How Are Your Friends Affecting Your Relationship or Marriage?

Who’s giving you advice? Are they succeeding in whatever way you want to succeed and living the way you want to live? If not, they’re not the people to be advising you, especially about your relationship.

I was out with my wife once at a local Mexican restaurant and saw something disgusting that we need to discuss. No, it wasn’t something with legs in the enchiladas or the salsa verde. It was a couple of fairly young men, seemingly in their early thirties. One of them was slouched over, in grungy clothes, looking like a total slacker – I looked under his table to see if there was a skateboard hiding there. His clothes were wrinkled, his hair disheveled and if he had come to my door to visit my daughter looking like that I would have kicked his sorry butt out the door and told him to come back when he’d acquired soap – both the body and laundry varieties – and some self-respect.

His companion looked considerably better. He sat up straight, and was dressed for being in public. He was fairly well-groomed, His shirt was tucked in and his clothes were not wrinkled. He had more of a worldly air about him. There was a near-empty margarita pitcher between them and they were both talking louder than they should have been. (It’s amazing how tequila damages others’ hearing and not your own, isn’t it??? LOL!)

The most respectable-looking of the pair was dating a co-worker of theirs, apparently a high-quality girl that was pretty popular in the office. He told his friend he wanted to escalate the relationship because he thought they were right for each other. Before he got to the end of the sentence, his friend the slacker said, "Dude, no way she’ll hang with you! You're not her type. She’s into power and sleeps with the boss. Even if she did hook up steady with you, you’d just screw it up like you’ve done with every other woman you’ve dated."

Doesn’t sound like much of a friend, does he? Unfortunately, it’s not that uncommon amongst "friends" for one who’s having a hard time or just generally negative about everything to rain on everybody else’s parade. In his mind, if he’s not happy, it’s not fair for anybody else to be. Instead of being happy for his friend, he’s throwing cold water on his friend’s desires/ambitions, possibly for no better reason than to keep himself from having to find somebody else to drink with or complain to.

The disgusting thing is that it worked! The poor guy sat there a moment and then said, "Yeah, you're probably right." He allowed his so-called "friend" to rob him of his ambition and convince him that he didn't have a chance with her. They worked in the same office! If she’d really been sleeping with the boss, wouldn’t they BOTH have heard about it by then? It’s ridiculous that so many people do this to one another, and still call each other “friends”! It’s just plain sick to think about, but it’s the nature of people who lack self-esteem.

Losers have a tendency to want to pull others down to their level, instead of learning from their friends and drawing on their successes as inspiration for their own success, which would elevate them to their mentor’s level. Lacking character, it’s easier for them to talk trash to the achievers around them than to get off their lazy butt and achieve something. Is this the kind of person you want to take advice from, about anything in your life??? I hope not, and I can tell you categorically and with authority that it is not.

This kind of person is a prime target for the “hire slowly, fire quickly” method of forming relationships of any kind. No matter how much you want to do or try to do, they will try at every turn to discourage and disparage anything that is above them. This is the last person in the world that you want to be discussing anything important or personal with, because they can’t possibly have anything good going on in their life or they wouldn’t be talking to you this way.

Their opinion of what you should be doing or any advice they may offer is therefore worthless; otherwise, they would be having some successes and being upbeat about at least a few things in their life. Their sole purpose in any conversation with you will be to bring you down, not celebrate your dreams and successes with you.

Always make sure you are fully supported by your friends and family. If you have any “friends” that are constantly telling you that you will not be able to accomplish something, or that you’re wife will end up leaving you, or that you can’t possibly get that better job you’re going after without any facts to back up their claims (if you’re trying to learn to play piano with no hands, or you’re a violent spouse abuser, or the job you’re applying for requires a PhD and you don’t have a high school diploma, they may have a point, but you know what I mean), fire them!

They’re not worthy of sharing your life’s energy and your space. Know the difference between a good friend who has relevant facts that you don’t yet possess and cares enough to give them to you and the pessimistic gothic ne’er-do-well who thinks it rains 24/7 and wants to make sure you stay soaked in their misery.

People like this can insidiously turn you into a carbon copy of themselves, and as you can imagine, that’s about as unattractive as it gets. Just ask any woman (who’s not one of these constantly complaining losers) what she thinks of them. She’ll tell you, in no uncertain terms, that she wants someone fun and upbeat, somebody with brains and vision and leadership skills, not some loser who ridicules greatness because he’ll never aspire to it, let alone achieve it. Nobody who looks at his shoes when he talks and walks and disparages everything he hears is attractive, to anyone, in any way, except maybe to a hard-up mugger looking for a target.

Besides, what kind of valuable advice would someone who is always negative and never going anywhere or doing anything have to give? There’s an old Chinese proverb that really comes into play here: "The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it." Ayn Rand also had something very valuable to say about this: "The ladder of success is best climbed by stepping on the rungs of opportunity." What opportunities will you be availing yourself of while you have “Joe Doomengloom” constantly telling you that you’re just going to fall off the ladder? Kick his (or her) ass to the curb and get on with the business of being a man.

Always surround yourself with positive, up-beat people -- people who have confidence in themselves and in you. Real friends will strengthen and support you when you’re onto something good, and if they do say something negative, it will be to give you the benefit of their experience or insight and keep you out of trouble, not to keep you from achieving.

Also, no matter what you’re doing, if you are going to ask somebody for a recommendation or advice, make sure that they have been successful in pursuing whatever you are pursuing, and therefore have valid experience to draw on and valid advice to give. Don’t ask your CPA for legal advice (unless he’s also a lawyer) or your lawyer for tax advice (unless he’s also a tax accountant). Don’t ask somebody who doesn’t even use a computer and has never sold anything to review your Internet business and give you suggestions. And above all, don’t ask an unhappy slacker who has no history of lasting, happy relationships about anything having to do with your relationship. If you want to succeed at anything, find somebody who has already succeeded, and learn from what they did, both right and wrong.

I’m a guy you can ask for help with a relationship, especially one that’s gone stale over time and needs reviving. I’ve done it, and I don’t think I could ask for things to be much better. In addition to my own experience, I have that of 118 other couples who all helped develop and test the content of “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage” – they all improved their relationships dramatically with this very material as we researched it, as did thousands more who have added the benefit of their experience in the years since. We all learned how to evaluate relationships, how to communicate to effectively bridge the inter-gender communications gap, and what it takes to trip a woman’s attraction triggers and bring that honeymoon back with a bang!

Learn from us and make your own relationship all it can be by going to http://www.makingherhappy.com right now and downloading your copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," because it works, it’s guaranteed, and life’s too short to wait for good things to happen – YOU MUST MAKE THEM HAPPEN, AND YOU CAN!

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

How to Program Your Very Own Wuss, and Utterly Destroy a Relationship and Marriage

Wusses are made, not born (with rare genetic exceptions, of course), and the only kind of women who like them are sadly their own mothers and the parasites and predators who can take something from them. How are they made? That’s easy…

I caught something on television recently that I can’t get out of my head, partially because it’s offensive to me and partially because there is a lesson in it for all of you. And it’s not one that is easy to teach, so I’m going to ask you to bear with me.

First of all, some of the examples I’m going to have to use have potential political implications, and we’re not here to discuss politics. There could also be controversy over whether what I’m about to show you is coincidental, accidental, or deliberate.

For the purpose of this exercise, I’m going to ask you to ignore all of that and look strictly at the mechanics and psychology of what is really happening so that you can learn this universal process and not only protect yourself from its dark side, but use it to better yourself. So turn off the emotions, political bias, conspiracy theory machine, etc., and put on your thinking cap for a few minutes, because you need to be as cold and ruthlessly logical as I am to get through it with maximum benefit.

Sometimes it’s late in the day before I find inspiration for the content of this newsletter; I prefer to do it as the very first thing after responding to whatever reader e-mails are in my Inbox when I first sit down at my computer in the morning, but the world doesn’t always work the way I want it to. Sometimes I can receive as many as 600 e-mails from readers in a day and not be able to use anything out of them for a newsletter, either because of the appropriateness of the content or not being able to obtain permission to reprint their letter in time (I’m a stickler for reader privacy).

When that happens and I end up not being able to compose a newsletter until late evening, my wife likes to watch some flavor of the CSI (Crime Scene Investigation) series on television while I work, and I hear it in the background but pretty much ignore it. A few nights ago I heard something that caught my attention.

The investigative team was standing in a metal building with about a hundred bullet holes scattered all over the walls, and one of the guys had looked it over and was reporting to his colleagues that it was a 9 mm, and then tagged onto the end of the sentence, “probably semi-automatic.”

For those of you who don’t know much about firearms, that means that you pull the trigger, one shot is fired, and the next round is chambered and the weapon cocked and ready to fire, but it does not fire until the trigger is released and pulled again. A firearm that will keep rapidly shooting round after round for as long as you hold the trigger pulled is fully automatic, also called a “sub-machine gun” or simply “machine gun,” depending on whether it fires pistol or rifle ammunition.

A few minutes later in the show, they had finally figured out how all the bullet holes were put in the wall. Some boys had held up a very long bamboo cane, about 30 feet tall, run the cane through the trigger guard of a fully automatic sub-machine pistol, and pulled the trigger back with a wire tie just before giving it a spin and letting it spiral its way down the cane pole. Yes, stupid, and one of the kids got shot through the chest.

Now here’s the important part. For everyone who didn’t know the difference between a “semi-automatic” and “fully automatic” firearm, they thought that the fully automatic sub-machine pistol shown spraying bullets all over the building was semi-automatic, which is simply the pistol that most police officers carry in their holsters (and those I’ve asked about their preference for semi-automatics over the old-style revolver said they preferred the extra ammunition capacity, not its ability to fire faster), because the CSI officer erroneously said that's what it was. And now those who don’t know any better will hear the mention of “semi-automatic weapons” on the news and think it’s a special menace to be feared and actively combated and that anyone who owns one must be a criminal.

Intentional or not, that is what’s called “disinformation.” Someone shows you something that is incorrect or misleads you to assume something incorrect and you have a tendency to accept it as correct because of the source, or because you see it a lot, and the message, although wrong, is consistent.

A lie or error told often enough becomes the perceived truth (but not the truth). The Earth is at the center of the universe and it’s flat and you’ll sail off the edge of it if you go too far in any direction. Bleeding someone with leeches will cure any ailment. Governments love and serve their people faithfully and flawlessly. And women want nice guys. Remember?

Yes, that lie has been told for decades. Look at what you see on television today. Stunningly beautiful women running around with hopeless wusses and acting like they’re “Studly Do-Right,” totally ignoring the fact that the guys are dressed sloppily, don’t project an ounce of intelligence, sense of humor, social skills, leadership skills, or most importantly, self-respect.

Men are consistently shown as being sub-average, bumbling jackasses who can’t make a decision to save their life, and yet they still get the girl at the end of the show, and to beat it all, they cry for joy and thank her for the privilege of being seen with her. (I’m so sick of those commercials for Sonic restaurants making men look like idiots that I joined John Alanis long ago in boycotting Sonic, and wrote them a letter telling them so.)

When you see that all the time, there’s something that happens in your subconscious mind that tells you that you should be acting as those guys do. They have what you want, and if you do what they do, you’ll have what they have. But your subconscious mind doesn’t know that it’s only television fantasy; it can’t discriminate like that.

So the lie that is told over and over becomes perceived reality – accepted as truth by those who don’t know or seek the facts, but not really true.

However! Awareness can override this negative programming, and better still, you can use this same principle to lift yourself up! Instead of watching wusses give all men a bad name on television, hang out with successful friends who are happy with their lives and have the alpha male tendencies that women enjoy! Since your environment can program you, let it program you for success instead of failure!

But that means doing something really smart: You have to acknowledge your betters as potential mentors and positive influences instead of envying their success and resenting them. Can you handle that? Can you handle hanging around with one or more guys who have a strong personality that women love and are successful at what they pursue?

No, they don’t have to be “filthy stinking rich” to be successful. Wealth-building is a skill like any other and comes with a lot of stress, particularly the stress of protecting earned wealth, and building wealth is not every man’s goal. Some men prefer to succeed at fishing, hunting, wood or metal working, rebuilding cars, throwing darts, collecting stamps – you name it. But a man who succeeds at one thing will generally succeed at many things, because he has the formula – and he can demonstrate it to you simply by you being around him.

This isn’t rocket science, Gentlemen. Not by a long shot. Do you recall hearing an axiom called “Occam’s Razor” when you were a student? “The simplest explanation is most often the correct one.” By the same token, the simplest paths to success are most often the best. And what can be simpler than exposing yourself to people who are what you want to be and just letting it all soak in?

If you hear hooves beating behind you, do you think “horse” or “zebra”? There’s a reason clichés become clichés: they’re so universally true and therefore so frequently quoted that people get tired of hearing them. At least in most cases.

Some would have you believe that you can never understand what a woman says or what she really wants. I believed it for a long time, as did many who came before you, until it came down to a do-or-die situation and I had to learn. How do you think I learned? Did I go to Tibet and ask the Dali Lama, or to Rome to ask the Pope? Did I consult ancient mystical texts like the Bible, Quran, or Cabbala? Did I seek the counsel of alien races? Or contact the dead through a crystal ball? Did I ask all my buddies who were as unhappy and stressed out as I was??? Hardly…

I asked a group of women!

I had to learn to speak “girly-ese” (some of my readers are calling it “feminese” and I rather like that one, too) before I could make sense of a lot of what they wanted to tell me, but believe me, they wanted me and every man alive to know. All this time that we’ve been shaking our heads in frustration because we can’t understand them, they’ve been angry and frustrated because they didn’t know we didn’t understand and thought we were choosing to ignore them. Imagine that!

In the end, they are neither complex, weak nor stupid. They’re just enough like us to make us think that they’re entirely like us and therefore just different enough to drive us crazy sometimes, but they are simple (not quite so simple as us, but still simple), strong, smart, and one hell of a lot of fun to be around once you tune in and gain their trust – they’re mostly emotionally driven, and want more than anything to feel safe in feeling anything for you, lest their emotions be used against them as they have many times in the past, like when date after date said, “I’ll call you tomorrow,” or “Sure, I’ll still respect you in the morning.”

What you need to know is how we’re alike and how we’re different, and in plain language, not an encyclopedia full of psycho-babble. You need to learn to speak girly-ese, which sounds a whole lot like whatever language you speak, but the protocols are different. You need to know things about a woman’s emotional make-up, like the fact that being bored is as detrimental to her health and ability to think rationally and make good choices as being terrified is to you. And you need to know how to flip her switches and ignite that spark that will never let her feel bored again and make her fight – indeed, to kick the crap out of a running saw mill if necessary – to protect her relationship with you.

If you’re interested, go to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy of "THE Man's Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" -- it’s ALL in there, just as I described, in plain language that a child could understand (and a few smart-ass remarks just to keep you entertained as well!). And if you’re not interested? Well, I hear you can get used to being in the dog house, getting yelled at all the time, and even getting divorced and losing everything you have in the process, but that’s one challenge I’d just as soon skip.

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

The Power of Negative Thinking in Your Relationship or Marriage

Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking has been required reading in any self-improvement curriculum since the 1950’s, but have you ever thought about its antithesis, and how you might be inadvertently creating your own insecurities and failure?

This time of year I look through a lot of catalogs for small but highly personal gifts for friends and family. I was looking through one that had a lot of gag gifts and unusual memorabilia and there was an item billed as a “Motivational T-Shirt” that said “I didn’t come here to lose…” on the front of it.

I thought, “What an idiot!”

You see, there is a big difference between “I didn’t come here to lose…” and “I came here to win!” But a lot of people make this mistake and consequently program themselves for failure.

When faced with a new opportunity, they ask, “What if I can’t do this?” instead of “What do I do after I succeed at this?” Believe it or not, it’s been proven that this “framing” of situations plays a huge role in how you get along in your own environment, you self-esteem and confidence, and your chances of success in anything that you pursue.

(If you want to pursue it further, start with Maxwell Maltz’s Psychocybernetics, in which he describes the mental mechanisms that move us toward whatever we focus on, whether it’s good or bad for us.)

This kind of negative programming can turn you into an insecure wuss in a fairly short time, no matter how tough you are. The subconscious mind doesn’t discriminate between positive and negative and doesn’t process terms of negation in your speech or thoughts (it ignores words like “not”); it merely works very hard to bring you toward whatever you are focused on, so if you focus on “not failing” instead of succeeding, you’re actually focused on failure instead of success.

To bring this closer to home, if you’re sitting there reading this newsletter because you are having problems in your own relationship or marriage, you’re reading a lot of advice. If you’re reading multiple sources, you’re reading a whole lot more advice. And if every time you read something you think, “I’d like to try that, but what if I fail?” or “That sounds okay, but what if it doesn’t work?” you’re programming yourself for failure, frequently and effectively, even without regard for the advice you are reading.

You must question the advice you are given. Only a fool would follow blindly everything he reads. But when you question it, do so in a way that doesn’t sabotage your efforts. Ask, “Does this make sense?” “Can I see myself succeeding and moving on to the next step if I do this?” These are reasonable, direct questions that need to be answered and are in the proper context…

…after all, you’re looking for something to help you succeed, not something to help you fail, right?

So why concern yourself with failure??? Your questions should be about what will bring you closer to your goal, and nothing else. And anybody with advice worth using should be able to tell you how it helps and why it should help by virtue of having proven that it works, preferably with their own success among others, so if you can’t find answers to those positive questions, it’s time to look at something else, is it not? It’s the output (the RESULTS!), not the input, that is important, right?

Who cares how many copies of a book have been sold? Mine has sold a lot, and so have others, but that doesn’t tell you how many people mine or others helped! Would you care to guess how many books have been sold that advocated crying with a woman at a chick flick and leaving all decisions to her to make sure she felt like her position had been considered? Or how many books have advocated lying to a potential partner to get them in bed or even worse, marry them? I saw one recently advocating celibacy to enhance a marriage! Can you believe that crap? Marriages survive on compatibility, attraction, and intimacy. Celibacy destroys intimacy, and goes against the biological drives that torment all of us if not served. Using celibacy to enhance a marriage is like using hot fat to treat a burn!

Who cares how many degree titles somebody has trailing after their name? That doesn’t tell you whether they’re giving you proven, repeatable reality or some pet theory that hasn’t been tested and proven to work. (And yes, in case you’re curious, I do have fun little academic acronyms after my name, so I can say that.) It says they’ve been in class, not whether they learned anything, whether what they learned was factual, nor whether they can think rationally enough to apply what they learned. I don’t know about you, but when I was looking for help, I found lots of theories in lots of books, and they were such utter hogwash that didn’t work in the real world that I ended up having to research and write a book just to have something to use myself! Strange, and pathetic, but true!

And when you get right down to the nitty gritty, should you even care what it costs? According to a recent study, the average divorce in the U.S. costs $27,000 excluding alimony, child support, etc. Indeed, I received an e-mail today outlining a settlement of $275,000 up front, plus $150,000 per year, plus he has to maintain a $750,000 life insurance policy with her as the beneficiary so that she still gets future payments if something happens to him. And who knows what the lawyers got out of it! Most self-help products, mine included, are way under a hundred bucks! Indeed, mine’s presently under forty! Compared to the cost of a divorce (and we’re not even going to get into the pain of a divorce), that’s pocket change, and I can also tell you why it works, why you can expect it to work, and how many people it’s helping, including myself!

So the short answers are that my information was researched and tested with a fairly large group of women and then double-checked with the help of their husbands and boyfriends. To the best of my knowledge, based on testimonials I’ve received, it’s helped everyone who has used it (the only refunders have been two who made duplicate purchases and one thief who asked for a refund within one minute of having purchased it, claiming she’d read it and it didn’t provide the information she was looking for to help her pick up lesbian women!), and that in turn is why you can expect it to work for you, as long as you do actually use it instead of getting it, reading it, and then talking yourself out trying with questions like “What if this doesn’t work for me?” or “What if I can’t do this?”

When I refunded one duplicate purchase we both had a good laugh out of it. He commented, “Thank you, I am more embarrassed than anything else, the good news is that I found the book very informative and was sold twice so to speak. I had failed to sign up for the newsletter the first time.”

So there it is. This isn’t rocket science, or some 12-step program. It’s just the real story on what women want, what makes them tick, how to communicate with them, how to be fun and exciting without being a clown or a flake, how to feel good enough about yourself that your self-esteem and confidence levels make you a man that she loves being around instead of a man she feels like she has to raise and protect like a mother would do a child, and how to choose and hold out for a good woman or know if you have one already. I’ve not yet met a heterosexual man who couldn’t do everything in it, easily and naturally, within a short time.

So what about you? Are you sitting there in front of your computer staring at this newsletter and thinking, “What if it doesn’t work for me?” or are you thinking, “What will life be like after I get through this?” If it’s the former, there’s not a thing in the world that I or anybody else can do to help you. But! If it’s the latter, get your butt over to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy of "THE Man's Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" and get busy, because this is what you’ve been looking for, real answers proven by real people.

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

Great Free Report, "What Women Really Want" Released!

A gift, from me to you, disclosing a lot of the “forbidden knowledge” about what women really want from men, and something even more important, what they respond to without realizing it!

Today I’m just going to issue a quick reminder, but it’s one that you’ll find useful. I’ve compiled another free report, called “What Women REALLY Want,” and it’s composed of eleven of my favorite e-mail lessons on the subject. Some of my peers are pretty angry that I’m giving it away, because it’s 50 pages long, full of valuable, tested and accurate information, and makes some of their primary for-sale products look pretty weak by comparison.

But I don’t care!

You, my readers, are a great group, and with the holidays coming and my new web-site and shopping cart operational I’m feeling generous! Download your copy and since it’s a subject that has been erroneously considered “forbidden knowledge” for as long as any of us can remember, feel free to forward it to your friends, post it on file-sharing networks, or distribute it in any other manner you can think of. It will help your friends, or at least entertain them, and it will help get the word out as well. The bigger this group gets, the more I can do for you and the less it’s going to cost you.

Links to this report are embedded in the newsletter and blog templates, but many of you new readers may not have found them. I’ve posted over a thousand newsletters, some multiple times, and my archive is getting admittedly large. So bringing all these lessons together like this in a targeted, hand-picked collection seems to help a lot of people see situations more clearly. You can never start fixing problems too early when you know how to fix them, so make good use of it and spread it around!

While you’re at it, go ahead and grab my free “Break-Up Busting 101” report, too! It’s the same kind of thing, about 45 pages of great information on how problems evolve into break-ups, often unnecessarily, and how to reverse them, and a few paragraphs about my book, "THE Man's Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" as well, which you can find at http://www.makingherhappy.com/.

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

Some Profound Comments About Retail Therapy and Boredom in a Reader's Marriage

My top student has seen “retail therapy” at work in his own marriage before he and I met, and as usual, his comments are not only astute and educational, they’re proof of just how much a man can really know about women…

In my Friday, October 14, 2009, edition of this newsletter, entitled "Retail Therapy, a Sure Sign of a Much Bigger Problem in Your Relationship or Marriage," I told you about how women engage in “retail therapy” to alleviate boredom that their husbands leave them room to feel. If you missed it, you should read it now before continuing for maximum benefit from today’s edition.

There’s a guy about 900 miles from where I live who has become my top student and is one of my best friends. He’s a leader, a “brainiac,” and I dare say the guru of gurus in his part of the country where women are concerned, because he’s learned about everything I’ve taught and went beyond that to make a few discoveries of his own.

His comments are always good material for these newsletters, because he has a gift for taking whatever I’ve said and grabbing an example of applying it to his own life or something in his history that either increases the impact of the lesson or generates a new, advanced lesson worthy of your attention. He sent me this in response to the October 14 edition on retail therapy:

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Your response to Kent was perfect:

"There's no amount of explaining that you can do that will help the situation, and that's not because you're wife is stupid, impetuous, or enjoys trying to put you into the poor house. It's because she's bored.

“I don't see your name on my customer list and you've only been on this newsletter list for a little over a week, so I'm going to bet that you have no idea just how destructive an emotion boredom is for women.

“Boredom is one of the things that a woman looks to a man to for protection; it's the price you pay for her nurturing, and it's a biological mechanism, not a logical one;"

Boredom is deadly, and women aren't to blame for being women - that's your real message. Say it over and over and over, and you'll be getting somewhere. Most men on Earth, including TV scriptwriters and all the guys every guy works with, BLAME women. Most women BLAME men for being men, with the full backing of the media and politicians. Stop that nonsense and everyone can be happy and start communicating.

Excellent newsletter, all the way. As far as the retail therapy goes, my wife was totally aware that it was not reasonable, but couldn't identify "why". One of the brutal ironies of our marriage is that she thought I wasn't listening, when in fact I listened myself nearly to death. It's perfectly REASONABLE to think she would know what I needed to do to make her happy, but it just so happens that she didn't. I suspect there are a few million more wives within a hundred miles who don't either. They can describe the feeling they want (maybe!), but not how to get it. I'd be interested in your thoughts on this, but I'll bet 90%+ of all marriages have that problem. Just my observation, nothing more.

How many men say, "All she does is complain," and how many women say, "He never listens to me" or "He's never nice to me,"? One of my favorites is the old "He never takes me anywhere," from women with great jobs, nice cars, and the ability to go anywhere they want anytime they want. And they often earn as much or more than the men! Now THERE is a potential newsletter, because "you never take me anywhere" is a message about as strong as "whatever" or "OK", but typically misunderstood by men!

****

Let’s go through his comments and make sure you get everything out of them you can.

First, let’s talk about “blame.” What does it ever accomplish? Has anything ever, just once, in the course of your entire life, improved because you or somebody else blamed someone for something that has happened? Neither you nor anyone you know can recall such an instance, yet everybody does it! Why? Because blame is easier to lay than responsibility or action are to take!

Taking responsibility invariably means that you also have to take action. Now, think about this: why do most people shy away from taking action? No, it’s not because they’re too lazy, although that is also a valid reason. Most people shy away from taking action because they don’t know what action to take. Not knowing something you need to know can be frustrating, not to mention embarrassing and downright scary. It’s far easier to point the finger and put somebody else on the spot, in some hope that they’ll either fix the problem or reveal to you something that you can do.

What I’m about to say falls under that “If I can teach you nothing else, let me teach you this” category: There is nothing wrong with ignorance. We are born not knowing anything, and should spend our entire life learning – curing ignorance. I’ve spent my entire conscious life learning things to fix other peoples’ problems, and most people who know me swear I know everything. I don’t, not even close, nor do I claim to or try to. I see my own ignorance of any subject as an opportunity to learn and do something new, a new area of problems to solve. That’s precisely why it’s not a problem.

While there’s nothing wrong with ignorance, there’s nothing right about apathy – the choice to remain ignorant and unable to do something that you need to do because you just don’t care. That’s when ignorance can hurt you, and cause you to hurt others as a result. So when you recognize that you are ignorant of something, and the answer evades you, what do you do?

Ask somebody who knows, by virtue of having succeeded at what you need to do! Don’t ask for people’s opinions, ask for their knowledge and experience. People who have successfully achieved anything love to tell you how they did it. They may not disclose the secret combination of herbs and spices in their fried chicken recipe, and if they’re a professional problem-solver they may ask a price for the knowledge you need, but good how-to information is usually worth more than its asking price because it makes your problems go away and either provides you something to enjoy or provides the means for you to enjoy something you already have. How cool is that?

He’s quite right that often women know what they want but don’t know how to get it, or don’t know how to express it to us so that we understand what they want. Volumes have been written on that subject, some of it useless fluff, opinion and theory and some of it stuff that you can put to work immediately because it slaps you in the head with reality and says, “Do this!” I’ve written some of the latter myself.

What he doesn’t mention is that often women get an idea in their head and think they want something, but are grossly dissatisfied when they get it. Retail therapy is such an instance. Wanting a “nice guy” who cries with them at chick flicks, and “metrosexuals” are others. Some things sound fun when they talk about them, but when they bring them home, they don’t pack the punch the women anticipated, and they’re right back to being bored and crazy.

In the end, what women say they want and what they respond to are sometimes two different things, so giving them what they say they want isn’t always the answer. You don’t just drop something in their lap and leave the room hoping everything will be alright. You have to stick around and watch, and listen, and think about what you’re hearing and observing.

And when you see that whatever it was you gave or did wasn’t right, you can’t just blame her for telling you the wrong thing. Nor can she blame you for giving her or doing the wrong thing. You both must take responsibility for communicating and working together to resolve your problems, and you must take personal responsibility to lead the way through problems to their ultimate solution. That may at times even include her problems, the ones that don’t directly involve you, if she tells you that she needs your help.

And no, that doesn’t mean that you just take over and do it for her. That means you listen to what she has to say, then take the lead in a cooperative effort to solve the problem and get past the crisis. I said “lead,” not “control,” and certainly not “save.” Know the difference, or screw up and be punished.

Not your responsibility, you say? Then prepare to accept the consequences. A woman can go without something they want for a lot longer than we give them credit for, but they will not go without what they need for long. And if you don’t get on top of this situation, she will start trying to find out on her own by experimentation, and the female brain is more often dominated by the creative side than the analytical side, and she will act as if she has nothing to lose, because in her mind, she doesn’t.

If she ends up running you off or with another man, it’s very easy for her to just blame you. After all, if you had provided what she needed, she wouldn’t have had to experiment. You can argue against that all day long with me, but don’t try it with a woman. I’ll try all day to help you understand it, where the average woman would cut you off and tune you out with a king-sized “Whatever!” in a heartbeat.

So here we are again. All of these relationship issues keep coming back to the same things: be well-matched with your partner, take responsibility for the health of your relationship, learn to communicate, lead and act like a man, and take signs of boredom as a warning sign that you are letting her down somewhere and get to the bottom of it FAST! Could it really be that easy?

Let’s say that every day of your life, you get out of bed, stump your toe on the bed post, stumble into the bathroom and squeeze hemorrhoid ointment on your toothbrush, get on the wrong bus to go downtown to work, and spill your lunch in your lap trying to eat it. Could it be that you just need to open your eyes before you get out of bed so that you can see what you’re doing?

Complex problems often have simple solutions, and solving them is impossible for the people who don’t realize that because they spend all their time looking for complex solutions. Women appear to be a complex problem because there are things about them that are very similar to us, yet others that are radically different, and we simply don’t see the ways in which we are similar and different accurately.

The truth is that women are not a problem at all, and they’re quite wonderful to have around if you simply spend a little time and effort to learn what you need to know about getting along with them, and once you know, acting upon it is pretty automatic, because it’s fun, and unless we’re so depressed that we can’t see straight, it’s pretty hard to avoid doing fun things that just happen naturally.

So there you have it, the answer you’ve been looking for all your life. How do you get along with women? You take responsibility for learning what you need to know, and you learn it. Big deal. It will take you 2-4 hours to read it the first time.

It will take you a few times through to integrate your history and life into what you learn and become a true expert. Compared to a lifetime of misery, those few hours are insignificant.

You shed the bad programming that has been pumped into your brain for nearly three decades now. Also insignificant in terms of time and effort, because that’s going to happen as you read.

You live the life that you were born to live, enjoying being a man, maybe for the first time in your life. Sound like fun? Well, it is!

Are you ready to begin? Ready to be a guy, maybe the only guy you know, who really understands women and loves every minute he spends with his wife, not to mention knows which minutes to spend with her and which ones to be elsewhere doing something else he enjoys? If so, go to http://www.makingherhappy.com/ and download your copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," and get started on that first 2-4 hours of awakening to the wonder that is woman.

Waiting for tomorrow, waiting for a sale, waiting to see how somebody else makes out are just excuses, excuses that are costing you your own happiness, so do it now, improve your life and don’t look back. That’s what a man does.

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

Reader Reponses to How Testing and Emotional Scales Affect Your Relationship and Marriage

The last couple of days’ lessons have brought some great comments from readers that you can learn from, so here they are!

We’re going to do something a little different today. Some of my best students have shared comments over the last few days that are insightful and pertinent, but wouldn’t provide sufficient content for a whole newsletter, so I’m going to put them together here for you so that you may share their insights and hopefully have something “click” that may not have occurred to you.

Regarding yesterday’s article on testing, the following paragraph was embedded in a status report from my top student:

“Great newsletter, by the way - if it isn't one of your “must read” reprints, it should be! The whole subject of testing is so critical that it can't be talked about too much. The key, I think, is to get men beyond the recognition of it [we all recognize it, whether we name it or explain it properly or not], and get us to understand that women aren't to be BLAMED for it, just understood. It would get rid of a lot of anger, but deny comedians a ton of material!

“Of course, it wouldn't hurt women to learn a bit about men and stop BLAMING us for things, either. So much of the relationship advice is of the "what men do wrong" type that it leaves women thinking they have to change their husbands or leave them - no alternatives. What a huge disservice to the women that is, not to mention the men. One of my favorite quotes from you is that people need to be concerned about WHAT'S the issue, not WHO'S to blame. Huge.”

That is absolutely right. Blame is for losers; you NEVER see an achiever of either gender engaging in blame at any time. If you look at the people who are respected in the world on any level, they don’t try, they don’t blame, and they don’t wait. They DO. They simply see a problem, figure out what needs to be done, and get it done. The biggest favor you can do yourself in your entire life is to do the same thing, forget about trying, blaming, and waiting for others to act and take responsibility for what’s happening in your life. It’s only then that you can make it better. One of my favorite lines from a movie is when Yoda said to Luke Skywalker, “Do, or do not. There is no try.”

That doesn’t mean you should expect to do the impossible; a rational decision must be made about a solution before the solution is implemented. It means that once you’ve identified the problem, you take responsibility for whatever part of the outcome you can influence and you take appropriate action. For example:

You’re in a hypothetical marriage that started off too young and with the wrong person. The two of you have had a great sex life because there has been abundant attraction, but you’ve fought tooth and nail in all other aspects of your relationship because there is no real love, common values, common or shared goals and interests, etc., to give the rest of the relationship substance, and everything other than sex is a point of conflict. Your wife says she’s had enough and it’s time to move on. What do you do?

You take the only rational action available to you, and you take it quickly and fairly. You move on.

You don’t wait for things to get better, because compatibility problems don’t go away over time. You don’t make some heroic attempt to do the impossible, because it only causes more pain and resentment. You don’t blame her and go to war and punish her or allow her to punish you; it was a mutual mistake that requires cooperation to get out of without further pain and frustration, not to mention totally unnecessary escalated legal expenses. In a nutshell, you just do what must be done.

Second hypothetical situation: you’ve been married twenty years, your lives have revolved around your children, who left home a year or two ago, and the two of you have love, respect, trust, loyalty, and communicate better than most couples you know. But you’re not having fun. You’re in a rut of watching TV every night while you eat dinner, then the two of you go off to your computers to chat with friends or to other hobbies, and you go to bed without saying “good night” to the other whenever the mood to sleep strikes you. Your sex life amounts to one episode every month or two that can be described as “relief without gratification.” Your neighbor starts making advances toward you. What do you do?

Do you succumb to the temptation of the affair? No, because it’s a stupid move. Too easy for it to get out of control and get you caught. Any other affair has about the same probability of the same outcome.

Do you accept the realization that life could be more fun and hope that things get better? Also a stupid move. When was the last time you saw people ignoring their relationship problems and their problems just fixed themselves?

Do you blame your wife for the rut you’re in and wait for her to take the first action in making life fun again? Utterly ridiculous, given that it’s your job to lead the action because you’re wired to do it and she’s wired to respond to you doing it.

Do you just break it off and get a divorce? Throwing away genuine love is the most foolish and destructive act a person can inflict upon oneself, except for suicide.

So in a nutshell, you have a whole lot of options, but only one good one: Recognize that you have a great foundation for a lasting relationship, but have indeed fallen in a rut. Take responsibility for the rut, find out what it takes to get out, and get out! You may have to “try” a few things to see what helps get out of the rut, but there’s a big difference between experimenting with potentially fun things to help your relationship and failing to commit to fixing the relationship and following through. If you’re attitude and conviction are where they are supposed to be, you’re “trying” activities and solutions, not “trying” to fix the relationship; you’re FIXING the relationship.

This excerpt is from another of my top students:

“Your newsletters and e-book have helped immensely. I saw that I was a wuss. I couldn’t and wouldn’t make choices for a fear of hurting someone’s feelings. Now I make choices or give options and if someone says ‘doesn’t matter,’ I make a choice and stand to it. I am still in the learning phase of reading my wife. She is a very independent woman and makes decisions without me. I have to learn how to deal with that. One of her hot buttons is the ‘making a decision’ button. I have learned that when she says ‘it doesn’t matter’, she is testing me and she wants to be led and she wants to follow.”

He’s noticed that some things are simply a matter of choice and attitude, like decision-making, while other require some study. He’s mastered the principles and is now methodically looking everywhere for new opportunities to apply what he knows. Ultimately, he realized that success, self-improvement, and great relationships are not destinations, but journeys that can last a lifetime and take you places that the rest of the world doesn’t even know exists.

From a new student who rapidly went to a seat in the front row of the class, in response to my remark that “I have looked extensively and intensely for a downside to attractive behavior, and have failed utterly to find one”:

“Abso-friggin'-lutely. And we seem to exude that simply by expressing more of what it means to be human; for example, expressing anger or disapproval quickly, but in a calm, controlled, constructive manner...setting boundaries... having self-respect, taking charge, leading, etc.”

I wish I had said that. Really. I’ve been trying to tell men for years, since long before I took up this project, that…

“…being human is something to which one should aspire, not something for which one should apologize…”

And that being an attractive male is all about doing those things that come naturally to men: leading, protecting, being deliberate and competent, not to mention confident, enjoying their life and being able to laugh at themselves and with everyone else, all with self-love and self-respect…

Yes, self-love is required! Those words cause altruists to cringe, but think back through your own life and identify even one person who was self-abusive that you wanted to be around, indeed, felt COMPELLED to be around (unless you were codependent, of course), and I’ll be thoroughly shocked, to say the least. That’s not to say that narcissism is an admirable trait, because it’s not; EXCESSIVE regard for anything is inherently unattractive, but a man must love himself enough to be able to respect himself before others can.

And one more quickie, because this newsletter is getting longer than some of you may have time to read, regarding the crying incident at the dinner party, after which I gave the crying woman a mug of hot chocolate after I…

“…shot some whipped cream on top of it and set it in front of the woman, who I knew to be a ‘chocoholic’ and very sensitive to the serotonin-boosting effects of the polyphenols in dark chocolate."

“Sir - you are a genius. Great newsletter, thanks.”

No, I’m not a genius. Come to think of it, I’m 38 IQ points above genius. But what I described was not the result of genius, and you don’t have to be a genius, either. That was the result of being OBSERVANT, and taking action where action is prescribed. That is something ANY MAN CAN DO. When you know what a powerful comfort food chocolate is and that women respond simultaneously to the smell, taste, and feel of a mug of hot chocolate in addition to the powerful effect is has on the brain, being ready and able to quickly dispense some when there are women around is like keeping versatile tools like a hammer, flashlight, and screwdriver within easy reach in your home, something that every man does because it is his nature to make problems go away.

If you watch women, they have their tools, just like we do. They have things like their treasure box and chocolate to fight melancholia. They have gadgets for painting their faces and curling their hair and eyebrows, not to mention removing hair. They have tools like romance novels and chick-flicks to fight boredom and help them manage their hyperactive hormone pumps that can mess with their moods at inopportune times. They are masters of communication and social networking because they are driven to engage in it, and you’ll find they always have things like telephones, notepaper, stationery, and these days a notebook computer or Blackberry for e-mail, etc., within easy reach of them, no matter where they are. A good look into a woman’s “tool box” can teach you a lot about women, if you have the sense to raise the lid and look.

There’s more, and I may continue this tomorrow, but I’ve noticed that many of you say you read this newsletter during coffee breaks at work so I make it a point to keep it short enough to be read in five minutes but long enough to make sure you can really learn something that can help you each day.

There is one other thing I’d like to point out in closing, and that is that all of my top students have a common characteristic: They seek out solid information and they act on it when they find it. They try different information sources, but they don’t try to make improvements or mix and match methods; they recognize facts, truth, and what much be done, and just do it.

Plato said, “Fortune favors the bold,” speaking of men of action, but if you’re like me, you don’t put much stock in “fortune” anyway. However, history is another matter, and while history also favors the bold, it seems to favor most THE PREPARED. And it makes perfect sense: The prepared are those who can be the boldest with the greatest chance of success.

So what about you? Are you blaming somebody for your problems? Or waiting for them to just go away? Or waiting for somebody else to fix them? Taking responsibility sounds tough, but in fact it’s the easiest thing in the world to do, because all it takes is a simple choice to seek appropriate action and take it. The decision is most often harder than the action itself.

So go on and make a choice, right here, right now, to make your marriage or committed relationship better and keep it that way. There’s no sense taking a bad trip when you can have a grand adventure, is there? Go to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," and then join us, the truly happy men of the world who know what men have always wanted and needed to know about women, and make your life one that you want to get out of bed every morning to live.

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

Don't Be a Deer Caught in the Headlights…What to Do to Fix Your Relationship and Marriage

I have some feedback for you, from the men this time, which demonstrates just how easy it really is to use good information when you have it, and how you have a choice of getting results or being road kill.

Over 98% of all the e-mail I receive falls into one of three categories: Success stories, questions from newsletter readers who haven’t yet read "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" about their relationships, and the ones I really feel sorry for, the ones who are in such turmoil that they are too scared to try anything. Take this very typical letter from Dane:

Hi David,

I have enjoyed your newsletters and want to get your book, but I just do not know what to do. What you say in your newsletters makes sense to me, but I can not see myself doing it. I can not afford to make a mistake at this point because my wife is already talking about divorce. How can I know that this will work for me, or that I can even do it? Anything you can tell me will be appreciated.

Dane

The reason Dane and the many others like him are concerned is quite clear. They’re facing crisis and are too scared of making a wrong move to make a right one, and there they sit, like a deer caught in the headlights, unable to decide to move left or right, forward or back, and finally die without having made a decision.

What’s really sad is that the answer to their question is almost always included in their letter, and they’re too emotionally amped up and therefore mentally blinded to see it: Dane doesn’t know that it will work for him or that he can do it precisely because he can’t see himself doing it! He is focused on the impending catastrophe, and not the successful resolution of his problems.

One of the greatest and most motivational things I have ever heard in my life is, “What the mind can conceive, the body can achieve.” It’s been quoted so many times that I can’t verify for you who first said it, but that doesn’t make it any less true; if you can see yourself doing it, you can make the choice to follow through and get it done, like these guys:

Hi David,

I just wanted to say this you are so right: when women speak, "Questions are statements and statements are questions, men state, while women negotiate"

But what I have noticed is funny, this basic fact of life must certainly be ingrained in ALL women.

What I mean is my current girlfriend is a French Quebecer and that's the way she communicates... by asking questions when she really wants to say something! I talked to her about it and she told me how bright I was for noticing it, while I know I did not ask for your copyright!

SO bottom line would be: it doesn't matter if a girl only speaks French, only Chinese or Spanish! She will deliver statements by asking questions. Why is that so? I guess it is a mystery of life! Maybe they are always searching authority from the man, they always want his approval unconsciously.

And on BOREDOM: My ex-girlfriend was cheating on me and one sentence she said will stick with me forever: "I'm bored with you" or in French "Je m'ennuies avec toi". Anyways, if I had read your materials while I was with this particular woman, I could have turned the tables if you know what I mean...

But past is past and I now vow to never let my current girlfriend feel that terrible feeling of BOREDOM.

Sincerely,
MV

(No MV, it’s no mystery at all. It’s biological, a matter of the structure of the female brain, and yes, because of that, it does transcend geography, race, language, and everything else. Women naturally do it because they are women, and we naturally don’t do it because we are men and wired differently. It’s really just that simple.)

David,

I subscribe to several email newsletters from John Alanis, Shelley (McMurtry, a great source of female perspective which I highly recommend), and even David DeAngelo. And, I've purchased materials from several, but this email about the baseball player was quite possibly the best of all of you yet.

The club metaphor, bubble blowing irreverence, etc., was excellent. The best part was using other people as mentors. In the past, I had always been intimidated by people with superior skills, but using them to improve myself is a much better idea.

Thank you so much,
Mike

You see? These guys can see themselves doing as I recommend and see the benefits of it, and instead of asking “will this work for me?” they’re not only applying it, they’re even abstracting greater lessons by following the logic path to its inexorable conclusion.

It’s hard to thrive on reason and logic when your life seems to be falling down around you unless you’re disciplined and have learned through experience that the more logic and facts you apply the quicker the situation and the bad feelings it creates will pass. You should always look into yourself for your confidence and courage, but when all else fails, you can still look at those around you and say to yourself, “Well, if they can do it, I can do it!”

What I’m talking about doing isn’t something unnatural that takes years of study and practice. Most of it is simply removing unnatural, wussifying programming and letting your true self show through, maybe for the first time in your life. The few things you have to learn are things you’ve wanted to know all your life, like what makes women tick and what they really want, and how to really communicate with them, which really boils down to three very simple rules. You would literally have to be brain damaged to not be able to do it; indeed, if you can read this newsletter, you can do everything that you need to do if you simply choose to do it.

So why not get started, right now, while you’re thinking about it and have access to the tools you need to make it happen, quickly and easily? Stop looking for reasons to abstain from acting and take action. It’s the only way you’ll get results.

Your next action is to go to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," and join the ranks of men who are happy and with happy women, instead of living bored, celibate, in fear of affairs or divorce, or any of that other nasty stuff that so many of us have lived with since the 1980’s.

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

Lying in Relationships and Marriage, Part 1, Faking It Until You Make It

Is lying to your partner ever a good attraction tactic? Is it ever good for anything in your relationship? Only if you’re a predator…

This is the first part of a three-part series on the various aspects of deceit in a relationship, which will include, among other things, lie detection, so don't miss any part of it, even if you think everything is okay in your relationship! Reader comments indicate it is one of the most popular topics we discuss and the second most popular newsletter series I issue, and truth be told, I should probably turn it into a stand-alone report, so even if you’ve seen it before, read carefully and treat it as a “refresher course” if necessary.

I’ve been asked frequently about the tactic of “fake it ‘til you make it” when trying to revive stale relationship or rescue a failing one. We’ve not talked about it in several months, and since many of you have commented (all comments are welcome and read; see the text below my signature for instructions if you need them) that you like it much better when we focus on a subject for a few days and thoroughly explore it, we’re going to focus on lying and deceit in general for a few days, such as detecting it, damage it can do that you may not expect, etc. Let’s dig in!

I recently read (for the fourth time) the scariest book I’ve ever found, with the possible exception of Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals.” It’s entitled “The Rules: Time-tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right,” by Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider, in an effort to find out why women do so many things that are bad for them and their relationships with men, and I don’t know if this book is “the root of all evil” in relationships and marriage, but while some of the advice it gives is sound, practical advice, especially on personal security for women, parts of it are pure poison, and there’s much for both genders to learn from it if you can filter the good advice from the bad.

Frankly, I’d recommend that every man read it to see what kind of tricks and ploys are used to pull a man into a bad relationship to help him know that either his partner is a great woman who didn’t prey upon his insecurities or that he got sucked in and is being manipulated so he can take appropriate action to safely exit with confidence. Make no mistake, there are good relationships with problems, and there are bad relationships that need to be dissolved, and no matter which you’re in, you need to know EXACTLY what you’re in to fix it. Your first responsibility is to yourself and your own happiness, and until you’ve met that responsibility, you might contribute to someone else’s needs or cause, but not their happiness.

“The Rules,” according to its authors, is based on advice that a woman gave her daughter a hundred years ago or more on how to catch and marry a man. At that time, marrying well was a survival skill because many women could not make it on their own due to social prejudices, etc. Being “in love” was a luxury; “finding support” was a prime motivator in finding a husband; being “cared about” took a back seat to being “provided for.” Hence, much of the advice given under “The Rules” is how to prey upon a man’s insecurities to make him jealous and over-react to her scarcity, marrying her in order to control her availability.

This will get the job done, if simply getting married and being kept is a woman’s goal, but at what cost? In short, turning him into an insecure, jealous wuss that no woman could possibly be attracted to because a woman won’t respect and can’t feel attraction (that “swept off her feet” feeling that is an integral part of female sexual arousal) for a man she can control. This is a sure-fire recipe for disaster (especially if you have a healthy libido!), as it is what creates that marriage in which the woman spends everything the man makes but has sex with the proverbial gardener or pool boy instead of her husband.

I’ll get into more of this in a future newsletter, but what I want to talk about today, and the reason I bring this up, is that a "scary big" portion of the advice given in this book entails lying to men to attract them. I’m going to address that issue for the women in my upcoming book written for them, but it begs the more general question: “Is lying ever a good way to handle anything in a relationship, especially the building of attraction?”

The short answer, for both genders, is “Not just no, but HELL NO!” unless you are indeed some kind of predator or a total loser. Among other things, it leaves you feeling that you had to lie to attract the partner and therefore aren’t good enough to have him or her, even if you are! Indeed, feeling a lack of self-esteem can also make you feel that you have to lie to be worthy of someone else’s attention.

It also labels you as needy and weak, and is a tactic for losers and predators who cannot be attractive in their own right. That alone is devastating to self-esteem, if you have any, and when you look at the bigger picture, how can you feel or express love or respect for a person you lied to in order to have them involved in your life? Or for yourself? Can you love and respect yourself after lying to trick somebody into a relationship with you? Even without getting into what happens when you get caught, it’s a losing proposition for both sides.

What should you do? Work your attraction magic with things that are really part of you, incorporating new things that fit well into yourself if necessary. Start by emphasizing – NOT exaggerating -- your best behavior and avoiding and ultimately reforming – NOT disguising -- your worst. Then, take on a bit of self-improvement in areas that are appealing to you. If you’re not naturally funny, learn to be.

Don’t just try to fake it, and stress over it. Study it, understand how it can brighten your life and your outlook on life, as well as make you more attractive to your partner, and treat it as a self-improvement exercise because it is. Don’t try to act funny, BECOME funny. Join Toastmaster’s or something and learn how to tell a good story and see the humor in things. Take dancing lessons if you’ve always thought about it but never got around to it. Learn how to have real fun and adventure yourself and you will be fun and interesting to a woman.

Another example? Don’t try to act romantic, BE romantic. Develop a genuine appreciation for the great, the beautiful, the larger than life, by exposing yourself to it, and be able to spot it and point it out to others as you do in a way which helps them to get excited over it and appreciate it, as you see in the movie “Don Juan DeMarco.” Take a music appreciation, ballroom dancing or art appreciation class to get you started, or take up some kind of hobby where appreciation for greatness will be an inherent part of it as you delve deeper into the hobby, and gain self-esteem from your achievements as you progress. This isn’t changing yourself for her, it’s changing yourself for YOU, to have what YOU want, which is a strong, positive, attractive personality that you enjoy living with, people enjoy being around and which will attract viable candidates for a great relationship.

Or, you could just try to “fake it ‘til you make it,” and be stressed out over having your cover blown and somebody seeing the real you and not liking what they see, kicking you to the curb while yelling “Fraud!” and walking away without another thought. No? I thought not.

This process is not difficult; indeed, it’s most enjoyable. Most people who don’t engage in self-improvement avoid it because of fear of failure, not because there’s really any reason for them to fail, while most people who do engage in it (and I do mean ENGAGE, not just buy the materials and set them on the shelf or skim them instead of using them) succeed.

By the same token, if you don’t have any exciting stories to tell, don’t make them up – get off your butt and get out and do something exciting! If you’re not an expert at something, don’t fake it and make an ass of yourself, pick something interesting and useful to you (and hopefully fun for you as well) and BECOME an expert. It is far better to be silent and thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt! Besides, a man needs a hobby. ;-)

Never, ever, lie to your partner. Even without regard for moral or ethical issues; it’s just too stressful for both of you, and too damaging to your self-esteem, whether you get caught or spend years trying to maintain a lie, not to mention damaging to the relationship. It’s far easier to actually become attractive than to try to just put on the act, and once you do become attractive, BEING attractive isn’t just stress-free, it’s fun! And then, if the potential for love is there, it can develop and make for a truly great relationship that stands the test of time.

There’s a wealth of solid, tested information in “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage” on what women find attractive, and just as important, what will kill it in a heartbeat, not to mention how to communicate with her in a way that has her talking with you instead of spending hours every day complaining about you to all her girlfriends, or the guy she’s having an affair with! It can even help you figure out if you’re in a relationship that has a good foundation and can make it or if you’ve been pulled in by a “Rules Girl” and are truly too mismatched for there to be any hope.

This is it, your best shot at getting things back on the right track no matter how far astray they’ve gone, so download your copy today at http://www.makingherhappy.com, because the information works, the price is right, the guarantee is unconditional, and life is too short to miss living it to the fullest.

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

Some Thank You Notes with Great Lessons on Relationships and Marriage

Talk about extreme! There are even some great lessons to be learned in some of the “thank you” notes I got from some of the "King Arthur and the Witch" contest winners! Check them out:

In case you’re curious, here’s a couple of interesting excerpts from “Thank you” notes from the winners of the King Arthur and the Witch contest, in which you’ll notice a common thread:

Hi David,

Thought I'd write and say thanks for my prize. I've started reading your book and it's exactly what I felt was the missing piece in my 'studies' - And It turns out you used about 90% of the same experts as I have been for the last few months.

Much appreciated,

Karl.

Incidentally, after my comment about Karl’s period after his signature being a mark of a confident man, a reader asked me if not putting a period after my name meant that I was not confident. No, it doesn’t. It just means that I adhere rigidly to the rules for formatting correspondence, as everyone should. ;-)

Hi David!

Thanks for the gifts and I am reading "THE Men’s Guide..." now. Boy I should have gotten this some time ago! I have some of David D.'s stuff, John's stuff, Shelley's stuff and get Mary Jo's newsletter. I also have F.J. Shark's Jerk book and have looked at other folk's goodies as well. You could say I'm a lot like you in the sense I have this intense drive to go after things I'm interested in if they catch my attention and fascination.

I have been in 2 marriages of about 8 years each and decided I've got to find out what is really going on before I ever do this again. The pain is just too much. Now I'm learning, observing and watching and yes practicing different things. Yes I have "seen the light" in the sense I was way too much the wussy man trying to please and take care of my little princess.

I guess the big light came on when I finally started understanding, like the story, women want a man who can be the man and be a partner at the same time. Thanks Again BIG TIME!!

Time to get back to reading so I can flush out some more garbage and replace it with pearls.

Take very good care and keep up the truly special "work" you do.

Thanks David,

Dave

Did you notice the recurring theme? They’ve been reading advice from the dating gurus and others, but it didn’t come together until they read "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" because the rules are different in committed relationships than when you’re dating. The basic principles are the same, but the definitions and applications change, radically in some regards.

If you’re in a committed relationship, stick with me. If you’ve been in a committed relationship and trying to figure out what happened so you don’t repeat the mistakes, stick with me. If you’ve never been in a committed relationship that worked and you’re dating now, use the dating gurus advice to meet people, and use the evaluation section of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" to help you choose from among the many candidates you’ll be dating. After all, dating is a time of finding and exploring options, not homing in on one option and trying to convince them and yourself that they are “the one.”

Forewarned is forearmed, and as you have seen if you’re past puberty, there are countless pitfalls in a relationship, but you can be ready for every one of them. Whether you are in a committed relationship or wanting to be, you need to know what’s in "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," and you should go to http://www.makingherhappy.com right now and download it. The Boy Scouts have it right: BE PREPARED!

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

Past Winners in Our Contest Who Found Their Way to Great Relationships and Marriage

I’ve not received a response so far this year in our contest from the King Arthur and the Witch story that is worthy of winning a prize, so I’m extending the contest for more winners to enter!

For those of you joining us late, in yesterday’s edition I announced a contest for the best lessons from that story that readers could pick out and submit, because it was full of them.

I’m disappointed to say that I’ve not received even one mentionable response to this contest so far this year, because in years past, there have been some very insightful comments made by some of you. I’m going to print the winners from the past years here because they are quite brilliant, and I’m also going to extend the contest so if I receive any more really good ones before the deadline Sunday night at midnight, Mountain Time, the submitter will still get the prize. Get a load of these:

Hi David!

Yes I loved the story too! You did bring out some amazing points and very possibly the most important ones. I have a few you may find interesting as well. I think one very understated one but is so easily overlooked in many, many stories is the Ugly Swan.

Yes everyone else saw the "old crone", what a sacrifice it would be, etc., etc. Something which could be very easily overlooked is she obviously had the potential to be WHATEVER she chose at any moment all along. She, or any woman is perfectly capable of being as beautiful or as "crony" as she wants at ANY time.

Let's face it, we have all had relationships where the lady we couldn't be without, "turns" in to a waspish, mean, nagging crone we can't wait to be away from. Little realizing WE kept pushing her in that direction because we weren't being the man she needed. Responsibility can be a tough taskmaster unless we relish and see it for the liberating force it can truly be. I don't have your course but from the emails I've seen from you a lot of the principles are perfect for turning your crone back in to your queen.

Another part of this is it illustrates the women could very well be a cackling witch simply waiting for a real man to lead and allow her to be the woman she really wants to be all the time. How many "bitches", sorry for that, are really simply screaming for help, for a real man to stand up and say it like it is so she can relax, breathe and enjoy truly being herself? And making the man who reached her the luckiest guy this side of heaven in all the ways he never even imagined? Look out and make sure your health is tip-top because you're in for a ride buddy!

You can also learn from this story people will rarely tell you the real reasons why they do something. I am reading "Influence, The Psychology of Persuasion" by Robert Cialdini and this is brought out in many ways where people consistently never see the reasons why they acted how they did and even refused to accept those reasons when directly confronted with them. If asked, many women will say they want the wussie, fawning, put me on a pedestal little boy. But their actions, romance novels, magazine stories and certain movies all say something completely different.

Choosing your sources of information is absolutely crucial. We may not like or be afraid of finding out because if we do it will mean we will have to take responsibility and OWN it. That can be a very scary thing especially if we are already having confidence issues. It can seem like your being asked to throw yourself down and asking someone to kick you. That's not the case at all because when you find the answers you need, see them make the changes you want and create the excitement, the thrill you want so terribly in your relationship, you'll treasure that moment for life.

I could go on but this is already long so I will close and say THANK YOU for all of your great emails. I truly believe if people would just act on the emails alone it would give them a HUGE leg up on creating the success they want in their relationships. It just boggles the mind to think what it would be like putting your emails together with your book.

Sleep soundly and enjoy knowing you are reaching a great many more people and making a difference whether they say so or not. I will take this time as well to again say thank you and I look forward to all your emails. They are very special in every way. Just like you.

Thank You Very, Very MUCH!!

Sincerely,

Dave (2006 winner)

Dave is obviously an achiever, and very insightful. After reading "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" and my two free reports (linked at the bottom of this page) “Break-Up Busting 101,” and “What Women REALLY Want,” he has become an absolute master and guru in his own right, as well as a very close friend. And by the way, he’s right; the content of these newsletters means a lot more to those who have read my book. They’re like continuing education lessons for them.

Now check out Karl, who’s letter clearly demonstrates the appropriate attitude for a real man and achiever:

Hi David,

The best lesson in the story is in the first paragraph - That being: If you can't figure something out for yourself, ask someone who CAN figure it out. It's worked a treat for me.

I win,

Karl. (2006 winner)

Karl entered expecting to win, and said so! Also notice that he placed a period after his name in closing, emphasizing that his is the last word on the subject, something you see in very confident personalities. Not everyone who comes to me is a wuss; some are very manly men who need help understanding women, others who need help communicating with them. Many are very manly men who have been led to believe that they need to act wussy in order to get on with women and are horribly unhappy putting on that act, and wanting relief from the stress of acting against their nature. All of them are getting help, because they’re taking Karl’s lesson one step further:

To deal with something they can’t figure out for themselves, they’re asking someone who has already figured it out, tested it, and succeeded with it, then went on to help others succeed with it, the very definition of a trusted source of information for those who know how to recognize it. Which brings me to an entry that I couldn’t have made up if I’d tried, and made me laugh so hard that I had to send him one just for the laugh. Meet Paul (who by the way, is a VERY important guy for reasons I can’t divulge without violating his privacy, but if any of you single ladies are in the NYC area, I really should introduce you to him, so e-mail me at support@makingherhappy.com and I’ll pass your address along to him):

Hello David,

I gather the lesson is as follows:

When your questions go unanswered and something is not working after a year and many people are advising you about a suggestion take their advice and spend whatever the advice will cost. Example: In this case many people advised King Arthur to seek the advice of the Old Witch, however Arthur felt the price would be too high and wasted precious time. How to relate this to today's time: When David is doling out terrific advise and your marriage is in the rut and all it cost is about what you would pay for a couple of movies and popcorn or beer and cigarettes then stop wasting time and purchase and read "THE Man's Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage." and save your Marriage.

PS David, if this entry wins, as I am still single, please donate your copy to next e-mail that you receive from someone whose marriage is on the rocks

Kindest Regards
Paul (2007’s winner)

As I told Paul, who is also a friend and truly a man among men, many of my readers have said that this book should be required reading in high school because in addition to helping you fix problems, it does a great job of preparing you to FIND that one in a million relationship that can be an effortless, happy, and life-long marriage. He’s single, and by the time he gets to the end of this book, he’ll be ready to find happiness in what I suspect is one of the world’s richest concentrations of high-quality single women, New York City.

Here’s a 2008 winner, who also ended up becoming a close friend later:

Hello, David,

I found several lessons. Like you, I am an Objectivist. So I saw Lancelot trade his single life for life with a crone because he would not choose to live without Arthur as king, just as a man might trade his single life for life with any woman because he would not choose to live without someone to lead, protect, and provide for, recognizing that there are benefits in both single and married life, some of which are mutually exclusive, and having the guts to make a decision about which he wanted and stick to it.

I saw that there is a lot of free information around, and that not much of it is useful. “Common sense” is today a misnomer. “Uncommon sense much more accurately describes what common sense used to refer to, the ability to think through something to a correct conclusion or functional remedy. There are always people around ready to give free advice, and most of them are merely parroting what they’ve heard others say with no idea of whether it works, or else telling you what they’ve done that didn’t work, but they think it should have and are looking for personal validation through your success where they failed, rather than hoping that you succeed.

Another thing that I noticed was that Lancelot went through with the wedding, and was going to go through with the honeymoon consummation as well. Just as many real men try to make the best of any situation without complaint. He “steeled” himself, instead of whining and lying about a headache or some other ailment.

And the part that struck me most was that he trusted his wife to make a decision if she had the guts to make it. I personally would never trust any decision a woman made after consulting a dozen girlfriends, because girlfriends are often too good at persuading other women to do something that is not in their best interest purely for the sake of drama, but I would trust a woman who would skip the drama and realize the gravity of the situation to make the best decision she was capable of and be open to discussing and negotiating it afterward.

Thanks in advance for the book!
Joel

I really don’t think I can or should add anything to Joel’s comments. His points struck me as self-evident as I read them. Joel had only been subscribing for a couple of weeks, and we quickly become very close friends after this. He is another guy who has no trouble being a man, but has some issues with evaluating women and relationships and communicating. He had to work a bit at growing tolerant of the indirect communications style his wife uses, because he’s hyper-analytical and efficiency-oriented and therefore driven to take the shortest path to anything, but he got there, and they’re good now.

So what about the rest of you? What lessons do you see that haven’t already been disclosed? There are still a few, and you’ll recognize them when pointed out after midnight if not before, but try to dig them out and send them in because I’m still inclined to award another copy if someone spots the one really super lesson that has yet to be reported. And if you don’t see one…

…take it as proof that you need to step up your efforts to learn and go to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage". It is THE quickest path to happiness, as anyone who has used this book or whom I’ve counseled will tell you. I don’t buy this crap of needing 10-20 weeks of counseling to straighten out a marriage or determine that it can’t survive. The facts of your life are right there before your eyes, and if you can identify and observe them without bias, you’ll know exactly what to do. After that, it’s just a matter of execution. So get busy! Life is short, too short to waste being unhappy, the clock is relentlessly ticking, and not a single tick can be regained once it has passed.

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

Is Somebody Bringing You Down? Insidious Killers of Relationships and Marriage

There are some people who not only don’t want anything in their life to go right, they don’t want anything in your life to go right, either. These people will pose as your friends, but if you carefully listen to them, you’ll know they don’t act like friends, because every time you get excited about something going well in your life, they have something negative to say. These people can even end up being your partner or your spouse, and if they do, they “gotta go!”

I had a run-in with a defeatist this morning, and it reminded me that defeatists, people who are simply resigned to defeat without regard for real chances of success, are a scourge not only to all achievers, but to relationships, since a great relationship with them is not possible and a great relationship in their presence is something they will fight tooth-and-nail, and I want to make sure you can recognize them and get them out of your life before they can do too much damage to you or those you love.

You shall know these people by their works, as the saying goes. They lead a mediocre life at best, always complaining about some problem, always a day late and a dollar short, and always trashing any idea you have to get ahead or trying to tell you that whatever success you just experienced will have to be short-lived because they tried it and it didn’t work out for them.

The plain and simple truth is that these people have no self-esteem and refuse to see themselves as successful, and to confirm that success is impossible, they have to obstruct everyone else’s success in whatever way possible, else their little delusion explodes and they have to admit that success is possible and it’s their choice to fail that has caused them to fail all their life.

You do know them, huh? Maybe some of these:

1. The guy who says the car you’re trading up to is a piece of crap, and Consumer Reports or other professional reviews only say it’s good because they’re taking money under the table.

2. The woman who says that the business you want to start can’t possibly succeed because everybody knows there’s no real market for something like that, and only by dishonest means can you ever make a living selling real estate, manufacturing some way cool new gadget that the world is begging for, or performing a service that everybody and their brother is asking you to quit your job to come to do for them.

3. The guy who spends more time bitching about not having a job, or more effort trying to look like he’s trying to find one while milking unemployment insurance for every penny he can get, than it would take anyone to actually get one.

4. The chronic chemical abuser who says there is no sense being clean and sober because they couldn’t do anything worthwhile anyway, and by the way, neither can you, so you might as well join them for a few drinks, smokes, pills, etc.

5. The zealot who greets your ambitions with sermons about how “money is the root of all evil,” and “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” and telling you that you should be volunteering for their pet charity instead of starting or expanding your own business, trying to make you feel guilty about wanting to improve yourself and your situation through honest effort and hard labor.

I’m sure you get the picture by now. No matter what you want to do, they say it can’t work, and no matter what you do succeed at, they say it can’t last, or they want to throw some obstacle in your way, like guilt, or the futility of the system, or some lament about life not being fair.

There are three basic scenarios in which these sorry people can have a negative impact on your life and especially your relationship, if you let them. Above all else, keep in mind that they can only impact your life if you let them, because you always have the choice of eliminating them, even if YOU are the defeatist; we’ll talk about that scenario last, so pay attention, because it’s the biggie.

The first scenario is where someone who doesn’t live in you household is the defeatist. Maybe a co-worker, somebody you erroneously regard as a friend (no real friend who values you and whom you can value can truly be a defeatist – they are more likely to be some kind of dependent and need you rather than care about you), or even a family member who doesn’t live with you. These are the easiest people to dispatch, because you can give them two choices, to straighten up and support your aspirations or stay out of your life; you can ultimately hold them accountable for their choice by cutting them out of your life if they don’t get with the program.

Yes, they might get pissy, and might say bad things about you, but while they’re sitting around talking about how you cared so little about them that you just went off and succeeded without them (a defeatist’s favorite lament), you’ll be off succeeding without them! Big whoop, huh? Hardly…

In the second scenario, the defeatist lives in your household. Ouch. That either means family member or some down-on-their luck “friend” (yeah, right, see the first scenario) that has suckered you into taking responsibility for their bad judgment and may have even out-stayed their welcome within the first day of moving in. This scenario is considerably tougher, but still ultimately in your control; you may just have to pay a higher price for their cooperation.

Sounds harsh, huh? Well, yes it does, until you realize that the defeatist is so efficient at killing any chance of achievement and happiness they might have that they almost always end up in trouble as a result of their own choices, not random events. Yes, there were certainly some defeatists displaced by Hurricane Katrina or a tsunami, and one could reasonably argue that at least some of those were there by choice (to stay when they could have left and ultimately to live there at all) as well, but regardless, they would be doing it to themselves if natural forces weren’t doing it to them, because they choose failure after failure. What do you do with them?

The same thing you would do with the ne’er-do-well in the first scenario – you give them the choice to straighten up or leave! By continuing to support them as they destroy their own life and try to influence you to destroy your own, you are “enabling” them! And they will reward you by inviting you to join them in their pity-party, and may even let you continue to pay their bills while they’re sitting around too depressed to look for a way to fix their problems and regain their independence, if they ever had any. Just what you live for, right? They think so.

If you know a defeatist, look at their life – indeed, check out several. See how many are living in really bad rental housing, shacked up with friends, parents or other relatives (well into adulthood!), and how many of them are working minimum or near-minimum wage jobs when the average person of their age and expected experience level is at twice that or better. There may be some emotional repercussions from ousting them, but can you afford to be influenced by that failure-mongering attitude? Can you afford to have your partner or your children (if you have any still at home) influenced by them, or disrespecting you because of your failure to rip them from your jugular vein? Get them out of your life before they impact your relationship with members of your family.

But wait! What if it is your partner that is the defeatist? Does that make a difference? Should it? Think with me for a minute here. You’re on an ocean liner, it’s going down, you and the rest of your family and friends are on a lifeboat, there’s still more room and plenty of supplies, but your partner says, “no, I’m just going to go down with the ship, because if I get in that raft, nobody’s going to find us.” What do you do?

Do you step out of the raft and back onto the sinking ship to go down with them when there was clearly an available and attainable choice to live??? Not me, nor anyone else who realizes just how precious a resource your life is. Being on that sinking ship – that they choose to go down with rather than to step on the raft – is a bad choice on their part that does not in any way create an obligation on your part.

Repeat after me: “A bad choice on your part does not create an obligation on my part.” Again. Again. Keep going. Yes, again! Keep repeating it until you understand it, accept it, and can live it. You may choose to help somebody out of a tough spot, but there’s no good reason for you to sanction and enable someone’s stupidity by bailing them out of a bad choice that was made simply because they wouldn’t acknowledge the possibility that they could succeed at something else and give it a try.

If it’s your spouse, give them some time, support, and even professional counseling if they need it, as well as ample opportunities to succeed so they can learn that they can indeed do it, and hold them accountable for both the outcome and a timetable for an outcome, and if they just can’t make the choice to snap out of it, fire them! It may cost you half of everything you have, but that’s better than having the defeatist costing you everything you have, including your life, for the rest of your life.

Hmmm….who does that leave for the third scenario? Well, yes, YOU! If you are the defeatist, you’re in big trouble, because everyone around you either pities you, is annoyed with you, or flat out wishes you’d find somebody else to bring down with your negativity. Yes, YOU are the one who may be about to get the “shape up or ship out” ultimatum, and no, there’s no nice way to put it, they’re really feeling that way!

But, since it is you who is the defeatist, it is you who has ultimate control as to whether that defeatist philosophy and attitude gets fixed! You don’t think it’s you? Well, take the test. If as you read the preceding paragraphs and kept feeling you needed to defend those mentioned because they just couldn’t help making bad choices because everybody always makes bad choices and nobody does anything right except by luck, guess what! You’re a defeatist!

If you are the defeatist, denial time is over. All these things I’ve been talking about doing are subject to be brought to bear against you, and somebody may already be contemplating it. You’ve thought all your life that you couldn’t succeed, and as long as you thought that, you were right, precisely because you thought it.

Henry Ford, the great American industrialist who founded the Ford Motor Company was known for being tough and rude, and at times, a little too arrogant for his own good (such as trying to tell the market what it was going to accept, which almost bankrupted him over the Edsel), but he was also incredibly wise in areas of human intelligence and human behavior.

He was known to take prospective employees out for a meal, and watch to see if they salted their food before tasting it. If they did, they were creatures of habit, not people who salted food because it needed salt, and he wouldn’t hire them. He wanted thinking people. And one of his favorite expressions according to historians was, “Whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re right.” Wisdom from the grave.

Ask any achiever about happiness and success and they will tell you two things: Success is a choice, and hanging out with losers is something they won’t do. So start by choosing to believe that success is a choice, then pick a successful person and learn from them.

It doesn’t have to be a Fortune 100 CEO, just somebody who is living a life that you would like to live. Model their behavior, especially how they think about life, success and achievement. It will give you the picture of success to move toward, the thought processes to help you get there, and the confidence to continue succeeding and be strikingly attractive to your partner! Then instead of wishing you were somewhere else, everyone will want to be around you and doing things with you for a change. ‘Nuff said!

Folks, success and happiness really are choices you can make, no matter what it is you want to do, as is a great relationship. You must choose to believe you can succeed, you must choose to act to succeed, and you must choose to eliminate anything from your path that will keep you from it. Nothing that is a part of your life is a neutral; it is either for you or against you, enriching your life or detracting from it. Remove the detractors and live. Part of your job as a husband and father is the same as that of a soldier, to protect your family and domicile from all enemies, foreign and domestic. And if you fail in that job, you have no right to complain when those in your charge want new leadership.

If you’re having relationship or career troubles, or any kind of trouble, seek advice from those who have successful experience upon which they can base good advice, not somebody who whines about how there’s no use in trying. Don’t waste your time discussing your plans, hopes, and dreams with someone who plans for nothing and expects nothing but failure, hopes everyone else will fail to validate their own failure, and dreams of nothing but rationalizations for their own failure (or someone handing them success, such as those people whose retirement plan consists of buying a lottery ticket every week), or seeking advice from those who obviously have none of value to offer.

If improving your relationship is on your list of things at which you want to succeed, there’s a ton of good advice in “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage.” It’s tested, proven, and works. Download your copy today at http://www.makingherhappy.com, because success is a choice, your choice, as is a truly great relationship, and what you need to know to get it done is just a few mouse-clicks away!

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

What to Do When She Gains a Few Pounds, Keeping the Flame Burning in Relationships and Marriage

Summer is here, and many of us still have that inconvenient layer of winter fat and we’re now wondering how many extra trips to the gym it will take to get rid of it. And it’s not just winter fat, either. Stress, pregnancy, etc., can put a major whammy on women, who are especially troubled right now because bikini season is here! What do you do when she gains a few pounds? Inquiring minds want to know, at least if they ever hope enjoy being married again…

That’s right, it’s time to shed that winter insulation and get into bikinis, volleyball, backyard barbecues, and all those other fun activities that require baring skin, and unfortunately, exposing your “jelly belly” if you picked one up through the winter. Here’s a typical letter about this most common problem, and a very sticky one to say the least. Meet Tia:

Dear David,

I need your help. The past few months I have put on a few extra pounds due to a medication that I have to take for my asthma. Everybody tells me that they don’t notice it and I look good, but to me I feel like the Goodyear blimp and have no desire to be intimate with my husband at all because I’m embarrassed over having curves in places that were flat. The more he tries to tell me I look sexy the more his advances just make me feel pressured, and I hate feeling under pressure this way. It has nothing to do with not loving him or not wanting to enjoy each other the way we always have. We have always been very in touch with each other and being together in the bed was always one of the best parts.

I was hoping you could give me some advice as to how I could bring this up with him. I want him to understand just how awful I feel I look and how it has nothing to do with him at this point.

Thank you,
Tia

Tia, I’m going to make this really easy for you, because it’s such a great question. Just print this and let him read it, because I’m going to tell him and all the other men about this. He won’t know it’s you unless you tell him because I’ve changed the name to protect your privacy.

Get ready guys! Pay close attention, take notes, and make sure you fully understand what you’re about to read. This is some of the most critical information to ever appear in this newsletter and you need to get this down pat and cold, right now, because sooner or later, EVERY woman will experience a bit of weight gain that makes her uncomfortable with her appearance, and consequently, with YOU.

If you’ve read "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," you know about the difference in the male and female brain structure. Aside from making our communications styles and methods grossly different, it also makes women visualize and dramatize to the extreme compared to males.

You also must remember that nearly all of the advertising in the fashion and beauty industries is designed to prey upon a woman’s sense of competitiveness to make her feel insecure about her appearance so she’ll buy their products even if she doesn’t need them. Women are literally bombarded with this crap everywhere they look, and while you or I probably wouldn’t even notice a little weight gain until we had to loosen our belt a notch or sew a button back on our trousers that had popped off, to them a pound or two can be nearly or wholly traumatic, especially if they’ve taken pride in a flat stomach for a long time.

We often respond to this by telling them that they look “fine,” “sexy,” “hot,” etc., and that is precisely the wrong thing to do. Why?

She knows what she sees in the mirror, and thinks that you see what she sees in the mirror. If she thinks she looks fat and you say she looks sexy, all that says to her is that either you’re lying or your standards are really, really low. Don’t go there, even if you really think she looks better with a couple of extra pounds because you like the curves, and whatever you do, DON’T tell her you like the new curves! That can get you killed, because in her ears, that’s, “But honey, I like you better when you’re fat like this.” (Ladies, you are cordially invited to write and tell the men just that – I’ll reprint your letters so the men will know just how serious an issue this is.)

And this is getting to be a more and more pervasive problem, especially in the United States. In the 1980’s some moron at the FDA decided that Americans might get too much iodine in their diet, and told manufacturers to replace the potassium iodide that was added to flour and other things as an anti-caking agent with potassium bromide, which attaches to the same receptors in the thyroid but does not create thyroid hormones, the chemicals that keep your metabolism up to a healthy level. They also advised against the iodizing of salt. This resulted in slowed metabolism and "brominated thyroid," a condition wherein the thyroid is inundated with bromine, which renders it dysfunctional or even non-functional.

Concurrently, women started trying to add career aspirations to motherhood and running a household, which added stress. Stress causes the over-production of hydrocortisone, a.k.a., “cortisol,” by the adrenal glands, which causes your body to store fat for hard times. Then we have another idiot at the FDA who determined that a high-carb, low-fat or fat-free diet was healthy, overloading all of us with carbs and making us insulin-resistant and consequently further slowing our thyroids (high blood glucose level impede the conversion of T4, a thyroid hormone that is mostly inert and used to store iodine to T3, the thyroid hormone that enters your cells and causes the mitochondria to burn glucose so they can perform their function, the core of the human metabolism), making us fatter and often diabetic.

Incidentally, prolonged stress causes fatigue of the adrenal glands, and when this happens, sufficient hydrocortisone to get the T3 hormone into the cells is not produced. This creates many of the symptoms of hypothyroidism, but obviously treating adrenal fatigue with thyroid hormone doesn’t fix the problem; indeed, it makes it worse, because the adrenal glands have to convert the excess T4 hormone into something else (called “reverse T3”) to get it out of the bloodstream, further stressing the adrenal glands. Thank you “modern medicine.”

Yes, I have a bone to pick with these incompetent jerks, and the pharmaceutical companies that are behind them, but my axe-grinding here is to show you why you see so many people around you becoming more and more overweight and to hopefully open your eyes to the facts that 1) it’s likely to happen to you and/or your partner, 2) you’ll have to deal with both the physical and emotional/psychological impact of it, and 3) there are things that you can do to fix it before it gets terribly broken and you and/or your partner end up on medication for the rest of your significantly-shortened life.

Incidentally, if you are even marginally overweight or there is any possibility that you could have a lower-than-normal (98.6° F. or 37° C.) basal body temperature, slowed metabolism, dry skin, brittle nails, sleep disturbances, the outer third of your eyebrows thinning, thinning hair, dark circles around you eyes, allergies, weight gain, or any type of autoimmune problem, whether or not you are already on thyroid medication, go to the "Stop the Thyroid Madness" web site and order the author’s very thorough, 100% factually-based book on the thyroid and how it is inadequately and inappropriately all over the world using the wrong lab tests (TSH, total T3 and total T4) and the wrong medication (synthetic T4 hormone, a.k.a., “Synthroid,” Levothyroxin, et al). (I receive no commissions or other consideration for this recommendation. I make it because you need these facts to live a healthy and happy life.)

I stress this because I had to become an expert on this subject. I have a thyroid deficiency, went through pure hell for several years while being told by several physicians that I was “adequately treated" while remaining 50 pounds overweight in spite of diet and exercise in excess of US Military specifications and having 18 symptoms of hypothyroidism (that have been known and used to diagnose hypothyroidism for over 100 years before the infamous TSH lab test was made popular) remaining after several years of treatment, just because a lab result that reports irrelevant information was in “the normal range,” which some rather sharp doctors have found is preposterous. The StopTheThyroidMadness web site also has a link to another site that will help you find a local physician who will properly diagnose and treat this condition.

So getting back to your relationship, what are you supposed to do with regard to your partner?

You’d already know this, too, if you had read “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage,” because you wouldn’t be making those kinds of advances and doing really stupid things like asking her to have sex with you. You’d be tripping her attraction triggers with alpha male behavior, naughty talk and gestures, and making her have fun and get so hot that she didn’t concern herself with her additional weight because she’d still feel sexy and desirable, and she’d be coming after YOU! (See Jay’s letter in the archive for an example, because he’s got it down cold.)

When you know what a woman wants, what makes her tick, how to both listen and talk to her, and how to lead her and have fun with her, she doesn’t feel like a middle-aged housewife that can’t compete with the 20-somethings anymore. She feels like a real queen who rules the world at your side by day and a red hot vixen by night, keeping that naughty little secret for you and you alone because you create it for her. There's a time and place, not to mention a right way and a wrong way, for everything, and that includes delivering genuine, honest compliments, and giving them because they have been earned, not because you’re trying to get something in return. That’s called “flattery,” and it will get you absolutely nowhere with anyone who is worth getting anywhere with.

That, Gentlemen, is how a real man makes a real woman feel, and that is what you learn when you read “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage.” So how many more times are you going to have to stick your foot in your mouth and spend the night in the doghouse before you go to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy? Go now, and get it done, because there are far better things to do with your feet (and your mouth!).

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

What Are You Looking for in Your Relationship and Marriage, or Are You Looking At All?

Great things are where you find them, especially in relationships, marriages, and opportunity in general, but you have to be looking for them to see them. Believe it or not, that’s a lot more a matter of attitude than opportunity, luck, or providence…

I’m swimming in testosterone right now (Saturday afternoon, July 4), because there’s a hundred pounds of pork ribs in my smoker that is going to feed an army of hungry “good people” shortly, and I smell of hardwood smoke and burning pork fat, which where I live, is a very powerful aphrodisiac! No matter where you live or what your life is like, find a reason to get together with others at least once a month and practice these rituals of cooking over fire, communing and telling stories, all of which have evolved from the ancient hunt. It awakens something primal and wonderful for which there does not seem to be any substitute.

Since everything is looking good in the smoker and it will be awhile before time to greet family, friends, and neighbors, I sat down to check my e-mail and found a couple of starkly contrasting pieces that screamed out “NEWSLETTER!!!!” So while I usually do this late at night based on some experience of the day, I’m doing it early today while the message is still at the forefront of my mind and easy to share with you.

The first thing I saw was a notice that a reader named Ryan had ended his subscription to this newsletter. Ryan had subscribed eleven days prior, and his comment describing his reason for cancelling read:

“NOTHING OF VALUE”

Just below it was an e-mail from another reader, and I about laughed myself sick when I looked up his subscription date and found that it was the same day, and he submitted the following:

Hello David,

Thank you! Your book is awesome! All of your readers of your daily email should sack up and buy your book. Sometimes that macho crap gets in the way and we limit ourselves from learning more about the women in our lives. We do often think that we should naturally know everything....after reading your book I knew that I didn't know much!

My marriage came to an end a while ago and my ex was always turning to "relationship experts" like Dr Phil and John Gray just to name a couple. Yes being the good man (or trying to) I read their books. Although they had some interesting ideas, none of them had an impact on me the way your book did.

I have been in a new relationship with a woman now for about a year. I did not want this relationship to turn sour like all the other ones so I decided to be proactive and read your book. WOW! Over the past couple of weeks since I bought your book, I started to take control and the results have been amazing. I have not had a problem with self confidence or had a problem attracting women through out my life, but after a while things would always change. I could not sustain the attraction. This woman is amazing and I did not want to sabotage this one too. Your book is the bomb dude and I will direct as much attention to you as I can!

One of my buddies asked me this weekend why I was so happy and I told him I wish that he could feel for 5 minutes what I feel everyday now. My beautiful woman is into me like no one’s business and looks at me in a way where I feel her love, even when we are not together. After almost a year we are more in love today than ever before. Thank you David for doing what the so-called "relationship experts" could not.

Rock on Dude,

Mike

P.S. By the way...I packed her stuff up and we went for a picnic this weekend when she got home from work. The results are too X-rated to put here...lol. Later!

(The picnic Mike refers to in the post script is a surprise outing I describe in the "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage,” wherein after you have learned how to read your partner and pay attention to the little things about her, like what she never leaves the house without on a day trip, weekender, etc., you come home a little early from work or send her off on an errand so you can have the house to yourself for an hour or so and prepare a picnic, day trip, weekend outing, etc. – just any kind of surprise trip to shake things up and give her a break from routine, then pile her in the car and announce the destination after you’re under way, or even better, upon arrival. It’s a wonderful exercise in attraction-building and adventure that every woman appreciates.)

The stark contrast in the findings and underlying attitudes of these two readers is stark and significant. One was looking for answers and found them, and I’m still trying to figure out what the other one was looking for, but it quite literally took them exactly the same length of time to report their findings; my e-mail is updated every three minutes and these two came in together.

I wish you could have been here when they arrived, too. I’m hyper-analytical. You could probably count the original thoughts I’ve had in my life on your hands and feet, but I can extract the cause and effect relationships from any situation near-instantly and accurately, and it’s ruthlessly automatic. Everything I see or hear first causes me to visualize, then analyze, then look for parallels once the cause and effect is known and logical deductions and projections that can be made from them. (That’s why you never find opinion or theory in my newsletters or books!)

So when these letters hit me, the immediate question was, “What else do men miss because they aren’t looking for it, or are looking somewhere besides at their partners to find it?”

Think about that. Is there something that you wish you and your partner shared, or could share or do together, that you have just assumed she wouldn’t be interested in or do? Are you right now or have you recently made the mistake of involving others in the problems of your life or relationship because you assume that your partner won’t want to discuss it, or resolve it?

Parenthetically, NEVER, EVER discuss intimate family problems with anyone outside your household unless they are a professional problem-solver who is both competent and paid for their confidentiality. Aside from the fact that it’s unlikely that they are emotionally-unattached, rational, and experienced enough to get to the root of your problem and help, when personal relationships end badly, all information that you have given a former friend, coworker, etc., or even a relative that you can’t really cut off, becomes a weapon to embarrass and hurt you with.

People do horribly hurtful things that cannot be undone when they are angry, and the things that go on between you and your spouse – YES, I am talking to both men and women here – are fodder for a quick-tempered and later-regretted revenge. Don’t tempt fate by arming people you care about with information about other people you care about. I see it every day, and it NEVER ends well.

Getting back on subject, do you have any idea how many missed opportunities to deepen and improve your relationship and your life occur as a result of assuming that your partner won’t be interested? Or how many affairs are started because of that? How many misunderstandings it generates?

Don’t be like Ryan, oblivious to the potential of what’s in front of you. If there’s something lacking at home, don’t go outside to find it (and if you ultimately do decide to go outside your marriage, end the marriage first) before making absolutely sure that it’s not sitting there undiscovered right under your nose at home. Talk to your partner, and listen – or are you able?

I’ll go to my grave preaching this sermon. Effective inter-gender communication is not something that we are born well-suited to even do, let alone do competently. It is a skill that must be developed, not a talent determined by a gene. For those of you who have seen the “Men State, Women Negotiate” excerpt from "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" in my free “Break-Up Busting 101” report, you know that as complex as it all seems, it pretty much boils down to the ruthless exercise of three simple rules that anybody can follow.

The question is “What are you looking for?” which begs the other question, “What is motivating you to look for anything?” Are you like Ryan, maybe looking for validation for your past mistakes so that you can blame somebody else for leaving you, or are you like Mike, realizing that you wouldn’t be reading this if everything was perfect, and that something that appears logical, people are using with success, and is guaranteed to work is worth a try, and therefore taking action and getting outstanding results?

Only you can make that choice, and I dare say that it is inevitable that you will be held accountable for it, if by nothing else, the state of your own life and that of your family’s, so choose well…

I don’t want to get too carried away with coincidences, but if you want to be “like Mike” (to those of you who saw the movie, I swear that’s his real name!), just do what he did. Download your own copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," and get busy. It took him 11 days to write that letter. How quickly can you turn your life and relationship around?

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

Emotional Pain and Clear Thinking Don't Mix, Especially in Relationships and Marriage

A reader’s letters over a three-month period demonstrate how the pain and stress of a troubled relationship or break-up can kill your ability to think clearly and make you very vulnerable to having your buttons pressed by people trying to help you, and how you can recover if you choose to.

I want to get away from the subject of break-ups for awhile, but I have to give you this one last lesson before we get completely away from the subject, because this level of stress may happen to you someday and I need to prepare you for it.

Fair warning, this is a little longer than usual because I’m quoting several e-mails, but men and women alike can learn a lot from this if you’ll take a few extra minutes to read it.

Fights, fear, insecurity about your future, etc., those things that eat at you when your relationship isn’t going well or has ended, are a lot more destructive than most people imagine. Yes, it’s obvious that it hurts and makes you lose sleep, but the degree to which it can inhibit logical thought and even make you lash out at those who want to help you through tough times is not so obvious.

I’m going to share with you three letters, all written by the same reader, two of which were written within less than a week of his subscribing to this newsletter, and the third one today. Bear with me, as the point will become very clear toward the end. Meet J., a man who has been in a lot of pain but is obviously finding his way out of it and back to mental clarity and stability:

(His first letter, captioned “ohmigod,” received after he had read only one issue of this newsletter:)

astounding

does anyone actually believe any of this?

so - if your partner is bored of you, its your fault

my parents told me that only boring people get bored

its you, the man's job, to dance attendance on her and make her feel special

just what kind of relationship do your readers have with their women - and what kind of woman is it who lounges around like a spoiled teenager expecting to be "swept off her feet" by her man

maybe if she made an effort to find stimulating shared experiences and PUTTING SOMETHING INTO the relationship, instead of seeing her husband as some kind of personal satisfaction service, she might not be quite the miserable self-centered bitch you think all women are

holy cow, get a grip - if you REALLY think this kind of woman is the best a man can get you're lost lost lost buddy

kind regards,

J

Kind regards, huh? I didn’t know it until later, but he had just come out of a bad relationship, and pretty much got the meaning of the newsletter he read entirely backwards, as any of you who have been reading my newsletters longer than a couple of days already realize. It was pretty obvious that he was angry and in pain, especially in the level of sarcasm in his writing, but I wasn’t yet sure that it was a relationship at the core of his problem.

I wrote back to tell him so, and not realizing that he had just been through a break-up and was looking for an outlet to ventilate, replied with a fairly short and demure response:

Good morning, J.,

I'm sorry, but you have taken whatever it is that you're responding to so far out of context that I can't even determine what post or newsletter you might be speaking of. I don't ever speak of fault, except to tell men and women not to preoccupy themselves with fixing fault and blame, and to take responsibility for whatever they may be able to improve in their relationship instead.

As for being part of the problem, yours is the first negative comment I have received from anyone since I began this, and I can forward you hundreds of e-mails from readers of both my newsletter and my book where these people are telling me that they have turned their relationships completely around and that they are now better than they have ever been, including their original honeymoon period. I can only guess that you either have a hot button that was pressed by something you read or that this is yet another case of two peoples being separated by a common language.

I appreciate you taking the time to write, but frankly, I might have been a lot more interested in what you have to say had you exercised a bit of tact in lieu of sarcasm about how I write and where I live. I hope you find whatever it is that you are missing, because you are obviously not a happy man.

Regards,
David

…and he replied with the following, captioned “OK” the next day:

read your latest contribution with interest

of course men shouldn't habitually complain about how little support they get from their wives

but its my experience that men are caught in a double bind, their women are allowed to be behave like dependent irrational little girls and be as assertive and independent as they like - they are encouraged to be both - "girls" and "women" - and woe betide any man who questions their right to be which they want to be at any given time

men on the other hand are expected to be supportive and independent at the same time, and find their support away from the relationship - "Big Guys"

support, unfortunately, is often needed at inconvenient times

so men are screwed, not by women, but by blogs like yours which tells them to stop being a "wuss" and insists that its their fault that they can't be superheroes and not have ordinary human needs like everyday love

well, buddy, you seem to be part of the problem and not the solution

and you use 10 words (badly written American corporate-speak at that) where one will do

keep up the good work!

kindest fraternal greetings

J

"Keep up the good work!" and "Kindest fraternal greetings"??? At this point it was pretty obvious that he’d been through a break-up or two, was awash in a sea of negative emotions, and needed somebody to rough him up a bit to wake him up to the fact that he was indeed reacting emotionally and needed to pull back and look at what he was doing, attempting to alienate me with sarcastic remarks and possibly others who were interested in helping him.

I hate having to “read somebody the riot act” as the saying goes, but every man knows that there’s nothing like getting stomped on a bit to make you realize that somebody does care about what’s going on with you, else they would just leave you, exposed and vulnerable, to wallow in pain and self-pity, so I sent him the following:

J.,

You'd probably be a much happier person if you spent a little more time listening and learning and a little less time trying to argue with people to defend the mistakes you've made in your life. People use all of this, every day, and they write letters to confirm how well it works. Before it was ever published, it was tested on over a hundred couples with complete success. The information I use concerning attraction is based in part on information that people like John Alanis, David D'angelo, F.J. Shark, and Ross Jeffries (dating gurus) proved effective as much as ten years or more before I ever took it up and adapted it for use by people in committed relationships.

I couldn’t care less what your parents taught you. Mothers teach their sons to be "nice guys" and kiss women's behinds, try to buy their affection, and dump all the decisions in their laps with regularity, because it's what they think they want, but when they get it, it turns them off completely. Making a woman feel special is done by listening and responding, and by acting like a man, not by "dancing attendance on her" or any other form of serving her.

I have no idea where you get this idea that I said anything about a woman lounging around like a spoiled teenager. Women do day-dream frequently throughout the day about feeling sexual attraction. It's why they read romance novels, and why they start fights when men ignore them. It’s how they prevent boredom if left to their own devices, and is far preferable to affairs and such. Women do try much harder than men to put something into relationships, but it usually comes after attraction is triggered and after they feel commitment. I don't know of any mentally healthy women who see their husband as some sort of personal satisfaction service, and I see no evidence of them being miserable or self-centered.

This is the last time I'm going to waste my time writing you. You've read one of my newsletters, apparently half-assed because you have no clue what I am telling people, and you're trying to argue with me that what I'm teaching doesn't work when (a) you don’t even know what I'm teaching, (b) if you were such an expert, you wouldn't be reading anything I've written to start with, you'd be getting rich selling what you know, and (c) everybody who has and is using it is doing so with outstanding success. Nobody who has ever used my information has ever said anything about it except how well it works, and nobody who has ever used it has asked for a refund, and I extend a satisfaction guarantee for a full year after purchase, so if they wanted to do so, they would have. That speaks for itself, as does the reality of the results that my material is giving those who use it.

Your options now are to either read and learn or argue with somebody else, because I don't really care what you think, what you agree with, or what your parents told you, and until you understand what I'm saying and have tried it, you're not in any position to criticize it. What I'm teaching came straight from working with hundreds of women to find out what they respond to, and then working with their men to make sure that men can understand and do what is required. It's reality, there is no arguing with it, and if you don't like it, you can sod off and be miserable while the rest of us are enjoying a great relationship with our wives and girlfriends. I don’t deal in opinions and have no time for armchair pundits; either get in the game or get off the field.

David

I didn’t hear back from J. for awhile, and he did exactly what every real man does when confronted with such a wake up call. He dug in, paid attention, found his way out of the pain and frustration, and put his brain back in charge of his well-being, proving to himself and the rest of the world that the pain of even the worst break-up can be very temporary if you can keep your wits about you, with or without the help of friends and other concerned parties. This message was received captioned “from your (former) tormentor”:

Hi David,

Remember me? I was the guy who pissed you off a few months ago.

Well, I still haven't read your book, but I have been reading your daily emails and I am not too proud to admit when I have made a misjudgment. I'm looking forward to reading your book, but a lot of what you say in your emails makes rock solid sense to me (and at 41, I've had enough unhappy girlfriends/bad relationships to realise that I must be getting something wrong).

I'm going to recommend your project to friends, read your book and come back with some constructive comments (I am presumptuous to say). I think you come from a good place.

I latched onto "makingherhappy" in a bad way, because, in my last relationship, I spent a huge amount of energy trying to make an immature girl happy and made myself very unhappy and ill in the process.

Here's a thought though: I have to go into a workplace where this girl will be. Ex-partners and work, now there's a thorny issue. Maybe not for you, but it’s a tricky one nonetheless.....

with all good wishes,

J

So, J., no, you didn’t piss me off, and this time I believe you when you send “best wishes.” And you’ll know how to handle the girl in the workplace after you’ve read "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," so don’t worry.

You see, Folks? When you’re having relationship troubles and feeling like your guts are being ripped out at every turn, you need a release for that frustration, and the most likely and unfortunate outlet is someone who is trying to help you precisely because you have their attention. Remember that, and guard yourself against it, because not everyone is able to recognize that an outburst is an act of reaching out for help, and you have to admit that it’s a very poor way to ask for help in any case.

What I recommend when anyone is having relationship or other problems that breed frustration, fear, pain, etc., is ACTION! Don’t sit back wondering what will happen next and waiting for it to happen. Dig in and find the cause of the problem and do something about it. It’s an excellent outlet for all that negative energy because it converts it into something constructive, achievement and stress relief, and it has the added benefit of MAKING THE PROBLEM GO AWAY! You can’t beat that with a stick, can you?

Whether you’re facing nuisance or disaster, the key to making it go away is two-fold: knowing what to do and then doing it. “Think things through, then follow through,” was famed U.S. Air Force test pilot Chuck Yeager’s “six-word formula for success,” and it works. “Thinking things through” in your relationship requires a sense of reason and a solid working knowledge of what you and your partner want and need and how you can best communicate.

Yep, that’s in "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," which you will find at http://www.makingherhappy.com. The best news is that if you read it before you have problems, you’ll likely never have any because you’ll work together to keep them out of your relationship, but if you do have problems, you can fix them. Just don’t alienate everybody you know while you’re trying to get through it.

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

It's TOO Easy to Destroy Your Relationship and Marriage When You Don't Talk With Your Partner

A reader letter demonstrates how a simple problem with a simple solution can be blown out of proportion to a damaging level if there is no communication to address the problem.

I hesitated to include this reader letter, because it’s going to make this newsletter a few paragraphs longer than normal, but aside from the fact that there’s some really good questions and answers involved, there’s also an EXTREMELY important lesson, for both men and women, to be learned from it. Bear with me for a few extra paragraphs and I’m sure you’ll find it worth the read.

By the way, note that the reader’s question is completely off-topic, and I’m not complaining about that and don’t want you to, either, because it leads to something very useful for everyone that is absolutely on-topic. Luckily, it was easy to develop some logical, practical and appropriate advice to give her and there were several women on the support team, including another counselor, who confirmed that it was what she should be told. But, the very fact that she presented this question to me, as someone doesn’t overtly offer sexual advice to anyone, should be a clear sign to all just how important both relationships and self-esteem are to women and that when things aren’t working, they will sometimes resort to desperate measures to try to bring things back to normal.

Luckily for Christy, the question landed with someone who could give rational, tested advice with the help of a research team instead of some whacko who could have done irreparable damage to her and her relationship by offering guess-work and opinion, or in the case of some less scrupulous individuals, whatever would manipulate her emotions the most. Here’s her first e-mail, and the subject matter is a little less “family-oriented” than I usually print, but please just bear with me because the resulting understanding will be well worth stepping outside your comfort zone for a moment – after all, these are real-world issues, and they don’t go away just because people don’t like to talk about them:

David,

I'm currently on my "monthly cycle" and during this time, my live-in boyfriend and I don't have sex. I still make it a point to try and please him, but he takes advantage of the "break" and masturbates to thoughts of other women. The other women are mostly fantasy -- movie stars, porn actresses, or faceless women in general. I consider myself a very attractive and satisfying woman (and he knows it), so I think it's questionable and even hurtful as to why he currently fantasizes about women (I also think porn is reserved for single men only). Our sexual relationship is VERY healthy, so I'm at a loss. Is this okay for men to do this when they're in a happy coupling? Can this be considered mental cheating?

Sincerely,
Wishing I was the only one

My reply:

Hi Christy!

Thank you for writing. Your question is a tricky one, and the correct answer depends on some details that you haven't yet provided. At first glance, it doesn't appear that there is a problem. If he's telling you that he's fantasizing about other women, he's being honest, and most likely faithful; if he were lying about it, or had any real desire for another woman, he'd be trying to conceal that, and lying to you about what stimulated him during masturbation.

Contrary to what women are unfortunately taught as they grow up, men don't masturbate because they are unhappy with their partner; we masturbate mainly for physical relief, especially if we are health-savvy and know that lapses in sexual activity cause a build-up of DHT and minerals in the prostate gland, which causes prostate congestion, which is uncomfortable to say the least, then Benign Prostate Hyperplasia (BPH, commonly known as swollen prostate or prostatitis) and has also been shown in clinical studies to be a prime factor in contraction of prostate cancer later in life.

As for whom he's fantasizing about, men are primarily visually stimulated sexually, and it may simply just be easier for him mentally to recall the images of things he's seen on the screen, especially if the two of you generally have sex with the lights out. Even the most sexually free men have some subconscious issues with masturbation because of the way parents deal with it, and frankly, it's prone to make us quite raw and sore if it takes too long, even with lubricant, so we tend to take the quickest and easiest path just to get it over with. If you're satisfying your man and he’s being honest and open about what he’s doing, the evidence says his masturbation is strictly preventive medicine, and I would strongly suggest to you that you don't try to read anything into it.

If you are insecure with him recalling the images from porn movies (speaking of which, many couples sit and view porn films together, sometimes as a mood enhancer, sometimes looking for adventurous techniques, etc., but it's by no means something that a woman should be concerned about unless he's spending more time with porn than with you, or is burning up half his paycheck with porn movie rentals, which is an obvious sign of some kind of mental problem) as he masturbates, there are a few things you might consider, among them, having sex while you're on your period, if you can find a way that's not uncomfortable, like in the shower (unless of course your objection is that it's painful during that time), or offer him some other form of sex in addition to or in lieu of his masturbation.

The main thing is to try to find a way to make it pleasurable for both of you, don't try to read anything into it, especially any kind of shortcoming on your part or infidelity on his, and use it as an opportunity to find new intimacy in your relationship. If you allow it to impact your self-esteem, both of you will pay dearly for that mistake, and if you feed any insecurities about his fidelity over this issue, you'll send a strong signal that he can't be honest with you about some things without being punished for it, and punishing honesty can turn into a relationship-killing problem.

I hope this helps. I'm not going to publish this in my newsletter unless you feel that it adequately answers your question and you're okay with having this show up in the newsletter, with or without your first name (I never use full names when quoting readers). If we need to discuss this further to fully address your issues, please feel free to write back.

Sincerely,
David Cunningham

Now, her final reply:

Thanks for your quick reply! I'm comfortable having this in the newsletter if you choose to do so, but then I wouldn't get to read anything new tomorrow :p. I think your response was logical and it helps me realize I'm just fueling my own insecurities. I'm definitely going to buy your book!

Thanks!
Christy

Now, note the last sentence before she says she’s going to buy my book: my response was logical and helped her to realize that “she was just fueling her own insecurities.” Ladies and gentlemen, I cannot overstress how nearly all women are prone to do this, obviously some much more than others, and how all it takes to put things right is simple, honest communication. It would have been far better if Christy’s boyfriend had answered her question instead of me, but he apparently made her believe that he was too “closed off” to discuss it, or just blew it off as something “she should just get over.” WRONG ANSWER!


What he should have done when it was cursorily discussed (which they must have done because she had details that she could have only had if he had provided them, like who he was involved with in his fantasy images), was to recognize that she wasn’t being whiney, she was looking for dialog and understanding, and he should have left her an open channel to discuss her feelings and how the two of them might approach their “down time” that could be more satisfying for both of them. Women get through problems by first talking about the problem, especially the emotions that the problem generates, and then negotiating a resolution.

Refusing to take part in that process comes across to women as dismissal, and on a scale of one to ten, that’s about a seventeen for being bad for your relationship or marriage. And the ugly part is that he may not have recognized her concerns if she said something like, "And you think this is okay for a married man?" which is how a woman says, "I don't think a married man, especially MY married man, should be doing this."

The Lesson: Gentlemen, when women bring up anything that has to do with your relationship, they are concerned; they actively manage their relationships of all kinds, and work the hardest to manage the ones most important to them. Don’t make light of their concern and blow them off, because you then leave them to their own devices and assumptions, which are mainly emotionally-based since it’s an emotional issue and they are emotionally-driven, in lieu of factual information, to try to handle the situation for themselves, and this will never end well. If they were secure enough for it to end well, they wouldn’t have been concerned in the first place. They can easily grasp fact and logic when you give it to them before they have a chance to get upset and get amped up on drama adrenaline, so talk WITH (NOT “TO”) them when they want to talk instead of waiting until they force you to talk.

Ladies, until your partner has been through my book and fully understands how you view relationships and communicate, he will have little to no clue as to the importance of this subject matter because he is unfamiliar with your priorities and not skilled enough at interpreting advanced female communications protocols and techniques to read between the lines. Try to keep your emotions in check and your wits about you, and know that you have to voice your concerns, bluntly and verbosely, and looking disturbed and rolling your eyes as you omit a guttural exhale doesn’t constitute bluntly and verbosely. You must be patient, and spell it out for them. When you do this, they may still not completely understand your dilemma or why it’s such a big deal at first, but will understand that since you’re speaking bluntly when they’ve never heard that before, it must be something incredibly important and you will have their undivided attention long enough to make progress, unless they are just a complete and utter moron.

I’m sorry that it took so much verbiage to get this across, but this is such a shining example of what can happen in a communications vacuum and how easily it could be avoided that I just had to do it. Unlike some, I can’t do things half-heartedly or half-assed, and I hope that you will settle for nothing less as well. I’ve taken the same approach in “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage,” giving you 118 single-spaced pages of solid, tested information (in normal type) when most reports and e-books in the $40 range are more like 30-60 pages of double- or triple-spaced large type; I was advised by others in the industry to keep it that short so I could “fluff it up” and turn it into a paperback later, which I found disgusting to say the least. Download your copy today at http://www.makingherhappy.com and start getting along, instead of just getting by.

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

A Female Perspective on Political Correctness, Wussification, and Its Destructive Impact on Relationships and Marriage

A female reader speaks out on behalf of many others against “political correctness and the castration of the American Male” (according to other readers this is going on EVERYWHERE!). There is a solution, and it’s a great idea, no matter where you live.

I got an e-mail last night from a reader who sounds like she’s about as fed up and downright pissed off as a woman can get. She’s got a beef with the world’s over-reaction to feminism and political correctness in general, and is issuing a wake-up call. Meet Gail:

Hi David,

I’m angry right now, very angry, and it might have been better if I had waited to share this until I was a little more composed, but I’ve been angry for months, and I’ve shared this repeatedly with my girlfriends and realize that doing so is not accomplishing anything because I’m SO “preaching to the choir” that it’s ridiculous. I’ve got to share it with someone who can help me do something about it, and I’m starting with you.

My husband of 28 years is a wuss. He wasn’t a wuss when I married him, or for years after I married him. He’s a production manager at a large manufacturing company, and got to that position because he was an excellent leader, strong and decisive, but always fair, and tried to be a good motivator. If he doesn’t straighten up soon, he’s going to lose his job, and he may even end up losing me, if I don’t kill him first!

You see, he went to this seminar that was supposed to help him be a better manager, and from what he told me, it amounted to a pep rally for touchy-feely people and about the only thing he came away from the seminar with was the idea that he needed to pay his employees personal compliments to make them feel like he was interested in them as people, not just employees. I think this is ridiculous, because you show people you are interested in them by asking them questions, not saying flattering things, but that’s beside the point.

There was a woman who worked under him – I call her a woman, but she was a gold-digging hussy just watching for a chance to sue somebody – and when my husband complimented her on a nice hairstyle one day, she went to the HR department and filed a sexual harassment complaint! He spent the next six months being raked over the coals by corporate attorneys, HR consultants, attending “sensitivity training seminars,” etc., to finally get the bitch satisfied and still be able to keep his job. He’s now been so mentally and emotionally battered that he’s afraid to talk to women, including me!

He used to be so very strong and confident. He walked into a room like he owned it because he did. Now he walks into a room looking as if he expects to be attacked if there’s a woman there. We’ve talked about it, and he says the problem is that the legal threats and the threat of losing his job after 31 years with the same company made him realize what would happen if he were to suddenly lose his job this late in life, and how little it might take, and it “spooked him” as he says.

I’ve just bought your book for him, and if it has everything in it you say it does, I’m pretty sure he’ll be okay. He or I may have questions; will it be okay if we contact you? If so, how?

Thank you in advance for your help,

Gail F.

My reply:

Well, Gail, to say I’m feeling your pain would be an understatement. What you describe comprises one of my main motivations in writing “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage.” I’m not an antagonist or provocateur, but I am as disgusted with all this politically correct nonsense and the wussification of both men specifically and people everywhere in general that I could about puke. There was a time when I would have offered an apology if the word “puke” offended anybody’s fragile sensibilities, but today, I just really don’t care. I say it to get the message across, not to try to offend people. (Indeed, Gentlemen, if it offends you, grow some skin or find another newsletter to occupy your time, because becoming an alpha male is definitely not in your future.)

Getting back to the subject at hand, congratulations! I see all kinds of corrective action being taken here. Discussion with your husband and nailing down the problem is a huge and wonderful step in the right direction, one that, unfortunately, many couples couldn’t pull off. Identifying a path back to your husband’s old alpha male (and therefore highly desirable and effective leader) self and taking the first steps down that path are also commendable.

To answer your questions, I read all e-mail, answer as much of it as I can and still remain productive, and any questions and answers that can benefit all readers, as you know, appear here in this newsletter with the senders’ consent. If your husband needs a session or two with a personal coach to speed up the process he can e-mail me at support@makingherhappy.com, but it shouldn’t be necessary. You’ve made an excellent start with my book, and I’m going to suggest to you that in your case, you skip the beginning material on evaluating your relationship for now and have him start with the communication section. He is one of the few whom I would say should complete the evaluation after he has cured this crisis of confidence; your relationship is obviously on a solid foundation if you are taking this route to try to help him.

In your case, the communication section will help him regain his confidence in speaking to women because he will be better prepared to pick up hints and signals, which will in turn help remove that “vulnerable and lost” feeling, one of the main reasons I put it before the attraction section. Then have him continue through the attraction section, and work with him as he goes through it. If you want to be really supportive, read a bit ahead of him and try to round up copies of books, movies, etc., that are mentioned as good examples so they will be convenient for him. It will speed his progress, which you’ll both appreciate, and the two of you will thoroughly enjoy watching movies like “The Fountainhead” and “Don Juan DeMarco” together.

Speaking of examples, there is one that is not yet in the book that I need to add, and while it is about U.S. Americans (I personally hold all people in this hemisphere as Americans, since we live in “North,” “Central,” and “South America”), it is an interesting read and full of good examples for all men to follow, regardless of where you live. The book is called “The Greatest Generation,” by Tom Brokaw. I never cared for Brokaw’s politics or the political slant in a lot of his reporting because there’s a big difference in reporting the news and trying to influence the public’s perception of it, but the details in this book about the men very often describe heroic alpha males, and regardless of your feelings for Brokaw or U.S. heroes of World War II, the role models found there are effective, and it makes for interesting and productive supplementary reading.

One other thing that I need to bring out and that you need to point out to your husband is that “sexual harassment” is only a workplace issue as far as legalities go. It is a workplace issue because you are compelled to co-exist there for the sake of your employment. That doesn’t give you license to be chauvinistic, rude and obnoxious everywhere else, but that does mean it is the only place where you may have to actively avoid any kind of sexuality, so if you are concerned, contain your concern to the workplace and be yourself – your respectful but assertive and naughty, and therefore FUN self – everywhere else. He just needs to see examples of it being okay to be the way he used to be so he can get back in touch with it, just like most men.

Take care, and keep in touch,
David

There you have it, folks. If you (Gentlemen) or the man in your life (Ladies – it’s just wrong that I even have to say that, but I know I’ll get a ton of smart-ass comments from you jokers if I don’t! LOL!) are feeling castrated, there is a fix, guaranteed effective, in “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage.” Download your copy today at http://www.makingherhappy.com and get back to being the man you were born to be.

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

Confession! How Some Women Trap Men into Long-Term Relationships and Marriage

Another MUST READ! A female reader discloses several of the ways she was taught by her mother to trap a man into marrying her.

What a day this has turned out to be! I got a letter from a whistle-blower!

The biggest reason for marriages to utterly and violently fail is that the “partners” never actually function as partners because they are badly mismatched, but desperation, deceit, attraction, need, or unfortunate circumstances (being abused in parents’ home, pregnant, etc.) cause them to choose to marry anyway.

Such couples may try to hack it out for years, but I’ve never seen nor heard of a couple that was happy or satisfied in an environment of tension and friction over conflicting values, philosophies, priorities, etc., and identifying that you are in such a situation is the first step in getting out of it and trying to make a happy life possible.

Before I continue, please note that, contrary to the comments of some morons who have read nothing more than one or two of my newsletters before passing a very erroneous and emotionally-driven judgment, I do NOT advocate divorce as a blanket solution to fixable marital problems. I advocate divorce only when reality dictates it because there are insurmountable marital problems.

For the record and your understanding, I mainly recommend divorce as a solution to problems that are 100% fatal to a marriage, such as a lack of compatibility or being tied to a parasite, predator, or an abuser, which cannot be corrected and no compromise will compensate for, so that individuals who are in a no-win situation can have a chance at enjoying a relationship with the foundation required to make a lifetime commitment not only reasonable, but enjoyable. It is and should only be used as a weapon of last resort when all other reasonable options are exhausted, not your first line of defense.

However, if a marriage was doomed before the participants ever said, “I do,” it should be deployed immediately and with both finality and the cooperation of the participants so that they have a chance to invest their time and effort in something that has a chance of bringing them happiness instead of frustration, resentment, and emptiness leading them to lie, have affairs, and destroy their self-esteem and their lives. So now let’s get on with today’s lesson.

A reader has written to inform us of some of the ways that her mother taught her to use to ensnare a man she thought would take good care of her. And before anybody decides to send me hate mail, I AM NOT saying that all women do this, or that most do it. Some do it, just as some men (using different tactics, of course) do it, and of those I’ve spoken with who did, most regretted it so much that they wouldn’t do it again. Then there are those few parasites and predators that can’t even discuss regretting it because they’re too damaged to realize how bad it is or how unhappy they are. This is about helping you to check to see if it’s happened to you, not to convince you that it has. So keep an open mind and a view of the facts as you proceed, and in case you missed it, the article from a couple of days ago, “Don’t ACT Attractive, BE Attractive for a Great Relationship and Marriage,” also speaks of this kind of scenario and has more advice that you wont’ want to miss. Read it if you haven’t already.

So now, without further ado, meet Mary. She has a lot to say:

Hi David,

First of all let me say that your book was at first a pill I had a hard time swallowing, not because it was not the truth, but because it hit the nail on the head and made me realize just how much of a pain the ass I could be to my boyfriend. To this day I cannot believe I could look at myself and not see what I was doing, but it made me really start to think about my actions and the way I talked and took care of problems with Jack. So thank you for opening my eyes and letting the light in. Our friends look at us now and see the perfect couple instead of the couple most likely to kill each other.

The main reason I am writing to you is to tell you about a discussion I had with my mother last night. She asked me how things were going with Jack and me and when we were going to get married. I told her that things were fine but he hadn’t yet brought up getting married, even though we’ve been together for four years and living together for the last two years. She started telling me about all the things that her mother taught her about how to snare or trap a man into marrying.

I listened for over two hours to her describing things that her mother’s generation and her generation had done, the reasons they had done them, and the outcomes, and by the end of it, I was literally sick to my stomach. I was also angry at her for thinking I should even consider doing something like she described, because I have a good job and can get along quite well on my own, where in her day (she’s nearly 70) marrying the right man was like a hunting skill, because if you wanted to be comfortable, you had to marry a man of means.

She told me a dozen stories about friends and family members using pregnancy to get married. Some would get pregnant while others would claim to be pregnant long enough to get married and then “lose” the baby. One of my aunts would claim to be pregnant, get the engagement ring, lose the baby, break off the engagement, and then pawn or sell the ring for money for liquor. She died in a drunk-driving accident when she was 26.

She said that when a man has low self-esteem, playing the virgin card almost always worked. She told me a lot of stories about women who teased men and refused to have sex until they were married because they wanted to “save themselves” for their husband. I was amazed at how she could say that it “worked” when so many of the people she talked about were date-raped before they got married, some of whom ended up pregnant without a husband.

She also told me to make sure that I was “a chef in the kitchen, a lady in the parlor, and a whore in the bedroom,” but not to worry because I wouldn’t have to do it after we were married, because he only had to feel special until he said “I do,” and then I could train him to be what I wanted him to be. Yeah, right. I’m 39 years old, and have never been able to get a man to put a new bag in the trash when he empties it, and have only been able to get one to empty it. I’ll not get into the issue with the toilet seat. She called this “plan B” for when you could no longer claim to be a virgin, and under plan B, you have sex whenever he wants it, not when you want it.

She said to just go along with whatever he wants to do, and act like I enjoyed all the same stuff that he did so he’d think I was the perfect mate. She called this “the icing on the cake” that would make a man who wanted my body marry me to have it, and that I could quit doing all this stuff with him after the honeymoon too, just by claiming that I was too busy with the house or kids or whatever, because there’s always a way to look too busy to have fun with him, and he wouldn’t mind if I told him to go out and have fun with his friends. I just needed to make sure that I stashed money out of his paychecks so that he didn’t have enough to afford enough fun to involve another woman.

Sucking up to his family was another big ploy, especially if he called his mother a lot. She said getting along with his mother was more important than getting along with him, at least until the wedding. At the same time, a woman is supposed to make him feel like she would follow him anywhere, even if it meant never seeing her own family again.

Biting your tongue and never arguing, no matter what, was also a great tool for reeling a man in, and she said that giving in to his whims and not nagging about anything would make him feel like he owned me. No matter what the issue, he was to be right, until he said, “I do.”

Then came the hook. Doing all of these things to show him what kind of a life he could “expect” was followed by a sudden withdrawal, saying, “I don’t think you love me. I do all this for you, and you’ve not brought up marriage. I’m going to go away on a trip with my girlfriends for a few days to let you think about this, and I’ll call you when I get back, unless I run into someone who appreciates me more than you do.” She said it’s like dangling a treat in front of a dog, and the higher you hold it the higher they’ll jump to try to reach it.

I’m still upset with my mother, mainly because she really thought that I would want to do these things. I’ve been married once before, I was alone for eight years before I met Jack and had an active and enjoyable dating life, I have six-figure income, own my house and four rental properties, and my retirement is already secure. I do not need a man around, but I do enjoy a good one, and by the way, thank you for what you’ve done for Jack and me. We may never marry, but I’m quite happy with the way things are now. He’s an alpha male from the ground up now, listens when I talk with him, and I’ve not been bored since he finished your book. Thanks for getting us out of that rut we had slipped into.

Be well,
Mary T.

Wow! Thanks for the letter, Mary. I’m glad to see that things are looking up for you, and in addition to the tactics you shared, I want to thank you for showing my readers that women can in fact achieve just as much as men and that the old paradigm of using “The Rules” to trap a man into marrying you is a bad idea from a woman’s point of view as well as a man’s.

Guys, a good match-up breeds everything else that makes a relationship work. It’s what creates love, respect, trust, and all those things that are the foundation of a happy long-term relationship. If you’ve seen the symptoms of what Mary described and you’ve been constantly unhappy, you at least need to take a look at whether there is any livable future to be had by staying in your relationship.

Attraction makes for a lot of fun, but yo-yoing from fun to fight spoils the fun, and that’s just no way to live. Sure, and occasional disagreement or fight is going to happen, but if you’re into a major altercation once or more per month and your relationship doesn’t seem to work anywhere except the bedroom, you’re mismatched, and there is no amount of counseling, hoping, praying, or anything else that is going to fix that. The kind of change that would be required to fix such a problem would in turn require that someone remake their self to suit the other, and people just don’t do that; indeed, they generally resent any pressure to do so on any level and it adds hatred to an already-bad situation.

But, if you have that foundation, learning how to communicate with the women in your life, especially your partner, is an easily-developed skill that will make all of them enjoyable to live or work with, and will deepen and amplify all elements of the foundation; do you think you can have true intimacy with a woman when you can’t communicate with her?

Then, the real icing on the cake is to understand “what makes her tick” and what she really wants in her “perfect man,” to make life fun and exciting and save her from that most torturous of all female ailments, boredom. It’s done by simply understanding what flips her natural, biological attraction switches on and doing it, which is ridiculously easy because what flips those switches on is acting like a man naturally acts when you remove all the wussy programming that has been shoved down our throats since the 1960’s.

That’s right! Becoming the “ultimate” male doesn’t involve programming yourself, it’s requires DEPROGRAMMING yourself, when means getting rid of the stress of trying, even subconsciously, to be something that you naturally are not. We are born to be something that women find overwhelmingly sexually attractive to perpetuate the species, and somewhere along the line most of us “learn” things that takes us away from this behavior, because it’s not “politically correct,” or “socially acceptable.”

If you don’t think so, look at a playground and see the ease with which little boys pull pigtails and the insecurity they have later in life when it comes time to ask one – even the same one who’s pigtails he pulled earlier in life -- out on a date? Women have had enough of this wuss programming and behavior, and they’ve come forward in droves to tell us so, and to remind us of what it is they really want, and it’s been translated from “girly-ese” to “man-speak” for you to make sure you don’t miss a single point.

Great news, right? It gets even better! How you can shed this wussy programming and be exactly what you were born to be, and incidentally, what ever woman wants, is all contained in "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" in an instantly downloadable e-book (how’s that for immediate gratification?!) at http://www.makingherhappy.com. Sure you can do it, because you were born to do it. That’s what that “Y” chromosome is there for.

Step up, shed the stress, enjoy your life, and in the process help your wife or girlfriend to enjoy hers. Then see the rewards she’ll heap on you for doing so. They are many and wonderful, so much so that you may not recognize her when it starts!

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

Why a Man Should Be Naughty, Not Nice, to Have a Great Relationship and Marriage

A male reader asks why his relationship is going to hell while he’s being the nicest, sweetest guy he can be. Let’s see if he likes the answer!

I’m both proud of this reader and dismayed at his question. I’m proud because he’s asking a good question, albeit one that is probably answered on my web site home page at http://www.makingherhappy.com, but I’m not going to fault somebody for taking the direct approach to getting needed information! I’m also dismayed that his life has gone this sour this soon after marriage; it usually takes twice this long, but he does hint that he’s doubling as a “girlfriend” for his wife. Meet Roy:

Hi David,

I just signed up for your newsletter yesterday, and I’m guessing you’re either some sort of guru or a real idiot if you’ve published a book like your ad claims, so I have to ask a question. I’ve been married for a little over a year now, and my marriage has gone from being hot dates and great sex to one never-ending routine. I can’t get my wife interested in doing anything with me anymore. She’s told me I’m the nicest, most considerate guy she’s ever met, and likes it that I’m “in touch with my feminine side” as she calls it, and we’ve been friends for years before getting married and get along fine, but the spark is gone. I’ve always heard that marriage is the surest way to kill the female libido known to science, but it’s not just her libido that has gone. I can’t even get her to go out to dinner with me anymore. I offer to let her choose the restaurant and everything, and she just won’t go for it. Is this the way it always goes, or am I missing some magical mystery ingredient? Help a brother out here!

Roy G.

My reply:

Well, Roy, you came to the right place for help, but I don’t know if you’re going to like the answer. It’s going to depend on how easily you can accept reality and adjust your attitude to match it. You see, you’ve been doing everything we men have been told to do all our lives, and it’s all wrong!!!

We grow up being told by our mothers, teachers and everybody else to be “nice” to women, to be considerate, let them make all decisions, etc., and a lot of them even think they like it when a man does it if they’ve recently been with some abusive a**hole who tried to control their life and didn’t even leave them room for input into a decision.

As you’ll find in my book, “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage,” it’s not a nice guy nor an abusive a**hole that they really want and respond to, but a guy that’s in the middle, a guy who’s assertive without being controlling, confident, naughty without being an abusive jerk, and can at least grasp communications on a woman’s level even though he’s not wired with the equipment to be able to communicate on such a complex and sophisticated level. It’s love, respect, leadership, and fun that they need, not somebody fawning over them and catering to their every whim, which all but a damaged few actually find boring and annoying.

I know it doesn’t sound right, but it’s a biological response, not a conscious or logical one, like her attraction mechanism is on autopilot, and women aren’t visually stimulated to attraction like men are. Picture in your mind the ugliest, nastiest, smelliest old “ho” you can think of, and gauge your sexual reaction to that visual. There’s no changing it, either, is there? Well, to her, a boring nice guy who acts like a wuss and dumps all the decisions in her lap and doesn’t recognize her frustration with him acting that way is the same emotional picture as your mental image of that old “ho,” and her reaction is the same, and just as unavoidable, automatic, and if I may say so, violently sickening.

In a woman’s mind, nice guys are wusses; predictable pushovers that present no mystery, no challenge, and no strong self-image. Indeed, they often appear to be trying to buy respect and affection because they can’t command it. The underlying thought is that if you can’t stand up TO her, you can’t stand up FOR her.

Obviously, since I had to write a whole book on the subject to cover it, I can’t tell you how to fix your problems in a few paragraphs of a daily newsletter. You’re best bet right now, since you’re already in trouble, is to go to http://www.makingherhappy.com where you subscribed to this newsletter and download the book, “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage,” and start reading. Once you have a command of what you need to know, you’ll find it easy, and to some degree automatic, to get your attitude right and put what you’ve learned into practice. Procrastination is the tool of losers, and action the tool of achievers, so get busy! Life’s too short to spend another minute of it losing!

Take care, and keep in touch,
David

What else can I say? If the problem sounds familiar, the solution is the same. Get busy! And get happy!

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 in Relationships and Marriage, Part 1, Faking It Until You Make It

Is lying to your partner ever a good attraction tactic? Is it ever good for anything in your relationship? Only if you’re a predator…

This is the first part of a three-part series on the various aspects of deceit in a relationship, which will include, among other things, lie detection, so don't miss any part of it! Reader comments indicate it is one of the most popular topics we discuss and the second most popular newsletter series I issue, and truth be told, I should probably turn it into a stand-alone report, so even if you’ve seen it before, read carefully and treat it as a “refresher course” if necessary.

I’ve been asked frequently about the tactic of “fake it ‘til you make it” when trying to revive stale relationship or rescue a failing one. We’ve not talked about it in several months, and since many of you have commented (all comments are welcome and read; see the text below my signature for instructions if you need them) that you like it much better when we focus on a subject for a few days and thoroughly explore it, we’re going to focus on lying and deceit in general for a few days, such as detecting it, damage it can do that you may not expect, etc. Let’s dig in!

I recently read (for the fourth time) the scariest book I’ve ever found. It’s entitled “The Rules: Time-tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right,” by Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider, in an effort to find out why women do so many things that are bad for them and their relationships with men, and I don’t know if this book is “the root of all evil” in relationships and marriage, but while some of the advice it gives is sound, practical advice, especially on personal security for women, parts of it are pure poison, and there’s much for both genders to learn from it if you can filter the good advice from the bad.

Frankly, I’d recommend that every man read it to see what kind of tricks and ploys are used to pull a man into a bad relationship to help him know that either his partner is a great woman who didn’t prey upon his insecurities or that he got sucked in and is being manipulated so he can take appropriate action to safely exit with confidence. Make no mistake, there are good relationships with problems, and there are bad relationships that need to be dissolved, and no matter which you’re in, you need to know EXACTLY what you’re in to fix it. Your first responsibility is to yourself and your own happiness, and until you’ve met that responsibility, you might contribute to someone else’s needs or cause, but not their happiness.

“The Rules,” according to its authors, is based on advice that a woman gave her daughter a hundred years ago or more on how to catch and marry a man. At that time, marrying well was a survival skill because many women could not make it on their own due to social prejudices, etc. Being “in love” was a luxury; “finding support” was a prime motivator in finding a husband; being “cared about” took a back seat to being “provided for.” Hence, much of the advice given under “The Rules” is how to prey upon a man’s insecurities to make him jealous and over-react to her scarcity, marrying her in order to control her availability.

This will get the job done, if simply getting married and being kept is a woman’s goal, but at what cost? In short, turning him into an insecure, jealous wuss that no woman could possibly be attracted to because a woman won’t respect and can’t feel attraction (that “swept off her feet” feeling that is an integral part of female sexual arousal) for a man she can control. This is a sure-fire recipe for disaster (especially if you have a healthy libido!), as it is what creates that marriage in which the woman spends everything the man makes but has sex with the proverbial gardener or pool boy instead of her husband.

I’ll get into more of this in a future newsletter, but what I want to talk about today, and the reason I bring this up, is that much of the advice given in this book entails lying to men to attract them. I’m going to address that issue for the women in my upcoming book written for them, but it begs the more general question: “Is lying ever a good way to handle anything in a relationship, especially the building of attraction?”

The short answer, for both genders, is “Not just no, but HELL NO!” unless you are indeed some kind of predator or a total loser. Among other things, it leaves you feeling that you had to lie to attract the partner and therefore aren’t good enough to have him or her, even if you are! It also labels you as needy and weak, and is a tactic for losers and predators who cannot be attractive in their own right. That alone is devastating to self-esteem, if you have any, and when you look at the bigger picture, how can you feel or express love or respect for a person you lied to in order to have them involved in your life? Or for yourself? Can you love and respect yourself after lying to trick somebody into a relationship with you? Even without getting into what happens when you get caught, it’s a losing proposition for both sides.

What should you do? Work your attraction magic with things that are really part of you, incorporating new things that fit well into yourself if necessary. Start by emphasizing – NOT exaggerating -- your best behavior and avoiding and ultimately reforming – NOT disguising -- your worst. Then, take on a bit of self-improvement in areas that are appealing to you. If you’re not naturally funny, learn to be. Don’t just try to fake it, and stress over it; study it, understand how it can brighten your life and your outlook on life, as well as make you more attractive to your partner, and treat it as a self-improvement exercise because it is. Don’t try to act funny, BECOME funny. Join Toastmaster’s or something and learn how to tell a good story and see the humor in things. Take dancing lessons if you’ve always thought about it but never got around to it. Learn how to have real fun and adventure yourself and you will be fun and interesting to a woman.

Another example? Don’t try to act romantic, BE romantic. Develop a genuine appreciation for the great, the beautiful, the larger than life, and be able to spot it and point it out to others as you do in a way which helps them to get excited over it and appreciate it, as you see in the movie “Don Juan DeMarco.” Take a music appreciation or art appreciation class to get you started, or take up some kind of hobby where appreciation for greatness will be an inherent part of it as you delve deeper into the hobby, and gain self-esteem from your achievements as you progress. This isn’t changing yourself for her, it’s changing yourself for YOU, to have what YOU want, which is a strong, positive, attractive personality that you enjoy living with, people enjoy being around and which will attract viable candidates for a great relationship.

Or, you could just try to “fake it ‘til you make it,” and be stressed out over having your cover blown and somebody seeing the real you and not liking what they see, kicking you to the curb while yelling “Fraud!” and walking away without another thought. No? I thought not.

This process is not difficult; indeed, it’s most enjoyable. Most people who don’t engage in self-improvement avoid it because of fear of failure, not because there’s really any reason for them to fail, while most people who do engage in it (and I do mean ENGAGE, not just buy the materials and set them on the shelf or skim them instead of using them) succeed.

By the same token, if you don’t have any exciting stories to tell, don’t make them up – get off your butt and get out and do something exciting! If you’re not an expert at something, don’t fake it and make an ass of yourself, pick something interesting and useful to you (and hopefully fun for you as well) and BECOME an expert. It is far better to be silent and thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt! Besides, a man needs a hobby. ;-)

Never, ever, lie to your partner. Even without regard for moral or ethical issues; it’s just too stressful for both of you, and too damaging to your self-esteem, whether you get caught or spend years trying to maintain a lie, not to mention damaging to the relationship. It’s far easier to actually become attractive than to try to just put on the act, and once you do become attractive, BEING attractive isn’t just stress-free, it’s fun! And then, if the potential for love is there, it can develop and make for a truly great relationship that stands the test of time.

There’s a wealth of solid, tested information in “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage” on what women find attractive, and just as important, what will kill it in a heartbeat, not to mention how to communicate with her in a way that has her talking with you instead of spending hours every day complaining about you to all her girlfriends, or the guy she’s having an affair with! It can even help you figure out if you’re in a relationship that has a good foundation and can make it or if you’ve been pulled in by a “Rules Girl” and are truly too mismatched for there to be any hope.

This is it, your best shot at getting things back on the right track no matter how far astray they’ve gone, so download your copy today at http://www.makingherhappy.com, because the information works, the price is right, the guarantee is unconditional, and life is too short to miss living it to the fullest.

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

Are Your Friends Helping or Destroying YOUR Relationship and Marriage?

Who’s giving you advice? Are they succeeding in whatever way you want to succeed and living the way you want to live? If not, they’re not the people to be advising you, especially about your relationship.

I was out with my wife once at a local Mexican restaurant and saw something disgusting that we need to discuss. No, it wasn’t something with legs in the enchiladas or the salsa verde. It was a couple of fairly young men, seemingly in their early thirties. One of them was slouched over, in grungy clothes, looking like a total slacker – I looked under his table to see if there was a skateboard hiding there. His clothes were wrinkled, his hair disheveled and if he had come to my door to visit my daughter looking like that I would have kicked his sorry butt out the door and told him to come back when he’d acquired soap – both the body and laundry varieties – and some self-respect.

His companion looked considerably better. He sat up straight, and was dressed for being in public. He was fairly well-groomed, His shirt was tucked in and his clothes were not wrinkled. He had more of a worldly air about him. There was a near-empty margarita pitcher between them and they were both talking louder than they should have been. (It’s amazing how tequila damages others’ hearing and not your own, isn’t it??? LOL!)

The more respectable-looking of the pair was dating a co-worker of theirs, apparently a high-quality girl that was pretty popular in the office. He told his friend he wanted to escalate the relationship because he thought they were right for each other. Before he got to the end of the sentence, his friend the slacker said, "Dude, no way she’ll hang with you! You're not her type. She’s into power and sleeps with the boss. Even if she did hook up steady with you, you’d just screw it up like you’ve done with every other woman you’ve dated."

Doesn’t sound like much of a friend, does he? Unfortunately, it’s not that uncommon amongst "friends" for one whose having a hard time or just generally negative about everything to rain on everybody else’s parade. In his mind, if he’s not happy, it’s not fair for anybody else to be. Instead of being happy for his friend, he’s throwing cold water on his friend’s desires/ambitions, possibly for no better reason than to keep himself from having somebody to drink with or complain to.

The disgusting thing is that it worked! The poor guy sat there a moment and then said, "Yeah, you're probably right." He allowed his so-called "friend" to rob him of his ambition and convince him that he didn't have a chance with her. They worked in the same office! If she’d really been sleeping with the boss, wouldn’t they BOTH have heard about it by then? It’s ridiculous that so many people do this to one another, and still call each other “friends”! It’s just plain sick to think about, but it’s the nature of people who lack self-esteem.

Losers have a tendency to want to pull others down to their level, instead of learning from their friends and drawing on their successes as inspiration for their own success, which would elevate them to their mentor’s level. Lacking character, it’s easier for them to talk trash to the achievers around them than to get off their lazy butt and achieve something. Is this the kind of person you want to take advice from, about anything in your life??? I hope not, and I can tell you categorically and with authority that it is not.

This kind of person is a prime target for the “hire slowly, fire quickly” method of forming relationships of any kind. No matter how much you want to do or try to do, they will try at every turn to discourage and disparage anything that is above them. This is the last person in the world that you want to be discussing anything important or personal with, because they can’t possibly have anything good going on in their life or they wouldn’t be talking to you this way.

Their opinion of what you should be doing or any advice they may offer is therefore worthless; otherwise, they would be having some successes and being upbeat about at least a few things in their life. Their sole purpose in any conversation with you will be to bring you down, not celebrate your dreams and successes with you.

Always make sure you are fully supported by your friends and family. If you have any “friends” that are constantly telling you that you will not be able to accomplish something, or that you’re wife will end up leaving you, or that you can’t possibly get that better job you’re going after without any facts to back up their claims (if you’re trying to learn to play piano with no hands, or you’re a violent spouse abuser, or the job you’re applying for requires a PhD and you don’t have a high school diploma, they may have a point, but you know what I mean), fire them!

They’re not worthy of sharing your life’s energy and your space. Know the difference between a good friend who has relevant facts that you don’t yet possess and cares enough to give them to you and the pessimistic gothic ne’er-do-well who thinks it rains 24/7 and wants to make sure you stay soaked in their misery.

People like this can insidiously turn you into a carbon copy of themselves, and as you can imagine, that’s about as unattractive as it gets. Just ask any woman (who’s not one of these constantly complaining losers) what she thinks of them. She’ll tell you, in no uncertain terms, that she wants someone fun and upbeat, somebody with brains and vision and leadership skills, not some loser who ridicules greatness because he’ll never aspire to it, let alone achieve it. Nobody who looks at his shoes when he talks and walks and disparages everything he hears is attractive, to anyone, in any way, except maybe to a hard-up mugger looking for a target.

Besides, what kind of valuable advice would someone who is always negative and never going anywhere or doing anything have to give? There’s an old Chinese proverb that really comes into play here: "The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it." Ayn Rand also had something very valuable to say about this: "The ladder of success is best climbed by stepping on the rungs of opportunity." What opportunities will you be availing yourself of while you have Joe Doomengloom constantly telling you that you’re just going to fall off the ladder? Kick his (or her) ass to the curb and get on with the business of being a man.

Always surround yourself with positive, up-beat people -- people who have confidence in themselves and in you. Real friends will strengthen and support you when you’re onto something good, and if they do say something negative, it will be to give you the benefit of their experience or insight and keep you out of trouble, not to keep you from achieving.

Also, no matter what you’re doing, if you are going to ask somebody for a recommendation or advice, make sure that they have been successful in pursuing whatever you are pursuing, and therefore have valid experience to draw on and valid advice to give. Don’t ask your CPA for legal advice (unless he’s also a lawyer) or your lawyer for tax advice (unless he’s also a tax accountant). Don’t ask somebody who doesn’t even use a computer and has never sold anything to review your Internet business and give you suggestions. And above all, don’t ask an unhappy slacker who has no history of lasting, happy relationships about anything having to do with your relationship. If you want to succeed at anything, find somebody who has already succeeded, and learn from what they did, both right and wrong.

I’m a guy you can ask for help with a relationship, especially one that’s gone stale over time and needs reviving. I’ve done it, and I don’t think I could ask for things to be much better. In addition to my own experience, I have that of 118 other couples who all helped develop and test the content of “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage” – they all improved their relationships dramatically with this very material as we researched it, as did thousands more who have added the benefit of their experience in the years since. We all learned how to evaluate relationships, how to communicate to effectively bridge the inter-gender communications gap, and what it takes to trip a woman’s attraction triggers and bring that honeymoon back with a bang!

Learn from us and make your own relationship all it can be by going to http://www.makingherhappy.com right now and downloading your copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," because it works, it’s guaranteed, and life’s too short to wait for good things to happen – YOU MUST MAKE THEM HAPPEN, AND YOU CAN!

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

The Fool, the Smart, and the Wise -- Which One Wins in Relationships and Marriage?

There are three kinds of people, the foolish, the smart, and the wise. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to become wise and thereby avoid the mistakes that others have made, especially in regards to your relationship and marriage…

This week is almost gone! Time to buckle down and learn something useful to put to work next week, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, you’ve got plenty of time for beer and sports, so give me a few minutes here to teach you something, albeit in one of the longer pieces I’ve given you (just a few extra paragraphs, so don’t panic), and then you can go out and play with your friends.

I had a pretty tough childhood because I was precocious and insisted on knowing everything. That in itself isn’t too tough, but I was also independent, and wanted to know everything by learning it the hard way. I learned a lot, too.

On the day my military career started, I was labeled a “mustang” or “maverick,” a guy who has a hard time getting with the program because he has a knack for finding a better way to do things and doesn’t toe the line when he should. I got through basic training, and then got into some sticky situations.

Nobody got hurt or killed because of my choices or actions, but hellfire did rain down on my head a few times, because for every few “atta-boy’s” I’d get for going above and beyond the call, there would be an “oh sh*t” to negate them in one fell swoop. My commanding officer was constantly running interference for me with the big brass, and finally everything came to a head and I was ordered to report to my CO’s CO, a two-star general who shall remain nameless for a variety of reasons, for an “operational competency review.”

After introductions and the traditional reading of my file (I still don’t know why they go through that little ritual, and I’m not sure they do), the general said to me, “Cunningham, you’re smart, too damned smart for your own good. I need you to wise up before you compromise an op and get yourself or one of my other men killed. Do you know the difference?”

Everybody in my unit was young, full of piss and vinegar, and drawing hazard pay, got off on all the gung ho ritual language, and hence I replied, “Sir, I do not know. If the general would explain the difference I will deploy that knowledge in a swift, proficient, and distinctly military manner.”

He got a glint in his eye and said, “Very well. There are three kinds of people in the world, the foolish, the smart, and the wise. The foolish are those grab-asstic pieces of crap who waste time and life by never learning from their mistakes. The smart do learn from their mistakes, even if they are like you and make a lot of them because they want to be smarter. The wise move through life with patience and purpose, paying attention to what’s going on around them and learning from the mistakes and successes of others so that they don’t waste time and life making the same mistakes that others have made before them.

“I need you and every man under my command to be a wise man. We have a system here that is based on the mistakes and successes of those who came before you. It is not perfect, but it does work. You may be able to improve upon it, but you will do so by following the system during operations and providing any feedback you have during the post-operation debriefing. We want anything you can offer that will help to achieve objectives and save the lives of well-trained fighting men, but the time to deviate from the program is not when you are taking fire. That is your CO’s job, and my job, not yours. Do you get me?”

I never forgot that bit about the foolish, the smart and the wise. My mission changed that minute, from trying to do it all on my own to trying to learn everything I could the most efficient way that I could, which for the most part has been to watch and learn from the behavior of others. To that end, we’re going to have an exercise right now to show you just how much you can learn from somebody else, even someone you don’t expect to have anything to teach you.

The following letter is one of the many success stories I’ve received. I chose it for this exercise because it explodes a myth and because on the surface it doesn’t even appear to be relevant to saving a stale or failing marriage or other committed relationship, yet it holds some of the best lessons you’ll ever learn. Meet Tom:

David,

I wanted to take a moment to give you some feedback. My wife and I were recently divorced after 15 years of marriage. We are both in our early 50's. I worked really hard to save my marriage using logic.

I lost her to a bad boy. He is a real bum, without a job and still lives with his mother even though he is in his 50's. What a real mooch.

For the longest time I tried to apply logic to what was happening to my marriage and I failed to understand just what was going wrong. I guess I was too ingrained into my habitual patterns. It was only after the divorce that I started to get your material and receive your newsletters. WOW. Boy, was I ever wrong in my approach to women. I did all the nice guy stuff and provided a good home, clothes, jewelry, cars etc. I worked my ass off to provide for her.

As I started to read your material I came to realize what a bad relationship I had been in and what really went wrong.

I came to realize that I had failed to create attraction in her although I had her affection. That was my fault. The dishonesty (for many years), the deceit, the cheating, the character defects, etc., are all her fault. In many ways our divorce is a blessing in disguise.

I have followed your advice and that of David DeAngelo's program of Sexual Communication. Man what a difference it has made in my life and my approach to dating. I am now not trying to be the nice guy and "win" her favors. I am more confident in myself and out to have fun. I have played with and am learning the real way to create attra’ction in women and it is working. My successes with the new me are just outstanding and I am enjoying my life and playing a lot more. I don't have to call for dates...they are calling me. Really attractive and quality women.

So I wanted to thank you for putting out the information that you do, in such a professional manner that us nice guys can see where we went wrong and how to fix it. Keep up the good work.

Sincerely
Tom

PS: Oh and by the way. The ex has noticed and wants back into my life. NO way in hell will I ever get back into her games again. She has lost the house, cars, clothes, her reputation, is in debt up to her eyebrows, etc. I could go on and on with what she has done to herself. Life is funny sometimes, but I have the ultimate revenge and it does taste good. Thanks.

So what can you learn from this story that will make you a wise man?

For starters, Tom didn’t just automatically blame everything on somebody else and assume no responsibility for what happened that led to his divorce. He buckled down and found information that gave him answers as to what happened and what he could change to make sure it didn’t happen again. Lesson: Take personal responsibility when things don’t go as planned, figure out what happened, and learn how to make it go the right way next time.

Also note I didn’t write one word of advice targeted at those who are dating in "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," yet Tom found all kinds of advice in it that helped him to be more successful in his dating life, BECAUSE HE WAS LOOKING FOR IT. Good information isn’t always where you EXPECT to find it, but it is always WHERE YOU FIND IT, if you know what I mean. Lesson: be ever-vigilant in looking for things that can make your life better; you may not find a pearl in every oyster, but finding a gold nugget lying in a pile of animal manure or a trash can doesn’t make it any less valuable than if it was found in a creek or a mine.

Tom also didn’t limit his options in solving his problems, and took advice to broaden his search. In "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," I teach readers how to evaluate their relationship or marriage to determine if they should try to salvage it, because if you are grossly mismatched in areas like your personal value system or personal tastes, it’s never going to work, and your time and effort is far better applied to make a dignified and peaceful exit instead of beating a dead horse only to fail in the end and exit under fire after war is declared.

Included in the advice for those making such an exit are people to contact to help protect your assets in the event that a property settlement war does break out, and advice to seek out advice specific to succeeding in the dating game by Shelley McMurtry, F.J. Shark, John Alanis, Tiffany Taylor, David D’Angelo, etc., because jumping back into the dating game blind is one of the scariest things a person can do, and I’ve found their material to be very logical and rooted in real-world cause-and-effect relationships.

Instead of saying, “I’m tired of reading. I’ve done this before, I’m just going to jump in and it will be better this time,” Tom recognized that a recommendation from one good source of information about another source of information was likely a good call because no information seller will risk trashing his reputation by steering a customer in the wrong direction for an affiliate sale and blow any possibility of future direct sales. Lesson: Know your limitations, and do everything you reasonably can to obtain help in overcoming them by seeking the advice of those who have succeeded before you.

And as big as they are, those are the small lessons. Look in Tom’s post script (the paragraph that follows the “P.S.,” which stands for “post script,” for those of you who skipped that class in high school). His ex has noticed the changes in him and wants back in his life! The dating gurus will often say that this can’t happen, but you must remember that in the dating world, that’s most often correct. When you meet a stranger, your window of opportunity for creating attraction can be measured in minutes, maybe even a few seconds.

But! When you’ve been together for awhile and your interest is fully vested, that window could be measured in YEARS in some cases, and months in almost all cases. Women like the protective feeling of stability, and will give you ample opportunity to make things right IF they see that you’re trying to do so. Lesson: Even if the divorce is final, as long as she hasn’t filed for restraining orders (which indicate that all hope is indeed lost in nearly all cases in the long term, and in ALL cases in the short term), it’s NEVER too late to fix it as long as the compatibility is there to support it.

Also note he held her accountable for her mistakes, and that ultimately being held accountable and having to live the life that she chose was the worst punishment that could be heaped upon her. Lesson: Justice is sweet, while revenge is a dish that simply should never be served, unless it’s “self-served.” War isn’t just “the most spectacular of all human endeavors” (General George S. Patton), it’s the most costly and utterly destructive, on any scale.

Here endeth the lessons. Right now, some of you are saying, “Geesh, that guy is long-winded. That’s annoying!” while others are thinking, “Wow! That guy must really care about this stuff, because it must have taken him a long time to put that together to share it with me.” I do, and it did, several hours in fact. Several hours that I could have spent with family and friends, enjoying a hobby, cooking an elaborate gourmet dinner, or numerous other things for myself instead of for you. If you don’t need this much help from me, I’m happy for you, really, but I’m doing this to help people in crisis make their lives better just as much as I’m doing it to help other people keep their relationships from falling into crisis. Lesson: Never look a gift horse in the mouth.

Sorry, I couldn’t resist that last one. Seriously, I have a lot to teach you and everybody else who needs it so that you can be wise and keep from making the mistakes that others have made before you. We hit the high spots here in this newsletter and in my blog posts, but dig deep into the tangled and dark nitty-gritty in "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," and no matter what shape your relationship is in, there are many valuable lessons in there for you, lessons that will help you make your relationship better than it has ever been if you should be in it or help you get out of it with your dignity and a few dollars in your pocket and move on to find happiness elsewhere if you’re in the wrong relationship.

Your next move is to http://www.makingherhappy.com to download your copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" and get started, because life is too short to wait. Never put off until tomorrow the success and happiness you can have today!

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

How Wusses Are Created and Relationships and Marriages Are Destroyed As a Result

Wusses are made, not born (with rare genetic exceptions, of course), and the only kind of women who like them are sadly their own mothers and the parasites and predators who can take something from them. How are they made? That’s easy…

I caught something on television recently that I can’t get out of my head, partially because it’s offensive to me and partially because there is a lesson in it for all of you. And it’s not one that is easy to teach, so I’m going to ask you to bear with me.

First of all, some of the examples I’m going to have to use have potential political implications, and we’re not here to discuss politics. There could also be controversy over whether what I’m about to show you is coincidental, accidental, or deliberate.

For the purpose of this exercise, I’m going to ask you to ignore all of that and look strictly at the mechanics and psychology of what is really happening so that you can learn this universal process and not only protect yourself from its dark side, but use it to better yourself. So turn off the emotions, political bias, conspiracy theory machine, etc., and put on your thinking cap for a few minutes, because you need to be as cold and ruthlessly logical as I am to get through it with maximum benefit.

Sometimes it’s late in the day before I find inspiration for the content of this newsletter; I prefer to do it as the very first thing after responding to whatever reader e-mails are in my Inbox when I first sit down at my computer in the morning, but the world doesn’t always work the way I want it to. Sometimes I can receive as many as 200 e-mails from readers and not be able to use anything out of them for a newsletter, either because of the appropriateness of the content or not being able to obtain permission to reprint their letter in time (I a stickler for reader privacy).

When that happens and I end up not being able to compose a newsletter until late evening, my wife likes to watch some flavor of the CSI (Crime Scene Investigation) series on television while I work, and I hear it in the background but pretty much ignore it. A few nights ago I heard something that caught my attention.

The investigative team was standing in a metal building with about a hundred bullet holes scattered all over the walls, and one of the guys had looked it over and was reporting to his colleagues that it was a 9 mm, and then tagged onto the end of the sentence, “probably semi-automatic.”

For those of you who don’t know anything about firearms, that means that you pull the trigger, one shot is fired, and the next round is chambered and the weapon cocked and ready to fire, but it does not fire until the trigger is released and pulled again. A firearm that will keep shooting round after round for as long as you hold the trigger pulled is fully automatic, also called a “sub-machine gun” or simply “machine gun.”

A few minutes later in the show, they had finally figured out how all the bullet holes were put in the wall. Some boys had held up a very long bamboo cane, about 30 feet tall, run the cane through the trigger guard of a fully automatic sub-machine pistol, and pulled the trigger back with a wire tie just before giving it a spin and letting it spiral its way down the cane pole. Yes, stupid, and one of the kids got shot through the chest.

Now here’s the important part. For everyone who didn’t know the difference between a “semi-automatic” and “fully automatic” firearm, they thought that the fully automatic sub-machine pistol shown spraying bullets all over the building was semi-automatic, which is simply the pistol that most police officers carry in their holsters, because the CSI officer erroneously said that's what it was.

Intentional or not, that is what’s called “disinformation.” Someone shows you something that is incorrect or misleads you to assume something incorrect and you have a tendency to accept it as correct because of the source, or because you see it a lot, and the message, although wrong, is consistent.

A lie or error told often enough becomes the perceived truth (but not the truth). The Earth is at the center of the universe and it’s flat and you’ll sail off the edge of it if you go too far in any direction. Bleeding someone with leeches will cure any ailment. Governments love and serve their people faithfully and flawlessly. And women like nice guys. Remember?

Yes, that lie has been told for decades. Look at what you see on television today. Stunningly beautiful women running around with hopeless wusses and acting like they’re “Studly Do-Right,” totally ignoring the fact that the guys are dressed sloppily, don’t project an ounce of intelligence, sense of humor, social skills, leadership skills, or most importantly, self-respect.

Men are consistently shown as being sub-average, bumbling jackasses who can’t make a decision to save their life, and yet they still get the girl at the end of the show, and to beat it all, they cry for joy and thank her for the privilege of being seen with her. (I’m so sick of those commercials for Sonic restaurants making men look like idiots that I joined John Alanis long ago in boycotting Sonic, and wrote them a letter telling them so.)

When you see that all the time, there’s something that happens in your subconscious mind that tells you that you should be acting as those guys do. They have what you want, and if you do what they do, you’ll have what they have. But your subconscious mind doesn’t know that it’s only television fantasy; it can’t discriminate like that.

So the lie that is told over and over becomes perceived reality – accepted as truth by those who don’t know or seek the facts, but not really true.

However! Awareness can override this negative programming, and better still, you can use this same principle to lift yourself up! Instead of watching wusses give all men a bad name on television, hang out with successful friends who are happy with their lives and have the alpha male tendencies that women enjoy! Since your environment can program you, let it program you for success instead of failure!

But that means doing something really smart: You have to acknowledge your betters as potential mentors and positive influences instead of envying their success and resenting them. Can you handle that? Can you handle hanging around with one or more guys who have a strong personality that women love and are successful at what they pursue?

No, they don’t have to be filthy stinking rich to be successful. Wealth is not always a man’s goal. Some men prefer to succeed at fishing, hunting, wood or metal working, rebuilding cars, throwing darts, collecting stamps – you name it. But a man who succeeds at one thing will generally succeed at many things, because he has the formula – and he can demonstrate it to you simply by you being around him.

This isn’t rocket science, Gentlemen. Not by a long shot. Do you recall hearing an axiom called “Occam’s Razor” when you were a student? “The simplest explanation is most often the correct one.” By the same token, the simplest paths to success are most often the best. And what can be simpler than exposing yourself to people who are what you want to be and just letting it all soak in?

If you hear hooves beating behind you, do you think “horse” or “zebra”? There’s a reason clichés become clichés: they’re so universally true and therefore so frequently quoted that people get tired of hearing them. At least in most cases.

Some would have you believe that you can never understand what a woman says or what she really wants. I believed it for a long time, as did many who came before you, until it came down to a do-or-die situation and I had to learn. How do you think I learned? Did I go to the Himalayas and ask the Dali Lama, or to Rome to ask the Pope? Did I consult ancient mystical texts like the Bible, Quran, or Cabbala? Did I seek the counsel of alien races? Or contact the dead through a crystal ball? Hardly…

I asked a bunch of women!

I had to learn to speak “girly-ese” (some of my readers are calling it “feminese” and I rather like that one, too) before I could make sense of a lot of what they wanted to tell me, but believe me, they wanted me and every man alive to know. All this time that we’ve been shaking our heads in frustration because we can’t understand them, they’ve been angry and frustrated because they didn’t know we didn’t understand and thought we were choosing to ignore them. Imagine that!

In the end, they are neither complex, weak nor stupid. They’re just enough like us to make us think that they’re entirely like us and just different enough to drive us crazy sometimes, but they are simple, strong, smart, and one hell of a lot of fun to be around once you tune in and gain their trust – they’re mostly emotionally driven, and want more than anything to feel safe in feeling anything for you, lest their emotions be used against them as they have many times in the past, like when date after date said, “I’ll call you tomorrow,” or “Sure, I’ll still respect you in the morning.”

What you need to know is how we’re alike and how we’re different, and in plain language, not an encyclopedia full of psycho-babble. You need to learn to speak girly-ese, which sounds a whole lot like whatever language you speak, but the protocols are different. You need to know things about a woman’s emotional make-up, like the fact that being bored is as detrimental to her health and ability to think rationally and make good choices as being terrified is to you. And you need to know how to flip her switches and ignite that spark that will never let her feel bored again and make her fight – indeed, to kick the crap out of a running saw mill if necessary – to protect her relationship with you.

If you’re interested, go to http://www.makingherhappy.com/ and download your copy of "THE Man's Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" -- it’s ALL in there, just as I described, in plain language that a child could understand (and a few smart-ass remarks just to keep you entertained as well!). And if you’re not interested? Well, I hear you can get used to being in the dog house, getting yelled at all the time, and even getting divorced and losing everything you have in the process, but that’s one challenge I’d just as soon skip.

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

The Power of Negative Thinking in Your Relationship or Marriage

Norman Vincent Peale’s “The Power of Positive Thinking” has been required reading in any self-improvement curriculum since the 1950’s, but have you ever thought about its antithesis, and how you might be inadvertently creating your own insecurities and failure?

This time of year I look through a lot of catalogs for small but highly personal gifts for friends and family. I was looking through one that had a lot of gag gifts and unusual memorabilia and there was an item billed as a “Motivational T-Shirt” that said “I didn’t come here to lose…” on the front of it.

I thought, “What an idiot!”

You see, there is a big difference between “I didn’t come here to lose…” and “I came here to win!” But a lot of people make this mistake and consequently program themselves for failure.

When faced with a new opportunity, they ask, “What if I can’t do this?” instead of “What do I do after I succeed at this?” Believe it or not, it’s been proven that this “framing” of situations plays a huge role in how you get along in your own environment, you self-esteem and confidence, and your chances of success in anything that you pursue.

(If you want to pursue it further, start with Maxwell Maltz’s “Psychocybernetics,” in which he describes the mental mechanisms that move us toward whatever we focus on, whether it’s good or bad for us.)

This kind of negative programming can turn you into an insecure wuss in a fairly short time, no matter how tough you are. The subconscious mind doesn’t discriminate between positive and negative and doesn’t process terms of negation in your speech or thoughts (it ignores words like “not”); it merely works very hard to bring you toward whatever you are focused on, so if you focus on “not failing” instead of succeeding, you’re actually focused on failure instead of success.

To bring this closer to home, if you’re sitting there reading this newsletter because you are having problems in your own relationship or marriage, you’re reading a lot of advice. If you’re reading multiple sources, you’re reading a whole lot more advice. And if every time you read something you think, “I’d like to try that, but what if I fail?” or “That sounds okay, but what if it doesn’t work?” you’re programming yourself for failure, frequently and effectively, even without regard for the advice you are reading.

You must question the advice you are given. Only a fool would follow blindly everything he reads. But when you question it, do so in a way that doesn’t sabotage your efforts. Ask, “Does this make sense?” “Can I see myself succeeding and moving on to the next step if I do this?” These are reasonable, direct questions that need to be answered and are in the proper context…

…after all, you’re looking for something to help you succeed, not something to help you fail, right?

So why concern yourself with failure??? Your questions should be about what will bring you closer to your goal, and nothing else. And anybody with advice worth using should be able to tell you how it helps and why it should help by virtue of having proven that it works, preferably with their own success among others, so if you can’t find answers to those positive questions, it’s time to look at something else, is it not? It’s the output (the RESULTS!), not the input, that is important, right?

Who cares how many copies of a book have been sold? That doesn’t tell you how many people it helped! Would you care to guess how many books have been sold that advocated crying with a woman at a chick flick and leaving all decisions to her to make sure she felt like her position had been considered? Or how many books have advocated lying to a potential partner to get them in bed or even worse, marry them?

Who cares how many degree titles somebody has trailing after their name? That doesn’t tell you whether they’re giving you proven, repeatable reality or some pet theory that hasn’t been tested and proven to work. (And yes, in case you’re curious, I do have fun little academic acronyms after my name, so I can say that.) I don’t know about you, but when I was looking for help, I found lots of theories in lots of books, and they were such utter hogwash that I ended up having to research and write a book just to have something to use myself! Strange, and pathetic, but true!

And when you get right down to the nitty gritty, should you even care what it costs? According to a recent study, the average divorce in the U.S. costs $27,000 excluding alimony, child support, etc. Indeed, I received an e-mail today outlining a settlement of $275,000 up front, plus $150,000 per year, plus he has to maintain a $750,000 life insurance policy with her as the beneficiary so that she still gets future payments if something happens to him. And who knows what the lawyers got out of it! Most self-help products, mine included, are way under a hundred bucks! Indeed, mine’s presently under forty! Compared to the cost of a divorce (and we’re not even going to get into the pain of a divorce), that’s pocket change, and I can also tell you why it works, why you can expect it to work, and how many people it’s helping, including myself!

So the short answers are that my information was researched and tested with a fairly large group of women and then double-checked with the help of their husbands and boyfriends. To the best of my knowledge, based on testimonials I’ve received, it’s helped everyone who has used it, and that in turn is why you can expect it to work for you, as long as you do actually use it instead of getting it, reading it, and then talking yourself out trying with questions like “What if this doesn’t work for me?” or “What if I can’t do this?”

Until very recently, I was even able to say that I have never issued a refund! In the last three years, I have now issued two refunds. One was to a girl who claimed that she thought that she was buying dating advice (even though the advertising is pretty clear that it’s for people in committed relationships and marriage). The other one was to guy who missed the e-mail announcing the book’s title change and thought that I was releasing another book and he wanted it because he’d had such success with the first one.

I refunded his duplicate purchase and we both had a good laugh out of it. He commented, “Thank you, I am more embarrassed than anything else, the good news is that I found the book very informative and was sold twice so to speak. I had failed to sign up for the newsletter the first time.”

So there it is. This isn’t rocket science, or some 12-step program. It’s just the real story on what women want, what makes them tick, how to communicate with them, how to be fun and exciting without being a clown or a flake, how to feel good enough about yourself that your self-esteem and confidence levels make you a man that she loves being around instead of a man she feels like she has to raise and protect like a mother would do a child, and how to choose and hold out for a good woman or know if you have one already. I’ve not yet met a heterosexual man who couldn’t do everything in it, easily and naturally, within a short time.

So what about you? Are you sitting there in front of your computer staring at this newsletter and thinking, “What if it doesn’t work for me?” or are you thinking, “What will life be like after I get through this?” If it’s the former, there’s not a thing in the world that I or anybody else can do to help you. But! If it’s the latter, get your butt over to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy of "THE Man's Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" and get busy, because this is what you’ve been looking for, real answers proven by real people.

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

Why Nice Guys Finish Last, Especially in Relationships, Part 3, Putting Her On a Pedestal

Continuing our study, let’s look at the guy who puts a woman on a pedestal, unwittingly setting both of them up for disappointment.

Most of us have made this mistake at one time or another, and all too many make it every time they get into a relationship, or even try to get into one, for that matter. They put women on a pedestal.

(This is something that men have a terrible tendency to do with both their partner and their mother, both of whom are human and don’t want to be “deified,” and after you finish this lesson, I’d strongly suggest you also review this August 8, 2008 article on the subject to gain a more thorough understanding of how failure to recognize any woman’s human qualities inhibits your ability to enjoy their company.)

As cliché as this problem is, it’s all too common. But so is being a wuss and thinking that a woman likes that. So pay close attention and think with me here.

What happens when you put a woman on a pedestal? You create expectations that neither of you can live up to, and set both of you up for failure and disappointment. No woman is any more perfect than any man, yet you foment the idea that she is “pure,” “perfect,” etc. Have you given any thought to what happens in the case that she might actually start believing it?

The first thing that will happen is your social dynamics will change. She will no longer be looking for your leadership; she’ll be ordering you around. After all, you’ve made her into a goddess. She’s always right, you’re always wrong. She’s justified in doing anything, and you nothing. And she will start testing to see where her limits are, too, just like a child, looking for firm ground to stand on, so to speak.

And what happens when this goddess’ demands become unreasonable, then annoying and frustrating, and then downright maddening as she becomes more aggressive with her demands and less accountable for her actions?

How much respect could she have for you at that point? Or you have for yourself?

Then comes the inevitable failure to live up to being on that pedestal. She gets bored because she’s a goddess without a god to entertain and lead her, and then there’s an affair, or she leaves. Your “goddess” has sent you to the self-styled Hell of rejection, betrayal, and loneliness.

Women don’t want to be worshipped, Gentlemen, at least not for long, and not often, if ever. Loved, yes. Respected, yes. Made to feel special from time to time, absolutely. Shown that your commitment to your relationship with them is real and deep, you bet. But rather than worshipped, they prefer, and most importantly, RESPOND TO, being led, and treated as a partner, not a goddess. They can live up to being a partner, but they can no more live up to being a goddess than a soccer ball can – or you, even if you had the correct “plumbing.”

So again, what we’ve been taught is “nice” isn’t nice at all, for either of you, unless she’s a predator or parasite, in which case it’s nice for her for awhile, until she gets bored with you and sucks you dry, and then moves on.

So think about this, in earnest: What do you want in a woman? (Aside from your genitalia, of course!) Do you want a spoiled, abusive brat who eventually falls from the pedestal you place her on and breaks your heart after sucking the life out of you? Or do you want a loving partner to share your love and life with?

A no-brainer, right?

Then never again shall you put any woman on a pedestal. Here endeth the lesson…

Well, no, not quite. There’s a lot more to having a great relationship and marriage than keeping a woman at your side and off a pedestal. Do you have a solid foundation of compatibility? Do you have love? Can you create attraction? Can you communicate on her level and grow closer together? Can you make your differences complimentary instead of competitive, so that they are life-enhancing instead of an on-going source of conflict and problems?

All of those questions need answers, real answers, not assumptions, and certainly not opinions or theories. After all, your life together depends on them, as does your life as an individual to a great extent for as long as you’re in a relationship or marriage. Or had you thought of that?

There may be a lot you’ve not thought of, and a lot that you have thought of, heard and been told that is complete and utter crap. After all, if everybody had the answers, guys like me who enjoy our life and a great marriage wouldn’t be making a living providing them to you.

And not so obvious, yet more to the point, is that if the other people providing you answers had the answers to fix your problem, I would have never gotten into this project and this business, because I would have been able to use all the answers that I bought when I had problems instead of having to gather a research group together and find them on my own.

But I did, and fortunately for you, turned it into a book, one that you can have in the next minute or so if you go to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download it. And one thing that is in that book that you’ll never see in these newsletters is probably the most important thing of all: the EASY WAY to make all this happen. So do yourself a huge favor. Click that link and get started on the path to being the man that every woman wants and that you’ll enjoy being.

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

What Do You Hear When Your Wife or Girlfriend Speaks to You, Anything? "Tuning In" to Save Your Relationship or Marriage

I received an e-mail from a woman who had gone so far as to put answers to marriage problems in her husband’s hands, and he ignored her. See her reaction, and ask yourself if you want this happening to you…

I try to respond to every piece of correspondence I receive out of respect for the time and effort that every reader who writes to me expends to do so, and I make it a point to read everything I receive whether I can respond to it at the moment or not. That includes the notifications I get when people cancel their subscription to this newsletter.

Some of the comments on those notifications are predictable, like people changing their e-mail address or just don’t have enough time to read, but sometimes there is a really revealing gem buried in one of them. Such is the case here, in this story from “P,” which I’ve edited only to obscure any personally identifiable information to protect her privacy:

Name: P
Email: xxxxxx@gmail.com
Signup Date: 00/00/00 00:00 AM EST

Comments:
I had subscribed to your newsletter using my private email address. I thought the daily advice was so appropriate, that I was forwarding it every day to our family email (this one) for my husband to read. I think you are hitting home for me, but he now has several weeks’ worth of them he has not read....which leads me to the realization that I am "shoving it in his face." I am switching back to my personal address, for me to continue to read what you have to say.

We have been married over 20 years, and in January the love of my life from high school and I started an emotional affair over the Internet since we live thousands of miles apart. He took my lifeless soul, and made me come alive again. I indeed was that bored wife that needed passion and desire in her life, and I got it with a married man I have not talked to or seen for 24 years. He was within four hours of me in May, and I took a weekend away by myself and met up with him for twelve hours. We were very physical, but did not have sex. Just this little bit of attention made me stop thinking rationally, and was willing to give up my husband and family to a set of feelings.

I have got my head on a little tighter now, and I have been the one going to counseling, reading, talking about our loss of connection etc. I have stopped communication with the other man. It isn't sinking into my husband's head, and I am tired, and ready to give up!! At this moment, if the other man asked me to, I think I would leave this marriage...

I did send an email to my husband telling him I would not forward your stuff to him anymore. But I also put your link in the e-mail in case he decides for himself that he wants to listen to someone who has his wife pegged. So I am re-signing myself up at my personal address. If you see this address sign back up, it will be because our marriage is on the turn-around, and it will be my husband that will WANT to change.

P

Gents, I don’t know about you, but I want to kick this guy in the head for being stupid! She’s saying to him, “Read this, because it tells you things that I want you to know about me and have been unable to communicate,” and he’s tuned her out. Or maybe he just doesn’t understand “girly-ese.”

What about her? Don’t go there. We’ve already established, over the course of the last several days, how severe the effects of boredom are on a woman, and in spite of her having a “swept off her feet” feeling for the first time in many years, she abstained from sex, went back home, and stayed, waiting for him to take heed and wake up. There’s nothing here to fault her for.

He, on the other hand, has refused (so far) to take responsibility for the condition of their relationship and his influence upon it. And if he doesn’t wake up quickly, she’s likely to “fly the coop” as they say around here, a decision they may all well end up regretting to some degree.

“P” says I pegged her. I didn’t, or more accurately, I didn't peg JUST her. I write about what hundreds of women have taught me, through intense research and testing, about women, especially their common needs, desires, and way of going about things, like communicating, remedying boredom, and building up intimate tension for sex. I’ve never met P, never had an e-mail or other message from her nor any other communication. What I pegged was the common needs and tendencies in all women, including the one you’re with.

So what about you? Do you want to be this guy? Do you want to be the one at home with the kids while your wife is with her high school sweetheart trying to decide whether to leave you for him? Or even worse, the guy whose wife disappears one day and he gets the divorce papers and a restraining order along with a note declaring that it’s over, and he has no option but to sign the papers or fight it out with her attorney in court, because she’s done?

You think it can’t happen to you? Again, I bid you, look at the divorce rates since the 1960’s, and how they have climbed, and accelerated through the 1980’s and 1990’s to present day. Any questions?

It’s time to step up and take responsibility for your role in the health of your marriage or relationship, because if you don’t make the choice to do something about your problems, she will, and as you can see from P’s letter, it’s not likely that you’re going to like what she chooses.

So get it right, and get it right now. Go to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," and lead the evolution of your marriage from something rotting on the vine to something reborn, revitalized, and in full bloom, just like it was during your honeymoon. And if she ends up pregnant as a result, don’t name it after me! LOL!

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

Walking the Matador Walk to Have a Great Relationship and Marriage

Your attitude toward your life, your relationship, and everything else may be more of a determinant of how well they go than the actual effort you put into them. Understand this thoroughly before doing anything else, because you can program yourself for failure even easier than you can program yourself for success, especially in your relationship, because it’s the most emotional issue most of us face every day.

I hope you are enjoying your day, safely of course, but with gusto! Wherever you are, and whatever you are doing, I hope you are doing it well and enjoying it, expecting it to work out for you.

Speaking of which, a letter caught my eye last night that triggered a huge rush of analysis and coaching, and I need to share it with you. Meet Marcus:

Good evening David,

I just finished reading "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" and I must say I see many things that I can improve on. It certainly looks like you’ve done your homework, and now I have to do mine and make things happen. Wish me luck, because if this doesn’t work, I’m screwed!

Thanks so much!
Marcus

That last sentence set off alarms and started red flags waving immediately. I wrote the following to Marcus to help him get things in perspective and keep him from tripping himself up:

Hi Marcus!

Congratulations on making it this far; so many people know they have problems but wallow in them instead of fixing them for a variety of reasons, none of them good. If you see what you have to do, you’re already way ahead of the game, because many people’s first reaction is denial; they don’t want to accept that they have caused their problems through the choices they’ve made, which keeps them from realizing that fixing their problems is also a matter of choice and entirely within their control.

I needed to write to you to warn you about something that you did that may seem trivial at first glance but is indeed self-destructive. In the last sentence of your letter, you said to me, “Wish me luck, because if this doesn’t work, I’m screwed!” Take a closer look at this with me…

First, you don’t need luck. You’ve recognized your problem, sought and found help, defined the various components of your problem and have solutions to apply to them that have worked for many other people under similar circumstances. In short, you have the tools, and now must simply use them to enjoy success.

Next, and possibly even more important, is the phrase “If this doesn’t work, I’m screwed!” Do you realize what you’re saying here? First, you’re focused on the possibility of failure instead of the likelihood of your success. Then, to make matters worse, you’ve violated the first rule of self-programming: never use negative language when talking about yourself or your life. Why is that important?

One of the most brilliant men I’ve ever met, Maxwell Maltz, wrote about it in his most excellent book, “Psychocybernetics,” in which he describes a subconscious mechanism that automatically and constantly works to move you toward whatever you are focused on. Whether you focus on failure or success, that’s where it takes you. And there’s an even uglier part of that at work here…

The subconscious mind does not process negations! For instance, if I say, “I must not fear,” the subconscious processes that as “I must fear;” hence what you should say in that case is “I must be brave.” Now look at what you said: “If this doesn’t work, I’m screwed.” Your subconscious hears that as “If this DOES work, I’m screwed!” That’s a pretty nasty thought, isn’t it?

You have the tools, and you know they’ve worked for many others. Use them with the expectation that they will work for you, too. If you’ve ever watched a bullfight, even in a movie, you will have noticed how the matador always walks around the ring with the bull acting as if he has already won. Walk the matador’s walk! Know that you will succeed because there is no other possible outcome if you merely apply what you have at your disposal.

In your case, it’s a fixed fight, because what you are working with are triggers to involuntary behavior in her and the scoop on all her best-kept secrets, all the things that she talks about with her girlfriends behind your back and more! All you have to do is learn, think things through, and then follow through.

Take care, and keep in touch,
David

Well, Gents, there’s very little that I could add to that, so I will simply invite you to join Marcus and many others in learning and employing the knowledge in "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," which you should download right now at http://www.makingherhappy.com, because if you’ll look at the calendar, summer is almost gone (for those of us in the northern hemisphere, and the winter holidays are fast approaching. What better gift could you give both yourself and your wife than a new and improved YOU???

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

Making It Up On Volume -- When More of the Same WON'T Fix Your Relationship and Marriage

Sometimes people hear a really bad idea, don’t recognize it as such, and think that the reason it isn’t working is because they’re not doing it enough instead of because it’s never going to work. Unfortunately, relationships are area that is extremely prone to this because it is such an emotional issue, often leaving one’s judgment at least temporarily impaired. Let’s explore…

When I was in college, several economics courses were required to graduate, and economics professors talk about everything concerning supply and demand in terms of “widgets.” Thanks to The Yahoo Widget Engine, formerly known as “Konfabulator,” (a neat software gadget that runs little JAVA apps on the Windows desktop also called “widgets”) we now have real widgets, but in those days the widget was a theoretical thing, kind of like the tachyon from nuclear physics; they’re everywhere and some people claim to know what they do, but nobody can prove they exist because nobody has ever SEEN ONE. LOL!

One of the jokes these guys used to tell when they realized that they’d put their class to sleep by drawing one too many supply vs. demand curves went like this:

Bob and Tom owned a business that made widgets. They were selling widgets for $1.99, and sales were sagging.

Tom came in the office one morning and Bob jumped up and said, “Tom! Tom! Good morning! I’ve got great news! Our sales are sky-rocketing!”

Tom said, “That’s great! What did you do?”

Bob said, “I told the sales department to start selling our widgets at half-off, and they’re going out the door at 99 cents just as fast as we can make them!”

Tom looked horrified as he screamed, “Bob, you daffy bastard! You’ve ruined us! It costs us $1.34 to make each widget!”

Bob said, “Don’t worry! We’ll make it up on volume!”

I always found that joke hilarious, until I started seeing people taking that approach to problem-solving in my consulting business. They’d get some new and really BAD idea, and when it didn’t work, instead of realizing it was a bad idea, they’d assume it wasn’t working because they weren’t doing ENOUGH of it, and would accelerate their self-destruction by ramping up their efforts to use more of the bad idea.

Unfortunately, people take this same approach in their relationships. They hear some really bad idea, and being desperate for improvement, they don’t stop to ask questions like, “Has this ever worked for anybody before?” and just “dive in head-first,” as the saying goes. Then, when it doesn’t give them the results they were looking for, now being invested in the idea because they’ve spent time and effort trying it, they try to “make it up on volume” by doing even more of what at best wasn’t working and at worst was fouling things up even worse.

Take for example that nonsense we ran into in the 1980’s when women said they wanted a more sensitive man. We tried that, and when it didn’t work out, we thought, “well, women wouldn’t say it if they didn’t know what they were talking about,” so we stepped it up from just being sensitive to sitting with them at sad chick flicks and crying with them.

The harder we tried, the worse it got, because we were doing the wrong thing and nobody stopped to ask if it was proven to be the right thing by virtue of somebody having tried it and succeeded with it, until eventually the VAST majority of us have become such wusses that women are bored to death with us, and some are even exploiting our weaknesses, as Dhaliwal mentioned in his treatise, “How Feminism Destroyed Real Men”.

You know what has been tried, and has worked? Being a real man! Knowing what women want! Knowing that what women say they want – or what we THINK we hear them saying they want -- is often different from what they actually respond to, and how to know the difference! Knowing how to communicate with a woman, and how to catch and interpret the signs and hints that she uses! Knowing how to flip-flop between the strong, virulent leader and that naughty kid who threw spitballs and poured soap in the fountain at school to make bubbles go everywhere!

Yes, all that works! It’s been done for centuries, and has always worked, yet nobody seemed to notice what exactly it was that did work. And what’s more, I found out that I didn’t know, and got so ticked off that I rounded up everything I could find on the subject and 118 couples to test it to find out what did and what didn’t!

The result was "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," and you should go right now and download your copy at http://www.makingherhappy.com because there’s about to be some additions and new developments that cause the price to go up about 15%, and everyone who has purchased before that increase will be receiving the new and enlarged edition free of charge upon its release. It works, it’s been proven, and the more you do what you find inside, the better things in your home will be.

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

Some Thank You Notes with Great Lessons on Relationships and Marriage

Talk about extreme! There are even some great lessons to be learned in some of the “thank you” notes I got from some of the "King Arthur and the Witch" contest winners! Check them out:

In case you’re curious, here’s a couple of interesting excerpts from “Thank you” notes from the winners of the King Arthur and the Witch contest, in which you’ll notice a common thread:

Hi David,

Thought I'd write and say thanks for my prize. I've started reading your book and it's exactly what I felt was the missing piece in my 'studies' - And It turns out you used about 90% of the same experts as I have been for the last few months.

Much appreciated,

Karl.

Incidentally, after my comment about Karl’s period after his signature being a mark of a confident man, a reader asked me if not putting a period after my name meant that I was not confident. No, it doesn’t. It just means that I adhere rigidly to the rules for formatting correspondence, as everyone should. ;-)

Hi David!

Thanks for the gifts and I am reading "THE Men’s Guide..." now. Boy I should have gotten this some time ago! I have some of David D.'s stuff, John's stuff, Shelley's stuff and get Mary Jo's newsletter. I also have F.J. Shark's Jerk book and have looked at other folk's goodies as well. You could say I'm a lot like you in the sense I have this intense drive to go after things I'm interested in if they catch my attention and fascination.

I have been in 2 marriages of about 8 years each and decided I've got to find out what is really going on before I ever do this again. The pain is just too much. Now I'm learning, observing and watching and yes practicing different things. Yes I have "seen the light" in the sense I was way too much the wussy man trying to please and take care of my little princess.

I guess the big light came on when I finally started understanding, like the story, women want a man who can be the man and be a partner at the same time. Thanks Again BIG TIME!!

Time to get back to reading so I can flush out some more garbage and replace it with pearls.

Take very good care and keep up the truly special "work" you do.

Thanks David,

Dave

Did you notice the recurring theme? They’ve been reading advice from the dating gurus and others, but it didn’t come together until they read "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" because the rules are different in committed relationships than when you’re dating. The basic principles are the same, but the definitions and applications change, radically in some regards.

If you’re in a committed relationship, stick with me. If you’ve been in a committed relationship and trying to figure out what happened so you don’t repeat the mistakes, stick with me. If you’ve never been in a committed relationship that worked and you’re dating now, use the dating gurus advice to meet people, and use the evaluation section of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" to help you choose from among the many candidates you’ll be dating. After all, dating is a time of finding and exploring options, not homing in on one option and trying to convince them and yourself that they are “the one.”

Forewarned is forearmed, and as you have seen if you’re past puberty, there are countless pitfalls in a relationship, but you can be ready for every one of them. Whether you are in a committed relationship or wanting to be, you need to know what’s in "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," and you should go to http://www.makingherhappy.com right now and download it. The Boy Scouts have it right: BE PREPARED!

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

Pain and Clear Thinking Don't Mix, Especially in Relationships and Marriage

A reader’s letters over a three-month period demonstrate how the pain and stress of a troubled relationship or break-up can kill your ability to think clearly and make you very vulnerable to having your buttons pressed by people trying to help you, and how you can recover if you choose to.

I want to get away from the subject of break-ups for awhile, but I have to give you this one last lesson before we get completely away from the subject, because this level of stress may happen to you someday and I need to prepare you for it.

Fair warning, this is a little longer than usual because I’m quoting several e-mails, but men and women alike can learn a lot from this if you’ll take a few extra minutes to read it.

Fights, fear, insecurity about your future, etc., those things that eat at you when your relationship isn’t going well or has ended, are a lot more destructive than most people imagine. Yes, it’s obvious that it hurts and makes you lose sleep, but the degree to which it can inhibit logical thought and even make you lash out at those who want to help you through tough times is not so obvious.

I’m going to share with you three letters, all written by the same reader, two of which were written within less than a week of his subscribing to this newsletter, and the third one today. Bear with me, as the point will become very clear toward the end. Meet J., a man who has been in a lot of pain but is obviously finding his way out of it and back to mental clarity and stability:

(His first letter, captioned “ohmigod,” received after he had read only one issue of this newsletter:)

astounding

does anyone actually believe any of this?

so - if your partner is bored of you, its your fault

my parents told me that only boring people get bored

its you, the man's job, to dance attendance on her and make her feel special

just what kind of relationship do your readers have with their women - and what kind of woman is it who lounges around like a spoiled teenager expecting to be "swept off her feet" by her man

maybe if she made an effort to find stimulating shared experiences and PUTTING SOMETHING INTO the relationship, instead of seeing her husband as some kind of personal satisfaction service, she might not be quite the miserable self-centered bitch you think all women are

holy cow, get a grip - if you REALLY think this kind of woman is the best a man can get you're lost lost lost buddy

kind regards,

J

Kind regards, huh? I didn’t know it until later, but he had just come out of a bad relationship, and pretty much got the meaning of the newsletter he read entirely backwards, as any of you who have been reading my newsletters longer than a couple of days already realize. It was pretty obvious that he was angry and in pain, especially in the level of sarcasm in his writing, but I wasn’t yet sure that it was a relationship at the core of his problem.

I wrote back to tell him so, and not realizing that he had just been through a break-up and was looking for an outlet to ventilate, replied with a fairly short and demure response:

Good morning, J.,

I'm sorry, but you have taken whatever it is that you're responding to so far out of context that I can't even determine what post or newsletter you might be speaking of. I don't ever speak of fault, except to tell men and women not to preoccupy themselves with fixing fault and blame, and to take responsibility for whatever they may be able to improve in their relationship instead.

As for being part of the problem, yours is the first negative comment I have received from anyone since I began this, and I can forward you hundreds of e-mails from readers of both my newsletter and my book where these people are telling me that they have turned their relationships completely around and that they are now better than they have ever been, including their original honeymoon period. I can only guess that you either have a hot button that was pressed by something you read or that this is yet another case of two peoples being separated by a common language.

I appreciate you taking the time to write, but frankly, I might have been a lot more interested in what you have to say had you exercised a bit of tact in lieu of sarcasm about how I write and where I live. I hope you find whatever it is that you are missing, because you are obviously not a happy man.

Regards,
David

…and he replied with the following, captioned “OK” the next day:

read your latest contribution with interest

of course men shouldn't habitually complain about how little support they get from their wives

but its my experience that men are caught in a double bind, their women are allowed to be behave like dependent irrational little girls and be as assertive and independent as they like - they are encouraged to be both - "girls" and "women" - and woe betide any man who questions their right to be which they want to be at any given time

men on the other hand are expected to be supportive and independent at the same time, and find their support away from the relationship - "Big Guys"

support, unfortunately, is often needed at inconvenient times

so men are screwed, not by women, but by blogs like yours which tells them to stop being a "wuss" and insists that its their fault that they can't be superheroes and not have ordinary human needs like everyday love

well, buddy, you seem to be part of the problem and not the solution

and you use 10 words (badly written American corporate-speak at that) where one will do

keep up the good work!

kindest fraternal greetings

J

"Keep up the good work!" and "Kindest fraternal greetings"??? At this point it was pretty obvious that he’d been through a break-up or two, was awash in a sea of negative emotions, and needed somebody to rough him up a bit to wake him up to the fact that he was indeed reacting emotionally and needed to pull back and look at what he was doing, attempting to alienate me with sarcastic remarks and possibly others who were interested in helping him.

I hate having to “read somebody the riot act” as the saying goes, but every man knows that there’s nothing like getting stomped on a bit to make you realize that somebody does care about what’s going on with you, else they would just leave you, exposed and vulnerable, to wallow in pain and self-pity, so I sent him the following:

J.,

You'd probably be a much happier person if you spent a little more time listening and learning and a little less time trying to argue with people to defend the mistakes you've made in your life. People use all of this, every day, and they write letters to confirm how well it works. Before it was ever published, it was tested on over a hundred couples with complete success. The information I use concerning attraction is based in part on information that people like John Alanis, David D'angelo, F.J. Shark, and Ross Jeffries (dating gurus) proved effective as much as ten years or more before I ever took it up and adapted it for use by people in committed relationships.

I couldn’t care less what your parents taught you. Mothers teach their sons to be "nice guys" and kiss women's behinds, try to buy their affection, and dump all the decisions in their laps with regularity, because it's what they think they want, but when they get it, it turns them off completely. Making a woman feel special is done by listening and responding, and by acting like a man, not by "dancing attendance on her" or any other form of serving her.

I have no idea where you get this idea that I said anything about a woman lounging around like a spoiled teenager. Women do day-dream frequently throughout the day about feeling sexual attraction. It's why they read romance novels, and why they start fights when men ignore them. It’s how they prevent boredom if left to their own devices, and is far preferable to affairs and such. Women do try much harder than men to put something into relationships, but it usually comes after attraction is triggered and after they feel commitment. I don't know of any mentally healthy women who see their husband as some sort of personal satisfaction service, and I don’t think they are miserable or self-centered.

This is the last time I'm going to waste my time writing you. You've read one of my newsletters, apparently half-assed because you have no clue what I am telling people, and you're trying to argue with me that what I'm teaching doesn't work when (a) you don’t even know what I'm teaching, (b) if you were such an expert, you wouldn't be reading anything I've written to start with, you'd be getting rich selling what you know, and (c) everybody who has and is using it is doing so with outstanding success. Nobody who has ever used my information has ever said anything about it except how well it works, and nobody who has ever used it has asked for a refund, and I extend a satisfaction guarantee for a full year after purchase, so if they wanted to do so, they would have. That speaks for itself, as does the reality of the results that my material is giving those who use it.

Your options now are to either read and learn or argue with somebody else, because I don't really care what you think, what you agree with, or what your parents told you, and until you understand what I'm saying and have tried it, you're not in any position to criticize it. What I'm teaching came straight from working with hundreds of women to find out what they respond to, and then working with their men to make sure that men can understand and do what is required. It's reality, there is no arguing with it, and if you don't like it, you can sod off and be miserable while the rest of us are enjoying a great relationship with our wives and girlfriends. I don’t deal in opinions and have no time for armchair pundits; either get in the game or get off the field.

David

I didn’t hear back from J. until for awhile, and he did exactly what every real man does when confronted with such a wake up call. He dug in, paid attention, found his way out of the pain and frustration, and put his brain back in charge of his well-being, proving to himself and the rest of the world that the pain of even the worst break-up can be very temporary if you can keep your wits about you, with or without the help of friends and other concerned parties. This message was received captioned “from your (former) tormentor”:

Hi David,

Remember me? I was the guy who pissed you off a few months ago.

Well, I still haven't read your book, but I have been reading your daily emails and I am not too proud to admit when I have made a misjudgment. I'm looking forward to reading your book, but a lot of what you say in your emails makes rock solid sense to me (and at 41, I've had enough unhappy girlfriends/bad relationships to realise that I must be getting something wrong).

I'm going to recommend your project to friends, read your book and come back with some constructive comments (I am presumptuous to say). I think you come from a good place.

I latched onto "makingherhappy" in a bad way, because, in my last relationship, I spent a huge amount of energy trying to make an immature girl happy and made myself very unhappy and ill in the process.

Here's a thought though: I have to go into a workplace where this girl will be. Ex-partners and work, now there's a thorny issue. Maybe not for you, but it’s a tricky one nonetheless.....

with all good wishes,

J

So, J., no, you didn’t piss me off, and this time I believe you when you send “best wishes.” And you’ll know how to handle the girl in the workplace after you’ve read "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," so don’t worry.

You see, Folks? When you’re having relationship troubles and feeling like your guts are being ripped out at every turn, you need a release for that frustration, and the most likely and unfortunate outlet is someone who is trying to help you precisely because you have their attention. Remember that, and guard yourself against it, because not everyone is able to recognize that an outburst is an act of reaching out for help, and you have to admit that it’s a very poor way to ask for help in any case.

What I recommend when anyone is having relationship or other problems that breed frustration, fear, pain, etc., is ACTION! Don’t sit back wondering what will happen next and waiting for it to happen. Dig in and find the cause of the problem and do something about it. It’s an excellent outlet for all that negative energy because it converts it into something constructive, and it has the added benefit of MAKING THE PROBLEM GO AWAY! You can’t beat that with a stick, can you?

Whether you’re facing nuisance or disaster, the key to making it go away is two-fold: knowing what to do and then doing it. “Think things through, then follow through,” was famed U.S. Air Force test pilot Chuck Yeager’s “six-word formula for success,” and it works. “Thinking things through” in your relationship requires a sense of reason and a solid working knowledge of what you and your partner want and need and how you can best communicate.

Yep, that’s in "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," which you will find at http://www.makingherhappy.com. The best news is that if you read it before you have problems, you’ll likely never have any because you’ll work together to keep them out of your relationship, but if you do have problems, you can fix them. Just don’t alienate everybody you know while you’re trying to get through it.

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

How to Program Your Very Own Wuss and Sabotage His (YOUR) Relationship and Marriage

Wusses are made, not born (with rare genetic exceptions, of course), and the only kind of women who like them are sadly their own mothers and the parasites and predators who can take something from them. How are they made? That’s easy…

I caught something on television recently that I can’t get out of my head, partially because it’s offensive to me and partially because there is a lesson in it for all of you. And it’s not one that is easy to teach, so I’m going to ask you to bear with me.

First of all, some of the examples I’m going to have to use have potential political implications, and we’re not here to discuss politics. There could also be controversy over whether what I’m about to show you is coincidental, accidental, or deliberate.

For the purpose of this exercise, I’m going to ask you to ignore all of that and look strictly at the mechanics and psychology of what is really happening so that you can learn this universal process and not only protect yourself from its dark side, but use it to better yourself. So turn off the emotions, political bias, conspiracy theory machine, etc., and put on your thinking cap for a few minutes, because you need to be as cold and ruthlessly logical as I am to get through it with maximum benefit.

Sometimes it’s late in the day before I find inspiration for the content of this newsletter; I prefer to do it as the very first thing after responding to whatever reader e-mails are in my Inbox when I first sit down at my computer in the morning, but the world doesn’t always work the way I want it to. Sometimes I can receive as many as 200 e-mails from readers and not be able to use anything out of them for a newsletter, either because of the appropriateness of the content or not being able to obtain permission to reprint their letter in time (I a stickler for reader privacy).

When that happens and I end up not being able to compose a newsletter until late evening, my wife likes to watch some flavor of the CSI (Crime Scene Investigation) series on television while I work, and I hear it in the background but pretty much ignore it. A few nights ago I heard something that caught my attention.

The investigative team was standing in a metal building with about a hundred bullet holes scattered all over the walls, and one of the guys had looked it over and was reporting to his colleagues that it was a 9 mm, and then tagged onto the end of the sentence, “probably semi-automatic.”

For those of you who don’t know anything about firearms, that means that you pull the trigger, one shot is fired, and the next round is chambered and the weapon cocked and ready to fire, but it does not fire until the trigger is released and pulled again. A firearm that will keep shooting round after round for as long as you hold the trigger pulled is fully automatic, also called a “sub-machine gun” or simply “machine gun.”

A few minutes later in the show, they had finally figured out how all the bullet holes were put in the wall. Some boys had held up a very long bamboo cane, about 30 feet tall, run the cane through the trigger guard of a fully automatic sub-machine pistol, and pulled the trigger back with a wire tie just before giving it a spin and letting it spiral its way down the cane pole. Yes, stupid, and one of the kids got shot through the chest.

Now here’s the important part. For everyone who didn’t know the difference between a “semi-automatic” and “fully automatic” firearm, they thought that the fully automatic sub-machine pistol shown spraying bullets all over the building was semi-automatic, which is simply the pistol that most police officers carry in their holsters, because the CSI officer erroneously said that's what it was.

Intentional or not, that is what’s called “disinformation.” Someone shows you something that is incorrect or misleads you to assume something incorrect and you have a tendency to accept it as correct because of the source, or because you see it a lot, and the message, although wrong, is consistent.

A lie or error told often enough becomes the perceived truth (but not the truth). The Earth is at the center of the universe and it’s flat and you’ll sail off the edge of it if you go too far in any direction. Bleeding someone with leeches will cure any ailment. Governments love and serve their people faithfully and flawlessly. And women like nice guys. Remember?

Yes, that lie has been told for decades. Look at what you see on television today. Stunningly beautiful women running around with hopeless wusses and acting like they’re “Studly Do-Right,” totally ignoring the fact that the guys are dressed sloppily, don’t project an ounce of intelligence, sense of humor, social skills, leadership skills, or most importantly, self-respect. Men are consistently shown as being sub-average, bumbling jackasses who can’t make a decision to save their life, and yet they still get the girl at the end of the show, and to beat it all, they cry for joy and thank her for the privilege of being seen with her. (I’m so sick of those commercials for Sonic restaurants making men look like idiots that I joined John Alanis long ago in boycotting Sonic, and wrote them a letter telling them so.)

When you see that all the time, there’s something that happens in your subconscious mind that tells you that you should be acting as those guys do. They have what you want, and if you do what they do, you’ll have what they have. But your subconscious mind doesn’t know that it’s only television fantasy; it can’t discriminate like that.

So the lie that is told over and over becomes perceived reality – accepted as truth by those who don’t know or seek the facts, but not really true.

However! Awareness can override this negative programming, and better still, you can use this same principle to lift yourself up! Instead of watching wusses give all men a bad name on television, hang out with successful friends who are happy with their lives and have the alpha male tendencies that women enjoy! Since your environment can program you, let it program you for success instead of failure!

But that means doing something really smart: You have to acknowledge your betters as potential mentors and positive influences instead of envying their success and resenting them. Can you handle that? Can you handle hanging around with one or more guys who have a strong personality that women love and are successful at what they pursue?

No, they don’t have to be filthy stinking rich to be successful. Wealth is not always a man’s goal. Some men prefer to succeed at fishing, hunting, wood or metal working, rebuilding cars, throwing darts, collecting stamps – you name it. But a man who succeeds at one thing will generally succeed at many things, because he has the formula – and he can demonstrate it to you simply by you being around him.

This isn’t rocket science, Gentlemen. Not by a long shot. Do you recall hearing an axiom called “Occam’s Razor” when you were a student? “The simplest explanation is most often the correct one.” By the same token, the simplest paths to success are most often the best. And what can be simpler than exposing yourself to people who are what you want to be and just letting it all soak in?

If you hear hooves beating behind you, do you think “horse” or “zebra”? There’s a reason clichés become clichés: they’re so universally true and therefore so frequently quoted that people get tired of hearing them. At least in most cases.

Some would have you believe that you can never understand what a woman says or what she really wants. I believed it for a long time, as did many who came before you, until it came down to a do-or-die situation and I had to learn. How do you think I learned? Did I go to the Himalayas and ask the Dali Lama, or to Rome to ask the Pope? Did I consult ancient mystical texts like the Bible, Quran, or Cabbala? Did I seek the counsel of alien races? Or contact the dead through a crystal ball? Hardly…

I asked a bunch of women!

I had to learn to speak “girly-ese” (some of my readers are calling it “feminese” and I rather like that one, too) before I could make sense of a lot of what they wanted to tell me, but believe me, they wanted me and every man alive to know. All this time that we’ve been shaking our heads in frustration because we can’t understand them, they’ve been angry and frustrated because they didn’t know we didn’t understand and thought we were choosing to ignore them. Imagine that!

In the end, they are neither complex, weak nor stupid. They’re just enough like us to make us think that they’re entirely like us and just different enough to drive us crazy sometimes, but they are simple, strong, smart, and one hell of a lot of fun to be around once you tune in and gain their trust – they’re mostly emotionally driven, and want more than anything to feel safe in feeling anything for you, lest their emotions be used against them as they have many times in the past, like when date after date said, “I’ll call you tomorrow,” or “Sure, I’ll still respect you in the morning.”

What you need to know is how we’re alike and how we’re different, and in plain language, not an encyclopedia full of psycho-babble. You need to learn to speak girly-ese, which sounds a whole lot like whatever language you speak, but the protocols are different. You need to know things about a woman’s emotional make-up, like the fact that being bored is as detrimental to her health and ability to think rationally and make good choices as being terrified is to you. And you need to know how to flip her switches and ignite that spark that will never let her feel bored again and make her fight – indeed, to kick the crap out of a running saw mill if necessary – to protect her relationship with you.

If you’re interested, go to http://www.makingherhappy.com/ and download your copy of "THE Man's Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" -- it’s ALL in there, just as I described, in plain language that a child could understand (and a few smart-ass remarks just to keep you entertained as well!). And if you’re not interested? Well, I hear you can get used to being in the dog house, getting yelled at all the time, and even getting divorced and losing everything you have in the process, but that’s one challenge I’d just as soon skip.

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

Be Her Manly Man, Not Her Girlfriend, If You Want a Great Relationship and Marriage

A guy writes with a common complaint, that his girlfriend has begun treating him like a girlfriend, and as usual, it’s happened so insidiously that he doesn’t even realize what has happened. There is a way to fix it, and a way to keep it from happening as well.

Today’s newsletter is longer than usual, because it’s a common and often catastrophic subject, so please read carefully at a time when you are able to concentrate, because there’s information here that you will not want to miss. I’d like to introduce you to a man who needs no introduction, because we’ve all seen him, and many of us have even been him at least once in our life. Today, his name is Ted:

Dear David,

I wanted to get another guy’s opinion on something that is going on with me and my girlfriend lately. I only get to see her a couple of times a week because of our class and work schedules and when we are together all she wants to do is go shopping. I do not feel like her boyfriend anymore. I feel like the gay best friend or girlfriend and I am not liking this, to say the least.

I want to take her out for a nice dinner and come back to my place and spend some quality time alone. We used to go out and then come back to my place, have some wine and spend the rest of the night talking and having the greatest sex. Now something has changed and I am not sure if it’s me or she has found someone else. I do not want to risk losing her if I can in any way fix this problem. Do you have any ideas as to what might save my relationship at this point? If something does not change soon I will be calling off the wedding for the coming summer.

I need advice,

Ted

Greetings, Ted; thanks for writing, welcome to the club, and my condolences for your loss. If your description is accurate, your relationship is dead. However, you can resurrect a dead relationship if you understand what has happened and are willing to fix what is broken. As things are right now, I’m quite surprised that your girlfriend hasn’t called off the wedding and found someone else to excite her. This problem is covered in depth in my book, but I’ll explain because I’m feeling generous today…

There are basically two main components of the kind of relationship we’re talking about here if it’s healthy: love and attraction. Love is the value you place on the partner, and is the category under which friendship, respect, trust, loyalty, etc., all fall. The other part, attraction, is what people have mistakenly referred to with such phrases as “in love” over the centuries. It has nothing whatsoever to do with love, and can in fact be experience toward someone you absolutely hate (such as spouse abusers, which we’ll talk about a little more later); it’s a biologically-triggered state of intense excitement and desire for intimacy of many kinds, including and especially sexual, with another person.

For men, attraction is triggered mostly by visual characteristics of women’s appearance, and actions to a lesser extent; for women, it’s the reverse. A man’s appearance doesn’t count for much except to the extent that it projects self-respect, confidence, and personal strength, as must his personality, and he must project intelligence and a good sense of humor as well. Consequently, attraction can be built in seconds to minutes for men, while it usually takes hours, days, or even weeks to start seeing attraction built up in a woman to the point of sexual engagement being an option.

(There are two other states, “need” and “lust” that have nothing to do with a healthy relationship; indeed, “need” and “love” are mutually exclusive, and “need” kills relationships with the dependency and resentment it creates. Lust has no specific person as its object, and can also be very detrimental to an otherwise healthy relationship if the participants aren’t mentally prepared to accept lustful behavior as a condition of the relationship’s continuance. See my book or my free “Break-Up Busting 101” report for full explanations.)

What has happened in your relationship is the love is apparently still there, because there is still friendship, but the attraction is gone because the intimate behavior, everything from intimate discussions to exciting playfulness and sex, have fallen by the wayside. You feel like a girlfriend because that is how you allow yourself to be treated. You’re not doing guy things – alpha male things – that awaken her inner drives and trigger attraction. You’re doing exactly what she would be doing with a girlfriend for fun because you are allowing her to make the decisions on how the two of you spend your time together – a huge mistake in any male-female relationship if it is to last.

Women enjoy being led – NOT DOMINATED, BULLIED, AND ABUSED – by strong, confident men. It’s not because they are weak, can’t make decisions, or any such reasons that chauvinists (chau·vin·ism n. 1. Militant devotion to and glorification of one's country; fanatical patriotism. 2. Prejudiced belief in the superiority of one's own gender, group, or kind.) have used to demean and oppress women for centuries. It’s simply what they are biologically wired to appreciate, just as men are biologically wired to enjoy the sight of a woman’s natural “feminine curves.” Dumping all the decisions in her lap, about where to go, what to do, where to eat, what movie to see, how to spend your time, etc., isn’t just failing to give her something attractive to experience, it’s annoying for her to some degree (and you will have to read my book to find out why and how to properly handle decision-making, because while she wants you to lead, she still wants, needs, and in many cases demands input), and you are killing attraction instead of building it for her.

There are some people who try to deny human existence and claim that attraction isn’t required for a relationship to last (they try to replace attraction with “faith,” or some kind of “Zen,” instead of accepting attraction as the reality it is). But if you gain a thorough understanding of attraction, and then look at every relationship you’ve ever seen enough of to know the facts concerning how it formed and what broke it up, it becomes overwhelmingly obvious that committed male-female relationships rarely, if ever, form without attraction and rarely, if ever, end as long as it is present. Some relationships do survive without it, but nearly all of those to which I have been personally exposed and those which readers have discussed with me have been between people who were self-evidently bored, resentful, and often codependent, their relationship being based upon “need” instead of a combination of love and attraction.

In a nutshell, love and everything that comes with it makes a relationship friendly, safe and pleasant (attraction in the absence of love, often coupled with need, is what you find in abusive relationships where a man violently abuses a woman and she keeps coming back for more because she craves the feeling of attraction and he creates it for her), while attraction is that “spice of life” that keeps the relationship, fresh, fun, exciting, romantic, etc.

So there you go, Ted. That’s what happened. As for fixing it, it takes little more than being a real man, which after the girly-man nonsense of the 1980’s and 1990’s could be reasonably deemed “nearly a lost art.” However, “nearly lost” is not the same as “lost.” There are still a few of us around who understand what being a real man is about, and of the few of us who are left, a very few of us are able to identify it for you, and tell you how to do it.

Fewer still can also explain to you how to evaluate a relationship to see if you should be in it at all, and teach you the great secrets of communicating with women, the most highly-evolved communicators on this planet, which is tough for a man because we have spent our evolutionary energy on things like engineering skills and spatial awareness while they have learned to speak in ways that only they understand and become so adept at and dependent upon sending and receiving non-verbal communication that they can smile at us while demeaning us to a group of girlfriends and we think we’re being complimented, or tell us precisely what they want from us and the entire message be lost in the translation. (Beware a woman with a mathematical mind, because she will kick your ass all the way to the poor-house playing poker!)

Even fewer are those who know and can tell you all this and train you to do it naturally, as a part of your own personality, by putting it in a highly-readable and fun book. I’m one of those guys, and if you were in the dating world instead of a committed relationship and wanting to know how to meet and impress women, I could give you the names of about four more, because that’s where most of this attention is being focused. It’s a big and desperate market and those men are single and dating themselves, and they have to stick with their area of expertise; the rules for creating attraction are somewhat different in committed relationships than they are for getting phone numbers or “macking” (trying to score a one-night stand) at a local bar, especially the timeframe. You have seconds to create interest, minutes to create intrigue, and a couple of hours at most in the bar situation, and if you blow it with a single gesture or wrong word, you’re done because she can walk away to scope out a hundred other options.

Not so in the committed relationship. She has a vested interest in continuation of the relationship, and so do you, and it’s to everyone’s advantage to bring it back to life. The point?

This information is rare, some of it unique (I’ve not found anything like it, and I looked hard because I didn’t want to waste time trying to reinvent the wheel when I had problems, before all this began), at least to a large degree, specifically developed for and presented to people in a committed relationship, and most importantly, it works.

It was tested by 118 couples during the writing of the book and many more since then, and in three years I’ve given three refunds. The first was to a “library reader,” someone who buys and then immediately asks for a refund to steal a product. The second one was to a gentleman who missed an announcement that I was changing the title of my book to more accurately reflect its true scope and purpose and bought a second copy. The third thought he might find dating advice in it, which I don’t claim or advertise; although all of what’s in it is useful if you’re dating to find a long-term relationship, I don’t include anything on how to get dates or pick up women. Most information marketers say they’re doing good with a 10% refund rate; and mine is less than 0.0001%. That’s because it works for those who use it. No other conclusion is possible.

And YOU should join those who use it and succeed like they do! Do so by jumping over to http://www.makingherhappy.com and getting your copy of “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage” right now, because you can make your relationship better, a lot better, and the time to start is now, while it’s easier to regain lost ground, not after the affairs or divorce proceedings have started or a break-up has occurred and you have to do it the long, hard way. Be the achiever, not the guy who sat on the fence wondering if it could be done, because looking back with regret kills the part of you that loves to live the most.

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

Relationship and Marriage Wisdom of the Ages: The Great Poet, Virgil

“The wisdom of the ages” is so named because it is indeed timeless, and even if it is thousands of years old, still proves effective today. Over 2,000 years ago, the Roman poet Virgil knew a lot more about fixing a failing relationship than you might guess…

I can’t describe to you how much I love this job. Everywhere I turn, I see something that holds a lesson for you, even in my old e-mail! LOL!

I was looking through the e-mail I’ve received from readers in past months to see who I needed to check in on (I try to follow up on everybody who writes to me with a problem to make sure they get it resolved and are still moving forward every day of their lives), and I noticed something about them: those who had the greatest success are the ones who took the most decisive action swiftly.

The great Roman poet Virgil (70 BC – 19 BC) wrote a lot about bold actions and bold men, not to mention a lot of other things that a man, especially a man in trouble, should keep at the forefront of his thoughts.

First those on boldness and bravery:

“Look with favor upon a bold beginning.”

“Fortune favors the brave.”

Those who see opportunity and act not only succeed, they draw the favorable attention of others, especially women, and most especially the woman with whom they are in a committed relationship. After all, bold, well-planned and well-executed action is one of the hallmarks of leadership and alpha male behavior.

But what makes some men bolder than others? Virgil had a few words to say about that, too:

“They can conquer who believe they can.”

“They can do all because they think they can.”

If you expect success, you make it happen, plain and simple. It’s not a mind game, just common sense. When you don’t expect success, you hold back, not wanting to commit everything to the win, holding your options open to such a degree that you never fully exercise any of them, and eventually your options expire and you fail miserably.

Ask anybody who has succeeded why they succeeded. They won’t tell you it was blind luck. That’s somebody who won the lottery, not somebody who has succeeded. Someone who has succeeded at anything will say that they thought things through, and then followed through (legendary U.S. Air Force test pilot Chuck Yeager’s formula for success). They may not use those words, but that’s the message you’ll get, that they were committed to success, and did what it took to make it happen.

The million dollar question is, what gave them what they needed to commit? What say you, Virgil?

“Trust one who has gone through it.”

“Believe one who has proved it. Believe an expert.“

No man is born knowing how to handle every situation, good, bad, or indifferent. We learn as we go, some of us more than others. Those who succeed can commit to success because one way or another, they have come up with the knowledge that it takes to plot their path into the future, anticipating situations and making appropriate choices, thereby having a reasonable expectation of success because they have seen it. They then proceed, knowing that if their own learning and experience don’t cover everything that comes up, there will be others who can provide experience and knowledge that can bridge the gap for them, but one way or another, they will find or create everything that is needed.

But success can be fleeting, you say? Sure it can, if you let it! Virgil knew something about that, too:

“It is easy to go down into Hell; night and day, the gates of dark Death stand wide; but to climb back again, to retrace one's steps to the upper air - there's the rub, the task.”

Many a success, many a fortune, and many a life has been pissed away because somebody wasn’t vigilant, and started letting things slide, like paying attention to their business, their children, or their wife. But instead of taking action, they thought, “Well, maybe it will just turn around on its own if I’m patient.”

Yeah, right. I’ve had a lot of problems fix themselves, haven’t you? I think the last time I had a problem fix itself I was in high school, had dislocated a shoulder falling down a flight of stairs, and tripped on the way to the ground floor to go to the hospital and relocated it. That was about 30 years ago.

So what should you do? Virgil, another pearl if you please?

”Yield not to evils, but attack all the more boldly.”

When things start to slide in your marriage, one of the very first things that happens is your sex life goes to hell in a handbasket. Boredom and frustrations build and you become part of that deplorable statistic wherein married couples who have been together longer than two years average having sex six times per year.

That sucks out loud, doesn’t it? And it’s so easy to just go out and have a fling, while you wait for her to wake up and do something, because it’s all her fault, with the headaches, the complaints, right? After all, she’s the one who’s saying “no,” not you.

Don’t be a moron. She’s not saying “no” because everything is the way she wants it to be. She wants to be excited. She wants to desire you. She wants you to sweep her off her feet, as you must have done to some degree on some level for her to marry you unless she was totally desperate and feared being alone, in which case she still wants it and wants it to be you, but doesn’t expect it from you, so it’s even easier for her to be looking elsewhere, too.

One of the worst-kept secrets in all of existence is that there are actually VERY FEW headaches that are bad enough to interfere with sex. Ask anyone who has a healthy libido and satisfying sex life. It’s when you don’t mix it up with naughty behavior and alpha male leadership to create attraction for a woman, don’t pay attention to her and learn to communicate with her, and frustrate and bore her to death that it becomes easier for her to just fake a headache or fatigue than to try to explain to you that you’re not “doing it for her” for the one thousandth time knowing that you won’t get it any better this time than the other 999.

That’s when you have to dig deep within yourself and ask yourself how important this woman and your marriage is to you. Virgil even wrote something about that:

“O tyrant Love, to what do you not drive the hearts of men?”

That rhetoric can be placed in a whole lot of different contexts, both good and bad, but think about it. When you really love a woman, when you VALUE her, and share her values, should you not be willing to do whatever it takes to protect and maintain your relationship with her? And if you do not, should you not acknowledge that a mistake that has been made, that you are so mismatched that neither of you can ever be happy with the other, and seek a graceful, equitable exit instead of wallowing in misery or starting some kind of war?

That’s when you summon your expert, learn what you need to know, and commit to making a successful change. You can dread it, or you can revel in the opportunity to start over with better information in hand and do it right this time. Virgil had some pretty good advice about that, too:

“Let us go singing as far as we go: the road will be less tedious.”

There is nothing that can diffuse a bad time, lighten a load, or elicit cooperation like the combination of leadership and humor, and that goes double for any situation that involves a woman, because they are biologically wired to respond to it. They have a choice to a degree and up to a point, but attraction can become just as overwhelming for them as boredom.

Think about that for a minute…

You can create attraction for a woman, and have her nurture you and stay with you for life, or you can fail to create attraction for her, and have her so bored and frustrated that she makes your life hell and BOTH OF YOU end up risking or having affairs while waiting for each other to do something to put off the impending divorce. If he had had such language in his day, I’m thinking Virgil would have said something like:

“Hmmm….a no-brainer!”

So there you have it. Be bold, be brave, find an expert, trust those who have been there before you, and have fun fixing things. Wisdom of the ages.

I’m your expert. I’ve been there, along with the 118 couples that helped in the development of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" and the hundreds that followed them to keep providing you with the wisdom of those who have been there so that you can be bold and brave, and get back to having fun in your marriage or other committed relationship. Download your copy right now at http://www.makingherhappy.com because it’s not just history that favors the bold and the brave; women do too, including yours!

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

An Attitude and Mistake That Can Kill ANY Relationship or Marriage

A reader’s comment on ending a newsletter subscription demonstrates an attitude and a mistake that will kill not just attraction, but any relationship, faster than you can snap your finger and say “Buh-bye!”

Occasionally readers end their subscription to this newsletter, and I invite them to provide a reason or any other commentary on the form. I have an on-going interest in trying to find any reasonable means to improve the scope, content, delivery, convenience, etc.

Once in awhile I get a comment that sparks positive change, sometimes a simple thank you for helping someone to become their own relationship expert, and a few benign comments like they were looking for a different kind of publication, are leaving on vacation and don’t want their e-mail inbox to fill up in their absence, are changing addresses, etc. No problem…

But then there are those few comments that proclaim such a level of “megalithic moronitude” that I have to disclose them here, because they invariably disclose something that the rest of this group, the part with a functioning brain looking for self-improvement and help, can learn from. The following is such a comment:

This lead has unsubscribed by following the link at the bottom of one of your AWeber messages, and decided to provide comments. Why did I receive this email? http://www.aweber.com/faq_messages.htm#messages6b

Name: zxxxxr
Email: xxxxxxxx@yahoo.com (e-mail address suppressed
to protect the idiotic)
Signup Date: XX/XX/XX 06:18 AM EST

Comments:
all messages should be in a form of points and alittle comment coz its boring coz itz too long

Ignoring the lack of capitalization and punctuation, grammar and spelling that you couldn’t slip past a kindergarten teacher, and the obvious utter lack of self-respect that this person projects, look at the message:

“I don’t want to read this newsletter because there’s too much information and I get bored. How dare you expect me to listen and think about what you are saying???”

This kind of comment doesn’t make me angry; it makes me pity the poor sap who wrote it. Yes, I’m a bit verbose at times, because I’m writing for a very diverse audience. Some people need a bit more of an explanation than others and a writer has to communicate at the lowest level present in his or her target audience. Others just need a little more help because their situation is worse; emotionally-charged situations make it hard-to-impossible to think rationally. I freely admit that I could make some of these newsletters half as long as they are, but then they would only make sense and be valuable to half as many people or only half as valuable to others.

So what can we learn from this?

This is the second such comment I’ve had that expressed this sentiment out of thousands of e-mails and a few hundred cancelled subscriptions. That means that most people read until they understand, skim the material that appears redundant to them, and start reading thoroughly again when they find a new idea being broached. Why? Because they are motivated to listen and learn!

But what happens when it’s not my newsletter that you’re reading, but instead, it’s your wife, talking round and round, seemingly in an endless circle comprising more laps than a NASCAR event? Do you tune her out until she comes to something new because you don’t care enough about what she’s trying to communicate to listen intently and not be bored?

NO! Hell NO! Because that’s what has put most of us in the dog house more times than we can count! And think about that for a minute; this woman cared enough about you to marry you and you pay more attention to something printed in an e-mail than something that she wants you to know? If this is the case, we can project with astonishing accuracy where your relationship’s problems started!

Guys, I cannot overstress this, even if I talked non-stop about it for a thousand pages or a thousand hours. Listening to a woman talk and hearing what she is trying to make you hear is not like listening to a man, and if you make the mistake of listening to a woman as if she were a man you will live to regret it every time, unless she has a markedly masculine communication style, in which case you most likely would not be reading this newsletter. Indeed, many of you have written to me acknowledging that improving communications is the doorway to all other relationship success, including attraction and a return to “normal intimate relations.”

When we men speak to each other and use as few words as possible, we’re doing each other a favor and we know it, because we’re all about results, resolution, keeping things safe, etc., and efficiency is how we get the most things achieved in everything we do. It’s not so with women…

They only rarely, if ever, speak directly about anything. They often use repetition as a way of expressing emotional involvement. We’ve all heard the dramatic litany, “I thought I would die! I mean I thought I would die!” The more it’s repeated, the higher the emotional intensity they’re trying to convey. And yes, it bugs the crap out of me just like it does you, because it’s inefficient, dramatic, and annoying, just like it annoys them that we don’t repeat ourselves to indicate our emotional involvement like the do, being the closed-off, terse, Neanderthals that we are (in their minds, of course).

They use questions to make statements and make statements to ask questions. “Are you hungry?” means, “I’m hungry and want to talk about what we’re going to eat and where we’re going to get it.” “Are you wearing that?” means, “Don’t wear that. You look stupid.” “I saw Jenny at the market today,” means “I saw somebody and talked to them and would like to tell you about it. Are you going to let me or are you going to cut me off like you usually do?”

They seldom if ever succinctly report anything except the details of their itinerary, and even then they’re waiting for you to act interested by asking them questions about what they’re saying, thereby giving them to green light to get into the emotions and social impact of their itinerary. Refer to the previous paragraph because it’s the same principle.

Everything with them is a negotiation of one form or another, and if you’re not hearing something that you can interpret and respond to and just tune her out until she gets around to something that you can, you just paid her a HUGE, HURTFUL INSULT, because you ignored her instead of engaging her to get the message right. Well, jump back two paragraphs to the example of being hungry. Pretty simple, universal stuff, right?

What she hears when you “cut her off” like that is that you don’t care enough about her or anything about her to try to listen. Why? Because she doesn’t realize that you don’t speak and listen in the same manner as women! (Women cut each other short or don’t ask engaging questions as a demeaning way of cutting someone off.) Remember all the times that she screamed at you, “You NEVER listen to me!” even though you were trying to listen and maybe even thought you were doing a pretty good job? Now you know where that fit she pitched came from.

There is a fix, and it’s not that difficult; indeed, there are more experts being born every day after reading "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" and learning the mechanics and protocols that men and women use to communicate. As men learn to be better listeners and speakers when speaking with women, they’re also teaching the women in their life how to listen and speak more directly and effectively with men, resulting in women who are amused by men’s quaint shortcomings in communications skills instead of feeling ignored, discounted, and disrespected. Imagine how that alone is improving their self-esteem and trust of their men, and how that is in turn impacting their relationship and the men in their life!

And you’re going to love this: those who go through it verify that it is indeed fun! It’s like opening this huge box of new tools and toys and being overwhelmed with delight and discovery. Want to join in the fun and kick your relationship up to notches previously unknown to mankind?

It’s easy to do. Just hop over to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" and your complimentary copy of my “Break-Up Busting 101” and “What Women REALLY Want” series reports. It’s an instant download, guaranteed to improve your life, no matter what condition it’s in. Do yourself a favor and go for it, before you end up spending yet another night in the doghouse and have no idea why.

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

The Fool, the Smart, and the Wise -- Which One Wins in Relationships and Marriage?

There are three kinds of people, the foolish, the smart, and the wise. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to become wise and thereby avoid the mistakes that others have made, especially in regards to your relationship and marriage…

The weekend is almost gone! Time to buckle down and learn something useful to put to work this coming week, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, you’ve got plenty of time for beer and sports, so give me a few minutes here to teach you something, albeit in one of the longer pieces I’ve given you (just a few extra paragraphs, so don’t panic), and then you can go out and play with your friends.

I had a pretty tough childhood because I was precocious and insisted on knowing everything. That in itself isn’t too tough, but I was also independent, and wanted to know everything by learning it the hard way. I learned a lot, too.

On the day my military career started, I was labeled a “mustang” or “maverick,” a guy who has a hard time getting with the program because he has a knack for finding a better way to do things and doesn’t toe the line when he should. I got through basic training, and then got into some sticky situations.

Nobody got hurt or killed because of my choices or actions, but hellfire did rain down on my head a few times, because for every few “atta-boy’s” I’d get for going above and beyond the call, “there would be an “oh sh*t” to negate them in one fell swoop. My commanding officer was constantly running interference for me with the big brass, and finally everything came to a head and I was ordered to report to my CO’s CO, a two-star general who shall remain nameless for a variety of reasons, for an “operational competency review.”

After introductions and the traditional reading of my file (I still don’t know why they go through that little ritual, and I’m not sure they do), the general said to me, “Cunningham, you’re smart, too damned smart for your own good. I need you to wise up before you compromise an op and get yourself or one of my other men killed. Do you know the difference?”

Everybody in my unit was young, full of piss and vinegar, and drawing hazard pay, got off on all the gung ho ritual language, and hence I replied, “Sir, I do not know. If the general would explain the difference I will deploy that knowledge in a swift, proficient, and distinctly military manner.”

He got a glint in his eye and said, “Very well. There are three kinds of people in the world, the foolish, the smart, and the wise. The foolish are those grab-asstic pieces of crap who waste time and life by never learning from their mistakes. The smart do learn from their mistakes, even if they are like you and make a lot of them because they want to be smarter. The wise move through life with patience and purpose, paying attention to what’s going on around them and learning from the mistakes and successes of others so that they don’t waste time and life making the same mistakes that others have made before them.

“I need you and every man under my command to be a wise man. We have a system here that is based on the mistakes and successes of those who came before you. It is not perfect, but it does work. You may be able to improve upon it, but you will do so by following the system during operations and providing any feedback you have during the post-operation debriefing. We want anything you can offer that will help to achieve objectives and save the lives of well-trained fighting men, but the time to deviate from the program is not when you are taking fire. That is your CO’s job, and my job, not yours. Do you get me?”

I never forgot that bit about the foolish, the smart and the wise. My mission changed that minute, from trying to do it all on my own to trying to learn everything I could the most efficient way that I could, which for the most part has been to watch and learn from the behavior of others. To that end, we’re going to have an exercise right now to show you just how much you can learn from somebody else, even someone you don’t expect to have anything to teach you.

The following letter is one of the many success stories I’ve received. I chose it for this exercise because it explodes a myth and because on the surface it doesn’t even appear to be relevant to saving a stale or failing marriage or other committed relationship, yet it holds some of the best lessons you’ll ever learn. Meet Tom:

David,

I wanted to take a moment to give you some feedback. My wife and I were recently divorced after 15 years of marriage. We are both in our early 50's. I worked really hard to save my marriage using logic.

I lost her to a bad boy. He is a real bum, without a job and still lives with his mother even though he is in his 50's. What a real mooch.

For the longest time I tried to apply logic to what was happening to my marriage and I failed to understand just what was going wrong. I guess I was too ingrained into my habitual patterns. It was only after the divorce that I started to get your material and receive your newsletters. WOW. Boy, was I ever wrong in my approach to women. I did all the nice guy stuff and provided a good home, clothes, jewelry, cars etc. I worked my ass off to provide for her.

As I started to read your material I came to realize what a bad relationship I had been in and what really went wrong.

I came to realize that I had failed to create attraction in her although I had her affection. That was my fault. The dishonesty (for many years), the deceit, the cheating, the character defects, etc., are all her fault. In many ways our divorce is a blessing in disguise.

I have followed your advice and that of David DeAngelo's program of Sexual Communication. Man what a difference it has made in my life and my approach to dating. I am now not trying to be the nice guy and "win" her favors. I am more confident in myself and out to have fun. I have played with and am learning the real way to create attra’ction in women and it is working. My successes with the new me are just outstanding and I am enjoying my life and playing a lot more. I don't have to call for dates...they are calling me. Really attractive and quality women.

So I wanted to thank you for putting out the information that you do, in such a professional manner that us nice guys can see where we went wrong and how to fix it. Keep up the good work.

Sincerely
Tom

PS: Oh and by the way. The ex has noticed and wants back into my life. NO way in hell will I ever get back into her games again. She has lost the house, cars, clothes, her reputation, is in debt up to her eyebrows, etc. I could go on and on with what she has done to herself. Life is funny sometimes, but I have the ultimate revenge and it does taste good. Thanks.

So what can you learn from this story that will make you a wise man? For starters, Tom didn’t just automatically blame everything on somebody else and assume no responsibility for what happened that led to his divorce. He buckled down and found information that gave him answers as to what happened and what he could change to make sure it didn’t happen again. Lesson: Take personal responsibility when things don’t go as planned, figure out what happened, and learn how to make it go the right way next time.

Also note I didn’t write one word of advice targeted at those who are dating in "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," yet Tom found all kinds of advice in it that helped him to be more successful in his dating life, BECAUSE HE WAS LOOKING FOR IT. Good information isn’t always where you EXPECT to find it, but it is always WHERE YOU FIND IT, if you know what I mean. Lesson: be ever-vigilant in looking for things that can make your life better; you may not find a pearl in every oyster, but finding a gold nugget under an outhouse doesn’t make it any less valuable than if it was found in a creek or a mine.

Tom also didn’t limit his options in solving his problems, and took advice to broaden his search. In "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," I teach readers how to evaluate their relationship to determine if they should try to salvage the relationship, because if you are grossly mismatched in areas like your personal value system or personal tastes, it’s never going to work, and your time and effort is far better applied to make a graceful exit instead of beating a dead horse only to fail in the end and exit under fire after war is declared.

Included in the advice for those making such an exit are people to contact to help protect your assets in the event that a property settlement war does break out, and advice to seek out advice specific to succeeding in the dating game by Shelley McMurtry, F.J. Shark, John Alanis, Tiffany Taylor, David D’Angelo, etc., because jumping back into the dating game blind is one of the scariest things a person can do, and I’ve found their material to be very logical and rooted in real-world cause-and-effect relationships.

Instead of saying, “I’m tired of reading. I’ve done this before, I’m just going to jump in and it will be better this time,” Tom recognized that a recommendation from one good source of information about another source of information was likely a good call because no information seller will risk trashing his reputation by steering a customer in the wrong direction for an affiliate sale and blow any possibility of future direct sales. Lesson: Know your limitations, and do everything you reasonably can to obtain help in overcoming them by seeking the advice of those who have succeeded before you.

And as big as they are, those are the small lessons. Look in Tom’s post script (the paragraph that follows the “P.S.,” which stands for “post script,” for those of you who skipped that class in high school). His ex has noticed the changes in him and wants back in his life! The dating gurus will often say that this can’t happen, but you must remember that in the dating world, that’s most often correct. When you meet a stranger, your window of opportunity for creating attraction can be measured in minutes, maybe even a few seconds.

But! When you’ve been together for awhile and your interest is fully vested, that window could be measured in YEARS in some cases, and months in almost all cases. Women like the protective feeling of stability, and will give you ample opportunity to make things right IF they see that you’re trying to do so. Lesson: Even if the divorce is final, as long as she hasn’t filed for restraining orders (which indicate that all hope is indeed lost in nearly all cases in the long term, and in ALL cases in the short term), it’s NEVER too late to fix it.

Also note he held her accountable for her mistakes, and that ultimately being held accountable and having to live the life that she chose was the worst punishment that could be heaped upon her. Lesson: Justice is sweet, while revenge is a dish that simply should never be served, unless it’s “self-served.” War isn’t just “the most spectacular of all human endeavors” (General George S. Patton), it’s the most costly and utterly destructive, on any scale.

Here endeth the lesson. Right now, some of you are saying, “Geesh, that guy is long-winded. That’s annoying!” while others are thinking, “Wow! That guy must really care about this stuff, because it must have taken him a long time to put that together to share it with me.” I do, and it did, several hours in fact. Several hours that I could have spent with family and friends, enjoying a hobby, cooking an elaborate gourmet dinner, or numerous other things for myself instead of for you. If you don’t need this much help from me, I’m happy for you, really, but I’m doing this to help people in crisis make their lives better just as much as I’m doing it to help other people keep their relationships from falling into crisis. Lesson: Never look a gift horse in the mouth.

Sorry, I couldn’t resist that last one. Seriously, I have a lot to teach you and everybody else who needs it so that you can be wise and keep from making the mistakes that others have made before you. We hit the high spots here in this newsletter and in my blog posts, but dig deep into the tangled and dark nitty-gritty in "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," and no matter what shape your relationship is in, there are many valuable lessons in there for you, lessons that will help you make your relationship better than it has ever been if you should be in it or help you get out of it with your dignity and a few dollars in your pocket and move on to find happiness elsewhere if you’re in the wrong relationship.

Your next move is to http://www.makingherhappy.com to download your copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" and get started, because life is too short to wait. Never put off until tomorrow the success and happiness you can have today!

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

The Path to True Manhood and a Great Relationship and Marriage, Part III, the Challenge

Well, here we go again! Today my buddy David is wrapping up his observations on the Path to Real Manhood, and you really must read this!

I hope you’ve been enjoying David’s insights. He was as lost as every other man when we met, but as you can see, he has indeed become a true master. He sent me a journal of sorts, describing a lot of what was going on at his place of business, which he entitled “Confessions of a Convenience Store Manager,” and I’m seriously considering letting all of you read it as well, because he writes well and makes excellent points.

I thought David was done enlightening us yesterday, but not so. I sent him a quick note letting him know that he was featured in yesterday’s newsletter, in which I said that he was being so astute and explaining so well that a lot of the smarter readers would be able to home in on the attraction issue and thereby buy themselves some time to deal with the other big issues, like compatibility and communications. He replied:

It's true. If they can't see how this is the absolute foundation of what attraction REALLY is, they'll never get it.

Since before even Aristotle's time, it was considered a fact, indisputable by any rational means, in order to be true to others, you first have to be true to yourself. You first have to be a man or not one single thing you do to try and square anything in your relationship will work PERIOD. You cannot fake this.

It won't be taught in school, in seminars, or discovered from watching a movie. While I was married, I invested more than a thousand dollars in seminars, lectures, classes, and books. Then still more in counseling. Very expensive band-aids. Yet not a single one got me anywhere but more confused, more frustrated and both of us fighting all the time. When it was already too late, over by a few years, I finally discovered your book. More than 15 years invested, the pain, the doubts only to face an empty house, resentful ex and seeing my kids when she felt like it.

Now my ex wants me to teach her husband! She has hinted on more than one occasion she could very easily be persuaded to start over. It's too late for that now for other reasons I won’t get into, but you see my point: it’s reversible, even after the divorce, as long as you’re still talking in any way and as long as no other alpha male has presented himself in your absence, which dampens your chances considerably because he’s a sure thing and she may not want to risk having you mess up what she’s found.

Anyway, it's no wonder so many men get overwhelmed with all the crap out there about this new program, those new skills or doing exercises to learn how to get along with your partner. And in my mind, this is where all the absurdity surrounding what makes an Alpha Male gets sickening.

A woman hates to be bored, and yes it's your responsibility to see neither of you are. That does not mean you have to be Robin Williams for laughs, Donald Trump for money or Don Juan for romance. If you insist on measuring yourself by other people’s standards, you will never measure up because YOU ARE NOT THEM! YOU ARE YOU and should be proud of it!

When you free yourself of all the crap, you will amaze yourself at what you are capable of. When you stop trying to be funny and let it come from within, you'll surprise everyone, most of all yourself! Making excuses about not being funny, interesting or strong doesn't cut it. An Alpha Male realizes there are no excuses. What is it Yoda said? " Do or do not. There is no try."

Yes, all that fancy crap sounds very romantic. But have you stopped and thought why a woman in a mansion will have a fling with the pool man? The gardener? The mechanic? The Chauffeur? It's not his money, it's not about his body. Good grief! Take a look at a plumber sometime, and how many jokes there are about his cheeks showing from under the sink and puttying his crack shut, yet he will inspire more offers than you think. I know. I used to be one.

Why is that? It's not their clothes, their car, or their money. It's because many of them are simply men being men. “No excuses to anyone, thank you, and you know what you can do with it if you want me to be something else.” That attitude of meeting life on his own terms and no others, head on, straight up, do or die. Get it done and do it right.

Read a good Romance novel recently? Many of the characters the women end up with in a hot affair are precisely the antithesis of what supposedly passes for a man these days! See when you finally stop thinking it's something OUTSIDE of yourself that makes a woman want you, you're finally starting to get it.

In the sappy movie Titanic, the lady snuck away from her rich suitor to experience life with a man – a REAL man. The passion in the back seat. Posing nude for drawings. Dancing and drinking with the "lower class." The thrill, the excitement, the tension of maybe getting caught. Boring? Not in this lifetime! She was almost resigned to a life of correctness, appropriate behavior, and boredom. Then she began to live when she met a man who showed her what life could be like with someone not afraid to live it. She smelled adventure, and that was it. Game over.

Or Ripley in the movie "Aliens." She was bitter, hard and cold until she met a man, a mere corporal mind you, who freed her to be a woman again. Someone she could trust to take charge and lead. Then she could relax, rest and finally begin to unwind. If you watch their interaction when he's showing her how to use the rifle, then with the locater beacon wrist band. This is a woman who was not afraid to tell the vice president of a corporation to go screw himself yet she's giggling and getting all shy and playful with him. You can see the tension slowing moving away from her shoulders, her neck and her face. The rest of the movie she defers to HIM and no one else.

While there are other issues that make these movies less than ideal, the picture it paints is unmistakable. Can you even count the times men went ga-ga over Ripley? Wanted her? Yet were afraid of her at the same time. Why? All the clues were right there as well for what she wanted in a man. Did any of them even see them? NOT! He was not the leader until forced to. He was not the clown. He was not the loudest or put himself forward in any way. He quietly did his job. When asked to step up, he made no excuses; he just did it. He did not have to be in front to lead, he did not have to take charge of the room, he already owned it. He did not have to shout to be heard, they listened. While the others before him had to threaten and demand, when he told them what needed to be done, they did it.

And if you think I'm telling you that's how ALL Alpha Males behave, you're not paying attention. You will be different. If you've ever watched a comedy program where Robin Williams was on with others, do you notice how they all defer to him? How he can take over the whole show at any moment with never a second thought? He's not aggressive about it, he's simply being who he is. Others try and are sneered at while he is rewarded for it. He is a leader within his area of expertise, an authority. Chicks dig that, and men follow it.

None of these men were perfect, rich or even considered the top of the food chain. Yet they showed enough of what being a man is for the women to enjoy being a woman. Any man can be an Alpha Male right now. This minute. Not when he gets a better job, a better house or a better car. Right now. No more excuses. The cage door is open. It's up to you whether you close it again and live in its shallow confinement or choose to live free as you were meant to be. No one or no thing makes that choice for you. You cannot blame anyone else, dodge the responsibility or worm your way out of it. Step up or step down. Your decision.

Think about it. I see from 40 to 50 women every single day I work. Young, old, skinny, fat, you name it. They all respond the same. I see teenagers, college girls, young professionals, stay at home moms, and corporate leaders walk through my doors every day. I talk to them all and while we may only talk for a grand total of 1- 5 minutes, it's surprising what an impact those moments have on their day.

Over time there are quite a few I get to know much better. And they bring in their friends as well. Many of them ask when I'm off for a few days where I am and tell me how much they miss me when I'm not there. I've detailed the other offers I get many times to you in private and I won't go into them here. What I had dreamed of being was all inside me. It took your book to unlock it. I'll never be able to thank you enough.

Later,
David

Wow. Can this guy preach or what? LOL! Seriously, if you’ll notice, he’s just doing what alpha males do: grabbing the bull by the horns, shooting straight, and taking charge of the situation. He has something to teach, something of great value gained through personal experience, and he’s stepping up in front of the crowd and saying, “Give me your ears and let’s fix your problems.” And make no mistake, this is natural behavior for him. I’ve watched it develop.

As I mentioned earlier, David won a contest, the prize for which was a copy of my book, "THE Man's Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage." He mentioned that he was interested in learning to write advertising copy, and I offered to help him learn. So we discussed my book quite a bit over the course of the next week or two as he was going through it trying to take command of the material to write a sales letter – self-improvement outside of learning to write advertising copy was not even his goal! But it soaked in, and took over. Watching the change in him, even though I was expecting it from having seen it in too many other men to count, was a delight to witness, and you see how he turned out.

The world of women is his oyster. And he’s having so much fun studying them and watching for that special someone that he’s feeling no pressure whatsoever to commit to any of them, holding out for “the one” is an enjoyable experience for him. And all because he read a book.

It’s a book full of blindingly self-evident facts and truth, and it will do the same to and for you if you give it a chance. Download your copy today at http://www.makingherhappy.com and give it a try!

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

Don't ACT Attractive, BE Attractive to Have a Great Relationship and Marriage!

Simply trying to act attractive won’t work; you can’t live a lie for very long before you get caught. The good news is that you can quickly change yourself, your self-perception, and BE attractive, so that it’s effortless and fun because it’s natural.

I’m going to break tradition here this morning, and address something that is really bothering me badly, speaking to both the men and women of this list. I’m going to ask everyone to read it in its entirety, although it may appear briefly to be impertinent; the conclusion and advice will bring everything into clear focus and you will absolutely find it worth reading.

I mentioned a while back that I was reading a notorious book for women on how to “capture a husband” called “The Rules” and I’ve finished it, twice. It is the most disturbing book I have ever read. Why?

First, I want to say up front that I’m not setting out to trash another author’s work. There is some very good advice in that book on issues of security and a few other things, but the authors, like most men and women, apparently knew little to nothing about female attraction. (Guys, again, stay with me here…)

Their focus was on getting married, using tactics that one of their grandmothers imparted to them, tactics that were developed over a hundred years ago when marrying well was a survival skill and marrying for love was a very low priority. If getting married, without regard to the quality of man you marry or whether he is a good match for you, is your only concern, what’s in it will work, however…

Many of the tactics they tout involve preying on a man’s insecurities to manipulate his emotions and control his reactions; they openly state this at more than one point in the book, and then try to rationalize it. Any woman will tell you that she cannot respect or be attracted to a man she can easily manipulate or control. So while this may get a woman married, it would not be to the man of her dreams, it would be to a scared wuss. These tactics would never work on an alpha male. Even more disturbing, and the bigger issue was…

Much of the advice was worded and in a context that implied not being attractive, but putting on an attractive act. They also kept alluding to people who didn’t follow the program because putting on an act was too hard. Part of what was so disturbing was that they saw the problem as it being too hard to keep up an act and advising women not to discuss what they were doing so that nobody would talk them out of it – read “verify that it was a bad idea” – instead of realizing that the fix for being unattractive was to BECOME attractive, not to just try to ACT attractive.

Gentlemen (and Ladies!) I cannot overstress how bad a strategy this is. At best, when you try to act attractive instead of just becoming attractive, you’re only replacing one kind of stress with another, one source of frustration with another, and one fear with another. The things that you should do to be attractive and exciting to the kind of person you want to attract and excite, especially as your partner – independent, confident, caring, etc. – are fun things, not stressful things, and things that have a positive impact in your entire life, not just your relationship with your partner, so it behooves you to take that extra step or two and make whatever changes to yourself real and permanent. Life’s too short to spend it afraid of discovery and stressed out!

I usually try to focus on only one point at a time, but these were all so inter-related that it seemed logical to address them together. I’ll sum it up for you to make sure we are on the same page:

1. Always look at the motivation behind and purpose for any advice anyone gives you, and make sure they are competent to give it by virtue of having succeeded at (and by!) doing whatever they’re advising you to do.

2. Any attraction tactic that preys on a man’s or a woman’s insecurities is bad; indeed, if they respond strongly to such a tactic, consider it a red flag that there is a self-esteem issue there to deal with, and if this person is already your partner, try to help them build self-esteem, don’t continue to tear it down by gouging it. Preying on insecurity or anything else is the act of a predator, by definition, right? This is not rocket science.

3. Any attraction tactic that requires that you lie to your partner (or prospect, if you are in or end up in the dating world) or put on an act will ultimately just add to your problems, not fix them.

4. Your goal in any relationship should be to have a good match, so that you can be yourself as much as possible and through compatibility find shared values and the love that it brings. Your personal goal should be to make yourself all that you can be so that you can live the life, not just look like it. As the saying goes, “Don’t just talk the talk, walk the walk.”

5. Any time you approach a relationship or situation in fear of it not working out instead of looking forward to enjoying it when it does work out, you’re setting yourself up for stress and ultimately failure. If you can’t be confident in what you are pursuing, seek knowledge and training, and make the self-improvements that are necessary to achieve and deserve the success you desire. See those who have done what you want to do as mentors to be sought out, not competitors to beat down.

There’s lots of tested and proven information in “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage” that will get you to that level of relationship quality and competence that will let you enjoy it instead of being bored with it or fearing losing it. I’ve used it, my support staff has used it, and the many folks who have bought the book have used it, and the most negative comment I’ve received to date has been “Great stuff!” so I’m guaranteeing that it will work for you, too – you won’t risk a thing except a few hours to read it. Download your copy today at http://www.makingherhappy.com, because life is too short to spend it stressed out, scared, bored, frustrated, and celibate.

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

Affairs Part 3: What Are You Looking for in Your Relationship and Marriage, or Are You Looking At All?

Great things are where you find them, especially solutions to life’s problems, but you have to be looking for them to see them. Believe it or not, that’s a lot more a matter of attitude than opportunity…

I checked my e-mail and found a couple of starkly contrasting pieces that screamed out “NEWSLETTER!!!!” So while I usually do this late at night based on some experience of the day, I’m doing it early today while the message is still at the forefront of my mind and easy to share with you.

The first thing I saw was a notice that a reader named Ryan had ended his subscription to this newsletter. Ryan had subscribed about two weeks prior, and his comment describing his reason for cancelling read:

“NOTHING OF VALUE”

Just below it was an e-mail from another reader, and I about laughed myself sick when I looked up his subscription date and found that it was the same day, and he submitted the following:

Hello David,

Thank you! Your book is awesome! All of your readers of your daily email should sack up and buy your book. Sometimes that macho crap gets in the way and we limit ourselves from learning more about the women in our lives. We do often think that we should naturally know everything....after reading your book i knew that I didn't know much!

My marriage came to an end a while ago and my ex was always turning to "relationship experts" like Dr Phil and John Gray just to name a couple. Yes being the good man (or trying to) I read their books. Although they had some interesting ideas, none of them had an impact on me the way your book did.

I have been in a new relationship with a woman now for about a year. I did not want this relationship to turn sour like all the other ones so I decided to be proactive and read your book. WOW! Over the past couple of weeks since I bought your book, I started to take control and the results have been amazing. I have not had a problem with self confidence or had a problem attracting women through out my life, but after a while things would always change. I could not sustain the attraction. This woman is amazing and I did not want to sabotage this one too. Your book is the bomb dude and I will direct as much attention to you as I can!

One of my buddies asked me this weekend why I was so happy and I told him I wish that he could feel for 5 minutes what I feel everyday now. My beautiful woman is into me like no ones business and looks at me in a way where i feel her love; even when we are not together. After almost a year we are more in love today than ever before. Thank you David for doing what the so called "relationship experts" could not.

Rock on Dude,

Mike

P.S. By the way...I packed her stuff up and we went for a picnic this weekend when she got home from work. The results are too X rated to put here...lol. Later!

(The picnic Mike refers to in the post script is a surprise outing I describe in the "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage,” wherein after you have learned how to read your partner and pay attention to the little things about her, like what she never leaves the house without on a day trip, weekender, etc., you come home a little early from work or send her off on an errand so you can have the house to yourself for an hour or so and prepare a picnic, day trip, weekend outing, etc. – just any kind of surprise trip to shake things up and give her a break from routine. It’s a wonderful exercise in attraction-building that every woman appreciates.)

The stark contrast in the findings and underlying attitudes of these two readers still has me reeling. One was looking for answers and found them, and I’m still trying to figure out what the other one was looking for, but it took them the same length of time to report their findings; my e-mail is updated every three minutes and these two came in together.

I’m hyper-analytical. You could probably count the original thoughts I’ve had in my life on both hands and a foot, but I can extract the cause and effect equation from any situation quickly and accurately, and it’s painfully automatic. Everything I see or hear first causes me to visualize, then analyze, then look for parallels once the cause and effect is known and logical deductions and projections that can be made from them. (That’s why you never find opinion or theory in my newsletters or books!)

When these letters hit me, the first big question was, “what else do men miss because they aren’t looking for it, or are looking somewhere besides at their partners to find it?”

Think about that. Is there something that you wish you and your partner shared, or could share or do together, that you have just assumed she wouldn’t be interested in or do? Are you right now or have you recently made the mistake of involving others in the problems of your life or relationship because you assume that your partner won’t want to discuss it, or resolve it?

Do you have any idea how many missed opportunities to deepen and improve your relationship and your life occur as a result of that? Or how many affairs are started because of that? How many misunderstandings it generates?

Don’t be like Ryan. If there’s something lacking at home, don’t go outside to find it before making absolutely sure that it’s not sitting there undiscovered right under your nose at home. Talk to your partner, and listen – or are you able?

I’ll go to my grave preaching this sermon. Effective inter-gender communication is not something that we are born well-suited to even do, let alone succeed at. It is a skill that must be developed, not a talent determined by a gene. For those of you who have seen the “Men State, Women Negotiate” excerpt from "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" (which is in lesson 1 in my free “Break-Up Busting 101 Report,” so download it immediately if you haven’t already read it), you know that as complex as it all seems, it pretty much boils down to the ruthless exercise of three simple rules that anybody can follow.

The question is “What are you looking for?” which begs the other question, “What is motivating you to look for anything?” Are you like Ryan, maybe looking for justification for your past mistakes so that you can blame somebody else for leaving you, or are you like Mike, realizing that you wouldn’t be reading this if everything was perfect, and that something that appears logical, people are using with success, and is guaranteed to work is worth a try, and therefore taking action and getting outstanding results?

Only you can make that choice, and I dare say that it is inevitable that you will be held accountable for it, if by nothing else, the state of your own life and that of your family’s, so choose well…

I don’t want to get too carried away with coincidences, but if you want to be “like Mike” (to those of you who saw the movie, I swear that’s his real name!), just do what he did. Jump over to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your own copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," and get busy. It took him 11 days to write that letter. How quickly can you turn your life and relationship around?

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

Nice Guys, Naughty Boys, and Bad Boys: Which Makes for a Great Relationship and Marriage?

A reader letter sparks a discussion of the differences between “naughty boy,” and “bad boy.” He was a nice guy and lost his wife to a bad boy while he was learning to be a real man with a naughty boy side that comes out to play when appropriate.

Letters like the one I’m about to show you are a bittersweet challenge; bitter because they attest to someone being in real pain, but sweet because they show someone taking responsibility for their life and making improvements, even in the face of hardship. Meet Todd:

David,

Six months ago my wife and I separated because it was just to the point I could not live with her and all the fights we were having everyday of our lives. We agreed to part company and get lives of our own. So I decided to work on improving myself in hopes that I could find out once and for all if I was the cause of our breakup as she claimed I was.

The fist step I took was reading up on relationships and other vital parts of a good marriage. I read all lot of crap before I found your book and I have to tell you it made the most sense of anything I’ve read. The problems you describe seemed like a roadmap to how my life fell apart, and the solutions were certainly doable. After making some changes in my life I realized just how much I loved my wife and that our marriage fell apart because I had become the "NICE GUY" so I put a big stop to that at once.

I wanted to try and work things out with my wife and to become a family again, but to my surprise she has gone off the deep end. She has been going out with a real "BAD BOY". He is unshaven, unclean looking, and every word out of his mouth is “the f-word” or some variation of it. He treats her like his very own slave, always ordering her around and telling her what to wear or not to wear and acting like he is her lord and master. I know she is a grown woman, but I truly think it has gone on for so long now she is scared to break it off.

What I am saying is I want my wife and family back and I am not afraid to fight for them, I am just not sure how to make the first step to let her see I am still responsible and take my family obligations serious, but I am no longer that nice guy pushover I use to be. Have any suggestions as to how I can get her out and show her the new man I am now without causing this bastard to either hurt her or cause me to have to hurt him?

Todd (x nice guy, and yes, you can print this)

My reply:

Damn, Todd! That’s a mess, and my heart goes out to you, really. I’m at a bit of a loss here because of a few missing details, so I’m going to take a stab at it based on some deductions and inferences and if I miss the mark somewhere you’ll just have to write back and clear up a detail or two. First of all, you say “separated,” not “divorced,” and you say “family” as if it were a separate entity from “wife,” implying that there are kids, so it would seem that you should have frequent opportunities to see each other under guise of visitation. Believe me, if you are indeed the new man you feel that you’ve become, she’ll notice. The big question is…

…do you really want her back? I understand that you have my book and have read it, but have you been brutally honest with yourself in the relationship evaluation and found that the two of you are indeed a great match, or have you been caught up in some idea of “proving yourself,” “winning her back,” etc., and haven’t inserted the new data into the equation?

If my wife had left and I found that she had taken up with such a man as you describe (and she wouldn’t because she does demand both respect and self-respect of a man), I’m pretty sure that I would not want her back, because even in spite of the power of attraction, a woman of any quality should be able to at least insist on decent personal hygiene (because it’s a sign of self-respect) and being able to form a sentence without a sexual vulgarity before getting close enough to a man to allow the other, more driving factors of attraction, such as his defining authority and exerting authority over her, to come into play. Attraction doesn’t happen for a woman without interaction; she must first experience curiosity and then intrigue before true attraction takes hold at a level strong enough to cloud her thinking severely, and she had plenty of time to make a choice.

Also, If you do “win her back,” will you want her back? Will you be able to live with the idea that she chose this scumbag, slept with him, and allowed herself to be treated in this way? And that she exposed your children to him? Indeed, at this point, your best option might be to renegotiate your custody agreement or whatever to try to protect your children from this seemingly controlling predator.

People make mistakes, and can be forgiven, but forgiving and forgetting are as unrelated as love and attraction, and you’ve got to try to determine how often the thought of the two of them together is going to weigh on YOU. You must decide whether you can live with that without feeling like YOU are settling.

Your choice should be about what is BEST FOR YOU, not proving something. Wusses do things to prove things; real men do things to get them done and enjoy the benefit of their completion. Check your motivation, and if you can be honest with yourself, your next move should be self-evident. Write me if it’s not.

Take care,
David

Gentlemen, before you make the mistake of thinking you wish a woman would respond to you the way this woman responded to this bad boy, think again. You could not possibly respect a woman behaving in this manner, and without respect, there can be no love. The personality you are after is not that of a “bad boy,” as described above. He’s insecure and has no self-respect, which is what causes him to be dominating, constantly vulgar and abusive. Who wants to live like that??? Do you want a woman, especially one you love and therefore value, to fear you or to love you in return, to serve you or to enjoy you? This “bad boy” character is an alpha dog, not an alpha male.

The alpha male is confident, and people follow him because the projects competence and they respect him because he respects himself. He defines authority and exercises it through leadership, not despotism or dictatorship. And when he’s not being a “great guy,” he’s being “naughty,” not “criminal.” People want to be around him and want to follow his example; they don’t fear leaving his presence or his disappointment. He’s fun to be around when the naughty side shows up, not simply tolerable when things are going his way like the bad boy is.

You’re smart (else you wouldn’t still be reading this!), so I’m sure you get the picture, but do you know how to become and live as – not just act like – the alpha male? Do you know how to know if you’re paired up with a good partner who will appreciate you being all that you can be? Do you know how to effectively communicate with your partner so that you don’t end up in a mess like Todd did when his wife tried to tell him what was happening and he didn’t speak “girly-tongue” well enough to understand that she was trying to tell him something that would help? Logic dictates that if you did, at least to an effective degree, it’s unlikely that you would be reading this, so do what a real man would do:

Take responsibility for your life, and act to improve it, for your own sake and for that of your whole family if you and your partner have built one. Start by jumping over to http://www.makingherhappy.com and getting your copy of “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage,” because it works, and life’s too short to mess around guessing, wondering and experimenting when a group of intelligent people have already come together, figured it out, tested, proven it, and a guy with a knack for telling it like it is has put it in an instantly downloadable electronic document that you can read on any device that will display or print a PDF file. C’mon! I dare ya… ;-) And for you Southerners, I double-dog-dare ya…

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

Why a Man Should Be Naughty, Not Nice, in Relationships and Marriage

A male reader asks why his relationship is going to hell while he’s being the nicest, sweetest guy he can be. Let’s see if he likes the answer!

I’m both proud of this reader and dismayed at his question. I’m proud because he’s asking a good question, albeit one that is probably answered on my web page at http://www.makingherhappy.com, but I’m not going to fault somebody for taking the direct approach to getting needed information! I’m also dismayed that his life has gone this sour this soon after marriage; it usually takes twice this long, but he does hint that he’s doubling as a “girlfriend” for his wife. Meet Roy:

Hi David,

I just signed up for your newsletter yesterday, and I’m guessing you’re either some sort of guru or a real idiot if you’ve published a book like your ad claims, so I’ve got to ask a question. I’ve been married for a little over a year now, and my marriage has gone from being hot dates and great sex to one never-ending routine. I can’t get my wife interested in doing anything with me anymore. She’s told me I’m the nicest, most considerate guy she’s ever met, and likes it that I’m “in touch with my feminine side” as she calls it, and we’ve been friends for years before getting married and get along fine, but the spark is gone. I’ve always heard that marriage is the surest way to kill the female libido known to science, but it’s not just her libido that has gone. I can’t even get her to go out to dinner with me anymore. I offer to let her choose the restaurant and everything, and she just won’t go for it. Is this the way it always goes, or am I missing some magical mystery ingredient? Help a brother out here!

Roy G.

Well, Roy, you came to the right place for help, but I don’t know if you’re going to like the answer. It’s going to depend on how easily you can accept reality and adjust your attitude to match it. You see, you’ve been doing everything we men have been told to do all our lives, and it’s all wrong!!!

We grow up being told by our mothers, teachers and everybody else to be “nice” to women, to be considerate, let them make choices, etc., and a lot of them even think they like it when a man does it if they’ve recently been with some abusive a**hole who tried to control their life and didn’t even leave them room for input into a decision.

As you’ll find in my book, “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage,” it’s not a nice guy nor an abusive a**hole that they really want and respond to, but a guy that’s in the middle, a guy who’s assertive without being controlling, confident, naughty without being an abusive jerk, and can at least grasp communications on a woman’s level even though he’s not wired with the equipment to be able to communicate on such a complex and sophisticated level. It’s love, respect, leadership, and fun that they need, not somebody fawning over them and catering to their every whim, which all but a damaged few actually find boring and annoying.

I know it doesn’t sound right, but it’s a biological response, not a conscious one, like her attraction mechanism is on autopilot, and women aren’t visually stimulated to attraction like men are. Picture in your mind the ugliest, nastiest, smelliest old “ho” you can think of, and gauge your sexual reaction to that visual. There’s no changing it, either, is there? Well, to her, a boring nice guy who acts like a wuss and dumps all the decisions in her lap and doesn’t recognize her frustration with him acting that way is the same emotional picture as your mental image of that old “ho,” and her reaction is the same, and just as unavoidable, automatic, and if I may say so, violently sickening.

In a woman’s mind, nice guys are wusses; predictable pushovers that present no mystery, no challenge, and no strong self-image. Indeed, they often appear to be trying to buy respect and affection because they can’t command it. The underlying thought is that if you can’t stand up TO her, you can’t stand up FOR her.

Obviously, since I had to write a whole book on the subject to cover it, I can’t tell you how to fix your problems in a few paragraphs of a daily newsletter. You’re best bet right now, since you’re already in trouble, is to go to http://www.makingherhappy.com where you subscribed to this newsletter and download the book, “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage,” and start reading. Once you have a command of what you need to know, you’ll find it easy, and to some degree automatic, to get your attitude right and put what you’ve learned into practice. Procrastination is the tool of losers, and action the tool of achievers, so get busy! Life’s too short to spend another minute of it losing!

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