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than different when you can see the whole woman without the blinders that Hollywood, traditions (especially religious), outdated ideas of etiquette, etc., can impose.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 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 some 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. She runs away because she wants, or even NEEDS to be caught, to feel the rush of passion and of being wanted.

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

Sex As a Weapon in Relationships and Marriage, Part 2: The Tail Swings Both Ways

A woman writes to remind us that women aren’t the only ones who use sex as a weapon, and that it’s just as catastrophic when a man makes this mistake.

Before we get into today’s lesson, I have a few announcements. First, I am attending a reunion of my military unit this weekend, and may not be able to post a newsletter edition or two. So don’t worry if you miss one; it’s me, not you.

Second, after a false start with inadequately-appointed software, the forum is coming along nicely. It is going to become the new center of activity for all of us, although I will continue to distribute my newsletter and echo it through blog posts. The envisioned purpose and operation of the forum is still evolving, so if you have suggestions, please write. There will be both free and premium features and areas, and there should be something for everyone.

Ladies, you will have free access to all features and areas, in exchange for your participation in helping the men to understand the female perspective, communications issues, etc. You will find it both educational and entertaining, and it will be worth your while to participate. And now for today’s lesson…

Gentlemen, I hope you realize how privileged you are to have access to the experience and input of the women on my mailing list. They frequently provide extremely valuable insight anonymously, to you as a stranger, that you can bet you would not hear from a woman you know. Take full advantage of this and use it to make your life and relationship better, because their knowledge and experience has been paid for with pain, embarrassment, frustration, etc., and you can bet that they don’t have an easy time reliving bad times to help you out.

I can certainly vouch for that in this case. This reader is a close friend of many years, single after two bad marriages to two bad men who on the outside would appear to be good men, or at least “the average Joe.” Meet my friend Elizabeth:

Dear David,

I read your newsletter today about women holding out in order to get something from their men. I wanted to tell you that the converse is equally true and just as revolting.

When I was married to a fairly wealthy doctor, I distinctly remember one Christmas party event (we had a buffet party for 45 persons each Christmas) where my husband gave me $500 to go to the mall and pick out a couple of new dresses for the party. He said that I had been working so hard preparing for the party (I did all the cooking) that I deserved something nice to wear to it.

I came home with two beautiful dresses and did wear one to the party that evening and received several nice comments on it, to which I told the story about my wonderful husband giving me money to buy the dress because of my hard work for the party, etc., etc. Everyone thought he was so great.
That night, after cleaning up the kitchen and house, I collapsed in bed, exhausted, and he wanted to start messing around. I told him that I was totally bushed and wanted to just get some sleep to which he replied, "didn't I get you two really nice dresses today?"

It has been twenty four years and I still remember how small and insignificant that question made me feel. I called him on it saying that I didn't realize that I had to repay him for my dresses with my body, to which he immediately backed down, but the comment stuck, and it was hurtful and demeaning.

Here I thought that I was making love when, in fact, I was repaying with sex any nice things my husband did for me. The marriage ended about two years after that incident and after many more similar situations, but please tell your readers that we don't want to pay for things that you give us with our bodies any more than you want us to withhold from you until we get what we want!

The tail swings both ways.

Sincerely,
Thanks, but no thanks

Think about that long and hard, guys. The way to make a woman love you and feel attraction for you is not to make her feel like a common prostitute who should trade her body for whatever it is that you have – or think you have – given her. It’s true that every exchange in a good relationship should be in trade, not in sacrifice, but trades should be “like kind swaps,” as the Internal Revenue Service likes to call it; love for love, nurturing for nurturing, trust for trust, respect for respect, good sex for good sex, etc., not lopsided arrangements that cheapen the traders as well as whatever is being traded.

Sex is the strangest weapon in existence. It’s devastating, yet no real victory can ever be won by using it; in any contest where it is deployed, everybody loses. Used properly, sex is not a weapon at all, but a celebration of life, living, love, and achievement. Used as a weapon, everybody loses.

Besides, if you’re doing what you should be doing and firing those automatic attraction triggers with leadership, authority, humor, mystery, adventure, etc., you don’t need any kind of “weapon” to have all the sex you want, and have your girlfriend or wife jumping on you to have it. And when every man is born to behave that way, why in the world would you use such a self-destructive tactic in the first place? All it takes is knowing a few things about women and yourself that you don’t know yet.

You may recall my favorite quote of Sigmund Freud, “The great question, which I have not been able to answer, is, ‘What does a woman want?’” It is a great question, maybe the greatest of all, and with the help of a few hundred women, I’ve answered it, and that answer can be yours in a few mouse clicks and keystrokes for little more than the asking.

So get ready to know what Freud never figured out and live the life you always thought being married should be about! Go to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy of "THE Man's Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" and get started.

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

Don't Air Your Dirty Laundry in Public If You Want to Keep Your Relationship or Marriage

Problems at home can be so frustrating that you want to vent them outside the home. Don’t do it, unless of course you like the idea of sleeping alone…

We’re going to do something just a bit different today. I usually write primarily to and for the benefit of the men, occasionally throwing in something that the women reading will also find useful or at least amusing, but today I’m speaking to everyone equally, and I hope that the majority of you will have at least one person to whom you can forward this little wake-up call to help them stop making this really big mistake. It’s not just an attraction-killer, it’s a relationship-killer, as sure as the sun rises in the east every morning. It’s also a symptom of a pretty big problem, much bigger than the one being voiced when this happens, as you will see.

One of the two couples who live next door to me are an elderly couple who married late in life, and for the life of me, I don’t know why they got married or have remained married. They don’t even like each other, let alone love each other, and don’t seem to need each other either, unless it’s simply in the capacity of having someone available to call for an ambulance if they collapse from a heart attack or something. They seemed okay when I first met them several years ago, but either their relationship has steadily declined or they have become less concerned with keeping their problems private, and they are now constantly at each other’s throat whenever I visit them or see them away from their home in a public place.

The main problem seems to have started because they don’t communicate very well. They’re both head-strong, and neither are good listeners, but people manage to live like that for fifty years or longer without the kind of malicious behavior I see these two engaged in regularly. So what’s continuing to escalate the hostilities?

Every time I talk to either of them, they are demeaning and insulting the other, and even worse, wanting me to validate their insults and other behavior, and they both know this is going on, so when I see the two of them together, it’s like a competition to see which of them can say the nastiest things about the other to me and another competition to see who can defend themselves against whatever insults they suspect have been dealt in their absence. Hence, they’re both hurt, mad, and frustrated all the time, and quite paranoid about what is being said about them while they aren’t present to defend themselves.

I remember the day it started like it was yesterday. The man and I were standing in my front yard talking about grass seed, fertilizer, weed killer, etc., as our lawns had not fared well through the winter, and she drove up, having been out shopping. He had remarked to me earlier that she was out and he’d had to give her all his cash because they were out of checks and they had cut up all their credit cards, much more personal information than I would have ever been comfortable hearing from a neighbor. He went on to say that he hoped she’d not spent all his cash while she was out because the home center where he was going to buy fertilizer and seed was only a little over a mile from our homes but his closest credit union branch was across town and he didn’t want to have to drive that far out of the way to get more cash. When she got out of the car, he said, “Well, I’d better go see if I have any money left,” and she heard him. Most unfortunate…

She exploded! “What are you doing telling our neighbor that I spend all your money all the time??? What else are you saying about me behind my back???” she yelled. That one remark, taken almost entirely out of context, caused an explosion, the shockwave from which is still tearing their relationship down and the fallout from which has not begun to settle, several years later. What do you think happened next?

You guessed it! She found occasion later that day to come over to my house to defend herself, and make a few nasty remarks about him in retaliation. He walks up quietly behind her while she’s railing about him using her good towels (“the show towels”) and messing up the kitchen, stands listening for several minutes before clearing his throat to let her know that she’s busted, and then says, “And you had the nerve to jump on me about talking behind your back???” War was at that moment declared.

Since that time, they’ve thrown each other out of the house regularly; every other week I’m outside getting the mail or something and hear, “Why don’t you just pack your s**t an get out?!” and they’ve become the two unhappiest people I know; combatants seemingly locked in a duel to the death to see who can get in the last and worst word about the other.

The lesson? Keep your problems to yourself, especially your relationship problems, and don’t succumb to the temptation of verbally bashing your partner, whether in front of them or not.

Ladies, I know that is a particularly hard pill for you to swallow, but face it, if there’s a problem between you and your man, it’s between you and your man, not between your man and your fourteen girlfriends with you acting as the mediator. You know as well as I do that your girlfriends will most often say either whatever they think you want to hear or whatever they think will keep you upset so they can continue to feed on your emotion, and that’s okay when you’re discussing a television show or a party that didn’t work out well, but don’t take chances on screwing up your relationship or marriage by inviting your girlfriends into your intimate life. You never know which of them has secretly wanted your husband since she met him and might take the opportunity to drive a wedge that will help her get him, right?

Nor do you know which of them is competitive and jealous of your relationship and secretly watching for a way to help you become as miserable as she is, do you? Or what about the one who wants to break up your relationship or marriage because she wants more time with you? Or doesn’t like your husband and thinks she knows what’s best for you better than you do?

I know you’re driven to share and commiserate, but the stakes are too high when it comes to marital issues to risk having someone say something to you to manipulate your emotions or sabotage your relationship under the guise of helping you. And before you say, “Oh, my friends would NEVER do that, that’s what every woman I’ve interview on the subject has said before or while her friend did EXACTLY that.

And guys, even though we’re generally not as socially-oriented as women, there are still times when you’re sitting in the bar, the barber’s chair, a coworker’s office or the break room, etc., during which you might be sorely tempted to vent as well. For some of you it’s like some kind of bonding experience. Don’t do it. Nothing good can come of it. Be a man, and deal with the problem at its source, and don’t wait for your partner to take the lead. That’s your job, and if you can’t do it, there are others who can. And you can bet she knows where to start looking for them and has plenty of time to do so while you’re out with your friends bitching about her instead of being at home fixing your marriage.

And do I need to remind either gender that anything you say can eventually make it back to your partner or spouse? Would you care to guess how that news will be received and the damage that will be done?

If you have a problem with your partner, you need to be at home fixing it, not bitching about it to someone outside your family. The person you need to be talking with is your partner, not your bowling buddy, your drinking buddy, your girlfriend, your hairdresser, or anybody else, other than maybe a professional counselor if the two of you can’t work it out on your own. The likelihood of anyone else being able to give you much appropriate and competent input is very slim at best, unless that person’s own marriage is such a shining example of a truly great marriage that they’re a bona fide expert, and that’s going to be hard to know if they are keeping private things private like they should. You never know what really goes on behind closed doors.

Look at what usually happens in such a situation, attacks bring defensive action and then counter-attacks, and then the feud has started and isn’t going to go quietly into the night. The fastest way on Earth to escalate such a feud is to bring the outside world into it, especially by trashing your partner in front of his or her friends. It’s embarrassing, demeaning, even humiliating, and if you think trying to take back something you’ve said in anger to your partner is hard to take back, trying taking something back that you’ve said to or in front of your partner’s friend or coworker, or to anyone who lets something you said get back to her.

Treat each other with respect. If some of your friends start trashing their partners or your partner’s gender in general, try to break the momentum quickly by saying something positive about your partner, especially if they are standing there listening, before your partner has too much time to wonder if you’re thinking the same thing about them. When you show each other that kind of respect and support instead of publicly airing your dirty laundry, you will be more willing and able to work your problems out peacefully, and will try harder to work them out before they become a heated debate or a fight that you’ll later regret. It creates trust, which is crucial in any problem-solving operation, not to mention a secure relationship or marriage.

There is nothing about heated conflict that is good for a relationship. If you’re in one of those relationships where you’re constantly at the extremes, either fighting or in bed together, you need to take a good hard look at your relationship, your life’s desires, yourself, and your partner. I can tell you what you’ll find: a relationship that is based on attraction or need, not compatibility and love coupled with attraction. Lacking anything in common, your life together is one contest or conflict after another, one fight after another, and the only part left to enjoy, or escape to, is the sex. That’s no way to live, and you can both do a lot better.

Good relationships that last require being well-matched to your partner, communicating effectively, and keeping the fun and attraction level up to the point that you enjoy living your life and living with each other. That sounds difficult because you see so few couples doing it successfully in the long-term these days, but it’s not. The reason that you don’t see it often isn’t because it’s hard; it’s because very few remember how or ever learned how. “Knowledge is power” became a cliché because it was universally true, not universally false, right?

Opinions are like bowels; everybody has one, and they are usually full of crap. Real, factual knowledge IS power, the power to create a great relationship and the power to fix one that you started but has become stale and boring over the years, as well as the power to take one that is going fairly well and kick it up to notches unknown to humankind! That knowledge is contained in “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage,” and if you don’t have your copy, get over to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download it right now, because you’re missing out on a better life. Life’s too short as it is, without wasting it in a bad relationship that could be improved or replaced, so get to work!

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

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

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

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

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

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

I’m not like most of today’s “relationship guru’s.” I won’t tell you that all relationships can or should be salvaged, and have no respect for those who would. That’s why you’ll find the list of other relationship gurus I do respect and endorse very short. I maintain a list of those who have been recommended to me by my readers in this newsletter and in the margin on my main blog at http://blog.makingherhappy.com/ and those are the only others offering advice on the emotions and issues of relationships that I would have any of you read, because they do embrace this self-evident truth instead of trying to convince you to buy what they are selling to have you save that which should not be and ultimately cannot be saved, playing on your emotions to sell something that won’t help.

Notice that’s a very short list of resources taken from a very large pool of authors. Sad, isn’t it? And by the way, feel free to help me add to it by letting me know if you have had a positive result with any product. Word-of-mouth isn’t just the best advertising; it’s also the best way of weeding out the charlatans and bad ideas that sound good “on paper” but don’t work in the real world.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Contrary to how it often appears, relationships and marriages very seldom fail after ten or twenty years or more. What really happens is that they fail at their inception due to bad choices and that failure isn’t conceded until years later, when every option has been exhausted, there is no longer anything to hide behind (like children), and both partners have become miserable spending so much time and effort trying and failing. If you have a good foundation for a relationship, it’s not hard to tell; there’s little if anything fundamental and significant that you’d want to change about your partner, such as their values, political leanings, etc. You can talk and get along, and have probably just become a bit bored because attraction is waning. That’s fixable.

But…

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

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

There you have it, the dark side of relationships and marriage. It is my sincere desire that you never have to go through a break-up, and that if worse comes to worst and you do have to go through one, that you can get through it with your dignity (and assets) intact and help each other to move on to a better life with someone better matched to yourselves by understanding what it is that you’re fighting: the basic human tendency to try to make the best of even the worst situation, no matter how inappropriate or even self-destructive it might be, not each other.

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

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

Holiday Parties: How They Can Make or Break a Relationship or Marriage

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

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

Hi David,

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

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

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

Johnson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Don't Let Hot Buttons Make You Lose Perspective, or Your Relationship or Marriage

Watch out for somebody pressing one of your “hot buttons,” and for you pressing somebody else’s as well. Whether inadvertent or intentional, the fallout can wreck a relationship quickly, and even permanently, and when it hits, it will likely come out of nowhere, so know what to do before it happens…

I started my day today with a big cup of coffee and my e-mail, and found the following letter, which would have been funny if it hadn’t been so profoundly wrong and out of character, but there’s a very good lesson in it for you, so hang with me, because you’ll definitely find that it’s worth it. Meet Carol:
David,

You and people like you make me sick! All you can talk about is how to pick up and sed’uce a woman, or how to manipulate her to get what you want out of her, like we’re all stupid and can be led around by the nose like cattle. It’s no wonder women can’t get any respect these days. Thanks for being yet another a**hole helping men to screw up my life. I really feel sorry for your wife.

Carol

In every one of my newsletters is a link to the archive of everything I’ve published since switching to Aweber Communications as my newsletter broadcaster several years ago (my previous vendor didn’t provide an online archival service), and anyone can plainly see that:

1. I don’t ever write about picking up anybody. I leave that to the dating gurus.

2. I only write for people in committed relationships or who are trying to prepare for the time when they are in a committed relationship (including marriage, the most committed relationship).

3. The only context in which I ever mention “seduct’ion” is in explaining to men that women enjoy doing it if properly motivated by having a man create attraction for her, and it works out far better for everybody than for him to try to sed’uce her.

4. If I had a nickel for every time that I’ve publicly said that most women are smarter than we give them credit for because we don’t recognize that they simply do things differently, I could buy a country and retire there.

5. As for respect, see what one of you who has read "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" had to say about how my work relates to respecting women:

“It's funny how these things work, but all the studying I've been doing about understanding women and how they think HAS LEFT ME WITH MUCH MORE RESPECT FOR THEM THAN BEFORE, where I was often just frustrated or disgusted with their behavior. I seriously doubt anyone could read AND UNDERSTAND your book and not have the same experience. Another reason [my wife] should read it.” -- Larry

And this one:

Hi David,

In these uncertain and confusing days, you are a jewel of unlimited value. Because you leave no confusion in the minds of your readers. And you provide a wonderful service. You are not out to simply make lots of money on phony theories with sensational story titles. YOU ARE THE REAL DEAL WHO IS NOT OUT TO EXPLOIT WOMEN, BUT RATHER TO TEACH US MEN HOW TO VALUE THEM FOR THE FANTASTIC CREATURES THAT THEY ARE. You want to preserve relationships and marriages, not bust them up. I commend and thank you. I place you on the same list as the greatest of the greats. You deserve a thundering round of applause. And I personally thank you for the wisdom you share in your writings.

I remain your devoted fan,

Cordially,
Ron

Now, add to that the fact that Carol has been subscribing for a little over two months, and has sent me a couple of e-mails complimenting my understanding of women and hoping that I’m successful in teaching other men how to do the same. She also impressed me as being fairly bright and reasonable. So this outburst appears totally out of character and illogical, right? So what happened?

The only thing that ever causes such an instantaneous and explosive departure from expected, normal behavior is what many refer to as “pressing a hot button,” “touching a nerve,” etc., accidentally triggering a memory of a bad event that alters one’s perception of what is happening now and changes the way they would normally respond to it. I would be surprised if you’ve not seen it, because unfortunately, it’s all too common, but what do you do when it happens?

As tough as it sounds, just let it go, at least until the person who explodes at you has a few minutes to calm down and realize that they just exploded at you for something that somebody else did sometime in the past. Don’t apologize, don’t argue, don’t try to explain anything. Just calmly say, “We’ll discuss this later when you’ve calmed down,” disengage, and don’t take it personally. It’s not you that they are upset with; it’s that demon from the past that they’ve never managed to vanquish.

Later, when the discussion resumes (and you should be the one to reinitiate it for the sake of taking a leadership position, so pay attention to her mood), let the aggressor speak freely for a few minutes, and if they aren’t apologizing for jumping on you for something that you didn’t do, point out to them that they have taken whatever was said or done out of context, and that they are upset about something else. If that’s not good enough, just let it go.

If it becomes a pattern of abuse, it’s time to start looking at options like professional counseling, and if they refuse to acknowledge it’s a problem, it’s time to move on, because you can’t help somebody fix a problem they won’t acknowledge having and life is too short to spend it with an abuser that makes a habit of punishing you for someone else’s sins.

If somebody pushes one of your hot buttons, and you’ll know they have because you’ll feel a sudden escalation in your emotional energy level along with an unusually strong urge to either defend or attack, try to stop the eruption by telling yourself, aloud if you must, that something isn’t right and you need to think about what you’re doing before you say or do something that can’t be undone. The discipline to step back from an emotional surge and make sure that it is rooted in reality is one of the most useful tools you can ever develop.

If you can’t recognize it and stop it before it happens, don’t be shy about apologizing to whomever catches the brunt of your upset. I am not a big fan of apologies because a lot of people tend to use them as license to behave badly, thereby nullifying their credibility and the credibility of others who offer apologies, but in these circumstances, it is necessary and appropriate that you volunteer it as a lead-in to discussion. No matter who has their hot button pushed, make it a top priority to determine what the unresolved issue is that triggered the eruption; get it resolved so you or they can heal from it and not be bothered by it again.

Life has enough troubles waiting for you each day without continuing to harbor trouble from times long past, and while those who care about you may forgive you for your outbreaks, you may not, and they may not after awhile. Failure to address a problem that you know about is the result of choice, not fate, and sooner or later you will be held accountable and as I was saying above, apologies will no longer be accepted. There are few feelings any worse than those that come with the knowledge that you ruined a great relationship that didn’t have to be ruined.

Speaking of which, there are just as many ways of unnecessarily ruining a great relationship as there are of building one, and the bad news is that building a great relationship by accident is highly unlikely while accidentally destroying one is next to inevitable if you don’t know what you need to know to build and protect one.

Building and protecting a great relationship is not at all difficult, it’s simply that the path to success is not obvious to the vast majority of us. For every person who knows what it takes and is willing to share it, there are thousands who don’t know what it takes but are all too willing to poison your relationship with their pet theories and opinions as if they were giving you knowledge and expertise. My refusal to engage in opinion and theory is legendary – and much appreciated -- among those who know me, and has been the secret to my success as a counselor, coach, consultant and troubleshooter all my life. Among my favorite phrases of all is, “I don’t know, but now that you’ve given me a good reason to find out, and I’ll be back with you shortly with facts in hand.”

There are no theories here, no opinions, and plenty of proof to back up every word I put in front of you, in this newsletter, any reports I offer you, and my e-book, "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," which you can download at http://www.makingherhappy.com/, that is, if you’re a man who’s tired of not knowing what women want from a man and guessing wrong more often than not. I have facts in hand for you, derived from extensive research with 118 couples before the initial release and the comments and successes of thousands that have followed since.

Life is too short for you to be stumbling along blindly stepping in crap and more crap when information like this is so easily and quickly available to you. Regrets aren’t born of the things we try, but of the things we fail to try, are they not? Think about it, and then exercise the only reasonable option open to you: ACT!

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

Why Do Men Have Affairs, and How Do You Stop? More On Protecting Your Relationship and Marriage

An obviously troubled man writes to ask how he can STOP having affairs and get his life together. Let’s see what we can do for him – and YOU!

Guys and gals, lightning has struck! I have for you today proof that men can recognize and admit that they do not like having affairs, and do indeed want a stable, monogamous relationship, possibly even enough to do what is necessary to make it happen. Only time will tell whether this man has the courage of his convictions, but I’m sensing a very genuine desire and sense of priority in his words, and his language indicates that he’s going to step up and take charge of his life. Meet James:

Good morning,

My name is James and would like to share with you problems in my relationship.
It’s been ten years now with ma girlfriend. The problem is I love her but I’m having affairs.

I’m so insecure, jealous coz I think she’s doing the same thing, I don’t trust her at all.

I would like to overcome my problem and stick to one partner, get married, give ma seven year daughter all the support she can ever get.

I don’t think I’ll cope if she have an affair.

I’m OUTGOING, spend most weekends out with friends, on drinking spree,
Come weekdays, I’m a darling.

The problem has affected our sex intimate life, we get intimate once in a while.
She has feeling and will end up having an affair.

Please help.
James

This is obviously a man who is bottoming out, realizing that he’s at a crossroads, and is deciding that he doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life the way he’s spent the last ten years. I call that a damned good choice, based on what he’s written about the last ten years. My response:

Hi James,

I cannot help you while you’re pursuing affairs, but if you’re truly ready to stop and straighten up, listen to reason, and get your life on track I can definitely help. Before you can do anything, you’re going to have to identify the reason you are having affairs and eliminate it.

If you’re doing it because you have no self-esteem and are trying to substitute the acceptance and approval of other women for the genuine self-esteem created by achievement, then you’re going to have to start creating real reasons to feel good about yourself and stop thinking that chasing other women is going to make you feel any better about anything. Approval and acceptance must come from within, not from somebody else.

If it’s because you are bored, or because your wife is bored and the two of you aren’t intimate, then you just need to get back in tune, learn about how to create attraction and communicate effectively, and nature will quickly take its course and get you to where you need to be. That’s not hard to do, but you need to know how and you need to want it to make it happen.

Unfortunately, your weekend “drinking sprees” point toward low self-esteem, because a man who feels good about himself doesn’t spend every weekend poisoning himself and looking for cheap thrills with other self-destructive people; a drink or two is no big deal, but you’re describing a binge, and you know as well as I do that repeated bingeing is self-destructive behavior. A man who feels good about himself spends that time enriching himself with his hobbies and enjoying time with the ones he loves, not abusing himself and, potentially, those around him.

Low self-esteem makes you very unattractive to any woman who spends any time around you, and causes you to seek approval, acceptance, social confirmation, etc., from women, who may find you charming and witty when both of you are drinking or drunk, which is a huge red flag in itself, but after they sober up and see that you’re swimming in your problems instead of solving them, they quickly move on and the affair ends.

You have some pretty serious work ahead of you, and my book, "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," can help you if you read and apply it. Its primary purpose is to deprogram you from all the wussy crap that the media and other idiots have heaped on us over the last forty years or more and let the real man within you come out and take over, a man who is competent, confident, attracts and understands women, and is the kind of man that every woman wants to live with, a man-caught in a self-amplifying cycle of self-improvement instead of a death-spiral.

I’d suggest you give it a try before you become an alcohol-related death statistic, because all that is really in front of you is a series of choices to live a better life. The decision is the hard part; following through is easy once you’ve committed to change, because you get to see results and feel good about them, which in turn motivates you to achieve better and better results. Self-esteem-building becomes a self-perpetuating cycle that replaces the cycle of approval-seeking and self-destruction you’re caught in now.

Take care, and keep in touch,
David

I saw a purchase notification from James within 24 hours, and I fully expected it. Why? Because he’s not in denial about his situation; he’s accepted it and admitted that he is the cause of his own problems. When people finally face the fact that what they are doing isn’t working and start asking for help, they usually go through with fixing it.

There are two exceptions. The first is that group of people who define “help” as having someone do everything for them instead of providing the information and support they need and then getting out of the way and letting them do what needs to be done so they can own their own achievement and feel good about it.

The second is that group who are looking for validation of their mistakes instead of solutions to their problems, and they will engage you in conversation on the premise of wanting help, but they don’t want to talk about a solution; instead, they want to talk about what they did and why they did it and how you must understand such-and-such. If you hear the words, “But you don’t understand…” the next thing out of their mouth will be some kind of plea to ignore the reality of their bad choices and tell them that they were justified for screwing up, they’re still a “good person,” etc. Don’t waste your time with them.

So if you’re ready to admit that things aren’t the way they should be and that you are ready to take an active part in the solution, that, Gentlemen, is where I come in. I’ve done the research with hundreds of couples to find out what makes for good and bad relationship and how you can evaluate your own, what women want and what truly makes them tick, and how to easily return to that natural male behavior that flips their attraction switches and turns up the heat, saving them from their primary enemy, boredom. Do you realize what this means to you?

Do you remember the story about the man who found the bottle, rubbed it, and out came a genie, who granted him one wish, and he said he wanted a bridge from Los Angeles to Hawaii so he could drive his wife, who was afraid of flying, there for a vacation? When the genii said it was too big a request, the man said, “Then I guess I just want to know what makes women tick,” and the genii said, “Hmmm…tell me more about this bridge.”

We were all taught through such jokes and stories growing up that this is something that we would never know, yet here before you is the opportunity to know, once and for all, that most mysterious and seemingly forbidden of all things. Indeed, Sigmund Freud, the renowned psychologist, is famous for saying, “The great question... which I have not been able to answer... is, ‘What does a woman want?’” That conundrum being solved, the question now is “Do you have the sense and the guts to reach out and grab this knowledge that evaded even the likes of Sigmund Freud and put it to work in your life?”

Like James, you now have a choice before you. Are you going to continue to sit there in the dark picking up a few crumbs from this newsletter every day, or even worse, in denial about the cause of your problems and looking for someone else to blame? Or are you going to secure for yourself and your family the next best thing to the keys to the universe, the knowledge that will put you on the road to being all that you can be, in your eyes and hers?

That should be the easiest decision you ever made in your life, so jump over to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" right now, before you do another thing, because as they say in The South, “Time’s a wastin!” and life is definitely too short to waste it.

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

How to Choose the Perfect Gift for the Woman In YOUR Relationship or Marriage

“The Holidays” are now upon us, and it’s time to revisit the topic of buying the perfect gift for a woman so you can have time to get it right this year. Selecting 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” are here, as we say here in The States (indeed, Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate it!), 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 (including a month ago, but I got a question today about how to do this, so some of you have missed it and some are too new to have seen it) and always received lots 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:

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 7, 2009 if you’ve not seen it). 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!

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

Getting the Mix Right for a Great Relationship and Marriage

Building a great relationship isn’t a matter of an abundance of any one big thing; there is no “magic spell” or “magic bullet” that’s going to instantly put you over the top. But that’s a good thing, because the alternative is creating a mixture of more common, attainable things, and any man can do that, IF he knows what goes into the mix!

Before we get started, check out this news article on the current state of divorces, counseling, etc., as influenced by current economic conditions. It’s downright scary to see how many people are unhappily stuck together because they think they can’t afford divorce or even counseling!

One thing that caught my eye in the article was how these people who seek counseling because of the expense of divorce are looking at $1,000 or more for 10 or more sessions. Most of my readers never need counseling, and the few who opt for it have never required more than a session or two, often only a half-hour. Un-freaking-believable. I was flamed on the Divorce Busters’ web site by some guy who said that he was a counselor and was appalled because I gave specific advice. If it takes others ten sessions to get things on track and it takes me one, I can see why that might upset him. ;-)

By the way, in the end he ignored my advice to leave a woman who obviously had no love or respect for him, as evidenced by the way she chronically abused and demeaned him, because he found that by deceiving her, his situation became tolerable, and that in his estimation, deceit was the key to a happy relationship. I didn’t bother responding out of respect for the owner of the web site, Michelle Weiner-Davis, PhD. She tries to help people, while this guy was just looking for validation of his mistakes instead of a solution.

Getting into today’s lesson, as many of you already know, one of my acquired talents and favorite achievements is that of being a chef. The fact is I’m a “very alpha male” and therefore not only a leader, but also a consummate do-it-yourselfer, the most secure route to the independence that every alpha male demands, and a man who loves good food as much as I do needs to be able to create it at will, because unless you live in New York City, there are more places to get an average or bad meal than there are to get a good one.

(As a quick aside, New Yorkers are probably the only people on this planet that I envy as a whole, because in my experience, you just can’t find a bad meal in New York City. I’ve literally had better food from a NYC street vendor’s cart than I’ve had at restaurants in other places. A bad restaurant isn’t going to survive very long in a densely populated city with commercial real estate prices and rental rates as high as they are there. If you love good food, a vacation there is worth the stay just for the food!)

Getting back on topic, I was making omelets for breakfast this morning (“guy omelets,” loaded with pizza sauce, cheese, pepperoni, mushrooms, etc. – use your favorite pizza toppings!), and it hit me how much has to be just right for the eggs to set right, and how that equated to a relationship.

If you add too much water or milk, they don’t hold together and you’ll end up with runny scrambled eggs. If you let the mixture reach too high a temperature by leaving it in the pan too long, the proteins “spasm” and force all the water out of the eggs, giving you rubbery lumps sitting in water. Too much heat quickly will cause them to scorch and burn. Like baking anything that turns into a set foam (omelet, cake, biscuits, etc.), it’s a matter of chemistry and physics, and you have to have the right amount of everything to make it perfect, and getting close will get you something very good.

It’s the same way with relationships. Think about the things required to keep a woman happy:

You need to be sensitive to a woman’s emotional condition and have good communications skills, but if you over apply either you end up being treated like a girlfriend.

You need to project a strong leader-like personality, but if you cross the line and come off as controlling, you’re toast!

You need to have a good sense of humor and know how to have fun and make her laugh, but if you do it too often, you’re an over-aged adolescent clown, not “her dream guy who can be so much fun and makes her laugh when she feels bad.” (She really will get bored with too much comedy.)

You need to project self-respect and groom and dress in a manner that does so, but if you go too far with that, especially if you go “metrosexual,” you become conceited, fussy, spend more on skin and hair care products than she does, and you’re fun to shop with but nothing else (GIRLFRIEND AGAIN!), not to mention getting all the attention that she wants when the two of you go out.

You need to be a friend and companion, but if you take that too far, you become “just friends,” and a “nice guy,” somebody she wants to watch a chick-flick with, not somebody she wants to have come into the house, sweep her off her feet, and ravish her. Just another relationship for her to have to manage, and women manage a lot of relationships, actively. And, regrettably, you’ll also be someone who can’t stand up to her, and hence, in her eyes, someone who can’t stand up FOR her.

There are a lot of people touting a lot of ways to instantly get results, and as men, we tend to try to make each thing we hear about be that one magic thing we’ve been missing to make everything wonderful again. We heard women wanted a man to be “nice” and “sensitive” back in the 1980’s. We gave up on being the men that our fathers taught us to be and started being wimps who cried in front of their women while watching a movie.

What they wanted was for us to be real men, treat them as someone we liked (nice) instead of taking all their money and beating them up and then leaving them for one a little younger, and to be emotionally aware enough know that there would be times when they would be upset for no apparent reason, and other times when they needed to talk to somebody, and that busting through the door yelling “I’m home! Where’s my damned dinner?” wasn’t going to work out very well for anyone involved.

You don’t need to know every little thing there is to know about women, but there are some things that you do need to know if you ever want to be happy with one or more of them. And there again, it’s not just one thing you’ll need to know about, but a mix of things: compatibility, communications, emotions, mentality, needs, wants, and reactions, just to name the big ones. And then you need to throw into that mix everything that makes the women in your life (wife, daughters, sisters, friends, wives of friends, coworkers, wives of coworkers – there are probably a lot more women in your life than you realize) individuals, their idiosyncrasies that will endear you to them if you notice and appreciate.

With all these “mixes” going on, it sounds like you need a HUGE cookbook, doesn’t it?

Well, no, you don’t, and no, I’m not going to drop that “recipe for a happy marriage” cliché on you. However, you do need to learn a few things because there are several aspects of your relationship that you need to master and manage.

But! That’s not to say that you need a dozen books on psychology, several on communication, a few on seduction, a bunch on female physiology and sexual technique, one on women’s history, etc. Yeah, that’s a mixture, too, but it’s a whole lot of overkill, and quite frankly, since a lot of women think they want things that they really respond to quite negatively, it’s also going to be pretty confusing.

There is an answer for you, though. It’s not a freebie, but you can easily afford it, no matter what you’re situation. It’s not a magic pill, but it’s a regimen you can easily swallow. It’s not likely to turn your life upside down overnight, but some of my readers have stopped their divorces cold within less than a week of receiving it, and over the course of several weeks after that put things back on track and then went on to make them better than they’ve ever been.

Some are going more slowly, taking a few months, because sudden change just isn’t in them (you know, the detail-oriented sort who take the time to check and double-check and study everything before taking action), but even if you are one of those people, what’s two or three months compared to extending your marriage as much as thirty or forty years, and making it a great marriage instead of a trap that sucks the life out of you?

Or worse, what are two or three months compared to the years you might continue to be unhappy and/or alone, or stuck with the wrong person, if things continue the way they’re going? Not much, not much at all. Let’s see, three months study and self-improvement for 30 years of happiness. That’s a 12,000% return, and unlike the stock market, you’re in total control of whether that investment pays off, because it’s based on choices you make and actions you take, not the choices and actions of others. And I don’t even want to try to compute the percentage gain if you only have to spend the two to four hours required to read the book and hit the ground running!

Your answer is at http://www.makingherhappy.com/. It’s called "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," and from what my readers and I have seen, it has that which will cure what ails your relationship, if you do nothing more than read and apply it. Don’t tell anybody I told you so, but just between us, it’s a whole lot of fun, so get to it now, before you do another thing!

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

The Key to Conflict Resolution in Relationships and Marriage

Many people get so hung up on WHO’s right that they can’t see WHAT’s right, making them push a bad position to “win” instead of focusing on getting the right answer in everybody’s head and moving forward. Alienating everyone around them is all they achieve, and they’re usually the only one who doesn’t see it. That’s bad enough when at a social gathering, even worse at work, but what if it’s happening in your relationship or marriage? Just how long do you think such a relationship can last? Luckily, the condition is treatable with a little self-injection of self-esteem and an attitude adjustment.

Good grief! This has been the week for phone calls from very disturbed people. I just got off the phone with a consulting client who bought “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage,” and he was frantic. His relationship with his wife was on the rocks, she had filed for divorce, and it didn’t take but a very few minutes to see why she was divorcing him.

First, a little background: The poor guy has such an extreme self-esteem deficit that no woman would ever have him for long (I questioned whether his wife married him for his money because he described her as coming from a rather “low-rent” background, he’s loaded with “old money,” and there’s just no way this guy was ever able to spark attraction in anyone through any means other than dressing well and exhibiting the trappings of money and power), and every part of our conversation was about “who was right” instead of “what will work for him.”

You’ve probably met people like him, and if you haven’t, ignore them when you meet them. Don’t bother trying to get to know them, because they will try to get to know you by telling you that they know more about your life than you do before you’ve said much more than, “Hello.”

His wife had apparently had enough of it and was bailing out after only two months, and he maintained that she knew nothing about herself, what she wanted from herself or him, didn’t have a clue what relationships were about, and he couldn’t get her to understand that he was smart because he was wealthy. Attention all disciples of the Church of Cause and Effect…all together now…1…2…3…CRINGE!!!

I’ve heard a lot over the years of being a business consultant and executive coach, but this guy beat anything I’ve ever seen in terms of being in denial, having a sub-zero self-esteem level, and having absolutely no concept of cause-and-effect relationships. He actually believed that inheriting a large estate made him intelligent! Being intelligent gives one the ability to build a fortune, but receiving an unearned fortune obviously does not include a brain infusion or transplant.

Now that you have the background, picture the fun part. He calls up, introduces himself, describes in great detail all of the above, and after agreeing to a $250 consulting fee for a 2-hour block of my time, proceeds to spend the first hour trying to first justify everything he did and then trying to tell me why nothing in the book he purchased could possibly help him, and that since he was wealthy, he could afford to spend time with me to suggest changes that had occurred to him as he was reading the Table of Contents – he had NOT yet read the book!

Now, in case this is your first edition of this newsletter and you’ve not heard it before, a team of 118 couples helped me conduct and test all the research that went into this book, and anything that was less than 90% effective was not included; things that were between 50% and 90% effective were noted for discussion in this newsletter (you’ll occasionally see me mentioning test results and asking you to write with your own experience) to see if there might be a way to fine tune them for acceptable performance to be added to the book, and anything less than 50% effective was consigned to individual circumstances or personal tastes and omitted entirely. Now, think about that for just a second…

…a 118-page book full of advice and concepts, each of which at least 90% of 118 women agreed on being effective with them, and at least 90% of men agreed were easy and enjoyable to do. There have been only three refunds in over five years, and all were the result of some misunderstanding about the purpose or content of the book (two of which had inadvertently purchased the same book twice and wanted one of them refunded!). I also have unsolicited testimonials from almost everyone who has ever bought it stating that it works wonders. That kind of thing is unheard of with information products. Most authors brag if they can keep their refund rate down to 10%, and mine is currently under 0.00004%.

That doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for error, does it? It has worked to improve everyone’s lives, but this guy, who’s bought this book to try to head off a divorce and starts the conversation with the words, “My name is XXXXXX XXXXXXXXX and my wife is divorcing me and I don’t know what to do,” is going to be charitable and spend an hour of paid consulting time telling me that everything in my book, which he has not yet read, is wrong and then asking me for help. Sound familiar?

Are you like this guy, more interested in being heard or being “right” than in being happy? Is your partner? Can you see what a strain it’s putting on your relationship? If either of you are like this man, you can bet that at some point it will end your relationship if it’s not fixed; good relationships, of any kind, have compatibility and cooperation at their core, not conflict and competition. The first steps in fixing any problem is admitting there is a problem, defining it, and taking responsibility for fixing whatever part of it you can impact. Only after those three things are accomplished can an effective solution be developed.

And, by the way, taking responsibility does not mean taking the blame; it means committing to act in solving and eliminating the problem. Indeed, people who won’t take responsibility are very prone to focus on blame and point the finger everywhere but at themselves, making it impossible to show them how they may have contributed to the problem and determine how they might modify their perspective or behavior to ensure it doesn’t happen in the future. As you might expect, this was the hardest part of this phone call – getting this man to see that his self-esteem deficit was the vast majority of the problem so that he could begin building self-esteem through genuine achievements and eliminate the problem.

It took two hours of him yelling and screaming and arguing with me, and me countering every argument with the very irrefutable facts he had given me, but finally a light came on (“No bad idea, no matter how popular, can withstand the onslaught of logic.” – Aldus Huxley) and he was able to see that he had spent the entire call rejecting the help he had paid to obtain because he wanted to be right.

There was no way to shorten the process. I kept asking, “Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?” and he kept answering “I want both!” It was when he finally realized that if he could be both he would have never needed to call me in the first place that he finally had a revelation that made me think he’d had a heart-attack. He didn’t speak for about five minutes and there were all manner of stressful sounds on his end where he was trying to either hold back or silence his crying so I wouldn’t hear it. I mercifully let him get it out of his system without asking if he was alright, and he finally said, “Okay, I’m a clean slate. Tell me what I need to know.”

I said, ‘What you need to know first is that everything in that book you bought has worked for everyone who has used it; within the last week a young man in your predicament pulled his literally out of divorce court, his wife is back home, and they’re making long-term career and family plans now. Go back and read the book, thoroughly, this time looking for answers instead of validation and expecting to be happy in the future instead of expecting to be right throughout your history, and then call me if we need to talk further. Now that you have come this far, I have every confidence you can go the distance.” Tear ‘em down and build ‘em back up the right way…facing reality and embracing it with a fury.

(Update: He did as I instructed, and he eventually turned out to be one of my star students. It turned out that he was quite intelligent, not because he was wealthy, but because he had an analytical mind and the ruthlessness to learn anything, once we got his ego out of the way; emotion and rational thinking don’t mix. Congratulations, J.G. – you still hold the title as my biggest challenge of this project, even bigger than finding a whole book full of facts about women that over a hundred women agreed upon!)

As I said, this situation can destroy your relationship – ANY relationship of any kind -- if it goes on continuously, but I didn’t mention that you can do extreme damage to your relationship in a single argument with this mistake. As tempers rise, things are said that can be apologized for, but not taken back; you cannot “unring” a bell. When there is a disagreement, focus on WHAT is right, not WHO is right, and instruct your partner to do the same. You’re partners, and supposed to be a team, so the important thing is not to win an argument (competitive), but to score a win for the team in the situation (cooperative), is it not?

So why do we do this to ourselves and our partners, the people whom we should love and seek cooperative and mutually beneficial existence with the most??? As with many people problems, low self-esteem puts us in a competitive mode, thinking that we’ll feel better if we beat somebody at something – anybody at anything! How much self-esteem will you be garnering by making an ass of yourself and putting your relationship on the rocks? Think before you open your mouth, because you can certainly get your foot in it much easier than you can put back into it any words that came out of it. Keep things in perspective, and you can keep things moving in the right direction always.

So, are you going to concern yourself with what’s right, or with who? Have you ever heard that old ditty, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got…”? There’s a little more to it, but that’s the gist of it.

I’m telling you, straight up, achiever-to-achiever, I have what you need, right here. Solid, factual information, tested by over a hundred regular couples in long-term committed relationships, most of them married, all of them long-term enough to have developed significant problems that threatened their relationships, before this book was every published, and thousands more since.

It’s in “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage,” and it’s just a few mouse-clicks away. Download your copy today at http://www.makingherhappy.com, because with information like this and a little study and desire, you can start putting an end to silly little traps like this one once and for all within minutes of downloading it. And I have a whole bunch readers who will tell you that you can’t get results like you’ll get with this information, anywhere or at any price.

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

Buying Her Off With a Gift, a Great Way to Ruin a Great Relationship and Marriage

For all you who have made that most dire of mistakes with women, trying to buy their affection, attention, approval, silence, forgiveness, or flesh, heed the words of one of my best friends and students…

The holiday letters are coming in, mostly from readers who have been following me for awhile and did a good job, and a few from those who didn’t get expected results from their previous offerings to their wives. The latter group needs to catch up.

Gentlemen, I’ve revealed how to handle this both in "THE Man's Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" and in several newsletters that reveal that section of my book. I usually publish a newsletter a week or two ahead of traditional gift-giving holidays, and this year it snuck up on me because I was busier than usual and wasn’t looking at the calendar, but it did get published in October and will probably be published again around Thanksgiving just to make sure the newbies see it.

For those of you who got it wrong in the past, see this article for the aforementioned instructions on choosing a gift for a woman, but there are few of you who are needing special attention, not because of how you chose a gift, but why; giving a gift to buy your way into a woman’s good graces (or her sexual favor) or buy your way out of the doghouse is a REALLY bad idea, in case you had not noticed. And I have just the thing for you, a highly-effective wake-up call from the real world. Dig in…

For those of you who’ve caught the “King Arthur and the Witch” contest I have every year, you’ll remember David C., who was one of the contest winners. He’s become a very close friend and one of my greatest students, and his job, managing a convenience store, puts him in an ideal place to study women. Hence, he occasionally sends me a pearl of great value to share with you all. Without further ado:

Dear David,

As a convenience store manager, I meet, talk to and get to know a lot of different women, from young girls to professional business women. I easily see and talk to at least 40 or 50 a day and on seeing your newsletter about gifts for women, I asked a few for their comments and heard from quite a few others without saying anything. It seems no matter what the season, Valentine's Day, a birthday, an anniversary, or Christmas, they keep hoping for something unique and special. Flowers, rings, necklaces are expected and not very special because of that. What I wanted to mention though was how often I saw and heard the frustration from them about feeling like he's trying to buy them off.

Instead of talking to her, learning what's making her so angry and snippy, they buy her something to try and appease her. They take it usually because they don't want to hurt his feelings. They try and give him credit for at least putting forth some effort but are frustrated at the same time. "Why can't he understand it's not the gifts I want, it's him?"

It's also sad but funny to hear the men talk about how nothing seems to make her happy. No matter what they get her, it's okay for awhile but it's back to the carping at him again. When I try to explain, “Maybe she just wants you to spend some fun time with her,” they shake their head. Why?

Most commonly because they see watching TV, eating out or catching a movie as their fun time. Then when they get home it's back to business, a hobby or on the computer. Why can't she see he's busy? He's trying to relax and unwind after a stressful day and she's hounding him to do all this stuff. There's a show on TV he wants to watch, a game or work to get ready for tomorrow.

They are stumped why the kids can give her a page from their crayon book and tell her I did it for you Mommy and you can see the word Mommy scrawled across the top and she cries or gets all worked up and they're baffled why. I've heard more than a few ladies getting ready to go out who refuse to allow a guy to buy their way in because they think it automatically entitles them to go home with them.

I can tell you from first-hand experience, ALL the women I've talked to resent feeling "bought off." Flowers to say they're sorry, a necklace or perfume because he missed an anniversary or something. "Here honey. Take this and get off my back, would ya?" holds no water with a real woman. And yes, many have broken off relationships because they got sick of all the presents and feeling like a tramp because of them. They got tired of feeling "obligated" to be nice because he got her "things" instead of him.

Tell the men out there, trying to make a woman obligated to you will only send her out the door that much sooner. It won't save your relationship, get your butt out of hot water or make her forgive you. It will only turn her resentment, frustration and anger deeper. She will give you a little credit at first, but if it turns into a habit, get ready to sign some papers. I mention this because it's not getting better, according to the women I talk to, even the young ones, it's getting much worse.

Thanks for the great stuff!

David C.

That pretty much says it all, doesn’t it? There is nothing that a woman would freely give you that you can buy (prostitutes notwithstanding, of course), and any attempt to buy that which they deeply want to give someone in like-kind exchange will insult them and/or hurt them. Don’t do it, because whatever is wrong, trying to buy your way out of it will just make it worse.

So what do you do if you want the love, attention, forgiveness, etc., of a good woman? I’ve published over a thousand newsletters on the subject, but rather than read all 5,600 pages of those newsletters, there are exactly two things you should do:

First, download my free – and very substantial – report, “What Women REALLY Want,” and get the whole real scoop. Then, when you’ve seen the error of your ways and your ready to step up to the real deal, the dream relationship and marriage of a lifetime, go to http://makingherhappy.com/ and download my book, "THE Man's Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" and get on the path to happiness while you still have some life left to live. Or just keep screwing up and being miserable. It’s your call. Make it a good one. ;-)

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

(MUST READ) When She Gets Mad: Keeping the Peace in Relationships and Marriage

Women get mad at us for a lot of different reasons, a significant number of which have nothing whatsoever to do with us. Handle it wrong and you’re in the dog house; handle it right and you’re golden…

Today you’re going to get a HUGE favor. I’ve abstained from writing about today’s subject in this newsletter because quite frankly it’s something I want men to learn after reading my book, but something has happened that compels me to do so before I can do another thing.

I got a call telling me that another of my best friends has died, this one in a car crash after he and his wife had an argument about something they shouldn’t have even been discussing at the time. She was moody and upset, needed an outlet, picked a fight with him over something he’d said two weeks prior, and he left in a huff, apparently to try to cool off.

He got plowed at an intersection. He was not intoxicated or otherwise impaired, but witnesses said he ran a red light and was struck in the driver’s side door by an oncoming car. It was only two blocks from his home, so while there is no way of knowing what really happened, we must admit that there is at least a high probability that he was angry or otherwise distracted, or possibly driving too aggressively, and paid for it with his life. Fortunately, the driver of the car that hit him sustained only minor injuries thanks to safety belt and air bags.

Dane was a good guy, a very rugged, manly man, but he was stubborn as the day is long and repeatedly refused a copy of “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage” because he thought it was silly for a man to read a book about how to get along with women. A pity, because it could have saved his life.

Dane never learned how to deal with his wife’s temper and moodiness. He had an odd temperament himself; it took a lot to make him angry, but if you pushed him that far, he went all the way and just blew up. He never hit his wife, and never said anything purposely to hurt her, but he would yell and knock things over and then leave to keep from destroying his home any further or hurting his wife, and thought that was handling it well enough. As I said, a good guy, but stubborn.

So to try to make sure that this doesn’t happen to any of you, I’m going to tell you about women’s anger and how to handle it. And I will ask something of you in return for improving your relationship and possibly saving your life as well, but we’ll get to that in a bit…

Sometimes women just get angry to bleed off the emotional energy of being bored and frustrated. I’ve written frequently and at length about this problem how to avoid it, and you can find a lot of articles in my archive and blog in every month from August, 2006 through the present, but the two most relevant are the August 13, 2009 article, “Women’s Biggest and Loudest Complaint About Men, and What You Can Do About It BEFORE It Kills Your Relationship” and the September 30, 2009 article “Differing Emotional Scales: A Key to Understanding Women and Improving Your Relationship.” If you’ve not read them, please do so, because understanding boredom and a woman’s emotional scale are critical to properly handling and avoiding fights.

Women can also easily get mad at you for something they THINK you’ve done, without first trying to find out whether in fact you’ve done it. They’re much more emotionally-driven than we are, and worse, emotionally-dominated. The reasons for both these traits are spelled out in the two aforementioned archived articles, so I won’t repeat them here; there’s already a lot that must be said (and read) today and limited space (and time) in which to say it (and read it).

Then the clincher, they get mad at you over something you really have done, whether you realize it or not. It’s important that you understand all this so that you will in turn understand how critical it is to try to find out which kind of anger you’re dealing with. For instance, if she’s mad at you for something you haven’t done, there’s not a whole lot you can do to “undo” it, right?

So, the obvious first step is to try to determine, OBJECTIVELY, whether she has a legitimate issue, just thinks she does, or doesn’t care whether she does because she just needs to vent and you happen to be handy.

If she’s just in a foul mood or picking a fight over something ridiculous, point out to her that she’s angry at something that normally wouldn’t be an issue, and that you’ll be happy to either try to do something with her to bleed off that energy or she can pitch a fit at somebody else, because being a whipping post isn’t in your job description.

Or, if you’ve mastered the art of the naughty boy grin, call the preceding “plan B” and bust on her a bit and convert that negative energy to positive, playful energy. Even if you’ve not mastered it, give it a shot, and if she insists on remaining pissy then go with “plan B.”

It’s a little tougher when she thinks you’ve done something that you haven’t, because you’re facing genuine anger instead of general moody pisstivity. She thinks she really has an issue.

Instead of sticking your foot in your mouth and blurting, “What did I do?” which almost instantly pins guilt on you by triggering psychological anchors from past fights, or “What’s wrong with you?” which is absurd when you think about it because it’s obvious that what’s wrong with her is that she’s angry, in a leadership tone, tell her, “Tell me what’s really bothering you so we can get it fixed and move on.”

It’s important that you direct her to open up rather than asking her anything. The act of leadership alone will help to calm her anger and subconsciously make her feel like you are interested in listening and making amends. The same thing applies when you suspect that she really has a legitimate issue, and the same process should be followed up to this point.

The difference here, when you’re dealing with “real” anger, is that there are two and only two possibilities: that she does or does not have a legitimate issue. In neither case do you want to argue with her, because nobody ever wins an argument. Now that you’ve ascertained what she thinks is the real problem, your job is to lead her out of being mad.

That doesn’t mean that you con her. I’m talking about true leadership and a real solution. If she just thinks that you’ve done something that you really haven’t done, start with, “I think I may see where you could think something like that, but here’s what’s really happened…” and then just explain it to her. If she tries to reject your explanation because she’s still amped up or wants to stay pissed until she can milk some more adrenaline out of it, go back to the plan for handling a mood, and try first to convert the negative energy to positive by getting playful and if that fails, tell her she’s going to have to be angry with somebody else because enabling pissy, bratty, bad behavior by arguing or fighting with her is not in your job description.

If you have indeed done something wrong, your job is still to lead her out of the situation. First, you admit that whatever you did was wrong, could have been handled better, or whatever is an appropriate admission, and tell her that it was a mistake that you won’t be repeating, at least not deliberately, and that you didn’t do whatever it was to hurt her or make her angry.

There is no need to be heaping apology on top of apology, and in truth, much of the time an apology can actually work against you if you have already admitted that you were wrong. An admission of guilt and expression of remorse is strong, while many women – but not all – view apologies as weak, especially if they are repeated. And it can be one of those “be careful what you wish for” things too, where she wants an apology and loses respect for you if you give her one.

This issue of apologies varies widely from woman to woman, and you’re best bet in handling it is to ask her at some time when she’s in a good mood how she views apologies, and whether she’s ever noticed losing respect for someone or seeing them as somehow weaker after they did so. This is the kind of “what’s really inside you” question that women like to discuss, and you’ll get the best answer she can give you. Then when the situation arises, watch her reaction to see if it is congruent with what she’s told you.

Getting back to the altercation, once you have admitted guilt and pledged a better effort in the future (which you’d better make good on or you will lose credibility very fast!), if she continues to act pissy and like she’s trying to hang on to the anger, again try to flip it around to playful, and if she refuses to go there, refuse to be an enabler and tell her that you’re not going to be a wuss and grovel before her. You’ve admitted guilt and pledged reform, and if she wants anything more than an apology beyond that, she can talk to you after she calms down.

There are several caveats here. First, NEVER, under any circumstances, try to buy her off with some kind of gift or favor, even if she demands it. You’ll only anchor the gift to a negative meaning and emotion, and look like too big a wuss to handle a problem head on. Indeed, if she demands it, she’s doing one of two things: she’s testing you to see if you’ll wuss out and try to buy her or she’s proving that she can be bought, proving in turn that she’s a prostitute, not a wife, and you need to get her out of your life quietly and quickly, before she decides that she’s going to leave and has time to bleed you dry and hide the assets.

Next, never succumb to the urge to return fire if she starts saying things to try to hurt you, because once it’s said, it can’t be taken back. Don’t slink away with your tail between your legs, but do tell her that there is obviously an issue that needs to be worked out and she can talk to you about it when she has calmed down and is ready to address the issue instead of pitching a fit, but in the meantime, you’re her husband, not a whipping post, and she will deal with you as her husband or not at all. (If you can’t stand up TO her when you should, in her estimation, you can’t stand up FOR her when you should, which causes her to instantly lose respect and attraction for you, so don’t hesitate to stand tall.)

There’s never anything to be gained from a competition to see who can hurt each other the most. That’s called “war,” the most spectacular and costly of all human endeavors, and it is a last resort, not a standard operating procedure. You fight when all other options have been exhausted, and not until, and when you fight, you fight coldly and deliberately, to win, not out of anger, to punish. If you find yourself pushed to the point of having no choice but to fight with a woman you’re living with, you’re either with the wrong woman or she’s with the wrong man.

And if there is a single rule that will help you get through delicate situations without a fight, it is this:

“Always focus on what is wrong and how to fix it, not who is wrong and should be punished.”

It sounds simple because it is, and it works better than anything I’ve ever seen. As long as the two of you are focused on the problem and fixing the problem, you are in a mode of cooperation, even if one or both of you is upset. It’s when the discussion turns competitive – Who’s right? Who’s wrong? Who gets punished? Who gets to “win” the fight and who has to “lose”? – that things escalate and get ugly, and there’s really no good reason that should ever happen.

So that’s it. Use it in good health. Live long and prosper.

That’s some of the most important advice that anyone will ever give you, and it works for everything from a moody little spat to a working through divorce issues. It’s also one of the cornerstones of "THE Man's Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" and I’m giving it to you unsolicited and with my blessing.

In return, I’m going to ask a favor or two. First, invite your friends, whether they are having trouble or not, to subscribe to this newsletter by filling out that short subscription form at the bottom of the page at http://www.makingherhappy.com. Also download my free “Break-Up Busting 101” report, and attach it to this e-mail and forward it to them as well, and invite them to pass it on so we can start putting an end to at least some of the fighting and frustration that goes on in every couple before somebody else ends up dead during or after a “domestic dispute.”

Second, visit my new web site, again at http://www.makingherhappy.com, and seriously consider downloading your own copy of "THE Man's Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," especially since there’s new content going in and there’s about to be a price hike. (All buyers get free lifetime updates.) It’s time to learn all those things that you should have been taught earlier in life about women, relationships, and marriage, and make your life and relationship all it can be, because life can be fleeting; it can be gone before you know it, and for no good reason.

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

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?

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

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

An Attitude and Mistake That Can Kill ANY Relationship or Marriage

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So in a nutshell, this guy is complaining because I'm making an extra effort to convey information to people, at no cost to them other than the time to read it, the value of which exceeds that of many for-fee products. Go figure. What can you learn from this?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now the hook: You need to listen to her whenever she’s saying anything important, yet you cannot let her inundate you with girl-talk and end up treating you like a girlfriend. This demotes you from attractive partner to just another node on her social network, the same effect on her as not listening to her, but far more annoying for you. You have to draw the line, but do you know where? Just one more of the many problems that men face when trying to live with a woman that I can help you with.

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

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

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

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

Keeping Mothers (Your or Hers) from Wrecking Your Marriage or Relationship

A mother-in-law can be a wonderful ally or a destructive juggernaut, and unfortunately is even a significant factor in choosing a mate, as those who didn’t give the issue due consideration will now attest. What can you do to ensure that your mother-in-law – or hers – doesn’t wreck your marriage?

I’ve written several issues about interaction with your mother-in-law, and if you’ve not read them, now would be a good time to do so before advancing into this fairly delicate issue. See
“Proper Care and Feeding of Your Mother-In-Law” and “Your Wife’s Mother-in-Law and Your Marriage.”

Today’s issue is a touchy one, one that many couples deal with, and much to their chagrin I’m sure: the issue of a pushy, bossy, over-protective, and/or just plain busy-body mother of the wife. Don’t get me wrong; men’s mother’s can be a pain in the neck, too, but wives’ mothers have a little more room to be obnoxious and we men often don’t have nearly enough appreciation for how much stress their influence can cause, nor that we can do something about it. To wit, meet Hillary:

Hi David,

My mother has dominated me in every part of my life since childhood, and won’t stop. I’m now forty years old, and she continues to be the same overbearing and over-protective woman she was when I was in pigtails. I can’t even discipline my own children or have a serious discussion with my husband without her trying to push her agenda to the exclusion of my own. She calls me several times each day and literally interrogates me about what’s going on with everyone in my family, what I’m doing, what I’m thinking, and anything else that might give her an opportunity to force her values, priorities, and opinions, which often differ from my own, on me and my family,.

There have been times when I could overcome the childhood fear of having her mad at me, but most of the time she upsets me to the point where I am reduced to that same emotional wreck I was as a small child, giving in to everything she says to seek her approval. I know that I need help with this, and I’m in counseling, but it is proving to be a long, slow battle, because the counselor says that the way she treated me is genuine emotional abuse, and was traumatizing. I don’t necessarily believe that my mother meant to hurt me, but I do know that she meant to control me and she knew that she hurt me frequently.

I’m sharing this with you because my husband of 22 years, Dirk, still refuses to get involved in this, in spite of me begging him repeatedly to do so. I’m not yet strong enough to get her off of me and keep her off, and apparently he’s not either, or else he just doesn’t care. Every time we try to talk about it, he ends up yelling at me for being weak and unable to control my mother. I need more from him than to just tolerate my mother’s abuse and leave me on my own to handle this. I need him to intervene because he should be able to be strong enough to protect me from her or anybody else who tries to abuse me. Is that too much to ask?

I don’t know what to think. I can’t get him to talk to me about this enough to know whether he really thinks my weakness is disgusting or whether he’s making a big show of being mad at me to hide the fact that he’s also afraid of her. I’ve asked him to come to just one counseling session with me so my counselor could help me sort this out, and he just gets angry about me asking and complains about the money and time I spend to go to counseling. How can I make him understand what I’m going through and why I need him to help me? I’m at the end of my rope, and I can’t get my husband to start relieving some of this stress instead of adding to it, I’m going to have to do something that we’re all going to regret, because I can’t take any more of this.

Thanks so much,
Hillary

Well Hillary, I’ll tell him for you. Have him read this, and hold an iron skillet in your hand aimed at his head when you suggest to him that he read it, just to make sure he understands the importance of the issue. ;-)

Dirk, and the rest of you, listen up. When there is a conflict between the women in your life that even remotely involves you and is obviously not getting resolved, it’s your job and responsibility to step in and address your wife’s adversary directly, and it is imperative that you do so swiftly and firmly, but with an even hand. Why?

For starters, you’re built to fight and protect, and better suited for it, and doing so is part of what you offer in trade for the benefits of the nurturing nature of a woman – the marital contract, so to speak. It doesn’t matter if it’s your wife’s mother, your own mother, one of your daughters, somebody’s sister, or a busy-body friend who wants to stick their nose into family business; if somebody is stressing your wife to the point that she wants to talk to you about it, you need to offer to help, and if she comes out and asks you to help, you’re not a man if you don’t.

Now let’s clarify a thing or two before some of you get riled up and start sending nasty-grams. First, I am not implying that you should give your wife license to be a total screw-up and defend her stupidity. If she’s a substance abuser and her family is trying to talk her into straightening up, by all means you should be joining them, not protecting her from hearing the truth. That’s how you fulfill your responsibility to protect her life and well-being.

But if your mother-in-law (or your mother!) is trying to force her value system on your family as Hillary describes, or if your daughter is being an insufferable brat, or some single friend of your wife’s is relentlessly hassling her to leave her family at home and go out bar-hopping with her and won’t take “no” for an answer, some sister who has no children is trying to experience motherhood vicariously by trying to instruct your wife on how to raise your kids, or something like that, “it’s time for an intervention,” as the saying goes.

Also note that not all women will need help, and if you butt in when they are handling it they will resent your actions. You don’t need to ask permission, but you do need to verify that there is a need and that your assistance isn’t going to cause your wife to resent you for trying to help. You also need to be fully informed about what’s going on and it never hurts to hear all sides of the story before drawing your sword and shield. Your objective is to be a hero protecting his wife, not a controlling bully.

Also be aware that women have been known to adhere to deceitful and abusive family members when it came down to a choice between them and their loving, supportive husband. Yes, that sounds crazy, but there is a sort of illogical logic behind it if you can follow it. An insecure woman, especially one with issues of not getting enough attention as a child or having been abandoned by one or both parents due to divorce or death, will see her family as her “fallback” position if something goes wrong with her marriage. When I have seen this in the past, it took a combination of a strong husband not giving in to the wife’s desire to seek the approval of her family and personal counseling to resolve the childhood issues that cause her insecurity.

This is all conditional, of course, on knowing that she really wants help for a real issue and it isn’t some sort of contrived drama-fest just looking for attention, which you will know by the nature of the issue in dispute; a mother trying to exert control over an adult child and your household is a far bigger deal than some girlfriend of hers having something snide to say about her choice in shoes. You’re not required to dive into “a tempest in a teapot” unless you’re just tired of listening to all the hoopla and are shutting it down for some peace and quiet. ;-)

Now for the good news, bad news element. If you do stand up and take the leadership role and tell whomever is making life hard for your wife that they will either stop or their contact with your wife will be stopped until they can behave themselves, one of two things will happen. If your wife wants your help in the matter, you will be seen as the strong, attractive knight in shining armor and you’ll quickly see her love, trust, and appreciation of you skyrocket, and her attraction switches will also be flipped on full power. You gotta love it when that happens…

However, if your wife is very emotionally damaged (provided that you have listened carefully and have appropriately stepped in to take appropriate action), she may in fact become enraged, defending those from whom you were protecting her! This is the worst of all possible scenarios, especially if she refuses to see that there is a problem, and is a sign that you in fact married the wrong woman, because she is too damaged or for some other reason just doesn’t choose to love you and be loyal to you as a wife should be to a husband, which is not one whit less than a husband should love and be loyal to his wife.

Unconditional love you say? Don’t get me started. If you think you can love someone and remain married and loyal to someone who does not love you and cannot remain loyal to you, then you deserve every ounce of pain you endure because of it. To love is to value. How can you value that which would act to steal or destroy your life? How can you remain loyal to that which would cheat you out of your life, or abuse you as you try to share your life? How can you even consider loving or remaining loyal to someone who has a reckless disregard for any life, especially theirs and yours?

There must be a condition for real love to exist: that it is offered in trade for your fair share of the same, otherwise you pour your life down the drain, offering it to those who would destroy it without regard for the fact that every second you give of your life is one that can never be recovered. Anyone who would have you believe otherwise is setting you up to steal a piece of you for himself or herself, just like those who would have you believe that money or the love of money is the root of all evil is looking to take your money from you for himself or herself. And no, that’s not my opinion, that’s the reality that surrounds us, and you ignore it at your own peril. If you want proof, all you need to do is open your eyes, but if you can’t see it, just ask.

So there it is, Gentlemen. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to be a man, protect your wife and family when necessary, and protect yourself in the process. That can be a tall order, especially if you don’t know how to communicate well with women, but if you do it right, with justice (the principle of getting exactly what one earns and therefore deserves, no more and no less) and reason as your sword and shield, your reward will be everything your wife can muster to love and nurture you. That’s a prize worth winning, for sure!

So how about it? Are you fit for duty? Do you have the communications skills, the understanding of women, and the “intestinal fortitude” to handle the job? If you do, I’m a bit curious as to why you are reading this, but if there is even the slightest question in your mind as to whether you could maneuver through this mine field successfully, including navigating through any possible aftermath, then you need to go to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" and go through Uncle David’s “boot camp in a book” before the situation arises.

Or, if you really want, you can wait and try to learn how to do this when you’re already under fire and too stressed out to make good decisions. Do yourself a favor and do it now while you can do it the easy way; I’ve done it the hard way and in a nutshell, the hard way really sucks, more than you can imagine before you’ve lived through it.

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

Why Does She Erupt? How to Stop Drama from Killing Your Relationship and Marriage

Why do otherwise stable and level-headed women sometimes pitch a fit for no apparent reason? And what’s the best way to handle it?

We talked yesterday about how to tell when a woman is getting ready to erupt for no apparent reason, and there was a cursory explanation of how to handle it, but I really wanted to give you more on understanding the cause and handling the situation. To do so, I’ll provide something from my own experience that details the build-up, explosion, and diffusing of the situation to help you relate this lesson to events in your own past so that you can be better prepared next time it comes up, and IT WILL come up. It’s a topic that I frequently need to address, and the following reader question makes for an excellent lead-in for the discussion. Meet Joel:

Hi David,

I bought your book and I'm progressing through the relationship evaluation and it looks like we're good, but I've got to ask you about something that may already be in the book because it's driving me nuts. Donna, my wife, is usually pretty stable and understanding, and seldom raises her voice. In fact, sometimes we don't talk much at all. Occasionally she'll get really antsy and next thing I know she's exploding on me for no apparent reason, literally! Whatever she picks to explode about is usually trivial at best, and really ridiculous most of the time. I've watched the calendar, if you know what I mean, and it's not "cyclic." The only thing I've noticed is that it always seems to happen when I'm traveling or busy a lot. She'll explode, I'll explode back, and then she'll go away and come back in a few minutes cheerful and acting like nothing has happened. Can you shed any light on this?

Joel

Well, Joel, congratulations on taking the first step to making some serious improvements in your life, and thanks for writing. As for your question, yes, it is covered in detail in my book, but I'm going to give you the short version now to help keep you out of trouble until you read that part, and for the benefit of your fellow readers, because every man who keeps the company of a woman goes through this phenomenon at some point in his life, if not with every woman he spends any time around, and it may not even be with a wife or girlfriend. It could be with a "platonic" female friend, or even a coworker, but it will be with someone with whom you have regular interaction.

What's happening is she's feeling ignored (or possibly testing to see if you'll wuss out when she acts like a brat, but they usually use other tests for that), and missing the feeling of having you define or exercise authority for her, which gives her a little rush of adrenaline and attraction and gets the planets back in alignment. Actually, this is a good sign, because if she had already lost all attraction for you, she wouldn't be doing this at all, so congratulations on taking action before your relationship deteriorated to critical status as well!

Here's the deal. If you don't pay enough attention to her in ways that let her see you being the alpha male, especially in projecting authority and leading, whether it’s in critical decision-making or just having fun, she'll find something trivial and pitch a fit over it, just to get you to call her on it and tell her to straighten up. Mentally and emotionally healthy women will respect you when you establish a “no brat zone.”

This doesn't mean that you turn her across your knee and spank her, unless you can do it without hurting her and in such a way that it's entirely plain that you're playing with her and you're both laughing all the way through it. Remember, women love to have gutsy, strong men show their sense of humor in naughty ways, but they hate being painfully man-handled, bullied, controlled and abused, again if they are mentally and emotionally healthy. A show of strength when everybody is smiling and having fun is one thing, a show of control or cruelty is something else entirely, and something you never want the women in your life to see if you want them to stay around.

What it does mean is that you must take one of several approaches to call her on it, and it may entail raising your voice a little if that's all she'll respond to, but it mostly requires a show of strength, not of volume; a show of leadership, not abuse.

My wife did this to me once. I'd been neglecting her a bit as I worked overtime on my next book. Read the following paragraphs carefully and make sure you pick up on the details - no yelling, the only physical force was non-violent and smiling naughtily, etc., the very things she was looking for.

She wanted me to verify the quality of a piece of office furniture she wanted to buy and to pick up a pair of eyeglasses before 5:00PM, and it was 3:30PM. We live ten minutes from the eyeglass store, and had 90 minutes to get there. I said that I wanted to stop and pick up something on the way home and it would work best if we stopped to look at her office furniture first. Boom! That's all it took to open the door - I had set myself up.

I could see the change the instant she realized the opportunity she had. In the space of less than a second, she went from excited about getting a piece of office furniture and new eyeglasses to stormy. Then she said, "No, I don't want to go check on the office furniture, I want to go get my eyeglasses before they close. We've got to go there first." I thought, "Oh, hell, here we go!" and said, "We have 90 minutes to make the ten minute trip to get your glasses. We can afford the extra five minutes to stop on the way to check out the office piece."

To this, she went totally ballistic. "You know what? I don't even want you to go. I'm going by myself. I've got to get my glasses and I don't have time to go running around all over the place." Do you see how the level of absurdity is rapidly escalating, as well as the sudden reversal of both her desire to see the furniture and desire to be driven? (She doesn't see well enough to drive safely without glasses.)

Then I said, "You can't see well enough to drive without the glasses we're going to pick up, we have 90 minutes to get there, it's a ten minute trip, and we can certainly afford the five extra minutes to check out the furniture. Explain to me why you have a problem with this."

Her response was, "No, I'm not explaining anything. You always want to change my plans, so I'm going by myself." (Big hint: when you "always" do something that you've never done, or "never" do something that you've frequently done, it's said to make you call her on it and you're in this same situation.) At this point she has crawled across the seat of the car and is sticking her keys in the ignition, literally begging for an authoritative intervention.

I reached in, grabbed the keys, and snickered a bit as I said, "Excuse me, but you're not going anywhere unless somebody else drives because you're blind without your glasses. Now, it was your plan to stop and look at the furniture, and your plan to go to the eyeglass store. I suggested stopping one place to pick up one thing on the way home, and that hardly constitutes a change in your plans. You're pushing a bad position in an illogical argument, and until you tell me what's really going on here, I'm not driving your blind ass anywhere."

She went for her spare keys in her purse cursing and I climbed over top of her and grabbed them, and then playfully held her pinned to the seat with my body while she struggled and I said, "Say Uncle!" with a big grin on my face and that was all she could take. She busted out laughing and by the time she was done, she was about too weak to move.

She finally scooted over, we went to check out the office furniture, get the glasses, stopped and ran my errand, and just to put the icing on the authority cake, I announced a change in plans for supper (I'm the household chef) and stopped at a grocery store and lingered just a little longer than necessary in the produce aisle, cracking jokes the entire time about how good the cool air felt and "nature's thermometers" (guys if you don’t get this, ask a woman – I’d never get a more verbose description past the spam filters), exiting as soon as the smile began to fade the slightest bit, indicating that she was on the verge of boredom and starting to feel the cold, and therefore about to stop having fun. (NEVER let the fun come to a complete stop before changing course. Remember the old show biz cliché: “Always leave them wanting more!”)

So do you see what really happened? She was trying to goad me into taking an authoritative action, and may not have even been aware of it because it's such automatic behavior. If you respond to this the first time, you can get away with doing it with a humorous flavor as I did above and not having it get too ugly. However, if you just ignore her, or act bewildered and walk out of the room without doing anything, forcing her to find another excuse and launch a bigger attack, you may push it to the point where you have to yell a bit, physically restrain her from running out the door by standing between her and the door, etc.

Please note that one small change in the scenario, especially the failure to grin naughtily as I said, "Say Uncle," could have changed the event from one of fun to one of control and abuse; she would have been scared stiff instead of amused. Always mind your bearing when in this situation and make sure that it's fun for everyone or it WILL explode in your face. You've been warned...

Understand fully that unless she has been severely physically abused she will not be pushing you to strike her in any way (unless the two of you have a history of playfully spanking and slapping each other on the butt or something), and if she has ever in the past kept screaming and maybe even struck you until you slapped or shoved her, it's a strong sign that she has been beaten, still has issues, and really needs professional help to face those issues and begin healing. NEVER, EVER, for any reason physically strike her with the intent of hurting her, even if she begs you to do it or tries to force you. Use no more physical force than it takes to restrain her from hurting either of you, and if she's crying and hysterical, call a counselor and try to get her some help, because she needs it, badly.

There you have it. Again, it took more to explain that than I had hoped, but I wanted you to see a real-world example so you would have something more than just a rule to try to apply - a real episode with distinct characteristics that you could compare with what you have seen in your own life.

Women are constantly communicating things to us, but as you will learn in "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," much of that communication goes right over our heads, while they are thinking it just goes in one ear and out the other because we don't care to listen, when in fact we're simply unable to hear it because we don’t know what we’re hearing or what to listen for.

The problem isn't that we ignore it; it's that we don't have the natural tendency to pick up all the non-verbal and verbally indirect ways they use to try to tell us things. They really don't know that we are that under-evolved with respect to communications infrastructure and skill any more than we are born knowing that they are that highly-evolved and sophisticated when it comes to communications without someone pointing it out. It's just not obvious when you don't have a frame of reference. (I'm explaining it to them in their own book, so hopefully, when everybody knows how everybody else does things, life will go a bit smoother for everybody.)

If you want to learn what you need to know to deal with this problem and others, and get your relationship and marriage (not to mention your “bedroom life”) working at full pleasure and intimacy capacity, go to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" now, before you do another thing. Recognize that life is too short to spend it unhappy and work daily on making it better until it gets there.

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

Missed Signals Can Be the Death of a Relationship or Marriage

Women will go to extraordinary lengths to tell us and show us what they want. And often that is the problem; because of their communications skills and habits, they start with the extraordinary instead of the simple, and it usually goes right over our heads. What you miss could make a lot more than a difference; it could make for a break-up or divorce. What are YOU missing?

I am proud and pleased to say that a lot of my readers have become personal friends, and that many of my best students and greatest success stories still keep in touch, having mastered the wonderful world of women and relationships, they write with things for me to share with the rest of you to help you, and it’s always interesting when they do.

The following letter is from one of my best friends, who was one of the first winners of the “King Arthur and the Witch” contest I run every year and is a Jedi master among masters. He manages a convenience store, which is a veritable circus of human behavior and a laboratory as well. He points out some things that no man can afford to not know, so give him your undivided attention for a couple of minutes:

An interesting scene played out at the store on Sunday, and I thought would be helpful to some folks who haven't had the sense to buy your book yet.

I've told you before about this lady who comes in, with the Princess necklace because that's how her husband treats her. She came in Sunday morning with her husband and I couldn't help getting the feeling she had him there for one reason and one reason only: to show him how she wanted him to interact with her. From her body language towards me and to him, you would think even a modicum of insight would provide some clues. He missed them all, poor sap.

As soon as they came to the counter, she leans in toward me, away from him, and begins the teasing. We go back and forth, and I try to include him but it goes over his head. He stands to her side but behind her, and the one time she asks him if he wants something, she leans away from him to ask the question, and when he declines, she leans back toward me again and keeps going.

This whole time, his body language is subservient to her. His responses are to gain her approval and while it's obvious he thinks it's all fun and games, he has no clue that she is trying to get him to see, through a vivid, in-your-face example, what she enjoys in interacting with a man and wishes him to do more of.

It begs the question of how often men who may be getting angry, frustrated, or outright fed up with their wives’ and lovers’ flirty behavior are missing the point, and how many of them do miss it often. Of course some women are that mean, as you've made clear in those who destroyed their husbands as a game of guilt and boredom in their relationship. However, might not a frustrated woman, who still loves her man, feel forced to act out in non-threatening ways, to try to show him what she wants to see more of in him?

And when she has the integrity to do it in front of him to demonstrate, instead of doing it behind his back as an adulterous coward, does he not owe it to her to pay attention? Maybe he doesn’t have that kind of behavior in him, unlikely as that may be, but she’s communicating with HIM, not her girlfriends, not an adulterous lover, exactly what she wants and needs. Men have been begging women to do that since the dawn of time, have they not? Yet when they get it, they don’t embrace it. They call their wives teases and harlots, and rail against their disrespect.

And when the hints, the dropped clues, and questions produce no results, in what other ways can she be more aggressive with her pleas? Considering that I see anywhere from 150 to 200 women a day, I see things daily most men would have no clue of in a lifetime. I see how they act when their man is around and when he isn't. I watch as they attempt to give clues, drop hints, and as in this case, have a teachable moment.

The most telling hint was that on first arriving, she and I both tried to include him. When that wasn't working, she got more obvious, and by the time they left, she was in charge and wishing she wasn't. It took a while but I finally understood that her teasing about how special he treated her was an admission on her part that she likes it, loves him, but wishes he knew how to ramp that up with teasing and play. She enjoys aspects of the pedestal as long as it means it's a part of being appreciated as a woman, not a place to live.

A good analogy would be the commercial where the little girl is trying to ride a bike in a small square barely big enough for the bike. She understands that she can't enjoy the bike unless she gets to explore all over with it or enjoy the extended freedom it gives her. If you view a woman as being on a pedestal, she feels the restrictions, the pressure to conform to that small definition of what she is supposed to be.

She cannot enjoy the extended freedom a relationship should give her. She can never relax and enjoy it, herself, or her man. She can never be herself in every aspect as a woman. She can never truly be herself and let loose and be free in the moment to live life together with her man as she craves to do.

So just how many "plays" have we missed, how many restrictions on her does she feel from you while you're trying to get her to fit your definition of what a woman should be? Instead of trying to understand her, you worry more about why she doesn't understand you. If you feel the bite of being restricted and can't "just be yourself," how do you think she feels? Are her bites at you really bites about how you are treating her? Are they really about the pressures and restrictions she feels from you?

Instead of feeling pressured to be something you're not, it's time to man up and see that she wants you to be the man she sees you capable of being, so she can be the woman she's capable of being. She can't relax and be who she wants to be for you until you are the man she can trust to let go with. She wouldn't be with you unless she saw those traits in you in the first place. What have you done to prove it lately?

Just some random thoughts for the day...
David

What did you get from that? There was certainly enough to get. If nothing else, you should have seen two things: that women are subtle, not blunt, and that they do try to communicate their needs and desires. But unless it’s blunt or I’ve trained you, chances are it’s going to zing right over your head and be gone. She doesn’t know that. Women really don’t know that we communicate differently, and have a hard time accepting that we can’t read four paragraphs into the single gesture of a toss of the head, leaning toward or away, a roll of the eyes, or a touch of any part of their body against any part of ours. They don’t know that we don’t see the questions behind their statements and the statements behind their questions. Consequently, they think that we’re either daft or ignoring them. Bad either way, huh?

We don’t have the physical infrastructure to ever be able to communicate with a woman as women do. Our body chemistry during childhood makes it impossible for our brains to develop in such a way as to be similar enough to theirs to do so. Hard fact, not opinion. BUT, we can get a whole lot closer than we are, and if we talk about this with them, and tell them that we are trying to meet them somewhere in the middle and it would help if they would try to be a little more blunt with us when they thought of it and not be angry when we didn’t pick up on something and just realize that we missed it rather than ignoring it, they gladly try to meet us in the middle too.

Are you ready for the fun part? I’ll guarantee you that if you can remember and use just three simple rules and talk openly with your wife and other women about that main difference, that we are blunt while they are subtle, your communications problems, and all the eye-rolling and other dirty looks you get when you miss your cue, will be eliminated.

What are these three simple rules? Go to http://www.makingherhappy.com and find out. I’ll bet you’ll find them worth a king’s ransom or more. They will help you to answer that eternal question: “What does a woman want?” Sigmund Freud, the renowned psychiatrist and psychologist is famous for admitting that he didn’t know. But you can, and you will, if you stop sitting there wondering if this will work for you and just do it.

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

Know What She REALLY Means, or Lose Your Relationship or Marriage

Keeping attraction alive in a relationship is crucial, as is solid compatibility, but there is another crucial element that can chip away at it or explode it in a cold minute: communication. You don’t have to read her mind, but you do have to know what’s on it when she speaks. Can you?

First I want to apologize for some bad links to other products and freebies that have apparently been in this newsletter and on my blogs for an unknown length of time. I have software that checks to see if links are dead, and apparently that is not good enough. No link offered the typical “Error 404: Page not found” error that would satisfy the software’s conditions for flagging it. They instead had been taken over by “domain squatters,” and in some cases other companies offering unrelated products.

These errors have been corrected or removed as appropriate, and I will do a better job of monitoring them in the future now that I know what must be done. If you try a link and don’t get what you expect to see, I would appreciate a head’s up. Indeed, if you catch me in the right mood, you might even end up with a freebie or a favor. I respect other people’s time and try to make it worth their while when they share it with me.

The same goes for sharing a link or a product that you think other readers will appreciate, especially if you had personal success or enjoyment from it. I don’t actively look for affiliate marketing products or freebies because I prefer to stay focused on the subject of helping men and women to have a happy life, but I will post them when several of my readers report success with them.

Let’s get on to today’s lesson. As you can imagine, I get a lot of e-mail every day, including a lot of strange news, jokes, and cartoons from friends and readers who share my love of comedy and the “truth is stranger than fiction” examples found in the world. Wait until you see this one!

The following is a real classified ad in a newspaper offering a motorcycle for sale:

Post Date: Aug 7th, 2006
Expire Date: Sep 6th, 2006

$10,000
06' Suzuki GSXR 1000
Farmington, UT 84025 - Aug 7, 2006
2006 Suzuki 1000. This bike is perfect! It has 1000 miles and has had its 500 mile dealer service. (Expensive) It's been adult ridden, all wheels have always been on the ground. I use it as a cruiser/commuter. I'm selling it because it was purchased without proper consent of a loving wife. Apparently "do whatever the f*** you want" doesn't mean what I thought. Call me, Steve. (801) 555-5555

I’ve changed his phone number to protect his identity since the ad has expired. Now, would you have bought the motorcycle? Not me!

I know that anytime the word “whatever” comes out of a woman’s mouth, I need to pay close attention to the context. Why?

As you will note in my free “Break-Up Busting 101” report, while “whatever” generally means “anything you want is fine with me” to us men, to women it rarely has a positive connotation unless they have a sincere smile on their face. Observe some definitions provided by female readers and test group members:

1. Screw you!
2. Screw you and die!
3. Go screw yourself and die the Death of 1,000 Cuts!
4. Screw you, and you will be dying, slowly, painfully, and without even knowing it, just as soon as I figure out how I’m going to torture you to death.
5. I’m done, you lose.
6. Go ahead, smart ass, and whatever happens next, you have it coming.

Obviously there will be a few times when “whatever” is benign when spoken by a woman, but as I said, unless there is a genuine smile on her face, beware. Steve was apparently a world class bone-head, because even without the 90% of his wife’s communication that was non-verbal, you can still see and feel the anger in her statement, “"do whatever the f*** you want." You can almost smell the threat of punishment in that, can’t you?

If not, there are two things you need to do immediately. The first is to download that free report I just mentioned and see where else you’re setting yourself up for trouble, or worse, a break-up, and see what you need to do to reverse that trend before it gets out of hand. There’s a lot of good information in that report, and there’s more than one author in this industry angry at me for giving it away. They think it’s too much to give away. Maybe it is. I don’t know and frankly don’t care. My purpose is to get you on the road to correction fast and to prove to you that I can help. The same goes for another free report, called “What Women REALLY Want.”

The other thing you need to do is go to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download my e-book, "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," and get all the details on how to evaluate your relationship properly (women do this constantly, and you’d better be doing it at least periodically, or you’ll pay dearly), what women really want from us, how they think and why, and how use what you know about them to make everybody’s life fun, exciting, rewarding, and sexy, instead of boring, frustrating, scary, and celibate.

Those who are doing it are stopping divorces and making their relationships better than they’ve ever been, or realizing that they never should have come together in the first place and moving on peacefully and with dignity, some already to the best relationships of their lives. Join them, now, while you have room to maneuver and life and energy left to enjoy. Life doesn’t wait for you; you live it while you have it or you lose it forever. ‘Nuff said.

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

The Bottom Line on Testing and Why Being a Nice Guy is BAD for Your Relationship and Marriage

It’s not such a big secret anymore that being a “nice guy” is bad for your relationship, and men are finally waking up to the fact that much of the bratty behavior they see from women is in fact nothing more than a “wuss test.” Here’s why, and a few other things you really ought to know…

During an interesting discussion with a new student, we got on the subject of women testing men’s level of wussitude and why being a nice guy doesn’t work for either of you, and since I’ve not spoken about it for awhile, I’d like to share briefly with you the high points of that conversation. Even if you think you already know all of this, read it anyway, because you can never tell when the spark of inspiration or revelation will light you up!

To get you newbies caught up, women often push bad positions in arguments, insist on unreasonable concessions, pout, pitch fits, and engage in a lot of other seemingly absurd behavior with a very logical and targeted purpose, and it’s not to get what they want. You heard me; it’s not to get what they want. It’s to get you to say, “NO.” Why?

It’s one of the elements of that “men are hunters, women are gatherers” thing that anthropologists talk about. I’ll spare you most of the boring details, but suffice it to say that as we evolved (and I’m talking about improving and becoming more sophisticated as humans, not about the age-old debate about evolution vs. creation as an explanation as to how we got here, so save the anti-evolution hate mail for somebody who will read it), we developed different skills and physical characteristics that made each gender better suited to handle specific tasks.

Over time, men who had larger lungs, bigger skeletons and musculature, and spatial skills (navigation, being able to mentally gauge proximity to guess the arc of a spear as he threw it, developing tools, etc.) to help provide food and protect themselves and others survived better and reproduced more. Women who had wider hips (to aid in childbirth), advanced language skills (to cooperate with others in building huts, processing skins and sinew to build weapons, and other tasks that were best conducted in cooperative enterprises), sharper sense of smell (to sense danger approaching the dwelling and identify edible or poisonous plants), etc., also survived and reproduced more.

As with everything biological in every species of life, those who were the best-developed reproduced the most – survival of the fittest in its purest form. Some men were better protectors and providers than others. Some women were better at tuning in to a man’s traits and determining how much of a hunter and leader he could be. Through the generations, they became biologically “wired” through this process of natural selection (by locking in those genes that created successful traits) to possess skills that helped in finding a good mate.

While chasing down and killing a deer with bare hands or a bear with a spear is no longer required for a woman and child to eat, and indeed, in most parts of the world women routinely provide for themselves quite adequately without the help of a man, these mechanisms are still present and active in the female brain, and they automatically engage to size a man up from time to time – indeed, virtually every time they encounter a man, familiar or not. Much has changed, but one thing hasn’t: the nature of the test…

…which, in a nutshell, is to provoke you in some way to see if you will say “NO” to her when she is being unreasonable. Most of the time it is not at all deliberate, and you would laugh yourself silly as you read transcripts of conversations and e-mails in which women said, “I NEVER test a man. That’s silly!” and then confessed to it within just a few seconds as their testing actions were called to their attention, after which many of them said, “Oh my God! He must hate me!”

No, he doesn’t hate you, Ladies. Your testing is a pain in our collective ass, but it doesn’t make us hate you. It makes us think you’re nuts until we understand what it is and why you do it. Then it’s usually somewhere between mildly annoying and amusing. So on that note, guys, here it is, in a nutshell:

A woman knows, instinctively, without ever being told, as a result of biological development through the ages, that if a man can’t stand up TO her (when appropriate), he cannot stand up FOR her or WITH her. “When appropriate” is a big deal, too, because when it is inappropriate to stand against her, you must also be able to stand with her, no matter how much ego or crow you might have to swallow.

Write that down, and recite it mentally every time you start to enter a conversation with a woman until it becomes second nature, because you will eventually need it with every women you ever meet if you talk to her more than a few minutes, maybe even a few seconds. They have to know, and are biologically-driven to find out, whether it’s in a casual or formal situation, public or intimate context, and regardless of the nature or longevity of your relationship.

You WILL be tested, and if you can say “NO” to a woman she will feel safe in letting you get to know her better, safe in letting you hold sway over her emotions, safe in letting you negotiate on her behalf or as her adversary (because you’ll say “NO” directly instead of saying “YES” and then trying to trick her or cheat her in some other way). No matter what you may think, there is no possible downside to saying “NO” when it’s appropriate and the logical thing to do.

But when is that? We’ll get to that in a minute, but before we do, let me clue you in on a HUGE difference in the way we communicate: nearly all communication you ever have with a woman, and ALL communication that carries the potential for conflict, will start as a negotiation.

It is EXPECTED that you enter a discussion with either a position or a statement that you require more information. So when saying “NO,” unless you are abusive about it, in a woman’s mind and according to the protocol she will naturally follow, that “NO” is not final; it is merely your opening negotiating position, and she expects a chance to give you input that will persuade you. An inappropriate “NO” will only anger a woman if you deliver the “NO” and deny her the opportunity of negotiation. That’s why they get so ticked off when we act like we’re afraid to say “NO;” it’s just too wussy for words in their world.

But it does make things easier if you try to say “NO” only when appropriate, because it shows that you are reading her, which in turn means that you are paying attention to her, a big compliment in the women’s playbook. The easiest way to draw the line between an appropriate and inappropriate “NO” is to ask one simple question, “Has she earned a ‘yes’?”

If your wife says she wants new furniture for a room, and has contributed to the smooth and secure operation of the household, whether through a job or “domestic efforts,” been loyal and trustworthy, given you love and respect, etc., then she’s earned a “yes,” as long as what she’s asking for is within or can be worked into your budget, obviously. If she’s laid around on her lazy or drunken butt while you and the kids have done everything and complained because you didn’t do it fast enough, abused herself and you, and exhibited a general lack of respect for herself and everyone around her, no, she hasn’t. Indeed, she’s earned a trip out the door to divorce court, just as you would if you did the same thing. It’s really that plain and simple.

Or, put another way, if you think she deserves it and want to agree because of that, she’s earned a “yes,” but if you’re thinking about giving in to earn some favor from her that really isn’t a favor, but something a wife should be doing, you’re about to get busted for being a wuss, and getting the furniture without gaining whatever favor you were after is just the beginning of your punishment, so don’t go there. You can reward good behavior and punish the bad behavior, and you can exhibit good behavior by acting like a man of self-respect, but you cannot “buy off” a woman, at least not any woman worth having. That is in essence saying to her that you think she’s a prostitute, and they don’t take kindly to such things, sometimes even when they are.

As I said to this new reader today, I have searched extensively to find any rational downside to a man having genuine self-esteem and engaging in attractive behavior like being strong for his wife or girlfriend, and I have failed utterly to identify even an iota’s worth of a good reason to do anything less. If a woman says she wants something, even if you think it’s the right thing to do, invite her to make her case, thereby opening the negotiation that she expects and WANTS to engage in. Yes, you read that right.

Women naturally engage in negotiation to communicate nearly everything, and if she’s testing, you’ve made the right move, and if she’s not, she’ll be happy to build the emotion of making her case instead of just having you give in. The same thing if you think you should say “no” – yes, really! If you think it’s a bad idea, say so, and immediately invite her to make her case so that she doesn’t feel shut down and retaliate. It would sound something like:

Her: “Honey, what do you think about our living room furniture?” (Implied statement: “Honey, I want new living room furniture, and it’s time to negotiate.”)

You: “I like it fine, why?” (The “why” is needed for her to continue; if you don’t say it, she will most likely take it that you shut down the discussion!)

Her: “Well I think it needs to be replaced.” (Or in the long version, “Don’t you think it looks old and worn out (or the color is wrong, or it’s uncomfortable, etc.)?” meaning “I want to change it.” Some women will continually ask questions to repeat the statement they are trying to make until you make it for them.)

You: “Well, like I said, I don’t see any problem with it, but you live her too, so tell me what makes you want to replace it.”

From there, she’ll either give you good reasons to do so, like pointing out that it’s stained, uncomfortable worn, or she’s so bored with it she doesn’t feel comfortable in the room anymore (yes, that can be a very legitimate reason, as you would know if you knew everything you need to know about women, depending on whether she is truly bored with the furniture and the room condition or if she is generally bored and wanting “retail therapy” on the magnitude of a furniture purchase), or she’ll stammer around talking about where you can buy it on sale, or giving you the old “you’d just buy it for me without asking questions if you loved me,” routine if she doesn’t have a good reason and is either testing you or showing her true colors as a gold-digger (and maybe it’s time to test her a bit, too!)

The bottom line is that if she has a good reason, she’ll enjoy talking about it and enjoy the intimacy and challenge of the negotiation. And if she doesn’t, her behavior will make it quite obvious.

Living with a woman is easy if you are fairly well-matched in terms of values, tastes and interests and you understand what you need to know about women, which is how they are both like us and different from us, and how to communicate well enough to recognize negotiations, questions that are statements, etc. Now, you have a decision to make…

Are you going to spend a lifetime trying to learn on your own and reach the end of your life lonely and still not knowing?

Or worse, assume that I’m full of crap and you don’t need to learn anything?

Or are you one of us guys who see a problem, seek out a viable solution, preferably one that has already worked for somebody else in similar circumstances, and fix it?

If you’re that first guy, I commend your can-do attitude, but isn’t reinventing the wheel a gross waste of time? Not to mention a HUGE risk of having life – family life – as you know it, come to a sudden halt if you don’t figure it out, or don’t figure it out fast enough?

If you’re that second guy, why are you reading my newsletter? If you’re looking for validation of your past actions instead of a solution to your self-inflicted problems, you’re looking in the wrong place. I help people fix problems, not feel good about having created them.

If you’re that third guy, let me hook you up with what you need, and yes, it has already been tested and proven by thousands of couples. Go to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage." Read it. Study it. Learn from it the answer to that oldest of man’s questions: “What makes a woman tick?” and that next oldest: “What do women REALLY want?” Then go sweep your woman off her feet…I dare you! (And for those of you in the southern United States, “I double-dog dare you!”)

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

Want to Put an End to Fights in Your Relationship and Marriage? This Will Help...

A progress report from a female reader proves yet again that personal authority and leadership get results in your relationship and marriage.

I got a letter from an old and dear friend that I want to share with you. She’s not what anyone could call a pessimist or skeptic, just a woman with a logical mind who needs to see proof in her own life before anything can progress from “theory” to “fact” in her own mind. Meet Halle:

David,

Okay, so I've been reading your newsletter for a while now, and of course, I've read your book, but I still wasn't 100% buying into some of your “theories” (don’t spank me, you know how I am about this stuff!)... but my current relationship is slowly but surely striking down each and every one of my "objections." I wanted to tell you about the most recent one.

I've been dating this guy for about 4 months ... we have progressed VERY slowly due to a combination of work schedules (both very busy) and our combined set of "baggage," which, although small enough to fit neatly in the overhead compartment or underneath the seats in front of us, is still sufficient to cause us each to slam on the brakes every now and then. So after 4 months, we've JUST had our first "argument."

It wasn't a particularly bad one by any stretch of the imagination, but due to the late (or rather, EARLY hour - it was about 3 AM), it did go downhill towards the end. I was having a very hard time articulating what I was trying to say, which resulted in several long, uncomfortable silences -- never a good thing when you're having a discussion in a dark room at 3 AM. At one point, I got upset because he was nodding off, so I got up and went into the bathroom.

Actually, to be honest, I probably did more of a "storm" into the bathroom - and closed the door loudly so that he would hear it. He did hear the door close, which jarred him out of his nodding off, and he yelled through the door, "Do NOT get up and walk out on this conversation. If you've got something to say, SAY IT. It's late and I'm tired, so let's get this settled and MOVE ON!" Now, my first reaction was to think, "How DARE he talk to me like that? Who does he think he is?? Talking to me like I'm a bratty little kid and he's my father ... the NERVE!"

But the truth is ... I WAS being bratty. It took about 7 seconds for me to realize that, and his tone of voice was what did it. In theory, I would have told you that an authoritative attitude would NOT have worked to snap me out of any negative behavior patterns ... it sounds like something that just wouldn't work for me. In theory, I would have told you that kind of tone of voice and those words would have hurt my feelings or made me cry ... or just made me mad ... but it didn't.

That one statement was all it took to straighten my ass out! :-) The fact is, I was subconsciously testing him to see what I could get away with, and to see if he was man enough to stand up to me and pull me back in line. I think he's the first man in my life who's ever talked to me that way ... and he's probably the first REAL man that I've ever been in love with. It should be interesting to see where this relationship goes ...

Thanks for your advice and your perspective -- I continue to be amazed at how RIGHT you are!!! :-)

Halle

My response:

Well, Sweetie, I thought you knew me better than to think I would indulge in anything that was merely a theory. That would amount to selling people the privilege of testing my theories in that book, which I would call “theft by fraud,” among other things.

I wasn’t kidding about the 118 couples who helped in the research of this book, nor was I theorizing about anything that is in it. That’s the result of working with all those couples and quite a few more after the first edition of the book, and one of the first things that became immediately obvious in doing so was that what women think and say they want and what they respond to are quite often very different, and even opposite, like wanting a “nice guy.”

In any case, I’m glad it’s helping. It will help a lot more if you just accept what you read in that book and seek understanding, benefit, and protection from your vulnerabilities through it. I’m not saying, “Trust me.” I’m saying, “It’s been proven beyond any reasonable doubt through application on a significant scale.” You’ll find it quite empowering to be able to prepare for the unexpected and dispatch most if not all of those secret fears that every woman is programmed to have throughout her life, which is the main reason I wanted you to have it.

Take care, and keep in touch,
David

You see, Gentlemen, what I keep telling you isn’t theory at all. It’s the result of studying and interviewing real people with real problems and making adjustments that brought real successes in their relationships. Some people are good at visionary things, like inventing or composing. Others are good at organizing things. Still others are good at following instructions and consistently producing a quality result. I’m good at studying cause and effect and developing operational models, policies, procedures, and at using these things to manage and eliminate crisis, not to mention PREVENT it.

That’s how "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" came to be. My relationship with my wife was cooling after a couple of years, and I had a lot of friends whose relationships were somewhere between “strained” and divorce court. I started researching, found a lot of good information (by filtering through and trying a lot of BAD information!) that was making fast improvements in my own relationship, and knew that it was so universal in nature that if it could work for me it could probably work for a lot of other people.

I contacted my troubled friends and invited them to participate in a study and to contact their own friends with problem relationships and invite them in as well. We ended up with 118 couples, plus my own relationship, and all of us found major improvements, literally returning to honeymoon status: being fully engaged instead of going our separate ways after dinner, indulging in romance regularly, holding hands when we walked somewhere and talking about anything and everything with renewed interest, and returning to a satisfying sex-life after having slipped into that “the average couple has sex six times per year” status.

The best news of all is that the key to much of it is to start aspiring – or resuming -- to be a man instead of apologizing for being one. Can you remember how much fun it is to just be a guy? Can you even remember back that far? Were men still acting like men when you came into adulthood, or did you grow up in the age of political correctness and men crying in front of their women because some New Age idiot had told them that’s what women want?

Women want men, real men, manly men who do manly things. Not thugs, not predators or parasites, and although you couldn’t convince one of it until she’d tried it, not metrosexuals, either, because they end up being girlfriends to shop with instead of men. They want a real man with a real purpose and a real smile, who can protect them from their worst enemy, boredom.

They want more than that, but you’re going to have to go to http://www.makingherhappy.com and get your copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" to find out exactly what that is and how to make it happen. You’d better do it now, because every day that passes is another day that you get to spend either happy or unhappy, and you don’t have any idea how many you have left. Neither do I, but even if it were millions more, I’d much prefer to spend them in a great relationship than in misery wishing I could have my great relationship back.

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

Learn from the Events at a Dinner Party How to Have a Great Relationship and Marriage

There was a dinner party at my house, most of the attendees were women, and there was a whole lot to learn from their behavior. Let me share some of it with you…

As I write this it is late on Sunday night, and I’ve spent the day cooking and serving a traditional southern feast – barbecue pork, grilled chicken, baked beans, cole slaw, potato salad, and miscellaneous tidbits like a relish tray for the light eaters and Buffalo-style hot wings (yes, made with Frank’s “Red Hot” cayenne sauce and butter, the real deal, and kudos to The Anchor Bar and all the other wonderful places in Western New York that serve them!) for the more adventurous. The kitchen is clean, the leftovers dispatched (mostly sent home with the attendees!), and here I sit with a big cup of coffee to tell you about it, because anytime you get this big of a group together, there are going to be lessons to learn.

The group was a bunch of people, mostly women, who work in my wife’s office and a couple of their husbands, and some of my neighbors, 22 total, 5 men and 17 women, who had come to walk in a local breast cancer awareness event. Four of the five men were very strong alpha personalities like me, and the other was “just one of the girls,” if you know what I mean. Annoyingly flamboyant and effeminate, and a total drama queen. We’ll not be talking about him, by the way…

First, I have a reputation as a talented chef in my wife’s office because a few of her employees have been to our house for dinner, and many of the women who came without an escort were there simply to see what all the hubbub was about. I was buzzing around the kitchen getting things together and running outside occasionally to check on the grill, and there were pots and pans on all five burners on my stove with beans, sauces, etc., and I wish you could have seen the women’s faces as I was emptying pans into serving dishes, washing the pans up, and keeping the kitchen squared away and neat with all this activity. Why?

Because I was in charge and performing competently, moving quickly but not frantically, barking out orders for guests who had been in my house enough to be “extended family” and know where serving dishes and such were, generally involving about half the guests in the serving of the meal; the epitome of competence, leadership, and authority, and they were simply eating it up.

I’d catch them staring, smiling, and even primping, and if you want to see something funny, watch your wife’s best friend catch herself involuntarily sending flirtatious or even seductive body language signals to her best friend’s and boss’s husband! And there was my wife in the middle of all of it, with all the women telling her that she married well and how lucky she was to have a husband who “gets it”…you can imagine how that went over as well…

So the first part of the lesson, Gents, is that in any kind of a gathering, no matter what is going on, if you are the guy in charge and acting like you belong in charge, the eyes of every woman around will be on you, attraction will be building quickly if you are acting like a man, and your partner will get hit with a double-whammy of attraction because she’ll not just be seeing you do the things that light her up, she’ll also be getting social proof of your attraction value from all the stares, comments, flirting, etc., from all the other women – we are talking attraction overload here, gentlemen, as long as you don’t start acting like you wish your partner wasn’t there so you could bed one of her friends, that is. That will get you either a lot of grief or killed unless your wife has rather versatile tastes, so don’t go there.

The second part of the lesson is a big lesson on knowing what makes women tick. The group was large enough that it split three ways, 8 around the table in the kitchen (yes, it’s a very large kitchen because I’m also a chef), 8 more around the table in the formal dining room, and the remainder, who happened to be the sports fans, in the TV room watching a football game (American football, not soccer) and chatting it up while they ate. This made for an interesting dynamic as the group divided, because those who ended up in the formal dining room were the more analytical of the group and in the kitchen were the more creative and emotional. I, of course, was in the formal dining room with those who are like me.

I heard voices rising in the kitchen as the emotions started to rise, and went in to find one of the women, a close friend of over 20 years to both my wife and me, crying. Thankfully, nobody was fighting. One of the men had made a remark about single parents not being able to be there for their children, and this woman had lived a very hard life to make sure that she was indeed there for her children in every respect, and she got overwhelmed as she was trying to describe some of the things she had gone through and was crying pretty hard.

The man who had touched a nerve kept trying to interrupt to apologize and smooth it over, and the women (and the effeminate drama queen) were sitting there rolling their eyes at him because he was interrupting, some trying to comfort her non-verbally and all trying to get him to take the hint. What happened next was magic, and something that you can and will do yourself after I describe it to you.

When women get amped up like that, they don’t want you to fix it, or make it better. They NEED to pour it out and vent that excess emotion because it literally tears them up inside. They get that adrenaline pumping and all the neurotransmitters for pain and crisis start rushing, and as she pours it out cortisol is released to help deal with the stress and finally she will regain her composure. Knowing that, I caught the man’s eye while standing behind the crying woman, and shook my head slightly in a “no” gesture and held up a hand in a “wait” gesture. He sat back with a concerned and rather pained look on his face, and I motioned to him to lean back in, thus inviting the woman who was talking about her experience to continue.

Again, I wish you could have seen the women’s faces. They were looking at each other and my wife like “How the hell did he know to do that???” Literally awestruck because none of them had ever seen a man understanding a woman in an emotional moment, let alone coaching another man to handle it right. When she finally had poured out enough to pause and take a deep breath and try to regain her composure, I nodded to the guy who had struck the nerve and he apologized for upsetting her, assured her that his comments were not directed at her, etc., to smooth things over, and I stepped over to my espresso machine, dumped some heavy cream and bittersweet chocolate into a mug and melted it down with the steam wand, then quickly hydrated it and shot some whipped cream on top of it and set it in front of the woman, whom I knew to be a “chocoholic” and very sensitive to the serotonin-boosting effects of the polyphenols in dark chocolate (which cause enough of a serotonin rush to cause a mild euphoria in many people and everyone to simply feel more content). As far as these women were concerned I was walking on water. Why?

Several reasons: I had taken charge of a bad situation and turned it around by stopping a man from trying to be nice when he should be silent. I had known how to best help their friend while she was having a dramatic crisis, and had given her something that was so supremely personal to help her feel better after the crisis was past.

That was followed by all these women wanting to help clean up the kitchen, not to be polite, but because they wanted to be lead through something fun. (Yes, everything that happens in my kitchen is fun!) The flirting, hugs, compliments, etc., escalated all over again, and every one of those women thanked me for taking care of their friend like that. To them I was a hero, the icing on the attraction cake. Had I been a single man instead of their boss’s husband, I could have expected any of the single ones to stay the night, and probably longer. As for my wife’s response, that’s personal, and I’ll leave it to your imagination, but I will say that she smiled a lot and it was exactly what I expected. ;-)

I’ll admit, maybe you had to be there to appreciate the full impact that this had on everybody; as long as I’ve been writing, I’ve never found words to accurately describe a woman who is eaten alive with attraction. I will tell you that the men were somewhat awestruck, and I got several covert comments from them to the effect of “I want you to teach me how to do that,” as they were leaving. All but the one who was “just one of the girls,” that is. But like I said, we’re not going to talk about him…

So, gents, that was the day, and here I sit. I wasn’t born knowing how to read and respond to women like that, not even close. Twenty years ago I would have tried to be nice, tried to immediately fix everything, and stuck my foot in my mouth and had that woman crying harder and every one of those other women so angry with me they would have left with their friend in tow to save her from me.

Today, my wife has a reputation for having the greatest husband in the world. I don’t know if I am or not, and will never claim to be, but if she and her friends want to think that, I’m not going to argue with them, because I’m close enough for her and that’s all that matters. In fact, I’ll tell you a quick personal story to demonstrate.

We went to Niagara Falls once to visit friends and family (she’s from that area) and ended up in a tourist shop. I bought her a bottle of water colored with green dye that had a label indicating that it was taken from the falls at night while the lights were shining on it, which is pretty funny when you see the bottle and have seen the spectacle of Niagara Falls at night. Normally she would have come out with something similar to that, but she found a T-shirt that says, “My husband is the 8th wonder of the modern world,” and she snatched it up, held it close to her chest until she paid for it, then held it there most of the way home. I’ve noticed her wearing it often, and she smiles and hugs me when she sees me looking at it, often misty-eyed. Any questions?

What’s important to you is that I learned everything that was necessary for today’s events to unfold as they did, and so can you. It’s not rocket science, it doesn’t involve memorizing some encyclopedia of female behavior – I know about serotonin and polyphenols in chocolate from studying herbs and alternative medicine and making desserts, not studying women; all you need to know about it is how much your wife enjoys it and that it contains caffeine, so it can keep you awake if you eat too much of it too late; some nights that may even come in handy. ;-) In reality, women aren’t that complicated. They merely seem complicated because they are different from us.

They take the long way around in doing some things, like getting through a conversation or making a plan, and they do some things that are downright self-destructive, like dwelling on negative emotions when there aren’t any positive ones available, but once you see the ways in which they are different, it’s very easy to understand and anticipate them, which in turn makes it incredibly easy to do something they love to have a man do: LEAD them, competently and with confidence, which turns them on like a light switch, and nearly as fast.

I had to learn all this the hard way, first by making the same mistakes that you have made, and probably more and bigger ones since it took multiple marriages to get it right, and then by getting a bunch of women together and working with them to figure out what I was missing, like really understanding how women think, what they need, what excites and bores them, and how to communicate with them, followed by getting their husbands into the action to test everything we’d uncovered, some of which turned out to be quite wrong, by the way, because women will at times say that they want something but will in fact respond very negatively to it when they get it. They called that a “booby trap” when I was in the service. Life with a woman is filled with them, and if you don’t know how to watch for them, you are going to get something, possibly your reproductive organs or your life’s savings, blown off sooner or later.

Or maybe you already have. I don’t know. What I do know is that no matter how good it is, you can make it better, and it usually has to be so bad that she’s obtained restraining orders from the court before it’s too bad to save. I also know that there are some relationships that were doomed by compatibility problems from the beginning and should not be saved, no matter how badly you think you want to. It’s a mine field, but I can walk you through it if you’ll let me.

Just go to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" and get started. If you’re having problems, you may also want to download my free reports, “Break-Up Busting 101” and “What Women REALLY Want,” by following the instructions at the end of this newsletter to help you understand what’s happening and help you focus on fixing it instead of the fear that may be overwhelming you. There’s not a thing in the world to lose except the time it takes to read it, and after four years, I’m still not hearing anybody saying anything except how great it is and thanking me for the results they’re getting, so the evidence says you should try it, too.

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

A Word (or Two) From a Woman About Great Relationships and Marriage

Here’s some feedback from one of my most highly valued female readers, one who lives, learns and tells it like it is in a brutally direct manner that few women are capable of. She has some lessons of her own to teach, for those who will listen; lend her an ear, and see what I mean…

Well guys and gals, the weekend is upon us, I’m up to my ears in DIY projects and business evolution, and today I’m going to let someone else do most of the talking, which is cool in this case, because she says a lot with few words.

Deb lives on a different continent than I do, literally on the other side of the world, yet she sees the same problems, same solutions, same opportunities and same stupidity every day. Listen to what she says as I share a couple of her brief e-mails with you:

Hi David.....

Wow yes long time no talk...

I have been too busy with my coursework to do too much chatting. I have been reading most of your newsletters and have made it through your book ... just.

Interesting and pertinent as usual...your comments...especially having a girlfriend who is swinging in her relationship at the moment...but she said to me the other day…Deb I'm bored...and I just laughed to myself and said, “Watch this space!!!”

I read your book and see so many things ringing true. From the creating attraction and being the strong MAN, to learning to communicate and to being playful and taking time to learn about your partner and what makes them tick and what they like.

A comment (from a newsletter) really jumped out at me regarding a man "knowing" his woman. I thought if more men took the time ...and it doesn't take a lot... to really have a wee think about what their partner likes and actually put into practice some of those things...it would make a huge difference.!!

Women are soooo much better at seeing something that their partner likes and doing it for them, doing it with them, or surprising them with it.

I went out with a man who even though I told him what I liked physically when getting intimate...still loved me the way he wanted...I just shut up in the end...and ended it for many other reasons as well but....HELLO?? ...it could have been great...but it wasn't.

My ex-husband knew what my ultimate date was....and no it wasn't expensive...a moonlit picnic on the beach ...and we lived right close to one....and I waited our whole marriage...but he CHOSE to ignore that and never did it. A simple thing can mean a lot to a person...and when someone takes the time to do those little things which mean a lot...a LOT of love and attraction is created.

THOUGHTFUL is still number 1 on my list of what to look for in a man....if they are thoughtful they can see beyond themselves and what they need and want and hopefully will put that into action.

Anyway keep up the good work...
It is finally starting to warm up a bit over here and it feels like spring.
Now off to class
cu
DEB

My response:

Hi Deb!

It is so good to hear from you! You sound as if you’re really getting things together, resolving the past, and gathering lessons to take forward with you. I’d even bet that you have established a new rule that any man who wants to be a serious candidate for your life partner is going to have to take you on a moonlight picnic on the beach within a short while of learning that little tidbit or he’ll be ruthlessly kicked to the curb for being a bonehead; if you haven’t established that rule I STRONGLY suggest you do so, because a man who can’t be told what a woman’s ultimate date is and not take her on it is at best grossly mismatched with her (doesn’t like picnics, the beach, moonlight, romantic seclusion, etc.), and at worst an insensitive bastard who is looking to dominate and/or drain a life instead of share one. I’m pretty sure you could call that “the acid test” for your number one requirement of “thoughtful,” don’t you think? ;-)

I would LOVE to post this letter for the other readers, sterilized of any personally identifiable information, of course. I can preach to these guys day in and day out with the very words given to me by the group of women who taught me everything I’ve learned, but only letters from women always seem to wake up the ones who refuse to realize that getting along with a woman really is that simple and that easy, and you’re letter is a perfect testiment to that fact.

Things must be warming up there and on the verge of springtime; spring in a place so unspoiled as where you live must be breathtaking. I hope this one brings you not just a change of temperature, but a complete rebirth into a new life of independence and happiness. By the way, have you noticed that independence isn’t the state of being alone, but the state of being “prepared to” and “comfortable with” being alone? So many people miss that lesson throughout their life, but I doubt it will be lost on you… ;-)

David

Her response, which not surprisingly, contains yet more valuable insight for those with eyes to see it:

Hi David

Hey feel free to post the letter...if others can learn from my mistakes or life’s lessons so be it...I wish I had read material like yours YEARS AGO!! and definitely recommend that people pre-empt lots of pain and heartache and read your material BEFORE they need it and work on creating a WOW relationship which others wish they had.

I still read your newsletters because I learn from them. You have that no-nonsense, sensible advice, and know when someone just needs a good wake up call!!

I know I am so much wiser now and know what I am looking for in my next relationship...and more importantly what I will not put up with...(Yes the date test will be a good test)..but I have also learned how to communicate when I am upset so as to solve issues and not drive a man away from sorting something out...

So here's to happiness while single and great friends and here's to the next relationship whenever that may be. But as you say definitely enjoy the ride...celebrate who you are, develop your passions and look for someone who won't stomp on them when you get involved with them. Thanks for your encouragement.

Talk to you soon
cu
DEB

Okay, Gents, what did you learn here?

How about that if you don’t have compatibility, you don’t have a relationship that will last? Relationships between incompatible people end up being competitive instead of cooperative, and it creates an adversarial relationship. Ever try to trust or love an adversary? “Love thine enemy as thyself” is an unmitigated crock of crap, no matter who said it. That’s why nobody can do it.

How about that women are so aggressive in trying to find and manage a good relationship that they will buy a book written for men to learn about what kind of man to look for? Relationships are serious business to them, and if you don’t take yours seriously, you WILL be replaced by someone who does, and punished for it in the process.

How about that no matter how good or how bad things are, they can be better if you’ll only work on them? Or more importantly, that if you work on them before they get bad, you won’t have to work as much or as hard and things won’t ever get bad? “WOW relationship,” anybody?

How about that yet another woman is offering unsolicited testimony to confirm what all the men and women involved in the development of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" proved to be as certain as the passage of time? Women want a real man with whom they can communicate and have fun, which is a tall order when you don’t have a clue what to do, but as natural as procreation when you learn the few secrets about getting along with women that shouldn’t be secrets!

Or how about the one that continues to knock my socks off after over four decades of watching women wallow in drama and refuse to deal with problems: that women can talk about and resolve problems with you, and WANT TO DO SO ONCE THEY LEARN HOW! Can you imagine a life with minimal or even NO DRAMA? Yes sir! It can be done!

There’s more, but it’s fairly obvious, so I’m going to let you dig it out so that this doesn’t get any longer. If you’re ready to step up and take Deb’s advice and start making things better now instead of waiting for them to get worse, download your copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" at http://www.makingherhappy.com and get started. Every day you wait is another several days you’ll have to make up for later, and one that could have been spent a lot better.

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

Why Women Test Men, One of Great Mysteries of Relationships and Marriage Solved

Let’s get a little deeper into why women test men, and what you should do when they do, and tomorrow, we’re going to talk about how and why we can test THEM, so stay tuned…

I like to write about testing from time to time because it’s an inexorable part of life with virtually any woman. To give you an example of how automatic and literally unavoidable it is, look at how women interact with me.

I’m an expert and published author on the subject, have proved it to nearly all the women I know during the course of writing “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage” as I researched and tested the material and constantly since then, and they’ve all acknowledged it, yet all of them test me nearly every time we talk! Some get embarrassed about it, some just laugh, but they know that I know, many want to avoid it because they know they’ll get busted and I’ll give them a hard time over it (in a naughty, mischievous way, not hateful or demeaning!), yet they still do it, often without even realizing it.

Think about what this means to the average guy living with the average woman. She’s not trying to avoid it, because she’s not the least bit worried about getting caught at it. Indeed, she’d probably be happy to get caught at it and have something said because in most cases, in her world that would be an improvement. Why?

I’m going to give you the short version, because this is a complex subject, it took several pages in “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage” (and even more in the still-untitled book I’m writing for the women) to cover it and I don’t want to overload you with “homework.” Besides, I think we both know that I’d prefer you buy my book! (Wink!)

Women are constantly testing men from the time they meet to the last day of their relationship because they are wired to look to the long term and protect their offspring and ability to produce them (whether they have any or not), and avoid getting stuck with a bad man. We can tell them we’re real men, we’re tough, we work hard, we never lie, we’re good in bed, we’ll stand our ground and fight the good fight, but it could be a lie, or could become a lie at any point, so their only option is to test us to see if what we say is consistent with what we do, and stays that way.

You’ve seen both men and women change the instant they figure out they have somebody hooked; most men just aren’t secure enough and smart enough to do something about it. We’re biologically wired to be nomads, father children through multiple mothers, etc., so our biological purpose is to secure food and lodging and make women pregnant. We’re also biologically wired to protect the women before the kids, because we can make more kids in minutes, where women are wired to protect the kids first, since their investment in making a baby is over nine months. And no, that’s not all we’re good for, but the biological mechanisms that cause and support behavior can’t be completely ignored, either.

Yes, it’s a mess. But getting back to the point, they have to test, can’t stop testing, no matter how good things are, and if you don’t know how to respond to a test, you’re toast, especially as far as attraction goes – they’ll test you to see if you continue to tell the truth, remain committed and loyal, etc., and the only way to deal with that is honestly; right now, we’re here to talk about attraction.

You’ll be tested to see if you’re a real man or a wuss, and even if you’re a real man, a weak moment can cause you to do wuss things and kill attraction, so you need to be ever-vigilant. Again, this is a very complex subject with near-infinite possibilities, and I’ve only got room to cover a small part of it here, so you’ll have to consult "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," starting on page 45, for a much clearer picture of how to detect and pass this kind of testing, but let’s hit some of the really common stuff…

First, keep in mind the characteristics of the alpha male: strength, self-esteem, authoritative, confident, playful, intelligent, comfortable, etc. You were born this way, and the programming of the years since tampered with it, hampered it, buried it, or convinced you it was somehow wrong or insensitive. Mothers and other well-meaning women, school personnel, the media and others have tried to beat it out of you, or back so deep inside you that you deny your true nature, and in doing so, your ability to enjoy your life.

You must strip yourself of all the wussification programming that you’ve received since birth and allow the real man within you to emerge; you can’t “fake it until you make it” when being tested. The tests that you face will be tests that challenge these traits and try to get you to expose a hidden weakness, especially in a weak moment, to make sure you’re not just a wuss PLAYING THE PART OF a real man, the alpha male. She wants to know that you can lead her and enjoy life, not just go through the motions for awhile and end up her dependent instead of her partner.

It can come very overtly, such as pitching a fit over something inconsequential to see if you will remain calm and negotiate your way back to reality, remain both calm and strong and tell her that when she gets done pitching a fit and is ready for a rational discussion that you’ll be available if she still wants to talk about it, or go the wrong direction by allowing her to get you upset and yelling or even worse, immediately apologizing for something that you haven’t done. In the former case, you’re allowing her to define authority by dragging you into a bad discussion and setting the tone for it, while in the latter, you’re just caving in to a totally unreasonable situation like a coward.

It can also come very subtly. My favorite example is in one of Jeff Foxworthy’s jokes, where his wife says she’s cold and without a word, he gets up and changes the setting on the climate control for the room. In his joke, he says he’s being trained, and his wife calls her mother and says that the training is working, but in real life, she’d be quite disappointed if this were a test (she’d appreciate it if she were really tired or ill and he was simply being considerate), because he just wussed out and took a non-verbal order to get up out of bed and change the temperature (or turn on the ceiling fan – it’s been awhile since I’ve seen the show).

There are two ways that I know of to pass this particular test (Ladies, you’re invited to write if you have thoughts on this – guys, always leave a communications channel open, even when you are the authority figure), depending on your relationship. One is to ask her, with a very naughty, mischievous grin, if her legs or fingers are broken, unless she’s in a wheelchair or can’t get up, which is just mean.

(Also, do NOT challenge her intellect by asking if she doesn’t know how to operate the one moving part of the switch unless she is extremely bright and you know she’s secure about it. Many women have a hot button about intelligence if they’ve been around an abusive man in the past, one who would say things like, “What do you know? You’re just a woman!” or “Stupid broad!” etc., and you don’t want to be identified with that guy and catch whatever she needs to vent about him when you touch that hot button.)

Or if you want to be considerate and take care of it for her, you can say, again with a bit of a sly tone and facial expression, “I’ll change it for you, but it’s going to cost you…” and then negotiate a kiss, backrub, favorite dinner, sexual favor, or whatever you’re comfortable with, but turn it into something fun and intimate for both of you.

Unfortunately, many women also use testing as a way to communicate to men things they aren’t comfortable discussing, like feeling ignored or unimportant, and they do this by pulling nasty little stunts like filing for divorce, emptying the family checking account or incurring a huge debt, or picking up a substance abuse habit or a boyfriend. It’s not because they want any of these things, but because they want you to see that they are vulnerable to these things because of your lack of allure, responsibility, leadership, or whatever, and can’t think of any other way to express it than to show you the worst-case scenario. This doesn’t usually come until you’ve failed to interpret their other communications efforts, so it would behoove you to learn how to listen when they speak.

Yes, that sounds really screwed up, and it is, but that’s reality, and you really are going to have to read “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage” to get the rest of that story, especially the tips on how to handle the situation. It’s far too complex and the stakes too high to try to address it in the limited space of an e-mail or a blog post. I can’t over-stress that testing is among the most complicated, misunderstood and potentially dangerous of all male-female issues, and if you don’t give it due consideration, you will be punished when you keep failing tests.

The action plan? Get the book, get the details, learn the alpha male behavior that women love in their men and keep it up while “deleting your wuss program,” learn to spot and respond appropriately to the testing that you will endure, no matter who you have married or are dating, and watch how quickly you start wearing out bedding and beds, not to mention how much more intimate, fun, and rewarding the rest of your life together with your partner will become. Jump on over to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy right now, before you have to face some catastrophe just to find out that your partner would like to have you home for dinner or have a date night once a week.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Being the Protector in Relationships and Marriage: When Should You? Part 2, Reader Observations and Lessons

Readers respond to the August 30 edition about knowing when to be a protector and when to let someone learn their lesson the hard way. I found their insight fascinating and adept, and you should find it useful.

In the August 30 edition, I shared with you part of a discussion I had with a student/client/friend, who has correctly identified himself as too mismatched with his wife to be able to salvage a failing marriage. If you missed it, please read it now at before continuing so you can be up to speed as we discuss these reader responses, because this is some really good stuff!

The gist of the lesson was that we as men are biologically wired for behavior that in some ways differs significantly from that of women, and that a tendency to be over-protective of everyone around us (as opposed to the natural female focus on protecting their children) and that there are times when we would be serving those we care about better by letting them make their own mistakes so they can learn from them, and make their own decisions in general so that we don’t communicate a lack of confidence to someone who needs our support as they try to mature and evolve, or to demonstrate to us that they have ALREADY matured and evolved.

What follows are the more interesting letters I received regarding that issue, and I must admit I’m rather proud of those who wrote them, because they are good questions that show analytical minds at work looking for answers, tools and opportunities for improvement. Meet Terry:

David,

You mentioned “a pretty typical story of an extremely intelligent and analytical male hooked up with a not-so-intelligent and overly creative female.” Could you elaborate on what is typical? My wife read that and said you were saying that it was typical for men to be smart and women to be stupid, and I didn’t take it that way at all.

Thanks,
Terry

My reply:

Hi Terry! You’re quite right. I meant nothing remotely resembling what your wife thought she read. It’s common for men to be more analytical and women to be more creative because of the neuron density in the left and right hemispheres of the brain that you find common to gender. There are exceptions, and there are also cases where you see things like a highly analytical man or woman who is also quite creative. The “norm” is for men to be more analytical and women more creative, but that does not mean that predominately analytical men have no creative ability or that predominately creative women cannot solve a problem.

I also did not imply that it was common for the man to be more intelligent than the woman; it is common for one partner to be a little more intelligent than the other, but if that gap is very wide, it creates a pretty serious incompatibility. What I was saying was typical was that when there is any kind of big compatibility problem, intelligence or the analytical vs. creative mismatch, problems are significant and difficult to handle without a lot of competent help, if they can be handled at all. Sometimes that compatibility problem is a marriage-killer.

In short, I was speaking of general tendencies in partner dynamics, not certainty in gender dynamics. I’ve met some incredibly smart and incredibly moronic members of both genders, as I’m sure everyone else has.

Thanks for writing, and keep in touch,
David

Margot’s insight here is impeccable. I’ve written on “red flags” before and neediness being one of them, but she pulled it out of this lesson as well. Check her out:

Hello David,

I couldn’t help but wonder how long this man had been trying to save this woman if he was trying to fight the urge to save her now. I should think that both a person’s need to be saved and an overwhelming urge to save someone are indeed both big red flags in a relationship. It’s one thing to want to love someone and engage in mutual nurturing, but it’s quite another to be driven to spend your life bailing someone out of one tough spot after another. If my husband were to get in a jam I’d certainly want to be there for him, but a pattern of choices that kept him in a jam would make me at least question how much importance he placed on his life and mine. I’ve found, as you may have, that people who make consistently bad choices aren’t stupid, but rather don’t care enough about themselves or the people around them to exercise the discipline to think and make good choices, which in my mind is a gigantic sign saying “DANGER!”

Cheers,
Margot

My reply:

Hi Margot, and you’ve hit the nail squarely on the head. Finding yourself drawn to people in trouble is not a sign that you love them, but that you are for some reason attracted to their frailty – codependence is a very destructive basis for a relationship to say the least. Lasting relationships are built on love and attraction, which in turn creates friendship, trust, loyalty, fun, excitement, and sex, not on the guilt or need that causes you to want someone to bail you out or be obligated to you after you’ve bailed them out.

Good to hear from you again, and do keep in touch,
David

And this from Daphne, one of the women in the test group that helped with the research for "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage” and a regular contributor:

Hey David,

As usual, I have stories about things my girlfriends have done to capture a man that would make your hair stand up on the back of your neck. One they all talk about is the lengths they’ll go to in trying to make a man feel dependent on them to keep him home, and how they’ll create a crisis from time to time to make him feel good about having saved them. Three of my friends got married to men who fell for fake emergencies. They were looking for someone to give them a house and children, and somebody who would run to the rescue was an easy mark. Tell your guys to watch themselves!

Daphne

No, neither Daphne nor I are saying that every woman does that, or even the majority. However, women, especially young ones who haven’t learned they can take care of themselves and developed the means to do so, and who want to get away from an abusive home or who are enamored with the idea of making a baby and too impatient to go about it the right way may go to extraordinary lengths to make it happen, to include ensnaring and marrying a man who will be tolerable to live with and a good provider in order to facilitate her desires of escape (possibly from oppressive parents or an abusive parent) and/or motherhood.

Such relationships can last for years, but they are not happy ones, and are usually focused on the children instead of the whole family. When the children start leaving the nest (if not sooner – often MUCH sooner), one or both parents will start succumbing to the pressure of trying to suppress and work around their incompatibility, and then the frequent fighting, frustration, disrespect, distrust, affairs, etc., start happening. Could this – OR DID THIS -- happen to you?

People unfortunately see these emotions and fights as the cause of their marital problems, but they’re merely a symptom of a much bigger problem. The cause was a bad decision to get together in the first place. That’s why I stress so vehemently in "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" that before a man starts working on fixing a broken relationship he thoroughly evaluate the relationship, check for compatibility and other markers of a strong foundation for the relationship, and make an informed choice before proceeding with anything else. Trying to put off the inevitable is a fool’s errand; if it has to end, end it quickly, and with dignity for all involved if possible, instead of escalating the pain until everybody is too engaged in fighting a war to clean up a mess that never should have been made, and children and other innocent bystanders end up suffering for it.

"THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" is truly THE man’s guide to any kind of great relationship with any woman, and it’s become the new title of this book because it’s so fitting and reflects its true scope. Do yourself a favor and go to http://www.makingherhappy.com/ and download your copy today, and start getting things squared away in your life. Even if you’re in your 70’s or 80’s, there’s still time left in your life to be happy; don’t waste it trying to delay the inevitable when you could be enjoying the time of your life.

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

Being the Protector in Relationships and Marriage: When Should You?

Men are often over-protective of women. It’s in our biological “wiring” in our brains; we’re compelled to do it. However, there are times when that urge must be fought off…

I’ve been working closely with one of my top “students” as he makes a dignified exit from a situation in which he and his soon-to-be-ex are grossly mismatched and have determined that there is just not enough common ground upon which to try to hold it together and be able to treat their differences as complimentary tools.

It’s a pretty typical story of an extremely intelligent and analytical male hooked up with a not-quite-as-intelligent and overly creative, emotionally driven female. And before anybody starts sending hate mail, I’m saying it is the mismatch that is typical, not the female being not quite as intelligent as the male. During good times they get along fairly well, but when trouble comes, she grossly over-reacts, and then gets caught up in that emotional validation thing that women fall prey to, wanting to believe that an emotion justifies itself and demands repentance, atonement, and a permanent change in behavior on the part of the man when it was her choice and behavior that was the problem.

She becomes very morally ambiguous and even hypocritical in trying to defend the bad choices she makes because she over-reacts instead of either thinking things through or relying on his analytical skills to cut through the emotional madness and restore order. She went too far, then painted herself into a corner, and exposed a weak and deceitful character that he has chosen to stop supporting and enabling.

She continues to make very bad decisions and is digging herself a deeper and deeper hole, and he’s having a hard time not stepping in front of the train to try to save her. She’s about 40 years old with the emotional maturity of a 15-year old spoiled brat, and her biggest problem is that she needs to grow up and take responsibility for her life and achieve a thing or two to have some sense of self-esteem, so bailing her out of problems would work against her in the long run.

Now that you have the situation, let’s dig into our correspondence a little for a lesson for you to ponder, one which applies to not only to ex’s and soon-to-be ex’s, but often to a partner in a good relationship, children, other family, and friends:

Him: “I wouldn't dream of sacrificing my future in a doomed attempt to relieve HER heartbreak, but through all of this, I have never wanted one bad thing to happen to her. She may well deserve it, but I'm not that guy - revenge only interests me for fleeting moments. Part of being rational, I suppose.”

Me: “If she's earned a bad time, stepping in front of it to save her from it is just as bad an idea as giving her an unjust punishment in the name of revenge."

Him: “Thanks for mentioning that - I needed to hear it. There may be a newsletter in there somewhere, because I see men doing that almost as often as parents do it for their kids. It's going to continue to be difficult, particularly since she's [the mother of my son] and I'm reasonably generous, to let her wallow in her own mess. But I'll manage.”

Do you see the point? It’s part of a man’s make-up to be a protector, and sometimes we work too hard at that part of the job of being a man, so much so that we undermine the development of those around us, or weaken their self-confidence by inadvertently making them think that we’re trying to “save them” because they’re not up to doing it themselves.

There are times when we want to help and try to help that our help really isn’t wanted or needed, and is in fact offensive, as our wives and girlfriends, our children, our other family, extended family, friends, coworkers, etc., try to meet challenges and grow. Think about that…

If I could teach you only one thing in the rest of my life about relationships, it would be this: Self-esteem and independence come from only ONE source, and that is ACHIEVEMENT. Meeting challenges and coming out on top builds the confidence to stand alone and have a life, allowing a person to enjoy your company and share a life. Anything you do that impedes others’ ability to rise to meet the challenges of their life puts them one step farther from independence and one step closer to being a dependent, not to mention resenting your involvement in deterring their independence and self-esteem.

So what do you do?

No, you don’t just say “screw the world” and become a hermit so you don’t impede anyone’s ability to grow. Don’t’ be silly. What you must do is be patient enough to let others ask you for help before you go jumping in. If you can tell that somebody is in a bind, but don’t think they will ask because they are too proud, you can subtly offer: “Man, that looks tough (or “fun” if you think you can get away with it). Can I do something here?”

Asking in that way doesn’t force them to say they “need” your help; it allows them to say that you could be of help, which is far less demeaning if they are trying to remain independent. It also allows them to say something like, “I think I can cover it, but if you’ve been through this and have any tips or tricks to make it easier, I’m interested,” or something like that. Whatever they say, they mean it, so if they refuse, just acknowledge their choice by saying something like “very well,” and DON’T add on something that expresses a lack of confidence like, “You know you can call me if you change your mind.” If they change their mind, you’ll be the first person they call because you offered to help.

The hardest part about being a protector isn’t the protection, it’s knowing WHEN to protect and when to let somebody take their lumps and learn their lessons so they can grow. As far as your relationship with your girlfriend or wife goes, unless you are indeed with a dependent, they will appreciate you not smothering them and allowing them to give things a try before jumping in. It’s a vote of confidence in both their ability to perform and their ability to assess a situation and be adult enough and responsible enough to ask for help if they need it.

You have likely been told all your life that charity is a good thing, along with self-sacrifice. Nothing could be further from the truth. If you sacrifice justice, the principle of giving someone or receiving exactly what is deserved, no more and no less, to charity, the principle of giving the unearned to those who did not earn it, everybody loses. You lose the life that went into creating whatever you gave away, and they lose the opportunity to feel better about themselves by having attained something of value by their own mind and effort. It is a strong sense of justice, not charity or punishment, that makes for the most effective and respected leader.

By and large, women are neither weak nor stupid, and they resent the hell out of us when we treat them as if they are. They may not do things the same way we would, and at times may not even come close to doing them the best way if it’s something mechanical, but they usually can get it done, and being social in nature, they have no problem with asking for help because it turns it into a social event. However, when we let them see just how far they can get on their own and they make something work, they feel better about themselves, and they have not only a boost in their security and self-esteem as a result, they also have BRAGGING RIGHTS, which is not something we men have a monopoly on by any means. And bragging is by nature a social activity, right?

And what are bragging rights to a woman? RELIEF FROM BOREDOM THAT YOU DON’T HAVE TO PROVIDE! So wise up and take advantage of one of those rare and wonderful things that makes something good happen without you having to work your ass off to make it happen.

In some ways, women aren’t that different from us; in others, they seem like they’re from another planet at times. (An old friend of mine used to say that there’s something on that extra leg of an “X” chromosome that really messes women up!) Understanding our similarities and our differences are equally important in the quest for a happy and lasting relationship and/or marriage. There are some things that are very masculine, some that are very feminine, and some that are simply and supremely human, and knowing these differences can make the difference in you being with a great woman for a lifetime and you being alone and strapped with alimony and child support payments while everybody in your former family except you enjoys the house that you worked (and are still working) to provide, so I strongly suggest you get wise, and fast!

The fastest path to such wisdom is "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," waiting for you in an instant download at http://www.makingherhappy.com. Get it while you can, because you never know what tomorrow may bring…but you can always hedge your bet with good information, if you can find it, and this is it!

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

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

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

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

Hi David,

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you in advance for your help,

Gail F.

My reply:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Take care, and keep in touch,
David

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

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

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

"Can't You Just Let Me Feel Bad for Awhile?" -- Understanding Female Emotions in Relationships and Marriage

Sometimes women say they want to feel bad, and it drives us absolutely nuts, because we don’t. What’s happening, and what can you do about it?

As you might guess, the women in my life (wife, mother, sister, friends, readers, etc.) are usually a great source for material for these newsletters, as are their husbands and boyfriends and my male friends on occasion. One such occasion was one day while my wife was having her lunch and was watching television.

My wife, and a lot of other women, because they are inherently attracted to anything where they can see authority figures, will watch just about anything that has a cop, a lawyer or judge, a pilot, or a doctor in it. (They also like mysteries because they enjoy the anticipation and suspense, so take the hint!)

I walked into our living room to join my wife for lunch (lunch at the coffee table while watching a home improvement show was a favorite pastime at that time) as the end of an old episode of “Judging Amy” was on television, and saw a woman jump off the ledge of a tall building after letting her daughter loose to run to the judge. My wife says that Judge Amy had refused to alter a custody agreement due to lack of evidence, and said that the woman had contrived the “drama of the issue” as part of an ongoing fight. Witnesses has described her as “paranoid,” and “dramatic” during the proceeding.

The scene then changes to Judge Amy sitting in front of a fire in the dark drinking something that looked like Scotch on the rocks and her mother, the social worker, walks in looking concerned and sits down, and starts telling Amy how the woman was unstable, Amy had made the right judicial decision, sounding very much like a man would sound under the circumstances. (There’s nothing masculine about Tyne Daly, even in her “golden years,” but there are times when her character is quite direct and masculine, but in a matronly kind of way.)

Amy interrupts her by saying, “Mom, I feel bad because something bad happened today. Can’t you just let me feel bad for awhile?”

Yes, that sounds crazy because no man would ever say something like that, unless of course he was pretty effeminate, but I would bet the farm that eight out of ten men reading this will have heard a woman say that at one time or another because I’ve heard eight out of ten of the women I’ve ever known well enough to want them to feel better say it. Why?

It’s that same problem of our differing emotional scales. (See this recent archived article for details.) Ours runs from negative to positive, with neutral in the middle, while a woman’s runs from zero to extreme without a lot of discrimination between positive and negative. They would prefer to feel good over bad if handed the choice of two doses of equal intensity, but there are times when a woman has a choice between feeling a little good and really bad that she’ll choose to feel really bad just to feel SOMETHING intensely. Again, why?

We both tend to stay near the middle of our emotional scales, which is our comfort zone. Men don’t like to stray too far from neutral in either direction. Feeling bad creates an urgent need to fix something, while feeling too good makes us irrational (it will be a long time before the world forgets Alan Greenspan’s words, “irrational exuberance” and the fallout from that) or makes us paranoid, wondering so intensely when the good time is going to fall apart that we cause it to fall apart.

Women, on the other hand, have a higher level of emotional involvement and energy at the middle of their scale, and if they go too low, they get bored (and start exhibiting a lot of the same behavior we exhibit when we’re at the low end of our scale – scared, hurt or angry – including in extreme cases nausea, trembling, disorientation, feeling of desperation, etc.), or if they go too high on the scale, they tend to get irrational and get lost in the emotional overload, unable to return to the middle of the scale until they bleed off that excess emotional energy.

So what does this have to do with Amy? She was trying to bleed off that excess emotional energy by just experiencing it and letting it burn her out and make her bored with the issue to sufficient degree that she could get back in balance, recentered, and refocused. So what does this mean to you?

First, that when one of the women in your life is feeling bad, giving her logical, rational reasons why she should feel good isn’t going to do anything but frustrate her. She’s not stupid, and she likely already knows most or all of the reasons available to feel good and has tried thinking about them. Throwing them in her face is the equivalent of telling her she’s too stupid to think of something like that herself. Don’t do it.

Logic and reason can very rarely be used to bring a woman out of a heightened emotional state unless you are a very strong leader, so with a low chance of success and a high risk of insulting her and royally pissing her off, just don’t go there until you have mastered alpha male leadership and can jolt her out of her distress with a strong, alpha male maneuver that will cause a massive and rapid bleed-off of all that emotion. As a novice, there are really only two things you can do.

The first is to do as Amy asked, and just let her get through it. Be supportive if you can without acting like you’re trying to be a father or coddle her; otherwise just let it go. Or, there’s a better option, if you’re a pretty strong leader…

In some circumstances, especially when she’s feeling bad about something that happened to somebody else, such as a friend’s mother dying (as opposed to her own), you can convert that negative energy to positive energy by finding something utterly outrageous to do to distract her, and when she acts pissy and says something like, “Can’t you see I’m upset?” you just turn it up another notch with something like, “Do you think I’d be acting this ridiculous if I couldn’t?” and crack the big naughty grin.

She might smack you a good one, but she’ll be pouting and smiling at the same time, a sign that you’ve won, so keep it up and lead her out. If however, she says something like, “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but I’m just going to have to get past this myself,” give her a hug and tell her that you’ll be somewhere doing whatever you’re going to be doing when she’s over it or if she wants to talk.

Be perfectly clear on this point: You can lead her if she wants to be lead, but you cannot force her out of a bad mood or emotional pain, so forget any notions you have to the effect of “I have to save her or die trying.” No, you don’t, and if you try to save her when she doesn’t want to be saved you’ll just make her mad.

Besides, as her partner, your job is protection and nurturing, not salvation. Some would say that’s the job of religion, not men; I say it’s the job of the person needing saved. In any case, give her the respect of assuming that she can save herself when she’s ready and will at most let you help a bit. Women who can’t save themselves from their problems aren’t partners; they’re dependents, just like men who can’t save themselves.

As I’ve been saying, lessons are everywhere if you look for them. Some of us are better at identifying them and organizing them than others, and we tend to be counselors, trainers, consultants, and teachers. I’m all of the above, and an author as well, so you lucked out!

I’ve put a whole lot of these kind of lessons in "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," so go to http://www.makingherhappy.com/ and download your copy right now and have the benefit of all the testing and experience that went into it now, while it’s easier to do something with it than after everything blows up in your face. (You can fix it after the blow up, but why do it the hard way when you have an easier choice???)

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

A Late Winner, Success Story, and GREAT Lessons for Your Relationship and Marriage

I found a late entry that was so well-analyzed, well-prepared, and well-presented that I had to reward its author. He has a GREAT story to tell about his own life and the best analysis and teaching presentation of the King Arthur and the Witch story that I have seen to date, and I’m calling this one a “MUST READ.”

We interrupt the regularly scheduled newsletter edition today to bring you one that I really never thought I would present, and am SO proud to do so. One of you has moved straight to the head of the class with a great success story and the best analysis of the King Arthur and the Witch story I have seen or heard to date, bar none. Indeed, he covered every significant point that I found and even small one that I didn’t spot myself. Meet Stan:

David,

I am one of those guys who lost their wife of twenty-three years because of not knowing the signs that you teach of. I worshiped the ground that "SHE" walked on and it killed all of her attraction for me. She filed for divorce and I went into a depression after she left and became a sniveling flubber. A wimp who begged her to come home and love me. You were right, this only repulsed her and she would tell me that she was going to find a "Real Man" and told me that I made her sick.

Well, her "Real Man" turned out to be a homeless drunk without even a driver's license whom didn't compare to me in any way. Looks, money, character or morals. She bought him things and helped get him a place to live, drove him around and had sex with him while suing me for divorce and trying to take everything that I worked for, which brought me down even further. When he was done with her, he, of course, dumped her. All within a matter of a few months.

I have two children (One a teenage boy the other a nine year old girl) of whom the courts gave me custody from the beginning but with supporting them and loosing work because of my depression I still haven't been able to afford your book yet. However, using your advice (received via your E-Mail letters) I have met a quality "LADY", whom is even more beautiful than my ex and way more of a lady to me and my children than "SHE" ever was.

I have learned a lot from your letters and I thank you for everything, for until I found your site I had given up and had all but crawled under a rock to die. From you I learned how "I" had a major roll in her actions and infidelities and as such, I also have to accept some of the blame. Now "SHE" is begging "ME" for love and to let her come back but I have learned from you what to look for in a quality woman and she has none of the qualities of a good wife or partner or sad to say, even a mother.

I am an adamant reader of your E-Mail articles now and so appreciate your help getting me through my "Wuss Syndrome". I thank you for teaching me to be (and helping me to realize that I am) an "Alpha Male" and as such, I am a better man, father, and inspiration to my friends and family and especially my son.

That being said, here is what I learned from the story: "What does a woman really want?"

The first lesson in this story is that Arthur should not have sought out the wisdom of the wise or priests, because this particular question had nothing to do with spiritual wisdom, but pertained more so to a woman's nature. The princess wasn't truly qualified to answer the question because she would have probably had everything handed to her since her birth and wouldn't comprehend the true meaning of the word "want."

Arthur probably didn't go to the witch at first, not based solely on the fact of cost (He didn't even ask the cost yet) but because he, neglecting the fact that she IS a woman, didn't think that a woman of her stature would have the answer to a question so pertinent, for she lacked the looks and finer qualities associated with regular women for whom society sometimes associate looks or appearance with quality. How would a woman of her stature know what "REGULAR" women want?

The witch, however, did have the knowledge of what she or "Women" wanted, because she in fact WAS in charge of her own life. She had the choice of being whatever or whomever she wanted. The witch was perceived as ugly by others but they all respected her and knew that she would have the answer for a reason; she was a powerful woman who was strong within herself. She did not have to prove to anyone who she was because she already knew who she was. She was “it,” so to speak. Thus the exorbitant costs she required.

She wanted Lancelot, who stood out from the crowd, as her booty because she new that she deserved him and would not settle for less than the best. As the "Most noble of the knights" He had already proven himself an "Alpha Male" which had already triggered her attraction switch knowing within that she was also a quality female.

Retaining her looks through the wedding ceremony was probably a test to see how much of a man he was and he passed with flying colors. It didn't matter to him how anyone else felt or what they thought, Lancelot lived for and answered only to himself. He was willing to do what was right for his people, again showing leadership qualities and selflessness by taking the initiative and being a leader for his king, continuing to trigger attraction in her.

On their wedding night the witch offered Lancelot part of what she "COULD BE" not so much as a reward only, but possibly as a continuing test. She rewarded him and partially submitted to his authority by giving him part of what she knew he, as a man, would want while posing yet another test of when he would want it; is this about pride (the way other people see you) or is it about you (what you want)?

By accepting her gift and graciously granting her the authority back, to make the decision as to when he would receive it, he gave her the security of letting her know that he believed that she was capable of making her own decisions and that he was going to stand by her either way continuing to trip her attraction triggers thereby causing her to want to please him, turning her into what he wanted her to be, naturally.

Thanks for letting me thank you.

Stan

Well done, Stan. Well done indeed. Enjoy your copy of "THE Man's Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" and keep in touch. If you can learn that much and do that much with my newsletters, I can’t wait to see what you can do with my book.

And what about the rest of you? Maybe you’re getting a lot out of my newsletters, and I’m pleased as punch that you are, but has it occurred to you that as good as what you’re getting out of these newsletters is, you’re not getting anything close to what’s in my book? If you’re getting more smiles than you used to, you’re really talking again, and things are starting to heat up in the bedroom again, great, but you’re catching crumbs, so to speak. How about a nice big steak? Can you imagine what you could do with that? And don’t you deserve to treat yourself and your relationship better?

I love this work, I love helping you folks, and I love every one of you for making the effort to try to make your life better, but I’ll be the first to admit that I do this for a living and I’ll never put more than 10% of what I’v