Can Naughty Be Nice? It Can Certainly Help Your Relationship and Marriage!

Women have a naughty side just like men; indeed, there is much more about them that is similar to us than different when you can see the whole woman without the blinders that Hollywood, traditions (especially religious), outdated ideas of etiquette, etc., can impose. The thing you have to know is what to do to bring it out…

I hate to say this, but I’ve got some male newsletter readers in whom I’m getting really disappointed, not because they’re not succeeding, but because they’re not trying to succeed. I have talked and even preached ad nauseam about the value of intermittent doses of “the naughty boy” in making men interesting to women and giving women a way to open up and both be and have fun, and huge numbers of people are doing this and succeeding with it. Look at this letter I just received:

What's up David,

Your book is excellent and a must read to any guy that calls himself seriously being in a relationship with a woman. I have read other books on attraction and I've gotten great results, but things are different in a long term committed relationship. Recently (before reading your book) I noticed that something was missing, so I began to search on the internet and I found your product.

I want to thank you because since reading your book I've brought the life back into our relationship. I began using your sexual tension methods and they work like a charm. By not being so easy, making her wait, and anticipate, then withdrawing only to start up again has reversed what had been happening.

Realizing that she is supposed to be the predator and I'm supposed to be the prey has opened up an unknown world of possibilities. She went from acting like she was sleepy all the time to being overtly sexually interested (ready to attack me). She even says that she can't understand why she's always horny while she's around me.

After reading your book I just played around with turning her on and then backing off (not just jumping in and going for the gusto). After doing that a few times I wish you could've seen the look on her face (priceless). I was only playing around but based on her response sexual tension is more powerful than I could've imagined. I am practicing this art to perfection, because once you understand what's going on it's EASY and FUN for me and for her. We both can feel the tingles again when we are together.

Thanks. And keep up the good work.
C.

A very typical letter, really, and it came the day after his purchase. Thousands of men and women have written such letters to me confirming that everything I teach works, and some of the couples that helped with the research and testing of “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage” commented that the naughty behavior was the most enjoyable part of the research. But get this…

In spite of all that, these jokers, instead of just trying it and seeing for themselves that it does indeed work wonders, write me e-mails and even call and pay my consulting fee to sit and tell me that they don’t see how this could possibly work, or even worse, that it can’t possibly work, because “I just don’t understand” their situation or their wife.

Folks, I’m about to let you in on one of life’s very few “great truths,” here and now: the words “but you don’t understand” and “but you’ve got to understand” are almost always the leper’s bell of a pragmatist – a person who cannot accept reality and will fight tooth and nail to try to get you to concede that whatever fantasies and contradictions are in their head compose a valid, if alternate, reality, which it never does. There’s one reality, and we’re all living in it together, like it or not, for better for worse, ‘til death do us part, etc. These people are looking for validation of their mistakes, not improvement of their situation.

As a general rule, I fire pragmatists immediately upon contact because they are a usually a waste of time, but before firing these guys, I’m going to present the scoop on naughtiness one more time, and I’m going to invite all of you, who are welcome to send me comments, questions, etc., at any time, to write to me with comments about this specific material to be reprinted for these guys in a final attempt to jerk their butts into this reality in which we all live. Maybe then they can stop looking for rationalization and validation of their mistakes and lack of action and start taking action and getting results.

Women have a naughty streak, just like men, and from what I’ve seen, it runs just as deep and wide as any man’s and might be just a tad more devious because women are generally a bit more emotionally-driven and creative than men. However, many of them won’t show their naughty side until a man does first, thereby inviting her to show hers!

While working as a corporate consultant, I often overheard conversations between small groups of women in offices when they didn’t know a man was around that if transcribed into text without names would often be indistinguishable from men’s, to include bizarre sex stories, gas-passing contests and stories (including “pull my finger” games and trapping someone beneath the bedclothes with an “eruption”), tales of marauding sexual exploits, etc., using language that might embarrass the proverbial sailor.

These same women, when men were around, were very prim and professional, not to mention poised and well-mannered when we met at a lounge somewhere after working hours.

The key to unlocking this fun, very naughty behavior, especially the sexual side of it, is to be naughty in their presence, deploying the “naughty boy grin” after making some teasing remark or action that invites them to retaliate with naughtiness of their own. The naughtier you are, the naughtier they will be; very few women have the self-confidence to just let their naughtiness hang out, and we can’t blame them for it, either.

Some of their earliest memories might be of being told that little girls are made of “sugar and spice and everything nice” while little boys are made of “snips and snails and puppy dog tails” and being told that various things are “simply unladylike” and that “good little girls don’t do that.” Whether it was male oppression or mother’s trying to program their daughters to try to look better than a normal woman is irrelevant. And once you get them going, it’s a blast!

Add to that childhood programming the time-honored high school Monday morning ritual where all the guys come in and tell all the sex stories from their dates over the weekend, most of which didn’t really happen, and for the rest of the week the guys who had a good story about getting laid were the heroes and the girls they slept with were the hussies, jezebels, floozies, sluts, whores, or whatever nasty nametag was in vogue at the time. You can bet they hated that, and while we’re all older now and most of us understand that women enjoy and seek out sex as much as men and it’s a really, REALLY good thing that they do, those idiotic high school games, which were traumatic at the time, left scars that are buried deep but still having an impact today, even though the events that caused the impact may be long forgotten.

As an aside, Parents, talk to your children about this double standard and encourage them to not engage in it. Our generations haven’t dealt too well with the problems it causes, but future generations might be able to avoid them if we tell them how. The feelings of guilt many parents try to threaten their daughters with to try to make them avoid sexual situations doesn’t help them avoid anything but talking to you about sex and their problems, and the only thing it helps them to do other than that is feel guilty about having slept with a boy and feeling like they now need to marry him when he’s not good for her.

Obviously, this is in conflict with religious teachings, and you’ll have to find your own balance between religious satisfaction and addressing these purely biological, psychological and emotional issues as a parent; I’m merely trying to call your attention to the psychological impact of things that parents and teenagers do to teenagers that continue to hurt them into adulthood so that you can try to raise them to act responsibly, in a way that doesn’t leave deep-seated emotional scars from repeated guilt trips.

Getting back to our main subject, women love to play and have fun as much as men, in many of the same ways, especially those that include challenge and naughtiness. Once you clear the way for that behavior by leading her into it by example, she’ll not likely go any farther than you do, so gradually in the same manner of stair-stepping that you would use to slowly let sexual tension build for orgasms that would make the darkest chapter of her sexual diary (also covered in “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage”!), lead her into naughtiness, two steps forward, one step back, and watch her reactions. As long as she’s laughing or smiling, you’ve not gone too far. If you say or do something that causes her demeanor to change to anything that doesn’t look like she’s having fun, other than feeling sexy, especially if it looks blank or negative, you went too far (or too fast), and need to immediately back up to the last known point of pleasure without dwelling on whatever it was that crossed the line.

At some point, the naughtiness builds so much excitement and fun that it starts creating sexual tension, and as you see her transition, go with it! Let it get sexy, and then see how sexually naughty she wants to be as well! Again, if you go too far, immediately back up to what was working without killing everything by dwelling on the mistake. If she wants you to know anything about it, she’ll tell you later. What she wants now is to get back on track and be having fun again.

One caveat: No woman wants a man who does nothing but act like a brat or a clown. They want a man who can have fun WITH them (NOT at their expense!) when it’s time to have fun, the great man who becomes the naughty boy and gets her worked up, maybe for a few seconds, minutes or hours, and returns to the great alpha male who is strong, heroic, and projects authority and leadership. The switching between the two is very powerful, and keeps you from being tagged as predictable, and worse, irresponsible.

Now, get busy! Keep in mind that having never seen your female partner doing something doesn’t in any way mean she has never done it or never wanted to do it with you. As with all things regarding attraction, you as the male partner must define authority for her by taking the lead; clear the way for her inner prankster and sexual hellion to come out to play, and if you’ve never done it before, well, you’re in for one hell of a surprise!

There are pages and pages of examples of how to understand your female partner and bring out all her best behavior, including all the fun and sexual excitement she’s capable of, as well as how to take her to levels of fun and excitement she’s only dreamed of – maybe even never dreamed of-- in “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage.” Women helped develop it, verified that it works, and are buying it all over the world, both to learn about themselves and to teach their men about themselves. Many are also reporting buying it to learn what a great guy looks like, because they’re tired of picking out losers.

That’s a pretty tough accolade to ignore! Meanwhile, men are writing letters of success and thanks daily, and you’re missing out. So download your copy now at http://www.makingherhappy.com and turn up the naughty dial, because life’s just too short to spend it with a frown on your face, no matter what the cause.

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

Preparing for Valentine's Day to Kick Things Up in Your Relationship or Marriage

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, and you need to be thinking about it now, not on your way home from work on February 14. Here’s some help in the area of choosing the right gift.

Before we get into how to get prepared for Valentine’s Day, I want you to read an excerpt from a letter I got from one of my female readers who “felt” that I wasn’t aggressive enough in trying to make sure that you understand the idea of “mutual consent”:

...A man can create attraction and a woman can respond physically but not really want to do anything with this man. I have been in this situation. If I had been asked verbally there is no way that I would have gone through with it. Many women, especially younger women, feel great expectations to be sexual; our society promotes the idea that a man's way goes. Many women have been raped in this way but because they did not say no verbally they feel like they cannot complain or acknowledge the pain men have caused them. While having non-verbal consent is fine especially in an established relationship. I especially like the quote you had a while back where the man (I can’t remember his name) said “I lean in 90% for the kiss and she comes in the last 10%.”

Also while I am a fan of the rough hasty sex described the other day, I have a warning for the men who do this: if she is saying something do not assume it is positive. Having to say stop 3 times with the last a yell is a very frightening experience.

Men pay attention to your partners. 1 in 4 women and 1 in 8 men have been sexually abused. Many things may be frightening for you partner. This is why consent is so important you do not want to damage your partner and as the statistic shows it is very likely that one of your partners has been abused. I also believe if more young men and women were taught about the importance of consent verbal or non-verbal many accidental rapes could be prevented.

Regards

If our society really promoted the idea that a man’s way goes, I and the entire marital and dating advice industries would be out of a job. The biggest problem women voice to me and the other gurus is that men are wusses who won’t engage properly in sex play (this reader might be quite young and dealing with horny teenagers who have boundary issues instead of men). But that aside, Her concerns for men (and women) respecting boundaries is legitimate. So once again, Guys, “no” means “no;” don’t ask for sex, but don’t push it on a protesting woman either; and the straightest path to the bedroom is playing and teasing her so that she gets all amped up and takes YOU to the bedroom. (And read my book so you’ll know the right way to go about that! LOL!)

So let’s get to the Valentine’s Day fun!

I got a question from a reader that reminded me that it’s time to prepare for St. Valentine’s Day. Those of you who are historically-inclined know that this day was originally instituted as a day for old flames to get back in touch with each other, back in the days when very long courtships were the rule and women didn’t approach men; it was acceptable on this day for women to contact a former suitor and invite him to resume his pursuit, although a proper lady would never do so in so many words, of course! The mere announcement that she was widowed, or her engagement was broken for some reason, was “understood” as the invitation. ;-)

It has since evolved into an occasion upon which women expect “romantic” gifts, and one of the biggest mistakes you can make with many of them is the traditional, boring, and very impersonal dozen roses and box of chocolates. A woman wants a gift to be very personal, regardless of cost, so that she knows it was carefully chosen – or even constructed, if you are good at creating gifts of any kind – just for her. One of your fellow readers has seen the light, and asked for help. Meet John:

Hi David,

I have read your book and have seen the light. After 12 years of marriage I have slipped into pre-packaged holiday gift mode. I am having trouble coming up with new ideas for this Valentine's Day. Could you recommend some new ideas? My birthday is a few days before the 14th and my wife has planned a short trip out of town for us that weekend. Last February we were talking divorce, this year after reading your book and actually seeing that I had become foolishly predictable and boring, I've turned OUR life back on. I am now running out of ideas to keep her on her toes. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thank You
John

My reply:

Hi John!

Congratulations on getting things turned around! If you're like most men, you're not running out of ideas, you've run out of inspiration and need a quick refresher course on the art of choosing gifts for a woman to remind you of where to look in your life with your wife for ideas. I could name off a hundred things that somebody else’s wife would love that your wife may have no interest in at all, and would in fact be insulted by, because they aren't something very personal and obviously chosen specifically for her. This must come from within you, because you are the guy who lives with her.

Start by going back to the gift section in "THE Man's Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," which is short and to the point, and then I'm going to give a list of a few newsletters that expand on the subject. As you read these things, plug you and your wife, your upcoming plans, your history, etc., into the processes and examples and you'll most likely be flooded with very good ideas.

(Those of you who have not yet downloaded your copy of "THE Man's Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" can find that same gift advice in my free “What Women Want” report, which you can download at your convenience.)

After you do this, whether you come up with ideas or not, write back and we'll do a quick double-check and either make sure you've made some good choices or figure out what got in the way of you making a good choice and get you moving on the right road. This is one of those "give a man a fish and he eats for a day, but teach him to fish and he eats for life" kind of things, and luckily, what you need to read to review doesn't amount to more than probably 3-4 pages at most, because the subject really isn't that difficult once you recapture that "groove" that you know you're going to get back into when you start reading; you'll knock her socks off for sure!

Here are the issues you need to read:

Buying the Perfect Gift (11/27/08 - This is the book excerpt on gifts, in case it's easier than finding your copy of the book, and you can skip it if you have your book or my free “What Women Want” report handy).

A Female Reader Writes About Gifts (11/13/05 - Probably the best newsletter on the subject after the excerpt from the book)

How Much Is Too Much? (01/09/09 - Defining the rules about excessive gift-giving, expectations, buying love, etc.)

Ballroom Dancing (10/09/05 - Ballroom dancing lessons are still a huge romance and attraction-builder, especially if your wife likes to dance!)

Girls and Their Toys (11/22/08 - about women and adult toys, in case your wife likes naughty things)

(For those of you who have never visited my newsletter archive, the address for the archive index is http://www.aweber.com/z/article/?mhh_tips and it's just plain HTML web pages. You scroll through the directory to find each article and just click on the link to get it on your screen, then hit the "back" button on the screen or press the backspace key on your keyboard to return to the directory. Very simple, no cookies or spyware.)

And by the way, double congratulations for having the forethought to deal with this now instead of on February 14, like 99.8% of other men will do. That's the mark of an achiever, and you get bonus points for that!

Take care, and keep in touch,
David Cunningham

Gentlemen, this really isn’t that much reading to do if you don’t remember the material, so don’t let the fact that it’s five articles deter you from doing this right. There are few things that you can do for a woman that endear you to her like selecting a truly great gift for her, not because she’s some kind of materialistic gold-digging “ho,” but because choosing a great gift for a woman requires that you pay attention to her, know intimate details about her, and consider those things when buying or making something for her.

Most women would melt over a carefully-selected bunch of wildflowers, that contained scents and colors she liked, and only perfect flowers, maybe matched her eyes or something like that, and possibly were accompanied by a brief handwritten note that said something like “You’re my favorite thing, of ALL things…” than a dozen roses or orchids with a piece of jewelry hidden in them and a $10 super-card from Hallmark.

Every woman can receive roses, thousands of women can receive that same piece of jewelry, and who knows how many people receive that same card? BUT! There will never be a bunch of flowers like the one you picked ever again, and if what you wrote on the paper was something she’s never heard, doesn’t sound “canned” (so don’t be an idiot and copy something cute from a card, because many women spend a lot of time browsing card verses in stores looking for good cards and emotional rushes), and is something that she would expect you to mean when you say it, it’s just for her too, and devastatingly special. And let’s not forget the bonus of including something small and durable that can go into her “treasure box” to remind her of her favorite times with you when she feels lonely, down, or really ticked off at you!

Indeed, one of the greatest stories I received from a reader featured a “card” that was a short note written on a sticky note (like 3M “Post-It” notes) and was stuck on a picture of the two of them wrapped in plain brown paper. The paper was from a grocery sack from the grocery they first shopped in together after they got married, and inside was a picture from their honeymoon in a frame that he had made in his shop from magnolia wood, her favorite flowering tree. The total cost was pennies (his neighbor had cut the magnolia tree to get it out of the way and he’d asked for some of the wood), and the impact was maximum romance because he had thought it through and put in some personal effort.

Caution: Don’t just run out and try to find wildflowers in February because I mentioned them, either! Spend some time getting to know your partner or thinking about what you know about her, and think about how you could combine some things she likes into some unique gift that leaves no doubt in her mind as to why she received it. She might be one of the few women who never get tired of roses, and all she really needs is a rose of an unusual color like lavender or something (or in her favorite color) to know that you know what she likes and made the effort to produce it.

Indeed, there will be no doubt in her mind why she received anything! If it’s the wrong thing, there will be no doubt that you’re in insensitive idiot, and if it’s the right thing, well, take your vitamin E and make sure your medical insurance is paid up in case she injures you when she pounces on you later, because giving the right gift is some pretty hot stuff!

Gift-giving is one of the many areas where men fly blind when trying to get along with women because we’re not trained to know how they think and what they like as we grow up. Our mothers train us to be “nice” and to defer all decisions to women to be “considerate” and to buy extravagant gifts for women to impress them, and bless their hearts (as we say in the South), they have no idea that they’re setting us up for disaster, but they are. They should be teaching us how to choose a good woman, how to communicate with women, and how to keep a woman interested and excited enough to enjoy our company for years and years. They don’t, but I will!

All you need is a copy of “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage,” and you can download it at http://www.makingherhappy.com/ with a few mouse-clicks. Do it now, because you never know when she might decide she’s had enough and you’ll be another one who’s been thinking everything is just fine until she hands you the divorce papers, and when you ask in that shocked voice, “What’s this about???” she says those immortal, bone-chilling words that sends shock and confusion into the very soul of every man who hears them: “See! You NEVER LISTEN TO ME!”

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

Be Careful What You Wish for in Your Relationship and Mariage, Part 3: Romance

I’ve run into another of those “Be careful what you wish for” scenarios, and it’s yet another perfect example of how women will say they want something because it makes for a bit of an emotional rush, but it never quite works out the same way in the real world, especially on the subject of ROMANCE.

I got an e-mail from an Australian friend, one who’s pretty bright when her brain is engaged, but who seems to have been living alone and bored just a little too long, because she’s pretty bad about getting caught up in “sweet” e-mails when she’s lonely. Check this out:

RE: Awwww

A girl asked a guy if he thought she was pretty.

He said, “No.”

She asked him if he would want to be with her forever...and he said, “No.”

She then asked him if she were to leave would he cry, and once again he said, “No.”

She had heard enough. As she walked away, tears streaming down her face the boy grabbed her arm and said...

“You're not pretty, you're beautiful.

“I don't want to be with you forever, I NEED to be with you forever.

“And I wouldn't cry if you walked away...I'd die...”

I sent this out to two groups of women for their response. The first group was a group of 16-25 year old single women who had responded to a survey I ran last year. Their archetypical responses were:

“Awww…that’s sweet.”

“I wish I had a guy like that.”

“That’s so romantic.”

The other group was ages 30-60 who are married or in a committed relationship of two years or longer:

“’Awwww’ my ass! I’d say ‘EWWWWW!!!'”

“Yuck! What a wuss!”

“Yeah, right. Like anybody would fall for that crap.”

“Can I just shoot him and get it over with?”

“Yeah, sure. I can just see Humphrey Bogart or Dirty Harry saying something like that.”

Are you getting the drift? When it comes to romance, young women and teenage girls are pretty silly, and don’t yet have a clue that there are things they respond to differently than how they imagine, while more mature women, while still prone to do that at times, can be expected to be more in touch with their feelings by virtue of having been burned by them in the past, so their reaction in this case is the one that tells you what you need to know.

There’s nothing romantic about acting like a needy wuss. Yet when we are in our teens and early twenties and are making our first efforts to learning about women, we’re inundated with all this silly crap we hear (or more likely, OVERHEAR, out of context) from girls, NOT women, mind you, and those wrong answers hang with us into adulthood until somebody pulls the wool from over our eyes and shows us the truth. One of the worst of these is the girlish tendency to confuse “sweet” with “romantic.”

So while you can’t necessarily be blamed for not having anything better to work with in the past, now that you know there is something better, you have a responsibility to yourself to seek it out, learn it and use it. So what is “romance”? And what is “romantic”?

Romantic, more than anything else, is that which is larger than life and sparks excitement and attraction, in a word, “heroic.” There’s nothing romantic about blowing a month’s salary to take a woman to Paris for lunch when you live in North America. That’s done for extravagance, and is wasteful. A young girl who has never had to work for what she has might mistakenly see that as romantic, but the average adult woman, while she might fantasize about something like that with a stranger, would see the actual act as wasteful and stupid if performed by the man she’s been with for awhile...

…and more to the point, a man who is so frivolous that he would blow money he didn’t have like that would not be seen by a woman in or considering a committed relationship as being able to make responsible decisions and be a good partner. He could be a plaything, but nothing more – another one of those things that might get someone’s attention in the dating world but has no place in a committed relationship, unless you’re so wealthy that going to Paris for lunch is something that you could afford to do for fun and would do by yourself. Otherwise it's just a desperate act of attention-getting and approval-seeking, a sign of a man who’s good for buying drinks, expensive dinners and vacations, and then leaving when she grows bored of it.

That’s not to say that a trip to Paris isn’t romantic. But it has to be a real trip. There has to be time to see the city, experience the city and build memories that she can relive, and time to gather mementos to put in her treasure box. There has to be time and opportunity for intimacy to take advantage of being in an exotic place and using it to build excitement, attraction, and all those memories as well. Just being there long enough to say you were there isn’t enough.

Think not? Think about it for a minute. You hopped a plane, went there, had lunch, and flew back. What memories will she have? Being rushed to café, eating, and being rushed back to the airport. And what happens when she tries to share it with her girlfriends? She will be barraged by “Did you see such-and-such? Did you go to such-and-such? Did you try such-and-such?” To which she can only answer, “No,” and then will hear, “Well, when WE went, we did all that, and it was great!” or “Then why did you go?” Instead of an adventure to remember, you gave her a disappointment and embarrassment in front of her friends. That’s not romance, is it?

To be romantic, she needs to remember more than the sights of the city; she needs to remember you and herself immersed in the emotion of being in the city.

And you need to know the difference! You need to know how to look at the situation through her eyes to know if it will be something wonderful that labels you a wonderful man who gets it or a desperate, approval-seeking jackass.

Do you?

Would you know how to use a trip, a dinner, a bouquet of flowers, or more appropriately, a live plant, or even a “sticky note” to create a romantic occasion for your partner? If you don’t, I’ll give you three guesses as to at least one of the reasons that she’s bored and unhappy and you’re reading this newsletter…

…and in truth, should be reading my book, "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," which you can download at http://www.makingherhappy.com, and getting your knowledgebase in order. You need to purge all the lore, urban legends, bad programming and other utter crap you’ve heard about women that’s swimming around in your head and screwing up your relationship and marriage and get with the real program, the one that lets you enjoy being and feeling like a man and lets her feel like she’s truly living with the man of her dreams.

It’s your choice, and your responsibility, to yourself and to her, so choose well, and choose quickly. The clock is running…

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

What Are You Doing to Kill Attraction in YOUR Relationship or Marriage?

Among all the wuss behavior that men have been taught over the centuries, appearing inferior, submissive, and/or subservient to a woman is one of the most powerful attraction killers in existence. You may not realize when you’re doing it, and what’s worse, they may be expecting you to do it, not realizing that once you have, attraction has been damaged. Men and women alike need to understand this, because we must start undoing centuries of damage to how men and women get along.

A reader’s letter today (one that I must keep private for the time being because it involves on-going issues that could be used to violate his privacy) made me ponder just how many things do we do that we think are polite (John!), cool (Raymond!), cute (Allan!), sexy (Dale!), romantic (Brent!), etc., that in fact are wussy and kill attraction? Remember, attraction is a subconscious/subliminal/biological mechanism, about the last remnant we have of “instinct,” and it doesn’t matter what we think or choose to believe about behavior, because it’s not our beliefs that determine the response of other people; indeed, for the most part, it’s biology and chemistry, not volitional choice.

Guys, poll the women you know and see how many think a dozen roses are romantic these days. You’ll find that most of them think they are cliché, and therefore boring, not romantic, and if they are received at any time other than an anniversary, they are a good sign that you’ve done something bad and you’re feeling guilty! Sucks, huh? (Some of you guys in your teens and early twenties may get away with it once in awhile, but you’ll find that a single flower, especially one you hand-picked and know that she likes, will get a much better response.)

What about cards? Well, if it’s a really good card with a verse that somehow manages to accurately express something that is happening in your relationship, which is unlikely at best, it’s a start, but then comes that ugly truth that there were probably millions of those cards printed, and women would prefer a unique gift that cost nothing or pennies to an expensive, mass-produced thing that doesn’t show that you put a lot of thought into it.

Compliments? Everybody’s supposed to like compliments, right? The more the better? Think again. Excessive compliments aren’t just meaningless, they’re just plain ass-kissing, and the short spelling of that is “W-U-S-S”. Occasional genuine compliments are always appreciated, but when you spit them around you indiscriminately it’s plain flattery, and very annoying, to everyone, not just the ladies.

Mama said we’re supposed to be nice guys, and cater to our women, and let them make as many decisions as possible, especially about dating things, right? Sure, because every woman wants a “nice guy,” don’t they? Wrong answer. Women want a man who has brains, decent manners, and doesn’t get loud and violent every time things don’t go their way, but the last thing they want or find attractive is to have all the decision-making dumped in their lap. They’re not wired to enjoy it like we do.

(And sometimes I wonder if mama’s know that and tell us to do the wrong thing to delay our getting too close to a woman, because while they are our mothers, they are also women, and they know how they would respond if a man did it to them. Go figure.)

Women are very social in nature, and decision-making for them is a committee process; unilateral decision-making is something they can do when pressed, but it frequently pisses them off and makes you look like a wuss who can’t make decisions. Give your partner full latitude for input into the decision-making, because as your partner deserves that, but once you have your information in hand, including her input, make the decision and follow through! It presents an image of competence and confidence that trips the whole row of attraction triggers.

Do I even need to mention “baby talk,” and those sickening pet nicknames like “pookums” and “honeybunch” that seem to enthrall the newly betrothed but make the rest of us want to gag? Even when you’re talking to a child, “baby talk” is a bad idea, because the child is looking to you for strength and protection, not squeaking, giggling, and “cooing.” Let their mother do that.

As for “pookums,” etc., several of the women in the test panel admitted to deliberately employing the practice to see if the man could be dragged into doing it (see the movie “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, the scene at the poker table), and nearly all admitted to noticing a marked decrease in respect for a man who would succumb. It was also fun to note that the six who wouldn’t admit to it were the most dramatic and flamboyant of the group (real “drama queens”), who were known to have self-esteem issues like narcissism and the control issues that go with narcissism.

How about something not-so-obvious? Ladies, brace yourself, because this one is going to go even a bit against your grain, until you think about it. The subject: marriage proposals! Specifically the deplorable tradition of a man kneeling before a woman, as if begging, to ask her to marry him. Okay, ladies, catch your breath and think, what happens when a man begs you for anything? Right. Wuss image. It may not keep you from saying “yes” to the proposal, and you may not even notice at the moment because it’s one of the most emotional moments of your life, but what does that do?

It locks that image of this man in front of you on his knee begging into your head as one of your most prominent memories, and sets a terrible precedent. With regard to attraction, having your man standing in front of you, standing a little taller than you and looking down from a position of strength and authority, the subliminal image of a protector, like any really steamy scene in one of the classic movies, like Clark Gable and Scarlet O’Hare in “Gone with the Wind” or Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal in “The Fountainhead” is probably a far better image to take through life, wouldn’t you? The emotion of the moment will be the same because of the nature of the moment, and let’s face it, the down-on-one-knee bit is about as cliché as the dozen roses – all downside, no upside.

Giving in just to stop a fight when no agreement has been reached? Cooperation has to be good, right? Wrong! That’s not cooperation, it’s capitulation – outright surrender -- a wuss maneuver if ever there was one. If you were leading the discussion (not dominating or bullying it) as you should be doing and keeping everybody focused on WHAT was right instead of WHO was right, you probably wouldn’t be fighting to start with, unless you had let your wife get bored to the point that she sparked a fight to bleed off and reset her emotional chemistry. Seek resolution, not victory, not compromise, and not just the path of least resistance.

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is just the tip of the iceberg. There are hundreds of ways that attraction can be created and killed; indeed, thousands of ways, and it doesn’t matter how much attraction you create if you inadvertently blow it every time you turn around. I’m sure you’re familiar with the ancient truth that one “oh sh*t” erases a thousand “atta-boys.” One “We’ll do whatever you want” can erase a hundred nights of true romance if it comes out just right.

I’ve not listed all the ways you can make or break attraction in “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage.” I did something far better. I gave you the fully detailed and accurate explanation of the attraction process, both how and why it works, so you’ll always know whether any particular act creates or kills attraction, no matter where you are or who you’re with, because you’ll know the attitude proper to a man to enjoy his life and be attractive to all women. You don’t dare miss this information, because lost attraction will kill a relationship long before the love is ever gone. You think not?

How many times have you heard things like “I love you, but I’m not ‘in love’ with you…”??? That “in love” thing isn’t love at all; it’s attraction. With it, life is grand, a fun and intimate adventure, and without it, it’s a boring cesspool, because it is truly what makes the world of relationships go ‘round. Attraction brings you together and keeps you together, while love adds the friendship, respect, trust, and loyalty that makes the relationship exclusive, strong during tough times, and intimate in all the non-physical ways necessary to keep you together for the long haul and weather the storms together.

It always takes longer to bring it back than it does to kill it, and you need to max out attraction as soon as possible, because for a woman, life without it just really isn’t living at all; rekindling it is the first thing that she needs to see to believe that things are going to be good again. So go to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy of “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage” right now, and get ahead of that curve, because you should 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

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 – or even gets -- 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 by letting 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 jerk 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 jerk 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, adventure 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, except to the extent that the sight of a man’s self-confidence and self-respect intrigues and excites them. 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, such men 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. And the idea of “easy pickings” being a problem shouldn’t be foreign to you, either; what do you pursue in your own life? The too-easy and boring, or the challenging and exciting? Pretty clear when you stand in another’s shoes, huh?

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/ 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

Shopping Together As Foreplay? If Done Properly, It Can Really Boost Your Relationship and Marriage

Attraction is about flipping primal, biological switches that ignite the urge to procreate, or at least go through the motions of mating. Leadership and authority will flip them because it invokes feelings of power and protection; will shopping awaken these primal urges as well? My research and others’ says, “Oh yeah!” but it’s not retail therapy that does the trick…

Strap yourself in, because we’re going for a ride. I’ve written many times about how attraction and flirting are dying arts that are slowly being revived as desperate singles and bored couples seek out people like myself, Shelley McMurtry, John Alanis, and others and learn what it’s all about. I’ve also advised quite a few people to look back to the actions of their parents and especially grandparents, old movies, etc., for visual examples of things that they did then that most people don’t do now but are crucial for relationships. Why?

A lot of that old school, gender-stereotypical behavior that made for manly men and girly girls was obliterated in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s by idiotic ideas like “men should be sensitive instead of manly” when all women wanted was for manly men to continue to be manly men, but be a little more sensitive to things like a woman’s emotional state and her sheer dread of boredom. Incidentally, note that divorce rates began climbing exponentially through those years as well.

I was talking to my dad a few days ago and he mentioned how different things were now from when I was a child, and I asked him about what couples did for fun in the 50’s and 60’s that he no longer saw them doing. The first thing out of his mouth was a revelation: “Well, when you’re mother and I got married and until you kids were pretty much either gone or old enough to be gone, we nearly always did the grocery shopping together. Your mother would get all frisky and cuddly in the grocery store every time we’d go, even if she was ticked about something when we got there. Didn’t you notice that you kids were often put to bed a little early when we went to the store?”

No, I didn’t notice, but it sure makes sense now!

The act of hunting down and procuring food, and returning home with it is very primal, making the evening meal somewhat celebratory in a primal sort of way. He also talked about having other couples over for card games, and being accused of cheating because he and my mother were playing footsy under the table during the game and stuff like that, which was also primally attractive because of the competition and celebration involved, but I couldn’t get the grocery store thing out of my head. This had to be checked out, because my parents stayed married for 33 years and had five kids; their divorce happened after deep compatibility problems finally wore them down and out.

I’ve spent several hours each day for the last few days wandering around grocery stores and lurking in the parking lot watching for couples to show up (I was accosted by one store manager who thought I was acting suspicious until I explained what I was doing, at which time he took me to the security booth and we both watched the security cameras and tapes, which was a lot of fun for both of us!), and the results were more than impressive. They were downright awe-inspiring!

Couples would come in chatting, arguing, not speaking, even obviously pissed off at each other, and none of them seemed to make it more than about three aisles before they were walking closer together, him pushing the cart and her hand in the crook of his arm, or holding hands, or her stroking and caressing his back and shoulders, and the smiles and other body language was very clear. I also recall similar experiences with the women I’ve been involved with in my adult life, and it went right over my head at the time, as it may be going right over everybody else’s heads today. I wish my grandparents were still alive today so that I could pick their brains about a lot of things; they were married for 66 years, and I’m quite sure they could have told me about a lot more of these kinds of things if they were still around.

So guys, how do you put stuff like this to work? Start by understanding the underlying elements of creating attraction: leadership, protection, mimicking primal survival behavior, decision-making, competition, etc. Now, let’s build an evening out of it.

I’d suggest starting by planning at least an evening meal, and take your partner with you to get the groceries. Take your time and have fun perusing the aisles in the grocery store instead of just rushing straight to the things you want and grabbing them. Turn on a little of that naughty charm and steal a kiss or two, a playful pinch or grope, conducted covertly and intimately, as if you’re a couple of naughty kids getting away with something.

Go home and cook dinner for her, or for her and a guest couple. If you can’t cook, stay in the kitchen with her while she cooks and lead conversation about anything, even how to do what she’s doing. Women adore it when men ask open-ended questions about anything that interests the woman or that she does competently just as much as they like asking men the same things. And I’m not talking about “chit-chat.” I’m talking about real conversation. There’s no emotion or engagement in chit-chat; it’s just a time-filler.

Continue to ramp up the fun and tension after dinner through a movie (yes, a funny one, or one that if filled with action, authority, and some mystery!) or some other activity, like a sunset walk, or if you have the other couple over, engage in something fun and competitive like parlor games or card games, and occasionally when she gets up from the table to get something for herself or the guests, get up to help or suddenly think of something you need to remind her of (don’t worry about being rude, as they may be getting caught up in the energy and wanting to steal a kiss or a grope themselves!), and push the naughty envelope a bit while you’re out of sight of the guests. That “ramp it up and draw back a bit” play builds a delightful tension that women will savor for hours, and when the guests finally leave, she’ll lock the door and probably be tearing at your clothes if you did a good job at ramping up and pulling back.

By the way, DO NOT confuse procurement of needed items with “retail therapy.” Retail therapy, the act of buying things for the thrill of the purchase with no real need or desire for some benefit of ownership, is something that people do when they are bored or suffering from some kind of self-esteem crisis, and make no mistake, it is damaging to a relationship or marriage. It creates financial strain, storage problems, and a lot of stress. Keep your shopping dates to things you know you need or have discussed and decided that you want to own and benefit from ownership, and avoid just grabbing stuff for the thrill of hearing the cash register bells; those bells are for the shopkeeper to celebrate, not you.

I’ve told you guys too many times to count that the object is not to seduce your wife, but to actively induce your wife to seduce you by leading her to her sexy side. This is how you get that done, and I shudder to think of how many such secrets our parents and grandparents took to their graves. If yours are still alive and you’re comfortable doing so, you might ask them about their dating days and the early years of their marriage. You might be surprised at how eager they are to share with you.

However, not everybody’s parents and grandparents will have been good at playing the attraction game. More men and women understood it 50 years ago, but that’s a far cry from being able to say that ALL men and women understood it fifty years ago.

Before you start pumping the older folks for the advanced techniques of their day, you really need a good command of the basics so you can distinguish between something great that can add spice to your life and a mistake that an ancestor made that will haunt generations to come if they don’t know any better than to repeat the mistake. Oops! Where do you go for that?

Glad you asked! Go to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," where you’ll find all the basics and then some, on attraction, effective communications, evaluating and renewing relationships, and even how to gracefully end bad ones with cooperation and dignity. Yes, really! Here are a few choice excerpts from a reader letter I received today:

“...I think she is missing me more than she will admit and it’s because of the ATTRACTION that YOUR BOOK has helped me instill back in her...”

“...things are progressing back to getting the woman I love back completely...”

“...the thing I like the MOST is SHE is CALLING ME .... NOT Me calling HER...so I must be doing something RIGHT LOL...”

“...have a great day and thanks if for no other reason for making me a better man...”

This guy described himself as “the wuss from Hell” in his first letter to me, and was afraid he was too late to do anything about it; he mentioned in one of his letters that they’d been separated for a couple of years and she had told him that under no circumstances would they ever be together again, yet they’re dating, she’s chasing him, they’re getting totally intimate, and she’s fighting tooth and nail the whole way, testing him to make sure it’s not just some phony act he’s putting on and that this new man before her is here to stay.

He is, he’s getting results, and if a self-proclaimed “wuss from Hell” can have an ex of two years pulling him back into the bedroom after she declared that donkeys would fly through a frozen Hell before she’d ever sleep with him again, you have no choice but to accept that this information works, and you need to be getting with the program, NOW! (Right, “Michael” K.?) http://www.makingherhappy.com.

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

Whom Did You Marry, a Wife or a Mother? Roles and Perceptions in Relationships and Marriage

A reader asks how I can expect him to act naughty around women when they are so “pure and virtuous and never have naughty thoughts.” No, he’s not from another planet; he’s been programmed to think that way, as a great many men have. Let’s fix this…

I sometimes get letters from men who just can’t believe that getting naughty with a woman will be well-received. They have a misconception that women are somehow “too pure and virtuous” to do things like tell dirty jokes, pass gas, or most ridiculous of all, think about or enjoy sex! Meet Juan:

Hello David.

Thank you for your e-mails. I like to read them every day. I am having a hard time with your idea that I should be “naughty” with my wife. She is a good and pure woman, just like my mother. She never swears, takes good care of our children, and goes to mass every week. How could such a woman be naughty?

Juan.

Juan, Buddy, it’s time to wake up. Going to church, raising children, and keeping her language “G-rated” has nothing whatsoever to do with how she wants to act or be treated in the bedroom, nor did it have anything to do with your mother. You’ve made the same two mistakes that almost every man alive makes:

1. You put your mother on a pedestal, not allowing her to be human,

2. You put your wife on the same pedestal when you allowed your skewed perception of your mother to define your perception of all women, especially your wife.

Think with me here for a minute, all of you. There was very little that you could get away with as teenagers, right? I mean, even if you managed to sneak out of the house without getting caught sometimes, or went somewhere other than where you told your parents, or dated somebody for awhile that you weren’t supposed to, you got questioned about all those things at some point if not all the time. Why do you think that is?

For the same reason that you do it to your own kids! You’ve “been there and done that,” and it’s high time that you realize that your parents have been there and done that too! For many people it’s difficult to accept that your parents enjoy having sex, because you don’t want to envision them having sex, but you know that you enjoy it, so why would you think that they – BOTH OF THEM – didn’t? Or don’t???

Now, take that concept a step further and a bit sideways. Unless they have been traumatically abused or have a serious hormonal problem or physical damage to their genital area, women like sex as much as men, possibly more so, because they don’t need to “recharge” between orgasms, and many don't even need the orgasm to enjoy sex. Indeed, for most women, while they enjoy orgasms, it is the intimacy of sex they really need, so while the orgasm is the point of sex for the man, it is merely the end of sex for most women.

They also have the same naughty streak that we have, the one that makes us like dirty jokes, talk about sex with friends, fantasize about it, masturbate, etc. If you’re treating your wife as if sex is some kind of chore or duty for her instead of something she enjoys, it’s going to be just that, a chore, or even worse, an embarrassment that she feels because she doesn’t feel that you can accept her sexuality. That’s just wrong on so many levels…

You think not? Think again. In my own life, the dirtiest jokes I’ve ever heard have been told by women; not just trashy, rough women in some dive of a bar, but classy women that you’d think were Fortune 100 executives after spending a few minutes with them. When working as a business consultant, I often overheard conversations between women that rivaled anything you’d ever see in an adult sex film, not to mention tales of gas-passing that peeled the paint from the walls and other bodily functions, and about any other “coarse” behavior you would typically think to be distinctly male until you’d seen otherwise.

Women don’t just “let it all hang out” around men for reasons that make for too long a discussion to get into here (anticipated criticism, low self-esteem, survival instinct, to name a few); most women have to be lead into naughtiness by a man to feel comfortable being naughty around him, the way many men wait to hear a woman swearing before swearing in front of her or waits for her to make the first move in sex, which are obviously bad ideas since women prefer to being lead over leading in nearly all cases.

There are differences between men and women, such as our communications methods and sophistication, that are readily recognized and overcome, but sexuality and naughtiness are not among them. We all enjoy both; the exceptions are very, VERY rare, and usually the result of some form of trauma or abuse, or some kind of sick religious or sexually bigoted oppression. Accept it, celebrate it, and you’ll both be a whole lot happier. It’s always easier to be yourself than what you think someone else wants you to be.

There’s a lot that you may not know about your partner, or women in general for that matter, that they want you to know and have probably been trying to tell you, but you’ve been either unable or unwilling to hear them. In either case, the result of such an error are fear, frustration, boredom, growing apart, fighting, wanting affairs, having affairs, getting caught in affairs, nasty divorces resulting from getting caught in affairs, celibacy, etc. Why put yourself through any of that? If you’re going through it now, there is a great way to stop it, and if you haven’t arrived there yet but realize that there is a reasonable chance that it could happen somewhere down the road, you’re far better off learning how to prevent it now than having to fix it later, right?

So what do you want to do? Are you one who prays, hopes and waits? Or one who takes action and makes things happen? If you’re one who takes action, here’s the action to take: learn how to assess yourself, your partner, and you relationship to know what needs to be done (even if exiting the relationship is the only thing you can do), how to communicate across the gender gap, and how to do that incredibly fun and sexy alpha male stuff that makes women, especially your partner, want to eat you alive. All you have to do is learn and then do what comes natural as a result of knowing; no acting, no stressing, no worrying about getting caught trying to pull something.

Life’s too short to spend it feeling and doing all those nasty things listed above that happen when a relationship starts cooling off, so don’t go through that. Go to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" right now and start getting your relationship back on track – back in honeymoon mode – right now!

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

A Post-Holiday Surprise Can Work Wonders for Your Relationship or Marriage

Girls love surprises, right? Of course they do! And right now is a great time to give them one because it’s the last thing they might be expecting.

Is everybody ready for New Year’s Eve? Right now you probably think you are, but you won’t really be until you finish reading this. It’s a brilliant idea that one of my students inspired.

He said that he’d had a lot of success presenting a gift to his wife a few days after Christmas, because by that time the expectation of a gift was completely obliterated, and she was like a little kid as she received the unexpected. A great call on his part!

However, not all of you use the Julian calendar, and not all of you celebrate Christmas. So let me broaden the scope here so that everybody can use the idea and then let’s kick it up a notch as well! Ready?

No matter who you are or where you live, this can be used a few days after any holiday upon which a gift is traditionally given – birthdays, anniversaries, the beginning of a new year, etc. It doesn’t matter what the occasion as long as it follows a traditional gift-giving day by no more than a week or two. For those who celebrate Christmas, Chanukah as well, New Year’s Eve on the Julian calendar would be a perfect time, because it’s festive, adult, and potentially exciting.

Caution: DO NOT do this after every holiday, because it makes it predictable. Don’t even do it so often that she expects a gift at all; but it’s fine to do it often enough that she wonders if she will and there’s a little anticipation. Also make sure that you vary the day; don’t always do it on the third day after, or exactly a week after, or in the case of Christmas and Julian New Year’s, always on New Year’s Eve. Keep a little mystery going so that the surprise is heightened instead of spoiled.

Now, let’s kick it up a notch. Make it an extremely personal gift, something that screams out that you wouldn’t give that gift to any other woman, and if any other woman is getting it from another man, it’s an accident that happened because he’s as imaginative and playful as you are. I’m talking cooking or having catered a somewhat exotic meal, and maybe dining naked by candlelight. Or a se’x toy if she’s into them, along with an invitation to a date in a hotel room where the kids can’t hear the noises she makes as you use it on her. Tickets to the amusement park you went to on one of your first dates, stuck inside a pair of edible undies with a hotel reservation confirmation number.

Some outrageous combination of sexy, loving and fun that shows you put some thought into it is what we’re looking for here, and it doesn’t have to be expensive at all. Instead of a hotel room, the phone number for a baby-sitter or a forged note from a trusted friend or relative saying that your children are invited to their house for the evening or the night can work just as well. If her tastes are too conservative for toys or edible undies, maybe a deck of erotic coupons or something a little more risqué than she’s used to but not so trashy that she’s offended or embarrassed. Enlist the help of a female friend if necessary, but again, I will caution you to not use one of her friends because they may be secretly competitive.

The parameters for both the gift and activities surrounding it are limited only by your personalities and tastes, and don’t be afraid to push the envelope just a little. If you’re new to this newsletter and haven’t seen my prior advice on choosing gifts for women, see my free “What Women REALLY Want” report; it’s the last chapter. You can download it at your convenience, and don’t forget to share my free reports with your friends and help them to get their own relationships and lives on track!

So that’s the plan, Gentlemen! Capitalize on some time of the year that she won’t be expecting anything because she just received something, and make it something personal, intimate, loving, sexy, and fun, something that could only come from you and only go to her. (That’s why you combine the exotic place or activity with a mass-produced gift like a sex toy, to personalize the mass-produced gift and make her feel special in receiving it, especially if you’ve wrapped or packaged it in some manner that a department store would never think of doing.)

It doesn’t take striking looks, lots of money and power, fancy cars or boats, or genitalia that look like they were grafted onto you from a horse to sweep a woman off her feet, and as readers of my book, "THE Man's Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," will tell you, a little of the right things goes a LONG way. If you’d like to join us, come visit me at http://www.makingherhappy.com/ and I’ll start you down the road to happiness in the fastest and most effective manner possible!

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

Reader Responses to Asking for Intimacy in Relationships and Marriage

Some female readers respond to yesterday’s lesson on not asking for sex. Pay attention, Gentlemen, because this is the real deal, straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak…

I love the women who subscribe to this newsletter. They’re smart, funny, and I can always count on them to keep my horizons broadening and help set the things I teach in stone by demonstrating to you gentlemen that I’m giving you the facts, not just some hyped-up theory or opinion. I received a bunch of letters from the women on yesterday’s “Don’t Ask for Nookie” lesson, all of which contained a resounding “Amen!” in one form or another, and I’m going to share a few of them with you right now.

First, meet Teresa:

Hi David,

All I can say about being asked for sex is “EWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!” It creeps me out.

Teresa

For those who don’t speak girly-ese, raise “yuck!” “sick!” or “gross!” to about the 23rd power, and you’ll be getting close to the meaning of “creeps me out.”

Now meet Rhonda,

Hi David,

Men just don’t understand how repulsive it is to be asked for permission to do something that they should be doing. If you want to kiss a woman, you should already know whether you can by whether she lets you get close enough to kiss her. And for God’s sake, don’t make an announcement like, “I’m going to kiss you now,” because that comes across as asking. For me, I like the way Will Smith said to do it in that movie Hitch. Come 90% of the way and make me come the other 10% to kiss you. If I don’t come the other 10%, either I’m not interested or you’re going too fast.

Love your stuff. Get these guys into shape for me, will ya? I want a real guy so bad I could just die, and there’s none to be found around here, so hurry!

Rhonda

Hitch was a pretty good movie if you ignore the part where Will Smith wussed out at the end. Rhonda has a great point: if you’re moving into a woman’s space bubble too quickly she’ll back off immediately, and if you’re being so aggressive as to creep her out she’ll break off contact, so talking about kissing or sex or anything else is pretty silly. And besides, if you are generating attraction as you should be, she’s often going to be the one invading YOUR space bubble to get a kiss. Just ask Barb, who includes a LOT of great detail:

David,

I completely agree with your response to "asking" for sex. I can't think of a bigger turn-off than a man asking me if he can hold my hand or kiss me or asking me if we can have sex now. It's like a child asking permission to do something. It's a sign of weakness and insecurity to have to beg for sex.

It's a lose/lose situation. If she says yes, she's doing you some huge favor/chore. If she says no, you're going to feel rejected. Either way, you're setting yourself up for disaster because you're handing her your power on a silver platter.

My suggestion to Marcus is that he needs to do some serious inner work on his attitude and beliefs. Then at some point, take a leap of faith, believe in yourself and your power and trust that this stuff really works. Real men don't have to "ask", they just "do it". I think you'll be shocked and very pleasantly surprised to find that a woman just can't stop herself from responding positively to strength, leadership and personal authority in a man. I am a strong woman, but I want a man who is stronger than I am. I want to be able to surrender to his will. That's what gives me butterflies in my stomach and makes me weak in the knees.

A man may be aroused instantly, but that doesn't mean a woman is. We take longer since we don't have an on/off switch. For us, sex starts in the head, when
we begin thinking about the feelings. The anticipation. The suspense. The stimulation of not just my body, but ALSO my mind.

David's book has an entire section called "Great in Bed" to help build confidence in your lovemaking skills. And it is a skill we have to learn since we're not born knowing how.

I wish I'd had this book when I was still in my 25 year marriage, we could have either salvaged our marriage or I'd have known to move on much sooner.

Barb

I couldn’t have said it better myself! And note that Barb confirms that achieving attraction and arousal is not a near-instantaneous thing like it often is for men. We are largely visually stimulated, where a woman’s mind must be engaged to some degree with mystery, adventure, fun, etc. The alpha male attitude gets you noticed and ultimately cranks up the heat, but that “fun” element common to all men with self-confidence has to bridge the gap to get you there.

Notice that Barb says that she “wants to be able to surrender to his will. That takes trust, and if you don’t trust yourself enough to be confident, how the hell is she supposed to trust you at all??? I keep telling you gentlemen this isn’t rocket science…and there’s a pretty obvious reason for that…

Also note that she points out that “making whoopee” (the things I have to do to hide from the spam filters! LOL!) is a skill that we are not born with. We are born with an instinctive capacity for the raw act of procreation, but not for the pleasure that surrounds it if it’s done right. That requires knowing one of those things that Sigmund Freud was talking about when he said he didn’t know what women want. (And yes, I DO, because women tell me these things!)

So that’s it, the women have spoken, and have confirmed for you that I gave you the facts. And I have a lot more of them for you too, including the whole scoop on what women want, so if you want to get your marriage and relationship back in gear and get one up on Sigmund Freud in the process, come see me at http://www.makingherhappy.com/ right now.

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

Trick Question: How Do You Ask for Intimacy in Your Relationship and Marriage?

A reader asks about the proper way to ask for physical intimacy. The short answer is, you don’t!

I hope this day is going as well for you as it is for me. As I write this, it’s a typical Saturday at my house. The air is thick with the smell of testosterone as project after project, the kind that require a quick mind, strong back, and power tools, has been completed and celebrated with a satisfied grunt and a wipe of the brow before changing tools to start the next project.

Being a guy is easy for me, because I’ve learned that it’s something to aspire to, not something to apologize for, just like being human. There is very little that annoys me any more than to hear someone try to cover a mistake by saying, “But I’m ONLY human.”

We are the most highly-evolved species on the planet, the only one capable of sophisticated engineering, fabrication, and decision-making, not to mention art, cooking, music and dance, etc. We have the power of volitional choice, and hence can develop and raise our standard of living well beyond what is required for mere survival, unlike any other species on Earth.

In spite of this status, some of us just don’t get it. We shy away from doing what comes natural, as if there’s something wrong with being human, or with being a man or a woman. Meet Marcus:

Hi David,

I’ve been following your newsletters for several months now, and haven’t yet seen you speak of the proper way to ask a woman for intimacy (sex). Is this something that you cover in your book and just don’t want to discuss in your newsletter or what?

Regards,
Marcus

Marcus, Buddy, if the truth were a snake it would have bitten you. You’ve not seen me speak of it because YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO DO IT! If you were to ask any woman – WOMAN, mind you, not some high school girl who still has a head full of poetic mush from reading too many fairy tales – how she liked to be asked for sex, she’d most likely laugh at you and walk off without an answer. The question is truly that pathetic to women, as it marks you as an “un-man,” a loser.

You should have noticed that what I DO talk about, frequently, is how to flip a woman’s attraction switches on by acting like a man, being a leader, the alpha male who, instead of being wussy and boring and hiding from the world in his easy chair channel surfing with a beer all evening and then asking for sex at bed time, projects an image of confidence because he’s good at the things he does and enjoys being a man leading an active life, who has a fun, playful, flirtatious sense of humor, and can put a smile on a woman’s face by jumping in and out of “leadership” mode to crack a naughty grin and playfully tease and create enjoyable sexual tension for her.

This is what women want (Pay attention here, Sigmund Freud -- he's famous for saying, "The Great Question, which I have not answered, is ‘What does a woman want?'"): They want to be excited. They want to be surprised from time to time. They want to feel safe in investing their emotions. They want to have fun. They want to dance that “two steps forward, one step back” dance with you as the naughty fun and flirting ramps up tension, eases a bit momentarily, and then shoots to new highs, until such a high is reached that they pounce on you, wanting to be “taken.” THAT’S why you’ve never heard me describing the proper way to ASK for sex. It doesn’t exist.

And before somebody jumps to a really stupid conclusion and sends me a nasty-gram saying I’m promoting rape, no, I absolutely am not. “No” means “no” and your desire or need is not a rightful demand on another’s life or person. What I’m telling you is that if you do what you should do in flipping the biological switches to create attraction and excitement, you’ll never hear “no” because she will be coming after YOU, or waiting with bated breath and quickened pulse to be taken by you and making it plain that she wants you. “No” is only an issue when you’re either not creating attraction for her or being insensitive and pushing her for sex when she has other problems.

Whether or not she wants to have sex with you is her right to choose, but if you do what you should be doing as a man, which is creating attraction for her by simply being a man and knowing how to communicate with her, she will be consistently choosing to unless she’s in pretty bad shape, because she’ll be biologically driven to it and you will in fact be holding her off a bit to heighten the tension and excitement!

Attraction is biological, not logical, and there is no request or argument that you can make that will excite her enough to do anything more than tolerate you. Flip those switches off, and you will hear “No” every time. Flip them on, and you’ll not only hear “yes;” you’ll see it and feel it as she pounces on you.

And how do you go about learning and evolving into a man who does this naturally, without the stress of trying to “fake it until you make it?” Come to http://www.makingherhappy.com/ and find out, like many before you have!

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

Learning from Our Ancestors: The Immense Value of Anticipation in Relationships and Marriage

Time and again, we hear men are basically hunters, and women gatherers, or at least descended from them and still are “wired” like them, but what does this really mean in terms of how we view and enjoy life, and especially our lives together? More than you think; indeed, it permeates the entire relationship, including the bedroom, and can make the difference in whether your relationship lives or dies.

Today I want to discuss something that women have been trying to get men to understand for centuries: this thing they have with savoring anticipation, building excitement, and something that most men just simply can’t abide, at least not much: teasing, sexual and otherwise.

I hope we’re all long past the point of trying to adhere to this idiotic politically correct concept that there are no genetic differences between men and women other than the presentation of sex organs. Those of you who aren’t, if there are any of you left, either wake up and realize that we have a lot of differences, some of which can make one gender or the other generally – but not universally – better-suited to some things and not so well-suited to others, or stop wasting your time reading anything I send you.

Now hear this: We have unmistakable and easily identifiable differences, and while they do not make one gender or the other ultimately superior or inferior, we must recognize them and use them to understand each other better so we can enjoy our lives together as much as possible; else, they become a wedge that drives us further and further apart.

Among these differences is the way we treat goal attainment. Men, having evolved from hunters, generally enjoy the thrill of the chase to a degree, but the kill is the only reason for doing most things. Think of hunters or fishermen. There are “outdoorsmen” who love being in the country, outdoors, enjoying the sunshine and fresh air, for whom hunting and fishing are good ways to keep busy while enjoying nature, then there are the “sportsmen” for whom fishing and hunting are no fun if they come home with an empty stringer or creel, don’t have something strapped to the hood or bed of their vehicle, etc.

The sportsman characterizes most men’s attitude and approach to most things. We’re providers, protectors, problem-solvers, and repairmen, and we’re results-driven, so anticipation for us is stressful, and teasing gets old really fast; getting close and not going the rest of the way quickly can be utter damnation for us, so we tend to close the deal, no matter what it is, so we can move on to the next challenge or opportunity, and ultimately, the next result.

Gentlemen, women aren’t like us in this regard; indeed, for the most part, they are completely and utterly opposite! Think of the stereotypical image of a woman shopping as opposed to a stereotypical image of a man. When we want something, most of us just run in wherever we think is a good place to grab it and do so, quickly, and rush home with our spoils to share them with family, friends, etc. Women enjoy the shopping – the process of acquisition – as much as or even more than the acquisition itself. They delight in walking around looking at everything, comparing, imagining themselves wearing it, tasting it, sharing it, or whatever – anticipating the ownership and use and relishing it. How does this apply to our relationships?

It’s exactly the same story, especially when it comes to creating attraction. We see them, we think about them momentarily (or don’t), we become aroused, we want them, and it’s urgent. If you want to screw up an evening with a woman, a really good way to do it (most of the time – I describe the exceptions to this in my book) is to fast-forward to the romance scene early in the evening, or rush her into a sexual encounter without it having been part of the rest of the day.

Women need that feeling of anticipation, that teasing and waiting that we hate, to get amped up to where they need to be to enjoy it. Ask any woman about her most incredible sexual encounter, and you’ll find that the vast majority say nothing about having a man “in the saddle” for hours – it’s having a man hinting and teasing them for hours before the foreplay, then stair-stepping the foreplay, two steps forward and one step back, teasing and building that anticipation until they are ready to explode that they will describe as their greatest sexual encounter, because that’s how attraction and excitement is built for them.

Do NOT read past this point until you have full ownership of this concept, Gentlemen: for us, orgasm is the whole purpose of sex. For women, it’s merely the end of it. They like and need orgasm (the effect of orgasm on female brain and body chemistry is extremely beneficial!) but they are in no hurry to get there, and many could care less whether it is you or they who cause the orgasm as long as they get the anticipation and intimacy. Give her that, and she’ll be quite happy to “finish herself” or have you “finish her” by some other means if she needs an orgasm after you “finish.” (It’s really hard to keep this kind of discussion in such terms that wouldn’t make an adult cringe if their child walked up behind them as they read it without making it sterile and boring as some medical school text. LOL!)

I cannot overstress how important to your sex life it is, and will remain, for you to prolong the pre-orgasmic activities of sex for your partner to enjoy, because if you don’t, you’ll be done quite literally before she gets started, and it doesn’t take too many unfulfilling and frustrating episodes of that before she shuts down entirely; such sex is nothing more than a chore for a woman. It would be the same frustration and lack of fulfillment as a woman leading you up to the point of orgasm and then stopping, time after time. You would be missing what you see as the whole point of the encounter, just as she does if you move through it too quickly. And you know what happens when such an itch goes unscratched; sooner or later, somebody has to scratch it.

Never make the mistake of assuming that a woman enjoys the same things you do, especially in the same ways that you do, nor that she doesn’t. And whatever you do, don’t think that you know more about what she likes having done to her than she does. (Yes, men have written to me puzzled at how their wife didn’t respond to something they just KNEW she SHOULD like because some friend had said so, they’d read it somewhere, some other woman had responded to it, etc.)

They like being naughty like we do, and they like sex as much as we do, but in general they go about it in a very different way for maximum pleasure. For the umpteenth time, communicate, experiment, and find out what works with your partner! Prepare yourself for the greatest revelation you will ever have, a proverbial thunderbolt, and you’ve heard it a million times before:

If mama ain’t happy, nobody’s happy.

No, that’s not the thunderbolt. That’s to set you up for the thunderbolt:

If mama is happy, EVERYBODY’S happy!

I’m going to be explaining this in tomorrow’s newsletter. It is at the same time a so ridiculously cliché and yet revolutionary way of looking at relationships that it will make you laugh at its delightful simplicity and curse your failure to recognize it at the same time.

Meanwhile, you could already be getting the explanation of that and everything else we discuss here in “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage.” It’s an instant-download, an e-Book in Adobe’s PDF format, at http://www.makingherhappy.com. Go ahead and download it now, because while some good things come to he who waits, others get away, and you need to know the difference. Life’s too short to spend it ignorant, especially if ignorance keeps you from living happily with your partner.

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

Girls and Their Toys! Those Toys Are NOT a Threat to Your Relationship or Marriage

Some men get terribly insecure about women’s “toys,” responding with such nonsense as “How am I supposed to compete with THAT?” You’re not, and you should be glad that it’s a toy and not another man. Why not “grow a pair” and join in the fun?

Sometimes I get letters from readers that are truly upsetting. I’ll spare you the details of those emotions, but eventually I have to look past the gross insecurity and ignorance expressed in the letter and remember that my job is to help people learn to be smarter and better, and that they think the way they do (or FAIL to think at all) because that’s what they have been taught, and my beef is with the teacher, not the student. Meet Brent:

Hey David,

Man, I’ve got a problem. My wife has discovered “toys,” (the adult kind) and I can’t get her to leave them alone. Every time I come home when she’s been here alone, they are laying out and it drives me nuts. I mean, how am I supposed to compete with that? I’ve got to get her to stop, but I don’t know how. I’ve tried everything I can think of, and she just gets madder and madder at me when I try to tell her that she doesn’t need them. What can I do?

Thanks,
Brent

My response:

Yes, Brent, you have a problem, and it’s not your wife’s toys. It’s your attitude. What makes you think you are “competing” with her toys? And what makes you think that she needs to stop using them? If there’s something lacking in the bedroom, would you not prefer that it was her toys taking up the slack instead of another man, or had that occurred to you?

I obviously don’t know your wife, but every woman that knows me, including your fellow readers, will tell you that I know women well enough to say this: Whether she’s using toys because there is something lacking in your performance or because she just likes toys is irrelevant, and you’re showing a sickening level of insecurity by feeling you have to compete with them and an equally sickening level of arrogance or stupidity to think that you can decide for her what she needs and doesn’t need. So what’s up?

She’s leaving them out as an invitation for you to join her in using them! She’s mad because you’re being insecure and trying to shut her down instead of listening to her, taking the hint, and letting her share with you something that she enjoys! Get a clue!

Like it or not, that’s reality, and if you think you’re choking on that dose, this one isn’t going to go down very well, either: If you don’t get a grip, grow a pair of testicles worthy of a man, and stop acting threatened by some masses of inanimate plastic, there will be another man involved, either before or after the divorce, and he will likely be chosen partially on the basis of his willingness to share her toy pleasures with her.

It’s like this: your manhood is not a function of how big your “organ” is or how many orgasms you can give her through “traditional” intercourse, or any other kind for that matter. That’s machismo, ego, and chauvinism at its worst. Your manhood is a function of how well you handle the job of being a man! How much you act like the alpha male – smart, confident, witty, able to treat adversity as opportunity and adventure, comfortable being in the lead and making decisions (NOT forcing them on others, as you want to do with her toys), and letting that naughty inner child out from time to time to show her a good time.

How do you think you come off asking her how you’re supposed to compete with a few ounces of plastic or latex?

Like a freaking wuss!

The only way that toy can be used as a lethal weapon is to choke you with it, yet you’re acting scared to death of it. How manly is that? NOT!!!

Now straighten up, think like a man instead of an insecure, grab-asstic adolescent, and next time you come home and find your wife’s toys laying out, put on your best naughty boy grin and tell her that if she’s going to leave her toys lying around where you have to look at them, she’s going to have to let you play with them too, so it’s time to get naked and show you how they work, else she’s going to get a spanking. Yes, I’m serious!

She will be stunned at first because you’ve acted like such a wuss, and then she’ll get a little cocky to test you to see if you mean it. Pick up one of her toys and give her a good-natured swat on the behind with it, and crack wise with something like, “That seems to work, but I’m sure there’s a better use for this than that,” and dial up the naughty level a few notches.

Let her show you, and you pay very close attention to things like speed, pressure, direction, etc., then you take over and allow her to continue to coach you, which she may do with her hands or other body parts instead of spoken words, i.e., raising her hips to press toward you means more pressure, etc. – use your head and keep your cool, and everything will be fine. It’s a learning experience, a damned pleasurable one too, not a contest, so put that competition nonsense away and leave it there before it gets you hurt. This is about cooperation, not competition.

All joking and rib-poking aside, if you have a problem with this because of some kind of childhood sexual trauma, stop hiding from it and get help, because you’re cheating both of you out of a lot of things, including fun, trust, intimacy, etc. – things that no committed relationship can ever get too much of, right?

Take care, and keep in touch,
David

This mess could have been avoided if Brent just knew a little more about communicating with women and was comfortable with himself, two things that a whole lot of men have a huge problem with. If you are one of them, it’s time to give yourself – AND YOUR PARTNER – the gift of a break from all the stress.

Inside every man is an alpha male, and if he’s not in the lead in your life, he’s been suppressed, oppressed, or somehow pressured into the background, but he’s there, waiting to come out. Yes, he is! He’s been there ever since you were given that “Y” chromosome at conception! But…

Unfortunately, there’s not likely to be a hyper-skilled communicator that can rival any woman hiding in there with him unless you are an effeminate gay male that is so girly that every woman wants to go shopping with you, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t learn how to do much better than you are doing – so much better in fact, that she thinks you’re reading her mind at times.

Neither are hard to do, if you just apply a little time and effort to clearing out some bad programming and engaging in a little self-improvement, which is a whole lot easier than trying to put on an act for a creature that has about 100 times the capacity for sensing and interpreting non-verbal communication than you have. You can’t just ACT like a man, you have to BE a man; otherwise the stress of trying to act in contradiction to yourself will backfire on you. But the good news is that you just need to know what works and how to make the parts of what work that appeal to you a real part of your life, which is one of the most enjoyable processes a man can go through at any point in his life. Being a man is a LOT easier than trying to act like one, and a lot easier than not being one, too!

It’s all laid out for you, step by step, in “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage,” and it’s waiting for you at http://www.makingherhappy.com. Download it and give it a shot, because life is too short to miss out on the good parts, and unless you and your partner are truly enjoying your manhood (literally and figuratively) you are missing out on a LOT of good parts.

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

So She Says She Has a Headache: The Oldest Lie in Relationships and Marriage

A reader asks about the age-old lie, “Not tonight; I have a headache,” and its other iterations. He may not like the answer, but if he’ll accept it he can fix the problem, which is not her; it’s him.

I’ve wondered for a long time why I seldom receive a letter on this subject, because in the research phase of “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage” it was one of the first things to come up: the ages-old lie, “Not tonight, Dear. I have a headache.” It has other iterations, such as cramping, nausea, too tired (an extremely common one and easy to fake), menstrual discomfort, etc. Sometimes these complaints might be legitimate issues; at others they won’t. There is a pretty good way to know the difference, and a fool-proof way to eliminate the bogus ones. We’ll discuss all that in a minute, but first, meet Randy:

Hey David,

I have run into a stone wall with my wife and was hoping you might be able to shed some light onto a problem that is driving me straight to the sofa. It has to do with what else, sex. I know women think that is all a man thinks of, but how can you not when you never get it!

Every time lately I want to have sex with my wife she always has a reason that we can not do it. I have heard them all at this point, I am on my period, I have a yeast infection or bladder infection, I am too tired I have had the kids all day. Hey I am not a heartless SOB, but enough is enough how can a woman have a problem all of the time? I need some help here, how do I get her back in the bed with me and have sex instead of fighting for half an hour and ending up on the sofa every night?

Randy

My reply:

Randy, Buddy, let’s talk. There are two possible reasons for your wife’s behavior, those being that she’s really having that much trouble and that she’s not having that much trouble but it’s easier to fake something than to argue and fight about sex. It’s simple logic. She’s complaining of a problem, so the problem either does or does not exist. If the problem exists, there should be some signs of attempted remedy, and if not, she was bound to slip up sometime.

When she claims she has a headache, is her behavior consistent with having a headache? Taking some form of pain reliever, wanting you to rub her neck if it’s tension or taking antihistamines or decongestants if it’s sinus or avoiding bright lights and loud noises if it’s a migraine?

Incidentally, last I heard, the AMA was still saying that the average person has 6 headaches a year. That’s really ironic because that’s also the number of times the average couple who has been together longer than two years has sex in a year. (That is, of course, if they’ve not discovered "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage", in which case they’re having sex several times per week to several times per day!)

Is she saying she’s too tired for sex and then going to sleep? Or is she claiming she’s too tired and then sitting on the phone with a friend, sitting at her computer, or watching TV for another two hours? Are there wrappers from feminine hygiene products in the trash can when she claims to be having her period?

Is she going to the doctor and/or drugstore and bringing home prescription or over-the-counter treatments for bladder infections or yeast infection when she claims she has one?

The point is that there is behavior that can be logically expected if someone has a genuine ailment, especially if it’s frequent. If their actions are contradictory to their words, they’re faking it to avoid sex. There is no other explanation.

Now the big question, why would she want to be avoiding sex?

There are very few people who don’t enjoy it, and their problems are pretty severe. If she has enjoyed sex with you in the past, it’s unlikely that she would have developed one of these major problems (like being raped) without you knowing about it. That leaves only one conclusion.

She’s no longer feeling attracted to you! Get this:

The slow-down of sexual activity a year or two after your marriage may seem normal because everybody complains about it and there’s a chemical change that stops forcing you to want it constantly, but it’s actually the first major symptom in the slow decay of a relationship. It doesn’t mean the relationship is over, but it’s now, not when you or she gets busted in an affair or somebody gets served divorce papers, that is the best time (other than before trouble starts, as a preventive measure) to start learning what you’ve needed to know all along and doing what you should have been doing all along to set things right while it’s still easy to do so. At this point, her feelings are still mostly positive, right?

Loves you? Maybe, even probably.

Loyal to you? Maybe, maybe not. It depends on whether someone else has created attraction for her and she’s responding to them. A woman will have sex with a man to whom she is attracted, and will not with a man to whom she is not attracted, at least not without resentment. It’s just that simple. There is also a strange tendency for people having an affair to refuse to have sex at home because they’re having feelings of fidelity for the person they’re involved with. So what do you do?

First, you forget about trying to find out if she’s sleeping with another man or who he is. That is irrelevant, and nothing good can come from finding out. She’s living with you, and that’s all that matters. Any woman would rather feel attraction for a man she’s living with, especially if she loves him, than any other man on the planet. It makes for a nice, tidy, secure, and enjoyable environment that is not possible under any other scenario. That is your edge. Don’t blow it by making accusations and digging around to find out something that you won’t want to know afterwards anyway. And finding the other guy to tell him to back off is the biggest wuss move of all, because you’re acknowledging his presence and even his superiority. If you handle this right and your wife has any character at all, she’ll end up confessing sometime in the future anyway, or else her past will come back to haunt her. Forget about it.

Second, start creating attraction for her. You apparently did it for her at one time, or she wouldn’t have married you (even if she married you because she was pregnant, she slept with you – drunken daze notwithstanding – because you created attraction for her), so you have to bring it back, which is nowhere near as hard as creating it for a stranger, for a variety of reasons that I won’t get into here, but are fully explained in the book that will tell you how to create attraction for her, “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage.” She lives for it, yearns for it, and wants you to be the one creating for her, of all the men on the planet. Give her what she wants!

Take care, and keep in touch,
David

Gentlemen, that feeling you get that you would describe as “I’ve just got to have her,” is the same feeling women get when in the presence of an alpha male who creates sexual tension for her by flipping switches and withdrawing in a “two-steps-forward-one-step-back” dance that can go on for minutes to days. They’re not visually stimulated like we are with the human physique; it’s alpha behavior that gets them fired up more than anything, the confident, cocky, almost swaggering arrogance of a man who knows he can do anything balanced with the intellect to do what he chooses (it doesn’t matter whether you can do everything, only that you can do what you aspire to and need to do), the authority to pull it off, and the sense of humor to make it all enjoyable.

Putting on the act won’t do it, at least not for long. You might get away with it for a date or two with a stranger, but with your committed partner, it’s got to be you, the REAL you, not just an act you can put on and constantly be stressed out over the possibility of having her see through it. Help is instantly available if you’re ready to be the man you can be.

“THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage” teaches you, as it has taught thousands of men, what you need to know and helps you to incorporate it into the real you, making you that confident alpha male you takes care of business and has fun in ways that drives women wild with desire.

It also teaches you the difference in how you communicate and how women communicate so that when she tries to tell you what she wants you’ll be able to hear and understand it. Believe it or not, many women have reported having affairs and getting caught in them so that their husband will see the example that “the other man” sets, because she’s tried to tell him and the message didn’t get through! The boyfriend wasn’t a boyfriend, he was the illustration in a “how-to” manual she tried to give him!

And, since women need love for security and attraction to feel alive, it teaches you what attractive behavior is, and the personality that causes it to happen naturally, the alpha male personality, and how to develop it so that you can enjoy the confidence that it brings you in all walks of life, not just in your relationship. It’s not just about relationship improvement, it’s about MALE improvement, about being a real man, and doing the manly things that real men do, and loving every minute of it.

The coolest part is that the manly things that manly men do and women love to see them do are fun! They’re things that men just naturally do, but in that idiotic fiasco of the 1980’s when women said they’d like for men to be more sensitive and men took that to mean sensitive INSTEAD OF manly and not sensitive IN ADDITION TO being manly, as the women wanted (they never state “the obvious”), men have just stopped doing and turned into a bunch of wusses.

Kill that inner wuss and let your inner manly man and inner naughty boy come back out to stay. I’ll teach you how. Click over to http://www.makingherhappy.com, download your copy of "THE Man's Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" and let’s get started, because life is just too short to spend it being a wuss, not to mention celibate and on the couch!

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

The Most Important Skills in Building, Maintaining, or Saving a Relationship or Marriage, Part 1

A reader writes about his success and discoveries in reviving his marriage in the post-affair situation that many of you have written me about. Do yourself a big favor and learn from him…

I love letters like the ones I’m about to share with you. They prove just how much a guy with genuine desire, a little courage, and the right information can accomplish.

The following is a partial transcript of several e-mails that have passed back and forth between Mark and me today. He inspired a few noteworthy remarks from me, but his insight and achievement are the real stars today. This is really long, so I’m going to break this up over the next couple of days to keep from overloading your schedule. Join us now…

David,

Well I've been subscribing to your newsletter for a couple of months and bought your e-book, but I was really having some trouble putting your ideas to work. You see I had let my marriage get to a point that my wife was bored enough to have an affair. We've fought our way back from the brink and through your help I could see that I needed to take action, but I just couldn't figure out how to do it. So the other night I figure I'm going to make my wife notice that I'm different.

We're sitting on the bed watching TV and I just think I have to do something right now! So I sit up and lean over and look very serious. And I say, "you know, there's something that I've always wanted to do to you in bed." The look on her face was priceless. I could tell she thought that I was about to suggest some kind of sexual act and she obviously didn't want to play. But instead I grabbed the pillow and smacked her over the head with it and yelled "pillow fight!"

Talk about fun, we spent a couple of minutes rough housing on the bed and laughing so hard we woke up the kids. She was so surprised that her mood completely changed from somber to happy. This led to us having all kinds of fun that night. So I am totally getting the cocky and fun aspect of what you suggest.

The only thing that I am having trouble with at this time is that I am a stay-at-home dad. I am in the process of changing that but I'm still a couple of months out from getting the necessary training I need to get back to work. What specific ideas could you suggest for me to keep my wife attracted while I go through this transition?

Thanks,
Mark

My reply:

Hi Mark!

The pillow fight was a masterful move, so you're really getting it. That kind of fun is what makes intimacy happen, especially when you initiate it. And you can turn it up a lot hotter than that, too.

For example, one reader’s wife is one of those women who have a compulsion to pick up anything you point at. He sets her up by dropping something in the floor, and later when she's in the vicinity, he looks over at it and says, "What's that?" When she bends over, he gives her a playful little pinch or swat on the behind, or some other kind of mildly sexual "gotcha" maneuver. She laughs and tries to act mad because he got her again and can't stop herself from laughing.

The thing is to dream up things that are fun for you and not somehow degrading, humiliating, or painful for her (which would kill the fun for her instead of making it happen). That has a two-fold benefit. First, it takes the pressure off of you because you're having fun and she's along for the ride, and second, a woman will go along with just about anything for fun as long as it isn't somehow disrespectful, painful, or downright scary.

Case in point, consider the "wedgie." If you do it just far enough for it to be called a wedgie and surprise her, or just gently snap the band on her panties when it's exposed as she bends over, it's a shock, and when she sees that naughty boy grin she can't help but to laugh, where if you pull hard on the wedgie you can hurt her, or if you give her elastic the extreme snap it might sting that sensitive skin to the point of pissing her off.

(By the way, that’s the reason most women don’t like having their bra straps snapped. It’s been done excessively, too hard, and disrespectfully, and they have bad memories associated with it. Once you’ve earned her trust by doing these other things in a way she finds fun and trusts you not to hurt or disrespect her, the bra straps become fair game, too, but make sure you earn that trust before going where she’s likely to have bad feelings from the past.)

Stunts like wedgies and snapping elastic are much more about insinuation than achievement; "I could have really burnt you up if I wanted to, but I didn't because I love you and want to have fun with you, not hurt you," is the underlying message. (Be careful about pulling hard on elastic with the intention of letting up to only a gentle snap as well, because sensitive skin or tissue in the breast or groin area can be hurt as much or more by the pull than the snap if you catch it just right.) And you can have a lot of fun and excite her with anything that conveys that message.

You may have caught the e-mail a few days ago in which a guy interrupted his wife's bratty rant by pulling her pants down and walking out of the room grinning. That works great if she's just in a bratty rant and not genuinely pissed about a legitimate issue, and as long as it's just you and her in the room. Change any one of those variables and it's an act of disrespect instead of fun.

And by the way, there's nothing wrong giving her a playful nip on the breast or neck or something when nobody's looking, either. The earlier in the day you put a sexual thought in her head, the more she'll stew on it through the day and the easier it will be to ramp her up to the point where she's ripping your clothes off of you at bedtime. As you read in my book, anticipation is the name of the game, remember?

As for your home situation, it's not so difficult as you might think. Being a provider is part of the biological trigger equation, but so is being a protector, and being fun, intelligent, self-respectful, etc. If you get anxious and depressed about not having a job, it will have a negative impact.

If you treat your training as a job, and get excited about the training and the job prospects, that attitude and confidence will come across as heroic, and build trust and intimacy, not to mention be exciting to your wife. Women like to live vicariously through other people at times because it provides an emotional lift, and if she sees you striving heroically through a career change, it excites her and makes her feel safe.

In contrast, if you get insecure and anxious about it, you become a high-maintenance problem like a girlfriend and her confidence in you drops like a rock. You also point out how at the moment you are not a provider, but a dependent, and that’s really bad in the attraction equation. So in short, as long as you go through that transition with confidence and continue to look forward to success and remain fun and dedicated in the meantime, you're golden.

Just keep the communications lines open so that she gets an occasional taste of your confidence and excitement. Answer her questions with real answers instead of just "okay," or "It's going well," and then shutting up.

Give her a few details of things that you're learning and things you're excited about -- not verbose descriptions of technical processes that will bore the hell out of her, but stuff like, "I learned how to operate such-and-such today, and it was tough, but I enjoyed it. I'm getting really excited about this."

If it's not enough, she'll ask you specific questions, and if it is enough, she'll say something like she's happy for you that pretty obviously moves toward a new subject. And by the way, best wishes for whatever it is you're pursuing...

Take care, and keep in touch!
David

Mark’s reply to this advice carries some insights and reports of further success and experimentation that you will not want to miss tomorrow, so don’t. But let’s take a closer look at this and make sure you catch the most important parts of today’s lesson.

First, women love to play just as much as we do, and sometimes I suspect that it’s more than we do, but I don’t have any way to objectively measure it. They can get just as wild, crazy, bold, raunchy, and irreverent as any man, given the right circumstances. They don’t tolerate disrespect any more than we do, and pain isn’t any more fun for them than it is for us. Don’t be afraid to be yourself; if you go too far, switch gears fast and find a new way to play. Don’t dote and start apologizing all over yourself.

If you do trip over some hot button that you didn’t and couldn’t have known existed, apologize, once, not many times like a wuss would, cuddle her up and tell her that you’re there to love and protect her, not to deliberately say or do anything to hurt her, and as soon as you feel her tension wane a bit, start back in on her with something else. You’ll find that “two steps forward, one step back” applies to a lot more than just attraction-building.

Second, take a close look at what I said about his career situation. That’s a general formula for dealing with any kind of adversity. If you act all distraught and whiney, you appear weak and feminine, and in the back of her mind, an alarm sounds that says, “Warning! Warning! Another drama queen to manage!” You lose man points, lots of them. And if you allow her to see you as a dependent instead of a partner, the clock starts running faster and faster as you move toward the point where she’s done with you.

But, if you keep the attitude that adversity creates opportunity, deal with the situation with an air of looking forward to success, and talk with her about how you see that success and your effort to reach it, you will inspire her to trust you and support you, possibly to a degree you would have never expected. Heroism is a form of romance, and when you take the heroic approach to dealing with adversity, you put your wife right in the middle of epic romance – an outstanding opportunity in the midst of adversity when you think about it.

It doesn’t take a whole lot to be the guy who pulls this off all his life with grace and very little conscious effort. A little knowledge will go a long way, knowledge about what women want, need and respond to, about how they communicate, and what flips on the fun, excitement and attraction switches. Sound like a lot?

Sure it does. It has all our life. We grew up hearing the story about the genie who thought it would be easier to build a bridge from Los Angeles, California to Hawaii than to tell the man who’d rubbed the lamp what makes women tick, or what women really want, depending on which version of the joke you hear. Apparently I’m a lot smarter than that genie, because I did it in 118 pages, not with the help of a genie, but of a whole bunch of women and their men.

When you want to learn something, you go to the source, plain and simple. I went to the source, learned everything they could teach me, translated it into man-speak, and gave it to their husbands to test on them. There were some discrepancies where the women thought they wanted things and didn’t like it when they got them – the old “be careful what you wish for” scenario. But we got it all ironed out and on paper, so to speak.

Actually, it’s in an Adobe PDF file, called "THE Man's Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," and you can download it right now at http://www.makingherhappy.com/ if you want to be one of us guys who knows all that mysterious stuff about women that you’re not supposed to know – and your wife or girlfriend WANTS DESPERATELY for you to know. Give it a shot, and in a couple weeks you’ll be writing me letters about success instead of sitting there in front of that computer wishing you had a success to write about.

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

What to Do When She's "Mean" to You: Horseplay and "Picking" in Relationships and Marriage

Men frequently write to me complaining that their wives pick at them, needle them, push them to do things they don’t want to do, etc. How are you supposed to handle this? The answer might surprise you…

I get a lot of letters like the following, and I’ve addressed the issue in "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," but the frequency of these letters is scary. There are too many men who don’t recognize what this issue really is and how to deal with it, and families are literally coming apart at the seams because of this simple misunderstanding. Meet Jeff:

Hello David,

I need help. I haven’t yet read your book but I’ve been reading your newsletters for awhile and I think you can tell me this. My wife has picked up a bad habit of picking on me, making fun of me, being a smart-ass in front of our friends, etc. It’s really abrasive and embarrassing, and getting worse by the day. The more I ask her to stop, the more she does it, like she’s trying to push me into a fight. How can I stop it?

Thanks,
Jeff

Well Jeff, you slacking cheapskate, if you’d read my book you’d know! ;-) Just kidding, of course. LOL! Seriously, she’s not trying to start a fight at all. She’s trying to get you to play with her! You’re boring her to tears, and she’s trying to bring you out of your shell.

Women like challenge, and they like a man to act like he “has a pair.” She’s challenging you to a verbal “joust” to have some fun. What she’s expecting from you is that you pick back at her, not in a mean, nasty, insulting way, but in that fun, naughty, pranksterish way as you probably cut up with your friends, at least at first, escalating it to get into chasing, tickling, playful pinching or spanking – you know, that kid stuff that you used to do when you drove her wild!

What’s happening now is that she’s trying harder and harder to provoke you into showing that you have reproductive glands and a sense of humor, which is, in effect, punishment for not doing so all along. If you don’t do it, you’ll find her losing interest in you pretty soon, so you’d better be finding your sense of humor, fast.

And we are talking about humor here, no matter how pissy you might think she’s being. If she makes a smart crack about your big feet, make a smart crack about something that obviously IS NOT a problem; i.e., only make a remark about her big butt if she DOES NOT have a big butt and doesn’t obsess about having one. Find something to exaggerate to crack wise about so that it’s obvious that you’re playing, else you may strike a nerve and end up starting a fight while trying to play.

I cannot overstress how you need to exercise a little sensitivity here. If she stubs her toe and is limping around but not seriously injured or embarrassed about the accident, then calling her “gimpy” is fair game, but if she is crippled, or if there was something embarrassing about the injury, like she was in a public place, stubbed her toe and ended up dumping a cup of coffee on a white blouse in front of her boss because of it, “gimpy” is off limits, at least until you see that she’s over the embarrassment, which will usually be if and when you see her smile or laugh a bit when talking about it with a girlfriend. The idea is to be obviously fun with your picking to give her a giggle and demonstrate that you are a playful guy, not some wuss who can’t take a joke and is afraid to dish one out for her or a jerk who is retaliating and being a mean bully instead of going along with the joke.

Women don’t really want that much from us, Gents. It’s just that what they want is stuff that almost nobody is teaching these days; they’re politically incorrect for wanting it, and we’re politically incorrect for giving it to them. However, I am teaching it, after learning it from some gurus before me and adapting and expanding that by working with several hundred married women and their husbands, and I’ll teach you if you want to learn. Screw political correctness. It wasn’t in my wedding vows; was it in yours?

So how about it? Are you ready to learn what may turn out to be the most valuable lessons of your life? Remember all those jokes you cracked about nobody ever being able to understand women, or know what they want, or what they’re saying, or how to pass all those damnable tests and traps they’re always laying for us? I could give you the old “be the first kid on your block to own it” spiel, but it doesn’t really matter if you’re first. What matters is that you’re successful, as quickly as you can get there.

The quickest path to lasting success in your relationship is to go to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," and then just reading it and putting it to work. You’ll not find too many opportunities where you can have so much fun being so successful, if you find any at all like this one, so get busy.

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

Know What a Naughty Boy Looks Like for a Great Relationship and Marriage

What exactly do I mean when I tell you to be “naughty”? And what is it about “naughty” that drives women crazy?

Over the years since high school graduation, I’ve talked with old classmates and found out all kinds of things that I never knew about myself and the girls I went to high school with. If I could go back knowing what I know now…

Well, I can’t, and I don’t know that I’d change anything at all, because the idea of dating a bunch of teenage drama queens is even less appealing now than it was then, but it would sure be fun to see all of that through new, more aware eyes! You see, what I’ve been finding out was how many of the girls “had the hots for me,” including the hottest ones in the school, even a couple of classes ahead of me, and I never knew. That begs several questions, among them:

1. Why didn’t I know?
2. What made it happen?

Both questions have answers that are easy today, but in those days would have amounted to hidden, mystical knowledge that no man was supposed to have! And which, by the way, I can now provide… ;-)

I didn’t know because I didn’t know how to listen to women and read their signals. One girl had such a crush on me that she bought tennis shoes that matched mine trying to get my attention; I had no clue. We were “just friends” as far as I knew, and I though it was an act of camaraderie. Others asked questions that, at the time, I found extremely annoying because the answers appeared so obvious; they already had the answers. The questions were just excuses to try to get my attention and strike up conversation; I was the stupid one, in spite of graduating as class Valedictorian and receiving a congressional appointment to a military academy.

What I knew about communicating with girls when I was in high school wouldn’t have taken a whole sheet of paper to record. I still thought, as nearly all men do, that women talk just like we do, but a whole lot more, and usually too much about too many things that I don’t want to talk about or hear. That doesn’t take anywhere near a page to write, huh? But I learned…

I eventually found out that what caused all those girls to want my attention was two things: I didn’t give two hoots in Hell what anybody thought about me and was about as independent and often rebellious as a kid can be if somebody tried to push me to do something that didn’t make sense (alpha male behavior), and I was about the most devil-may-care, mischievous little demon in the school.

You went to school with a guy like me, the one who couldn’t keep his mouth shut when there was a good joke to crack, always a smart-ass but usually a likable smart-ass. The prankster who seemed to be at the center of every spectacular stunt, joke, or uprising. The guy whom the teachers were always having to punish for breaking some rule or disrupting something, but never wanting to punish because his mischief brought some fun and excitement to their boring routine and because he was the curve-buster and teacher’s pet as far as grades went. And most of all, the guy who, in spite of all his shenanigans, never hurt anybody, and was always leading the action, recruiting others to join his quests and adventures, sometimes causing a whole group to sit in the principal’s office, brothers-at-arms, waiting for the group ass-paddling to commence and laughing it off.

Remember him? You never really knew what he was going to do next, or what he was going to say. A teacher would ask a question, and if he raised his hand to answer, everybody would turn and look at him, silently trying to guess if he would be serious and give an authoritative answer that would ensure his position as teacher’s pet for another week or crack wise with something that he and everybody else knew he shouldn’t say but had to say, and when the teacher would reprimand him through clenched teeth trying to keep from laughing themselves to death, would cock his head a little and with a sly grin say something like, “Who, me?” or “Now you KNOW I didn’t mean it THAT way! Get your mind out of the gutter, Ms. Teacher. There are children in the room!”

Sure he meant it that way, and so did I! But it was that attitude of selectively bucking the establishment when there was really no harm done, leading the way in making mischief when it was least expected, and grinning that manure-eating (taken from the colloquial “grinning like a ‘possum eating s**t”), fun-loving grin that drove the girls wild. They have a naughty streak, too, but for centuries they’ve been told that they shouldn’t let that be seen, because “nice girls don’t do that if they want to find a nice man and get married.”

And they won’t, until a man gives them such a dose of it that they can’t help themselves, and become overwhelmed with a feeling that it’s safe to cut up and let their own naughty side come out; some would say they’re waiting for your permission to show their naughty sides, and I couldn’t argue with them, but what I’ve seen looks more like they’re waiting for leadership to go down that road. AND BE ADVISED…

It must be only a side of you that you expose, especially in a committed relationship. Why?

Think about the guys you knew who cut up in school. There was the “class clown” who was constantly into something and getting in trouble, right? How did he fare? The teachers thought he was a mildly amusing constant pain in the ass, and nobody, including the girls, took him seriously, right? Everybody would go to him to get a levity fix and then move on to other things, because that was all he had to offer, a quick chuckle or a good laugh, but nothing of real substance. Like what, you say?

Like a deep conversation, or a challenge met and conquered, or an example set by leadership, or homework answers, or anything else that people naturally look for in other people. Do you think a woman wants to be married to a clown? Or do you think she’d prefer a man who gives her the feeling that he can handle the world, protect her from the world and the boredom it threatens her with, can have a deep conversation with her and leave her with something to think about, and when she least expects it, do something outrageously naughty that lets her show her own horns for awhile too? Kind of a no-brainer when you think about it, huh?

So how do you develop this naughty boy bit? You don’t! It’s already inside you, no matter who you are. What you have to develop is the courage to let him out on occasion and the discipline to put the genie back in the bottle after you’ve had some fun. If you really don’t think you have it in you, then expose yourself to it, explore it in others, until you can remember it in yourself, or simply feel it trying to come out. You’ve been in situations where something serious was said and a sly, hilarious thought crossed your mind, but you didn’t let it out. Why?

Answer that one question, “Why did I not allow myself to be myself in that moment, and cut loose with that naughty thought as a naughty remark to be shared by everyone in the room?” and you’ll be well on your way to reviving your naughty boy side. Somewhere along the line you locked him in the closet, maybe because you were afraid of mom finding out, losing a job, being punished, or sounding silly – who knows? Find out!

That’s not to say that if you are invited to report at a board meeting that you should make a farce of it. But if you’re sitting in a meeting at work and things are just getting too tense, lighten the moment if it’s not going to get somebody fired. If you’re having a fight with your wife and you have a funny thought cross your mind that won’t come across as you making a cruel and embarrassing remark to her, let it fly! It will probably end the fight – maybe with her giving you a sound smack in the head for interrupting her rage and making her smile, but end it nonetheless – and how can that be a bad thing?

Just remember that naughty is about fun, for everyone. It’s never mean or cruel, and laughter should never come at anyone’s expense, including your own. If something that goes through your head has realistic potential to hurt others, keep your mouth shut. It’s far better to be silent and thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. It’s also okay to poke a little fun at yourself along with everybody else, but don’t embarrass or demean yourself for the attention.

So now you know. Just like when I was in high school, you can be doing everything right and never know it, or worse, be doing everything WRONG and never know it! Most men are, and if you were doing everything right, it’s highly unlikely that you’d be reading this, right? It takes two skills to really make it with any woman, no matter how much you love each other.

You need to be able to create attraction within her by creating and releasing sexual tension. This is done by alternating between various types of behavior ranging from strong and serious to thoughtful to naughty as a man can be. You also need to be able to really read and understand what she says and signals to you through words, deeds, body language, vocal tone and volume, etc., so that you know WHEN you are succeeding at creating attraction, and succeeding at receiving and returning her love, respect, friendship, and loyalty, or when you are killing any of the above.

THAT is one of the secrets of relationships that are enjoyed for a lifetime, and I can tell you about the others, too. Sound like something you want to get in on?

I thought so. Here’s what you do: Go to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" and read the inadvertently best-kept secrets in the universe, those of what women want, how they think, how to communicate with them, and how to turn them both on and off pretty much at will. It doesn’t put you in control of them; it puts you in a position to lead, understand, and enjoy them, and to be enjoyed BY THEM. Do it now, before you do another thing, because you should never, EVER 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

What Can Kids Teach You About Building a Great Relationship and Marriage?

Did you ever notice a couple of teens getting hot and heavy in a public -- or not so public -- place? Ever wish you could go back to those days? You can, if you’ll just let yourself…

Those of you who have read “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage” understand how and why a small boy knows more about attracting a female than most adult males seem to. Have you ever wondered what else you might learn from children about how to be an adult, or at least how to enjoy being one? Ask Dawn:

Dear David,

I am not sure how to word this so it does not sound like I have been spying on my daughter. The truth is at 16 I do watch her closely, probably a lot more then most parents.

There is one major thing that I have noticed about her and her new boyfriend is how they look and talk to each other. At such a young age they seem to understand many of the things you talk about better then most men who have many more years on them. It just seems so open and honest and that the attraction between the two of them is not only red hot but that it is what as an adult I want in a man.

How can it be they know at their tender age so much about attraction and all the older men I know seem to know nothing?

Dawn

My reply:

Well Dawn, it’s not what they know, it’s what they don’t know. In fact, it’s what they’ve not yet learned: inhibition! Their hormones are raging and their youth and inexperience is making the exploration of themselves and each other exciting, so once they get past the awkwardness of the invitation to the first date and get into each other, they could care less about whether they’ve gained a couple of pounds, they have a little razor stubble, whether the kids might walk through the bedroom door and catch them, what might be going on at work next week, what that noise downstairs might have been, whether the dry cleaning has been picked up, what their friends or family might be doing, or any of the other things that men and women allow to interfere with their “quality time.”

They just let go, and do what comes naturally. Granted, their hormones are pushing them hard, but that’s merely sauce for the goose. When was the last time that you tried it? You say you want that kind of heat and passion, but who’s keeping you from having it, other than yourself? Don’t worry about two pounds you gained during the holidays; when the lights are out or his eyes are closed, he’ll never be able to tell the difference, except you might feel just a little better pulled up close to him; ribs and hipbones jabbing us is a bit distracting. ;-)

I’d just as quickly chastise the men for letting things interfere with passion in this manner. “Lock the damned bedroom door, for crying out loud! Get yourself up to Alpha Male standards, fire that woman up, and get into her and let her get into you like you did when you were teenagers. Worry about what’s going on at work next week when next week gets here, or while you’re at work tomorrow morning. Unless that noise downstairs is followed by a scream, a barking animal, an alarm bell, a crash or explosion, or the sound of an adult voice cursing, it can wait until after you and your partner have enjoyed each other.”

There is no aphrodisiac in the world that will guarantee good sex tonight or tomorrow night (or in the morning!) like good sex last night! Don’t let the world put a damper on your sex life. If you need a little help turning the clock back, go to a drive-in instead of renting a DVD, or get a room in a cheap hotel, not the kind you would rent today, but the kind you rented when you were a teenager and weren’t supposed to be renting a room! Add that seedy, naughty flavor to the mix, and play up the mischief, nostalgia, and “getting away with something” angles. A covert quickie in a public place might be more enjoyable --on occasion -- than the girly dream date with candles and flower petals in the bed or on the mattress. Have fun with it – and each other!

Take care, and keep in touch,
David

Gentlemen, everywhere you look is something that can help you to revive and enhance your relationship if you know what to look for. Knowing what to look for comes from having that romantic, can-do hero’s attitude and knowing what women want. You don’t have to be young, rich, powerful, or drive a fancy car to get your wife’s attention or any other woman’s attention; you just have to be a man, a REAL man who enjoys living and leading as a man, the man she went crazy over and married.

If you want to keep her attention, you keep her guessing, not at whether you’ll be around tomorrow, or have a job next week, but at what kind of laughter and excitement you’re going to create for her today. Will it be walking into a room like you own it, telling a grand tale, or whisking her off to some fun place or activity? The choice is yours, and she expects you to make it. Indeed, quite often her mental and emotional survival DEPEND on you making it.

Women have affairs because they are bored, not because they don’t love their husbands anymore; lost love comes well after lost attraction, if it comes at all. (And for you ladies reading, the same thing is true of men!) Have you ever heard that bit, “I love you, but I’m not in love with you anymore,”? That “in love” bit is attraction, not love.

All you need to become a master of attraction and supreme boredom-fighter, the confident ultimate male who knows what women, especially his partner, want is contained in “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage,” and you procrastinate at reading and using it at your own peril. Get ahead of the curve and stay there by going to http://www.makingherhappy.com and downloading your copy right now, and bring back that passion, intimacy, and honeymoon, because life’s too short to spend it playing catch-up.

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

Why Nice Guys Finish Last, Especially in Relationships, Part 3, the 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 9, 2009 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

Nice Guys Finish Last, Especially in Relationships and Marriage, Part 1

We’ve all heard the old cliché, “Nice Guys Finish Last,” and it seems counter-intuitive, but let’s face it, clichés get to be clichés precisely because they are so universally true and self-evident. Let’s look closer at why this is true and how you can correct any problems it may be causing you…

A friend forwarded me an article asking if men honestly thought that being nice was a drawback when it comes to women. I had to say something…

What difference does it make whether men “think” it or not? It’s a proven fact. Just look at “nice guy” behavior! And most important, it’s something you can easily fix, too!

Before I start, let’s make sure we’re all on the same page. We’ve been through one major debacle over men failing to realize that women never speak the obvious, so let’s avoid another by speaking what some will consider obvious and most others will have been oblivious to…

Back in the 1980’s, we were told that women wanted a man who could be sensitive. They meant sensitive IN ADDITION TO being a manly man, not INSTEAD OF. And by “sensitive,” they meant “being in touch with our – WOMEN’S - feelings,” not “being overwhelmed by feelings” like they often are. Hence, instead of remaining our normal, rough, rowdy, fun, sexy selves, we started acting like wusses and crying with women at chick flicks. And we’ve all noticed where that got us over the last thirty-plus years, right?

So when women who realize what they’re saying still say they want a nice guy, they don’t mean a guy who is ONLY nice, and has no other positive attributes. They’re talking about a man who is a manly man but not an abusive man, a man who gives them an input channel when decisions need to be made but doesn’t just give in to their whims, and recognizes that when she spends two hours making herself look great to go out with him that he at least make the effort to show a little self-respect by wearing things like real shoes, a belt, clothes that fit, tucking in his shirt, which by the way, has a collar on it and maybe even a neck tie, depending on the occasion, socks that match his pants, etc., in recognition and appreciation of her effort.

And by the way, a genuine compliment like, “You look really well put-together tonight. Thank you for making the effort,” instead of complaining that it took her so long to get ready would be a good idea, too.

So in a nutshell, when a sane, undamaged woman wants a “nice guy,” what she is really wanting is a man who notices and respects her and her efforts to please and nurture him. That’s a far cry from a guy what we’ve been led to believe, isn’t it? It actually sounds like a pretty natural thing for a guy to do if he’s with the right woman and he’s an adult.

Okay, now that we have that straight, let’s look at the things that make a nice guy NOTHING MORE THAN A NICE GUY. What do you always notice about them? Or more to the point, what makes them so boring and wussy that women immediately label them as “just a nice guy”?

First and foremost, they’re a pushover. They make the biggest mistake a man can make: deferring all decisions to everyone else. Any risk of discussion or conflict is too much, and they’ve mistakenly been led to believe that leaving decisions to others to make unilaterally or letting somebody else lead the action by making the first suggestion is somehow considerate or polite. Is it?

Not just no, but hell no! Putting somebody else on the spot or dumping a choice into somebody else’s lap so that they are deciding something for you is shirking your responsibility and putting it on them. Ask someone, especially a woman, who looks uncomfortable about making a unilateral decision that concerns more than herself about what is bothering them and they’ll tell you, quite bluntly, that they don’t want to make the decision for everybody.

So how nice is that, really? Not!

And besides, it’s our job to lead, remember? That doesn’t mean that we make all the decisions in a relationship unilaterally, or even any of them. It means we initiate discussions, lead off with suggestions, invite participation, and actively sift through everything being said to come up with a satisfactory option, then announce it as a decision and prompt everyone to start acting on it. Leadership, not control. Motivating as you take action, not just barking orders and pushing people around.

And keep in mind the first rule of thumb in any relationship with a woman: if you can’t stand up TO her, and WITH her, you definitely can’t stand up FOR her. Ergo, you’re a wuss. And boring. That’s really sexy, right?

I was going to go through this whole thing in one edition, but it’s going to take several, so we’re going to stop here and call this “part one,” because this is already more than enough for you to be chewing on for the next 24 hours and trying to root it out of your life. We’ll be talking about these major mistakes that “nice guys” make (and that make “nice guys”) for the next three or more editions, so grease yourself up, strap yourself in, hide all pets, stow your bags under the seat in front of you and make sure your tray table is in its fully upright and locked position, because it may end up being a pretty wild ride.

Yes, really. You’re more than likely going learn some things that you’ve been doing for a long time with the best of intentions and getting exactly the opposite results that you wanted and expected. That means you’re going to get to stop doing some things that you probably didn’t like to do anyway and start getting better results, not just with your partner, and not just with all women, but with everybody around you.

And yes again, that sounds like a tall order, so don’t miss it. I can’t tell you everything I know in the next three newsletters (it took a whole book just to hit the major points!), but I am going to give you a lot more than enough to see two things: that you do indeed have a lot of room for improvement, and that you can make those improvements easily, especially with my help.

You think not? Take me to task! Put me to the test! Go to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," and see what you find. My guarantee is simple: read it and use it for a whole year, and if you don’t think you got your money’s worth, you keep your money and my book.

Do you think you’ll get the same offer at a brick-and-mortar bookstore for some tome full of theory and opinion? Good luck with that. Meanwhile, you remember Kevin, who, by the way, has been married over twenty years and just learned how to play with his wife, from some past articles? I’ll let him tell you about what works. I got this from him today, and I had to “soften” some of it to get it past the spam filters who would otherwise block it for being “for grown-ups only”:

Hey there David!! Man I hope other guys reading what you shared with them from what has been positive to say the least with me are giving it all their effort. It can work for sure. Further proof my friend....

Guys should give this using "panties" (referring to a remark I made about telling a woman who was being a brat to “put her big girl panties on and get real”) a try in whatever way...panties seems to be something that has rather strong influence in having fun with the wife and maybe any woman. Now, I like panties play myself so it influences me a great deal for fun sex play!! The visual of seeing a woman playfully and sensually pulling down her panties certainly gets my rise going!!

Also, it’s sensually fun for me to pull down the panties! So verbally talking panties play gets us going for sure. Now to where I was going with this.....We went to a Halloween party last night and I attached a picture of us which includes a fun girlfriend....Anyway, my wife I guess decided she was going to take the upper hand this time instead of me doing any playful teasing to start.

Well, while we were dancing, she says to me..."You aren't going to get to pull down my panties tonight because I am not wearing any under my mini skirt"!!! And she takes my hands and puts them on her behind and pulls me into her and grinds her [groin] right into me out on the dance floor and teasingly laughs!!! This, of course gets me amped up even more!!

When we leave the hotel party David, she is pretty much quiet on the ride home. When we pull into the garage she asks me..."did you have a good time?" And I said, “Sure I did.” Get this David....She then says, “You got pretty excited knowing my panties were off in there”.....and she gets over in my lap facing me lifting her skirt above her waist and says...”Now start spanking your bad girl for taking off her panties!!!!”

David we [had sex] right there in the car in the garage and I gave her a good spanking too!!! Literally David she wants to have her panties pulled down and get spanked since I started that with the "scolding panties remarks"!!!! Man, I hope it works for other guys!!! There is something about "panties" and women!!!!

Kevin

Kevin’s complaint when we first met was celibacy. From celibate to getting it on at a party on the dance floor and in the garage with a woman who is now, twenty years after they got married, CHASING HIM! This guy has given me more testimonials than some authors get from their entire customer base, and he only one of many getting these results! You don't see me displaying little disclaimers about results being "atypical" in fine print to cover my butt like everybody else does either, because these results are in fact quite typical amongst those who use what I teach, and they can be YOUR results, too, if you'll just step up and get with the program.

‘Nuff said…and again, it’s waiting for you at http://www.makingherhappy.com, so get moving, and gals, if you’re feeling a little jealous of Kevin’s wife right now, you can get in on this, too!

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

The Tough, Playful Alpha Male: Just How Far Can You Go to Keep the Spice in Your Relationship or Marriage, Part 2

Another reader sounds off with a great display of imagination and new-found skill in heading off testing, drama-seeking and brattiness, and you’re going to love this!

I hope every one of you is having a better day than I’m having so far. Really. It’s not that it’s that bad; it’s just one of those days in which lots of little things keep popping up and getting in the way of doing the things I have planned for the day. Like finding a leaky pipe under the kitchen sink…

There’s a quick but very powerful lesson in that, so I’ll go ahead and point it out while I’m thinking about it – at least this distraction from what I had planned has a productive purpose! LOL! Seriously, after discovering the leak I started shutting off the valves under the sink to stop the expansion of a pool that was forming in my kitchen and living room, and one of the valves broke and water started spewing out from where the valve stem entered the valve. So I cut the water off at the meter and started cleaning up all the water that had escaped before I found it.

That took quite awhile, and as I went to the garage to get the tools to fix the leak and replace the valve, I thought, “Nope, I’ve already lost half my morning fooling around with this. I’ll do my job and pay the plumber to do this because he can do it faster and cheaper than I can.”

Wait! He can do it cheaper than I can? Sure he can! He’ll be in and out of here in half an hour or less, and charge me fifty bucks or so. I can do the work, but it will take me 2-3 times as long as it will take a professional plumber simply because I don’t do it every day and I’m not used to having to work around all the other pipes under the sink to get the job done. Plus, the risk of turning the water back on and finding something still leaking is higher for me than for the guy who does this all day every day; I’m a “do-it-yourselfing” amateur who can do it in a pinch if there’s nothing pressing, nowhere near as skilled as a professional.

So I can give up a couple of hours of income to do something that I really don’t like doing, or I can give up about a half-hour of income to pay the plumber and do something I love doing, which is helping all of you. To me, that’s a no-brainer.

The lesson? Being an alpha male doesn’t mean that you always have to do everything yourself. You should always try to strike the correct balance between the alpha male qualities of independence and assertiveness and the other alpha male qualities of leadership, delegation and making sound decisions for the benefit of your household. Do it yourself only when it makes sense to do it yourself, and be respected for it, because if you go overboard, you’ll just end up being a control freak who can’t get anything important done.

Now on to what I had planned to give you today, a stunning display of male attitude and ingenuity in dealing with feminine testing and pissitude. Meet “Logan,” whose name has been changed to protect his privacy, who writes in response to a lesson on “The Great Female Contradiction” of wussitude being boring but being non-wussy makes you “mean.” Check him out:

David,

Your timing is ironic. It is that time of month for my wife, which usually means some big blow-ups. On Sunday, as my wife was starting to go down that path towards a bad day, instead of tip-toeing around her, I started joking with her. At one point in the middle of her ranting over something silly, I walked up and pulled her pants down, then casually walked away. Within a minute or two the ranting had stopped. She did tell me that I was being mean to her, but she had a bit of a grin on her face, almost shock. Then as we were trying to get on our way to church -- always a challenge to get the three little guys ready and loaded in the van and my wife ready on time, the boys and I waited for her.

Now, during this time of the month, she usually takes even longer to get ready, because nothing fits right, and she is just generally unhappy with the way she looks and feels. So the usual custom is for her to arrive late to the car and be even more upset over the fact we are now going to be late for church. So just to be different, I found a Rolling Stones CD and started blasting the song “Let's Spend the Night Together,” as she finally arrived in the car. By the way, the Stones have a ton of songs that you can use for this type of move (Satisfaction, Wild Horses, You Can't Always Get What You Want, She's So Cold, Crazy Mama). Anyway it seemed to do the trick, as she, in a very frustrated voice, said while stifling a smile, “Stop trying to make me laugh, I'm crabby and I have my period.”

Then, later that night, she takes me and grabs me in the pantry and starts to attack me while my Dad happened to be over and in the next room. I told her that I would continue to be “mean to her.” This time she laughed.

Thanks for the timely articles,
Logan

Priceless! Absolutely, utterly priceless! And how many of you “newbies” would have thought you could go that far and get away with it? The truth is that almost all of you could have; the few who couldn’t would be those whose wife had some sort of trauma in her past (like rape or having her clothes torn off of her in public) and would hence have very bad memories triggered by such an act.

The key to pulling it off is two-fold. First is the attitude. The naughty kid who just threw the huge “spitball” at the blackboard over the teacher’s shoulder and when they turn around, furious, there he sits, looking anywhere but at the teacher, with a big cheesy grin and a “who, me?” look on his face. The guy who will do anything for fun, no matter how irreverent, as long as nobody gets hurt, because mean people “suck.”

The second is knowing when to play naughty boy and when to be serious. You can’t deal with all of a woman’s negative emotion by being a clown. That works for the testing, the drama-seeking, and when she’s just being a pissy little brat who wants to feel bad for awhile and wants you to feel bad with her, but when she has a real problem or a real issue with you, trying to play it off with something like that will get you in the doghouse for awhile, if it doesn’t get you killed. ;-)

In those cases it’s strong character, strong leadership, and a fair hand that she needs to see. If you’ve done something wrong, you need to admit it and show that you have learned from the mistake and won’t be making it again. If she’s having some other kind of trouble, she needs for you to hear her out instead of trying to jump in and “save her” from her problem. If she needs help, she’ll let you know…

But…

You’ll have to listen to hear her when she lets you know. You probably won’t hear a direct request like, “Can you help me?” It will probably start out sounding a lot more like, “This would be a lot easier if somebody would…” Yeah, you’re “somebody.” Remember that…

There is so much about living happily with a woman that we all spend our lives thinking – because we’re being taught! – that it’s all some huge and terrible mystery that women don’t want us to solve, and Gentlemen, that is one big, nasty load of unmitigated crap. I had almost 200 of them volunteer to teach me about the mysteries of womanhood within one hour of posting a request for research subjects in a relatively obscure place on the Internet, and all I had to do was ask and be willing to listen to the answer.

The first thing we found out was something I’d suspected for a long time. We speak with the same words, but we don’t speak the same language! We have different meanings for the same words, and we use entirely different protocols for conveying and gathering information. Once those differences were understood and we all got over the shock of it, learning the rest was fun and easy.

Indeed, we finally found that communicating effectively with a woman and knowing everything she wants you to know at any given time requires doing nothing more than adhering to three simple rules. When this became apparent, I immediately thought of Sigmund Freud, the renowned psychologist, who said, “The Great Question, which I have not answered, is ‘What does a woman want?’” He didn’t know at the end of a distinguished lifetime of studying people. And yet it turned out to be easy.

The next step was to test everything they had told me, and I got 118 of their husbands and boyfriends to take what they had taught me and test it on them. We found a few contradictions along the way, too, things that women only thought they wanted until they got it (and the reason I frequently recirculate that “Be Careful What You Wish For, You Might Just Get It” newsletter series). We ultimately found out what women really want, need, and expect from men, and what they really respond to, favorably and unfavorably.

The end result is "THE Man's Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" and you can download your copy at http://www.makingherhappy.com/ with a few mouse clicks and be reading and learning the truth behind the great mysteries of womanhood yourself in just a few minutes. So you can be a guy who’s in the dark or a guy who’s “in-the-know.” It’s your choice, so choose well…

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

The Tough, Playful Alpha Male: Just How Far Can You Go to Keep the Spice in Your Relationship or Marriage?

Our friend in recent editions, Kevin, writes of a stunning success you can all learn from in handling his wife’s fits and turning it around into fun.

You might remember us discussing women pitching a fit for no apparent reason in the October 9 and October 10 issues. Those two will bring you up to speed for what’s about to follow…

One of your fellow readers, Kevin, and I were discussing women who scream and pitch a fit but the instant a man gets upset and raises his voice one iota in response to their yelling, she comes off with something like, “I’m not talking to you while you’re yelling at me,” and Kevin replied:

(she comes off with "I'm not talking to you while you're yelling at me." )...LOL!! Oh man did that hit home!!! They flip it back to us all the time!! With mine it’s, "how ugly I talk to her and that she is certain I don't talk that way to the people I work with" ...David, I am like a deer in headlights every time!!!

I need to come up with something fun to flip back at her when I get that!!

Thanks!
Kevin

I replied with this:

"I don't spank the asses of the people I work with either, and I'm about to commence spanking yours. Are you wearing your big girl panties or are you going to wuss out and want a head start when I chase you?"

David

Now, keep in mind that remark was just an example, intended to define an attitude of a swaggering, fun-loving naughty boy. Kevin ran with it, and get a load of what happened:

David ...I just had to drop you a line and tell you that this suggestion to me has been golden man...I have been using variations depending on what she might say since you gave it to me....it immediately turns everything playful from the onset!!...I can see it in her face and what she replies every time I say something about pulling her panties off of her and spanking her, etc.!!! She wants her panties pulled down!!!!

Kevin

I’m telling you in earnest, Gentlemen, if you’re sitting on the fence waiting for somebody else to do it first, you’re missing the boat, because everybody who’s doing it is getting the same results!

So how far can you go? As far as you can go with her looking like she’s having fun, of course! Some women even find a little playful wrestling, spanking, hair pulling, etc., quite hot, so you should experiment, and ramp it up slowly and watch for signs of discomfort or displeasure. Everybody has limits, and if you’re going to play rough, you want to find them by brushing up against them and being able to back off, not by plowing right through them and creating a traumatic event.

You have to be careful about not overdoing the frequency as well. You can’t turn into a full-time prankster or clown, else nobody, including her, will respect you or take you seriously. It’s not an act or a false identity that you put on. It’s something that comes out naturally when you know that she’s just as naughty, playful, and fun as you but waiting for you to lead her into it.

So the big question is in striking the balance. The answer there is in being able to read her and yourself accurately. It’s not too difficult to read yourself; basically, if you feel you’re pushing it, you are, and if you feel you’re holding back, you are. Go for the gusto however often you enjoy it and she’ll enjoy it with you, as long as you don’t turn into a prankish jackass who can never get serious and take care of business.

Reading her is another matter. She wants and needs to have fun, but she also needs to see that you can get serious and handle things that need to be handled, including her! That takes knowing a lot more about women than any of us ever had the opportunity to learn in high school, but…

It’s still not that much. The problem is finding the information. Everybody and their brother claims to know what women want, including a lot of women, but often you (and they!) find that what they think they want is entirely different from what they actually respond well to. Indeed, take a look at any of the three articles I’ve given recently whose titles begin with the words “Be Careful What You Wish For” and you’ll see. You’ll see something else, too…

You’ll see that I’ve rounded up a bunch of women, had them teach me how to speak “girly-ese” so we could communicate effectively, and then had them tell me what they wanted and needed. That was all translated into “man-speak” and released to their husbands and boyfriends as the first working draft of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage." And we proved that not only are there some common misconceptions among women about things like nice guys, we found the things that they really respond to by having their men try other things when what they said they wanted didn’t work.

Some project, huh? Well, it saved my marriage, and theirs, too! We all came out of it, men and women alike, with a new understanding of what makes us all tick, how we respond to things, how we really prioritize things, and most important of all, solid proof that we’re different and that those differences can be used to compliment each other’s existence instead of being points of contention or competition! We found one other thing, too…

Some couples are so incompatible that they never should have come together, and no matter what they do, their only shot at a happy life is to go their separate ways. We also found that when they agree that the problem is one of gross incompatibility and not some failure to be “good enough for,” or even worse, “good enough to CHANGE FOR,” they could behave like adults and end their relationship with dignity, as friends, instead of combatants trying to punish each other into oblivion for their rejection.

It was quite a trip, and still is. There are a lot of things, like a happy marriage, a successful career, self-improvement, etc., that people mistakenly treat as a destination, when in fact they are a journey, an on-going process of exploration and growth. It would not surprise me to find out that I know more than any man alive about getting along with women in any kind of committed relationship, and yet I still find myself learning about them. And quite frankly, I hope that on the last day of my existence I’m still saying the same thing, because they are certainly worth learning about. After all, they outnumber us in the world population!

It’s true! And unlike us, they’re organized and methodical when it comes to learning about the opposite sex and managing relationships. We’re way behind the curve, so to speak, and not born with the natural resources to make it easy to pick up on, either, but…

We’re men! We take on problems and fix them! So while the women are sitting around milking the emotion from their problems in their relationships with us, we can be playing catch up! LOL!

Seriously, we have a lot of catching up to do, and I’m here to make that easier for you. I have an e-book that has given men such a jump-start that they’ve literally pulled marriages out of divorce court in as little as a week, and you can download it at http://www.makingherhappy.com. I’ll say nothing else, except that every minute you waste wondering what you should be doing is a minute you could be spending fixing your problems and going back to your honeymoon, so your best bet is to take action, now, while the means are available. You don’t want to find yourself a day late and a dollar short when your marriage – and life as you know it -- is on the line.

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

Feeling Guilty or Apologizing for Being a Man Is Unnatural, and Kills Your Relationship or Marriage

An advertising copywriter’s take on the idea of feeling guilty or apologizing for being a man, and that idea’s impact on both men and women, is both revealing and instructive. Take heed…

Many of you might remember the “King Arthur” contest we did. One of the winners of the contest is an advertising copywriter, someone who writes the copy for direct sales letters like those you get in the mail and the main page on my web site, and we’ve been working together on an overhaul of my web site as something that will help us both in a lot of ways, including improved advertising copy for me and a deeper understanding of both copywriting and women and relationships for him, a true win-win situation.

We were looking at the concept of men, influenced by the politically correct crowd, feeling guilty and apologizing for being men and having our natural, biological tendencies (which incidentally are the very things that trigger curiosity, intrigue, and ultimately attraction in the female subconscious). I told him to look at the use of “feeling guilty for” versus “apologizing for” as a sort of exercise, and what he came back with in his analysis is even more relevant to proper male attitude than it is to the ad copy, and demands sharing with all of you. Meet my good friend and fellow copywriter, Dave:

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Okay. Playing this out, I get the following feelings: I think of being guilty as a place I'm in when I've made a mistake. I did something wrong. Whether by accident or intention, I still made the mistake; hence I need to apologize for it. Guilt is about something that's wrong, apologizing is for admitting it and moving on. However, this brought up another, much bigger issue:

Being a man is who we are. Feeling guilty about being a man is an attack on our very nature and according to popular culture, the only way to overcome that is by changing yourself into some kind of metrosexual and being another girlfriend to your wife. It stinks of propaganda on a large scale – "Social Engineering" to diminish the power instincts in men? Why should being what nature or "evolution," whether you agree with it or not, determined to be our absolute best survival skills as a species, be apologized for?

That should be a line or turned into a paragraph in the copy as a supportive and illustrative example of how we are being "engineered" towards something we naturally aren't and it's time we woke up. Even if it doesn’t sell anything, it’s still a congruent, factual and provable message that every man on Earth needs to hear. They should be asking themselves whether the "delicious personal fusion" is being drained from our way of life by a bunch of politically correct, societal pool cleaners, and finding that idea totally unacceptable.

For us to feel guilty about being men, at some point we bought the line that what we feel natural and comfortable doing is not what women want. Being confident, secure about who we are, taking a leadership role because it is instinctual had to be abandoned, even though it went against every fiber of our being, which somebody should have taken as a huge red flag that this was a bad idea, since our species’ population was expanding, not contracting, at the time. Simply, we bought the idea that being a man and acting like a man is somehow wrong, a mistake needing correcting, and if we get too strong, we should be ready to apologize for your error. What utter crap!

I think your newsletter today even hints at this fallacy in a very subtle way because women who have "take me now you hunk" fantasies love and respond to the power and submission aspects because it frees them to really dig into their most basic nature as well, instead of having to play the prim and proper little vessel of purity that they’ve been programmed to be (which is more utter crap).

It’s sort of like throwing off the shackles of conditioning to be free, even if it’s once in awhile, because there are so many ways to explore having fun together otherwise, but usually in fairly defined roles that don't always require letting it all go. Like a vacation from who we "have" to be, to who we have a fantasy about being, which in truth, is who we REALLY are to start with after you flush away all the programming. One of the fantasies my ex had was us running down the beach totally unclothed with no one around and gettin' with it whenever we felt like it. Being free...as men and women were eons ago, after we realized we were men and women and before some demagogue told us that there was something wrong with it.

We grow up as boys with an instinct to tease and play with girls as long we can be the leaders and choosers on how the game is played. It's amazing how easily I got girls to do things for me other boys couldn't because I simply defined the terms of the game and they responded big time. Now that's food for thought! LOL! Even when we did things they knew they shouldn't, because it was a "part of the game," they responded and were happy to do so. Interesting...
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Interesting, yes, but not magical, not by a long shot. What Dave saw as a kid was the power of defining and exercising authority, something the politically correct would tell us is a barbaric, demeaning insult to women. Really? Excuse me. How about clarifying this for me: Is it barbaric because it makes them involuntarily smile and move closer to us or because it makes them lubricate and think about being taken by us in a public place? Is it demeaning because it excites them and pleasure or because it helps them to feel like a part of something and eliminate the boredom that otherwise torments them? I’m just not clear on that…

I just copied that paragraph to a friend, one of the women on the support staff, through an instant messaging program and she came back with this:

SoccerMom1966a: LOL! If that’s demeaning, all I can say is “Demean me baby! Demean me now!!!” My hubby’s getting pretty good at that!

See what I mean?

You see Guys, this isn’t rocket science. In only a couple of months, and in the midst of working full-time and helping me with this web site overhaul and his own continuing education in copywriting, he became a guru in his own right, and has proven it by making contact with his ex-wife and both gaining and giving her closure on the issues that they had outstanding at the time of their divorce, and they are now good friends instead of bitter, hardened enemies with open wounds. It’s life-changing, world-changing stuff precisely because every man can grasp it and do it if he simply has the desire to improve his life and is able to read on about a fourth grade level.

So what’s holding you up? You’ve been listening to me say this and prove it for days, weeks, even months; I’ve been doing it before many witnesses, many of whom have given me unsolicited testimonials, for years. Indeed, there are a few of you who have been on my mailing list for over a year but still are not on my customer list. Are you waiting for me to reprint the entire book in these newsletters and blog posts? Not gonna happen. Are you waiting for somebody to just pop up on your doorstep and say, “Here, let me do that for you?” Not gonna happen. Are you waiting for somebody else to tell you that all your mistakes are validated and your problems are someone else’s fault? It may happen, but it won’t happen here, and it wouldn’t fix anything if it did. Besides, because you can do this.

I’ll make you a bet. Well, no, I can’t do that. Gambling is still illegal in a lot of places where this newsletter is going. So I’ll issue you a challenge. Go to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," and read it. Then just do what it says for a few days and watch what happens. And something WILL happen, by the way. Just ask some of the guys who have stopped divorces cold in less than a week of downloading this book.

Then take your pick, a refund or continuing down the path you’ve begun walking. I have yet to see a man turn from that path once he started down it, and you’ll stay on it too, because it just feels too damned good to be a man and have your life coming together to give it up.

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

How Your Inner Child Can Make Your Relationship or Marriage Work, IF You Let It

I mentioned the “Inner Child” a few days ago and have been inundated with both success stories and questions and requests for more detail, so here goes!

Wow! What a weekend, especially for e-mail. I’ve been swamped with the usual requests for help with delicate and desperate situations, which is nothing unusual, but it seems that everybody is wanting to know about this “inner child” thing I mentioned a few days ago.

If you missed the October 25 issue on how your inner child can trigger either attraction or maternal drive, depending on how you let it show through, back up and read that one now so that the rest of this article will make sense and you can get the most out of it.

You’ll also want to make sure you caught the following issue on October 26, on ignoring women, because today’s most “interesting” response is from Kevin, the gentleman whose question spawned that issue. He’s sent us a status report that I’m going to have to lower the heat on a bit just to make sure it gets through all the spam filters.

Okay, now that everybody is up to speed, here’s Kevin’s response after applying the advice he was given in those two issues mentioned above:

David, so glad to have been able to offer that contribution as I know it will help other guys!! Your advice was golden!!! Last night the hand holding, etc. continued and I took the lead and pulled her to my shoulder this time!! It just was totally what she was wanting!!! The caressing began and before you know it, my wife was giving me the most fantastic [substitute your favorite totally raw term for “oral pleasure” here]!!!! Totally GOLDEN!!!!

Thanks man!!!
Kevin

Ummm…yeah. Any questions? All that bouncing back and forth between leadership and the inner child creates tension that must be released, and the release usually starts with her removing somebody’s clothing. ‘Nuff said.

Well, no, not quite. You may remember that his wife was telling him that he could put his head on her shoulder, and he ignored it. Would anybody care to bet on whether she was telling him to put his head on her shoulder to induce him to snuggle her up to where she could put her head on his? Possible test, possible “’Are you hungry?’ meaning ‘I’m hungry’” sort of scenario, very possibly an indirect attempt to communicate the desire she obviously had. So next time I start talking about indirect communications, pay attention. It happens to all of us, every single time we interface with a woman in any context and for any purpose.

So what is this inner child stuff? Let me paint you a picture. Indeed, North American residents will have seen this. There is a company here, Midas Muffler, that has been around as long as I can remember and does all manner of automotive service, including brakes.

They have this television advertisement in which they try to express how critical it is to have your brakes in good working order by staging a scene where a little boy rushes a group of three little girls with his pet lizard, causing them to squeal and laugh and run, and he chases them across an intersection. Half-way across, he drops his lizard, then runs back to get him. Meanwhile, a mother is coming up to the intersection and stomps on her brake pedal and stops short of hitting the boy, who is oblivious to her presence until he stands up and sees her.

What you’ll notice most if you watch these children is that first, they’re all laughing and having fun, and the little girls are enjoying the little boy’s attack. They’re not running and shrieking, they’re running and squealing with delight. Then, after Midas makes their pitch for having you come in and let them do a brake job on your car, there’s a scene with the four kids standing and grinning with their arms around each other – all four of them. And the little boy has a look on his face that most men would give their eye teeth to have on theirs, the look of the man who is the leader of the pack and all the woman are smiling at.

It’s that fearless sense of mischievous play, the one we all felt before we got old enough to let someone convince us that we needed to impress each other and fear losing each other, the one that makes you do wondrous, heroic, and fun things, and makes you enjoy telling and hearing a good story or a naughty joke, that makes it fun to steal a kiss when nobody is looking, that I’m talking about, and that women utterly adore and crave to see in a man.

Especially when he’s a manly man who doesn’t just dream things, but makes them happen. A man who will chase her with the lizard, but when he catches her, instead of saying, “EEWWWWW! Girl germs!” and running away himself, will hold her there, captive, looking her dead in the eye and teasing her with the promise of a kiss. A man who, when she’s crying, will ask what’s wrong, listen to her problem, and instead of trying to force a solution on her if she doesn’t ask for one, divert her from crying by teasing her and leading her into something fun instead of playing into her distraught state and getting upset himself, assuring her through his own bravery in the face of a problem that she can be brave too.

It’s not hard, Guys. Indeed, it’s pretty easy. The rules are really fairly few and simple, and the only reason you’ve been screwing up for so many years is because when you wanted to know what the rules were, every guy fed you a line of crap because he didn’t know and every girl or woman either didn’t know what she really responded to or knew but couldn’t tell you in a way you could understand. And until recently, you probably really didn’t think you needed to know any more than you do – also not surprising, is it?

But here you are, looking for information, and help. And there’s a whole bunch of people around who will tell you that you found it, too. It’s not just Kevin who’s kicking things up a notch, and by the way, all those exclamation points were his; I didn’t add a single one.

So do you want to get in on what he and the others are using to get their wives out of divorce court and into a second honeymoon that doesn’t involve travel to some exotic place and blowing a bundle of money on bad food and bad service? Sure you do!

So here’s how: Go to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," and just read it and use what you learn, like the three simple rules that will break the inter-gender communications barrier (and stop all that damned eye-rolling and accusations of “You NEVER listen to me!”) and the few simple things that you need to do to make her see you as the man she married or better and shift back into honeymoon mode, even if you’ve been together twenty years or longer. It can happen to you just as easily as everybody else, and life’s too short to not go for it and MAKE IT HAPPEN, so get moving!

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

How Your Inner Child Can Make Your Relationship or Marriage Work, IF You Let It

A man’s inner child is an important part of him, even and especially in the alpha male, because it is that inner child that provides that naughty boy side that women find so irresistible and helps him to be a fun leader instead of a dictator. However, the inner child can kill attraction even faster than he creates it if you don’t know how and where to let him be seen and make him behave. Do you know how and where? I’m going to tell you…

I’ve been getting some random questions about naughty boy behavior, the inner child, etc., and the issue is one that should be discussed as a whole, so we’ll forego the customary reprints of the user letters and specific questions and dig into the subject, wherein the answer to all specific questions will be contained, along with a lot of other useful info.

When any adult loses touch with their inner child, it seems they entirely forget how to have fun, and become something the people around them will describe as “stodgy,” “too serious all the time,” “generally blah and depressed,” “dull,” etc., but if that inner child is constantly allowed to run amok, one is described as “Peter Pan,” “a middle-aged adolescent,” “someone who might grow up someday,” etc., and is generally thought to be undependable and irresponsible, possibly even a slacker. Obviously, a balance must be struck, because any kind of excessive behavior, even achievement, can be bad for your overall mental and emotional health.

With regard to attraction of the human female by the male, women love to catch glimpses of the man’s inner child, and definitely love it when that inner child is a mischievous little turd who cracks wise (without being disrespectful or hurtful), plays tricks and pranks on them occasionally (again, without being disrespectful or hurtful, seeking to share a laugh rather than have one at the woman’s expense), and is generally fun to be around. That cocky little boy who would pull her pigtails to get her to chase him is something she never outgrows; indeed, she expects him to grow up to be cockier and more sophisticated in his methods of teasing her and keeping her guessing.

However, there is a side to the inner child that a woman should never see, under any circumstances, lest her feelings of attraction are supplanted by maternal feelings and hence, instead of wanting to be intimate with you, she wants to lick a tissue and clean the mud off your face and tuck you into bed – ALONE!

Whoa! Never thought about that before? Just how much sexual energy do you think a woman is going to feel while her maternal triggers are being tripped instead of her attraction triggers? She’ll be mothering you, chasing you around the house cleaning up after you and bitching about your shortcomings, not chasing you around the house leaving a trail of clothing – yours and hers – behind. We’ve talked at length on several occasions about attraction triggers, and they are discussed completely and in great detail in “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage,” but let’s discuss briefly these motherhood triggers and what happens when they are tripped.

First, what is the difference between a naughty boy and a wussy boy? Understanding this will help you tremendously to avoid allowing your “inner wuss” to even exist, let alone show through. The naughty boy understands that there are rules, and selectively stretches and disregards at least some of them, preferably those that are fun, harmless, and really shouldn’t be rules in the first place. Sound like fun?

He makes his own rules, at least to some noticeable extent, defining and exercising authority, not depending on someone else to do it. This makes him appear strong, cocky, even a little arrogant, not VULNERABLE. Anything child-like that has even a hint of vulnerability to it will pull the triggers on maternal behavior. What are you doing that could do this? Have you thought about it? Let’s look at it now, because it will open your eyes.

We’ve talked about the “baby talk” thing that couples do (see this article in the archive). BIG no-no. How about inferior positions during intimacy, like lying your head on her shoulder? This is what a child does when he doesn’t feel good, is it not? Don’t do it, EVER; being the protector is your role as far as the two of you are concerned, not hers.

Do you cower and sulk or pout when she gets mad at you? Screaming and throwing things is a really bad idea, but so is withdrawing and pouting; they both recall the subconscious image of a sulking little boy, weak and vulnerable, walking away after being scolded. How sexy is that??? Adults talk through their problems, right? And adult males lead the discussion and are respected and rewarded for it. A woman will sometimes get a rush from a man being verbally firm and sharp, as when he’s snapping her out of a dramatic tantrum to resolve an issue, but never when a man is being abusive or throwing a tantrum himself.

It’s fashionable for men to shave all their body hair, including pubic hair now. Somebody dial 9-1-1 and stop this madness, because that makes you look prepubescent! Trim if you must, but never shave, at least not around the genitals. You can’t look strong, virile, and sexy while presenting the same image that she saw when changing diapers or potty-training a little boy. Sure, she knows it’s you, but attraction and maternal drive are not volitional, logical things; they are fully automatic, biologically wired, irresistible and infallible. Once engaged, “stuff happens!” She may say she likes it, but it doesn’t take long for that child-like image to make her RESPOND biologically, not logically, in a way that neither of you want. Don’t indulge the moment at the expense of the rest of your marriage.

Okay, are we clear here? Never take on any posture, language, or activity that is reminiscent of a helpless, vulnerable child, even in satire (like intimate baby talk.) “Cute,” “sweet,” “precious,” etc., are not adjectives that equate to attractive, strong, virile, or sexy. As some of the women have reported, acting like a slacking teenager – depressed, unmotivated, lazy, irresponsible, etc. – can also dramatically trigger the maternal drive.

Watch your bearing, dress, grooming, language, tone, etc., and you will likely spot things that little wusses do, and even if you don’t do them for the same reason, they still present the subliminal/subconscious image of a little wuss in a bigger package. Yes, that’s bad, because that in turn equates to “giant industrial size little wussy boy who needs mama to clean up after him and put him to bed.” Just say, “no.” ‘Nuff said.

The name of the game Gentlemen, is “attraction,” a huge part of which is “communication.” What are you communicating? Is it attractive? Go to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy of my e-book, “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage,” and find out, and fix what needs fixing. Do it today, right now, because the longer you let it go the worse it gets, and the sooner you get it done the sooner you reap the rewards your partner has for you.

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

Be Careful What You Wish for in Your Relationship and Marriage, Part 2, Fantasies

MUST READ! (And you know I use those words VERY sparingly!) When women say they have a “rape fantasy,” they are not being literal. They’re talking about a show of confidence and decisiveness, not brutality and cruelty. Find out exactly what they really mean by reading on…

Today is a great day. I stopped a reader from ruining his marriage and his life, and I may be about to stop somebody else by sharing his letter and my response. Meet Geoff:

Hi David,

I got your book, and things are really coming together fast. I had apparently become pretty boring without realizing it, and now that I’m back to being me, my wife is back to being her old self too, and it’s like you say, the honeymoon is back on. We’ve gone from once every time the seasons change to almost every night and sometimes during the day.

I’ve even overheard her telling her girlfriends about what’s happening and she’s trying to play it off to me like it’s not that big of a deal and teasing me to keep the pressure on, but when she talks to them and tells them about stuff I’m doing and stuff we’re doing, she giggles like a school girl. I walked in on her yesterday while she was talking to one of them and she was talking about what happened in the bedroom the night before and blushed and hung up in a hurry and ran out of the room laughing!

Overhearing her phone conversations is the reason I’m writing to you. I overheard her say something a few days ago about things are getting so hot she’s having “rape fantasies.” That makes me uncomfortable to think about, but if she really wants to try it I guess I’m willing. What do you think? I mean, is this something I should do for her, or is this some sign that she has a problem?

Thanks, and have a good one,
Geoff

Congratulations, Geoff! I just love hearing success stories like this. As for your wife’s fantasy, we need to talk, and fast!

Repeat after me and commit this to memory: NO MENTALLY HEALTHY WOMAN EVER HAS A TRUE RAPE FANTASY! Rape is violent, traumatic, and often damages women for life. It is not about sex, but about subjugation, terror, control, and abuse. It causes women to do things like never want sex, never allow their husbands to see them undressed, fall into suicidal depression, become so paranoid they can’t leave the house or sleep in the dark, etc. She’s talking about something else, and you and every other man needs to know what that is, so here goes, straight from the mouths of women:

Women want to be desired, led, and ultimately taken by a strong, confident man who doesn’t ask permission to initiate sex, but loves and respects them enough to honor the word “no” when they hear it and recognize it as being spoken in earnest. A great example is the scene in “The Fountainhead” where Gary Cooper goes to visit Patricia Neal in her apartment. She wants him terribly, and has gone to great lengths to make him know that she wants him, but she still resists because she wants him to “take” her, to hold her tightly, kiss her passionately, and take her where she’s craving to go, emotional heights of sexual bliss previously unreached! Understand above all that she fights him off to see how much he wants her, and feel the rush of him winning, and she wants him desperately.

This is what a woman refers to when she speaks of a rape fantasy, the feeling of a man being in charge and taking her where she wants to go, confidently, expertly, without asking permission. It’s a “sweep her off her feet” maneuver, not a “violate her and leave her emotionally ruined for all time” maneuver. They refer to it as a rape fantasy because once in a great while, in sharp contrast to their normal desire to be ramped up through a lot of talk, caressing, foreplay, advancing and withdrawing, it’s exhilarating for them to be taken to an aroused state through naughty play and seeing their man doing manly things to the extent that they’re wanting him, and then to just have him do something like walk in the house, pick her up, and carry her to the bed and ravish her without ever slowing down, shockingly and decisively, or to swiftly, hungrily, but playfully wrestle her to the couch, floor, kitchen counter, etc., and just go for it, hell-bent for glory and orgasm.

Things like firm-but-not-cruelly-painful pulling of her hair, spanking her behind firmly but not abusively (it’s much more about the sound of a spanking than the stinging for most women, and if you can cause a loud smacking noise without causing pain, you’re a master), wrestling and struggling a bit as you maneuver for position, etc., can be exhilarating for her and add to the sexual tension greatly if she’s into it, but the true essence of rape, the sadistic beating and threatening designed to humiliate, terrorize and subjugate, are not healthy, and not what she’s looking for if she’s healthy.

This is something you do only occasionally, and only when you can tell that she’s already amped up and you’ve been keeping her mind on naughty thoughts through the day. It’s done for the shocking thrill of pure, raw, carnal abandon, not when she’s had a bad day fighting with the kids, people at school or work, sitting with a loved one in a hospital, etc. If you encounter genuine resistance of any kind, this isn’t the time to be doing this; indeed, if she’s sufficiently aroused for this to be a good time for something like this, she may even be tearing at your clothes and clawing at your skin at the same time she’s saying, “stop.” The distinguishing factor is the heat; there will be very little if any foreplay, because she’s already amped up, is aching to have you inside her, and will aggressively be trying to make you erect and get you inside her as soon as possible. By all means, in this scenario, OBLIGE HER!

It’s about a show of confidence, not a show of force, or brutality. It’s about the man showing that he doesn’t fear his or her feelings or desires, or her rejection, and knowing, while seeing and feeling this powerful behavior, that if something weren’t right and she were to say, “No,” or tell him to stop in earnest, that he would do so, not because he’s weak, but because he’s in charge, not desperate; respectful and loving, not demeaning and abusive. This kind of action is a celebration of primal, carnal sexuality for both of you, not some “putting her in her place” maneuver intended to demean and subjugate.

If you really want to go to extremes, then at least establish some sort of safety signal that she can invoke so that you know that her resistance isn’t just part of the fantasy, such as the words “red light” or “too far,” which will allow her to say things like “stop” and “don’t” as part of her fantasy but still provide you a way of knowing that you’re going too far, being too rough, etc. One thing that you never, ever want to do is find yourself in a position of wanting to apologize for something after sex. But, as with most things concerning women, a little genuine communication goes a long, long way to keeping things on the right path.

As you can see, women often speak their desires, but even when they do choose to speak directly to us about them, which may be more often than you think, they don’t do it in language that we readily understand. They never state the obvious. When they say they want a “sensitive” man, they don’t mean sensitive instead of manly, they mean in addition to manly. When they say they have a “rape” fantasy, they mean they want to be taken swiftly and hungrily, not beaten to a pulp, verbally abused, scared to death, and then disrespectfully desecrated. But how are you supposed to know this?

You won’t, unless you learn to speak “girly-ese” as I and the many readers of “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage” have done successfully. Effective communications or the lack thereof can make or break a relationship just as surely as being well- or poorly-matched, or sexually attracted or sexually bored. Luckily for you, all of the above are discussed at length in this truly amazing book, and by the end of it you too will be a master of happy relationships. Download your copy now at http://www.makingherhappy.com, before you cross some invisible line that lands you in crisis counseling or divorce court, or if you already have, because it will get you out of trouble and keep you out if you just read it and use it.

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

Be Careful What You Wish for in Your Relationship and Marriage, You Might Just Get It!

A female reader cautions women to be careful what they wish for, because they might just get it. Like many women who don’t realize that what they think they want and that to which they respond are often two entirely different things, she wanted a nice guy, got one, and was bored to tears, but with some help from “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage,” everything is finally the way she likes it.

Today’s episode is a success story from a woman who wrote to me once before with a problem, with terrific lessons for both men and women on what women think they want and what happens when that’s radically different from what they respond to, namely, yes, the dreaded “B” word: boredom. Once again, here’s Daphne:

Dear David,

I hope it is ok that I am writing to you more than once, but I have something I think needs to be put out there for all to read. I am sure a lot of women have said "IF I could just meet a nice guy I would love that!" Well I am here to tell you be careful what you wish for. I used to say those exact words and I did find a nice guy. Then I wished he had found someone else besides me.

The trouble with a nice guy is just that. He is a nice guy. Now I am not saying all men should be jerks. I have had a couple of those as well. What I am saying is a typical nice guy is not attractive to a real woman. Women have all these ideas as to what a real man should be, like sensitive and open and always doing everything for us and waiting on us, and to be honest we are dreaming. Nice guys are fun for about an hour and after that you find yourself looking over his shoulder and yours for the naughty boy because the naughty boy excites us and we find ourselves so attracted to him he is all we think about or want especially in our beds.

After I bought your book and read it myself I left it for him on the bedside table in hopes he would take the hint, because I got goose bumps reading parts of your book and thinking about a man doing all those things with me and to me and wanted him to be the one to do them. I know men do not take hints very well, but I was hoping for once it would work and I would not have to totally crush him with the truth. No such luck. I finally had to tell him either read the book or I was out of there. After a few days of really taking your work serious I have a real man starting to form right here in front of me. I still have a nice guy sometimes but we’ll get past that eventually and the man’s man I see him becoming is great. But when I have the naughty boy come out to play I’m on fire all over again. He’s hot and he definitely makes me hotter than I care to mention.

If I could give some advice to your male readers, take this advice to heart and you will never find yourself alone in the bed or in life again. No woman wants a wuss or a total ass. What we want is the best of all things in one package, and with some reading and a few attitude adjustments you could be what every woman is dreaming of in a man. Is that not what it’s all about? Being a man who is wanted, enjoyed and loved by the woman of your dreams?

Men you can take things as they are and pretend all is well or you can make your wildest dreams come true. Women like to be just as sexually aggressive and free as most men so let us out and let’s enjoy the passion and heat with each other. Make it work for your life the way we have made it work for us. I can tell you our bed is never still and even when we are out I know the look in his eyes when he is thinking about us and now I want this man all the time.

David I know your wife has to be the luckiest woman ever since you already know the true secrets of making us happy. Thank you for giving the rest of us the chance to live it as well.

Daphne

Wow! What do you say to something like that, except “thanks for writing it and congratulations on finding what you want”? Well, on second thought, there is a thing or two.

Daphne’s right about the “nice guy” thing in several respects, if you know what she’s saying, which the women here probably do, and anyone who has read “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage” does, but many of you men probably don’t have a clue. No, she’s not saying that women want a man to be mean to them, in spite of the reference to the naughty boy.

What she’s saying is that when a man spends all their time together aggressively seeking to please and appease her, it’s weak, approval-seeking behavior that bores the mortal hell out of them, and they don’t like it at all. Yes, they want a man who is considerate, moderately well-mannered, etc., but ass-kissing, trying to buy their affection with gifts, especially expensive ones, etc., is not going to get it done.

Indeed, constantly being the overly considerate and staunchly well-mannered gentleman isn’t going to go over very well, either. He’s nice, but not interesting. There must be that naughty element of fun and mischief popping up when she least expects it, and several other things, all of which are interesting and fun for a man to be and do, brought to bear before you can sweep her off her feet and keep her up and happy.

I need to comment on one other point. Daphne seems to say that some reading and a few attitude adjustments are all that is required. That’s not always the case, but that’s probably what she saw, and it’s pretty close to accurate. To be the man that every woman wants and the woman you love wants to stay with, you will most likely have to make some fundamental changes in either your life or your knowledge base and habits, changes that you will enjoy, but which may take some getting used to, like becoming independent so you can act and feel independent, becoming a man who enjoys his life so you can act and feel as if you enjoy your life, genuinely, not as part of some façade.

Faking it causes stress that kills relationships as fast or faster than the problems you try to fake your way through. Besides, who wants to fake being happy when you have the option of really doing it??? Or fake feeling confident when you have the option to really do it? Do you want to fret over blowing your cover or do you want to be calm and relaxed in your relationship because things really are going well? Duh! ;-)

You really can do it, and people like you are proving it every day. Do you really want to put this off any longer? I advise you to start fixing problems and improving your relationship now, because it only gets harder as you wait. Fix existing problems, large and small, and prevent those that haven’t started or are just starting from becoming huge, painful issues, especially since it’s far easier to prevent any problem than to fix one.

The fix and the preventive medicine are the same, it’s just a matter of how much pain and pressure you can endure if you put it off until it forces you to deal with it. So you finally see the light? Good. Get on over to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy of “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage” right now, and get started turning your life around, before your wife gets sick of having what she may have wished for before she knew any better and goes looking for someone to make her new wishes come true.

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

Choosing the Perfect Holiday Gift for the Woman In YOUR Relationship or Marriage

“The Holidays” are almost upon us, and it’s time to revisit the topic of choosing the perfect gift for a woman so you can have time to get it right this year. Choosing the perfect gift for a woman is a difficult proposition at best, unless you have paid attention to her and come to know a few intimate details about her. Why? An excerpt from “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage” explains it…

“The Holidays,” as we say here in The States, are almost here, and unless you want to be standing in those mile-long lines in mid-December you’d better start thinking about and making arrangements for that perfect gift that you’re going to give your wife or girlfriend this year. And, by the way, the same rules apply for any other woman in your life, whether it’s your mother, sister, daughter, special coworker, vendor, customer, neighbor or whomever. The same rules apply, because they’re all either women or women-in-training (like your daughter! LOL!)

I’ve published this excerpt from “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage” several times and always received a lot of positive feedback on it, so if you’ve not yet read it or tried it, do yourself and the women in your life a favor and do so now. Indeed, even if you have read it before, call it “a last-minute review” and read it again to make sure you have it down pat before embarking on this most difficult, crucial and rewarding of male quests.

Without further ado, the perfect gift for any woman is:

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A Gift That You Know She’d Like Because You’ve Paid Attention to Her!

Women want to know that we think about them from time to time when they’re not around, and notice them when they are. Is that really too much to ask? To know her well enough to know her favorite flower, perfume, color, scent, time of year, activity, etc., things that give you serious guidance when it’s time to surprise her with a gift? Can you really say that it’s that difficult? You can know something as intimate and guarded as her dress size by simply looking in her closet and checking a few tags.

How would you feel if you were allergic to wool and a woman bought you a wool bathrobe? Or allergic to peanuts and a woman bought you a box of peanut brittle? Or you were tone deaf and a woman bought you a music box or a guitar? If you had a traumatic experience as a child, like being attacked and mauled by a dog, and a woman bought you something that reminded you of it, like a puppy, especially of the breed that attacked you?

Men do truly stupid and insensitive stuff like that all the time, but we seldom hear about it except during an explosion, at which time it may have happened too long ago for us to even remember it, things like hearing a woman say she’s going on a diet or a pair of pants is a little too tight and then buying her a box of candy or insisting on taking her to an expensive restaurant that violates her diet or causes her to have to face up to having grown beyond her favorite dress for such occasions, or even worse, inviting her to a day at the beach after “being told” (being signaled) that she’s needing to go on a diet.

Have you never noticed how when they buy us a gift, it’s always well-thought out? Even if they don’t know what to get us and end up getting us socks or a necktie, the socks or tie will match what we have perfectly, and be the right size. They pay attention to us, and try to make things nice for us when they can. If a woman’s favorite flower is a daisy, she’d rather receive a bunch of daisies picked from the side of the road or even a picture of a daisy that you drew and colored with crayons for her than a dozen roses – the generic gift that every man gives every woman and is so blasted impersonal these days that if fools like us didn’t buy them for women who didn’t want them, nobody would be buying them except for funerals. Indeed, there are occasions where roses are in fact deemed an attempt to appease a man’s own guilty conscience because they have become so impersonal.

Cost doesn’t matter; the gift is both a sign that you’ve been thinking about her and a measure of how much you’ve been thinking about her – it’s your life that she wants to share most, not your wallet (unless she’s a gold-digger – see the “How Much Is Enough?” issue from August 6, 2006 if you’ve not seen it by following the link to the archive below my signature). After all the crap they endure from us while we’re trying to learn how to get along with them and do what we’re supposed to do as men, we owe them the little extra effort that the daisies – or whatever is supremely personal for them -- require.

Daisies, even when they are her favorite flower, are by no means the perfect gift either; indeed, if it can die and need to be disposed of, it’s probably a bad choice. Women get sentimentally attached to gifts. In some part of your home (or hers, if you aren’t living together) is probably a secret cache of all the notes, cards, and gifts that you ever gave her, every little thing that ever showed that you were really thinking about her.

When she’s feeling bad, including when she’s sulking after a fight, she’ll go to this secret treasure box and commune with all the mementos that make her feel good about herself and you. You’re actually doing both of you a huge favor when you give her things that while not extravagant, are tangible and lasting proof that you took the time to make her feel special – and small enough to fit in this treasure box!

This means that flowers, chocolates or other candies, pets, perfumes, and anything else that has a short life-cycle, while fun and temporarily exciting, in the long term will have to be disposed of, and she will find these things depressing, even traumatic as she has to separate them from her life, while the “sticky note” that you left on her mirror in the bathroom that simply says, “Can’t wait to see you tonight,” or something playful like “I’ll swap you a kiss for dinner when I get home,” (for you newbies, that remark will start a playful negotiation for intimacy later in the evening if you play it right when she says a kiss isn’t going to be enough to get dinner) will stay with her forever, and may indeed get you back into her good graces after you’ve made an ass of yourself and made her really mad as she digs through her treasure chest of memories and is reminded of all the reasons she keeps you around.

Before we wrap this section up, I need to make one thing perfectly clear: I AM NOT saying that you should never buy a nice gift for a woman. I know some of you tightwads are out there saying, “Cool! I can give her crayon drawings and take the money I would have used to buy her stuff and buy beer and hot rod parts!” No, and you should be ashamed of yourself. I’m saying that you should never use a gift to win her favor or approval, or because you feel guilty, or especially not to make her feel guilty (like buying an expensive gift to pressure her for something sexual) or for any other reason except either you think she’ll enjoy it or you will enjoy giving it to her, and when you do give her one, make it obvious that it is specifically for her, well thought out, and has something of you in it for her to relish as a keepsake, especially if it shows that you spent time to make it happen. There will be times when it will need to be expensive, at least to some degree, and if you follow the above rules, you’ll know when that is.

So you see, while holiday gifts should be a little out of the ordinary and may cost more than impromptu gifts, the expense of the gift is nowhere near as impressive, nor romantic, as the appropriateness and personal nature of the gift. Many couples do ask each other if there is anything in particular they were looking forward to as a holiday gift, and if you do, then of course, respond to expressed wishes, but also make sure that there is at least one gift that she’s not expecting, and that is particularly well thought-out, even if you have to enlist the help of your children or her girlfriends (threaten to put a curse on the house of anyone who divulges your secret and DO NOT enlist the help of anyone known to be indiscreet or whom you know to be competitive with your partner or you could find yourself in a trap!), figure out something very special that is so personal that when she sees it, it is obvious that you were thinking intensely and only of her.

(You can also do this with things she asks for, by putting that special little twist that makes something common that she wants special for her, either with the gift itself, or perhaps the packaging or delivery method of the gift, like presenting it to her in your sharpest-looking suit if she has remarked that she misses seeing you in one. Pay attention and use your imagination!)

For example, take a cue from this reader’s real-world situation:

I was discussing this issue with a consulting client (and friend – Hi Joe!), who said that his wife loves coffee, huge mugs to put it in so she can dress it up with flavorings, etc., loves New York City, loves a particular brand of chocolate, and wears a charm bracelet. From this, you can fashion a perfect intimate gift by finding a huge, artistically tasteful coffee mug with a New York City cityscape or something else peculiar to the town that would spark a fond memory for her (like a Yankees logo if the two of you had a romantic experience at a baseball game there), preferably in her favorite color if it’s available, filled with pieces of her favorite chocolate or a gift certificate for a purchase from the chocolatier (if she loves everything that Godiva, Ghirardeli, etc., make, as opposed to having one particular chocolate favorite), and hiding beneath the chocolate or gift certificate, a charm for her bracelet, again something that sparks a romantic memory of an intimate moment shared somewhere. Do you see how this all fits together?

The chocolate is obvious, but it’s short-term delight. To provide longevity, you have the coffee mug and the charm, both of which are related to something special to her, and which will spark romantic memories when she sees them. Everything involved is something personally chosen according to her passions. You see, one favorite aspect is good, but it’s still something that any other woman could receive. By combining all these aspects, ALL OF WHICH YOU CAN BET SHE WILL RECOGNIZE INSTANTLY, you make the entire gift uniquely personal, in spite of the fact that everything is mass-produced. Now, to top it off…

A small, hand-written note or card that says how much you’ve enjoyed having her in your life and how much you look forward to sharing more with her – NO PREPRINTED VERSE OR PROSE OF ANY KIND – includes a permanent piece of you in the mix, and gives her something to put in the treasure box. I have personally seen women burst into tears over simple gifts like this, simply because their man knew them well enough and cared enough about them to make the small effort that it takes to do it. All it takes is knowing your partner, which you should (and will be expected to do whether you have or not!) if you’ve been with her any time at all.

If she’s like Joe’s wife except that she doesn’t like chocolate so much, and her hands get cold when she drives, a nice pair of driving gloves – in the correct size and that match a scarf she wears, her handbag, favorite coat, or something significant like that – stuffed into the coffee mug is perfect. If she doesn’t do charm bracelets and charms, maybe a small coin run through one of those machines that converts it into an imprinted souvenir coin, or a ticket stub you saved from a concert or ball game there, even a subway pass to an event – anything to remind her of a very special time – or tickets to an upcoming event – to create a new special memory – will work.

Know your partner, and choose her gifts based on what you know. Know above all else that the idea behind a gift is to celebrate partnership and make her feel special, not to buy her favor. The idea is to show that you love and notice her, not to be needy or try to buy her, which are creepy and insulting to all but a gold-digger precisely because they imply that you think she is a gold-digger who would expect and respond to such a thing, and no good woman will put up with that for an instant!

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Guys, I hope you found that excerpt helpful, and again, this advice pertains to all women – mother, daughters, sisters, friends, coworkers, boss -- under all circumstances, not just your wife. I can’t say it any more plainly or with any more conviction. Over 100 women were brought together for the express purpose of teaching me what makes women tick, what they want from men, what they respond to involuntarily in men, and how to communicate effectively with them.

They did their job and did it well. “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage” was constructed from that research, and those women put this book to their partners to test and refine everything we covered. Anything that worked for 90% or more of those couples is in the book, and less effective principles are being refined for updates or discussed in this newsletter as potentials to explore.

It worked for them, and it’s guaranteed to work for you. Download your copy right now at http://www.makingherhappy.com and join the many happy men and women who have brought their relationships back from boredom, affairs, and even divorce proceedings – some in under a week! -- to be exciting, fun, sexy, and richly rewarding, often better than it had ever been, because life’s too short to spend it unhappy, bored, in fear of getting caught in an affair, or celibate.

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

Signs That She’s About to Erupt, and a Miracle Cure for Tension and Drama in Relationships and Marriage

A guy asks if there are any tell-tale signs of a woman needing a drama fix. A few do come to mind… (WINK!!!)

This is one of my favorite topics, and it’s something fun and useful. To start the ball rolling, meet Zane:

Hey David,

I’ve been following you for a while and I see the things you talk about in my home every day, especially the testing and the drama. I got pretty good at handing the testing within a couple of days of reading about it in your book, but the drama thing has me stumped. I know she does it, I even know when she’s doing it and not expressing a genuine problem, but I can’t quite catch the knack of seeing it coming so I can head it off before it gets ridiculous. What am I missing?

Thanks,
Zane

Hey, Zane! Always good to hear from a fellow Southerner. (For all non-Southerners, “Hey” is Southern for “Hello and how are you?” We’re not lazy, just efficient.) You are indeed missing something, but it’s not hard to spot.

In "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," when I describe why women create drama (emotional boredom) and how they nearly always use negative pressure to create it because it’s both faster and easier to get a drama fix by stirring up a fight than by achieving something exciting, you missed the description of the progression of the problem in her and how it works up into an explosion.

Remember that in a woman’s emotional make-up, it’s boredom, not crisis, that is the biggest enemy. (See this article on our differing emotional scales for more details.) If she doesn’t get relief from the boredom, she gets anxious, and then irritable, and you’ll watch her getting more and more uneasy and unreasonable as the tension within her builds. By the time she gets to the point of nearing an explosion, you’ll notice that her attitude has become very sour…

Let’s say your car broke down on your wedding anniversary and you jogged three miles to your house because she didn’t answer the phone when you called to tell her you were in trouble (okay, she was in the shower getting ready to go), and you hit the door late, sweaty, smelly, and tired. A woman in a normal state of mind would see that as heroic and be thrilled, where a woman in need of a drama fix would ignore the fact that you ran home to her and fight with you because you were late getting home. Get it?

Fights that break out over legitimate issues usually have some identifiable logic in them somewhere (although you may have to look hard to find it if you haven’t yet read "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" and become well-versed in what women want and what makes them tick). On the other hand, drama-induced fights are in a word, absurd. These are the fights in which she seems to be raising the roof over nothing, brings up things that happened 20 years ago, and plays dirty, and your warning signs are pretty much toned down versions of that absurd behavior – being abnormally bothered by more and more insignificant things, preoccupation situations and details that she’d normally ignore, etc. Why?

She’s trying to milk enough emotion from those things to get her fix, and getting more and more frustrated by the hour because it’s not working any better as she deviates more and more from her normal behavior. That’s what you watch for. If on a normal day she’s fairly laid back, then she’s acting depressed and tense, then fussy, then negative about everything she speaks of, trouble’s coming.

There are two things you can do. Let her pick the fight, which you will both regret, or you can buck up and admit that you failed to give her some positive emotion that she needed and make up for it with some sort of surprise act of leadership, mystery, and fun, but be advised, if she’s too far gone, your efforts may end up being the very thing she uses to start the fight, and all you can do is hang tough. What exactly does that mean?

It does not mean you should be abusive, or play dirty like she is apt to do. It means that when tension and voices start to rise, you must step immediately into that leadership role and exercise some stern – and maybe even tough – love, by calling her on whatever bratty behavior she’s committing. For instance…

She says, “That’s it! I’ve had it! I’m so sick of you ALWAYS buttoning the button in the middle of your shirt first and then bouncing up and down from bottom to top! Why can’t you just start at the top and work your way down like everybody else?!”

To which you reply, “Because that’s how I’m comfortable buttoning it, and I don’t really care what you or anybody else thinks about it. It’s ridiculous that you should even bring something like that up, and the only reason you’re doing it is because you’re bored to death and need the a rush. Now settle down, stop being a brat and conduct yourself with a little dignity, and let’s find a more productive way of giving you what you need without the two of us saying and doing something that we’ll both regret later.”

She may try to further escalate the situation after that to test your resolve, and if she does, there’s an answer to that as well, one that involves getting a bit cocky and having some fun with her, but rather than spell it out in detail I’m going to employ it now and tell you that if you want to know what it is, you’re going to have to read it in "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" – LOL!

Face it, Guys; it’s not and has never been a secret that the simple act of wishing your wife a good morning and making it out the door to go to work in the morning can be like walking through a mine field. You need to know how to listen to her and how to talk with her to get along with her. You need to know when to be tough and when to be gentle and reassuring, when to indulge and when to reject, when to make her laugh and when to stand tall and get serious. If things have slowed in your bedroom, that’s not old age setting in, it’s one of the first symptoms of real relationship problems, the kind that lead to affairs – a symptom of advanced relationship decay – and divorce.

And if you doubt it, I have readers and clients in their 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s that have been together 20-50+ years and are still “whooping it up” 3-4 times per week or more, while the national average for couples who have been together for two years or more is six times per year. Yep, that’s once every two months. Talk about decay…it’s a wonder their “organs” don’t rot due to lack of contact.

You can let things continue to decay and try to make a heroic save at the last minute, which can indeed be done under the right circumstances and with the right help, or you can take the easier path and employ the same tools now, when you are not under so much pressure and have far less damage to correct, to fix everything that’s broken and keep your relationship running like a precision machine. The cost is the same (at best – it can be MUCH worse if you wait!), and it takes less time and effort to do it now before everything goes critical.

The big question is whether you are the kind of man who puts everything off and unnecessarily risks the future of his family by letting it fall into crisis before doing anything about it or if you are the kind of man who steps up and does what is necessary to keep his family – and himself – happy. What kind of man are YOU?

If you’re the kind who sees the wisdom of fixing the little problems to keep them from getting big and maintaining a happy status quo, or if you’re the kind who likes to fix them early but have been unable to find answers before things got bad, then you need to click over to http://www.makingherhappy.com right now and get your copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" and put things on the right track. If you’re the kind who puts things off until the last minute because you just don’t want to deal with them until you’re forced to, then I’ll be seeing you later, or if not me, your wife’s boyfriend, and probably her attorney. It’s your call; make it a good one!

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

The Good, the Bad, and the Naughty: What Does She Want in YOUR Relationship and Marriage?

There seems to be a lot of confusion concerning how women relate to “nice guys” and “bad boys.” Let’s clarify…

The word is finally getting out that when it comes to getting along with women, nice guys finish last – or are finished before they get started! – but as usual, the language being used to discuss what’s happening is inaccurate and misleading because there are too many “artistic liberties” being taken with the facts and their expression.

In the 1980’s we thought we were being told that women wanted a “nice guy.” What we were really being told was that women wanted a guy who was a manly man, and who wouldn’t do things like verbally and physically abuse them, lay around drunk while they brought home the bacon, etc., and would be at least marginally aware and considerate of their feelings. Hence, we ended up hearing “experts” (pronounced “academic morons with pet theories and feminist propagandists”) tell us that we should do really stupid things like cry in front of our women while watching their tear-jerking movies, defer all decisions to them to compensate for chauvinism, etc.

That didn’t work too well, did it? If it had, you wouldn’t be reading this!

Now it’s happening again, only this time, the phrase that is being bandied about like a cheap bromide is “bad boy.” Every woman wants a bad boy. Well, I have news for you: NO, SHE DOESN’T! At least not the real deal…

A bad boy is that abusive, worthless parasite or predator who lets her support him and beats the hell out of her in return and leaves when he has exhausted her resources; a psychopath or sociopath. Women are not looking for a man to abuse them, at least not if they are mentally and emotionally healthy.

When a woman says she wants a bad boy, what is she really wanting? You’ll find clues posted all over the Internet. To wit, consider these answers to the question, “Why do good girls love bad boys?”:

“They add spice to our good girl lives. They make us feel wild and sexy.”

“They excite us because they are so different from us. They’re the guys our parents warned us about.”

“They put passion into our sometimes boring, structured lifestyle.”

“They aren’t afraid to argue with us, and they usually win. We know they won’t come crawling back.”

“They represent rebellion, excitement, and steamy sex all at once. We’re under their spell.”

“They are hungry, unpredictable and a little bit dangerous”

“They make us feel sexy merely by the fact that they want us. You’ve got to be hot to catch a bad boy.”

“They have mastered that sly come-hither stare. “

“They can sweep us off our feet before we even know what hit us, and we love that rush.”

“They are irresistible because they know they’re hot.”

“They know what they want, and they usually get it.”

“With them there’s never a dull moment. You never know what they’ll do next”

“They don’t feel tied down to any one woman, and we love the challenge”

“They’re not afraid to break out of dating norms. Actually, most dates are just hooking up.”

“The word insecurity is not in their vocabulary. They don’t care what others think.”

“They are usually strong-willed and sexually aggressive.”

“They make us feel safe because they’re not intimated by anyone else.”

“They usually can’t be negotiated with, but when you get your way, it’s way exciting.”

“They are unpredictable. They keep you on your toes. (Duplicate! “Never a dull moment”).”

“They are untouchable for most women (depending on where you want to touch!).”

“They bring out the sexual animal in us because we don’t feel the need to be ladylike.”

“They take charge in all the right ways whether we admit we like it or not.”

“They live life on their own terms. “

“Because they can be extremely charming and unquestionably passionate. We love the challenge of reaching them.”

“They act with authority even when they have no right to.”

“They flirt with other women. It drives us crazy and makes us want them more.”

“They can’t be tested (or trusted most of the time!)”

“They are independent and throw caution to the wind.”

“Because they exude confidence at all times, making even the most secure women try harder.”

“They seduce us without even trying. And we feel like we’ve got to work hard to seduce them at times.”

“They are the right mix of mysterious and elusive. We never feel smothered but sort of wish we could.”

“They carry on as if women aren’t important to them. We want to be the one that matters.”

“They encourage us to be a little bit bad. They love it when we’re a lot bad!”

“We can be as obnoxious as we want, and we know they will always act worse. (Women need to be lead into being bad when a man is around!)”

“They show us a better time than responsible, upstanding guys. We try to fight this gut reaction, but we can’t. (Attraction is biological, not logical!)”

“They make us feel incredible when they do pay attention to us. The little things matter so much more.”

“They love their lives and aren’t bound by the rules of society. We want to let loose with them. (Again, needing to be lead to being bad.)”

“They have a lot of energy, and we can’t wait to see just how they plan to use it.”

“They are always a challenge. Who can resist a challenge?”

“They keep us on our toes and make us less selfish. They won’t put up with it.”

“They are our little “projects” to nurture and change, but if they do, we eventually dump them for another bad boy! (Challenge to see if they can make us a wuss and destroy our manhood, and toss us if they succeed! Diabolical!)”

“They have devilishly playful personalities and a twinkle in their eyes. We never know what they’re really thinking.”

What do these things tell you? Do you see any mention of a woman wanting a criminal, a loser, a bum, an abuser, a parasite, or a predator? No, you don’t.

So what DO you see?

You see attributes of a NAUGHTY BOY! A guy who is self-confident, self-respectful, self-directed, marches to the beat of his own drum, and isn’t caught up in being prim, proper, and polite at all times. BUT…

This must be kept in context! The context of these statements is concerning what a woman finds fun and exciting in, predominately in her DATING life! The rules are different when you are in a committed, long-term relationship, married or not, but especially when the two of you are sharing a mortgage, kids, etc., or can you see that?

Total unpredictability is fun and exciting for a woman to see in a man on the street, or in one she’s having a “fling” with, but in a long-term relationship, unpredictability must be balanced with responsibility, usually fatherhood, and a lot of other things. Your wife enjoys not knowing what you are going to do next insomuch that it entertains her, not that it scares the living hell out of her.

Hence, coming home and announcing that you’re taking her on a surprise picnic or day trip that the family can afford or have taken on a new, non-life-threatening hobby tickles her to death, where coming home and announcing that you quit your job for no apparent reason or have decided to leave and go to Japan to study nin jitsu so you can enter a career as a bodyguard or something equally outlandish is not going to go over well at all. Indeed, you’ll be lucky if you live through it with your marriage and dignity intact.

It’s a difficult balance, much more difficult than in the dating world. In the dating world, a “rebel without a clue” can go for years, bouncing from woman to woman and never allowing any of them to get close enough to see what a loser he really is and have all kinds of fun, but when you live with her, it’s another story entirely. One of the keys to success is to remember that when a woman is single, she only sees a “bad boy” infrequently, and spends the rest of her time dreaming about it. What does this tell you?

That you need to engage in this naughty boy behavior erratically, not all the time. Turning it on and off so that you can still competently fulfill the role of breadwinner (whether solo or with your partner), husband, father, homeowner, groundskeeper, investor, etc., is not only important, it makes it more effective, because it provides both contrast and the opportunity for her to see you doing other very attractive things, like being a confident and competent leader, craftsman, protector, and whatever else you can be confident and competent doing.

It’s about shaking her up a bit to break the boredom, not taking on a full-time role.

It’s about shocking the mortal life out of her once in awhile, but doing so in a non-threatening manner.

It’s about creating tension by jumping back and forth from fun to serious and back.

Yeah, it’s about a lot of things, but being a true “bad boy” who is mean-spirited, abusive, parasitic and/or predatory is not among them.

It’s a tough act to put on, but there’s no reason at all for it to be an act, because being a guy who does these things naturally is quite easy and fun! Most of it requires nothing more than shedding all your New Age, politically correct programming and simply getting back to being a man, a manly man who does manly things and leaves the girly things to the girls. There’s one secret ingredient that takes that dating version of the naughty boy to a new level, the level where a life-long relationship can be sustained…

SELF-RESPECT! Somebody like Johnny Knoxville, star of that idiotic show “Jackass,” who would sit on a display toilet in the middle of a hardware store sales floor and take a crap just for shock value might be a riot in the dating world, but few women would accept such behavior from her husband, nor from any man they were sizing up for his potential to be a husband and father of her children. Self-respect makes the difference in having the right kind of attention without desiring any attention at all and getting all the attention you can, even if it’s the wrong kind.

It also requires knowing your partner more intimately than you ever thought possible, but that’s easy too, once you learn how she communicates and how to communicate with her and simply pay attention for awhile. Sounds like a pretty tall order, doesn’t it?

Well, it’s not, at least not of you read and apply "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," my 118-page (single-spaced type, unlike most, who double- and even tripe-space e-books and online reports to make them look longer!) seminar-in-a-book that teaches you everything mentioned here and more, in great detail, after having tested and proven it in the relationships of literally hundreds of couples coached and surveyed.

It’s time to make a choice. Do you want your life and relationship to just continue on the way it is now, or do you want to be the only guy you know who really knows what makes women tick, knows what they want, and can turn them on and off at will? That’s a pretty easy decision, isn’t it? So make it, right now, and then go to http://www.makingherhappy.com, download your copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" and follow through. It’s really just that easy.

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

Turning Back the Clock to Better Days, a HUGE Boost to Your Relationship and Marriage

Familiarity may eventually breed contempt, but in the near term, it’s going to breed boredom as couples fall into a rut. Here’s a great way to get out of it…

Did you ever wish you could turn back the clock, back to a time when your relationship was fun and exciting? When laughing, naughty play, and earth-shaking physical encounters were not a matter of “if,” but of “WHEN”? Think about what brought you to the point of making that wish, and you’ll quickly see why I tell you that you can turn back the clock in an instant.

What did you do when you were in high school, hormones raging, not having yet learned that rejection happens more often than not, not having grown too accustomed to seeing your wife in a baggy robe or sweat suit with hair and make-up unattended, not yet beaten down by a job you don’t like, kids screaming in the middle of the night, etc.?

Or if it wasn’t you that did what I’m about to talk about because you were already too timid and insecure to score a great date on the weekend, do you remember what the other guys did, the ones who did enjoy that success and bragged about it every Monday morning when everybody returned to class to either tell of high adventure on date night or lament having spent another weekend playing video games?

Regardless of which side of the fence you were on, it’s time to go back to high school, and if you did it wrong before, it’s time to do it right. It’s all in the naughty play, projecting the attitude that you’re all about the fun, not about needing sex or approval. It’s about having adventures, like sneaking away to a seedy hotel, or making out in the back seat of your car. It’s about surprise picnics that lead to sneaky sex in the woods, covert caresses when the kids (or the other people in the grocery store) aren’t looking.

In short, it’s about doing all those things that you did when your relationship was fresh, new, exciting, and hotter than a freshly fornicated fox in a forest fire, or learning how to just do all those things you wanted to do then instead of being afraid of rejection. It’s not so hard as you’re thinking…

Women live in a state of needing a higher level of emotional energy going at any given time than we men need. Hence, they delight in anything that gets it going, especially having a man genuinely enjoying having fun with them – WITH THEM, mind you, NOT AT THEIR EXPENSE. Both positive and negative emotion will work, and you have the opportunity to make it positive before she takes matters into her own hands and starts a fight to blow off some steam.

Yes, they do that, and the reason is perfectly simple: It’s far easier and faster for her to create negative energy than positive. Something positive takes time, cooperation, and/or planning, where negative simply takes a choice to take something the wrong way, or get mad about something benign. And you get to decide which it’s going to be if you’re on your toes.

So when you see her bent over picking something up, don’t just stare at her butt and wish you could squeeze it, SQUEEZE IT! Or sneak up behind her and tickle her, or tug the waistband of her undies if it’s showing. Just get a rise out of her, preferably with something both fun and sexy, but at least something fun and playful. Get back in touch with that fearless, hormontally-driven teenager that you used to be, and do those things that you either did with impunity or that you wished you could do like the “popular guys” did. Why do you think they were so popular in the first place? Contrary to popular belief, it wasn’t their looks! It was their fun-loving, confident attitude.

If you find yourself having covert interludes outside your house, don’t just do it and go home, celebrate it. Mark the spot as a favorite in your car’s navigation system (Garmin, TomTom, etc.), or keep a “covert mission log” together. Start a collection of tokens taken from this places of venture – a blade of grass, a piece of tree bark or a stone, a lid from a disposable drinking cup or bottle cap that held a celebratory drink afterward. Just anything she can tie the memory to and put in her treasure box. Giving her something to remind her of all the fun that you have will stir up more longing for fun and avoid both the doldrums and the inexplicable explosion that ultimately comes when she gets bored, not to mention the affairs and other problems that will happen if the boredom goes on too long.

You can really get creative with that covert mission log, too. To create an extra adventure, find some way to record the position in terms of latitude and longitude (a GPS or Sat-Nav device is extremely handy for this) on a slip of paper with nothing else, and have your wife store the slips in her treasure box. Sometime in the future, have her extract one of these slips of paper from her treasure box, at random and use the latitude and longitude to try to find the spot. If you can find it within an hour or two, have a repeat performance to celebrate. Geocaching? Hah! And after all, it must be a good spot since it worked the first time! ;-)

This isn’t rocket science, gentlemen. It’s simply the result of knowing what women want and need, especially that part that is different from us, but yet not in conflict with us. It’s the result of knowing that women crave having us act like men instead of scared little boys or couch potatoes who revel in being born with two hands so that we can operate a remote control and a beer can at the same time. It’s the result of knowing what a man is, and what is natural for him to feel, and that it’s usually not just okay, but highly desirable, for him to act upon those feelings in all but extreme cases.

How do you learn all that? Easy! Go to http://www.makingherhappy.com/ and download your copy of "THE Man's Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," and spend a few hours reading the wisdom of the ages, that which women have proven that they want you to know most, and then the rest of your life being a man, a real man, sought after by women and loved, adored and nurtured by his wife.

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

Seek Success, not Attention, to Have a Great Relationship and Marriage

Do you do what you do to enjoy doing it well, or to be seen doing it? Attractive behavior isn’t just an act to try to mimic an alpha male. It’s the result of BEING the alpha male, a real man of competence and confidence, which virtually any man can be. It’s both his birthright and responsibility, and for the vast majority of men requires only shedding some programming and attitudes that are oppressive, stressful, and lead to gross insecurity and stagnation in all parts of a man’s life. Read on and learn why and how!

I’ve mentioned in the past that I don’t watch much television, and the little I watch is either informative (news, how-to, or self-improvement) or mentally challenging, and when I find an on-screen example of something readers can watch for an example or explanation of attraction and attractive behavior, I write about it, because a picture is truly worth a thousand words.

Having been deeply involved in alternative medicine for all of my adult life and more, the NBC series “House” (about a doctor who’s supposed to be the world’s best diagnostician and determines what’s wrong with people when nobody else can – and this season’s premier didn’t disappoint) is challenging (the writers rarely make a medical mistake, but when they do, it’s hilarious, such as when Dr. House had a sinus allergy and claimed to take 1,000 mg of diphenhydramine, the little pink pills that most of the rest of us know as “Benedryl,” and are dosed out at 25 mg per tablet, meaning that he took a dose of 40 of those little pink pills, which would likely ruin an elephant’s day and knock a human out for a week), and the governing dynamics of the personalities of the characters on the show are diverse, well-conceived and fascinating.

Dr. House is an alpha male, but with a twist. He’s brilliant, strong, funny, cocky, etc., but somebody on the writing staff apparently is intimidated by alpha males because they gave him a permanently damaged right leg and chronic pain to go with it, and a hydrocodone bitartrate (Vicodin, et al, regarded as “morphine-like in all respects” according to http://www.streetdrugs.org/hydrocodone.htm) addiction to go with the pain, which I find somewhat perverse, but it does make for some interesting twists in the plots.

One episode featured a doctor who spent his entire career treating tuberculosis in remote parts of Africa, contracted the disease himself, but with a pancreatic tumor that caused life-threatening symptoms unrelated to the tuberculosis. What was interesting about the character, and what both the character of Dr. House and I took exception to, was that this doctor didn’t present the appearance of doing the job to do it well, but to be seen doing it; he was constantly courting the media, even to the extent of refusing treatment for his own tuberculosis and calling a press conference to call attention to it.

The script writers did a good job of keeping it unclear as to whether the character’s main motivation was altruism or a need for attention, but it made me think about some of the letters I’ve received from readers of this newsletter and my blogs, complaining that it was hard to keep up the image of an alpha male and call sufficient attention to themselves without being too obvious. That’s an understatement if ever there was one; one that makes me want to pull my hair out.

First, putting on an act for a woman, especially in the long term, is a practical impossibility. The sheer fear of being caught putting on the act creates insecurity that gives it away, and no matter how many times I state that to some people, they still don’t get it. Attractive behavior is not the result of some theatrical effort or following some script; it’s the result of BEING attractive, having the confidence, attitude, wit, and competence to naturally be in this attractive state. You can fake it a little and for a short time in an emergency, but the successful on-going presentation of alpha male behavior depends entirely on the successful attainment of alpha male characteristics, which is not difficult at all, and a lot of fun.

So you see, the “trick” is NOT to act attractive and find a way to call attention to it that doesn’t give away the fact that you are trying to call attention to yourself. Seeking attention (or approval) is the opposite of alpha male behavior, regardless of why you’re doing it. That’s why the PUA’s and their peacocking (“Styles,” “Mystery,” etc., a la Neil Strauss’s “The Game”) is so bloody annoying to the rest of us.

(In one of John Alanis’s newsletters, he talked about getting almost mad enough to deck one of them. A PUA cut in on John while he was talking to a woman and the “wingman” running block for him kept putting his arm around John like he was some sort of buddy. All I can say is that John is probably a little more patient than I could have been with either one of them, and the PUA’s still lost in the end because he got the girl. John tells some very interesting stories and I highly recommend his newsletter as both entertaining and, if you are divorced and dating or wanting to start dating again, educational, as is Shelley McMurtry’s.)

Indeed, there is no trick, and the solution is far easier to pull off. You must simply understand what it is that women respond to with attraction, which turns out to be confident, fun, intelligent, “cock of the walk” behavior, realize that there are some things in your life that you can take pride in, develop them so that you can fully enjoy that pride, see yourself as worthy of having fun and enjoying your life, and let nature take its course. While nature is taking its course, you learn all you can about women, especially what they enjoy and how they communicate, so you can recognize the feedback that they’ve been giving you for years. Feedback that you were never able to interpret because you didn’t realize it was feedback. What???

Yes, they really have been giving you feedback for years, but most of it is non-verbal, and the verbal part is very indirect. For instance, when a woman says she wants a man “who just knows what she wants,” she isn’t speaking of a psychic (unless she’s a complete idiot just “parroting” something she’s heard other women say). She’s saying, “I want a manly man who does manly things, and pays enough attention to me to learn how to communicate with me so I don’t have to explain everything to him like I would a three-year old.” She saying that she wants a guy who is a guy, but who knows to communicate with guys like guys and be more perceptive and attentive when communicating with a woman, recognizing her social nature and her need to negotiate and be a social conduit instead of stating, reporting, and dictating as men do. Where’d that come from?

You’re right. Most women would never come out and explain that to a man, but a few of the very smart ones are always on the lookout for men who want to communicate effectively with them, and I had 118 of them who were in long-term committed relationships or marriage plus nearly a hundred more who were single respond to a survey I conducted before researching “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage.” They taught me everything they could think of about how women communicate with each other and how that affects the way the communicate with men, and when we finished that training, we talked – in “girly-speak,” or “feminese” as one of my readers is fond of saying – about what they thought they wanted in men and what they actually respond to, and exploded many, many myths, especially about the “nice guy.” (You’ll be shocked when you find out about the one version of the “nice guy” that women do respond to, and you’ll do so when you read my book!)

As we made lists upon lists of good and bad behavior and what caused it, we got their male partners (husbands and boyfriends, for future reference) involved, and tested everything we’d found. Some we fine tuned and improved, some wasn’t as consistent as I wanted because it was affected by culture or personal taste and was culled; everything that made it into the book worked for 90% or more of the couples, and in the end, everybody’s relationship was improved to the point of being fun and exciting again, not because the men learned how to act, but because they learned how to be and live NATURALLY as “real men,” which creates – BY DEFAULT – the very behavior that women respond to best, because it’s genuine, stress-free, fun and exciting for everyone involved.

There were even unexpected benefits of improved sleep, motivation to diet and exercise, children doing better in school, and a closer-knit family because the parents were feeling better about themselves, setting better examples for the kids and creating a more nurturing environment for them. (How nurturing an environment is it when parents are bored, frustrated, avoiding home and yet scared of their family coming apart at the seams?)

The bottom line is that there are no tricks, no magic bullet, no cute lines or secret potions (or positions!) that will save a stale relationship, but the solution to the problem is far easier and more enjoyable than employing any deception could ever be. It’s in my book, “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage,” and it’s waiting for you at http://www.makingherhappy.com, ready to Fully tested, proven and ready to deploy. Go get it and get busy, because life is too short to spend it enjoying your relationship even a little less than the most it can be enjoyed. Don’t settle; SUCCEED! (And you’d be doing yourself a favor to make that your personal motto, too!)

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

Women Test Men Constantly in Our Relationships and Marriage, So Why Not Test THEM? Here's HOW!

Women test us constantly, so why don’t we test them? Not in retaliation, but to help determine if they are testing us and what they might be trying to communicate. Here are a few tips…

I was listening to an old set of self-improvement tapes, Roger Dawson’s “The Secrets of Power Negotiating,” (a classic if you’ve not heard of it, available at Nightengale Conant) and in a section on negotiating tactics, he was talking about overcoming objections and said the main tactic to overcoming objectives is to “always test for validity.” Here’s an example:

You’re negotiating a car deal, and the seller says he can’t possibly go a penny under $25,000 for the vehicle. You ask, “What if I could bring you cash instead of a cashier’s check?” If he says it won’t make any difference, he’s rigid on the price for some reason, and you need to dig deeper to find out what his issue is to see if there is any way to address it, but if he says, “Well, then I could possibly come down a little,” $25,000 is not a firm price and he does have some negotiating range.

The same tactic can be used when women test us, or when we suspect they might be testing, to either neutralize the test or establish that we are dealing with a legitimate issue and need to give it due attention. Let’s say your wife is saying she wants new furniture, and you don’t know if it’s a test, a whim, or a legitimate need. You can test the legitimacy of the issue by finding out how much she’s willing to do to have it: “Well, I [like this furniture/don’t care either way/might be interested in replacing this, too] IF our budget will allow it. If the budget won’t handle the extra expense, do you want this bad enough to do something extra to make up the difference?”

Now you’ve got her. If she says, “Well no, I guess not,” it wasn’t that important. “Well I thought you might be nice and get a part time job to do this for me,” definitely means it’s a test, and we’ll deal with that in a minute. “Yes, I would, because I really want this stuff out of here,” means it’s definitely important, and you should then consider saying, “Well, then I’ll see what I can do as well, but if I’m going to help buy it, I reserve the right to help pick it out, at least to the extent of declining on anything that isn’t comfortable for me to sit in. Agreed?”

It’s not required, but it’s a good idea to remain involved so you don’t end up with a houseful of furniture that you hate, and doing things like that together is part of what long-term committed relationships are about, isn’t it? Besides, women love it when you take the lead and make decisions – as long as you provide that needed and expected input channel for them– it’s ATTRACTIVE!

Now, what if you find out it’s a test? The test looks on the surface like it’s to see what she can get away with, but what it usually is really about is to see if you can say “no,” a check to see if you can define and exercise personal authority. And be advised, if you see a lot of this kind of test, and you see a negative reaction when you reject the idea because she’s not willing to help pay for it, you need to be researching “toxic wife” on Google, Bing, or your search engine of choice.

This is a good time to switch back and forth between the responsible budget administrator and “the naughty negotiator.” Starting with something like, (straight face) “Well, I might consider being nice and helping with it, but if you want it that bad, you’re going to have to help, and you’re going to have to give me a pretty good reason to help, (sudden switch to naughty grin) so whatcha gonna do to be nice to me?”

Banter back and forth and make it plain that you’re not just going to roll over and give it up, even if she has recently done something nice, but make it fun for her to be told “no.” Bring sexual innuendo into it, like, “I don’t know, we’ve had a lot of fun on this couch, I hate to see it go,” or “We’ve not finished breaking this couch down…er…I mean in…It would be a shame to get rid of it before we’d got all the nookie….er….I mean useful life out of it…”

Do NOT get into anything that sounds like you’re willing to trade furniture for sex, because it can be taken as a very degrading remark that hints at prostitution. Whatever you do, DO NOT make it sound like you’re a sugar daddy and she’s a prostitute. Fun, not condescending. Challenge, not control. I’m appalled to even have to say that, but I did get an email about it once in the past, so for the sake of the very few who won’t realize it, I’m stating what’s obvious to most of us.

Use your imagination, but make sure you keep rocking back and forth between serious and naughty to keep her off balance, and keep dropping bits of sexual innuendo. You’re likely to end up having sex on the furniture before the discussion is over, just because the playful, naughty attitude and sexual tension may get to her that much, and then you can say, “See, we need to keep this couch!” and wink at her.

Do NOT, under any circumstances, fear going into this process. Remember that a woman’s first criteria in evaluating you and any other man is “If you can’t stand up TO me, you can’t stand up FOR me.” This is how you earn her respect, her trust, her attraction, and to a significant degree, her love. It’s also how you flush out a predator or parasite who is stealing your life from you. It’s a no-lose situation for you, so get on it.

It’s easy to test for validity once you get used to the game and get skilled at playing. To see the rules in vivid detail, along with lots of examples of how to play the testing game, go to http://www.makingherhappy.com and get your copy of “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage.” What you’ll save on furniture the first time it comes up will more than pay for the book! Just kidding! Seriously, it costs less than a good meal for two, and any time you can throw a few dollars and a little time at a problem and watch it go away, that’s an offer you simply have to take!

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

Lying in Relationships and Marriage, Part 2, A Reader’s Confession About Lying Nearly Ending Her Marriage

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

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

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

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

Dear David,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Darla

My response:

Hi Darla,

That’s quite a confession Darla; thank you for sharing it with us. I’ve studied people a lot over the years, and I’ve seen a few things that I’d like to point out here. Chemicals notwithstanding (a lot of medications can alter your personality, adherence to your value system, inhibitions, etc.), you would be hard-pressed to prove to me how anyone who truly loves and respects another could lie to them, especially to cover their own ass. That’s an act of cowardice and need, not of love and respect. If your partner is claiming to love you but lying to you frequently (or vice versa), you and they need to take a look at the meaning of love, need, attraction, etc. (see the article in my free “Break-Up Busting 101” report, which you can download at http://www.makingherhappy.com/Break-Up%20Busting%20101%20Free%20Report.PDF), and get a fix on reality, because you’re not in it.

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

Take care,
David

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

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

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

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

Banter: A Girl's Best Friend and Major Tool for Stoking Up Your Relationship and Marriage

A key ingredient in any fun, sexy relationship is the fun, flirtatious, innuendo-filled, anticipation-building ritual of “banter.” Women refer to it by name, while most guys have no clue. If you want to kick things up a notch, read and learn…

I had a revelation this morning, or an epiphany if you prefer. I was milling some new cabinet doors and drawers for my kitchen, which makes my wife nuts because my power tools both excite and scare the hell out of her, not to mention the anticipation of seeing the kitchen redecoration complete, and started going over the week’s conversations and events looking for another good lesson to give you guys. And sure enough, I found one.

I received eight e-mails this week from women mentioning the word “banter.” Do you know what it is? You can bet the women in your life do, and they’re looking to you for it, especially the one you’re living with, so you’d better learn quickly.

American Heritage Dictionary defines “banter” as n. 1. Good-humored, playful conversation. v. ban·tered ban·ter·ing ban·ters v. tr. 1. To speak to in a playful or teasing way. v. intr. 1. To exchange mildly teasing remarks.

What is all that? Yup! Naughty, teasing, playful building of anticipation, a.k.a., “verbal foreplay!”

One of the better kept secrets about women that shouldn’t be a secret at all is that where we are easily stimulated visually, they are easily stimulated through engaging their imagination and letting it run wild. That’s why I keep telling you guys that foreplay starts in the morning before you leave for work, a naughty word here and a naughty gesture there will have her thinking naughty, sexy thoughts about you all day, in anticipation of her reward later in the evening for being so patient.

For women, it is the anticipation that is the thrill of the chase, and they enjoy the chase far more than the kill. This seems to be a very difficult concept for men to embrace, but where for us orgasm is the highlight and purpose of sex, for women, it is simply the end of sex, no matter whose orgasm you speak of. That’s why every sex therapist, marriage counselor and relationship expert that has ever spoken or written about sexual relations has stressed the importance of foreplay, and that advice being ignored by the vast majority of men is the reason so many women are sexually frustrated and ripe for an affair.

Stoking her up once this anticipation is started is most easily accomplished with banter. Let me give you an example. When I’ve visited Texas, I’ve frequently ran across this really interesting concoction the Texans call “Jalapeño ketchup” or in some places, “Texas ketchup.” (In other parts of the country and world, it’s spelled “catsup,” but it’s the same thing.) This stuff isn’t just plain bottled catsup with some pepper juice added for heat. It has some extra onion, some cumin, and bits of jalapeno swimming in it and tastes like a good, spicy taco sauce or salsa picante, and sometimes it’s pretty hot, too.

Now, imagine you’ve been to Texas and you’re coming home, and you’re passing text messages or one-liner e-mails back and forth with your wife.

You: I’m on the way home!
Her: Can’t wait to see you!
You: I’m bringing you a surprise…
Her: Am I going to like it?
You: I’ll bet it makes your cheeks get flushed
Her: How cum?
You: It’s pretty hot…
Her: Yeah?
You: Might make you wet, too…
Her: I’ll bet I know what it is ;-)
You: I’ll betcha don’t!
Her: I’ve had it before!
You: Nope, not like this!

Do you see what’s going on here? You’re talking about the pepper in spicy catsup making her cheeks get flushed and making her break out in a sweat, she’s thinking you’re talking about body parts and getting her to lubricate, or at least wondering if that’s going to be involved, then you set the hook by making her guess what it is and claiming that what you’re talking about is not sexual. All the innuendo has her mind on sex, and she’s going to be thinking all those thoughts as she tries to figure out what you’re talking about, which just adds to the tension.

Now, remember the “two-steps-forward-one-step-back” dance I’ve mentioned in the past, ramping up and then easing back a bit before taking her even higher? You break contact for awhile, whether you’re traveling, working at the office or whatever, and give her a couple of hours to stew in her own juices, then another message goes out:

You: Figured it out yet?
Her: Of course!
You: Nope. I’ll guarantee you’ve never had it like this or even thought about it.
Her: You sound mighty sure of yourself!
You: That’s because I am!
Her: So you’re really gonna give me something like I’ve never had it before, huh?
You: Yep, and it’s guaranteed to make you wet even if I’m in another room…
Her: You are so bad!
You: Maybe, but you’re the one that’s going to get the spanking… ;-)

You’re still talking about catsup, she’s still on the sex channel…

Now, banter doesn’t have to contain all that innuendo. It can be just for the fun of it, picking at each other in a very good-natured way.

You: Watcha doing?
Her: Laundry
You: You got a license?
Her: What license?
You: One that shows you can run all that heavy equipment.
Her: What heavy equipment?
You: Whatever you’re using to wash my underwear. It must be pretty heavy to handle it!

Her: Did you mow the lawn yet?
You: Nope
Her: Are you going to?
You: Nope
Her: Why not?
You: It needs seeded next month, so if I don’t mow it until then, it will seed itself right on time!

Her: Can you hand me my black shoes with the straps? (She has very tiny feet.)
You: No, I’m sorry
Her: What’s wrong
You: I’m not breaking my back lifting those things!

A note on playing with a woman: NEVER say something like this last example if she has big feet and is sensitive about them. Only talk about her feet being big and ugly if they are small and pretty. The idea is to make fun of an exaggeration or absurdity, not to make fun of her. If she’s gorgeous and confident about it, hand her a bag to put over her head (but not when she’s spent two hours getting ready to go out!) If she’s thin and fit and confident in her looks, tell her she needs to go on a diet and work out, again if she knows she’s hot, not if she’s insecure or anorexic, no matter how good she might look. You’re looking for comedy, not control via brow-beating, and making such a remark when she’s insecure is a direct attack on her self-esteem.

Get it yet? Something that is obviously satire, exaggerated to the point of total ridiculousness, not something that she is sensitive about, and always delivered with that naughty grin, or at least followed pretty quickly with the naughty grin before she has a chance to realize that what you just said could be taken more than one way and she does what women naturally do, which is to take anything ambiguous that you say in the worst possible way instead of the best.

If she has spent a couple of hours getting ready to go out with you, when she says, “How do I look?” you can crack a naughty grin and say something like, “I guess you’ll do…” and give her a few seconds to respond before slipping an arm around her waist and pulling her up close and saying, “yes, you look great, and you will most certainly do.”

You MUST MUST MUST understand that playing with a woman isn’t like playing with a man in some respects. We tend to pick at each other and make remarks about each other’s beer bellies, big ears, receding hair line and getting gray as a sort of bonding ritual in which we help each other stay thick-skinned and able to laugh at ourselves, but women don’t do this, and they don’t take it well when we do it to them. Indeed, you’re quite likely to be on her bad side for quite awhile if she’s feeling insecure about her hair turning gray and you make a remark about it.

I’m not saying that women are so fragile that they need to be coddled, but they do tend to take things like that a lot harder than we do, so know your partner’s hot buttons before you start getting into this kind of play and don’t press them. The whole idea is to have fun together, not for you to have fun at her expense. Making her laugh keeps her from being bored, and anything that keeps her from being bored makes her happy, and anything that makes her happy makes your world a much better place to live in.

Yes, parts of this are a little complicated. They require knowing your partner, knowing her hot buttons, knowing what she’s confident about and what she’s insecure about, knowing what makes her laugh and what ticks her off. Some of that comes from careful observation, some from conversation. Both require knowing how to read a woman, and listen to her, and what makes her tick, all of which are required to lead her in a way she finds fun and exciting instead of scary and controlling, or worse yet, BORING.

You need an edge, a thorough course in understanding all these things. Something that not only answers all these questions and needs, but trains you to be that guy that every woman wants and yours is proud to call her own, the guy who keeps her on her toes and on fire with anticipation and enjoys doing so because all the has to do is be himself. Does such a course exist?

Of course it does! Why else would I tell you that you need it??? ;-)

It’s called "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," and you should go right now to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy so you can get started. You think not? How long has it been since your wife gave you a dirty look for no apparent reason, or you heard the words, “You never listen to me?” I rest my case…

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

Sweeping Her Off Her Feet: Making Magic in Relationships and Marriage

Do you know what it takes to really sweep a woman off her feet? Unlikely. Legend has it that it takes a mansion, cars, money, jet-setting, etc., but that is unmitigated “bovine feces” (B.S.!). Sweeping her off her feet requires nothing more than creating a special feeling – one that she will kill to keep once you create it for her – through entirely natural and fun means!

I keep getting mail from men and women that refer to “sweeping her off her feet.” It would be comical to go through what most of the men think that sweeping her off her feet entails, if it weren’t so pathetic. I’m not going to print letters from the men because I don’t want anybody being embarrassed by seeing their effort used as an example of what to avoid doing or thinking on this most sensitive of issues, but we are going to talk about it, in detail, from both sides of the issue.

In a nutshell, the guys keep asking the question, “How do I sweep her off her feet when [I’m not/I can’t/I don’t have/etc.]”

What they aren’t, but maybe could become to some degree, is dashingly sexy and handsome, rich beefcakes.

What they can’t do, at least today, is be dashing, charming, traveling with their women all day every day, shopping like there’s no tomorrow without a care for where the money comes from.

What they don’t have, at least not yet, is a few million bucks, a mansion, an island retreat, exotic car, private jet, country club membership, huge male organ (which, by the way guys, is grossly unpopular with many women because while it’s fun to look at, a 10-inch long “member“ being forced into a 4”-6” long vagina hurts like hell according to the women, at least those who have not yet had a hysterectomy to make room for it!), etc.

You know what? Not one bit of this matters!!! At least not to any woman worth having. Yes, many of these things CAN be used, because some women do respond to some degree to some of these things, but when women talk about being swept off their feet, these things aren’t what come up on their wish lists.

When women talk about being swept off their feet, they consistently mention self-confidence and sense of humor (especially a naughty – but not trashy and especially not demeaning or disrespectful -- sense of humor) more than anything else. They mention “having him know what I’m thinking,” but when questioned on this point, will eventually explain that they don’t really expect a man to be psychic, but they want a man who listens and picks up on all their signals (non-verbal stuff, like body language, as well as hints, etc.) to the extent that they can tune in to what the woman wants and even anticipate it.

They also mention a man who acts with and even defines and exercises authority by making decisions, being competent or intelligent – even an expert on something – and leading conversations, not to mention knowing how to lead a negotiation with them (yes, most conversations with women involve some sort of negotiation!) without trying to dictatorially control (bully) the conversation and outcome.

And more than half of them, believe this or not, said that they liked being grabbed, pressed up against a wall, and aggressively kissed and ravished. But there was a deviation amongst those that responded this way that means you must be very careful. A few said this scared them, some said they liked this, but liked for it to go on for a minute or two and then be left hanging so they could anticipate the finish later in the evening, while others just wanted to go for broke.

I noticed in two polls that I did early in this project that women who said this kind of sudden action scared them had also been abused or forced into sex, and described themselves as chronically insecure. The most secure of the respondents said they liked to be “pounced upon” and then left hanging, to be ravished fully later in the day or evening. (You may recall that I’ve told you that women often enjoy the anticipation of an event more than the event itself, and this is one of the things they enjoy anticipating most!!!)

You might be shocked at just how much a woman will tell you if you just ask her in a way that says that you’re genuinely interested in hearing what she has to say. And feel free to discuss this with your wife, and I do mean DISCUSS; DO NOT ask her permission. Tell her that you’ve heard about this and are curious as to what she thinks about it.

She’ll tell you how SHE’D react, because that is the question behind the question and that’s how women speak. But beware: if she says she would like or love it, use it sparingly, else you’ll spoil it for her by burning her out on it so that it bores her instead of giving her an adrenaline rush. Indeed, wait several days before doing it the first time, as she will be expecting you to do it immediately, and will love the anticipation and suspense of waiting and the adrenaline rush when it finally comes after she’s stopped thinking it’s going to happen.

This sudden ravishing is alpha male behavior that flips attraction switches like mad, causing undamaged women to go nuts with excitement and desire – the FEELING of being swept off their feet, walking on clouds being overwhelmed with anticipation of the next meeting with a man, his next smile, next touch, next authoritative statement or naughty remark, etc. Mature women who are the picture of sense and sensibility can be observed giggling like school girls when under the influence of this feeling, because it is that rare and delightful for them. It makes them feel alive like nothing else can; not just alive, but excited about being alive. It’s the extreme opposite of that dreaded curse of curses to women everywhere, “boredom.”

No matter whose advice you read or follow, read a romance novel or two to see the examples of the scenarios women fantasize about and the details these fantasies are built upon – and be smart about it by picking them off the best-seller list or asking a couple of really “girly” girls for their favorites – and tune in to the descriptions of this feeling in the characters in the books, and also pay some attention to what goes on to create that.

If this sounds like a stupid idea, think about this: If you are not invoking attraction in a woman, you are at least boring her, if not annoying the living hell out of her. Being able to sweep a woman off her feet is the second “Holy Grail” of a lasting relationship, only infinitesimally less important than a high degree of compatibility. It’s magic if you can pull it off, and guaranteed hard times if you can’t, because you will be failing to fulfill one of her most basic needs.

When you’re boring a woman you are in an inferior and adversarial position, trying to gain or regain her favor. If you were commanding an army against another army, and could read their Standard Operating Procedures manual and high-level stratagem papers to find out how they could be expected to behave in a given situation and how they could be expected to respond to a given maneuver, wouldn’t you? Sure you would! So what’s the difference, other than the obvious difference that a woman can be turned from adversary to ally much easier than a soldier?

For that matter, why do you think there are so many women subscribed to this newsletter and buying my book, “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage”? They want to know what you are being told, to know what to expect of you, if you’re smart enough to follow good advice! They also want to understand their own attraction mechanisms better, and want to identify the core of what makes some men so exciting so they might get a good one, possibly instead of the incredibly attractive losers, users, and abusers they’ve been dating in the past. Take a cue from them and get with the program! They’re a lot better at playing the relationship game than most of us are, so learn from them, especially their diligence in learning about and actively managing their relationships.

What else can I say, Gentlemen? Women are buying and reading this book, writing daily saying that it’s “spot on” and they wish their men would read it, or that they have their men reading it and it’s working for them. I have their letters to prove it. You can see a few of their testimonials in the archive at the address below and at http://www.makingherhappy.com, and download your own copy while you’re there. Several hundred of them have provided the information to create and maintain this book (can you imagine several hundred women agreeing on anything???), and their men put it to the test and confirmed it before the first copy of the book was ever sold, so if you want to sweep your partner off her feet, get your copy today, not later, because life is too short to waste it living less of a life than you could live. Never put off until tomorrow the improvements you can make today in any part of your life.

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

One of the Funniest Video Clips I Have Ever Seen

Today's lesson and feature is going to be a quickie. This is just a little on the raw side, in fact, it's what some would call toilet humor, but I just couldn't resist, especially when it might help some of you to see the "dark but funny side" of women.

I laughed until I hurt when I watched it, and then I saw some lessons for all of you.

First, you'll note some serious role-reversal, at least from the stereotypical roles. The woman is the aggressor, and the one with the "coarse" sense of humor, and the guy is the one offended by the joke and acting downright helpless. The woman is all about the fun, leading the action, and the guy is all about whatever is on the TV screen and being prim and proper.

You can also see that she's quite bored with him and trying to stir things up. And it would be safe to say that since he's being such a whiny little twit about it, the masterful maneuver at the end is his punishment for being a wuss. ;-)

Watch the first time -- or several times -- just for the sheer shock value and delight, and after you get your kicks, watch it another time or two (it's only about 43 seconds long) and study the characters, especially their body language and expressions.

You might recall a recent article in which I advised a man to not put his mother or his wife on such a pedestal because women are capable of just as much mischief and enjoy just as much naughty play and sex as men do. I really wish I had been able to post this video with that article, because it really drives home the idea and the visual of a woman letting her hair down and doing what comes natural.

That's all for today. Just a good laugh and a lesson. No sales pitch. We spend months at a time studying hard together, and today you get a break. Call it "recess" if you like. But tomorrow we're going to get back to it, so stay tuned!

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

Whom Did You Marry, a Wife or a Mother? Roles and Perceptions in Relationships and Marriage

A reader asks how I can expect him to act naughty around women when they are so “pure and virtuous and never have naughty thoughts.” No, he’s not from another planet; he’s been programmed to think that way, as a great many men have. Let’s fix this…

I sometimes get letters from men who just can’t believe that getting naughty with a woman will be well-received. They have a misconception that women are somehow “too pure and virtuous” to do things like tell dirty jokes, pass gas, or most ridiculous of all, think about or enjoy sex! Meet Juan:

Hello David.

Thank you for your e-mails. I like to read them every day. I am having a hard time with your idea that I should be “naughty” with my wife. She is a good and pure woman, just like my mother. She never swears, takes good care of our children, and goes to mass every week. How could such a woman be naughty?

Juan.

Juan, Buddy, it’s time to wake up. Going to church, raising children, and keeping her language “G-rated” has nothing whatsoever to do with how she wants to act or be treated in the bedroom, nor did it have anything to do with your mother. You’ve made the same two mistakes that almost every man alive makes to some degree:

You put your mother on a pedestal, not allowing her to be human,

You put your wife on the same pedestal when you allowed your skewed perception of your mother to define your perception of all women, especially your wife.

Think with me here for a minute, all of you. There was very little that you could get away with as teenagers, right? I mean, even if you managed to sneak out of the house without getting caught sometimes, or went somewhere other than where you told your parents, or dated somebody for awhile that you weren’t supposed to, you got questioned about all those things at some point if not all the time. Why do you think that is?

For the same reason that you do it to your own kids! You’ve “been there and done that,” and it’s high time that you realize that your parents have been there and done that too! For many people it’s difficult to accept that your parents enjoy having sex, because you don’t want to envision them having sex, but you know that you enjoy it, so why would you think that they – BOTH OF THEM – didn’t? Or don’t???

Now, take that concept a step further and a bit sideways. Unless they have been traumatically abused or have a serious hormonal problem or physical damage to their genital area, women like sex as much as men, possibly more so, because they don’t need to “recharge” between orgasms, and many don't even need the orgasm to enjoy sex. Indeed, for most women, while they enjoy orgasms, it is the intimacy of sex they really need, so while the orgasm is the purpose of sex for the man, it is merely the end of sex for most women.

They also have the same naughty streak that we have, the one that makes us like dirty jokes, talk about sex with friends, fantasize about it, masturbate, etc. If you’re treating your wife as if sex is some kind of chore or duty for her instead of something she enjoys, it’s going to be just that, a chore, or even worse, an embarrassment that she feels because she doesn’t feel that you can accept her sexuality. That’s just wrong on so many levels…

You think not? Think again. In my own life, the dirtiest jokes I’ve ever heard have been told by women; not just trashy, rough women in some dive of a bar, but classy women that you’d think were Fortune 100 executives after spending a few minutes with them. When working as a business consultant, I often overheard conversations between women that rivaled anything you’d ever see in an adult sex film, not to mention tales of gas-passing that peeled the paint from the walls and other bodily functions, and about any other “coarse” behavior you would typically think to be distinctly male until you’d seen otherwise.

Women don’t just “let it all hang out” around men for reasons that make for too long a discussion to get into here (anticipated criticism, low self-esteem, survival instinct, to name a few); most women have to be lead into naughtiness by a man to feel comfortable being naughty around him, the way many men wait to hear a woman swearing before swearing in front of her or waits for her to make the first move in sex, which are obviously bad ideas since women prefer to being lead over leading in nearly all cases.

There are differences between men and women, such as our communications methods and sophistication, that are readily recognized and overcome, but sexuality and naughtiness are not among them. We all enjoy both; the exceptions are very, VERY rare, and usually the result of some form of trauma or abuse, or some kind of sick religious or sexually bigoted oppression. Accept it, celebrate it, and you’ll both be a whole lot happier. It’s always easier to be yourself than what you think someone else wants you to be.

There’s a lot that you may not know about your partner, or women in general for that matter, that they want you to know and have probably been trying to tell you, but you’ve been either unable or unwilling to hear them. In either case, the result of such an error are fear, frustration, boredom, growing apart, fighting, wanting affairs, having affairs, getting caught in affairs, nasty divorces resulting from getting caught in affairs, celibacy, etc. Why put yourself through any of that? If you’re going through it now, there is a great way to stop it, and if you haven’t arrived there yet but realize that there is a reasonable chance that it could happen somewhere down the road, you’re far better off learning how to prevent it now than having to fix it later, right?

So what do you want to do? Are you one who prays, hopes and waits? Or one who takes action and makes things happen? If you’re one who takes action, here’s the action to take: learn how to assess yourself, your partner, and you relationship to know what needs to be done (even if exiting the relationship is the only thing you can do), how to communicate across the gender gap, and how to do that incredibly fun and sexy alpha male stuff that makes women, especially your partner, want to eat you alive. All you have to do is learn and then do what comes natural as a result of knowing; no acting, no stressing, no worrying about getting caught trying to pull something.

Life’s too short to spend it feeling and doing all those nasty things listed above that happen when a relationship starts cooling off, so don’t go through that. Go to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" right now and start getting your relationship back on track – back in honeymoon mode – right now!

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

What Do Kids Know About Building a Great Relationship and Marriage That YOU Have Forgotten?

Did you ever notice a couple of teens getting hot and heavy in a public -- or not so public -- place? Ever wish you could go back to those days? You can, if you’ll just let yourself…

Those of you who have read “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage” understand how and why a small boy knows more about attracting a female than most adult males seem to. Have you ever wondered what else you might learn from children about how to be an adult, or at least how to enjoy being one? Ask Dawn:

Dear David,

I am not sure how to word this so it does not sound like I have been spying on my daughter. The truth is at 16 I do watch her closely, probably a lot more then most parents.

There is one major thing that I have noticed about her and her new boyfriend is how they look and talk to each other. At such a young age they seem to understand many of the things you talk about better then most men who have many more years on them. It just seems so open and honest and that the attraction between the two of them is not only red hot but that it is what as an adult I want in a man.

How can it be they know at their tender age so much about attraction and all the older men I know seem to know nothing?

Dawn

My reply:

Well Dawn, it’s not what they know, it’s what they don’t know. In fact, it’s what they’ve not yet learned: inhibition! Their hormones are raging and their youth and inexperience is making the exploration of themselves and each other exciting, so once they get past the awkwardness of the invitation to the first date and get into each other, they could care less about whether they’ve gained a couple of pounds, they have a little razor stubble, whether the kids might walk through the bedroom door and catch them, what might be going on at work next week, what that noise downstairs might have been, whether the dry cleaning has been picked up, what their friends or family might be doing, or any of the other things that men and women allow to interfere with their “quality time.”

They just let go, and do what comes naturally. Granted, their hormones are pushing them hard, but that’s merely sauce for the goose. When was the last time that you tried it? You say you want that kind of heat and passion, but who’s keeping you from having it, other than yourself? Don’t worry about two pounds you gained during the holidays; when the lights are out or his eyes are closed, he’ll never be able to tell the difference, except you might feel just a little better pulled up close to him; ribs and hipbones jabbing us is a bit distracting. ;-)

I’d just as quickly chastise the men for letting things interfere with passion in this manner. “Lock the damned bedroom door, for crying out loud! Get yourself up to Alpha Male standards, fire that woman up, and get into her and let her get into you like you did when you were teenagers. Worry about what’s going on at work next week when next week gets here, or while you’re at work tomorrow morning. Unless that noise downstairs is followed by a scream, a barking animal, an alarm bell, a crash or explosion, or the sound of an adult voice cursing, it can wait until after you and your partner have enjoyed each other.”

There is no aphrodisiac in the world that will guarantee good sex tonight or tomorrow night (or in the morning!) like good sex last night! Don’t let the world put a damper on your sex life. If you need a little help turning the clock back, go to a drive-in instead of renting a DVD, or get a room in a cheap hotel, not the kind you would rent today, but the kind you rented when you were a teenager and weren’t supposed to be renting a room! Add that seedy, naughty flavor to the mix, and play up the mischief, nostalgia, and “getting away with something” angles. A covert quickie in a public place might be more enjoyable --on occasion -- than the girly dream date with candles and flower petals in the bed or on the mattress. Have fun with it – and each other!

Take care, and keep in touch,
David

Gentlemen, everywhere you look is something that can help you to revive and enhance your relationship if you know what to look for. Knowing what to look for comes from having that romantic, can-do hero’s attitude and knowing what women want. You don’t have to be young, rich, powerful, or drive a fancy car to get your wife’s attention or any other woman’s attention; you just have to be a man, a REAL man who enjoys living and leading as a man, the man she went crazy over and married.

If you want to keep her attention, you keep her guessing, not at whether you’ll be around tomorrow, or have a job next week, but at what kind of laughter and excitement you’re going to create for her today. Will it be walking into a room like you own it, telling a grand tale, or whisking her off to some fun place or activity? The choice is yours, and she expects you to make it. Indeed, quite often her mental and emotional survival DEPEND on you making it.

Women have affairs because they are bored, not because they don’t love their husbands anymore; lost love comes well after lost attraction, if it comes at all. (And for you ladies reading, the same thing is true of men!) Have you ever heard that bit, “I love you, but I’m not in love with you anymore,”? That “in love” bit is attraction, not love.

All you need to become a master of attraction and supreme boredom-fighter, the confident ultimate male who knows what women, especially his partner, want is contained in “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage,” and you procrastinate at reading and using it at your own peril. Get ahead of the curve and stay there by going to http://www.makingherhappy.com and downloading your copy right now, and bring back that passion, intimacy, and honeymoon, because life’s too short to spend it playing catch-up.

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

Don't Find Time, MAKE Time to Have a Great Relationship and Marriage

A reader asks how to find some time in a busy schedule to spend with her husband. In her case, and maybe in yours as well, finding time isn’t possible because it just isn’t there to find. When When there’s none to be found, you have to make some!

I love hearing from the women who subscribe to this newsletter as much as the men. Their questions are just as relevant and they prove that women really do want time with their men to be intimate and nurturing and to have some fun. Meet K.:

Hello David,

I have a question for you. My husband and I work together as we own our own construction company. We are together 24 hours a day, and need to find a way that we can spend time together but not as work. It seems like when we get home we are too tired to have any intimate time together and when we are at work we are AT WORK. I want to know how I can separate work from pleasure with him. We don't have much family that we can rely on to take our son, and the one's that we do have that take him are sick right now. So when we need our alone time we want it.

How can we get this?

K

My reply:

Good morning, K!

Under the constraints you’ve listed, you can’t, so you’re going to have to make some changes, at least small ones. You’re going to have to change your priorities to make that time together actually important enough to take it, and then manage your schedule so that you can, no matter what that takes. Maybe until your babysitters get well, you might have to schedule one day a week where the two of you disappear at lunchtime for an hour or longer, to an intimate lunch or a hotel or whatever, or schedule a late opening one morning so that you can have a little while at home after your child has gone to school before going to work, or something like that. How you do it isn’t important as long as it doesn’t destroy your business, but you have to schedule the time and then take the time instead of just waiting for a window to open.

I’m all about achievement and getting the job done, and this was a very hard lesson for me to learn as well; very early in my own marriage, my wife and I were both over-achievers and found ourselves in serious trouble before we realized that while we love each other dearly, we had inadvertently let our work schedules take over our lives, and had evolved from husband and wife into roommates and business partners. That was one of the problems that led to me doing the research to write "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," and one of the first problems that I put to the test group to solve.

It turned out they all had it to some degree, either with spending all their time with their jobs or their kids, and for most, just scheduling one date and one lunch per week was enough to keep them close and engaged while continuing to get things more under control, and all of them found that once the schedule was made and acknowledged, it was very easy to keep to their commitments as long as they were smart about scheduling the time, avoiding times that were common for meetings, times that were in the middle of project start-ups, times that were during peak customer flow or when they knew they would have problems getting a sitter, etc., and they always secured a sitter before planning the date – “We need a couple hours some evening this week; when would be good for you?” was the question. And when the sitter gave them a date, it was set in stone, and only an event that produced fever or lots of blood was a good excuse for breaking the babysitting engagement and spoiling the date.

This isn’t as hard as what it may sound. An hour or two per week isn’t going to make that big a difference in your business, if any, and it will make a world of difference in your life together. Just realize that you’re together for the long haul, and you should therefore try to give each other the best part of your day instead of what’s left over after everybody and everything else has worn you out all day.

Speaking of which, when you do schedule an evening date, try to keep your day-time schedule a little lighter than other days to make sure you aren’t too tired to enjoy the time together, and never let yourself think that you are too tired to enjoy some time together without at least trying it. You’d be surprised how rejuvenating a little intimate, playful time together can be, because it gets your adrenaline pumping. Sometimes a long day doesn’t create so much fatigue as it does simple frustration and depression, and some time together in celebration of a job well done and a rough work day brought to a close can be the best pick-me-up of all.

And if you’re really all that tired and need some low-energy together time, pile up together on the couch with a drink and a bowl of popcorn or anything that can be shared, sit close, clink the bottles or glasses in a toast, and just be still and relax together. No, it’s not steamy sex on a yacht or hiking in the Andes or some deep emotional discussion, but when you’re that tired at the end of a long day of over-achieving, even that quiet, mindless time spent in the intimate ritual of sharing food and entertainment is better than just crashing and forgetting about it. Do whatever you are able to do to indulge in what husbands and wives enjoy doing together.

Give this a try, and let me know if I can be of further help. You can do this.

Take care, and keep in touch!
David

A lot of couples make this mistake. They try to find time instead of making time, not realizing that when your life is in overdrive, even small amounts of time scattered through the week can make a huge difference in keeping your relationship on track, and if a couple hours a week is going to make the difference between your business folding or succeeding or the difference in you being able or unable to pay your household bills, you’ve got bigger problems than you realize and need to be finding some professional help. It’s like arguing over a nickel at the cash register; if that nickel is going to break either you or the vendor, you’re already broke.

Make the time for what’s important, and get your priorities straight. You will most likely outlive your career, your parents, and your friends by a very long time, and while you may not outlive your children, they will be moving out of your house somewhere around age 20 and you won’t be seeing that much of them after they are gone. Your partner, on the other hand, is supposed to be with you for life, right? Common sense should tell you that your partner should therefore be your first priority, and if they are not, then you need to stop and figure out whether your priorities are wrong or you’re with the wrong partner.

Finding a new job, making new friends, or even making new babies is relatively easy compared to finding a true life partner and soul mate, and if you’ve found one and lose them, that lengthens the odds of finding another somewhat, does it not? Look at your life, and get your priorities in order, and then do whatever it takes to support those priorities. Yes, it’s really that simple.

When it comes to your partner, Gentlemen, doing what it takes to keep her happy and striving to nurture and excite you is a simple matter of communications and manliness, something you aren’t taught in school, and have no hope of learning from watching television unless you’re able to home in on that tiny percentage of programming that shows men and women being men and women, and not this homogenized New Age mess of political correctness and utter wussification and victim mentality that seems to be swallowing the world.

For a tested and proven, tutorial and definitive reference on “keeping mama happy so she keeps everybody happy,” go to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage." Life’s too short to let it pass under-lived and unenjoyed, and as anybody who has ever used it will tell you, this book is “the hook-up” you’ve been looking for.

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

Is Your Intimate Behavior Killing Attraction, and Therefore Your Relationship or Marriage?

When people are together long enough to get comfortable they start doing things exclusive to their relationship, like “baby talk” and wearing sloppy or goofy-looking clothes, that might be immediately cute or novel to them, but can kill attraction deader than a rock. Sometimes they get so comfortable with it in private that they give the rest of us a dose of it, too! (Yeah, YUCK! is right!) Look for signs of this in your relationship.

I had a visit from a couple of friends, Bill and Cheryl. It was a study in “what not to do” as they say. They’ve been married for about twenty-six years, and acted SO married it almost seemed scripted to watch them. They finished each others’ sentences, ate from each others’ plates, talked “baby talk” to each other (gag!!!), and were about the shabbiest dressed wealthy couple I’ve seen in a long time.

She was in an oversized men’s sweat suit (despite the 90+ degree F. / 32+ degrees C. weather) because it was “comfortable” and wearing no makeup. He was wearing baggy cargo shorts, an over-sized graphic T-shirt, and sandals (accentuating his bow-leggedness, very knobby knees, and extremely large feet sitting below his rather robust torso, a left-over from his college days as a football player, giving him the look of some sort of cantilevered rock formation found in the deserts of the American Southwest).

Eventually she excused herself to the powder room, and I asked him how things were going, ready to bet the farm that they were comfortable and bored stiff; I would have won the bet. They had started out very into each other, having a lot of fun together, and things had cooled off quickly not long after their marriage.

They had joined that large group of couples in long-term relationships that sleep together every two months – yes, that’s a sad but true statistic, at least in North America. Adult couples in mature married relationships (two years or longer) average six sexual encounters per year. Sad, isn’t it?

These two were a textbook example of what happens when two people get too comfortable with each other. Take a close look at what they were doing. Is there anything whatsoever sexually exciting in hearing your partner talk like they are addressing a baby? Or like they are one? Not unless you’re a pedophile. “Sweet” as the girls say, maybe, but no way it’s sexy.

As for the flour-sack-esque, nearly homeless-looking attire, she might as well have been in an over-sized bathrobe with curlers in her hair and a cigarette dangling from a toothless mouth, and he might as well have been holding up a sign that said “will work for food” and looking like he hadn’t bathed in a month or two, except maybe in a bottle of cheap wine. Just makes you want to snuggle right up to one of them, doesn’t it? It's a shame, because properly dressed and groomed, they're a strikingly good-looking couple.

I also noticed that as they talked, if they weren’t doing the “baby talk,” they acted a lot more like girlfriends than husband and wife, especially the business with finishing each others’ sentences and reaching over to touch each other every time they started a sentence. Now, Bill is anything but effeminate, and when he spoke to me it was very “mano-a-mano,” and I found myself staring at him as he switched modes every time he switched between talking to me and his wife.

Don’t let this happen to you! A man and woman should communicate, freely and openly, but not in a way that kills their attraction for each other. They should be comfortable around each other, but not in ways that make you dull, sloppy, uninteresting, or project an extreme lack of self-respect.

Your partner should be the most important person in your life (other than yourself – holding your spouse as more important than yourself makes for a good romance novel, but makes for a disaster in real life) if you have a great relationship, and as such, they deserve the best in you, not the worst, the most interesting, not the most mundane. That’s how life-long love relationships are enjoyed, by keeping in mind that all other relationships are likely to be transient, and are therefore less important than this one.

Many people would shrink back in indignation or jump on a stump and start preaching at the mere suggestion that your partner be more important than even your children, and I’m not going to debate that subject with anyone; however, I will ask you to at least take a logical – yes, entirely unemotional -- look at it for a minute.

Your children come along, and you live with them day after day for eighteen years, plus or minus a year or two. Then they’re gone except for weekly visits if you’re lucky, if you are the average parent; more likely that you'll see them on holidays and when they want something.. Your partner, if you manage your relationship properly, was there before the kids, and will be there long after the kids have gone, day after day after day, “until death do us part,” right? You don’t want your adult children living with you, but you want your spouse living with you for the rest of your life, at least if you have a good marriage.

So logically, who is more important to your life’s happiness, someone who by definition (early death notwithstanding) will stick around for 18 years and be gone, or somebody who (again, early death notwithstanding) could be with you day after day for 50 years or more, if you give them a good reason to stay, like loving them, being interesting and fun to be around, sharing their values and celebrating their achievements with them? Pretty obvious, huh?

Obvious or not, and whether you accept it or not, real-world experiences bear it out. Marriage and parenthood are diametrically-opposed, and if you do not find a healthy balance point between them, one or both of them will suffer as a result. Men will probably be comfortable with this much more readily than women because of (as usual) biological factors, but everyone should think about it and come to grips with it as self-evident truth, because it helps you to at least appreciate the full significance of a commitment to a life-long relationship.

(And for any of you women who are right now thinking, “How dare he? My kids are going to come first and he can just get over it!” get this: if you make your husband take a back seat to your children or anything else, you give up your right to be upset, hurt, mad, or anything else when he chooses to let you take a back seat to something. Double standards and hypocrisy don’t work any better in relationships and marriage than they do anywhere else, so get some perspective before you make a choice that the whole family will ultimately suffer over. Put your marriage first if you want it to last a lifetime, or accept responsibility for spending your retirement years alone after alienating your husband by treating him like a second-class citizen.)

This doesn’t have to happen to you. It’s your choice, and it doesn’t take much effort. Basic awareness of the potential causes of the problem and choosing to do something other than commit one of those causes is really about all there is to it. Baby talk, men acting like girlfriends instead of men, and dressing yourself and acting in a way that does not project self-respect are only a few of the ways in which you can kill attraction dead, and knowledge is power!

Know what kills attraction, and what creates it, and use that knowledge to make one of those relationships that has you happy to be together for fifty or more years! (You wouldn’t believe the things people buy you for your fiftieth anniversary! Just kidding…) I put that knowledge together for you in “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage.” It’s there, tested, working and guaranteed. All you have to do is go to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download it, and then USE IT. It’s just that easy, and life is just that short that you don’t want to spend it being part of some miserable statistic.

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

Shopping Together As Foreplay? If Done Properly, It Can Really Boost Your Relationship and Marriage

Attraction is about flipping primal, biological switches that ignite the urge to procreate, or at least go through the motions of mating. Leadership and authority will flip them because it invokes feelings of power and protection; will shopping awaken these primal urges as well? My research and others’ says, “Oh yeah!” but it’s not retail therapy that does the trick…

Strap yourself in, because we’re going for a ride. I’ve written many times about how attraction and flirting are dying arts that are slowly being revived as desperate singles and bored couples seek out people like myself, Shelley McMurtry, John Alanis, and others and learn what it’s all about. I’ve also advised quite a few people to look back to the actions of their parents and especially grandparents, old movies, etc., for visual examples of things that they did then that most people don’t do now but are crucial for relationships. Why?

A lot of that old school, gender-stereotypical behavior that made for manly men and girly girls was obliterated in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s by idiotic ideas like “men should be sensitive instead of manly” when all women wanted was for manly men to continue to be manly men, but be a little more sensitive to things like a woman’s emotional state and her sheer dread of boredom. Incidentally, note that divorce rates began climbing exponentially through those years as well.

I was talking to my dad a few days ago and he mentioned how different things were now from when I was a child, and I asked him about what couples did for fun in the 50’s and 60’s that he no longer saw them doing. The first thing out of his mouth was a revelation: “Well, when you’re mother and I got married and until you kids were pretty much either gone or old enough to be gone, we nearly always did the grocery shopping together. Your mother would get all frisky and cuddly in the grocery store every time we’d go, even if she was ticked about something when we got there. Didn’t you notice that you kids were often put to bed a little early when we went to the store?”

No, I didn’t notice, but it sure makes sense now!

The act of hunting down and procuring food, and returning home with it is very primal, making the evening meal somewhat celebratory in a primal sort of way. He also talked about having other couples over for card games, and being accused of cheating because he and my mother were playing footsy under the table during the game and stuff like that, which was also primally attractive because of the competition and celebration involved, but I couldn’t get the grocery store thing out of my head. This had to be checked out, because my parents stayed married for 33 years and had five kids on little more than attraction; their divorce happened after deep compatibility problems finally wore them down and out. (And to this day, I don’t know if they even understand that, because they won’t talk about it, but it was there for anyone with eyes to see.)

I’ve spent several hours each day for the last few days wandering around grocery stores and lurking in the parking lot watching for couples to show up (I was accosted by one store manager who thought I was acting suspicious until I explained what I was doing, at which time he took me to the security booth and we both watched the security cameras and tapes, which was a lot of fun for both of us!), and the results were more than impressive. They were downright awe-inspiring!

Couples would come in chatting, arguing, not speaking, even obviously pissed off at each other, and none of them seemed to make it more than about three aisles before they were walking closer together, him pushing the cart and her hand in the crook of his arm, or holding hands, or her stroking and caressing his back and shoulders, and the smiles and other body language was very clear. I also recall similar experiences with the women I’ve been involved with in my adult life, and it went right over my head at the time, as it may be going right over everybody else’s heads today. I wish my grandparents were still alive today so that I could pick their brains about a lot of things; they were married for 66 years, and I’m quite sure they could have told me about a lot more of these kinds of things if they were still around.

So guys, how do you put stuff like this to work? Start by understanding the underlying elements of creating attraction: leadership, protection, mimicking primal survival behavior, decision-making, competition, etc. Now, let’s build an evening out of it.

I’d suggest starting by planning at least an evening meal, and take your partner with you to get the groceries. Take your time and have fun perusing the aisles in the grocery store instead of just rushing straight to the things you want and grabbing them. Turn on a little of that naughty charm and steal a kiss or two, a playful pinch or grope, conducted covertly and intimately, as if you’re a couple of naughty kids getting away with something.

Go home and cook dinner for her, or for her and a guest couple. If you can’t cook, stay in the kitchen with her while she cooks and lead conversation about anything, even how to do what she’s doing. Women adore it when men ask open-ended questions about anything that interests the woman or that she does competently just as much as they like asking men the same things. And I’m not talking about “chit-chat.” I’m talking about real conversation. There’s no emotion or engagement in chit-chat; it’s just a time-filler.

Continue to ramp up the fun and tension after dinner through a movie (yes, a funny one, or one that if filled with action, authority, and some mystery!) or some other activity, like a sunset walk, or if you have the other couple over, engage in something fun and competitive like parlor games or card games, and occasionally when she gets up from the table to get something for herself or the guests, get up to help or suddenly think of something you need to remind her of (don’t worry about being rude, as they may be getting caught up in the energy and wanting to steal a kiss or a grope themselves!), and push the naughty envelope a bit while you’re out of sight of the guests. That “ramp it up and draw back a bit” play builds a delightful tension that women will savor for hours, and when the guests finally leave, she’ll lock the door and probably be tearing at your clothes if you did a good job at ramping up and pulling back.

By the way, DO NOT confuse procurement of needed items with “retail therapy.” Retail therapy, the act of buying things for the thrill of the purchase with no real need or desire for some benefit of ownership, is something that people do when they are bored or suffering from some kind of self-esteem crisis, and make no mistake, it is damaging to a relationship or marriage. It creates financial strain, storage problems, and a lot of stress. Keep your shopping dates to things you know you need or have discussed and decided that you want to own and benefit from ownership, and avoid just grabbing stuff for the thrill of hearing the cash register bells; those bells are for the shopkeeper to celebrate, not you.

I’ve told you guys too many times to count that the object is not to seduce your wife, but to actively induce your wife to seduce you by leading her to her sexy side. This is how you get that done, and I shudder to think of how many such secrets our parents and grandparents took to their graves. If yours are still alive and you’re comfortable doing so, you might ask them about their dating days and the early years of their marriage. You might be surprised at how eager they are to share with you.

However, not everybody’s parents and grandparents will have been good at playing the attraction game. More men and women understood it 50 years ago, but that’s a far cry from being able to say that ALL men and women understood it fifty years ago.

Before you start pumping the older folks for the advanced techniques of their day, you really need a good command of the basics so you can distinguish between something great that can add spice to your life and a mistake that an ancestor made that will haunt generations to come if they don’t know any better than to repeat the mistake. Oops! Where do you go for that?

Glad you asked! Download your copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," where you’ll find all the basics and then some, on attraction, effective communications, evaluating and renewing relationships, and even how to gracefully end bad ones with cooperation and dignity. Yes, really! Here are a few choice excerpts from a reader letter I received today:

“...I think she is missing me more than she will admit and it’s because of the ATTRACTION that YOUR BOOK has helped me instill back in her...”

“...things are progressing back to getting the woman I love back completely...”

“...the thing I like the MOST is SHE is CALLING ME .... NOT Me calling HER...so I must be doing something RIGHT LOL...”

“...have a great day and thanks if for no other reason for making me a better man...”

This guy described himself as “the wuss from Hell” in his first letter to me, and was afraid he was too late to do anything about it; he mentioned in one of his letters that they’d been separated for a couple of years and she had told him that under no circumstances would they ever be together again, yet they’re dating, she’s chasing him, they’re getting totally intimate, and she’s fighting tooth and nail the whole way, testing him to make sure it’s not just some phony act he’s putting on and that this new man before her is here to stay.

He is, he’s getting results, and if a self-proclaimed “wuss from Hell” can have an ex of two years pulling him back into the bedroom after she declared that donkeys would fly through a frozen Hell before she’d ever sleep with him again, you have no choice but to accept that this information works, and you need to get with the program, NOW! (Right, “Michael” K.?)

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

Pleasure or Pain: More on Horseplay and "Picking" in Relationships and Marriage

One of the women takes issue with being picked on the wrong way, and rightly so. If you’re going to do it, you’d better do it the right way, or you’ll be paying for it later. Understanding our differences makes it easy to get it right…

Happy Independence Day America! Take a minute and remember what bought the liberties you enjoy today, a great many human lives over the course of two centuries, and resolve yourself to start doing a better job of protecting those freedoms before all the special interest groups end up stealing them right out from under your nose. Indeed, take a minute to read this Facebook post about what happened to the men who signed the Declaration of Independence.

It will put things back in perspective for you. And by the way, that’s my Facebook profile, so if you’d rather follow me on Facebook, just do a friend request. My daily lessons are posted there every day, along with MySpace, Twitter, WordPress, and blog.makingherhappy.com. Write to me at support@makingherhappy.com if you can’t find me on one of the above and I’ll hook you up.

And for those of you not in America, whatever freedoms you enjoy were bought with blood, too, and may be disappearing right under your nose, like the frog in the pan of cold water who won’t jump out before being boiled to death because he doesn’t notice the change. So be vigilant, and do what you can to earn more freedom instead of being disinterested, disenfranchised, and disinvolved while the disingenuous usurp control over your life.

Yesterday’s newsletter on picking and playing touched off a barrage of “Amen’s” from the women whose husbands shied away from playing, but there was one that was on a different plane that we need to discuss. Her husband tries to play, but he goes about it all wrong. Meet Gina:

Hi David,

I loved this and all of your e-mails. I wish you could get my husband to understand this. He’s constantly making mean remarks about me, thinking that he’s being funny. He demeans me in front of his friends and family, my friends, family, and coworkers, and he’s embarrassed me to tears more times than I can count. He’s a good man, attractive, very alpha male, and keeps me moving, but when he does this I could just kill him, because it really hurts.

He tells everybody I’m always late everywhere I go; it’s true. We have four kids and I have a hard time getting all of them ready to go anywhere. I have a hard time keeping my weight under control because I tend to eat more when I’m stressed, and I’m always stressed, and he’ll point out to people when I’ve gained weight or my clothes are too tight. He makes fun of me when I make any mistake, and makes it his mission to point it out to everyone for a week or more after.

I can’t get him to understand that this isn’t funny and it hurts badly, and I’ve about had all I can take of it. When I told him that, he made fun of me for being dramatic! I love him with all I have, but I’m starting to feel like a verbal punching bag and to be honest, the main reason I’m always stressed isn’t our four kids, it’s living in fear of what he’s going to say next to mortify me! Can you help?

Thanks so much,
Gina

I handled Gina’s request for help by private correspondence because there were some specific issues and instructions that I don’t want to go into here for several reasons, among them her privacy, but we do need to talk more about this.

I have a good friend who also does this, and his name is Rick. He’s an alpha male from the ground up: retired cop, now consulting in law enforcement, sharp, articulate, and one of us guys who enters a room and everybody just turns and starts moving in that direction because they can sense leadership from across the room.

He loves his “wife” (they never had a wedding, but have been together since dinosaurs roamed the Earth and regard themselves and conduct their lives as if they are married), and she both loves him and is wildly attracted to him, even after years of putting up with his sense of humor, but it is indeed a problem. He sounds just like Gina’s man, making fun of things like her weight that she is really sensitive about, and nobody, myself included, can get him to understand that he’s hurting her. He says she’s as tough as he is and that’s why he loves her.

She’s tough as nails, but she’s also a woman, and even the toughest women have their hot buttons, just like men. She lives in constant torment of loving and being attracted to a man who inadvertently hurts her every other time he opens his mouth, and I really don’t know how much more of it she’s going to be able to take.

Being tough doesn’t mean that nothing hurts; it means you go on with your life in spite of hurting, just like being brave doesn’t mean you’re never scared, it just means you do what you have to do in spite of being scared. And if something hurts too much for too long, most people will remove the cause, or remove themselves from the cause.

What’s escaping Gina’s husband, my friend Rick, and a lot of other men I know is that this is an area where men and women are fundamentally different. Men jab at each other’s vulnerabilities to play and to help each other toughen up, and to challenge each other to do something about our vulnerabilities. We poke each other in the stomach when we notice a few more cheeseburgers and beers collecting around the belt line and make a crack like “Expanding the shed to keep your tool from rusting there, Bob?” There’s no telling how many thousands of years we’ve done it, and it’s a ritual of strengthening, and bonding, a sort of intimacy that only our friends are allowed to engage in with us.

With women, it’s different. The only time you will hear a woman bring up another woman’s vulnerability to her face is if she is on the offensive. They only do it to hurt each other when they are being competitive or vindictive, and it hurts them badly when we do this. They may even try to excuse it as just us being us, but there’s that subconscious link to their communications infrastructure that still eats at them as if we had been a woman when we said something about their weight, or their feet, or a mole, or a gray root on a hair. It’s rejection, or an attack, not a joke, in their book.

In our world, any minor flaw is something to rib your buddy about; in their world, it’s ammunition for the big guns. For us, mentioning our flaws is like a slap on the back and gets a laugh, while in theirs, it’s a slap in the face. That’s why I’ve said in previous newsletter that you can only say something in that kind of play if it’s plainly an exaggeration, like telling her she has a big butt if she has a very skinny butt and knows it, or call her “Bigfoot” when she has tiny feet, something so absurd as to be obviously a joke. Once you’ve established that baseline, you can push the envelope a VERY little at a time and gently find out where her limits are, and then push the envelope a bit, but start in the safe zone so that everybody has fun.

We’re alike in many ways, and it often deceives us into thinking that we are alike in ways that we are entirely different, even opposite. It is these deceptive differences that make us unwittingly hurt each other when hurting each other is among those things that we indeed NEVER want to do.

Not knowing about them – simple ignorance – is very treatable; it takes only a little knowledge. Not caring about our differences and not trying to learn about them and avoid hurting each other with them – apathy – is also treatable, but it takes more drastic measures, like a pitcher of ice water on the crotch, an iron skillet to the head, or in extreme cases, a divorce, or even a bullet or worse; Google “Lorena Bobbitt” if you need an example.

The question you have to ask yourself is which ailment do you have, ignorance or apathy, and how is your ailment going to be treated?

I’m going out on a limb here, but I’m going to guess that if you didn’t care, you wouldn’t be reading this, so we’re going to treat ignorance. That’s easy, fun, and dirt cheap. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you can thank me later… LOL! If you’re here looking for validation of your mistakes instead of a fix for your problems, that’s not going to happen here. There are a bunch of people calling themselves a “support group” somewhere waiting for you with open arms and a big ol’ sob story just like yours if that’s what you’re after. (Yes, I know there are legitimate support groups who really help people, too, and so does everybody else, so hold the hate mail if you’re in one of them.)

For right now, just concern yourself with getting the knowledge to fix this condition, and any others you may have, into your head and into practice, while your problems are still easy to fix. You can do it when they get hard, too, but it takes longer and everybody hurts a lot more in the meantime. Taking care of it NOW is your best bet.

If you’re smart enough to see that, and want to fix your problems before they get any worse, and even go on to make everything better than it’s ever been, start by going to http://www.makingherhappy.com/ and downloading your copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," and you’ll see what those before you have already found: it’s solid, tested, proven knowledge and advice, and if you can put your pants on in the morning instead of offering them to a passer-by, you can do what needs to be done and enjoy it, for the rest of your life.

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

What to Do When She's "Mean" to You: Horseplay and "Picking" in Relationships and Marriage

Men frequently write to me complaining that their wives pick at them, needle them, push them to do things they don’t want to do, etc. How are you supposed to handle this? The answer might surprise you…

I get a lot of letters like the following, and I’ve addressed the issue in "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," but the frequency of these letters is scary. There are too many men who don’t recognize what this issue really is and how to deal with it, and families are literally coming apart at the seams because of this simple misunderstanding. Meet Jeff:

Hello David,

I need help. I haven’t yet read your book but I’ve been reading your newsletters for awhile and I think you can tell me this. My wife has picked up a bad habit of picking on me, making fun of me, being a smart-ass in front of our friends, etc. It’s really abrasive and embarrassing, and getting worse by the day. The more I ask her to stop, the more she does it, like she’s trying to push me into a fight. How can I stop it?

Thanks,
Jeff

Well Jeff, you slacking cheapskate, if you’d read my book you’d know! Just kidding! LOL! Seriously, she’s not trying to start a fight at all. She’s trying to get you to play with her! You’re boring her to tears, and she’s trying to bring you out of your shell.

Women like challenge, and they like a man to act like he “has a pair.” She’s challenging you to a verbal “joust” to have some fun. What she’s expecting from you is that you pick back at her, not in a mean, nasty, insulting way, but in that fun, naughty, pranksterish way as you probably cut up with your friends, at least at first, escalating it to get into chasing, tickling, playful pinching or spanking – you know, that kid stuff that you used to do when you drove her wild!

What’s happening now is that she’s trying harder and harder to provoke you into showing that you have reproductive glands and a sense of humor, which is effect punishment for not doing so all along. If you don’t do it, you’ll find her losing interest in you pretty soon, so you’d better be finding your sense of humor, fast.

And we are talking about humor here, no matter how pissy you might think she’s being. If she makes a smart crack about your big feet, make a smart crack about something that obviously IS NOT a problem; i.e., only make a remark about her big butt if she DOES NOT have a big butt and doesn’t obsess about having one. Find something to exaggerate to crack wise about so that it’s obvious that you’re playing, else you may strike a nerve and end up starting a fight while trying to play.

I cannot overstress how you need to exercise a little sensitivity here. If she stubs her toe and is limping around but not seriously injured or embarrassed about the accident, then calling her “gimpy” is fair game, but if she is crippled, or if there was something embarrassing about the injury, like she was in a public place, stubbed her toe and ended up dumping a cup of coffee on a white blouse in front of her boss because of it, “gimpy” is off limits, at least until you see that she’s over the embarrassment, which will usually be if and when you see her smile or laugh a bit when talking about it with a girlfriend. The idea is to be obviously fun with your picking to give her a giggle and demonstrate that you are a playful guy, not some wuss who can’t take a joke and is afraid to dish one out for her or a jerk who is retaliating and being a mean bully instead of going along with the joke.

Women don’t really want that much from us, Gents. It’s just that what they want is stuff that almost nobody is teaching these days, as we talked about with the Superman example yesterday; they’re politically incorrect for wanting it, and we’re politically incorrect for giving it to them. However, I am teaching it, after learning it from some gurus before me and adapting and expanding that by working with several hundred married women and their husbands, and I’ll teach you if you want to learn. Screw political correctness. It wasn’t in my wedding vows; was it in yours?

So how about it? Are you ready to learn what may turn out to be the most valuable lessons of your life? Remember all those jokes you cracked about nobody ever being able to understand women, or know what they want, or what they’re saying, or how to pass all those damnable tests and traps they’re always laying for us? I could give you the old “be the first kid on your block to own it” spiel, but it doesn’t really matter if you’re first. What matters is that you’re successful, as quickly as you can get there.

The quickest path to lasting success in your relationship is to go to http://www.makingherhappy.com/ and download your copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," and then just reading it and putting it to work. You’ll not find too many opportunities where you can have so much fun being so successful, if you find any at all like this one, so get busy.

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

Things She Does When You're Not Around: Understanding Separation Behavior in Relationships and Marriage

Women do things when their men aren’t around that may seem strange, or even annoying, until you realize what they are really doing and why they’re doing it. Here’s a big clue…

Gents (and Dames), I hope you’re having a great day. Have you ever left town to come home and find little weird things around the house, like your pillow on her side of the bed, or one of your shirts tucked under her pillow, your wedding picture album that usually lives in the top of the closet laying out somewhere, etc.? Well, if you lucky, you have, and you’re about to find out why you’re lucky because Troy asked about it. Check him out:

Dear David,

I have been married for several years now and I have to say that last year I was really at a loss for what had gone wrong with our marriage. It seemed like we just were not on the same page anymore and I was not sure if I was to blame or if she had changed her mind about living her life out with me. A close friend suggested to me that I should read your newsletters and see if your book was right for the problems I was going through. I liked what I read so I did purchase your book and seemed to get things right on track in just a few weeks of working things out with my beautiful wife.

However, there is one thing that is driving me totally insane with this woman. My job requires me to travel and the time I am gone varies from job to job. The thing that bugs me is that when I come home from a job I cannot wait to get out of my suit and tie and put on my favorite lounging shirt and jeans. The past few times I have come home instead of my shirt being washed and ready for me to wear I have found it under my wife's pillow or next to her in bed. I am not sure what I should say to her much less if I should mention that the sheets on the bed are the same ones that were on it when I left, sometimes weeks ago. I do not think she is lazy and just lies around when I am not home, but why would she not have the laundry done and things ready for me when I get home?

Please understand that I am in no way saying that I think that she is the only one that should have to do the laundry or anything like that. I am just at a loss as to why my shirt would be under her pillow or the sheets would not have been changed after a few weeks. Could you shed some light on this for me? Asking her about it is maddening. She will just smile and say “oh I will take care of that right now since you are home.” What does she mean by that remark?

Thanks,
Troy

My reply:

Troy, Buddy, what she means is “Shut up and count your blessings.” Actually that’s not what she means, but that’s what I wish she would tell you. You’re a smart guy, you’ve read “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage,” so you know about how women act when they are under the influence of attraction, and about “treasure boxes” and how they hoard things that remind them of you to help them get through missing you or get over being mad at you or suspicious of you. You know that her sense of smell is likely to be four times as strong as your own. Put two and two together!

She has your shirt in the bed and isn’t changing the sheets because they smell like you! Hence, they invoke memories of you! The shirt reminds her of things you do together outside the bedroom, and the smell of you on the sheets and your pillowcase (which she is probably sleeping on while you’re gone if your pillow is similar to hers, or hugging it as she sleeps if it is not) reminds her of the cuddling, snuggling, mumbling in your sleep, copious quantities of gratuitous sex, etc., that happen in your bed. Get over yourself quick, Slick, because the other option is for her to be seeking her attraction thrills with someone else instead of the memory of you!

That’s right! If she’s sleeping on sheets the two of you have sweated on together, on your pillow, with your shirt, looking at your wedding pictures, etc., while you’re gone, she’s helping herself to keep feeling her attraction for you while you’re not there. Don’t drive her nuts asking questions and bitching about it; HELP HER! “Sex her up good” the night or morning before you leave to make sure the sheets are to her liking.

Make sure you wear something soft and comfortable the evening before you leave, like a flannel shirt, soft cotton sweat shirt or T-shirt, etc. – something made of natural fibers and very soft for her face to touch. Make sure that you don’t foul it up by getting motor oil, salad dressing (especially a pungent one like a garlic-flavored vinaigrette or something with bleu cheese), marinara sauce (garlic and onion), etc. – something that would both stain the shirt if not laundered immediately and spoil the smell of you on it if she decided to sacrifice the shirt anyway.

And, most of all, make sure you follow the advice in my book about little “gifts” that can be stored in her treasure box and brought out when you’re not around. (Yes, the rest of you are going to have to read the book to find out what they are!)

Attraction is such a powerful force that you don’t even have to be around for her to be enjoying it, as long as you leave sufficient “triggers” in her possession to help her feel it when you leave. What’s cool is that doing so takes little to no effort, and everything that you do to help bring this about is fun! Of all the things I have learned about creating attraction from all the women who have helped me to learn about it, the one overwhelming truth is that the life a man leads and the things that living that life causes him to do to create attraction for a woman are often as fun as the “rewards” of creating attraction for her. They are things that real men enjoy doing every day of their lives instead of wussing and fretting and worrying like girly-men.

Take care, and keep in touch,
David

Some day I’d love to throw a big party and have all the couples who have used my work to better their lives share their stories with those of you who have not just to see the awed and amazed looks on your faces as these people describe how much fun they had during the process and how much fun it made their lives outside their relationships as well, because bringing your relationship and marriage up to where it should be changes you, both of you, and your children as well. It makes the whole household get along better, have better communications skills, less stress, more confidence, a more active imagination and sense of humor, and gives you a kind of satisfaction and inner peace that cannot come from any other source but a happy family.

So are you going to jump over to http://www.makingherhappy.com/, download your copy of “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage,” and start down that path to a truly happy family, or are you going to just sit there on the fence asking stupid questions like “Can I do this?” and “What if it doesn’t work for me?” You can do it (people of less intelligence than yours have been doing it for centuries), and it will work for you, so go ahead, make YOUR day.

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

What Happens When Women Don't Get What They Really Want in Relationships and Marriage

In case you might be thinking that everything at home, while mundane and boring, is really going okay, take a look at what may be happening behind your back if you failed to listen when you had the opportunity…

You might remember in the June 20, 2009 edition, my buddy “Rick” sent us something that one of the ladies on his dating site had sent him, which demonstrated perfectly how women want a real man. Well, he’s sent me another, and this one is equally revealing, as you will see:

Hey David,

Thank you so much for featuring my email in your newsletter. It's an honor and a privilege to help get the truth out.

Please accept the following as a symbol of my appreciation as well as education for your readers:

I had another woman look at my online profile. What makes this one different is that she's a not-so-happily MARRIED woman. Look at how she describes herself:

"I am a mother of two small children and a wife of 6 years. Hubby acts like he is not interested in me because he is always online when he is not at work. I enjoy reading, cooking, baking and spending time with my children. I also enjoy the few private times I have with hubby."

As bleak as this looks, this is a double feature. Now look at what she wants from a man (you may have to edit this!):

"I am looking for someone who will make me feel as if I am a woman and not just a mother and housewife. I would like to find someone who will make me blush and get all hot and wet at the same time. Someone who will help me find out what really turns me on and who is willing to quench the flames of a horny and over-sexed woman. I am at the age where hubby can not keep up with me and my demands...Can you?"

Looks like she wants an Alpha Male to me! David, this is a textbook example of what you said about how a woman feels, and what she'll do if she gets bored and loses her attraction. As you know all to well, this happens a lot more than it should. The overriding lesson here is the same in your daily newsletters: be a MAN, and learn how to satisfy your woman! If you don't you'll pay a heavy price down the road. This is about a lot more than just sex, this is your life! Make the most of it.

Thanks again, and keep spreading the truth.

Sincerely,

Rick

Any questions? I have a few! Starting with “Do you think this woman’s husband has any idea that she’s advertising on a public web site saying that she wants the attention of another man because he ignores her for his computer and can’t keep up sexually?

How many times do you think she tried to tell him it was coming to this and he either didn’t understand or didn’t take her seriously?

And when she succeeds in finding someone else and he finds out about it, who will he blame?

And then what will happen?

Gentlemen, every woman reading this today will vouch for every word I’m telling you. If you’re spending all your free time with your computer, your car, your job, your buddies, or anything else and she’s not getting any of it, she’s not happy. And if she’s not saying anything to you about it, she’s tired of being ignored and has given up. She’ll be looking soon if she isn’t already.

What’s that? You don’t ignore her? Well, if most of your time is spent without her, I beg to differ, but even if you don’t, she may be feeling ignored because she’s tried to tell you that something was missing and you didn’t get it.

No, she wouldn’t just come out and say, “Something’s missing and I’m not happy.” Women don’t do that. She would have ASKED, “Are you happy with the way things are between us?” or something along those lines, which for a woman is more of a statement than a question. And if you assumed it was only a question and just said, “yes,” without asking her if SHE was happy, you just shut her down and ignored her without even knowing it.

That’s one of a thousand pitfalls that can lead to affairs and divorce; a missed signal, a misunderstood look, phrase, or protocol, a question taken as a question instead of the statement made by asking the question, for example, are all very small things with a very big and very negative impact to a relationship or marriage.

But how would you know? Or her? Neither of you are born knowing that men and women use the same words to communicate but use them in entirely different ways with very different protocols. And there are not many people around who have figured this out, and of the few of us who have, very few of that number have ever written it down and offered it to the public. Of the few of those who exist today, and I’m talking about a scant handful, most offer a bunch of opinion and theory without having ever really tested their advice on a large scale.

So the information supply is small, the majority unreliable, and most people, especially men, don’t even know they need it. I recently read a statement by a professional counselor, directed at me, stating that he thought that deception was the basis of a good relationship, because in lying to his wife he had made up for her disrespecting him. Can you imagine?

I know some of you who frequent a particular anti-divorce web site have seen it, too. He’s the same one who says I can’t be an effective or competent counselor because I give SPECIFIC advice instead of the nebulous vagaries he and his peers use to run up a bill. I'll put my success record up against his or anybody else's any day. And yet our species continues to multiply. It’s just that the divorce rate continues to increase faster than the population size.

So let’s get back to you. Do you know what your wife is doing when she’s on the computer and you’re not around? Do you know what she’s doing when she’s out of the house and you’re not around? I know exactly what mine is doing at all times. She’s looking forward to being with me! And if you’ll ask any of my readers who haven’t found themselves faced with gross incompatibility problems and had to leave a bad marriage that couldn’t be fixed, you’ll find that they will give you the same answer.

So what can you divine from that? Two things. First, that my book will help you determine whether you are in the right or wrong marriage, and second, if you’re in the right one, it will help you make it better than it’s ever been and you’ll always know what your wife is doing every minute that she’s away from you, looking forward to the next time she’s with you, not looking for someone else to fill the void that you have left.

Where do you start? Start at http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy of "THE Man's Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage." Read it. See where you’ve made mistakes and then take the information provided and fix them. And then watch what happens as you and your wife start looking forward to every minute you spend together. It’s a feeling like no other.

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

Too Much of a Good Thing Kills a Woman's Pleasure, and Hence Your Relationship and Marriage

Too much of a good thing gets boring, especially for women, who generally have a very low tolerance for routine, especially in their love life. Have you made any of these classic mistakes?

What a lovely day this has turned out to be! There are some days when just being competent and attentive are enough to get everything done, and this is looking like it will be one of them. I hope yours goes as well!

I get a lot of letters every day from readers about their problems and successes, and amongst the problem letters are a few common threads, the biggest of which seems to be female boredom. It permeates every situation in some manner, especially those where the man thinks that everything is going well until the very moment he gets slapped with divorce papers and when, in his shock, he asks, “I thought everything was fine! What’s this about?” he hears the words, “See! YOU NEVER LISTEN TO ME!”

What happened?

She’s bored to tears, tried to tell him in what she thinks is the most verbose means possible (which unfortunately often means that she rolls her eyes with her back turned to him or has asked him if he would like to do something different instead of TELLING him that SHE NEEDS to do something different – we’ll touch on that again in one of the upcoming issues on inter-gender communications, but it’s covered in detail in “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage”), and being a man with the male, typically limited communications structure we are born with, he didn’t pick up on the complaint, and she got fed up.

That’s what caused the divorce threat (which incidentally, may be only a wake-up call, which you can determine immediately if you know what to look for, which is also discussed in “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage”), but what caused the root problem, the boredom itself?

Whoa! Did you think about that when you read it? The threat of a break-up or a divorce is a problem, but in the bigger picture, it’s merely a very revealing symptom of a bigger problem, and stopping the divorce is only a temporary stay of execution, not a problem solution. Getting the relationship back on track requires fixing the problem(s) that got you to the stage of the divorce threat.

Getting back to the boredom problem, as men, we like a simple life. We don’t mind routine nearly as much as women because for us, a neutral (neither perilous nor exciting) environment means the absence of problems, and that’s a big plus; we’ll take a little excitement when we can get it too, but we’re happy to just be outside the reach of problems for a day. Our emotional scale is such that negative emotion is on one end and positive emotion is on the other end,