Holiday Gift Giving in Relationships and Marriage: Do You Know How to Choose Her Perfect Gift?

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

I’ve published this excerpt from “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage” several times and always received a ton 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 6, 2006 if you’ve not seen it by following the link to the archive below my signature). After all the crap they endure from us while we’re trying to learn how to get along with them and do what we’re supposed to do as men, we owe them the little extra effort that the daisies – or whatever is supremely personal for them -- require.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Retail Therapy, a Sure Sign of a Much Bigger Problem in Your Relationship or Marriage, One That You Can Fix!

If you’ve noticed your wife (or yourself!) buying things not for the benefit of ownership, but for the thrill of making the purchase, you have a problem on your hands. Yes, you are responsible, but it’s something you can easily fix…

I wish every one of you could know how much fun it is at times to be me and do what I do with and for all of you. Yes, there’s a lot of stress and frustration at times, but the success stories are exhilarating and some of the questions I get are just downright hilarious, like this one. Meet Kent:

David,

My wife and I have been married for 18 years, and we love each other deeply. However, we’ve fallen into that rut that everybody seems to fall into. We do things together and talk, but we just don’t seem to have real fun or real intimacy anymore. We’ve done nothing but sleep in our bedroom every night this year but three, and I know exactly which three they were.

If it weren’t for our hobbies, I don’t know what we’d do. I spend much of my evenings in my workshop making jewelry boxes, turning pens, and doing other small woodworking projects, and my wife watches mystery and cop shows on TV. Every few days, she’ll get particularly antsy and fidgety and announce that she’s “going out for retail therapy” and come home with a bunch of stuff that she never wears or uses and it just ends up cluttering up the house, and then she complains about it and gives it away.

I keep telling her that she’s giving away our retirement when she does this, and that she should keep receipts and return items that she’s not going to use, but she claims that’s too embarrassing for her. I’m at the end of my rope. Can you tell me how to explain to her why she needs to stop this?

Thanks,
Kent

My response:

Hi Kent!

There’s no amount of explaining that you can do that will help the situation, and that’s not because you’re wife is stupid, impetuous, or enjoys trying to put you into the poor house. It’s because she’s bored. The thrill of the purchase gives her a temporary rush of adrenaline that relieves her boredom for about long enough for her to get home, then she’s over it, and the purchases go into storage where she doesn’t have to look at them and admit that the purchase was a mistake and face her embarrassment.

I don’t see your name on my customer list and you’ve only been on this newsletter list for a little over a week, so I’m going to bet that you have no idea just what a destructive emotion boredom is for women. In a nutshell, it has much of the same impact on them that sheer terror has on us. Yes, that’s right. I’ve proven it 100% consistently with several hundred women. They have feelings and thoughts of desperation, are almost entirely incapable of logic, and in extreme cases even have physical manifestations like trembling hands and nausea. The good news is that this is something you can fix.

Boredom is one of the things for which a woman looks to a man to for protection; it’s the price you pay for her nurturing, and it’s a biological mechanism, not a logical one. It’s the result of chemical reactions natural to the female brain, and denying it or trying to find a way around it just doesn’t work. The good news is that acting like a man and using a few well-timed surprises and other little things can give her the small but frequent doses of excitement she needs (something so small as finding a Post-It note with a few well-chosen and heart-felt words on it will more than suffice, as an example).

You’ll find all of that and more explained in my book, should you choose to pursue it. Do the math, and I’m sure you’ll quickly realize that your wife does more damage to your checkbook in each outing than my book will do to it once, and the results are not just guaranteed, their a foregone conclusion if you use it. My customers have proven that consistently, time and again.

Take care, and keep in touch,
David Cunningham

So how about it, Gents? Is something like this going on in your household? Wives aren’t the only ones that engage in retail therapy; men can be just as guilty of it as women. But where men can fix their boredom with a new hobby, women have the need to see a man, preferably their man, acting like a man, and to be entertained by him to some degree as well. They look to us for leadership (NOT control), and when we fail to provide it, boredom quickly ensues.

Boredom really makes women crazy. And it makes them incredibly vulnerable to attraction.

That’s a double-edged sword, as some of you have found out a little too late in life. If you realize your mistake and create attraction for her to relieve her boredom, she’s swept off her feet and good to go for as long as you keep it up, but if somebody else creates it for her, it is possible for her to turn her back on you completely, especially if she has tried over the years to tell you that the problem exists and your inter-gender communications skills have been lacking enough that you didn’t understand what she was saying, because when that happens, a woman takes it that you don’t care to hear her, not that you can’t do it. Why?

Because she thinks that you speak and listen the same way she does, just as you think that she speaks and listens the same way you do, and no matter how much you want it to be that way, it just isn’t so. Both of you can easily learn the other’s natural communication style and quickly come to terms (you can easily communicate accurately with a woman by following three simple rules), but you do have to learn and then use what you have learned.

That doesn’t take a staggering intellect; just a genuine desire. It’s not rocket science, Gentlemen. It’s women. They make up a little more than half the world’s population, and if it were that difficult, our species would have been extinct long ago. But the knowledge you need has been ignored and even buried for so long that you never got the opportunity to learn it.

Instead, you had a bunch of idiots telling you that to impress a woman you take her to a chick flick and cry with her, and you spend more on clothing and skin care products than she does. Oh, and let’s not forget that absurd business about buying their love with expensive jewelry and other gifts, or impressing them with big money and expensive cars. A bunch of pure, unadulterated B.S., or “bovine fecal matter” as we used to say in the service.

So what’s going on at your house? Maybe your wife’s not indulging in senseless shopping sprees, but is she happy? Fun? Engaged in your life and happiness? Or is she acting as bored, frustrated, and confused as you may be right now as you read this? Or would you even know?

Why take the chance? If you were hit with a divorce right now, what do you think it would cost you, in both financial and non-financial terms? Most of the men who write to me to say that they desperately need help because their wife just filed for divorce also say that they didn’t know that there was even a problem, so yes, that’s a fair question that you really need to answer.

Now, for a bigger question: If you could read a book that could mitigate some or all of that cost, putting you back into a happy relationship, or getting you out of one that you never should have entered with some dignity and finesse, not to mention having a friend for an ex-wife instead of someone waiting around every corner to stick a knife in your back, would you read it?

When I had to answer that question, there wasn’t even a book to read. I had to write one! But you can read it; indeed, you can start reading it in the next few minutes. Just go to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage." You’ll see what I mean, and you can thank me for it when you’re done. For now, just get started! The longest journey ever completed started with a single step, and for you, this is the one.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This guy described himself as “the wuss from Hell” in his first letter to me, and was afraid he was too late to do anything about it; he mentioned in one of his letters that they’d been separated for a couple of years and she had told him that under no circumstances would they ever be together again, yet they’re dating, she’s chasing him, they’re getting totally intimate, and she’s fighting tooth and nail the whole way, testing him to make sure it’s not just some phony act he’s putting on and that this new man before her is here to stay. He is, he’s getting results, and if a self-proclaimed “wuss from Hell” can have an ex of two years pulling him back into the bedroom after she declared that donkeys would fly through a frozen Hell before she’d ever sleep with him again, you have no choice but to accept that this information works, and you need to be getting with the program, NOW! (Right, “Michael” K.?)

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

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

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

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

Dear David,

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

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

I need advice,

Ted

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Are You Getting the Short End of the Stick in Your Relationship and Marriage?

Some men (and women) work their asses off for all the wrong reasons. Are you one of them? Would you know? There’s an easy way to tell, and there’s a way to fix it, too…

Today I was reminded of something that happened to me a long time ago that really teaches a great lesson about making a contribution in your relationship. I’ll spare you the details of the event because it was both boring and pathetic; I’ll merely say that it involved a broker who had resorted to scamming his clients to feed his wife’s insatiable appetite for shopping and ultimately ended up jailed, divorced, and selling used cars after he got out of jail, all because he didn’t say “no” or “stop” when he should have.

Have you ever asked yourself why you work the way you do, and who it’s really for? Whose goals you are trying to meet? If not, you should. That answer is definitely one worth having.

If you and your wife has sat down and planned your retirement together and you have jointly chosen things that you want to accomplish before and during your retirement, great! You’re on the right track. If the two of you are so independent that you keep your finances separated and are both making your own arrangements for retirement, that’s great too, as long as everybody holds up their end. But…

If you’re doing all the working and she’s doing all the spending, or if your both working but she’s still doing all the spending, something’s wrong. And no, I’m not talking about your wife being the one to handle paying the bills out of a joint account. If your wife is better at that kind of thing than you are and you can trust her to do it right and honestly, that’s the best thing to do.

What I AM talking about is when all significant financial decisions -- indeed, all decisions of any kind -- serve her goals and not yours. I see this around me nearly every day, and get letters from men asking for help with the issue. I won’t say that it’s a problem in every household by a long shot, but it’s getting common enough that I feel compelled to address it.

Why does it happen? Because you wussed out! No, there’s no other explanation, so don’t try. You wussed out and gave in and spoiled her rotten, or allowed her to spoil herself rotten because you didn’t have the spine to say, “No, that doesn’t work for me and I don’t want to do it. Working for no reward at all is slavery, not love.”

Maybe it was fear of retaliation, or fear of rejection, or fear of making the wrong decision. Maybe it was just being too lazy to make a decision. Maybe you were such a wuss that you thought that you had to buy her love by turning everything over to her and living for her pleasure to the exclusion of your own. Only you can know that, unless you want to give me the details of your history and have me point it out to you. But what I can deduce with 100% accuracy is that it happened because you were not involved in the decisions, except possibly as a “yes man.”

If it hasn’t happened to you, congratulations, but pay attention and make sure it doesn’t happen to you. The broker I mentioned was an alpha male sort who ran onto some hard times, and his conniving wife smelled blood and told him that if he didn’t continue to keep her up in the manner to which she had become accustomed, she’d leave and take everything he had. He panicked, plain and simple, and turned against everything he was (he was my broker for years and was the only honest broker I had ever met until this happened) out of fear that he would lose her.

I hope that it’s obvious to you that a woman who would leave you over money isn’t worth having anyway, because she’s only there for the money, to take your life, not share it with you. And before anybody goes off half-cocked and sends me a nasty gram because I’m saying that “all women are just after money,” NO, I’M NOT. Most women are good women, just like most men are good men. But the bad ones tend to be really, REALLY bad, and if you find you’re with one, you’re options boil down to precisely two: Remain a slave to her desires or free yourself of her and start over with a good woman.

There is nothing you can do to change a bad person into a good one; they must do that, of their own free will and because they desire it, if it is ever to happen. You can’t blame a good woman for letting you spoil her, or a bad one for making you spoil her if she succeeds. All you can do is force a correction of the attitude and behavior and let the chips fall where they may. The woman’s character will be indicated by whether she straightens up or hits the door running (or tries to throw YOU out).

The point? It all boils down to who benefits from what you do. If you don’t benefit from your labor, why do it? If you’re not benefiting from the time and effort you spend to generate income while others in your family do, that’s not being a man and a provider, it’s being a slave, and there is nothing loving or noble about being a slave. Stand up and at least share in the benefits of your labor, and if somebody gets mad about it, tell them to either get over it or hit the road, because their days of reaping all the benefits of what you do while you get nothing more than the headache and the backache are over. That leaves them two choices, respect you and stay, or leave. Either one is a good option for you under the circumstances, right?

A great relationship and marriage is based on love, and love brings with it respect, loyalty, trust, and friendship; the absence of those things is an accurate indicator of the absence of love. It also requires attraction to provide the fun and excitement that keeps the relationship alive for the decades that the two of you live together. Without it, life is boring, especially for her, and she’ll find a way to cure her boredom if you don’t cure it for her, either with drama or with somebody else. Nobody who loves you would allow you to work as their slave, and nobody to whom you are enslaved could ever feel attraction for you. It’s really that simple. You have to either turn it around or start over, the right way, with somebody else. End of story.

Sometimes mistakes are made and people get off-track, and you can turn it around just by making the choice to correct mistakes and get back on track. Other people start off the wrong way, marrying for need instead of love because they don’t know the difference, and you simply can’t get it back on track because it was never there to start with. How do you know the difference? And how do you respond when you do?

It’s not hard to do, just hard to recognize when you’ve not studied women and couples and nobody who has studied them has told you what they’ve found. I’ve studied them, and still have them working with me regularly to expand the knowledge base by testing new ideas and scenarios. Once you get on this road to improving your relationship, you can’t get off. It’s not that it’s an addiction; it’s just so rewarding to feel yourself getting more and more happy, intimate, excited, and safe in the knowledge that you are indeed living with a true partner, not just a dependent who may stab you in the back or leave you for no apparent reason.

Care to join us? We’re literally in a revolution, revolting against the ideas that bad relationships can only get worse, that it takes months of expensive therapy to get over common problems, that bedroom intimacy is going to die after you’ve been together for a year or two and an affair is the only way that you’re ever going to enjoy that kind of life again.

If you want to know what we’ve found so far, go to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" and start reading. If you’re already feeling the strain and think a break-up might be imminent, also download my free “Break-Up Busting 101” report and feel free to share it with your friends. Together, we can fix just about anything, one way or another, so climb aboard and let’s get busy!

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

Be a Manly Man Who Does Manly Things to Enjoy a Great Relationship and Marriage

A female reader is displeased with her husband’s recent evolution from “manly man who does manly things” to “metrosexual guy who acts like a girlfriend instead of a husband. What can I say? Chicks dig manly men, so be one!

A lot of men have trouble dressing themselves, especially those of us that have no artistic sense of proportion, color-matching, etc., and many of us don’t have the self-respect to learn how to dress and groom ourselves. Unfortunately, many of us are also so insecure about what our partners like that if they suggest anything that they like, we have a tendency to go overboard, inundating them with something they really would have like to see just a little more of until it ruins it for them (think chocolate three meals per day or back rubs that last so long it chafes their skin and hurts) and has the opposite effect of what either of us want: they end up bored and/or frustrated. Meet Nancy:

Hi David,

I love your newsletter. I wish I could get my husband to read it and your book. I’m at my wits end with him.

He started watching that TV show, “What Not to Wear” a couple of years ago because he wanted to look better for me, but he went overboard, got obsessed with clothes, fashion, scents, etc., then came the hair products, then the skin products, and if he wasn’t pursuing me like he does I’d swear he was gay. He has become one of those “metrosexual” men. It was fun for awhile, because he’d go shopping with me, and we’d sit and talk about what everybody else was wearing and stuff. After awhile he was more fun than most of my girlfriends, but the more we did this, the less I responded to his advances,” and it’s come to the point where he takes longer to get ready to go somewhere than I do and it’s just too much, if you know what I mean. He gets more attention than I do when we go out, at least more compliments.

I guess I should be grateful because other women used to approach him right in front of me, servers were always flirting with him, etc., but they don’t anymore, and frankly, neither do I. My husband was a sexy man until this started, and now I see what people were talking about when I started hearing the term “girly man” awhile back. He was a manly man, and very sexy acting, but I’d remarked a few times that I wish he’d upgrade his wardrobe a bit because the shorts and graphic T-shirts just weren’t doing anything for him, and now, I wish I’d kept my mouth shut. Can you help?

Nancy

My reply:

Well, Nancy, I can help by pointing out the obvious, but you could help him as much as I on this particular issue by simply telling him, bluntly, that while you appreciate his effort, he’s gone too far down the wrong road, and you want your “manly” man back, because while he’s now a lot “spiffier” than he was, he’s just not sexy anymore because he’s turned into a girlfriend.

When you said something about his wardrobe, something snapped and his sense of self-esteem and security went down the tubes, possibly because he realized how bad he looked and was quite embarrassed about it. That could have been all it took to stop him from acting confident and displaying the alpha male behavior that you found so attractive, and he needs to regain that confidence by returning to doing the things he enjoys and can feel competent in doing instead of trying to compensate for a history of dressing badly by seeking the approval of everyone who saw him looking like a slacker.

The main problem with the metrosexual behavior, which you have expressed but may not have noticed, is that the two of you have started doing “girlfriend things” together, and your husband, once a “manly man who did manly things” is now in effect another social relationship (“girlfriend”) to manage. What was once special, exciting, unique, and sexy is now mundane, to the point of boring and frustrating you.

It’s good that he’s “upgraded his wardrobe,” as you put it, but what he needs to understand is that for men, dressing to project self-respect is far, far more important than dressing with the latest fashion trend. The shorts and graphic T-shirts didn’t bug you so much because they were ugly as because in your eyes, he was both capable and deserving of better, and he didn’t treat himself with respect nor project the respectability that you knew he commanded.

Now, if his dressing habits are “going overboard,” it’s likely making a subconscious impression on you that he’s insecure, and looking for approval and enjoying the extra attention. Approval-seeking behavior is one of the wussiest, most attraction-killing things that a man can engage in. Taking more time than you to get ready to go somewhere is reinforcing that projection of insecurity, because the excessive and fussy use of facial products smells of a fear of wrinkles, signs of aging, and aging itself; a man needs to take care of himself, but looking and acting “girly” is a bad move, no matter what action you’re talking about.

Take care, and keep in touch,
David

Gentlemen, it’s like this. Women (at least heterosexuals – I’m not qualified to comment on lesbians) like men. They like being around men, having relationships with men, and sleeping with men – real men, manly men who do manly things. They like having a man define and exercise authority (NOT CONTROL!) by taking the lead in things, making decisions, and exhibiting confidence. Don’t ruin it for them by doing “girlfriend stuff” with them and turning into another girlfriend to keep up with.

Do “guy stuff” and do it with self-respect and respect for them. Go fishing, hunting, and to sporting events, or whatever “guy stuff” you enjoy doing, with or without them, but if you go without them, don’t go on their birthday, your wedding anniversary, or the day that they told you that you needed to go with them to see one of the kids in the school play.

Yes, there is a bit of a double-standard there, but it’s a good thing, because having her do guy stuff with you lets her see you being an alpha male, the “Right Guard Guy,” “Old Spice Sailor,” or “Marlboro Man” from the old commercials, and it makes her hot because it differentiates you from her girlfriends instead of homogenizing you with them. Besides, “guy stuff” is often fun for everybody, but women are too busy managing relationships, social circles, and other things to check them out.

In addition, women hate being bored so badly that if you do ANYTHING with enthusiasm, they usually want to watch or join in. This is especially true if you announce that you are going to do it and then just tell them they can come along instead of hounding them to come and do it with you. The next biggest thing that most women hate after boredom is feeling like they missed out on something fun or interesting. Indeed, the more enthused you are about the activity and less you act like she needs to be there, the more she’ll expect it to be interesting and want to get involved.

And if she doesn’t, you’ll be giving her the gift of missing you, as David DeAngelo says. She doesn’t want you in her face all the time because she needs to think about you, fantasize about you, and long for you in your absence. Yes, we hate that feeling ourselves, but women thrive on it, and especially the anticipation it creates, so let her enjoy it.

If you’re going to be gone for a long time, make sure that she hears or sees from time to time that you’re thinking about her – daily, not hourly like some wimp checking in with his mama or jealous jerk checking up on her. Women like knowing you think about them when they’re not around, which heightens the anticipation of your return, so don’t spoil it for them by calling every two hours with the same lame “Whatcha doing?” thing. And either leave her something or bring home something for her “treasure box;” leaving something is often better because it ensures that she has it out while you’re gone. (The rules and recommended methods for letting her know you’re thinking about her are in "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage".)

Be a man’s man, not a girly-man, and not a pig. Clean yourself up and clean up after yourself as any self-respecting man would, but let her make the big fashion statement when you go out. Her girlfriends will be checking every last detail on her, and only whether you dressed with self-respect; don’t complicate your life by trying to join in that competition. Take a look at the most expensive formal wear and you’ll see what I mean; gowns are as varied as snowflakes, yet if you’ve seen one black tuxedo, you’ve seen nearly all of them. Take the hint. If you’ve out-spiffed her, it will embarrass her, and you’ll find that to be quite bad for your love life.

Ladies, since I know that a third of my readers are ladies, do guy things with your guy if you enjoy any of his hobbies, like sporting events, etc., and keep the girl stuff for your girlfriends, and that includes all the emotional chit-chat over problems. Your man is there to fix problems, not to listen to you milking the emotion from them, so try to avoid taking a problem to him until you are ready to discuss it in earnest and at least entertain suggestions on fixing it. If you don’t like any of the guy things he does, then enjoy the time away and savor that anticipation of meeting up after an afternoon, evening, or even a day or days apart.

Much of being attractive to a woman is a simple matter of doing simple, manly things – things that guys like to do. A lot more of it is simply enjoying being a man instead of apologizing for it and asking permission to do the things that men of self-respect do at will. Get out there and do those things! Just don’t mess the house up in the process and leave it for her to clean up. That’s what a grab-asstic teenager does to his mother, not what a self-respecting manly man does to his partner.

Sounds complicated? Sure it does, if you try to reconcile what you know a manly man is supposed to do and enjoys doing with all the effeminate, touchy-feely crapola that we made the mistake of buying into since the 1980’s, from crying on your woman’s shoulder to being her metrosexual shopping buddy (girlfriend!).

Jump back and get back in touch with your inner naughty boy and manly man with “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage,” and take on or get back to that attitude and corresponding behavior that has you feeling and acting like a manly man and has her seeing you and wanting you as a manly man. It’s the only way to go – one reader referred to it as “The Keys to the Universe” – and it’s at http://www.makingherhappy.com, guaranteed to work, for less than the cost of dinner for two at about any place that puts cloth napkins on the table. Now get on over there and get it done, because life is short, yesterday is gone, and tomorrow may never come!

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

Retail Therapy, a Sure Sign of a Much Bigger Problem in Relationships and Marriage, One That You Can Fix!

If you’ve noticed your wife buying things not for the benefit of ownership, but for the thrill of making the purchase, you have a problem on your hands. Yes, you are responsible, but it’s something you can easily fix…

I wish every one of you could know how much fun it is at times to be me and do what I do with and for all of you. Yes, there’s a lot of stress and frustration at times, but the success stories are exhilarating and some of the questions I get are just downright hilarious, like this one. Meet Kent:

David,

My wife and I have been married for 18 years, and we love each other deeply. However, we’ve fallen into that rut that everybody seems to fall into. We do things together and talk, but we just don’t seem to have real fun or real intimacy anymore. We’ve done nothing but sleep in our bedroom every night this year but three, and I know exactly which three they were.

If it weren’t for our hobbies, I don’t know what we’d do. I spend much of my evenings in my workshop making jewelry boxes, turning pens, and doing other small woodworking projects, and my wife watches mystery and cop shows on TV. Every few days, she’ll get particularly antsy and fidgety and announce that she’s “going out for retail therapy” and come home with a bunch of stuff that she never wears or uses and it just ends up cluttering up the house, and then she complains about it and gives it away.

I keep telling her that she’s giving away our retirement when she does this, and that she should keep receipts and return items that she’s not going to use, but she claims that’s too embarrassing for her. I’m at the end of my rope. Can you tell me how to explain to her why she needs to stop this?

Thanks,
Kent

My response:

Hi Kent!

There’s no amount of explaining that you can do that will help the situation, and that’s not because you’re wife is stupid, impetuous, or enjoys trying to put you into the poor house. It’s because she’s bored. The thrill of the purchase gives her a temporary rush of adrenaline that relieves her boredom for about long enough for her to get home, then she’s over it, and the purchases go into storage where she doesn’t have to look at them and admit that the purchase was a mistake.

I don’t see your name on my customer list and you’ve only been on this newsletter list for a little over a week, so I’m going to bet that you have no idea just how destructive an emotion boredom is for women. In a nutshell, it has much of the same impact on them that sheer terror has on us. Yes, that’s right. I’ve proven it 100% consistently with several hundred women. They have feelings and thoughts of desperation, are almost entirely incapable of logic, and even have physical manifestations like trembling hands and nausea. The good news is that this is something you can fix.

Boredom is one of the things that a woman looks to a man to for protection; it’s the price you pay for her nurturing, and it’s a biological mechanism, not a logical one; it’s the result of chemical reactions natural to the female brain, and denying it or trying to find a way around it just doesn’t work. The good news is that acting like a man and using a few well-timed surprises and other little things can give her the small but frequent doses of excitement she needs (something so small as finding a Post-It note with a few well-chosen and heart-felt words on it will more than suffice, as an example).

You’ll find all of that and more explained in my book, should you choose to pursue it. Do the math, and I’m sure you’ll quickly realize that your wife does more damage to your checkbook in each outing than my book will do to it once, and the results are not just guaranteed, their a foregone conclusion if you use it.

Take care, and keep in touch,
David Cunningham

So how about it, Gents? Is something like this going on in your household? Wives aren’t the only ones that engage in retail therapy; men can be just as guilty of it as women. But where men can fix their boredom with a new hobby, women have the need to see a man, preferably their man, acting like a man, and to be entertained by him to some degree as well. They look to us for leadership (NOT control), and when we fail to provide it, boredom quickly ensues.

Boredom really makes women crazy. And it makes them incredibly vulnerable to attraction.

That’s a double-edged sword, as some of you have found out a little too late in life. If you realize your mistake and create attraction for her to relieve her boredom, she’s swept off her feet and good to go for as long as you keep it up, but if somebody else creates it for her, it is possible for her to turn her back on you completely, especially if she has tried over the years to tell you that the problem exists and your inter-gender communications skills have been lacking enough that you didn’t understand what she was saying, because when that happens, a woman takes it that you don’t care to hear her, not that you can’t do it. Why?

Because she thinks that you speak and listen the same way she does, just as you think that she speaks and listens the same way you do, and no matter how much you want it to be that way, it just isn’t so. Both of you can easily learn the other’s natural communication style and quickly come to terms (you can easily communicate accurately with a woman by following three simple rules), but you do have to learn and then use what you have learned.

That doesn’t take a staggering intellect; just a genuine desire. It’s not rocket science, Gentlemen. It’s women. They make up a little more than half the world’s population, and if it were that difficult, our species would have been extinct long ago. But the knowledge you need has been ignored and even buried for so long that you never got the opportunity to learn it.

Instead, you had a bunch of idiots telling you that to impress a woman you take her to a chick flick and cry with her, and you spend more on clothing and skin care products than she does. Oh, and let’s not forget that absurd business about buying their love with expensive jewelry and other gifts, or impressing them with big money and expensive cars. A bunch of pure, unadulterated B.S., or “bovine fecal matter” as we used to say in the service.

So what’s going on at your house? Maybe your wife’s not indulging in senseless shopping sprees, but is she happy? Fun? Engaged in your life and happiness? Or is she acting as bored, frustrated, and confused as you may be right now as you read this? Or would you even know?

Why take the chance? If you were hit with a divorce right now, what do you think it would cost you, in both financial and non-financial terms? Most of the men who write to me to say that they desperately need help because their wife just filed for divorce also say that they didn’t know that there was even a problem, so yes, that’s a fair question that you really need to answer.

Now, for a bigger question: If you could read a book that could mitigate some or all of that cost, putting you back into a happy relationship or getting you out of one that you never should have entered with some dignity and finesse, not to mention having a friend for an ex-wife instead of someone waiting around every corner to stick a knife in your back, would you read it?

When I had to answer that question, there wasn’t even a book to read. I had to write one! But you can read it; indeed, you can start reading it in the next few minutes. Just go to http://www.makingherhappy.com/ and download your copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage." You’ll see what I mean, and you can thank me for it when you’re done. For now, just get started! The longest journey ever completed started with a single step, and for you, this is the one.

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