So in the event that you have to go through this torture, what do you do?

Look at the whole relationship and weigh the good and the bad. Identify what can and cannot be repaired, and how important those things are to you. In the end, if the relationship can’t be fixed, get out, but do it like a civilized adult, with dignity, and leave the other partner room to do the same. Indeed, LEAD HER to do the same. And if a friendship can be maintained, by all means do so; you may not have enough compatibility to live together happily, but you may still have common interests that you can enjoy together. Think about that...

Not being able to live together happily is by no means an indication that you can’t have an enjoyable conversation or dinner from time to time, help each other with a project or hobby on occasion, or do any of the other things that friends do. It takes a lot more to live together than it does to visit, as the focus of a visit is much more narrowly defined and creates boundaries that protect you from the things that caused trouble while you were married – if you pay attention to them, that is.

Don’t ever let things fall into the context or perspective of who is or isn’t good enough for the other. It has nothing to do with that. People are who and what they are, and have spent a lifetime becoming so. Thinking that you can or should be “good enough” to induce someone else to change for your sake that which they would not change for their own sake is foolish, arrogant to the point of being narcissistic, and just plain childish!

(Pay attention, Ladies, in case you’re thinking that you’re going to rebuild your man as you want him. If you do manage to accomplish it, you won’t respect him precisely because you were able to change him. A man who can’t stand up TO you can’t stand up FOR you, right? The attitude that "he should love me enough to change for me," has broken more women's hearts than men ever could.)

Admit that there have been problems, and that those problems have been caused by the two of you having too many fundamental differences to be compatible. You gave it a good shot, you had some fun and good times, made some money and accumulated a few things, and have a few fond memories, but the stress of walking on eggshells trying to keep from tripping over your differences is killing you both.

You’re good people, just not good for each other, and if you are the type who needs to or enjoys being married, you need to get out and find someone whom you are good for and who is good for you, compatible with you, and whom you can enjoy living with as your natural self. Work together to divide the rewards of your combined efforts fairly and help each other get a fresh start by introducing each other to friends that are more like them. You may not be worth a plug nickel as husband and wife but may be great assets to each other in starting over. (This is all assuming that your problems are differences in your values, preferences, priorities, etc., and not that one of you is an abuser of some sort.)

There is no point in your life where being able to evaluate a relationship will not serve you well. You need to know yourself as well as your needs and desires, and you need to be with someone who can naturally fulfill those needs and desires while being fulfilled by you. That in turn requires that you know other peoples’ needs and desires with regard to you, does it not? You don’t want to enter a relationship in which you have no chance of fulfilling the other’s needs and desires, do you?

That means knowing before you get into a relationship what the relationship should look like if it’s good. It means knowing after you get into a relationship if it is going to work based on how well you meet each others’ needs and desires. It means being able to communicate factually and honestly to express those needs and desires to each other, as well as how well those needs and desires are being met.

Contrary to how it often appears, relationships and marriages very seldom fail after ten or twenty years or more. What really happens is that they fail at their inception due to bad choices and that failure isn’t conceded until years later, when every option has been exhausted and both partners have become miserable spending so much time and effort trying and failing. If you have a good foundation for a relationship, it’s not hard to tell; there’s little if anything fundamental and significant that you’d want to change about your partner, such as their values, political leanings, etc. You can talk and get along, and have probably just become a bit bored because attraction is waning. That’s fixable.

But…

If you’re in one of those relationships where the only place you get along is in the bedroom, and you find yourself fighting to have an excuse to make up because that’s the only part of your relationship that IS working, you have a serious problem, and believe it or not, there are people with whom you can get along both in and out of the bedroom.

And since so many of you have asked, yes, it is still a good idea to learn about attraction and try to create it for your partner even if you are breaking up. Being attractive is about being a leader, being smart, being fair, handling tough situations and being able to keep your sense of humor about you. Stirring up a little attraction in your partner as you are splitting up will help ease the transition for her and you both, because it tends to keep tempers at bay. It will help her to feel that you are being strong and supportive during this crisis, and make her feel good that you are making the effort to help her hold herself together emotionally while you go through the process together. Nothing bad can come of that for either of you, and may indeed help you to part friends instead of killing each other in a war that never had to be fought.

There you have it, the dark side of relationships and marriage. It is my sincere desire that you never have to go through a break-up, and that if worse comes to worst and you do have to go through one, that you can get through it with your dignity (and assets) intact and help each other to move on to a better life with someone better matched to yourselves by understanding what it is that you’re fighting: the basic human tendency to try to make the best of even the worst situation, not each other.

No matter where you are in your relationship, from looking for one to having been in one for 40 years or longer, there’s help waiting for you in "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," and it’s just a few mouse clicks away at http://www.makingherhappy.com. Go check it out, and get the straight story while you can; there are very few of us around who can and will give it to you, and your life is too short to fail to have and use it.

In the meantime, live well, be well, and have a wonderful day!
David Cunningham

Party Advice for Men in Relationships and Marriage

Have you ever thought about what might be appropriate or desirable post-party behavior when you’re in a marriage or committed relationship? Gentlemen, lend me your ears, because there is indeed more to it than you might expect…

I wish I could gather all my “students” in one room for a day for a caucus. The ideas and observations that some of them e-mail me explaining what they have learned and especially what they have figured out on their own after reading my book are stunningly brilliant. Get this:

Hi David,

Here's a newsletter idea for you: It occurred to me recently how different men and women communicate when it comes to classifying their experiences. A man and woman can spend the day, the weekend, or a lifetime together, and at the "end" (of whatever), the man will know that he had fun, think it's obvious [because it IS], but a woman will ABSOLUTELY need to review the experience and HEAR him say: "I really enjoyed myself with you today". KEY communication issue, particularly with those in a troubled or "young" relationship, but still important at any stage. It might be partly because men are less talkative about their emotions, but there's something more basic to it than that. So there's your newsletter:

"Guys: on the way home from the Christmas party, tell her how much fun you had with her, how nice she looked, and then listen while she relives the best parts. Then go home and have sex, because you've done the prework. Oh, and don't forget to flirt with her while you're there."

There might be a whole "Christmas Party Newsletter"
needed, since I'll bet about half of them (family or otherwise) end up in fights. Maybe you could make it a New Year’s Eve Party newsletter.

Johnson

This is the kind of thing that happens when a man tunes in after reading "THE Man's Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage." He no longer has to sit around wondering what the right thing to do or say is because it all just becomes naturally obvious. I’m proud of every one of them, too.

So let’s look at Johnson’s observation. He’s spot on. It’s not good enough for a woman to see you enjoying anything with her; her social nature demands that it be verbalized, just as she still needs to hear that you love her and are committed to her to believe it, no matter what she sees. And yes, that’s why all those relationships from your youth that you thought were going great for two or three months suddenly ended without you having a clue as to why. You didn’t verbalize the love and commitment you felt and she didn’t believe it was there.

When it comes to parties, especially the kind where she puts on the little black dress, she takes extra pains to look good. Granted, part of that is because she wants to compete with all the other women there, but she still wants to know that you noticed and that you appreciate the effort, because part of what she is competing for is your attention. She also wants to feel like you were glad to be there – WITH HER. That’s the important part.

Yes, really. She wants to share your fun by hearing the accounts of the fun you had with other people, but the icing on the cake for her will be the feeling that going with her was better than just going. A girl likes to hear that if you hadn’t taken her to the party you’d have damned sure picked her up if you’d found her there, if you know what I mean.

And she wants to share her good time, her conversations, etc., to relive them and feel the rush again. Believe it or not, this is a privilege of sorts; remember that women snub and shut out people they don’t like. Most of the time their accounts will be fun to listen to, but if they stray into uncomfortable territory like telling you about so-and-so’s menstrual problems or some gossip that you really don’t want any part of, don’t be afraid to encourage her to save that part for her girlfriends because you’re not stepping out of the husband role to indulge in it. Just make sure you say it with a smile and try to be fun about it; that’s not a maneuver that can be aided with whining or irritation. For example:

“Hey! Hey! Hey! The gossip window is closed! (Laughing) Save that for when you’re talking to Charlotte tomorrow and tell me about So-And-So-I-Saw-You-Talking-To-By-The-Fireplace.”

A diversion, a laugh, and leadership into some other topic, got it? Fun, not cranky or whiney. And that’s not hard if you allow yourself to be amused by her excitement over some juicy piece of gossip or the drama of something that you couldn’t possibly be interested in because it’s just too girly for words.

Now tell me something. Why am I telling you all of this? Why aren’t you part of this army of men that I’m building who “get it”? Sigmund Freud, the renowned psychiatrist/psychologist, is famous for saying (among other things) “The great question, which I have not been able to answer, is ‘What does a woman want?’” I know, my students know, but Sigmund Freud didn’t. Fancy that!

So how about it? Why don’t you cast in with us? It takes a very few dollars and a very few hours; I’ve had meals that lasted longer and cost far more than what it takes you to read this book. The bragging rights alone are worth more than that, for crying out loud! You’ll be able to prove that you know what women REALLY want, how to communicate with them instead of getting the eye-rolling and “whatever!” There’s also a return to honeymoon activity, in the bedroom and out, and you get to say you know something that Sigmund Freud couldn’t figure out in a lifetime! Can you beat that deal with a stick? LOL!

Seriously, you really should join us. Just make it a holiday gift to yourself that your wife will benefit from as well. Go to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy of "THE Man's Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" right now, and before New Year’s you’ll be turning things around and kicking them up to notches unknown to humankind.

In the meantime, live well, be well, and have a wonderful day!
David Cunningham

Preparation: Key to Easy Success in Relationships and Marriage

It’s pretty easy to see that taking on any challenge fully prepared is infinitely better than doing so unprepared. This is just as true in relationships and marriage as it is in anything else. Were you prepared when you started? Are you prepared now? It’s never too late…

I’ve talked about preparedness before, but I got an e-mail from a reader that really drives the message home, and I want to share it with you. Meet Mark:

Hey David,

How's it going!

Well I'm doing pretty good indeed!

You know what, before, like a year ago, my girlfriend told me that she wasn't ready to move with me in a apartment. I wasn't either. After applying the information in your guide now she sure is! And I, also! She called me yesterday to ask me if I was ready to move in with her!

Like many of your readers, after reading your guide I now have much more respect for my woman. And I understand much more her needs, which is extremely important.

Here are a few things I've realized, summarized:

I've got to keep doing the things that attracted her to me at first.
I've got to display an alpha male personality in her presence.
I've got to improve my life in every way possible.
Finally, I've got to make her FEEL great about herself

David, thanks for everything, you’re the man!

Mark

Mark is one of many who is seeing the value of preparedness in relationships. When you’re unprepared, it shows, not just in your incompetence, but in your confidence level. And women can pick up on that from light years away.

And rightly so. It’s a defense mechanism. As I’ve shown you many times in the past, much of our courtship and relationship behavior is biologically driven and involves filtering mechanisms that have protected our ability to procreate and continue our existence at the top of the food chain for as long as we’ve been walking upright, or longer. They need to feel safe, especially in making an emotional investment in a relationship with us, and if they don’t, the relationship suffers.

And it doesn’t matter what kind of relationship, either. It doesn’t matter if you’re married, contemplating marriage, living together, dating steadily (committed or not), dating to find a relationship, dating for fun, or if the relationship is even of such a nature that se’xual contact might ever be an option or consideration. Women are just as protective of their lives and feelings with friends, family, coworkers, etc., as they are with men they may have some sort of se’xual contact with. And you should be, too! Think about that…

We’re talking about your life, are we not? Would you let a guy off the street act as a brain surgeon and start hacking at your head with a hammer, chisel, and table knife? Would you let a guy who didn’t know which part of your car was the engine start working on yours?

Would you employ the services of a doctor who didn’t speak the same language as you, so that information about symptoms, diagnosis and treatment could be exchanged? Would you put your retirement nest egg in the hands of a person who knew nothing about using it to build wealth for you?

Certainly not! Yet so many people will enter into human relationships without knowing the first thing about the corresponding issues of getting along with people, without understanding what makes men and women who they are, how they are alike and different, how to communicate effectively with them, how to know when something is broken and how to try to fix it.

And it continues to blow my ever-loving mind that these things are so crucial and so easy to learn and use, yet nobody seems to be insisting on getting this information until they’ve already screwed up, possibly several times. We spend years of our lives either chasing this information, begging people who purposely make it more complicated than it is to protect either their livelihood or the secret of their incompetence and ignorance, or consigning ourselves to the mistaken idea that knowing what we need to know about the opposite gender – and ourselves, for that matter – is some “great mystery of life” that we are doomed to never solve, and that having any kind of satisfying relationship is a matter of luck, fate, compromise, sacrifice, or some sort of divine intervention. A load of “bovine male fecal matter” if ever there was one.

The good news is that no matter how unprepared you are right now, you can get prepared, quickly and easily. And I’m talking hours, not days. Hell, I’ve had sex for longer than it will take you to get prepared, without any sort of chemical support or enhancement, and I’ll bet that if you go back to your teens or twenties, you probably have, too, so we’re really not talking about a lot of time here!

And even if it’s too late for this relationship, you can get prepared for the next one. Speaking of which, do you even know how to really tell when it’s over and no matter what you do she’s not coming back? Don’t you think you should know this before a conflict arises so that you don’t waste your life beating a dead horse? I know, and I can tell you. We’ll get to that in a minute…

Gross compatibility problems – personal values, goals, etc. – are the main reason that relationships fall apart, and about the only good reason to not try to put one back together, but when people get emotional they forget about reason and will sometimes go so far as to cut off their nose to spite their face. And believe it or not, sometimes a woman might just have a better grip on the situation than you do.

But either way, the only time that it’s not even worth your time to try to determine whether your relationship should be saved is when a woman puts up barriers to communication – court-issued restraining orders, moving to another town, changing her number and not giving you the new one, saying nothing at all to you except, “Don’t talk to me anymore,” having friends answer her phone to filter you out or directing you to her attorney for all communication.

That’s right. As long as she is still talking to you, even if she’s yelling and screaming at you, she’s emotionally engaged, and resolution is possible. You still have to determine if there is a sound basis for the relationship and act accordingly, but if you can make her feel safe in joining you in looking at everything and making that determination according to what’s best for both of you, she will calm down and work with you. But you have to be prepared for that, too.

You have to know enough about women in general to be able to also grasp the things that make her an individual. You have to be able to speak and listen to her in such a way that the message gets through and is interpreted correctly by both of you. You have to understand what part of her needs are the same as yours, different from yours, compatible with yours and in conflict with yours. And this is not something that you were born to do, else you wouldn’t wind up in such a predicament, but as the people whose letters I keep sharing with you clearly demonstrate, it can be learned. I can’t say that EVERYBODY is doing it, but I can say that EVERYBODY WHO IS USING WHAT IS IN MY BOOK is doing it, and I have their testimonials to back it up.

Yes, I said EVERYBODY. It’s really that good. And for the simplest of reasons: I was prepared to write it by gathering data from the source, a large group of women, and tested and refined that data by turning it over to the men in their lives to test on them. No opinions, no theories, no “branded methodology,” just the facts and a process for using them to quickly and easily set things right. And again, I have the testimonials of a lot of real people who had real problems to back it up.

So how about you? Do you want a piece of this action? Would you like to discuss something with your wife or girlfriend and know going in that even if the subject matter is touchy the two of you will be able to talk about and work something out instead of usual result of eye-rolling, shouts of “whatever!” as somebody leaves the room, and the accusations of “never listening” and “being a bitch” that always seem to come up? Would you like to go back to feeling like the woman in your life is a partner instead of an antagonist, or competitor?

The correct answer here is “yes!” by the way…

So go to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy of "THE Man's Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" and get prepared for a relationship that makes you both happy. It certainly beats hiding at the office or at “happy hour” somewhere to minimize the time you have to spend at home, wouldn’t you think?

In the meantime, live well, be well, and have a wonderful day!
David Cunningham

Lying, Part 3: Lie Detection, a VERY Useful Skill in Relationships and Marriage

Part of determining whether you should attempt to reverse a break-up is determining whether you can trust your partner. Knowing how to detect a lie is a VERY useful skill, even when everyone is truthful!

No discussion of lying in a relationship would be complete without a discussion of lie detection, especially for men, because women are naturally more adept at both lying and its detection than we are; their brain structure makes them more sensitive to “tells” (and are VERY dangerous poker players if they have math skills!) and more creative. It could in fact take years with a woman to determine how her character dictates whether, when, and for what reasons she will lie to you, but chances are that if you are lying to her, you’re already busted whether you know it or not, so let’s level the playing field a bit.

And, by the way, I’m not talking about “leveling the playing field” in the context of helping you to lie, but in determining whether you’re being lied to. Nor am I saying that every woman is a liar and is lying to you; I’m saying that due to brain structure – higher creativity and more advanced communications infrastructure – they are capable of being far better at it than we are. So stop typing that nasty-gram and listen up. ;-)

The following is from an article I first published as part of my crash course in stopping and reversing a break-up, now my “Break-Up Busting 101” free report. I’m reprinting it today both because it gets the job done and because my subscriber list doubles every few months, and many of you have not yet taken advantage of the very valuable information in either of the free reports linked at the bottom of this newsletter or in the right-hand margin of my blog at http://blog.makingherhappy.com/. I strongly suggest that all of you read those two free reports thoroughly; they contain more solid, proven information than a lot of authors’ for-fee products, and they can help you to avoid many of the potential disasters that can befall a relationship as well as start you on the road to recovery if you’re having problems.

Now let’s get into the meat of today’s lesson:

Lie detection is a necessary survival skill in all facets of your life, because unfortunately, there are those who think that lying is a survival skill. It’s not. The truth always ends up coming out, and then on top of whatever mistake you’ve made, you’ve destroyed trust. At best, it's a tactic for stalling the inevitable. The only people who get away with lying in the long term are those who spend their life on the run, bouncing from place to place, customer to customer, acquaintance to acquaintance, and not staying anywhere long enough for anyone to catch them in a lie before they’ve left. That’s not going to work in a long-term relationship, is it?

Gentlemen, the deck is stacked against you from the beginning with regard to lying, because women are better at both doing it and detecting it than men. Both of those advantages come from their more highly-evolved communications infrastructure and skills (as compared to our own). However, since you shouldn’t be lying anyway (statistically, women will tolerate just about anything before they will tolerate a liar, even if they are chronically “factually challenged” themselves), you need only concern yourself with how to detect if and when she is lying.

Making you an expert on the subject would require an entire book, and we only have the space of this article to work within, so I’m going to hit the high spots for you to show you how easy it is if you have good information and then point you to some other very good information which, incidentally, I am not selling. (I am developing a primer on lie detection to include as a free report with my other e-books, and anyone who has purchased “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage” at the time of its release will be receiving a free copy if I have your current e-mail address on file.)

First, everyone has heard about how body language can be used to detect lies. That’s true, yet not true. There are many body language clues that indicate both that a person is lying and that they are very nervous about telling an unpleasant truth. When attempting to determine if someone is lying, you must watch for several different indicators and make sure they are all consistently pointing in the same direction.

A person who exhibits a single indication of lying may indeed only be nervous about the truth, have an itchy nose, be trying to cover bad breath, etc., but when the signs start stacking up and you see five or even ten signs that someone is lying, the statistical probability that they are telling the truth becomes such a long-shot that a penny placed on that bet would win you roughly the sum of the world’s oil and currency trade for a day – literally trillions-to-one. So where do you start?

Let’s start with the eyes. The eyes move when the brain does certain things. When a right-handed person attempts to access short-term memory, their eyes will move up and to the left, where if they are lying, which engages a creative center in the brain, they go up and to the right. Oddly, this is reversed in left-handed people. A big clue as to whether someone is right- or left-handed (if you don’t know them well enough to know) is to look for their wristwatch, which will be on the opposite hand, if you can’t get them to write something down for you. (Ask for their phone number, and if they try to hand you a business card, get them to write something on the back like their cellular phone number, business hours, secretary’s name – anything at all will do, just to see which hand wields the pen.)

People also tend to become less animated when they are lying, clasping their hands or crossing their arms when you have observed them “talking with their hands” in most of the rest of the discussion. Liars will also tend to look away from you and even move away from you as they lie, a subconscious effort to try to distance themselves from an uncomfortable situation. Touching the nose and covering the mouth while speaking are classic body language signs, but when you look at these, you’re looking for CHANGE in behavior, not so much the behavior itself. People do sometimes get an itch in their nose, or realize they have bad breath or ugly teeth, or shift their posture because of an aching joint.

It’s because of this that you must realize that it takes several minutes of observing someone to make this determination, not just a quick jab with an incriminating question. You must see enough of how they act when they are speaking normally and truthfully (by getting them to talk about something non-threatening or non-incriminating) before bringing up the subject you think they lied about or before thinking they’ve lied about something they brought up with you. That’s the value of small-talk, something that most men are very, very poor at engaging in because we really just don’t like to talk that much; we prefer to take action. That’s another reason women have such an edge on us; they enjoy small talk and are very good at conducting it, especially in getting to the truth. However…

There are some techniques that can be combined with body language reading that nobody, not even experienced con-artists, can beat. They involve watching for hesitation in response to a question. Let’s say you think your partner was on a date with someone else, and you say that somebody she works with whose name you can’t remember stopped you in the grocery store to say hello and asked how you were getting along after the break-up, and mentioned that they assumed there had been a break-up since she was dating this other guy. If she is innocent, she will immediately protest, because she has no idea what you are talking about, but if she hesitates, it’s because she’s guilty and has to think and make a choice about whether it is safer in that moment to accept that she’s been caught or to try to deny it and bluff through. The hesitation before she speaks, not whatever she says, is what tells the tale.

Another good tactic is a diversionary one. You tell a partner that you know all about something they’ve been doing (that you really are only suspecting), and that you understand how and why it happened and are willing to let that go if they will promise that something lesser won’t be happening again, like hearing it from her friends instead of her. When she agrees to make the promise, which is easier than the confession, she has confessed to the transgression.

Even here, you can still take advantage of hesitation. A person with nothing to confess will immediately deny they did anything, and a person with something to confess looking for an easy way to do it will immediately make the promise or will pause while weighing their chances of getting away with another denial, the only reason for them to hesitate. I don’t care for this particular tactic because it requires lying to detect the lie, but my job is to instruct you, not judge you, and it is highly effective.

People also tend to objectify and generalize when they are lying. A person who really worked late will tell you that they worked until 10:30PM, while someone who is lying is much more prone to say they “worked really late.” Also, they will tend to say, “left MY office” if they were really there, as opposed to, “left THE office” if they were not. Again, this must be weighed with other indicators, as the use of these pronouns can vary because of personality, level of detail-orientation, etc. It’s the change from using words like “my” to words like “the” or the change from speaking actively, like “I did this,” to passively, like “this was done,” focusing on the event or act rather than on them that tells the tale.

There is a book by David Lieberman, PhD, called “Never Be Lied to Again,” that has been on the NY Times Best Seller list and is an excellent book if you really want to dig deep into this subject and become a true expert. I’ve also used a lot of the hand-held lie detection gadgets and computer software that do voice print analysis, but was not impressed; there were too many false positives and false negatives for me to see them as useful tools at the time (the manufacturers’ reports of their own tests indicated that they were proud of numbers like 62% accuracy, which is only 12% better than half the time!). Over time, you can expect these products to increase in accuracy, just as voice recognition software that lets you give input to your computer has improved, but it may not happen until most of us are too old to care.

Communications is a tough subject, even when everyone is telling the truth. There are good and bad ways to ask questions of women, good and bad ways to start conversations, and good and bad ways to end them as well. When you’re already in a stressful situation like a fight or after a break-up, the last thing you want to do is trip over some protocol or miscue that you don’t know about and end up with your foot in your mouth and your signature on divorce papers because of it. Let me help you with that…

Go to http://www.makingherhappy.com/ and download your copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" right now, and get with the program. If your relationship is not in crisis, it will show you exactly how to not only keep it from getting there, but how to make it better. If you are in crisis, it will show you how to determine whether you should indeed reverse it or let it go, and if it is a relationship that you should save, it will show you what to do to quickly get things on stable footing and get everyone in a state where they are receptive to working things out and making positive change.

If it shouldn’t be saved, you’ll learn how to turn your combative soon-to-be ex into a cooperative soon-to-be ex who may go so far as to set you up with dates after a non-contested divorce without using control, threats, tricks, or deceit. Seemingly far stranger things have happened to my readers…

I’m sure you’ve heard that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure;” this is about a pound of prevention and it’s worth several tons of cure, and it can be yours for less than the price of a good meal for two, so get it done – or would you prefer to be alone after shelling out that $27,000 that the average contested divorce costs in the U.S.? Or better yet, the $1.8 million paid out over the next seven years and guaranteed with a life insurance policy that I was told about in an e-mail yesterday? I didn’t think so!

In the meantime, live well, be well, and have a wonderful day!
David Cunningham

Lying in Relationships and Marriage, Part 2, Response to Faking It Until You Make It

A reader tells of her own experience with lying to the one she loves. It’s not pretty, and is a perfect example of what I warned you about in yesterday’s newsletter.

Yesterday’s newsletter on lying to your partner got some pretty predictable responses. If you missed it, see the archived article because it’s one you will definitely want to read.

Those who don’t lie to their partners wrote in agreement, while the vast majority of those who do wrote in defense of their actions, saying ridiculous things like, “Good relationships are based on lies,” “It’s only a problem if you get caught,” etc. I feel sorry for those people, because they will never experience the wonderful feelings that true love, trust, loyalty and respect generate, which I’m glad to say that many of you, based on your responses, do seem to appreciate.

There was one letter in particular that I wanted to share with you, from a woman who got caught in a lie and almost destroyed her relationship with someone who seems to be a really good man. Meet Darla:

Dear David,

I wanted to share with you what really can happen when you tell a lie to the one you love. My story I guess is simple to many people, but it is hard for me to tell because I have to face something horrible to me. I come from a long line of people with addictive personalities. By addictive I mean to drugs and drinking. My mother was and is addicted to pain medication among other things and my brother has spent time in jail for his addictions. As for me I had started down the same road with prescription medications. Every day I thought I had to have one kind or the other, uppers in the morning and downers at night and had lived this way for awhile. I was in a marriage that was the worst of nightmares and two kids who could care less if I were living or dead.

I met this wonderful man, one that loves me and God only knows how much I love him. He noticed right off I could have a problem if I did not control myself. We have had long talks about it and I really had made the choice to give up the drugs. I wanted to be with him and I wanted to love him and to be sober to enjoy what I had finally been given.

Yesterday morning I awoke with a migraine. I have them from time to time and it was bad enough for me to try a new medication my doctor had given me. I took the pill and a short time later he called me to say good morning and I was spaced out on the pills. He asked me about it and in a panic I lied to him and told him I had not taken any medication. It was the worst choice I have ever made. I should have been honest and told him what was going on, but I lied.

He was so upset by what I had done that he would not hardly talk to me and when he did I felt like the lowest life form on the planet, not because he was abusive or belittled me, but because he pointed out to me that there was nothing in our history that gave me a reason to lie to him, and I was mimicking my mother’s behavior, and we both knew that the idea of me turning into my mother was not going to work for either of us.

He has no problem with me taking a pain medication for pain, and has told me so on several occasions. It is just the issue of me abusing pain killers for things other than pain that he has a problem with. We did talk it over and after many tears on my part we decided that since I had not lied to him in the past that the migraine medication may have been responsible for my choice to lie this time, and he forgave me on the condition that I never lied to him again, especially about drug use.

I will never lie to him again ever, because no matter what you think you are getting away with you are not. If you want to lose the man of your dreams because you want to be a dumb ass then you deserve what happens to you. I’m just thankful that my John loves me enough to work it out with me not throw me and nine years away because I was worried about the truth where if I had just said to him I was not feeling well and had taken the pills and since it was the first time and I was not sure what they would do to me it could have been avoided.

What I am saying is tell the truth not matter what. It hurts worse to lie to the one you love and you are not a good person if you can lie to the one you claim you love in the first place. Thank you so much John for loving me and letting me still love you and you still love me.

Darla

My response:

Hi Darla,

That’s quite a confession Darla; thank you for sharing it with us. I’ve studied people a lot over the years, and I’ve seen a few things that I’d like to point out here. Chemicals notwithstanding (a lot of medications can alter your personality, adherence to your value system, inhibitions, etc.), you would be hard-pressed to prove to me how anyone who truly loves and respects another could lie to them, especially to cover their own ass. That’s an act of cowardice and need, not of love and respect. If your partner is claiming to love you but lying to you frequently (or vice versa), you and they need to take a look at the meaning of love, need, attraction, etc. (see the article in my free “Break-Up Busting 101” report), and get a fix on reality, because you’re not in it.

Another thing I’ve noticed, in my marriage, in the world around me and in the hundreds of couples who have been involved in the development, testing, and tweaking of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," is that there is nothing that two rational people who truly love and respect each other can’t discuss, no matter how bad it is. Of all the things that come together to make a good relationship work, unfettered, respectful, honest, and factual communication is the most important tool in the tool chest, because through it, all the other things are achieved.

Take care,
David

Do you know what kind of a relationship you’re in? Do you know if your partner really loves you, or if they’re just clinging on because they’re afraid to be alone? Do you communicate effectively across the gender gap? Has the honeymoon ended and left you as part of that ugly statistic wherein the average couple who has been together longer than two years has sex once every two months?

If you’ve become part of that statistic, it may seem like a problem, but you’ll soon see that it’s merely a symptom of a MUCH bigger problem. In any case, it’s logical to expect that you have or are anticipating at least one of these problems or you wouldn’t be spending the time to read these newsletters, so why keep putting off the solution?

Yes, what you need to know is in “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage,” and it’s not going to get into your head where you can use it until you go to http://www.makingherhappy.com, download it, and then read it. What you need to know is in there, laid out point by point and step by step, and people are using it every day to make their relationships better and better, some even snatching their marriage from the jaws of the divorce monster in as little as a week after receiving it. Do yourself and your partner a favor; get it and get busy, because life’s too short to spend it unhappy, bored, frustrated, scared, cheating, or celibate.

In the meantime, live well, be well, and have a wonderful day!
David Cunningham

Do You Know How to Listen to a Woman? Walking the Mine Field in Relationships and Marriage

Women are social creatures and want to be heard. Being a good listener is highly attractive to a woman, but don’t let yourself become a girlfriend. Learn where to draw the line!

I got a letter that really got under my skin, because it shows just how simp