What Do You Do When She Leaves Your Relationship or Marriage for Another Man?

A simple, scary question with a complex answer: What do you do when the woman you love is with somebody else?

I’ve been talking with some people at another web site that tries to help people out of divorces and I’ve been getting a huge number of questions from them over the last few weeks. The most common one by far is “My wife left and is now seeing someone else (or is having an affair and refuses to stop). How can I win her back?” No big surprise, right? Do you want to know what IS surprising?

It’s not the answer to the question by a long-shot; indeed, the possible answers to that question are few and simple:

1. Stop abusing your wife

2. End your substance abuse, gambling, or fidelity problem and try to make a life with your wife instead of feeding your addiction

3. Read “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage” and learn how to evaluate and manage relationships, communicate well with your wife, and find out whether you can fire up her attraction mechanisms beyond the point the other guy has created to get your honeymoon going again so that she is only interested in you.

One or more of those answers will take care of almost all cases. It won’t always take care of the case where the other guy has created so much attraction that you can’t get her attention to let her see your improvement; attraction is a sword of MANY sharp edges ; "double-edged" doesn't begin to describe how many ways it can work for or against you. But the big question isn’t what you should do to bring her back…

The big question, and the very first one you should ask, is WHETHER you should bring her back!

That’s right! I’ve spent hours and hours cruising relationship and marriage help web sites, and everyone is frantically begging for help to bring their spouses back (and being advised on how to do it by others who are apparently in the same boat, giving a strong appearance of “the blind leading the blind,” at least as far as the forum threads and blogs go), but nobody is asking whether it’s the right thing to do! Indeed, they label somebody who acknowledges such severe problems that no marriage ever should have happened, let alone be possible to save, as a “quitter” and a “loser.” Give me a break!

Right now, a great many of you are having a knee-jerk and responding, “Of course it’s the right thing to do! She’s his (or MY) wife!” If you stop to think about it, there will be some cases where it may not be!

For instance, what if you are the host in a codependent pair, and she is a substance abuser that has sucked the life out of you for years with the cost of feeding her habit, legal and medical costs, worrying you sick, making you feel responsible for all her bad choices and leaving you no room to enjoy anything about your life, let alone what you have earned?

What if she’s not a substance abuser, but still codependent and has kept you working 16 hours a day every day of the week just to keep her out of a jam?

What if she’s a spouse abuser, and married you to have someone to punish because the person who traumatized her is not available, and you were both available and easily manipulated into taking and holding the job of whipping boy?

What if she’s always exhibited a fidelity problem because she’s a gold-digging hussy that married you for your money and has just moved on to somebody with more money, or because she’s spent all you had?

What if she’s always exhibited a fidelity problem because she has a self-esteem problem that she refuses to address, and would rather seek the attention and approval of other men because it’s easier and more palatable than to admit the reason she feels crappy about herself is that she hasn’t done anything in her life to feel good about?

What if the two of you got married because she was pregnant, never did get along and weren’t happy, but comfortably numb and unhappy, and she was just the first one to wake up and realize that you never should have been married to start with and wasn’t rejecting you, but making the same move that you should be making to rectify that age-old mistake?

What if she wasn’t pregnant, but the two of you just were young and lonely and desperate, thinking that nobody else would have you, and latched onto each other thinking a bad marriage would be better than being alone?

What if one or both of you were trying to escape your parents’ abuse and married the first person that came along that provided a way to get out of the house, thinking it couldn’t possibly be worse than home but not realizing that if it was almost as bad you’d still need better?

What if you’ve had such philosophical or value system differences that you’ve always fought and never been happy together and really don’t know why you ever got married or stayed married, because you have no compatibility beyond breathing air?

What if you have compatible values, but your tastes are so different that you have never been able to find a way to spend quality time together, and sleeping, sex, and an occasional trivial conversation are all you really share?

What if you’ve suddenly become disabled somehow, and she’s the one who thinks she’s the victim, ignoring the fact that you haven’t let yourself become a victim and are still a great husband because she’s just too enthralled with the drama and attention? Or just too stinking bigoted to give you a chance to show you that you’re still worth having around?

There are a hundred more scenarios like that, but surely at this point you get the picture. The first question that needs to be asked when things look like they are breaking up isn’t how to stop the break-up...

It’s whether there is any reason for you to expect to be happy with that person if the relationship were to continue!

If there is no expectation of happiness, why continue? There is no productive purpose in trying to save a marriage when the underlying relationship that defines every aspect of that marriage is not a happy one and has no history or chance of being a happy one. The whole purpose of marriage is to bind yourself to a person for your mutual benefit – love, nurturing, friendship, watching each others’ back, companionship, exclusive (and hopefully therefore safe!) sex, etc. -- is it not?

On the other hand, if you have been truly happy, and have just drifted apart, there’s a most excellent chance that you can get things back on track, especially if things have just been in a rut and one or both of you have become “maritally bored.” It’s not at all rare for women to have affairs, leave home, and even file for divorce as a way of communicating to a man that he’d better straighten up and act like a man and be strong, fun, and interesting like he used to be instead of the “chronically beer-swilling remote-jockeying couch potato who never pays any attention to her” that he’s become. And it’s easy to tell the difference…

A woman who’s completely done with you moves on immediately and completely. The divorce papers are delivered with a restraining order, and there are instant barriers up everywhere. You have no contact with her, or even any way to contact her directly.

A woman who’s done with all parts of you except your checkbook still strings you along keeping you in approval-seeking mode and continues to be a drain on your resources, and may accept phone calls, go to dinner, etc., but you’ll notice that you pay for everything, and she keeps having money trouble that you need to bail her out of, even if she makes better money than you. She’ll also be chipping away at your self-esteem to get you deep into approval-seeking mode, making herself physically unavailable while talking about the future and getting back together, etc., trying to make you so utterly desperate for her attention that you’d spend your last dime trying to buy it while she’s out partying with others and secretly (or not) living it up at your expense.

It’s the woman who leaves or files papers, but continues to talk and especially to say things like, “I still love you, but I’m bored/not ‘in love with you’ (how I hate that convoluted expression!)/I can’t be with you right now/I can’t go on like we are and you’re going to have to show me you can change some things/etc.,” that has acted badly to get your attention and is wanting to come back home to the guy she wants to live with. She will tell you what it takes to win her back, and if you speak “feminese” you’ll hear her when she does and know exactly what to do.

Like when she says she loves you, but the guy she’s having an affair with makes her laugh, or is spontaneous, or anything about him that you are not, she’s giving you the laundry list of things you need to fix. Those things are not said to create competition or belittle you, but to communicate what is missing from your marriage. If she’s moved out and/or filed for divorce, and talking about the things you used to do together or the way you used to behave toward her, she’s telling you what she misses and what it will take to bring it back. And she may not “say” anything. She may ASK you if YOU miss things from the past to TELL you that SHE does!

But again, you have to speak “feminese” to understand, because she probably won’t just say, “you used to pay attention to me and make me feel special,” she’ll refer to things you did by asking if you remember them, like picking her a bunch of wildflowers, or cooking supper on the night that she had to work late, things that demonstrate how you did what she missed, and you have to be able to connect the dots to see what she’s really saying, because women never state what to them is “the obvious.” And more often than not, they will make these statements in the form of a question; “Do you think our marriage is good?” is in fact a statement that she thinks there’s a problem that she wants to talk about, and the next thing that comes out of your mouth could quite literally make or break your marriage.

Do you know what to say when asked a question like this, or why you should say it? Do you see how if you say something that rebukes her attempt to enter into a negotiation about the state of your marriage, that one act will be all she needs to give up? Or to take drastic action to wake YOU up so you can get things on track? The stakes are high at this point, so high that you MUST take responsibility for effective communication; failure to do so will cost you in more ways that you can imagine.

How do you learn to speak “feminese”? The same way you learn how to evaluate and manage relationships and learning how to be that alpha male that every woman wants and your woman will be thrilled to have, by downloading your copy of “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage” at http://www.makingherhappy.com before you do another thing, and especially before you take any more relationship advice from somebody whose own marriage is on the rocks, because this information has worked for everyone who has ever used it, and it will work for you, too.
In the meantime, live well, be well, and have a wonderful day!
David Cunningham

Why Bother Fixing a Troubled or Failing Relationship or Marriage?

Why should you want and expect to make an effort to fix a strained or distant relationship? The answer is obvious to some, but many really don’t know, and actually think that it’s easier to put up with pain, frustration, boredom, etc., or the stress of extramarital affairs. Wrong! Here for you are the facts and the truth…

I want to share with you the most ridiculous e-mail I may have ever received. I have always maintained a policy of keeping all comments about reader mail positive, but occasionally I get one that is just so downright idiotic that it makes me want to grab the sender and shake them really hard to try to wake them up. I’m not going release this reader’s name, and I want to make it clear that I am in no way saying that this reader is an idiot; I am however, stating emphatically that what he says is something I would expect from either a moron or somebody really emotionally damaged, not from someone intelligent enough to be able to write a letter like this one.

Dear David,

I’ve been reading your newsletter for several weeks now, and I really can’t see why I should have to go through all this trouble to please my wife. We’ve been married for 8 years, and have followed the same routine pretty much since we got married. I work, she keeps the house and takes care of the kids. In the evening, I watch TV or go to the bar while she helps the kids with their homework. If I fall asleep on the couch she doesn’t bother me, and if I come home late from the bar she’s asleep in the bed and doesn’t say anything. We don’t talk much, don’t go anywhere, and everything’s fine. What’s the deal?

Bob

My reply:

Well, “Bob,” (the name has been changed to protect the monumentally daft), let’s look at a few things from a logical point-of-view:

1. You’ve been reading my newsletter for several weeks, but you say there’s no problem? You’re letter doesn’t paint a picture of you being a proactive achiever, so I’m not buying that, and I hope you’re not either.

2. Doing the same thing, day in and day out for 8 years, and there’s no problem? Ladies, you are cordially invited to write with your comments on this one! (Please feel free to comment on anything at any time, but I’m asking you specifically for your reactions here to help this guy see that unless he’s married to “Rain Man” he has and is oblivious to a serious problem with a bored wife.)

3. You frequently go to the bar while she stays home with the kids, and sit in front of the TV on “non-bar” nights? Why aren’t you doing something with the wife and kids at least a couple of nights a week? No problem, you say?

4. You fall asleep on the couch and she doesn’t wake you up and tell you to come to bed, or throw a blanket over you, or say something about it the next day? Can you say “bored and disinterested”? But I guess that’s not a problem, either, even though that’s a recipe for your wife to be seeing other men while you’re at work and the kids are in school and chatting on the Internet or on the phone with other men while you are at the bar.

5. Don’t talk much? Don’t go anywhere? And you call that fine? And you think that she thinks that’s fine? At this point, I’m wondering if you’ve beaten her to the point that she sees “no beatings” as being the same as “happy marriage.” If you don’t interact with your wife and children, why do you have them???

In a nutshell, your letter describes a plea for validation, not education or improvement. I don’t know what you’re situation or problem really is, and until you come clean about all the contradictions and omissions in your letter, there’s not a thing I can do to help you, except possibly to point out a few universal truths that might motivate you to take a realistic look at your situation.

Let’s start with the old adage, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.” Even if you or somebody else has damaged your wife to the point that she really would rather live the life she’s living than to see positive change, is this what YOU really want? A robot that cleans the house, cooks, and keeps the laundry and house clean and the kids out of your way? I suppose next you’re going to tell us that they based several episodes of “The Sopranos” on your life.

I’m also curious as to what value you are getting for all the money it takes to feed, house, clothe, medicate, educate, and entertain those other people in your house. Do you have even an inkling that interaction with them could be far more interesting and rewarding than anything you find on television, and far less destructive than anything you’d find in a bar? Or are you too depressed and comfortably unhappy to notice?

And how about “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned”? If your letter paints an accurate picture of your home life, you’ve completely turned your back on your family except for giving them whatever part of your paycheck they receive. Contrary to what many think, the average woman is interested in a lot more than her husband’s paycheck.

Do you really think they, especially your wife and the mother of your kids, are going to go on accepting being ignored indefinitely? Women and kids both do things to get attention, even the wrong kind of attention, when you don’t give it to them freely and willingly. The longer you ignore them, the more radical the actions they will take. Do you relish the thought of coming home and finding your wife in your bed with another man? Or going to a local jail to bail one or more of your kids out for shoplifting, drug possession, or worse, some kind of violent, gang-related mishap? Get a clue, because it’s coming.

Bob, the best thing I can tell you right now is “wake up and smell the coffee.” You deserve and can have better than the life you describe, and so does your family, and the choice is entirely yours. If your job is sufficient to pay the bills and provide you several bar nights per week without your wife working, then you’re doing well enough to do some things with your family.

You’re in a rut, and you’re not going to come out of it by just holding the wheel loosely and letting things just go where they want to go. Turn the wheel and get out of the rut. "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" will motivate you to help you feel deserving of such a life, but you should already be feeling some sort of longing for it or you wouldn’t be reading this newsletter and writing such a letter as you wrote, so what’s your real story? C’mon, lay it on me. I can take it. Can you?

Or are you afraid that the truth will hurt too much? You sound like you are one of those “comfortably unhappy” people that I help the most. I don’t know, but together, we can find out.

Take care, and keep in touch,
David

Folks, there’s no reason to continue living a life that you aren’t loving to live. The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is to stop digging, isn’t it? Whatever has put you in trouble must be stopped immediately or inertia (that physics principle that says that an object in motion will tend to remain in motion and an object at rest will tend to remain at rest until some external force acts upon them, remember?) will just keep right on digging you in deeper.

Stop digging. If you don’t know what you’ve done to make your relationship a mess, go to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy of “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage;” I’ll guarantee you that the answer is in there. Together, we can get you where you need and want to be, if you’ll just take this first step in the right direction, and life is indeed too short to spend it digging yourself a deeper hole, is it not?

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

Can a Man Work TOO Hard? He Can Certainly Work Hard Enough to Kill His Marriage!

Sometimes a man can do the right things for the right reasons but miss one little detail and have the world of his relationship or marriage come crashing down around him. Learn what REALLY needs to be done for your committed relationship or marriage, and what she REALLY wants, before it’s too late. You don’t want to end up getting punished for trying to do the right thing just because you didn’t know what the “right thing” is…

This lesson is a little longer than usual, but it’s one of those real-world issues that we all encounter sooner or later that never quite work out the way we want them to unless we’re thoroughly prepared, so please indulge the extra text and I’m sure you’ll find it worth the time and effort. I’ve been out of town for a few days, and when I came back, I found a good friend in an absolute crisis that any man can find himself in with no warning whatsoever. I think we’re going to be able to get his problem under control pretty quickly, and I want to share this scenario with you to try to ensure that you never find yourself in this same predicament.

My friend, Danny, is about my age (mid forties), worked in a factory from the time he graduated high school, and really applied himself and was promoted through the ranks to middle management in a large company that bankrupted recently. There wasn’t a position immediately available for him anywhere, and his finances were built around a six-figure income, so he ended up taking two lesser-paying full-time jobs to keep his kids in the private school they were attending and to keep his wife from having to put achievement of her Master’s degree on hold.

One of those jobs requires roughly 45 hours per week running a Quizno’s sub shop franchise, and the other requires another 45 hours per week working as an assistant branch manager for a local bank. That’s a ninety-hour work week; do a little math here. Assuming eight hours sleep per night, there are 112 waking hours in a seven-day week, and he’s working 90 of them, and commuting another eight hours or so, plus about six hours personal time during the week to get ready to go to work. That’s 104 of 112 hours, leaving eight hours per week for meals, chores, paying the bills, bathroom breaks, etc., and time with his wife and kids has to come out of that remaining eight hours as well. What do you think is going on there?

Ladies, tell the guys, all together now, on three…ready?

One…two…three…SHE’S BORED! That’s right, Guys! He’s not there stirring up attraction for her, and she’s getting antsy as hell, and may not even realize it. As you would know if you had read “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage,” there’s going to be a drama attack coming soon, because if he’s not creating positive drama for her by keeping her amused and her tension bled off, the tension will build until some little insignificant thing is the straw that breaks the camel’s back and she lays into him with something really ridiculous to get him to exhibit the alpha male behavior that excites her by not taking the fit that she’s about to pitch as if he deserves it, which brings us to the crisis…

Again, Danny is in his mid-forties, and there’s a 16-year-old girl there who has his same positive, hard-working, competence- and achievement-oriented attitude, and he’s pretty much taken her under his wing and started grooming her for an assistant management position, much to the chagrin of two other highly competitive but terribly mediocre older coworkers. They retaliate by calling the owner and telling him that his store manager is getting him set up for a sexual harassment lawsuit by flirting with the sixteen-year-old employee, one that he is in fact treating like a daughter, not a girlfriend or “prospect.”

Now, in order to steal a little extra time with each other, Danny’s wife picks him up at his day job and drives him to his evening job at Quizno’s (restaurant managers often take the evening shift because it’s busier and leave the assistant manager to handle the less demanding day shift). Earlier that day, she had gone by Quizno’s to pick up his paycheck to make a deposit on her way home from one of her classes, and guess who is working the counter? Yepper, the two ne’er-do-wells who started the rumor. You couldn’t tempt fate any harder than that!

They told Danny’s wife that the owner had been advised of possible sexual misconduct on her husband’s behalf! (They also conveniently left out the part that they had been the informants.) Now, his wife knows that there is absolutely no time or energy for him to be having an affair, and has seen him working with this girl, and is entirely secure in having him work with her the way he does, and they’ve openly discussed it in the past; it was Danny’s wife that had come up with the idea of grooming her for management. However…

By this time, she’s getting so lonely that her need for excitement and seeing Danny standing tall has put her emotions on auto-pilot, so when she picked him up from the bank, he’s had a bad day and says to her, “Hi Honey! How’s your day been?” to which she replied – while vigorously bobbing her head from side to side – “It was just freaking FINE until I stopped at Quizno’s today to get your damned paycheck!” What the hell are you doing messing around with a sixteen-year old and putting your job and our family at risk???”

Understand, all Danny had to do at this point was calmly but very firmly say, “Look, I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about, so you’re going to have to back up and fill me in. You know as well as I do that I haven’t been messing around with anybody. Even if I wanted to there’s no time with me working two jobs, and you’ve got nine years of history in our relationship to tell you how I feel about us and about affairs, so calm down and tell me what’s going on so we can figure out what’s really happened and what needs to be done to fix it.” BUT! He didn’t know that, and started acting lost and apologetic – wussy! – which often actually comes off as a confession when a woman hears it. So the drama continued…

She dropped him off at work after giving him a royal earful, and I happened to stop by to see how things were going not too long afterwards. He explained what had happened, and we got the owner off his back with a phone call (I know the owner and had been helping Danny to groom the girl by passing her self-improvement materials, and could vouch for the events), but the big problem was his wife. He was scared to death that they were going to have a serious problem.

I finally got him to understand what was really happening by telling him about “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage,” the research that went into it, and the experiences of the readers so he’d have confidence in what I was telling him, and then explained about a woman’s need for attraction and how drama is used to fill in the void between the attraction level she needs and the one she has, rather like ego fills in the void between the self-esteem level one needs and the level they have. So when she showed up and was bobbing her head and asking if he’d “gotten his sorry ass fired,” etc., he said, “Look, I told you I had no idea what had happened, and if you had told me what you heard instead of raising Cain in the car on the way here, I could have been better-prepared to deal with this when I got here.

“I’ve talked to the owner, explained what had happened, and David came by and talked with him, too. He was aware of the training and suspected this was a ploy from the beginning because he has full confidence in me, as you should have, so the problem is history. Tomorrow I’m going to fire the two people who started this, and temps from another store will be showing up tomorrow morning to take over their jobs. I’ve called the bank and made the necessary arrangements to come in late so I can handle this, so there is no problem with anyone but you, and you can stop being a problem any moment now.

“I realize that I’ve been spending a lot of time here at your expense, but you and I both know that we need the money, so we’re going to have to work together to get past this. That means you are going to have to tell me when you start feeling the strain so I can spend some time with you to keep things from building up to this point again. The only other choice is for me to quit one of these jobs and you put your classes on hold so we can have more time, and we’ve already decided that was the wrong thing to do, so are you going to work with me on this or are we going to be at each others’ throats until the job I want comes through?”

That was all she needed to see and hear. She was all over him, apologizing, cooing, cuddling, smiling, and just thrilled because that alpha male she loved was in front of her doing that alpha male thing she loves and needs so much. Problem solved.

Danny is now reading “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage” to keep this from happening again, and he says his wife is going through it with him. They’ll get through this, not just stronger, but knowing and enjoying each other on a much deeper level. You too can go through this exercise without having to go through an(other) episode like this. Join Danny and the rest in taking charge of your relationship and your life by going to http://www.makingherhappy.com and getting your copy today, because life really is too short to spend it learning from your own mistakes when you could learn from those of others much quicker and easier and spend the extra time to make and learn from successes!

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

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

“Coulda,” “Shoulda,” “Woulda”: the Wrong Words to Say When You Look Back on Your Relationship or Marriage

A MUST-READ ISSUE! How often do you use the phrases “could have,” “should have,” and “would have”? If it’s more than very rarely, it’s a good sign that you’ve got some room for major and easily-achieved improvement in your relationship and your life in general.

It’s another wonderful Friday morning as I write this, and after the weekend will come another of 52 great opportunities you will have this year to start the week off right. Make the best of it. If you haven’t already made your plans for the week, make them over the weekend, and include some form of self-improvement in each of three areas: your personal development, your career development, and your relationship with your partner (or preparing to have a great relationship with a partner if you don’t currently have one).

Wow! Stop and think about this for a minute. You have 52 chances every year to begin a week the right way and get things done. By the same token, you have 12 chances to start a month right, 260 or more chances to start a work-day off right, 52 chances to start a weekend right, and 365 chances to start a day off right, with a bonus chance every four years. That’s a huge number of opportunities to improve! Have you ever thought about what happens as you let all these opportunities slide by unused?

Time passes, and your life with it – the most precious resource in all the universe, and one that you never even know how much you have left to enjoy. When it passes and you don’t avail yourself of the opportunities it presents, the end result of all the boredom and frustration that breeds is resentment, a grudge against yourself for not living the best life you could live, but few of us ever recognize resentment as the result of our own choice.

People often transfer that grudge to other people because they don’t take responsibility for their life. They sit around singing the old “Coulda-Shoulda-Woulda” song and making themselves miserable, as well as most of the people around them. How attractive do you think that can be? How much of your company do you think your partner (or your friends or your employer, for that matter) can even endure, let alone enjoy, when you’ve become poisoned with resentment to the point that you have developed the mentality of a defeatist, or a victim? Right, not much. What can you do?

You watch for opportunities and you take action, of course! If your partner does something that annoys you, don’t spend months or years resenting it, talk to them about it and see if there is some alternative, or even better, full resolution. The person you live with is the last one you want to resent, because they are supposed to be the one you spend the greatest amount of your life with, right? And if you choose to not tell them that you have a problem with something they are doing, it’s entirely your fault that you are annoyed and feeling resentment, not theirs. It can’t become an issue for them until you tell them it is an issue for you!

If the company you work for has a policy or other employee that annoys you or you think could be improved, don’t just sit around resenting it; discuss it with the appropriate person. It’s entirely possible that nobody noticed the problem you noticed, and also possible that everybody noticed but you were the only one who had the guts to stand up and say something. That can get you promoted or fired, and if it gets you fired, you’re in the wrong company anyway. Work for a company where your insight and initiative will be appreciated -- and paid for!

If after you notify them and they choose to do nothing you are still dissatisfied, find a new place to work! The worst job in the world is the one you resent getting out of bed to face in the morning, and again, that is YOUR choice. Choose to pursue your passion instead of just dreaming about it. Dreaming a dream only makes you a visionary if you pursue it; dreaming dreams that you never pursue makes you a loser.

What about your friends? Are they really friends? If they are, you can talk with them about things that are problematic in the relationship you have with them, and if you can’t, they’re not really friends after all, are they? You can’t expect them to mold their entire life to suit you, but if you’re allergic to tobacco smoke you can ask them not to smoke in your house when they visit, or if you’re allergic to pet dander you can ask them not to bring their pet with them or leave it outside when they come to visit.

If they have a different political or religious preference than you and it seems to be a sore spot, you can ask them to stop trying to convert you and just agree to disagree. “Here’s the deal: you don’t invite me to [go to your church/be a conservative/join the PTA], I won’t invite you to stop [going to church/being a liberal/being in the PTA].” If they can’t afford you the respect to make your own choices after having heard whatever they have to say once, they’re not a friend, they’re a crusader, and you don’t need that around when there are so many other people around who could be good friends, right?

What about other opportunities that come up between you and the world? The opportunity to start a small business, trade cars, get a great deal on a piece of real estate? Before you pass them up, take some time and give them an objective look if they interest you in some way, instead of looking back from some point in the future and saying that you “shoulda-coulda-woulda”.

What are you going to miss if you spend an hour checking out some seemingly great opportunity? An episode of “Law and Order” or “CSI”? Or “American Idol”? (Give me a freaking break!) What might you gain? Or what loss might you protect yourself from by doing a thorough investigation instead of being caught up in the emotion of the moment and just jumping in – the other side of the opportunity coin?

There’s a word for people who sit around saying “I could have,” “I should have,” “I would have,” and it’s not a nice one. It’s spelled “L-O-S-E-R,” and combined with the resentment that it forms, it earns you a second label, spelled “W-U-S-S.” All your incessant telling of tales of woe over all the things you should have, could have, and would have done earns you a title as well, “BORING,” which you may remember as the one word above all others that you never want to have a woman assign to you if you want to live happily (and intimately!) with her. Combine that with “wuss,” and you’re done. Period. End of relationship.

Take a look around you, a close look, at your life, your career, your relationship, and how you view the world and your place within it. If you don’t like what you see and it makes you complain to others or silently grumble to yourself, exercise some personal initiative and make some choices and some changes! You don’t have to become a storm trooper or a steam roller, just start taking action according to some well-researched and well-constructed plan that will provide what you want in a consistent pattern of sustainable growth.

You don’t have to move the Earth to be known as a guy who gets things done; you just have to be seen getting things done consistently, and be known for your successes instead of your whining and complaining about what you didn’t do, but should have, could have, or would have done. That’s what makes you an achiever, and a winner – and attractive. Just start looking for ways to gain either achievement, resolution, or closure, and simplify your life.

Why the self-improvement sermon? Do you have any idea how attractive it is to a woman to be with a man who takes action? Who is pleased with his life? Who wears his successes like a badge of courage with grace and dignity? And how that affects her and your relationship or marriage? I’ve asked hundreds of them, and received the same answer from all of them – it drives them absolutely wild because it’s adventure and romance and they live vicariously through it, savoring the emotions of success and celebration – but don’t take my word for it, ask a few yourself!

Ask them not what they look for in a man so much as what they see that makes them sit up and take notice when a guy walks into a room, and when he speaks, whether to them or not, what makes them feel drawn to him to get to know him better and crave his attention and to spend time with him. They will tell you it is self-confidence, the bearing of a man of action that draws them close enough to see if he also has the brains, sense of humor, and naughty streak that makes him the real “catch” that they want to spend a lifetime with.

Relationships can be tricky beasts to say the least. People can spend years, even decades in relationships that simply suck the life out of them, filling them with resentment and poisoning their very soul because they never committed the simple act of evaluating the relationship and either making some adjustments or finding one that they could happily live in. Are you one of these people?

Some couples spend as much as decades together never really knowing each other because they never commit the simple act of trying to improve their ability to communicate with each other, in spite of the centuries of time and effort that have been spent writing books on bridging the male-female communications gap. Are you one of these people?

Some couples spend years together just getting along day-to-day, letting life slip through their fingers while they are bored to tears, looking for help, excitement, and even love in all the wrong places, like flings and affairs, trendy focus groups, magazine columns that give the opposite advice this month that they did last month, never finding what they’re looking and maybe even never realizing the full extent of what they are missing. Are you one of these people?

If you’re any or even all of the above, you can find answers and genuine, guaranteed-to-work help in “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage,” 118 single-spaced pages of an instantly downloadable e-book, dense with information tested and proven by 118 couples during its first writing and many more since it was published. It’s working for everybody who’s using it, and it will work for you, too.

So what are you going to do? All you risk by taking action is the time it takes you to read the book; what do you risk by not taking action? A lifetime of unhappiness? Celibacy? Finding your partner cheating? Maybe finding them cheating AGAIN? Or perhaps getting caught cheating yourself? How about losing half or more of all you own plus unfettered access to your kids? You might gain something though, all that free time that you’ll have when your wife and kids are living with some other man. Are you up for some of that? It could be coming your way a lot faster than you think, especially if your sex life has slowed considerably, which is both a cause and a symptom of a decaying relationship.

It’s far easier to fix things at home if they can be fixed than any other alternative you have, so jump over to http://www.makingherhappy.com and get your copy of this truly amazing book right now, instead of saying at some time in the future that you should have, could have, or would have.

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

Learn That Questions Are Statements and Statements Are Questions to Get Along with Women in Relationships and Marriage

With us guys, “what you see (or hear!) is what you get,” but with women, often statements are questions and questions are statements, and if you don’t read them right, you’re toast!

(Ladies, print this one and pass it along to your husband!)

From time to time, my wife reminds me of the day I learned that when listening to a woman, statements are questions and questions are statements. I’d like to describe that lesson for you so that you can start listening better and stop being labeled an insensitive jerk who shuts her out when she wants to talk.

My wife is a fiercely independent woman; if I died tonight, it would not be the things I did that she would miss. Early in our relationship, she would occasionally set out to do something and say, “I’m going to go do such-and-such. Are you coming with me?”

It wasn’t often, and when it happened, recognizing her independence being a typical guy who expected a woman to just ask if she needed help, I’d just say, “No, go ahead,” and she’d mutter something under her breath and leave the room with a scowl on her face. I thought she was just focusing on the task at hand and trying to work it out. When she would come in later in a foul mood and we didn’t get along for a day or two after that, I always thought she took her task and/or herself too seriously and wasn’t satisfied with the results.

Wrong answer.

One day she said that she was going out to set out some flowering plants, and asked if I was coming. It was a beautiful day, I had already finished everything I needed to do that day, so being outside sounded like a great idea, and I said, “Sure.” Her face lit up like a child’s at hearing they were on the way to Disney World and she left in a hurry.

When I joined her a minute later, she didn’t know where to put them, and had been puzzling over it for days. I suggested a spot next to the house, and you could see the stress melt from her expression as she said, “I was thinking about that spot, too. That will work.” A bell went off in my head, because something had just happened, but I wasn’t quite sure what it was. Then there was a voice, “Full power to sensors, maximum sensitivity!” (Yes, I was once a Star Trek fan.)

She grabbed a small shovel and headed for the spot. I knew the soil there to be very heavy with dense clay because we’d dug it up once before and found there to be no topsoil there, so I went into the tool shed and came out with a mattock, long-handled shovel, and a garden rake. She was furiously chopping away with the hoe trying to make a hole for the bulbs and getting nowhere fast, and said, “This is why I hate gardening around this place. The dirt is just too hard and sticky.”

Ever on the lookout for an excuse to inject some naughty play, I said, “Well, I can think of at least one thing that hard and sticky works well for, but your garden isn’t it,” and started chopping up the clay with the mattock, which only took a couple of minutes because it’s a much heavier tool and designed for such work. She was looking a bit shocked, but pleasantly so, and said, “I knew you’d know what to do. What’s next?”

That bell started ringing louder, and I thought, “Is this why she asked if I was coming out here with her? Surely not! Why didn’t she just ask me to come out if she needed help?” But the idea stuck. I said, “You can’t set those bulbs in that clay or they’ll just rot. It’s too wet and doesn’t breathe, and there are no nutrients in it because the worms don’t go there. We need to mix in some rich top soil and mulch to feed the plants and aerate the ground, and then the worms will keep it going. I’ll carry the bags (we had some left over from another project) and you mix it in with the dirt I just turned up.” And I went off to get the topsoil from the shed.

I returned with two bags, emptied them into the clay, and said, “It’s going to take two more. You go ahead and mix these while I get the other two.” I came back, and she was just standing there. I said, “What’s wrong?”

She said, “I don’t know how to mix this stuff together and get the big lumps out of it. I’ve needed you to show me how to do all this since we moved here.” BOOM!

It was true! Her question, “Are you coming with me?” was indeed a statement: “I need you to come with me.” I said, “Why didn’t you tell me before now that you needed help?”

She said, “Every time I tried to get you to come out here and show me, you refused.” BOOM! Another revelation!

I said, “You mean that when you asked me if I was coming with you, you expected me to know that you meant that you needed for me to come with you? Do you want to tell me how I was supposed to know that???”

She said, “Well, everybody else does!”

I said, “Define ‘everybody else.”

She said, “Rose, Mary, Miss Sue, Nancy, my mother, my sisters, my daughter – everybody!”

I said, “Do you realize that in your definition of ‘everybody” there is not one male?”

She said, “Well, I just assumed that you knew too, and you just didn’t want to help me.”

I’ll spare you the rest of the conversation, but you can see where it was going. I had no idea, until that moment, that her question was a statement, and she had no idea that I didn’t know everything about talking with her that all the women in her life knew. After all, she was one of four sisters. I assumed she would ask any questions she had, and she assumed I was disinterested because I didn’t take the hint. Here are some other common examples:

“Are you wearing that?” is actually a statement: “You should not wear that.”

“Are you hungry?” actually means “I’m hungry. Can we talk about where and what we’re going to eat?” (Refer to my free reports, “Break-Up Busting 101” and “What Women REALLY Want,” which you can download via the links at the bottom of this newsletter for relevant lessons from back issues of this newsletter, especially the excerpt, “Men State, Women Negotiate” from my book, for vital details on this scenario.)

“I’m bored,” actually means “Will you please do something to give me an emotional or adrenaline boost before I take matters into my own hands and make life hell for you for a few minutes because I can create drama faster and easier than I can create fun and excitement?”

Women seldom speak the obvious, or directly, about anything. If she makes a statement, it’s to ask a question, usually to enter into a negotiation about remedying or celebrating whatever she has just stated. If she asks a question, it’s to declare that a condition exists that needs your attention, and rest assured, there is no monosyllable answer that will suffice for whatever her question is.

This is one of the many, many pitfalls in any relationship with any woman, and you must prepare for it and the rest of them to the best of your ability, because if you do something wrong, women have a nasty tendency to assume you did it for the worst possible reason. It’s not a fault, flaw, or anything else. It’s just how they tend to be, and if you’re going to be around one or more of them every day, you simply have to accept it and work around it. That’s our job as men. It’s never been easy, because there’s never been a really effective operator’s manual for women in committed relationships, until now…

It’s called "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" and it’s waiting for you at http://www.makingherhappy.com, ready to be sucked up with a few mouse clicks and a few bucks and put to use to kick your relationship up to levels previously unknown to exist. I get letters every day telling me how great it works, and it will work for you too, if you’ll just use it, so do it now! Never put off until tomorrow the happiness and success you can enjoy today!

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

The First and Most Important Step in Having or Saving a Great Relationship and Marriage

The first step in any great relationship of any kind is being well-matched. If you are not well-matched, you may be able to survive together, but the odds of being happy together are slim to none; if you are, you’ll find you can conquer about anything! Unfortunately, some couples live in misery for years without ever asking this most fundamental and necessary of all relationship questions! This is one of those “must read” issues, so dig in…

Today I want to talk more about something that seems to be so logical that it would be self-evident to all, but obviously is not practiced by many, the first step in having a great relationship. We touched on this in another issue of this newsletter concerning what to do if your wife is with another man, and you should read that issue if you missed it. I try to go through this every two to three months because there are so many new people coming in and everyone needs to see it.

Those of you who have been banging your head against the wall after receiving advice from someone claiming that “any relationship can be saved regardless of circumstances” will want to pay particular attention to that and this issue, because this edition may be addressing your biggest relationship or marriage problem. And if people are going so far as to call you a “quitter,” or “loser,” because you’re tired of fighting a losing battle for a lost cause and can’t see how it can end well for anyone, you’ll not only want to read this, but share it with them, to at least get them off your back and possibly even help them get in touch with reality.

That first and most crucial step in any great relationship or marriage is being well-matched to your partner.

Yes, some of you are right now saying, “Duh!” but others are saying, “but can’t you learn to love someone?” Sounds nice, doesn’t it? Here are the facts and truth of the matter:

When you first meet someone, the emotion that pulls you together is either attraction or need (or in rare cases lust, but lust is seldom responsible for keeping two people together long enough to get married, unless they’re incredibly reckless or needy), which are both independent of love; indeed, need is in fact mutually exclusive of love – you cannot love someone that you need, because (in a nutshell) need actually makes you resent them as the object of your dependence, and fear their power to leave and remove the thing you need from your life. Fear is a partner to hatred, not love.

Love can only come later, when you’ve had a chance to discover your compatibility, which is the basis of love. “Love at first sight” is poetic nonsense. Attraction can happen at first sight, as can need and lust, but not love, because you can’t just see someone, know that compatibility exists in that instant, and be motivated to love. And this lack of understanding has ruined more lives than you can imagine.

This in itself is a complex and difficult concept for most to embrace, and if you find yourself wanting to argue with it, see Lesson 3 in my free “Break-Up Busting 101” report, entitled “Love, Need, Lust and Attraction – Do YOU Know the Difference?” or skip to the similarly-titled section of “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage” and gain an effective understanding, because it is both factual and crucial. We’ll address need first because it’s easier to see, then we’ll get into attraction and love.

Need never develops into love, and sooner or later, the other person (unless they are hopelessly codependent) gets tired of neediness and moves on. There is nothing you can do about this, especially telling them that you need them and can’t live without them. That is the very drain, pressure, and stress that they are trying to get away from, and your fight for independence is going to take too long for them to wait around for you to complete it, if you can; most truly needy people, those who would be called parasites because they take from their partners without giving anything significant in return, spend their life moving from host to host because it’s just easier for them to find a new host than to evolve into a non-needy person of independence.

In short, if the person you are with is telling you it’s over because you are too needy, take the hint and grow up, become self-supporting and independent, and you’ll find that people enjoy being around you for the long term. Make no mistake, fighting this break-up is only going to make things worse, because you are severely mismatched; a chronically needy person cannot coexist with an independent person who resents neediness. You got away with it for awhile because you were somehow charming, physically attractive, wealthy, funny, or something, but now that the cat is out of the bag and it’s known that you’re a needy wuss, you have two options: find another host or evolve so that you can enjoy another’s company instead of needing it. It’s harsh, but it’s really just that simple.

Someone asked once why I didn’t talk about a case wherein the woman is the needy one. I didn’t because I didn’t realize how common it might be for a man to be trying to save a relationship with such a woman, wherein he is independent and she is the needy one. But lo and behold, I have run across them, and the “cognitive dissonance” within the men is overwhelming. They fight between wanting to get away from the stress of being stuck with a needy person and wanting to try to “salvage their investment in their marriage.” The truth is that for many, their protector circuit comes alive and they are driven rather than making a conscious choice, even to the point of self-destruction.

The only hope for you if you are in this case is to help your wife understand that what she is feeling is need, not love, and that she needs to develop some self-esteem before she can love either of you. Try to help her develop some self-esteem, and if she insists on living in denial (“Why can’t you just love me as I am?” and such questions are infallible evidence of such a problem) in spite of your efforts to get her to acknowledge her problem, seek counseling, etc., you have two choices: Get out or go down with a sinking ship. You can either lead her out of it, put up with it, or leave, and you won’t be able to lead her as long as she’s in denial. ‘Nuff said.

Now, on to the more complex case, where attraction was the reason for you to come together. Once attraction has brought you together and you’ve had your initial episode of “physical exploration and gratification,” there should be a period where you get to know each other, find that you have common interests, philosophies, values, etc., and come to value each other – love develops. This is the source of the friendship, respect, loyalty and commitment required for long-term relationships to survive, while attraction is where all the fun, excitement, and energy come from. There are several possible scenarios that arise from the various permutations of these two emotions between two people.

The most obvious two are having both love and attraction, in which case you can be together happily and feel like you’re in a never-ending honeymoon (the ideal situation, right? And it can be sustained for a lifetime if you are aware of its requirements and constituents and hold out to find and have it, and we’ll get back to this in a few minutes), and having neither love nor attraction, after events have eliminated them both, in which case the relationship must end, because even though lost attraction can usually be easily rekindled, lost love just doesn’t happen. Peoples’ values and personalities just don’t naturally move radically away from some baseline and then go back there.

Now, the other two are a bit trickier to deal with. We’ll talk about the harder of the two first, the case in which love is lost but attraction survives. It is common for people under tremendous pressure that they ultimately cannot handle, and they degrade themselves somehow. They could then become a loser, maybe a criminal or spouse abuser, and/or possibly a substance abuser, but they still project the personality traits that trip attraction triggers.

This would typically be a marriage that started out like a story book romance, but currently one spouse is drunk or high all the time after losing a loved one, a business, or career, etc. They have lost their self-love, self-esteem, and self-respect, but have still managed to somehow remain fun, funny, authoritative, somehow sexy or intriguing, or something that holds the other spouse’s attention. You can’t base a great relationship on nothing but sex, jokes, and parties, and you can’t “fix” somebody else, especially someone who won’t admit there is a problem and doesn’t want to fix anything.

Your only choices with such a relationship are to either get this person some professional help so that they can be redeemed or move on. Again, it sounds harsh, but statistically and historically, this is reality, and if they won’t get help, moving on is your only option; having once loved someone is no reason to go down with a sinking ship that refuses to be repaired. That’s martyrdom, the ultimate form of sacrifice, the trading of valuable life for nothing of value at all, not love.

The last possibility is the one I like dealing with the most, where love is still alive and healthy, but attraction has failed; you’re in the “friends column” but nobody else has created attraction in your partner and she still loves you, but is bored and vulnerable. In the dating world, lost attraction nearly always means that you blew it and you just move on immediately, because the other person already has; the window for creating attraction opens once, and very briefly, period. However, when you’ve been together for long enough for attraction to fade, you develop a vested interest in keeping the relationship alive. You acquire memories, security, a mortgage and property, and usually children, which motivate you to try to work things out. Hence, the window that closes in seconds in the dating world can be open for months or even years when you're committed.

Men are generally pretty easy when it comes to attraction. We’re attracted mostly to physical appearance and seductive talk and actions, and if attraction is lost and must be recreated, women seldom have to do any more than correct whatever major issues have developed with their appearance, if any, and act like a woman; self-respect and self-love in a woman are among the sexiest things a man can behold, and they cause the things that trip men’s attraction triggers, such as being height-weight proportionate, good grooming and posture, smiling, having fun, etc. Drama and depression are big turn-offs to men, but both tend to disappear when a woman feels attraction for a man.

Women aren’t so easy though. Physical appearance barely makes them curious, and then only for a short while, and that curiosity can be destroyed in an instant by any non-alpha male behavior, such as deferring decisions, approval-seeking or trying to impress them, being lazy or boring, etc.

That’s not to say that it’s impossible, or even difficult, to rekindle attraction. Indeed, if you have the right information to work from, it has been proven to happen in less than a week to a sufficient degree to halt the signing of divorce papers already prepared and move an estranged spouse back into the family home. This is the failing relationship that you fight for, even if there has been an affair, because love is hard to find and to earn, and a physical affair – which virtually always happens out of boredom and means absolutely nothing unless you choose to assign meaning to it – is no reason whatsoever to abandon a proven love.

Yes, I said that, and I’m about to say it another way: a one-time physical “fling” that happened out of boredom is not proof of lost love, nor a sign of disloyalty or disrespect. It’s an unfortunate and very STUPID thing that happens when two people can’t or just don’t effectively communicate with each other and allow their attraction to fade, nothing more, and nothing less. I’m not saying that the person who does it is stupid; I’m saying that it’s ridiculous that people will let their problems go to the point that this happens before realizing there is a problem and trying to fix it.

If you’re sitting on the couch with a beer and the TV remote every night while your partner is doing something else, and you’re part of that statistic that says that the average mature couple (mature meaning having been together, married or not, for two years or more) has sex six times per year (yes, that’s once every two months on average), trouble’s not just coming, it’s HERE!

And, there’s no sense waiting for it to get that bad before taking action; a good relationship is far easier to maintain than it is to fix if it gets broken, right? What you need is a plan for evaluating and then fixing and/or maintaining it and the knowledge required to empower you to do that. Luckily for you, it’s already been figured out, tested, proven, and published, and it can be yours in the next few minutes.

It’s called “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage,” you can download it right now at http://www.makingherhappy.com/, and it’s working for everyone who’s used it. Don’t make things rougher on yourself than they have to be by waiting. Do it now, and do it for keeps, because life is too short to do it any other way.

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 would also caution you that being with a woman is NOT what it’s all about. Being happy in your own skin, feeling good about who you are and the life you live, being independent and able to handle what comes at you competently and rationally, and having enough adventure to be challenging are what it’s all about. Do THOSE things, have THOSE feelings, and you will not only attract the right woman, you will be attractive to all women, in addition to being happy in your own right.

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

Attitude Adjustment, a Double-Edged Sword That Can Make or Break a Relationship or Marriage

We’ve talked about how an attitude adjustment can build attraction, but we need to talk about how the wrong attitude adjustment can just as effectively kill attraction, to the point of trashing a relationship or marriage completely!

First, I’d like to tell everyone how proud I am of the letters I’ve been receiving from you folks. I have a very good group of readers, people who make the choice to improve and follow through on it, something that I don’t see much in the rest of my day-to-day activities. Constant contact with people who get things done is both therapeutic and motivating, and if you don’t have any other “winners” in your social or work circle, I strongly urge you to find some.

It’s very easy for the members of any group of people to sink to the level of the lowest member in the group, and surrounding yourself with high-quality people is excellent insurance against this, not to mention much more enjoyable than listening to some mealy-mouthed worm complaining about his mishaps and shortcomings every time you see him. Good people should keep the company of good people, not those who want to be supported by good people rather than expend the effort themselves to be good people.

Getting into today’s lesson, I was reminded by a letter from one of you that attitudes can be adjusted in both directions, for the better and for the worse, and it can go entirely unnoticed until it’s too late. Meet my buddy Joe, one of the older among you:

Hi David,

Thought I'd take advantage of the invitation to share a current example and the observed effects.
I'll try to make this the “readers digest” version, but some back-story is probably beneficial.

About 8 months ago some friends and I pooled funds and bought a business that would otherwise have disappeared. Three of us contributed money and one was to be sweat equity.

At the time I was exerting leadership and authority it triggered attraction in a woman (we'll call her Judy) I'd known for about a year and who was involved in the purchase as well. We were spending an increasing amount of time together, sharing more of our lives and becoming intimate. After being alone for about 4 years (long separation and divorce) it was a very welcome addition to my life.

After things settled in, I neglected to “keep it going” in terms of leadership, (mistakenly) feeling that since she and I were doing well and had a definite affinity that things would continue. WRONG. There are other factors involved, but basically I failed to continue in the leadership role and the attraction waned considerably. The end result was that the relationship that had been hot and very mutual was put “on hold” until we “each got things in our lives straightened out.”

This last week we had to remove the “sweat equity partner” from managing the restaurant. Since I'm the geographically close partner AND the person that put the deal together AND have worked the business as well, it has fallen to me to organize and manage the restaurant. This created a lot of strain and even induced a bit of “panic” initially. A lot communication went on with the partners over status, decision-making, etc. Again I failed to take a strong enough leadership position.

Since that point I've gotten a handle on things, however, the effect on my relationship with Judy took a worse turn in that she's not confident with my assertiveness and there's now some struggle and even bossiness on her part in how things will proceed. Yep, classic wussiness and deference have caused her to feel she has to “be the man.”

Now there are other issues in play here, and an evaluation of Judy as an appropriate partner is clearly required as she has her own set of issues. HOWEVER, observing the progression of events here it's clear that FAILING TO TAKE THE LEADERSHIP ROLE HAS TANKED WHAT WAS ONCE A CLEAR AFFINITY AND PRETTY FUN AND INTERESTING RELATIONSHIP.

I'm re-evaluating my process of relating information to my partners with an eye towards framing the issue, identifying options and suggesting the most effective choice, INSTEAD of coming across with a “what am I going to do now” type of attitude.

It's a learning process and some take longer to “get” the lessons. The thing is that the lessons continue to come until we DO get it.

Thanks David for your help and newsletters. They're helping me to change into a better man and better partner...for someone, sometime.

Regards,
Joe

As you can see from Joe’s account, letting your attitude deteriorate in the face of stress, deadlines, boredom, and a lot of other things, is easy, and it can cost you, dearly. So keep an eye on your attitude, mood, deviation from good habits (like being on time, or being well-groomed) that show self-respect, etc., and don’t let things go down the tubes when they could easily be maintained or improved. It’s far easier to maintain the good things in life than it is to regain them once lost.

Think of a bundle of asphalt roofing shingles. Once you get them up on your shoulder, holding them there or going up the ladder with them isn’t hard at all, but getting them from the ground to your shoulder (especially if you do two at a time like I do) is rough, and you can get hurt pretty badly doing it if you don’t do it just right. Relationships are the same way. Easy to maintain or elevate from a comfortable position, but having the potential to break your back if you have to bring one from the ground up.

So now you have to ask yourself a question: “Do I know what my attitude, demeanor, personality, habits, etc., are projecting about me???” And do you know how the people, and specifically the women in your life, are interpreting what they see? Another question: “If somebody, especially a woman, tried to tell me what they see, would I listen, and understand?”

You will after you’ve read my book, "THE Man's Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," and you’ll also know what they like seeing and how to adjust your attitude and outlook so that they see what they’re looking for and you enjoy your life more, not because they see it, but because YOU do. It’s fun, easy, and every man who has tried it to date has succeeded in making his life better, regardless of what woman’s company he was keeping, so whatever is holding you back, skip it, and get over to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy right now. Never put off until tomorrow the success you can have today!

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

Relationships and Marriage Take Work, but not As Much As You Think, IF You Work SMART!

If your natural personality is such that you can’t attract and/or keep someone in a mutually fulfilling and enjoyable relationship with you, you need to spend your time and effort on self-improvement, not honing your hunting or acting skills and trying to learn a new way to fake it.

Well Gentlemen (and Ladies!), I’m on fire again. It never ceases to amaze me how people will believe that the hardest and least effective of all options available is the only option when they have a problem. I keep running into people who want to argue that relationships take a lifetime of hard work if they are going to amount to anything, and it’s therefore easier to have affairs or just put up with problems.

Never has so much time and energy been expended shoveling such a load of crap!

Indeed, if a little work is done on the front end, a good relationship can be almost maintenance free if a couple gets in tune and is well-matched.

Well-matched. What is that? Quite simply, if your values and tastes are similar, interests and ambitions are compatible or even complimentary, and you speak anything close to the same language, you’re well-matched. Being together is then natural, because your personalities and motivations are also compatible and possibly even complimentary. You cooperate instead of competing, and it feels good to be together, so much so that you look forward to it. Being well-matched isn’t a product of reinventing yourself; it’s the product of being yourself during the dating period so that you attract someone with whom you are compatible and therefore don’t have to walk on eggshells and jump through hoops to get along with them. Been there? Done that?

So you say, “What if I’m myself and nobody wants to be with me after the third date?” or “I’ve been married three times and none of them lasted longer than a year!” That’s where the work comes in! Not in faking your way into having someone keep your company, but by going through a self-evaluation and self-improvement period, and the thing that may need improved the most is your criteria and method for choosing a mate, not anything that makes you the person you are.

You may need to hone your evaluation skills. I’ve counseled clients who are really great people, but they tend to make very bad choices in a mate, being attracted to some trait that has a high probability of bringing with it something destructive, such as being attracted to the excitement of risk-taking behavior, which can be a mark of an achiever or someone bent on self-destruction, and they don’t make the effort to find out which. Or being attracted to someone who is very involved in charities, which often brings with it a tendency to be unavailable too much of the time and a heavy guilt element that dampens them and the relationship. You may be hung up on a particular type of woman, like the codependent that is constantly getting into trouble so that somebody can save her.

You may need to determine who you really are so that you can identify someone who is compatible with you in terms of your values, tastes, etc. Some people reach middle age and later without ever knowing who they really are, what they want from life, what they want out of a marriage, partner, or job, etc. You can’t pick a compatible partner if you have no idea what you’re trying to match them up to.

You may find that there are things about you that can be improved, maybe even easily. You may need to do whatever is necessary to gear up and truly become somebody that you can be proud of and that other people will enjoy being around. Sometimes people don’t get enough direction, mentoring, and exposure to the right things to choose appropriate and attainable goals, achieve, and develop the necessary self-esteem to attract people or even enjoy being around others.

You may indeed find that what needs the most improvement isn’t your self, but your self-image, and that you’re “bottom-feeding” because you can’t believe that a good woman would have you. Shyness and any other mild form of social discomfort is a huge symptom of self-esteem deficit. Drug companies want you to think that you need a pill to meet people, while bartenders recommend alcohol, but the truth is that except in the most unusual of circumstances, all you need to do to feel at ease with others – of either gender -- is to feel good about being yourself. It’s really that simple. And when you make these genuine changes, there is no stress to try to maintain a façade.

Whatever you find as the problem, the solution will require REAL change, not a repackaging, not an illusion, not a smoother act or a better line. Not a magic bullet or wonder drug, but a real, workable, and easily-sustainable solution. The good news is that you will enjoy the change process and the result, because it will make you feel better about yourself, which must happen before others will feel good about being with you.

I know this sounds simplistic, but folks, I can show you more real-world examples of this working than you can imagine, and I challenge anyone to present a genuinely happy couple that is faking anything to get along or a genuinely happy person that is faking anything at all. One of your fellow readers just went through this exercise, and went from being near divorce proceedings after his wife moved out of the house and negotiating visitation rights to having her moving back in the house and making plans for family relocation and career change in a little over a week! (And there have been several of these guys getting these dramatic results. It’s not an isolated incident or one those cases of “results not typical, yours may vary” you see disclaimed in fine print.)

They were well-matched, and still loved each other, but had both picked up bad habits since their son had been born and couldn’t stand being around each other because it was too stressful to try to be somebody they weren’t. He was being overly accommodating and she was trying to tolerate it because she didn’t want to hurt his feelings by rejecting his favors, and the stress was getting to both of them. What’s sad is that he had every reason to see her as unappreciative of his accommodation, and she had every reason to be bored with his seemingly wussy attitude, because neither knew the real story.

He made a decision to be strong and decisive again, and return to the alpha male behavior that was natural to him in years past, and BOOM! She was instantly back into attraction, stress was eased for both of them, and life was suddenly very good, because they were doing what came naturally and it worked. No faking, no worrying, no wondering how long they could endure keeping up the façade.

A little work on the front end to become or realize that you are someone you enjoy being and whom others enjoy being around will save you a lifetime of having to live under the stress of living a lie and feeling inadequate. The same goes for finding someone that you really enjoy being with, and especially TALKING with – you have to have something to do to pass the time between sexual encounters!

Having a strong self-image and finding a good fit in a relationship makes you feel confident and worthy of the attention of others, and also makes you feel that the burden of proof, with regard to worthiness, is on everyone else. You know you’re worth having and can afford to wait for a good match instead of doing what everyone else does and settling for what’s available at the moment, scared to death that if they get away there will never be another chance. That sort of independence is one of the greatest feelings a human can feel, and you can’t appreciate just how good it really is until you’ve felt it.

Finding a good relationship isn’t about being liked, or being popular, and your quest to find a good relationship should be spent as a time of self-assessment, not assessment by others, as well as a time of exploration, during which candidates will be presenting themselves to you for you to evaluate. If you’re not attracting the kind of people that you feel good being around, it doesn’t mean that you’re bad, or inferior, or any kind of depressing crap like that. It means that you need to either get a more realistic image of yourself or grow a bit to mesh with the kind of people you like, and personal growth is ALWAYS a good thing, something to make you feel like you have achieved something worthwhile.

There is no downside to getting your self and your self-image squared away; just do it, because you can be supremely happy with others only if and when you are happy with yourself. The same goes for loving and respecting yourself, which must come before you can extend those feelings toward others or they can extend them to you. Sounds like it’s all about you, doesn’t it? Well, it is, so get busy.

Or maybe you’d like to be one of those old guys who has worked the same job for 40 years without promotion, sits around watching TV when he’s not working, and can’t figure out why he never seems to enjoy anything and nobody wants to spend any time with him because they’ve all grown while he’s remained stagnant. No? I thought not. ‘Nuff said.

Improvement, like life or a great relationship or even a marriage, is a journey, not a destination. Yes, here we go with another travel adventure metaphor, because it’s entirely accurate. You need to know where you are and where you want to go to plan the trip, and your travel guide for this trip to a great and lasting relationship and total understanding of women, which will hopefully be a very long one, is “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage.”

It shows you how to figure out where you are by evaluating yourself and your relationship, then takes you down the right roads to understanding and communicating with each other and doing all the great and fun things that keep attraction alive, and therefore restart and/or keep the honeymoon going. Go to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy right now, because it will get you where you want and deserve to be.

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

Ex's: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Former Relationships and Marriage

Depending on circumstances, ex’s can be a valuable asset, a nightmare, and worst of all, an attraction-killer to your present partner. Let’s explore…

As you may remember from the bio on the MakingHerHappy.com web site, a lot of people have called me “Doc” since childhood, not because am a medical doctor, psychiatrist, dentist, veterinarian, or college professor, but because I’m the guy that makes whatever ails you go away, no matter what it seems to be.

Hence, I spend a large part of my life hearing other people’s problems and providing solutions for them, and one of the problems I hear about most are “ex’s” – ex-husbands, wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, employers, etc. I don’t know if you’ve ever thought about it, but how people become “ex’s” in your life and how you deal with them once they do says a lot about you. We need to talk about some of the things it can say, because some of it is really good, and some of it is really, REALLY bad. And whether you have an ex now or there is some chance you may have one in the future, you NEED to know this and think about it.

Let’s start with the worst case first, and work our way to the better ones. The worst case is the ex that became an ex because war was declared, and you got hurt and have never gotten over it. You talk about the relationship and the break-up all the time, even though it’s been years ago. Have you noticed how people react?

Have you noticed that they tend to “glaze over,” look at their watches, or roll their eyes, and suddenly remember somewhere else they need to be or rather aggressively change subjects? If not, open your eyes, because they do exactly that, and it’s costing you. People don’t like hearing the same lament over and over, and they don’t like being around people who harbor pain, depression, grudges, etc., instead of resolving their problems and moving on with their life. It’s annoying, embarrassing, and can be quite depressing. It’s also a major respect and attraction-killer, and labels you as a wuss who can’t deal with life and move on.

Face it, everybody goes through at least one bad relationship in their life, and they get over it. They learn how to better choose a girlfriend, wife, friend, business partner, employer, or whatever, and they move on to have a better life. Or they wallow in unresolved anger or misery and become a pain in the neck to everyone they know.

If you’re not resolving problems and moving on, the only thing keeping you from it is YOU. How you respond to past events is entirely YOUR CHOICE! Make the choice to accept reality and whatever responsibility is yours, stand up, dust off your pants, and step forward. If it was so traumatic that you need professional help, get it, and get it done. Life’s too short to spend it looking backward and feeling crappy (and annoying the hell out of everyone else) instead of moving forward and experiencing the joy that you were born to have if you only step up and choose to earn it.

“But you don’t understand!” you say. Oh yes, I DO understand. You loved her, you needed her, the sex was great, you really loved that job, you never thought that buddy would screw you over. You never thought you’d come home to find your brother or best friend in bed with your wife. You loved being self-employed, or having money, status, and respect. I’ve seen and heard it all. Lived through it, too. And I can tell you with authority that none of those things has any impact on TODAY, unless you CHOOSE to let them.

There are lessons to learn from the bad things that happened to you. Stop lamenting the events and seek out the lessons. Learn them. Consign yourself to using those lessons to be more successful in the future. And relegate those events to the past and never, ever look back. The clock is ticking, and every second that passes can never be regained. You can spend each second looking back and wasting it or looking forward and living a better life. It’s your call. Let that choice and that ability to choose empower you to live well and be happy.

Stepping down off my stump now… ;-)

The next worst case isn’t much better. It’s the dependent that you can’t quite get rid of. The ex-wife or lover that you’re constantly having to bail out of a jam that they stupidly chose to put themselves in but want someone else to pay for, the child who is well into adulthood that you keep bailing out, even though a person their age usually has a family, mortgage, and established a career, the ex-employer who either fired you and continues to call on you for help or the one you left that keeps leaning on you instead of hiring a competent replacement, any of which causes you to complain and be distracted when you’re around people who currently really do matter to you and want to enjoy your company.

Those around you don’t like listening to you repeat the same laments and frustrations any more than you want to hear it out of them. It labels you as a push-over, another breed of wuss who just can’t say “no,” no matter how badly “no” needs to be said. You guessed it, another major respect and attraction killer that will send both genders scurrying when they see you coming down the hall.

People who don’t want to be partners of some sort and share life with you, whether it’s a wife, girlfriend, buddy, employer, business partner, offspring, or whatever, don’t deserve to have you sacrificing yourself to their incompetence, delinquency, etc. Altruists around the world are cringing as I say this, but you know it’s true. Your life is too short and too precious to allow yourself to be bled dry by a bunch of parasites who won’t let go of your jugular vein. Let them keep themselves up instead of sucking you dry, Brother. Do you understand? Their need is not a demand on your life; a poor choice on their part does not constitute an obligation or emergency on yours. Remember that. Quote it daily.

There are good people around you more than willing to share life with you, no matter who or where you are, so why cheat yourself and them of the great things you can do -- and BE -- together while throwing your life’s energy away to these parasites? You’ll find that when you do this, all you will attract are more parasites, as well as a few predators, because good, competent, independent people will shy away, not wanting your problem overload to spill over on them, while parasites and predators will be watching for a sucker like you to come along and latch on as soon as you give them an opening.

What impact do you think this will have on any relationships or marriage you might enter into? If the good people are steering clear of you and the bad ones have you targeted, well…it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see how that will turn out, especially when parasites and predators are masters of using guilt and a person’s own insecurities to manipulate people into doing things they know better than to do just for approval and acceptance. If this is you, you’re going for ride after ride until you either choose to live better or they drive you all the way to the gutter. And again, the choice is yours, not theirs, so make the right one.

The last kind of ex to which I want to call your attention is the only good kind to have, the kind with whom you have shared something for awhile, and as you grew apart or found yourself at odds, you responsibly recognized that you were evolving in two different directions or at incompatible paces or that you started a relationship without sufficient compatibility to sustain it and you went your separate ways on friendly terms. You’ve probably seen this at one time or another, a situation where both of you recognized that you were both good people in a bad match-up, and knew that you’d both be better off at arm’s length than close-up, “better friends than lovers” as the saying goes.

This would be the former employer who keeps you in their Rolodex as a potential consultant and gives you a good employment referral (not just a reference, but calls up somebody in their own network to help get you placement), and to whom you would refer competent sources of help, materials, or whatever. We’ve all seen a bad fit in the work place, and employers appreciate how it can happen and will often treat you much better if you sit down with them to discuss it instead of trying to hide the fact that it’s a bad fit until you’ve found something else and leave them hanging with a job to fill and no warning.

It would also be the ex-wife or ex-girlfriend who steers opportunities your way, and to whom you steer good quality people. Maybe you even double date from time to time to help each other meet new people, steer contacts to each others’ businesses, etc. This is highly attractive behavior to all but the most insecure of women, because it says that you can accept responsibility for your actions and decisions, keep a level head and reach workable agreements with people, and won’t be a needy wuss who hangs onto them if things don’t work out for the long term. It says that you’re strong and of good character, that you focus on the value in people, not their flaws. I don’t know about you, but that’s precisely the kind of thing that I want to be known for, and consequently, am known for.

Fights are neither necessary nor desirable to resolve a bad relationship of any kind. At 47 years old I’ve never been sued, and every conflict I’ve engaged in during my adult life has been settled in a logical and equitable manner by mutual consent, including all former marriages, contracts, employment, and customer relationships. I know of nobody that I’ve ever dealt with that I couldn’t call up right now and have a good conversation, and probably find some way of stirring up a business deal or some kind of fun. It sounds like quite an accomplishment, but while it may be unusual, it has never been difficult, and should not be difficult for you, either.

Why?

Because all it takes is the willingness and respect to deal squarely with those around you, looking for what you can accomplish together instead of what you can cheat each other out of or control. Being known for being such a person makes you attractive to everyone in all respects, and when it comes to women, they want a man who will take the lead, act responsibly and fairly, keep a positive attitude, help them to filter drama, and keep things moving for them, not somebody looking for every possible way to screw them, cheat them, lie to them, etc., or who feeds into their drama instead of trying to keep them from getting lost in it. Sounds rather like an employer, does it not?

They also want someone to share life with, who knows when to say, ‘Yes,” or, “No.” They evaluate men using an iron-clad rule: “If you can’t stand up TO me, you can’t stand up FOR me, and if you can’t stand up for ME, you won’t stand up for US.” They don’t mind you sharing yourself with others, moderately, as long as you save the best part for them, which in a good relationship is a very fair trade for the nurturing, loyalty, and many other things a loving wife will give a good man who’s making her happy.

Knowing how to evaluate and maintain a good relationship at home, how to communicate with people, and how to create attraction in the woman you love has far-reaching effects, much farther-reaching than you might ever imagine before doing it. Look around you. Those men who are happy at home are happy at work as well, and they have solid relationships with all the people in their life. They know how to choose good relationships, how to communicate with people, and how to be the kind of guy that people want to be around.

You’ll find that when you do the things described in "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," the rest of your life will start improving at the same pace that things improve at home. Your confidence level increases, your communications skills improve, and you become more fun, interesting, competent, and generally enjoyable to have around. You can keep putting it off because you don’t know if you can do it, or you can accept the fact that a lot have people have already done it, many of which may not be as sharp as you, and you can make just as big a difference in your life as they have, if not even bigger. All it takes is to claim your birthright as a man and BE a man.

Download this fascinating and highly-effective book at http://www.makingherhappy.com/. It’s guaranteed, it’s fun, you can easily afford it, and quite frankly, you can’t afford to not do it, at least not if you realize just how short life really is and don’t want to spend it watching everybody else enjoying it more than you do. Join us, right now!

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

Don't Be Caught Frozen in the Headlights When Something Threatens Your Relationship or Marriage

My beloved workshop was once hit by a flash flood, and while I was outside building dams and watersheds behind it to divert a flash flood current in the middle of a deluge of rain, something struck me that every man should know, especially when things aren’t working right in his relationship or marriage.

I live at the mouth of a somewhat shallow sort of box canyon, elevated above the normal flood plain, but in exactly the spot where the run-off from two ridges and a hillside runs past my house and into a large creek that continues down the hill. The rain started coming down very hard that day, on the heels of a solid week of rain that had already saturated the ground to the point that we already had standing water, and I looked out a window and saw the largest stream of water I’ve seen since I’ve lived here running from behind my workshop and across about an acre of my lawn. Curiosity and concern aroused, I suited up in rain gear and went out to inspect, and it was a very good thing that I did so, and not a minute too soon.

The rain was increasing, and the run-off had started a flash flood coming down the hills and converging just behind my workshop, and it was slamming into the back of it so hard that the water was shooting under the walls and washing across the concrete floor of the shop. Luckily, all of my equipment is on wheels or mobile bases, so none of the cast iron parts of my table saw, jointer, planer, drill press, lathe, etc., got wet, but there was some wood and a few cardboard boxes with new tools and materials in them getting wet and the feet of my solid beech workbench were sitting in an inch of water.

I quickly got those things out of harm’s way and went out back to address the on-coming flood, which now literally resembled rapids in a large creek. There was a pile of broken concrete where I had repoured part of the driveway and several large ricks of firewood, so I grabbed a shovel and mattock to dig trenches through some high spots that were allowing water to pool near my workshop and then started throwing up dams of concrete chunks, firewood, and spare roofing shingles to divert the water around the workshop to keep it from driving into and under the walls.

While all of this was going on, I was reminded of an old naval comedy called “Down Periscope”, in which there was a scene where the submarine they’re on is leaking and flooding and everybody is scrambling, and at the end, one of the crew brushes the water out of his hair and says, “Now that was FUN!” And it hit me…

I grew up on a farm, and when something bad happened, there was neither time nor tolerance for throwing up one’s hands and saying, “Oh no! What are we going to do?” or to simply do nothing and hope that the problem fixed itself. Problems that affected the farm equipment, or especially the crops, could mean the difference between eating and going hungry. So when a problem came up, we were like the guys on that submarine. Everybody pounced on the problem, handling what they were best-suited to do first, getting the most critical elements handled first, and continuing, quickly and rationally, until it was fixed and the crisis was resolved.

That’s how a man must handle ALL problems if he is to respect himself and be respected. It’s the only way that he can head off trouble before it gets too big, and the only way he can handle trouble that is too big and moving too fast to head off while it’s small. It’s the only way that his wife will trust his judgment and leadership, which must happen if she is going to be happy in the marriage, feel like engaging in an active sex life, want to play and have fun with the man, etc.

So if things around the house, at work, or especially in your marriage are anywhere from slowly deteriorating to being in full-scale crisis, don’t be some scared wuss frozen in the headlights of an on-coming disaster while your life and everything you hold dear washes past your feet. Take action. The self-respect you gain from handling things will boost your confidence, and thereby your attractiveness, and as your self-confidence and self-respect grow, your wife will be drawn inescapably closer to you as primal instinct overwhelms her with the feelings that she can trust you and that she has married well.

If it’s your relationship or marriage that is slowing down, hiccupping, or coming apart at the seams, that is the LAST problem you could expect to fix itself; relationship and marriage problems always get worse without attention. They fester like a boil, and finally erupt in a smelly, painful mess of pus and blood. And it doesn’t have to go down that way, even if the marriage was one of those that never should have happened in the first place. The worst marriages in the world can be dissolved peacefully and with dignity if you know that it must be ended and know what to do to end it properly.

There’s tested and proven help for you in my book, "THE Man's Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," and it’s about a mouse-click away at http://www.makingherhappy.com/. It started with the stated needs and desires of 188 women, and was then tested and refined through the use and feedback of 118 couples, and has been continuously refined with the experience of thousands since. It’s working for everyone who uses it, and I have the testimonials to prove it. Think not? This one came today:

David,

Nearly four years ago I purchased your book when it was still titled “How To Be Attractive To The Woman You Love.” I consider it among my personal list of top five most influential and helpful books (a list that includes the Bible). Your book is a short read loaded with invaluable tools for MEN. You not only help understand the advanced intuitive female mind and its machinations but also help each one of us “man up.” It’s when I’ve drifted from your lessons that old habits or new complications have entered my life.

I was in a long-term relationship that recently ended. Part of it I attribute to finding myself unemployed and dealing with the ongoing distractions that presents. The other, deeper problem was the inability to completely connect with the person I loved even after years of being together. I believe the end came about because of a lack of intimacy. Outwardly, she seemed easily offended or embarrassed by matters relating to sex, yet I realized too late that she longed for ongoing sexual intimacy. As men, I think we tend to focus on sex from the physical aspects and easily lose sight of the emotional reinforcement it brings for women we love.

I’m now trying – too late for my last love – to refresh that awareness into my personal spirit of manhood. That has brought me back to a new diligence in following your manly wisdom. Your ongoing newsletter is the best at providing daily jewels of information on how to be a man, a loving man in a relationship. You have done your part. I must do mine with constant vigilance. I honor you for your dedication and the insights you share. You are a great guide to the mysterious path of womanhood. Thanks for lighting the way.

L

You see? Even when unusual stress takes a man out of character, he comes back and regains his manhood, his life, and a great relationship or marriage, whether he has it or finds one. And this guy is a well-read corporate type who is into self-help texts, and he’s listing this on among his “top five most influential and helpful books.”

So it’s time for you to get moving to http://www.makingherhappy.com/. Or you could just keep right on standing there, the deer caught in the headlights, while everything you hold dear (and own!) goes right down the tubes in a flood of emotion, frustration, and confusion, except of course for the part that goes to line the lawyers’ pockets or to keep the wife’s boredom from killing you both. It’s your choice, so make it a good one.

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

Are You a Man, or a "Wannabe"? Be Recognized As a Real Man in Your Relationship and Marriage

Whether you know or not, your choices, tastes, words, and actions tell a lot about you (and also influence you!), so you need to know what you’re saying to the world, including women, because being a wannabe is a major league wussy turn-off.

Let’s start 2010 with manly resolution. Never again will we say, “I want to be,” or colloquially, “I wanna be.” We WILL be; whatever it is that we desire to be, we will put forth the effort to make it happen instead of blowing a bunch of money (and major attraction points) trying to look like we’ve done it, because it’s pathetic. Take a good look at this with me, because you may not realize you’re doing this…

When I drove to my late best friend’s home for a memorial service, it was a long, rather boring interstate highway drive, so I was dictating text and ideas for upcoming newsletters and book content into a micro recorder when an aggressive driver went flying by me, cut too close between me and the car ahead of him, and almost flipped his vehicle trying to keep control. There were several things about the event that jumped out at me immediately.

First were the vehicle characteristics. He was in a late-model Ford Excursion, one of those mammoth oversized SUV’s that pretty much amount to a well-appointed utility van. The differential housing (the big round thing between the rear wheels for those of you who aren’t automotive-mechanically inclined) sat a scant six inches off the ground, giving it no more ground clearance than most passenger cars, and it rocked and swayed like a boat on choppy seas, yet despite the pathetically low ground-clearance, soft suspension, and a custom paint job that must have cost a couple thousand dollars, this idiot had put bright chrome off-road brush guards across the front grill and tail lights.

The immediate impression he created was that of a downtown attorney, banker, realtor, or some other kind of high-paid urban desk jockey, who wanted to be a rugged, off-road exploring kind of alpha male, but what he had achieved was the look of a person who had suddenly came into a lot of money, didn’t know what to do with it, and created something that looked like a pimpmobile and a Land Rover had created a child.

The other thing that jumped out was that his rear windshield was covered in NASCAR racing stickers. I don’t have anything against competent sports driving in a well-maintained sports car – I do it myself frequently – but an oversized SUV driven at over 100MPH and trying to execute tight, race-track style maneuvers in such a vehicle on a somewhat crowded interstate highway in a rural area that only provided for two lanes in each direction doesn’t say that this guy is a competent sport driver, or even a racing enthusiast. It says that he’s a racing “wannabe” who doesn’t have the sense, taste, or motivation to buy a vehicle designed for that kind of driving, nor the self-respect to conduct that kind of driving in a vehicle designed for it. We’ll not even get into his total disregard for the safety of the other drivers around him.

The funniest thing was that my wife, who is normally pretty non-judgmental and doesn’t usually comment on such events, even though they scare the mortal crap out of her, said, “Damn! You need to send that idiot a copy of your book.” When I asked why, she said, “Because no real man would ever be driving like that or driving anything that looked like that.” I simply laughed and said, ‘You’re quite right.”

So you see, Gentlemen, it’s like this. Women are a whole lot more attentive than we usually give them credit for, and they notice everything about all of us. Single women are comparing all of us against each other, and those partnered with us are constantly comparing us to both their ideal image of a man and to all the other men around, not to mention against how we were when we met them.

What are you giving the women in your life, especially your partner, to compare against that ideal image, or the other guys, or the “old you”? Do you do the things you want to do, achieve the things you want to achieve, etc., or are you terrorizing other drivers in a veritable death trap because you want to be a racer, wearing long hair and motorcycle T-shirts but don’t own a motorcycle, talking about football plays that should have been made in the Sunday game instead of coaching or volunteering at a local school or junior league, reading woodworking magazines when you don’t even own a handsaw, etc.?

Don’t just try to put up the image of doing something you want to do, DO IT! BE a man, a man of adventure, action, fun and competence, and enjoy those things you want to do, and you will be seen as an achiever, a real man’s man, a guy who lives IN the game instead of as a spectator. You won’t believe what a simple change like that will make in your self-esteem and the way the people around you perceive you; there will be a transition from “that annoying big-mouthed know-it-all wannabe” to “that adventurous man’s man who walks to his own beat, has fun and gets things done.”

Just take action! It’s really that simple. And if you think I’m full of crap and don’t want to accept the wisdom and experience of all the couples that help me develop and present all this advice, ask the woman you love and the other women you know how they perceive wannabe’s and men of action and how they respond to each, and they’ll tell you the same thing. Whatever you do, just stop being an armchair quarterback, a second-guesser, a full-time spectator, etc., and get out and DO something, and enjoy it. ANY hobby will do, as long as you enjoy it and challenge yourself with it.

The first thing you’ll notice when you do is that whatever it is you decide to do, if your partner sees you having fun doing something extraordinary, she’ll be there cheering you on, maybe even doing it with you, and getting hotter than nine kinds of hell seeing her man being a manly man who does manly things instead of sitting around flapping his jaws or making an ass of himself trying to look the part of a role that he can’t play. The simple act of turning over a new leaf like this can breathe new life into a stale relationship quickly, and is a great place to start in rolling back the clock to the honeymoon days and a great way to start the year regardless. And there’s no time like now to turn over a new leaf, is there?

The new year is a great time to start any self-improvement effort; indeed, any day is a good day as long as it’s today, but there’s always that bit of extra momentum caused by years of programming that the new year is a time for a fresh start as books are balanced and closed, annual reports are done, etc. Or you could just do what you’ve been doing, and keep feeling the way you’ve been feeling – bored, frustrated, tense, walking on eggshells, suspicious of an affair, seeking or having an affair, celibate – you know what you’re feeling, so do something about it. It’s your move, so make it a good one.

Start this year with a renewed commitment to a better life, starting with a better life with your partner. Go to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy of “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage” and get with the program that any man can follow and every man can love.

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

Bad Relationships and Marriages Can End Well, IF You Let Them

Sometimes people get into relationships that simply never should have happened and can’t be made to work because the foundation just isn’t there. If you’re in one of these, don’t be afraid of letting go, because life does go on, a lot better than when you’re trapped in a no-win situation.

This is an unpleasant subject for a lot of people, and understandably so, but it’s one that I have to address from time to time because it can’t be ignored. There are a lot of reasons people get into relationships, as well as stay in them, and unfortunately, some of them are really, REALLY BAD reasons.

The high and still constantly climbing divorce rates of recent decades bear this out. Couples used to court for a long time to make sure that after the excitement of attraction wore off there was still something for them to base a relationship on, like love, attraction and compatibility, but that has long since past, especially now that premarital sex is the norm rather than the exception.

And I’m not saying that premarital sex is inherently good or bad, or even that it is a cause; in spite of what cleverly misrepresentative statistics suggest, it’s not a cause at all. Indeed, rationally speaking, premarital sex can keep you from marrying someone with whom you are sexually incompatible. Sexual incompatibility is just as big a problem and just as common a cause of divorce as value incompatibility, no matter what your religious affiliation.

Whether or not fornication and divorce are sins and which you would prefer to ask forgiveness for is your concern, not mine. My point is that people get caught up in the emotions of life, a relationship and sexual issues and make ill-conceived and self-destructive decisions about lifelong commitments that they later find they can’t hold to, because after all that excitement is gone and they have to actually start talking, they discover problems, like their values are diametrically opposed, or their personalities or majority of tastes are at odds, or there is some other compatibility problem that makes for too many points of contention in their life for them to coexist.

It’s a scary feeling when you’re faced with the reality of a bad choice like that, because by the time attraction naturally wears off and a problem is recognized an average of two years has passed, and then another few years are spent trying to overcome problems that are too big to handle (because people’s core values don’t change and their tastes seldom change) and everybody starts being angry with everybody else for not trying hard enough or not being “good enough” to handle it.

That’s utter rubbish, because in reality it’s not about being good enough, but about being compatible enough, but it still causes fights and helps attorneys to get rich getting you out of it, especially when you get with one of the less scrupulous ones who tries to escalate the fighting to create more hard feelings and fighting, and consequently more work and more money for themselves. And there’s a much better way to handle the situation when you realize that, like Andy did:

David, Hello!

I wrote to you many months ago about my ex-wife and how she just walked out on me after 20 years of marriage. She actually did me the biggest favor anyone could ever do, and that I had bought your book to learn what I had done wrong in my marriage! Well things have really changed in my life since I read your book and applied what I have learned!

Your book is a Godsend and it has changed my life! I've met a fantastic woman, her name is Shari. She says that I am the most awesome man she has ever met! She is always coming on to me as if she can't get enough! I've never been so happy in my life! What you teach is so true! A man doesn't have to ever ask for sex, all he has to do is act like a real man!

Thanks for helping me change my life for the better!
Andy

Andy was one of the lucky ones. According to his letters, he and his wife were “comfortably unhappy” for two decades before she left, and when Andy sat down and did a thorough evaluation of what his relationship had been in trying to figure out what went wrong with his marriage, it was clear that it never should have happened to start with. He learned from his mistakes, made a few personal improvements along the way, and now has women chasing him, and is able to pick from all of them the one whom he’ll spend the rest of his life with when she finally turns up, which is what dating is really all about.

Yes, really! Dating is not about trying to “catch” somebody or find somebody that you can make enough compromises with to get them to marry you. It’s about exposing yourself to enough candidates that the right one is finally exposed for you to select! And in the meantime, it’s about learning and having fun, not sitting by the phone wondering if you were “good enough” to get somebody to call you. But…and it’s a big but…

If you don’t feel good about yourself and have the self-esteem, sense of adventure and natural comfort that comes from being happy with yourself, dating is a nightmare scenario, because as these candidates are exposing themselves to you, you’re also exposing yourself, the self that you are not comfortable with, to them. You have to HAVE a life to SHARE a life, right? And you have to love, respect and enjoy yourself before you can love, respect or enjoy anyone else. But as you will see in my book, that’s the easiest part, once you find out how.

So where are you today? Are you happy, or comfortably unhappy? Or are you just plain miserable and scared to death to move on because you think that being unhappy with somebody is better than being unhappy and alone? No matter what shape you’re in, good or bad, it can be better, and as people like Andy will tell you, it doesn’t take much to make it better. Think not? Come to http://www.makingherhappy.com and I’ll prove it to you!

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

Avoid Domestic Holiday Violence in Your Relationship and Marriage

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

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

Merry Christmas David!

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

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

Have yourself a GREAT Christmas!
Dave

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

Hi David!

Merry Christmas!

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

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

Jackie

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

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

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

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

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

Preparation, Key to Easy Success in Relationships and Marriage

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

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

Hey David,

How's it going!

Well I'm doing pretty good indeed!

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

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

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

I've got to keep doing the things that attracted her to me at first.
I've got to display an alpha male personality in her presence.

I've got to improve my life in every way possible.

Finally, I've got to make her FEEL great about herself

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

Mark

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dear David,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Darla

My response:

Hi Darla,

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

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

Take care,
David

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

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

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

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

How Are Your Friends Affecting Your Relationship or Marriage?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Everybody in my unit, including myself, was young, full of piss and vinegar, drawing hazardous duty pay, and got off on all the gung ho ritual language; in true gung-ho form I replied, “Sir, I do not know. If the general would explain the difference I will deploy that knowledge in a swift, proficient, and distinctly military manner.” I had no idea what he meant by, “The difference,” let alone what “the difference was, so it seemed like a good time to let him to all the talking.

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

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

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

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

David,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sincerely
Tom

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

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

For starters, Tom didn’t just automatically blame everything on somebody else and assume no responsibility for what happened that led to his divorce. He buckled down and found information that gave him answers as to what happened and what he could change to make sure it didn’t happen again.

Lesson: Take personal responsibility when things don’t go as planned, figure out what happened, and learn how to make it go the right way.

Also note I didn’t write one word of advice targeted at those who are dating in "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," yet Tom found all kinds of advice in it that helped him to be more successful in his dating life, BECAUSE HE WAS LOOKING FOR IT. Good information isn’t always where you EXPECT to find it, but it is always WHERE YOU FIND IT, if you know what I mean.

Lesson: be ever-vigilant in looking for things that can make your life better; you may not find a pearl in every oyster, but finding a gold nugget lying in a pile of animal manure or a trash can doesn’t make it any less valuable than if it was found in a creek or a mine.

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

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

Instead of saying, “I’m tired of reading. I’ve done this before, I’m just going to jump in and it will be better this time,” Tom recognized that a recommendation from one good source of information about another source of information was likely a good call because no information seller will risk trashing his reputation by steering a customer in the wrong direction for an affiliate sale and blow any possibility of future direct sales.

Lesson: Know your limitations, and do everything you reasonably can to obtain help in overcoming them by seeking the advice of those who have succeeded before you.

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

When you’ve been together for awhile and your interest is fully vested, that window could be measured in YEARS in some cases, and months in almost all cases. Women like the protective feeling of stability, and will give you ample opportunity to make things right IF they see that you’re trying to do so.

Lesson: Even if the divorce is final, as long as she hasn’t filed for restraining orders (which indicate that all hope is indeed lost in nearly all cases in the long term, and in ALL cases in the short term), or some other man hasn’t created intense attraction within her (which usually results in a restraining order anyway) ,it’s NEVER too late to fix it as long as the compatibility is there to support it.

Also note he held her accountable for her mistakes, and that ultimately being held accountable and having to live the life that she chose was the worst punishment that could be heaped upon her.

Lesson: Justice is sweet, while revenge is a dish that simply should never be served, unless it’s “self-served.” War isn’t just “the most spectacular of all human endeavors” (General George S. Patton), it’s the most costly and utterly destructive, on any scale.

Here endeth the lessons. Right now, some of you are saying, “Geesh, that guy is long-winded. That’s annoying!” while others are thinking, “Wow! That guy must really care about this stuff, because it must have taken him a long time to put that together to share it with me.” I do, and it did, several hours in fact. Several hours that I could have spent with family and friends, building something in my beloved workshop or enjoying another hobby, cooking an elaborate gourmet dinner, or numerous other things for myself instead of for you. If you don’t need this much help from me, I’m happy for you, really, but I’m doing this to help people in crisis make their lives better just as much as I’m doing it to help other people keep their relationships from falling into crisis.

Lesson: Never look a gift horse in the mouth.

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

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

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

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

Why Do Women Have Affairs? Knowledge is Powerful Preventive Medicine In Protecting Your Relationship and Marriage

Why do women have affairs? For the same reason most men do: because there’s nothing exciting them at home. What excites them may be quite different from what excites us, but boredom is even harder for them to handle than for us, so don’t expect them to handle it – do something about it before it happens!

I had a wonderful phone call from an old friend (I’ll call her Dina), and I do mean OLD – we went to grade school together and have kept in touch ever since. We had a mutual “crush” in the third grade, became good friends, and eventually got to be so much like brother and sister that “hooking up” was never a thought, let alone an option, for either of us. She got married in the middle of college, had three kids, and the kids are grown now and she and her husband, Danny, also a long-time friend, are left with a great big empty nest and each other. They’d had a major problem develop a few months prior, and she called to give me the details of how things were back on track and better than they had ever been.

Like so many other couples, they had been so involved in their kids that they had grown apart and while they still love and respect each other, their life together was much more like that of casual roommates than a married couple. They didn’t have much to talk about, didn’t sleep together often – I’m really talking about sleeping here; he fell asleep on the couch most nights watching TV, and had “intimate relations” a couple times a year. OUCH!

That’s a lot of problems for two people to deal with, especially when you bring the causes into the mix. Their intimacy was severely hampered by occasional prostate problems he suffered, lack of personal interaction, different interests and schedules, “empty nest” syndrome – the couple had defined a huge portion of who they were as “parents” so when the kids were gone they had overwhelming feelings of lack of purpose and loneliness from the hole that was left in their lives -- and it finally caught up with them.

Dina had been particularly taken with a new employee in her office, a manager, her new boss (yes, that’s about as cliché as it gets, but remember that things become cliché because they are so common), and was working late both for the extra money and something to do. She enjoyed working for him, because he was a strong leader, good motivator, was genuinely interested in his employees’ welfare, and had a great sense of humor. He was also married and quite bored, being in a similar situation to Dina.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see what came next, does it? Look at the boss. Strong leader, an alpha male characteristic. Good motivator and great sense of humor, both traits indicative of above average communications skills and very ANTI-BORING. Leadership and motivational skills coupled with his position as her boss put him in a position of defining authority for her frequently. Genuine interest in employees’ welfare coupled with good communications skills is intimacy waiting to happen.

He tripped her attraction triggers nine ways from Sunday, and in her mid-forties, she’s still quite physically attractive, intelligent, a good conversationalist, and has always been playful and a little flirtatious, so she tripped his, too. They finally succumbed to the temptation and immediately knew they had done something that they shouldn’t have done and couldn’t undo. Dina called a few months ago to tell me about all of this, and I went to visit them.

She disclosed all of this, and we went through all that had happened over the years (the same process described in “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage” for determining if you are with someone who is a good match for you, a critical step in fixing any major problems in mature relationships – if they’re bad for you, why fight to keep things together???) and she knew beyond any doubt that he was the man for her and that they had slowly and surely grown apart as they focused too much on their kids and careers and not enough on each other.

She knew she had to tell Danny what had happened, for a number of reasons, and asked me for advice. I gave her a copy of “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage,” and told her to go through it with him, to help him prepare for the news he was about to get and be better able to understand what had happened. She was scared, but he was and is pretty level-headed, so she agreed.

When he got home, she showed him the book and told him I had written it and wanted their evaluation of it, which was true (I’m always interested in reader feedback on any of my books), and over the days that followed I got letters and phone calls from him about various things, and when it was obvious that he had a good grasp of what attraction is, and how powerful a force it is in a woman, especially when she is bored and vulnerable, I told Dina it was time to find an opportunity to confess, which she did within a couple of evenings as they were discussing part of the book. She kept a small digital recorder handy waiting for the discussion so she could send it to me, and e-mailed a recording to me with some notes.

He had read a passage in the book talking about how women get bored and can literally lose their ability to reason and control of their actions when somebody restores that feeling and he said, “Man, that sounds like a recipe for disaster. If you were to get caught up in something like this, I wouldn’t like it, but I don’t think I could blame you, at least not any more than I would have to blame myself.”

Being a bit more direct than most women, and a lot more direct than I was accustomed to her being, she looked him dead in the eye and said, “Danny, it has happened, just once, and I knew the minute it was over that it shouldn’t have. I love you, and I’m taking responsibility for this. I didn’t choose to let you grow away from me, but I didn’t choose to prevent it either. I didn’t know what was happening, and thought it was something that just happened to everyone when they’d been together as long as we have, and didn’t think it would be a problem. I want you, and nobody else. I want to grow very, very old with you. I can’t promise you that I can live long enough to do that, but I can certainly promise you that we can keep this from happening again for as long as we are alive, and you know we can, too. I’m not going to ask for your answer now, because I can see you’re in shock and need time to think things through. You tell me when you’re ready to talk about this.”

He said to her, “I’m ready now. I’m no fool. I know why you did it. We’ve been sitting here talking about it for weeks. I’ll share the responsibility with you, because I’m just as guilty of ignoring both of us as you are. I knew things weren’t right, but didn’t know what to do about it. I love you, we’ve raised three kids and paid off two mortgages together, and frankly, I’m sick to death of the way things have been going. We’re in a rut, and we’ve got a tow-truck here in this book. It may be awhile before I can be with you without thinking of another man being with you, but as long as I know that we’re working on this together, I’ll get over it. I’m going to Randy’s (his brother) for the weekend to do some fishing and get my mind right, and when I get back, we’re going to take back our marriage.”

Dina was weirded completely out. Danny got up, threw some stuff in a bag, kissed her on the cheek as he went out the door, sent her a couple of text messages while he was gone that just said, “Thinking of you…” and came home Sunday night and went to bed. Come Monday morning, he woke her up with a kiss and a smile, and said, “This is it, Kiddo. Time to get back to being us. I’m going to go cook us some breakfast while you shower.”

Danny’s always been pretty much a “take-charge” kind of guy, and he did. He took what was in my book, added it to what he already knew of Dina, and had her swept completely off her feet in about three days. They still have occasional problems; Dina transferred to another department for obvious reasons, and didn’t enjoy the job as much as she did because she was working for her old boss, who was a bit weak and disinterested, and Danny occasionally has a nightmare about her affair, but they’re on track, regularly intimate, and haven’t had any discussions of the affair in several months now. Dina’s now found another job, not to leave the company where the affair happened, but to find something to do she can enjoy. Things are looking up all around.

There was a lot that went into saving their relationship. It took knowing that they were right for each other – highly compatible -- and that their 22 years together was a good investment that they needed to keep. It took knowing exactly what happened and why, so that there were no grudges, feelings of guilt or betrayal, or especially unworthiness. It took knowing how to fix the problem, choosing to fix it, and following through on that choice, too.

These things came from my book, some personal coaching to help them get through the emotional upheaval at times, and their knowledge of each other. The biggest thing required was the commitment to do what was necessary to fix the problem, which was much easier to make when they had read "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," and therefore knew that it not only COULD be done, in their case it SHOULD be done, what would be required, and that it was worth it.

Affairs can be avoided if you’re proactive, and they can often be overcome if you’re not, as long as you know what to do and just do it. I can give you all you need to know in “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage,” but learning it and doing it is up to you. I strongly recommend the proactive approach, because the obvious emotional upheaval of an affair can be devastating, and it’s a risk of sustaining permanent damage that you don’t have to take at all. It’s rare that the easy way out is the best possible way, and you should always take advantage of such an opportunity, because it doesn’t come around that often. Your easiest and best way out of this situation is waiting for you at http://www.makingherhappy.com, so go get it and get started, because life’s too short to do things the long and hard way (unless of course you’re talking about sex!)

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

Can You Ever Be Too Prepared for a Great Relationship or Marriage?

A reader reminds us that it’s never too soon to start working toward a better life and relationship, and I provide additional tips on how to get it done.

I got a quick note from a new reader I’d like to share with you. It holds a wonderful lesson for anyone whose eyes are open. Meet Brad:

Hello David, I just bought your book and I just wanted to let you know that it is very insightful. I am still single but you have much needed understanding of the most interesting female mind...you've got to love them. Brad

Here’s an excerpt from my response, followed by additional commentary:

Hi Brad!

I’m glad you’re finding my book useful. I’ve had quite a few readers comment that they wish they had been able to read something like that before they ever got into a relationship, and others go so far as to say that it should be required reading in high school.

Do yourself a HUGE favor and don’t skip the first part of the book, the part on evaluating relationships. That part works wonders in mature relationships to make sure they have a foundation sufficient to warrant improvement, and it also really shines if you use it as you see a relationship starting to develop and do your evaluation as you go in and as the relationship evolves, so you can get out early if you start seeing red flags. An ounce of prevention is worth several tons of cure when it comes to relationships and marriage!

Also remember that the rules for creating attraction are different in the dating world, mainly because your window of opportunity is very narrow in dating, so once you’ve finished my book, if you’re having trouble meeting women let me know and I’ll steer you to the dating gurus who can really help you; most of them are about as full of crap as most of the marriage gurus, selling snake oil and academic theory as if they were solutions, but there are a few that get results every time, and I know who they are and will be happy to point you in their direction if and when you decide the time is right.

Take care, and keep in touch. I can’t tell you how delightful it is to see a young single man taking the bull by the horns and doing his relationship prep work on the front end instead of trying to do crisis control on the back end.

David

Brad has it right. He’s thinking both ahead and “outside the box.” He’s single, but will be looking for a permanent relationship at some point, so instead of just looking for information on how to get phone numbers, he’s looking for what will help him understand women and choose the right one for the long haul. (Remember the old adage about dressing for the job you want, not the one you have? Same principle!) Getting the phone number might get you a date, or even two or three, but being a man who understands women and can converse comfortably with them near or at their own level, and knows what flips their attraction switches will get him his choice of women in a relationship that lasts for as long as he continues to act like a man.

It’s never too early to prepare to succeed, and not just no, but hell no, there is no such thing as being too prepared for success. If your relationship or marriage is anything less than a honeymoon now, it’s because you went in unprepared to sustain it.

If it is at honeymoon status right now, do you know that you know what it takes to sustain it, or are you just guessing that it will go on forever without you needing a back-up plan for when the novelty of the new relationship wears off and reality sets in? Be warned; you do indeed need one, because it won’t. Do you even know that there are chemical changes in men and women at between one and two years into a relationship that stop automatically providing the honeymoon spark? Ask anyone who’s been married more than a couple years where the magic went. They know it’s gone, but don’t know where.

One of the reasons that the average couple who has been married for two years or more has sex six times per year is this body chemistry change, but you can overcome it easily if you know what will compensate for it. And the good news is that compensating for that lost chemical costs you nothing, not even time and effort, once you’ve learned how it works.

So if that spark is gone and even if it’s been gone for years (I got an e-mail from a man a while back that said he and his wife had not slept in the same bed or had sex together in 18 years, they had stayed together by reason of religious convictions, and he had her back in his bedroom permanently the day after finishing my book), that doesn’t mean it’s too late for any of you. Unlike in Brad’s world, where windows of opportunity are very small, perhaps only seconds long, and the window tends to get slammed on your fingers because there are so many possibilities and little or no vested interest in a relatively new relationship, couples that have been together a couple years have a vested interest (“sweat equity,” kids, real estate, time, life, etc.) in continuing the relationship and will only let it go as a last resort.

Hence, where a wrong remark or sideways glance can ensure that you won’t have a second or third date (or maybe even her name and phone number!), a woman will give you months, maybe even years, to straighten up and fly right, especially if she knows that you’re making an effort, not to just do everything her way, but just to try to meet her in the middle on some basic issues, like understanding her when she speaks, being a stand-up guy who exercises a little personal authority, enjoys life with her, and protects her from boredom by giving her some excitement from time to time, all of which is far, far easier than you’d ever imagine.

Being the guy every woman wants is never hard to do; indeed, much of it is quite natural, and the part that isn’t all that natural is still a lot of fun. Imagine, after all those years of telling those jokes about the genie who could build a bridge from Los Angeles to Hawaii but couldn’t grant a man’s wish to know everything he needed to know about women, you suddenly knew! How would that change your life? No matter how much you think it will, based on the history of my readers, I’ll bet it will still be more than you think, and for the better.

Or maybe you’d just rather sit and wait and let things blow up in your face, like it has for your friends. None of your friends saw it coming when it hit them either, did they? And how’s that working for them, by the way? All that business of having their family torn apart, losing half or more of everything they own, plus getting saddled with alimony and child support – yep, sounds like something every man looks forward to, huh?

Frankly, I’d rather have my testicles pounded flat with a meat tenderizer than to go through that mess. How about you?

It’s never too soon and seldom too late to get on the right path, the path to personal authority, success, and happiness. Even if she’s gone, she may not be gone for good, and if she is gone for good, there are a whole lot more that will be lucky and happy to take her place after you’ve read "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" and become one of the few of us whom women recognize at first glance as a man “who just knows what a woman wants.” Go to http://wwwmakingherhappy.com and get your copy right now, or wait awhile and let things blow up in your face and catch you unprepared, so you can see if you handle disaster any better than your friends did. It’s your choice; choose well…

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

Where Have All the Real Men Gone? Fighting the Extinction of Great Relationships and Marriage

Real men, alpha males, are nearly an extinct species, in spite of all the information available to help men avoid drowning in a sea of wussitude. Why? What can you do to protect yourself and reverse the damage that has been done? Will the woman in your life appreciate it? (You BET she will!)

There is something I have to talk about from time to time because it bugs the hell out of not only me, but out of every woman alive. Women and the dating gurus are also mentioning it, so it’s not just me. Men are rapidly deteriorating into miserable wusses at an accelerating rate, and it’s getting scary.

During conversations with men, the most ridiculous things keep coming up. Fights over things that wives have found out from non-family members that they should have found out from their husbands, leaving decisions about outings, dates, etc., to the women, total indecision about career and asking their wife not for input, but for decisions about what they should do! Men being afraid to be men!!! It’s a disgusting and unfortunate by-product of a lot of miscommunication in the 80’s and 90’s.

I still keep tabs on the gurus in the dating world, and Shelley McMurtry has reported that she went into a bunch of bars in a major Texas city where men and women used to “hook up” with regularity, and it was the same story, singles style – the bars full of women, dressed to the nines and obviously looking for action while the men are playing pool, talking to each other in hushed tones with slumped shoulders and drinking, sneaking a peek at the women and mentally undressing them but rarely if ever walking up to them and introducing themselves, let alone initiating a conversation. Again, disgusting!

Being married, I’m seldom in a bar, but on the rare occasions I’m in a bar, coffee house, or anywhere else that single men and women are, I see the men eyeing the women, looking sheepish, and not approaching; the only ones who appear to be taking any action are the nerdy-looking pick-up artists, sporting their peacock gear a la Neil Strauss, in “The Game,” and as Strauss describes finding out at the end of his book, that’s all just a show to get women’s attention, and has nothing behind it worthy of a relationship or that could ever sustain a relationship, and women are so aware of this that they refer to the pick-up artists’ approach as “running game” on them.

("The Game" is a great book, by the way, and while you won’t learn much about long-term relationships other than what to avoid doing if you want one, it’s still fascinating to see how far wusses will go to try to make up for not having alpha male characteristics they could easily develop in themselves.)

When I’m out and watching couples interact, I rarely see a man walking with his head up, smiling and looking confident; he’s usually looking either angry or lost as his wife or girlfriend seems to be leading him around and making all the decisions, and when she stops to talk to another woman, you can see the looks of “yeah, I’m out with stupid wuss-boy here again, and I’ll call ya later and give you a good laugh about his latest stupidity” from across a shopping mall. Double disgusting!

Gentlemen, it is our station in life to make decisions – not to force our decisions on everyone else, mind you – but to be decisive when we have information; strong, and confident to the point of being benevolently aggressive and even a slight bit arrogant, and having the gonads and intestinal fortitude to talk to women about whatever we want or need to discuss with them, looking into their eyes, not at our feet. We are born and bred to lead. There is no excuse for failing in this regard. Nor is there an excuse for being towed around a place we don’t want to be like a little red wagon, or more appropriately, a child being led by the nose or ear to a place to be punished for his bad behavior.

Yes, we’ve been programmed by our mothers, our teachers, ex-girlfriends, Hollywood, etc., to be “nice,” to “share our feelings,” to be “sensitive,” and do a whole bunch of ridiculous crap that literally annoys women to death, whether they realize it as they are doing it or not, but we are not born or built that way. We are born male, with the capacity to be “alpha male,” and it is our natural state. No matter how long and how severely you have been programmed, you can deprogram yourself with a little knowledge and very little effort.

By the way, how are women responding to all these candy-asses? They’re getting more and more bored and frustrated with them, and pushing them harder and harder towards an emotional explosion in hopes of just getting a glimpse of their maleness. They want us to be real men, to the extent of risking a huge fight to see us do it, and when they don’t get what they want, they continue to escalate until your worst nightmare begins: they decide you may be unsalvageable, and then either affairs or divorce proceedings start, because such things will either get your attention and finally call you to action or at least provide them some relief in the form of drama and a change of scenery. (The one partial exception I’ve noted is in marriages where there is a high level of religious involvement, in which cases the woman “wears the pants in the family,” and both parties to the marriage are obviously unhappy, usually stuck in that “comfortably unhappy” state I warn you about.)

At that point, they have nothing to lose either way. It takes time, and they don’t like going through it, and if they see you suddenly start trying to improve, they will cautiously encourage you while skeptically testing you to see if you have the courage of your convictions and will see it through, or just shrug it off and consign yourself forever to terminal wussitude.

You can fix this, starting right now, if you have the desire and guts and of course, know how to read. That’s all it takes. You’re reading this, so you’re one third of the way home already. Go for broke. Go to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy of “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage” right now. Fix this before it gets out of hand, and be one of the few and the proud instead of one of the many and lame.

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

Getting It Done, No Matter What "IT" Is, Is Great for Your Relationship and Marriage

There are all sorts of things that create or kill attraction, both in dating and in committed relationships and marriage. In dating, unpredictability is wildly attractive, but in a committed relationship, while unpredictability is attractive to a degree (and under several unsurprising constraints), it is far surpassed by…

When I was growing up, I was constantly hammered about character, especially in terms of doing what you say you will do when you say you will do it. "Do what you say you'll do, perform as if somebody is watching even when they aren't, shake hands with a firm grip, look people in the eye when speaking or listening, always be on time no matter what, hold your head up and speak clearly. That's what a man does, Son. He respects himself and is respected because of it." The lesson “took,” too, so much so that while I hold nobody to a higher standard than I hold myself, incompetence and tardiness are nearly intolerable to me.

When you keep your promises consistently, no matter how large or small they are, it creates the one form of predictability that actually enhances attraction. Normally, predictability equates to boredom for women, and unpredictability in a man provides a never-ending chain of surprises and delights. However, doing what you say you will do in a timely manner, being on time for appointments and dates, and keeping people apprised of changing schedules when circumstances beyond your control do make keeping a scheduled appointment or milestone impossible is a hallmark of good character, personal strength, self-respect, and leadership, the combination of which is the hallmark of strong, heroic alpha male behavior that women find so irresistible.

In addition to projecting that crucial image of trustworthy, competent leadership, in this day and age, you’re also distinguishing yourself from the vast majority of other people as special, because incompetence and lackadaisical attitude has become so prevalent that while we don’t like it, most of us have come to expect incompetence, lack of commitment, and tardiness from the majority of people and businesses we deal with daily. Showing your partner that you are one of us rare men who get things not just done, but done well, and on time every time makes her feel as if she has the “catch of the county,” and when you do anything that tweaks and satisfies a woman’s sense of competitiveness, you’re making magic.

Another thing you must see is that even the most secure women want a man to make them feel “safe,” that is emotionally, physically, and financially (not so much that she will be “kept” as just being plain responsible, especially with debt-management and retirement planning), and showing such self-respect, leadership, and character marks you as a man into whom she can invest her emotions, energy, and life without fear of becoming one of the horror stories that other women are telling. You’ve heard the stories they tell, stories of men who falsely promised love to get sex, hung around just long enough to spend the woman’s savings, acted like such a great guy until the first time he got mad or depressed and beat her, left her, or just got drunk and worthless and stayed that way. Being able to see you as a man who gets things done is one of those really big things that makes the difference between a guy who’s a fun date and a guy she’ll give anything to spend her life with.

If you find yourself unable to meet a lot of commitments, consistently tardy, or having things blow up in your face frequently, and it doesn’t bother you, wake up, because you’re bothering the hell out of the rest of us. However, if you are indeed concerned and just can’t seem to find the answer, the first step is to make sure you are looking in the right place. It’s not the system’s fault or everybody else’s, or for that matter anybody’s FAULT. Fault and blame are the tools that losers use to evade what you should be focused on, which is RESPONSIBILITY.

When you take responsibility for performing competently and being timely, you can look to yourself for the answer. Am I late because I’m overloading myself, or because I just wait until the last minute to start? Am I incompetent because I don’t know enough to do a good job, or because I’m ill-suited to the task, or because I dislike it so much that I really don’t want to do it at all? Just find out what it is that is causing the problem and fix it. For example…

No, wait. Before I give you an example, I’m going to very quickly answer the question that has some of you scratching your head: “Why is it so important to be timely?” Because when you keep people waiting, you are wasting THEIR life, in addition to your own. It’s bad enough when you can’t respect yourself enough to do what you say you’ll do, but when you tie somebody else up by being late when you had the ability and the choice available to you to be on time, you’re disrespecting them, and interfering with their ability to achieve what they have on their schedule in a timely fashion. Look past the end of your nose and realize that your attitude and actions can have a negative impact on the lives of others that they have not earned, and minimize it. Otherwise, you make people want to disassociate from you at best, and beat you severely at worst – not exactly the formula for attraction, huh?

Now, for your examples…

If your wife is always riding you because the yard work is getting put off, ask yourself why it’s being put off. Is your schedule too over-loaded? Do you have arthritis or something else that makes it painful? Or something that makes it irritating, like a grass allergy? Is it just much lower on your priority scale than on hers and you never make it down that far on the list? If the cause is something that you can’t remedy yourself, then hire it out. If it is something you can remedy, like with a “riding mower” to overcome arthritis or a surgical mask and antihistamines to overcome allergies, do it. If you just hate doing it, then see if you can trade that chore with your wife or somebody else who does enjoy it for something that you enjoy doing that they aren’t good at or don’t like. Barter is the oldest form of trade, and the oldest form of cooperative problem-solving.

We do that at my house. I hate yard work. I don’t mind the labor, and I love being outside. The repetitiveness is boring, I have a grass pollen allergy, and it reminds me too much of the farm work I did as a child that I hated, which in turn wasn’t because it was hard work, but because it kept me from extra-curricular activities. Yes, it’s an “issue,” and maybe one that I could deal with better, but I don’t have to deal with it, because my wife loves to do yard work.

She likes repetitive tasks, likes being outdoors, and enjoys the fresh air and the smell of freshly cut grass. I’m an exceptionally-skilled chef, and I do all the cooking, which she doesn’t like to do. That’s not to say that I don’t help with an outdoor project, like setting a flower bed or building a planter, or that my wife doesn’t occasionally cook. We’ve each traded the ongoing responsibility for the timely completion of tasks that we deem as chores for the responsibility of the timely completion of tasks that we deem as fun and enjoyable.

The bottom line is that there is always a way to handle whatever comes up, if you just use your head and think it through instead of letting your emotions interfere or letting problems just fester unattended. And, when you handle things as they come up, meet your commitments in terms of both outcome and schedule, it builds your self-esteem and you are seen and appreciated by everyone else as a man’s man. It’s also an especially effective turn-on for the woman in your life, the kind that she will not only appreciate, but nurture and defend (but if it just stopped the nagging it would be great, right? LOL! Just kidding!)

Guys, there are a lot of small, simple things that you can do to spice up and strengthen your relationship that on the surface may not even seem to have any bearing on it, things that you should be doing for your own sake, or that of your business. When you understand your partner’s needs, both by knowing all you can know about female mental and emotional mechanisms and learning how to effectively communicate with her so that you can learn her individual needs as well, you can take a sub-mediocre relationship to rock solid and hotter than nine kinds of hell in a matter of weeks or even days, as many of my readers have, provided that the two of you are just fairly compatible and have a positive basis for the relationship.

(Having been through a shared trauma like an unwanted pregnancy, tornado, or a hostage situation and getting married in a fit of passion just because you survived it together without any common values, common priorities, etc., does not make for “fairly compatible” partners.)

What do you need to proceed?

Just some solid, tested and proven information like I’ve included in "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage." It worked for the 118 couples in the test group during its development, and if it’s not working for anybody who’s using it now, they’ve not told me. I get letters daily with success stories from readers, and in fact, here’s one that just arrived as I was getting this newsletter ready to post:

David,

Thank you so much for your newsletters and your e-book.

I have to say that you have helped me more than you could know. I started reading your book when things in my marriage went south. I was unable to salvage that relationship, due mostly to my spouse's issues rather than mine. I was in extreme wussy mode towards the end of my marriage and have made great strides in removing that mentality from my existence.

I have since entered into another relationship and have put into practice many of the things that you suggest. My new lady friend has made comments to me such as "I really like your self esteem" - "everyone says you’re a nice guy, but there is a naughty side to you too" and other comments along this line.

I have caught myself at times slipping into wussy mode and have kicked myself out of it. Your teachings have helped me not only in this relationship but with myself in general. I can't thank you enough.

Sincerely,
Steve

I often share readers’ letters when they hold a lesson for the rest of you and can be conveyed while maintaining the reader’s privacy, and this one just happened to pop up saying something you needed to hear, that a real guy with real problems took this ball and ran with it, and he’s happy now. You’re welcome to peruse my newsletter archive at your leisure at the address below for other testimonials and lessons, as well as download my free reports and put them to work for you right now. But…

Your best move right now is to go to http://www.makingherhappy.com and get your copy of this instantly downloadable e-book, "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," and get started, because it works, and you should never put off until tomorrow the success and happiness that you can have today. That’s how a real man lives, getting it done when it’s there to do and moving on, happily, not stressing about what he’s going to do next.

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

Firing a Bad Partner from Your Relationship or Marriage

What do you do when a romantic partner or life partner shows you that they are a detriment to your life and instead of supporting you and growing with you, want to destroy you as they destroy their self? This is a dark subject, and probably the darkest edition of this newsletter I have written, but it’s one you won’t want to miss, no matter how happy you are, because it has relevance -- and possibly purpose – in every part of each of our lives.

This is a sad day for me, because I have to “fire” a reader for the first time. That’s right. There is a reader who is such a loser with such a defeatist attitude that he refuses to be helped, and I can no longer afford the time and energy to try to help someone who so obviously doesn’t want to be helped. However, rather than sit and lament, I’m going to turn it into a relationship lesson so that all the rest of you may learn something from this experience.

My policy is to not reprint letters without the permission of the writer, a courtesy that I have not seen anyone else practice on any other newsletter, but I am going to reprint part of this reader’s letter today and give him a fake name, because loser or not, I’ll not violate his privacy or anyone else’s. In fact, the fake name I’m going to give him is simply “Loser,” not because he disagrees or asks questions, but because he’s too busy denying anything could work for him to try anything or listen to the answers to his questions. People like this, in any part of your life, are a drag and a drain. Here’s an excerpt from his letter:

Hello again, David,

As usual, I can’t see why you think that this could possibly work to any productive purpose. Why should I go through the trouble of faking a “naughty boy” act for a women to get her to like me better, or try any of this other stuff you keep harping about? Even if this stuff does work for some buff young stud muffin, why would I think this would work for me, being overweight, middle-aged and balding? If all you experts have so much wonderful advice to give, why isn’t everybody happy? If your advice is so good, why don’t you send it to me and let me pay you for it after it works for me instead of making me ask you for a refund?

(Several more paragraphs of self-defeating negativity omitted here to spare you…)

Loser

I sent him the following direct response:

Dear Loser,

As of today, you have been on my mailing list for 22 days. On 17 of those 22 days, you have e-mailed me stating that nothing I’ve recommended could possibly work, yet asking me for a free copy of my book. Listen up, because this is the last free advice or other favor I’m going to waste my time giving you:

You’re attitude isn’t that of an achiever, or even a skeptic or a pessimist; it’s truly that of a loser. You’re insecure about being unattractive because of your increasing age, weight, and hair-loss, and rather than taking the achiever’s path of looking for a solution, you’re taking the coward’s path of looking for confirmation that you’re hopeless and therefore can’t be expected to do any better so you won’t have to try.

I’m not going to apologize for being blunt about this, because the 17 letters I’ve already sent you to try to help you see, among other things, that I am middle-aged, overweight, and losing my hair yet quite happy have produced nothing but frustration for either of us – for me, because you don’t want to improve, and for you, because I won’t be your enabler and confirm for you that any effort you might make would be wasted.

I however, will waste no more effort with you; I’ve spent more than a full work-day trying to help you see that you can be attractive to your wife and everyone else, and you refuse to even try to listen or understand, let alone try to do anything to make it happen. I have removed you from my mailing list, and ask that you don’t reinsert your name unless and until you decide that you want some help being more than what you are instead of confirmation that “not good enough is good enough.”

In short, your fired, and if you don’t get off your butt and realize that you can make a change and can lead a productive and happy life by doing nothing more than changing your attitude to that of a man and doing what comes natural afterwards, your wife and employer will likely be considering the same action. My list of readers is for achievers, heroes, and winners, not cowards, whiners, or losers.

Sincerely,
David Cunningham

Folks, there are several lessons here. First, I hope it’s crystal clear that nothing I did or said was done to punish this man; I was indeed trying to help him, and spent a little over nine hours reading and writing to him to try to get him up on his feet and get him moving. I counsel, coach, and consult for $130-$450 per hour, depending on the project and expertise required, and have plenty of work with plenty of customers, so I don’t need a $39 book sale bad enough to work one hour for it, let alone over nine, and I really wanted to see the guy develop some self-esteem and accomplish something.

Doom, gloom, laziness, and cowardice are insidious foes that can slowly creep into the lives of the best of people when they are having a weak moment, and slowly erode their self-esteem until there is nothing left of them. It can happen so slowly that you never see it happen, rather like the frog who would jump if dropped into a pot of boiling water but would lie still and boil to death if placed in cool water and slowly heated on the stove until it boiled.

I sincerely hope that if I started exhibiting this behavior, there would be someone around to call it to my attention and give me a chance to recognize and correct it. That is why I said what I said. I said it bluntly as men must have it to take it seriously, yet also left the door open for him to return if and when he gets his mind and attitude right and is fit to participate in any kind of self-improvement instead of blocking his e-mail address.

That is the second lesson. When somebody wants help and is willing to participate in it, go for it if you can afford to and want to, but you cannot allow someone, no matter what kind of plea they make to you, to dump their problems on you and expect you to fix it for them when they are not willing to be a part of the solution and work for it.

In a relationship, the most flagrant examples of this would be:

• The addict who won’t stop using…(right Larry?)

• The abuser who won’t seek help to address the problems that make them abusive…(right Mike, Gene, and Warren?)

• The liar who would endure ten times the repercussions of a lie rather than tell -- or face -- the truth…(Right Noel, Will, John, Jake, and Louis?)

• The self-validating self-deceiver who would spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on weight loss drugs and supplements and blame the drugs when they kept gaining weight because they also maintained a poor diet and didn’t exercise…(right Garrett, Boyd, Dallas, and David?)

• The chronic complainer who always has a gripe to express but never has a single word to say about anything they have actually tried or even would be willing to try to fix it... (right about a quarter of my mailing list?)

These kinds of people, no matter how they approach you, can do nothing but destroy your life if you let them, and you have to cut them off, even if you have made the mistake of marrying them, if you are ever to find true happiness. You can’t take responsibility for curing a problem they don’t want to cure.

Some would say that is a cruel attitude, but I submit that it is not cruelty but justice, as they are getting exactly what they have earned. It is also justice that if they should manage to turn their life around that you give them an opportunity to show they have achieved it. You should celebrate it with them if they have done so instead of holding an eternal grudge based on some ridiculous emotional idea like “they didn’t think me important enough to straighten up for me.”

People with problems fix their problems for themselves, and for nobody else, ever, under any conditions. That is the meaning of the old saying about leading a horse to water but not being able to make them drink. They will drink if and when they are thirsty, not when you tell them you want them to drink because you want to be that important to them that they would do it for you.

I started “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage” with a set of guidelines and questions to help you evaluate yourself, your partner, and your relationship for that very reason. Love can’t happen and attraction doesn’t matter in the least if you are bound to a person that cannot allow their self or you to be happy. You must recognize such a person, whether it is you or your partner, before any progress toward fixing the problem can be made.

Whether something’s “a little off” or there’s a pool at your office in which people are betting on who in your relationship dies first and how, there’s help in identifying and fixing it in "THE Man's Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage." Download your copy today at http://www.makingherhappy.com.
In the meantime, live well, be well, and have a wonderful day!
David Cunningham

Personal Responsibility and Abundance Mentality: Great Tools for Great Relationships and Marriage

One of the cornerstones of creating attraction is leadership, and the hallmark of leadership is personal responsibility. Let’s talk…

I was reading one of Shelley McMurtry’s newsletters (which you can sign up for here – she talks a lot about dating and provides some great insight into the female point of view and priorities in relationships and may be something you’ll enjoy) and she was talking about something a lot of us refer to as “perceived reality,” which is a phrase used to describe a condition where a person’s outlook on the world is inconsistent with reality because of how they have chosen to construe certain events.

An example she was using was a common one, people who have a few bad dates or bad relationships and give up, presenting the reason for their cowardice as “all men are bad,” or “all women are bad,” or “relationships just suck and aren’t worth the hassle.” She also told of a friend who has been married to a man who just got lazy, started spending all of her income and savings, and she ended up kicking him out, but instead of developing the “all men are lazy bums” mentality or “perceived reality,” she took responsibility for her situation, acknowledged that she had made a bad choice, took corrective action (kicked him out) and went on with her life.

It dawned on me in the course of reading this that what we (several of us newsletter and e-book writers) had been referring to as “perceived reality” was actually the product of a failure to take personal responsibility for one’s life, and I wrote to Shelley about it. I want to share that letter with you, and point out how you can use this to enrich your life and your relationship afterward.

Hi Shelley!

I wanted to thank you again for introducing me and my e-book to your readers, and to lodge a comment on this "perceived reality" concept that I think that you and many of your readers will appreciate.

Like you, I differentiate between "perceived reality" and plain, simple reality. However, we are both being too kind when we refer to it as "perceived reality," because it is indeed not at all perceived, but contrived by people who refuse to accept reality.

Perception is the process of the sensory organs of the body doing what they do, nothing more. The American Heritage Dictionary defines "perceive" as "1. To become aware of directly through any of the senses, especially sight or hearing. 2. To achieve understanding of; apprehend." What we have been referring to as "perceived reality" is actually a fantasy that people manufacture when they interpret their perception and choose to reject what their sensory organs pick up and conduct to their brain.

What's worse, they expect everyone around them to validate their fantasy by buying in! As you've noticed, every time you tell someone something factual and they come back at you with "BUT YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND!" they're trying to force some fantasy on you to the extent that you either buy in or give them a superficial sanction or validation just to shut them up and get them out of your face.

What differentiates such people (like the prissy butt-nuggets you speak of) from us and your friend the university professor with the ranch is that we acknowledge that reality is what it is and take personal responsibility for functioning within it, where these other morons and losers take no responsibility for anything. They can be spotted from a great distance, or at least heard from a great distance, because they share the same pet phrases, like "Well it looks like it ought to..." "Well people say that..." "Well, it's generally conceded that..." "All men/women are..." and my favorite, "But I'm ONLY human." Such phrases are the leper's bell of an approaching loser butt-nugget who will not get with the program but expects you to get with it for them.

Personal responsibility not only allows, but compels a person to assess their situation and take steps to improve it. Those who take personal responsibility see the world around them and mold it to suit them through action; they don't need to fabricate some fantasy to validate their pathetic excuses.

That's what being human is about, and why we are at the top of the food chain of all life on this planet. Being human is not something for which we should apologize; it's something to which we should aspire! And reality, for all its punishment and rewards, is the court in which our achievements or lack thereof are judged.

Take care,
David Cunningham

Can you see where personal responsibility works in your favor, and failure to take it works against you? No woman will feel love, respect or attraction for a man who can’t take personal responsibility for his life, at least not for long. A man who doesn’t value his own life enough to take responsibility for it will make it plain that he can be nothing more than a dependent, and never a partner.

A woman’s maternal drive may engage and try to nurture such a man, but she will also be “wearing the pants in the family,” and in her eyes, he will be no more than a weak, grab-asstic adolescent slacker, definitely not a candidate for intimacy or capable of creating attraction for her. Eventually she will get bored and look outside the marriage for relief from that boredom, and it won’t matter if it’s before or after the divorce, because she will feel justified and entitled.

Compare this to a man who does take personal responsibility. Like the butt-nugget (Shelley’s term for a person who doesn’t take personal responsibility), his situation is of his own making, but the man who takes responsibility will use that situation to define his options in achieving his goals and go after them, not just in his relationship, but in all aspects of his life. His bearing will be confident and heroic, where the slacker’s will be victim-like. I’ll give you a guess as to which one creates attraction and which one has the woman secretly (or even overtly) looking at the online personals and smiling at strangers.

(Men, the same applies to women, with a slight twist. If a woman refuses to take personal responsibility for her life, it can engage a man’s “protector mechanism,” and cause him to think he needs to “save” her. Never allow yourself to fall into this trap; any woman worth having doesn’t need saving. Those who need saving can’t be saved, and will only suck you dry like any other parasite and then move on to their next host.)

I’ll also give you a guess as to which one sees opportunity as seizes it and which one sees opportunity and says, “But what if it doesn’t work?” Or even worse, “I wish I could do that.” Which of those two guys is going to go the farthest in his career? Have the most friends? Have the most fun? Have the best marriage? Yep, you guessed it. And BAM! That thought just opened another door!

Do you recall (if you’ve been with me for awhile) me (or maybe John Alanis if you’ve been in the dating world recently, or any one of many motivational speakers) mentioning “scarcity mentality”?

Scarcity mentality is a state of seeing everything in your life as limited and scarce. It makes you hang onto a bad relationship, bad job, etc., because a bad one is better than none at all, where an abundance mentality is a state of seeing everything as a journey to better and better things, knowing that you can create your opportunities and do what is necessary to reach your goals.

Take two people, one with a scarcity mentality and one with an abundance mentality, and give them ten thousand dollars. The one with scarcity mentality will live in fear of losing his money, and will most likely spend it on things that bring him no real value rather than risk losing it, or will never spend it and enjoy it because he’s too busy keeping his options open to ever exercise one of them.
However, the one with the abundance mentality will see the opportunities that cash presents, and use it to make even more money, and will reach financial independence if he is diligent in the conduct of his business, or if someone manages to steal it from him or his market takes an unexpected turn against him, he will say, “Wow! Now I know how to do this right, and can protect myself from it next time. I’m going to raise capital and try it again!”

A lesser man might make it that far, but when faced with failure, have scarcity sneak in on him and cause him to decide, “Well, I’m just not cut out for this, and any business I start is going to fail, so I’m just going to not bother trying again.”

That same thing happens in relationships. People take responsibility, have a great relationship for a while, things go sour for some unexpected reason, and in a fit of emotional weakness, they say, “Well, I had the wool pulled over my eyes, and relationships aren’t worth it after all,” instead of just acknowledging the reality that either they made a mistake or their partner did, or maybe even both of them, and sitting down to discuss it and making repairs to the relationship or exiting to find a better one.

We could explore this subject for hours and still never talk about all of the ramifications of personal responsibility, the lack of it, and the effects of scarcity and abundance mentalities, but instead, I’m going to leave you with this to ponder and search your own life for the answer:

Personal responsibility coincides with abundance mentality, and a lack of personal responsibility coincides with scarcity mentality. It’s consistent, but is there a single cause-and-effect relationship, or does the door swing both ways, meaning, will taking personal responsibility induce an abundance mentality and will an abundance mentality also induce personal responsibility?

Ask the same questions of lack of responsibility and scarcity, and send me your thoughts on all of the above by replying to this newsletter. The point of the exercise is to help you identify ways to improve your life and relationship as well as traps that may cause you to get sucked into a pattern of thought and behavior that could rob you of everything you love before you know what happened.

If your own relationship is in anything less than the best condition it could be in, which is highly unlikely or you wouldn’t be reading this, you have an opportunity right now to take personal responsibility for it, regardless of fault, blame, or any of the other tools of the guilt-inducing parasite, and start making your relationship what best suits your life. You can take on the mentality of abundance with a single simple choice to see that things can be better and you can make them so, to see everything you want as an opportunity instead of a deficit.

If you do, the first step you need to take is to jump over to http://www.makingherhappy.com and get your copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," where you will find everything you need to get your attitude in order, your relationship skills assessed and up to par, and get your relationship assessed and fixed (or replaced with one that works, if you’re one of the unfortunate ones in a destructive relationship). Take it now, because life is far too short to spend it doing, living and being anything less than the best and happiest you can, and this is your ticket to success.

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

You Can't Kill Time without Injuring Eternity: Problems in Relationships and Marriage Don't Just Go Away

What could it be costing you to put off dealing with your relationship problems until tomorrow? I’ll wager that it’s a lot more than you might think…

I was out running some errands one afternoon and noticed a sign in front of a church that read, “You can’t kill time without injuring eternity.” I don’t know how they may be looking at that statement, or if they fully realize its meaning, but the instant I read it I was reminded of many letters I’ve received from people who were having problems. I’m not going to disclose their names or anything personally identifiable because being in such a predicament is stressful and embarrassing for them, but I want you to see the kinds of things that can happen when you let little problems go unresolved (each paragraph is from a different reader comment or letter):

I filed for divorce after he physically abused me, so poor choice in mate, he wouldn't take your site seriously, so wish you all the best of success. You have some great advice and wonderful readers.

Question: we split up and now she is seeing someone else ... any advice on how to win her heart back?

My wife has sex when she wants & not when I want this has gone on so long that I don't even bother trying to be sexy with her, once again we have spoken but this ends up in a shouting match

My wife and I have been married for 18 years. We haven’t had sex more than once every few months since our second anniversary, and I’m sick of it. Can you help us?

For years my wife won’t kiss me I tell her it hurts but she says there’s no need. My wife thinks I am odd because I want a kiss & cuddle from her but she won’t when I tell her how I feel she ends up shouting at me then crying then sayings things will change & they do for a day or two then she is the same cold person with me, can I go on for the rest of my live feeling so unloved by her, I am 42 after 17 years marriage.

After reading the above, even though I am not sure that I could leave her as we have 2 children but is there any point if feeling so low all the time & never seeing the light should I leave whilst I am able to start a new life, this would be the hardest ting that I have ever even thought about.

You need to know that my wife of 4-1/2 yrs (dated for one, lived together for one, then married) has decided to divorce me. We have a two year old son. She says she's lost her feelings for me, she doesn't hate me, she still cares about me, she still likes me as a friend, but the love is gone. There are some side issues, but nothing that I believe is the real problem. I have been coming to realize that I have been "weak" not asserting my "alpha male" thing. I suppose I have always wanted to please her, and when we have a problem (fight) I always give in, or she always "wins". I think that I need to get stronger, before this divorce is final. How can I win her back? How can I show her that I am attractive (physically, emotionally, etc.) How can I trigger the emotions I believe are still there? We had a fantastic dating life, we had a great marriage, then after my son was born I assumed the "father role" and quit all the romanticisms, and stopped helping out around the house and didn't help out with the child-care. I have come to grips with the fact that I lacked in those areas, and am willing to change, but I need to "win her back" first. What can I do before it's too late? Oh, I hope you can give me some good advice. I hope there is something I can do before it's too late. Please, help! I love my son, and my wife, I want this family to be unified again!

Do you see what’s going on here? These people have let problems fester for months, most for years, and there are some things that should be jumping off the page at you. First, and most important, is that they steadily get worse; real problems never just “fix themselves,” so don’t be a fool and wait for them to do so. You’ll also notice that it doesn’t matter if the deterioration of their relationship is fast or slow, the result is the same; they are either terminally unhappy and holding on out of fear, or they’re divorcing, and it’s not so easy to get out of or get over a 20-year relationship and start over in your forties or fifties, and one of these readers is in his sixties, and the wife he refers to is his second wife.

They’re all reaching out for help now, and most of them have chosen or will choose to accept it (some will reject help because they find the solution unpalatable, choosing instead of seek a “magic bullet” that makes all the problems go away with no effort or responsibility on their part), but look at how many years they’ve spent being miserable that they could have spent being happy with each other if they had addressed their problems early and corrected them at that time. What’s the old saying? “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure?

Financially speaking, with divorce and the burden of legal fees, settling estates that may value as high as in the millions and more, alimony, child support (that will end up going for something other than the children), etc., an ounce of prevention would seem worth hundreds or thousands of tons of cure. Anybody want to compute the return on investment there?

Emotionally, it’s the same story; you can make a few small changes and live happily or fail to maintain your relationship properly and live miserably for years before finally either trying to undo the damage you’ve done or getting so sick of each other you go to war, pronounced “divorce court,” and then have to start over, and be miserable and alone during what should be the prime of your life.

Every minute you spend putting off a solution holds the potential for one more mean-spirited and vengeful remark that can never be taken back, one more vengeful or stupid act that can’t be undone, one more toll of a bell that can never be unrung. And the more pain you inflict and endure, the harder it is to fix the problem. Any takers on the prevention offer?

The offer is this: Go to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy of “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage,” and read it, learn a few really important things about relationships, women, and how to get along with them, and do a few cool and fun things as a result. Then watch what happens! It will save you years of misery and a small (or maybe large!) fortune that you’ll get to spend in your retirement with your wife instead of giving it all away to her and her lawyers to go somewhere else and enjoy while you sit around heartbroken, financially ruined, and wondering what happened.

Life is short, too short to miss a chance, and second chances rarely come around. If you’re reading this, you’re looking for a second chance, and it’s here, staring you straight in the eye. Jump on it.

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

Hot Buttons and Low Self-Esteem, a Combination Deadly to Life, Relationships, and Marriage

One of your fellow readers feels so bad about himself that he can’t see the simple truth in front of him, a truth that would allow him to be a happy and popular man. Read as he turns around and gets it right…

I’ve been recycling a lot of newsletters lately because many of you are new, those who have been around could use the review, and quite frankly, there hasn’t been anything new to write about, as the array of problems and solutions for relationships and marriages is really much smaller than you might think, and it’s a gross waste of time for me and boring and unproductive for you for me to reinvent the wheel every day. But today, we have a winner.

I’ve written several times about comments received when readers end their subscription to this daily newsletter. The vast majority are either changing their e-mail address (which you don’t really have to do, since if you click the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom and follow the “change information” link on the unsubscribe page you can just change the address without having to unsubscribe and resubscribe with the new address) or they’ve achieved such success that they don’t need the daily support any more; many of those say they check my blog on the weekends looking for unfamiliar articles and new products. But once in awhile, BAM! A comment that makes for a great newsletter.

Such is the case today. A young man happened to sign up just in time to catch a series of newsletters about female boredom and recognized it as his problem, but his frustration level was so high and self-esteem so low that instead of seeing the lights turn on to illuminate his path to improvement, he heard the gavel rapping against the judge’s bench as he was convicted of being boring and sentenced to life without the company of a woman. Read his comment and you can really feel his anger and pain:

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: Matthew (Name changed to protect his privacy)
Email: xxxxxxxxxxxxxx@gmail.com
Signup Date: 02/12/08 05:00 AM Eastern

Comments:
Well, because I was very frustrated from reading the mails and reading that women are so bored of people like me.

Never had any success with women, except when I was drunk. I am 28 years old, and last 8 years have been full of delusions, insuccess and the utter ruin of myself, all because I focused on women.

I have enough problems happening in my life now than to be bashed continuously by your mails David, saying that basically I am an inadequate man because I cannot attract women.

If I have to destroy what I am to get a woman, to hell with them.

I’ve never stood in this man’s shoes, but I’ve stood next to him often enough, especially in helping all of you, that I could tell that he wasn’t just spouting punitively, but reaching out for help. The clue was that he took the time to state his problem and his history instead of just making some simple statement that I had angered him. You REALLY have to keep a level temperament and an open, rational mind to do this job, because as you may already realize, people with relationship problems can be highly emotional and not be able to clearly communicate their needs.

Luckily for all of us, the state required to do this job well is my natural state, so I wrote back to him:

Greetings, Matthew,

I have never bashed you, I have in fact encouraged you and given you what you need to feel better about yourself. And if you will continue reading for a moment, I'm going to help you.

What you seem to be reading is that you need to change for women. That is absolutely the opposite of what you need to do, and I have stated that incessantly and consistently. You need to change how you see yourself and what you DO, not who you ARE. And you need to change for YOU, not them. You need to focus on YOURSELF, not women. That is the reason you have failed, and the reason you only have success when you are drunk. Bear with me...

The primary side effect of alcohol consumption, aside from inebriation, is to interfere with nerve activity in the part of the brain that provides inhibition and discipline. Hence, when you drink, you return to that "I don't give a crap what others think about me, I'm going to have fun just being me and being a man" mode that you were born in. Then when you sober up, you return to "programmed" behavior that causes you to focus on women and try to please them, which they find boring because every man does it and it makes a man look like he's seeking their approval instead of just having fun and inviting them along for the ride.

It's not YOU that you need to change; it's your idea of what it takes to get along with women. You don't have to cater to them, defer to them, chase them, or follow them around. You focus on your own good time, and they will see that, see that you don't pursue them and simply enjoy them and enjoy having fun with them, and they will pursue you simply because you are above the other guys, above trying to get their attention.

That is what I have been explaining in my newsletters, what a large portion of my book is about, and what I have been encouraging you to do. Your low self-esteem because of your lack of success with women has made anything that you do wrong a hot button, and upsets you before you get a chance to realize that being popular with women is a lot easier and a lot more fun than trying to chase them while considering yourself unpopular with them.

I write about a lot more than boredom. I do spend several days at a time exploring various aspects of topics, and the last several days have been about boredom. I also talk about communication, leadership, naughty play, attraction building, selecting good women and avoiding bad ones, and a whole lot more, and you would be doing yourself, not me, a favor by resubscribing and hanging with the program for awhile. I'm not here to make you feel bad about yourself; I'm here to help you shed the programming and misconceptions that make you feel bad about yourself so you can feel good about yourself and have women feeling good about you as well. It's your move. Make it a good one.

David Cunningham

Apparently that was what he needed to wake up and see that his problem was fixable, or at least that someone was willing and able to help him. He replied to that e-mail quickly:

Hi David,

First of all let me thank you for the mail you have sent me.
I appreciate very much the fact you have spent time to write a mail for me, and this had me reflect upon your points.

I am facing a difficult period, where I am basically paying for all my careless behaviour of the last five years. In the sense that I have stopped focusing on myself, my career, and I have let everything slip away. All because my frustration with women did not let me reach that tranquility that is the prerequisite for happiness.

I totally agree with what you say, and I have bought THE Man's Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage. I believe it can help me on my way to regain my lost confidence and my wrong idea about women.

Thanks Dave, I will let you know how it progresses.
Matthew

He gets two demerits for calling me “Dave” (I really don’t like that and never did, but in his defense, he didn’t knowt, otherwise it would be ten), but he gets major points for stepping up to deal with the problem instead of being the typical wuss who is looking for someone to blame for his problem or validation for his mistakes instead of a solution. I’ve not heard from him in the last few days since I received this, but in this business, silence consistently indicates that somebody is succeeding, because they seldom write to the problem-solver when they’re handling their problems satisfactorily and don’t have questions. They either write with questions or to say that they have fixed the problem and offer thanks for my help.

So does any of this sound familiar? Do you remember having a much easier time with women when you were younger and more free-spirited, or inebriated? If so, loosen up and enjoy your life instead of trying to cater to hers. It will relieve stress for both of you, especially if you know what she enjoys and you happen to choose things that both of you enjoy.

Have you found yourself getting mad at your wife when she tries to tell you that something is bothering her? Prepare to receive one of the keys to the universe:

Stop taking it that she’s telling you that you’ve failed, and recognize that she’s telling you how to succeed instead of hooking up with another man who already knows how.

You know all too well that she has that option, and you should respect both her and yourself when she chooses to talk with you about problems instead of exercising that option. She does have others, you know.

Oops, maybe you don’t know how to interpret what she’s telling you about problems, or even how to recognize that she is. Did you know that if she asks you if you think everything is going okay in your marriage that she’s actually telling you that she thinks things are going badly and wants to talk about it? What else have you been missing?

Have you noticed that there is a lot of competition over who’s right, or whose idea is best, or whose way something is going to be done? If so, do you recognize that this competition could indicate simple frustration and punishment on her part, which is entirely fixable, or deep compatibility problems, which are not? Would you know how to tell the difference?

I do, Matthew is about to, and thousands of others have learned how. I have their unsolicited testimonials to prove it. Here’s one I got today, literally when I sat down to write this edition:

Hi David,

First, I want to thank my ex-wife, for turning me on to your program. And while you may not advertise it as such, it IS a program. The book is only the first part of it. After reading the book, continued reading of the newsletters provides both a refresher of subjects, and support to help kick the old habit of being a wuss-bag. I continue to hone my relationship skills by reading the newsletters. It is like AA for wusses (WA?) – “Hi I’m Andrew and I’m a wuss”. But I’m NOT anymore. And that is thanks to you, your research, your “program”, and your continued devotion to helping men and women bridge the gap between their different views on life and relationships.

You’ll be happy to know that after 14 months of separation, and being divorced for 10 months, I am moving back in to my house with my ex-wife and children. So, there is another success story for you. I’m not sure I would have gotten here so quickly, if ever, without you. Thanks again.

Andrew

His wife divorced him, then turned him on to this newsletter and my book. Think about that! Sometimes women will take extreme measures like divorce to communicate that there is a problem when the basic method (“Are you happy with our marriage?”) doesn’t work, because at that point, if something isn’t done to correct the problem, divorce is coming anyway.

Would you know how to tell if she was really done with you or if she wanted to work with you to save your marriage, even after a divorce? The clues are subtle, but easily identifiable and 100% reliable, if you know what to look for, and I can teach you that, too.

I don’t know if Andrew is saying he was separated for 14 months before the divorce and 10 months since then or if the whole thing happened in 14 months, but good grief, Gentlemen, either way, he’s going back home! This stuff isn’t rocket science, and the testimonials like this one (not to mention the utter absence of refund requests) prove beyond any doubt that it works for those who simply use it.

So what about you? Are you going to wait until you’ve been kicked out of your home for a year and divorced before you take some personal initiative and make things right? Andrew is living proof that it can be done, but why go through all that hassle – and attorney fees – of a divorce when you can fix it now, while it’s so much easier. Help will cost you enough to buy a meal; a divorce will cost you enough to buy a new car ($27,000 average in the U.S., according to the last survey I read) just to cover the legal expenses, not to mention moving, rent and utility deposits, etc.

Talk about not being rocket science! Do the math: risking a meal to get out of the cost of a new car or more. That’s the same ratio as if you handed me $1 and I handed you back $675. How many times a day would you repeat that transaction??? I strongly suggest you get with the program before you find out that “Hell hath no fury like a woman ignored” and pay heavily for the education.

How? Easy. Go to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy of "THE Man's Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," and spend a couple hours reading (four if you’re a really slow reader). The lights will come on, you’ll see your mistakes and how to fix them, and life will very quickly become good. Very good. So as I told Matthew, do yourself a favor. It’s your choice, so make it a good one, and make it NOW.

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

Why Nice Guys Finish Last in Relationships and Marriage, Part 4, Compromise and Sacrifice

Now for the most destructive of all “Nice Guy” traits, self-sacrifice…

Brace yourself, because I’m about to either open your eyes or piss you off royally. But a little excitement won’t hurt you either way.

The subject of self-sacrifice is always controversial because most people are very confused about the meaning of the word “sacrifice;” they often refer to choices they have made in “trade” as “sacrifice” without realizing it, and then get angry when somebody says, using the word “sacrifice,” that they did something wrong. Let me give you an example or two to make sure we’re on the same page before we move on.

Let’s say you meet a guy on a street corner, and it’s obvious that he’s homeless, penniless, and a drug addict; he’s wearing short sleeves, has visible needle track marks, and is in obvious withdrawal. You give him money, which he uses not for food, clothing, or shelter, but to buy more drugs and bring himself closer to the grave.

Now take that same situation, except instead of it being obvious that the man is a drug addict, it’s obvious that he’s hit tough times and trying to claw his way back up out of the hole. His clothes may be somewhat tattered, but they’re clean. He asks if you’ve heard of any available work. And he looks you in the eye when he speaks. You give him money, which he uses for food and a payphone to try to find a job.

The former is sacrifice, the latter is trade. In the former scenario, you are trading a marker of value, money, which is in turn a marker for some portion of your life that it took to obtain that money, for absolutely nothing. Nobody benefits, and that value is destroyed. In the latter, you are trading that value for the satisfaction of helping someone get back on his feet. There is something in it for you and the other guy. That is trade.

Now, let’s bring the situation closer to home. Some family member has a substance abuse problem (I use the example only because it’s easy to see the impact, not because I have an axe to grind), and you keep pouring money into rehabilitation clinics and medical bills, and in return they act abusively toward you, do not turn away from their substance abuse, and instead steal from you to buy more drugs from some people they met at the rehab clinic.

Or, same scenario, but the family member actively works to avoid the temptations to return to abuse, gets a job, builds self-esteem, and thanks you for helping them.

Again, the first scenario is sacrifice, the second is trade.

Now, let’s bring it to your relationship, and this time, instead of substance abuse, we’ll talk about love, or what many think is love, but will find out shortly is anything but. You pour all of your time and energy into catering to the wants, whims, needs, and desires of a woman who won’t give you the time of day. She has no respect for you, demonstrates no love for you, and no matter what you do, she complains that it isn’t enough. She is abusive, accusing, bitchy, and maybe even goes so far as to tell you that she’s going to see other men while you go to your job or watch the kids at home.

Yes, that’s sacrifice. And the more you heap upon her, the less she’ll respect you and appreciate it. (And by the way, women are about as likely to encounter this scenario with a man; there is no gender-bias here. I’m writing primarily to men so I use pronouns appropriate for writing to men, but ladies, this lesson applies equally to you.) There’s absolutely nothing positive in it for you.

But you love her, you say? Sorry, Buddy, but no, you don’t. To love is to value, and you cannot value someone who would treat you this way. True sacrifice has one cause: NEED. Even people who don’t know the difference between need and love will not feel compelled to make sacrifices unless they need the approval or acceptance of the other person. (For more on the relationship emotions of love, attraction, need, and lust, see my free “Break-Up Busting 101” report before you really screw yourself up.)

And we all know what comes when your relationship is based on need instead of love, right? Abuse, disappointment, frustration, and demise, because nobody wants to have a needy wuss suckling on their jugular vein.

You may have heard for all your life that good relationships are based on sacrifice, or compromise, and that’s utter crap. A relationship based on sacrifice destroys life, plain and simple. A relationship based on compromise puts two people who need to be cooperative partners in the position of score-keeping competitors whose satisfaction comes at the expense of the person who should be their partner. Compromise is how people deal with the shortcoming of a lack of compatibility, not how they express love. If you are compromising, or asking another to, you and your values are in conflict with the other’s, and this diminishes, not strengthens, love. If you find yourself at odds, you must resolve it with trade, not compromise, to truly resolve the situation, maintain respect and love, and flourish as a couple in the long term.

Good relationships are based on compatibility, cooperation, genuine love and active attraction. Incompatibility creates points of contention and competition, which makes cooperation difficult to impossible. The absence of love means the absence of friendship, loyalty, trust, and respect, among other things, all of which are required for intimacy of any kind, the condition that determines the depth and staying power of the relationship, and the satisfaction of being in it. And the absence of attraction creates boredom, the primary catalyst in dissolving any good relationship that ever was formed.

This isn’t theory or opinion, and isn’t something you can debate or choose to believe or disbelieve. It’s that kind of self-evident, in-your-face reality that you either use to make your life better or ignore at your own peril. Give your love, life, and energy only to someone who gives theirs to you in return, and if you find that you have joined yourself with a parasite, predator, user, abuser, or loser, realize that there is nothing about them to love, that you are seeking their acceptance or approval, validation, or some other such nonsense, or else you are a codependent in need of psychological help. Also realize that someone else’s approval is meaningless. The only approval in the world that matters at all is your own.

That should be a lot easier, should it not? To approve your own life and self instead of depending one someone else, who isn’t qualified to judge, to approve it for you? You might be shocked at how many people I hear from every day who cannot do it. And the nemesis that thwarts them every single time?

Guilt!

Guilt because they had a good childhood. Guilt because they worked their ass off and got a better job than somebody else who didn’t. Guilt because somebody important to them chose to get behind the wheel of a car while drunk and killed himself in a car crash or chose a military career and didn’t make it out alive. Some of it is guilt over things they’ve done and should have worked their way through and forgiven themselves for years ago, but most of it is guilt for things that not only have they not done and weren’t responsible for, they had no control over at all!

If you’re having issues like these, get over them, as fast as possible and at any expense necessary. Guilt will suck the life out of you like nothing else can, not to mention make you somebody that nobody else wants to be around, especially the woman living in your house (unless she’s a parasite or predator). Feeling guilty will never in your life make anyone else’s life better, will not make up for a mistake anyone, including yourself, has made, and will never result in you feeling like you’ve paid sufficient penance to feel good again. Resolve it, or die with it and be miserable until then. There is no other choice.

So there it is. Why “nice guys” finish last in relationships isn’t because they’re nice. It’s because they’re either grossly ignorant of the relationship emotions or grossly ignorant of what women perceive as truly “nice.” I can help you with both, and a whole lot more…

Start by going to http://www.makingherhappy.com and downloading your copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," and getting the real scoop on everything that you, as a man, need to know about women, which will enable you to quickly learn even the finest points to be learned about the woman you love.

And while you’re at it, grab my free “Break-Up Busting 101” report and get a fast head start on managing and preventing crisis in case you’re unwittingly making any major mistakes now, or turning crisis around if you’ve already stepped in crap. My free “What Women Really Want” report will do you a world of good, too.

Together, we can get you on the road to happiness, but you have to take that first step alone; I can open the door, but you have to walk through.

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

Nice Guys Finish Last, Especially in Relationships and Marriage, Part 2 of 4, Neediness

In Part 2 of our study of “Nice Guy” mistakes, neediness, which comes in a lot of flavors that you may not even realize are a problem.

I was afraid this topic was going to be met with resentment and denial, and I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how many confessions and turnarounds I’ve read today, so we’re definitely going to stick with it.

It’s pretty easy to spot the needy wuss who constantly sucks up to women trying to gain their favor, that is unless you’re one of those poor lost souls who think that love and need are the same thing, in which case you need to download my free “Break-Up Busting 101” report and study the section on “Love, Need, Attraction, and Lust” before continuing or this isn’t going to make a bit of sense to you. But what about “covert” or hidden neediness?

Oops! Didn’t think about that one, did you? Neediness doesn’t have to be that begging, groveling, in-your-face-whining nonsense to get on somebody’s nerves. Have you ever expected a woman to know your needs and respond to them without you having to say anything, and then been hurt and pissed off when she didn’t?

Since we’re guys, I’ll use the most obvious guy example, lying in the bed at night wanting sex and not initiating it because “she should just know that you’re a man and need it.” If you’ve done this, and then got angry or hurt when she went to sleep because you didn’t act interested enough in her to give her a reason to participate, let alone come on to you, you’re guilty of something I’ve heard called “passive neediness.” And you need help.

The same thing goes for finances, planning for the future, time off for a sporting event, or anything else. If you don’t make your goals, ambitions, needs and desires known, preferably by somehow stating or demonstrating that you want something instead of asking permission for it, you have no right to expect anybody to know or respond to what’s only in your head.

Women are quite good at picking up on signals, body language, etc., but they’re far from psychic, at least most of them are! LOL! Seriously, they’re no more capable of reading our minds than we are of reading theirs. And besides, your job is to take the lead in anything that she doesn’t actively and aggressively take the lead in herself (which most of you will see infrequently, if ever, once you start leading because women are much more social than we are and generally invite participation and cooperation rather than jumping straight into a commanding role if there is a known leader around, but you’ll know it if and when you see it).

The good news is that women are generally more than just comfortable following a leader, they enjoy watching the spectacle of a man being manly. They enjoy seeing a man act like he has a pair of gonads and going after what he wants (as long as it doesn’t grossly oppose what they want, of course). And as a sort of corollary to yesterday’s rule, “if you can’t stand up WITH and TO a woman, you can’t stand up FOR her,” if you can’t go after what you want, you can’t support her in getting what she wants, either.

And no, what I’m saying isn’t “politically correct,” but it’s reality, and we have to face it and live with it, no matter how badly you may want it to be different; human biology isn’t going to bend to your will any more than it is mine or anybody else’s. One of the women in my family is a staunch feminist, even somewhat of an activist, and even she confesses that when she’s around a strong male personality it excites her, often to the point of “lubrication” and fantasizing.

So the bottom line is that if you don’t expect women to be psychic you won’t have to be disappointed and go through that most annoying passive-aggressive bit that “passively needy” men go through when they try to avoid mentioning their needs to keep from appearing “selfish” and get hurt when nobody reads their mind and responds. Communicate, in a way that is proper to a man, and get either what you want or a good reason why you can’t get it.

And before you think, “Well, that means I have to just ask for sex,” NO, it most certainly doesn’t. That may be communicating, but it’s merely communicating neediness. Nor do you just tell a woman, “It’s time for sex because I need it.” That’s about as absurd as asking for it. You play, tease, withdraw, re-engage, and keep her on the edge of pouncing on you so that when the two of you are finally alone in the evening and you slip an arm around her waist and pull her up close for a kiss, the flood gate opens and she’s all over you.

What you communicate is that you are a man, that you know your place in the grand order of things, as well as hers, and that you know that asking for sex isn’t going to make it happen any more than dropping your pants and blurting, “Ya wanna?” the instant she acts like she might be the least bit interested, as if that constitutes foreplay. You communicate with your actions, not words, that you know what her needs are and that you are going to satisfy her as she satisfies you.

Oops! That takes confidence, huh? And communication skills, too, right? And in a lot of cases it’s also going to take knowing a few things about women’s needs, too, because they can sometimes be at odds with our own, requiring a little finesse to gain their cooperation. Well, so much for that idea… ;-)

I couldn’t even type that with a straight face! I’m glad I didn’t have to say it aloud or I’d have choked on the laughter. Of course you can gain all those things, in abundance, and take the much easier route to getting what you want, the route proper to a man instead of to an addled schoolboy. The reason you’re not doing it now is NOT because you can’t, it’s because you DON’T KNOW ANY BETTER!

But ignorance – not knowing – is an easily treatable condition. It just takes knowledge. It’s apathy – not caring – and stupidity – the failure to think rationally – that kills most men’s ability to live a good life. And if you were stupid or didn’t care, you wouldn’t be here, right?

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 learn what you need to know to be nice while still being a man that a woman can love, respect, and be excited to be around. Sweeping a woman off her feet doesn’t require being abusive or a “bad boy” any more than it requires kissing her behind and groveling before her. It just requires that you know what is truly proper to live as a man and a little more about women than you do now.

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

Unconquered: the Man Every Woman Wants in Her Relationship and Marriage

My favorite motivational poem, which projects the true spirit of the unconquerable alpha male, who does takes both action and full responsibility for his actions, and how the confident attitude it projects will make you absolutely ooze attraction.

I have a special treat for you, my favorite motivational poem of all time. Many of you may have read it, but I’ve met few who ever gave it serious study and consideration. And that’s a shame, when you see what it holds for you that could help a man, relationship and marriage.

Most people remember and even quote that last line or two, but few remember their origin and have never really studied the poem, trying to live the part of the main character, and exploring and adopting the attitude expressed. Read it carefully, once for understanding of what the character is saying, and then a second time to try to feel what they are feeling, and we'll discuss it and how it relates to your relationship and building attraction afterward.

Invictus
By W.E. Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods there be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced or cried aloud;
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody but unbowed.

Beyond this vale of doubt and fear
Looms but the terror of the Shade
And, yet, the passing of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how straight the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll
I am the Master of my Fate,
I am the Captain of my Soul.

So let’s dig into this, deeply, and see what Henley knew about being a man and how that might help you get your life and relationship or marriage back on track. To make sure you get the context, “Invictus” is "soliloquy," defined in "The American Heritage Dictionary" as “A dramatic or literary form of discourse in which a character reveals his or her thoughts when alone or unaware of the presence of other characters." He’s not trying to impress anyone; he’s alone and thinking or speaking only to himself.

Speaking of gender, we don't know whether the character is a man or woman, but everyone assumes it is a man when they read it, because the feeling generated is that typical of an alpha male - independent, strong, railing against the storm so to speak. He is in complete darkness, according to the first paragraph, possibly in a prison or dungeon cell, or in an apartment or bedroom, utterly alone and celebrating his own sense of self and character. In the second stanza, he says that no matter what has happened to him, he's taken it and moved on.

He's been beaten up, but not beaten down, and certainly not beaten into submission. In the third stanza, rather reminiscent of Psalm 23 of the Christian Bible ("vale of doubt and fear" is identical allegory to "valley of the shadow of death," "the terror of the Shade" being the angel of death or god of the underworld, as in the first stanza we see that Henley's character is religious, but not Christian, as his “gods” are unidentified and existence questioned – “whatever gods there be”), he says that life is uncertain, and the afterlife possibly more so, yet he has no concern for that.

He goes on in the fourth saying that it matters not how he is judged ("how straight the gate" is an allusion to several different versions of Heaven and Hell, and “the scroll” is the judgment of his life) because he lived his life making his own choices, and is perfectly prepared to accept the consequences of those choices. His world and his choices are simply, utterly, and relentlessly, his own.

Why? Is it ego? Conceit? Hardly. Ego and conceit are not signs of confidence, but of a lack thereof, the leper's bell of someone lacking self-esteem and trying to fake it. This character has simply chosen to command his own life, to do with it the best he can, to accept all challenges to his life and well-being, and if he is to lose a battle, he will regroup, re-engage, and ultimately win the war.

What image does this paint for you? A sniveling, craven little wuss huddled in a corner of a dark room? I should say, "not just no, but hell no!" A man standing straight, tall, shoulders back, feet at shoulder width, head held high, ready for action; he may not own the world, but he certainly commands what part of it is around him. So blatantly heroic an image that it's not hard for a cape whipping in the breeze to enter the picture if you're not careful.

Why do I bother going through all of this about a poem? Wake up, gentlemen! This is the guy every woman wants her partner to be! At the very least, it is the image of him that she wants to hold, strong, confident, moving through the world with a purpose that is his own, in command (not CONTROL, mind you!) and in demand. Do you want to know one of the best kept secrets in all of existence? Every one of us is born this way!

Really! Look at small children. They try to do things assuming that they will succeed. They don’t jump off the back of the couch and land face-first on the floor because they’re stupid; it’s because they’ve not yet learned that there are things that are impossible. Unfortunately, as they grow older, they learn a lot more than the simple physics of gravity, inertia, and motion that would keep them from jumping off the couch and busting their face again.

It is failure that they (we!) learn, and which plagues us all for the rest of our lives if we let it. The operational phrase there is "if we let it." It's a choice. Failure of any kind is a choice, a choice to be defeated instead of a choice to learn all we can, give something our best effort, and if it doesn't work out, to acknowledge that it required more resources - whether time, money, energy, relationships, or whatever - than we were able to muster, and to make course corrections so that we continue the journey toward something desirable. No matter what the outcome of any endeavor, it is only a failure if we choose to declare it so, and choose to be a loser or victim instead of a contender or survivor. And as long as a man truly gives something his best effort, he cannot fail; the only failure is to fail to rationally address an issue and meet it with whatever he can reasonably muster.

Do you realize that humans are the only species on this planet with the power of volitional choice - the power to think and choose everything, instead of simply growing to the point of being able to survive and then having all development stop? Intellect allows us to reach a point of being able to survive, then surpass that point and flourish, improving our standard of living, and possibly that of others around us and in generations to come. We are the top of the food chain for that reason and none other. Contrary to popular belief, being human isn't something for which one should apologize (..."I can't help it. I'm only human..."), it's something to which one should aspire! (Be a REAL man! Or be a REAL Woman! I think, therefore I succeed!)

Those whom women find the most attractive are those who have aspired to be and finally became supremely human men, the alpha male - the strong, confident male, able to make logical decisions, formulate successful plans, and carry them out with all the confidence in the world that he can do just that, who looks not at his feet, but at the horizon, and onward to the next world he is to master. Be that man; it's your choice, and her dream. Make both of you happy. If you have to, print this poem and put it where you can read it while you shave every morning. (Yes, EVERY morning! Real men have more self-respect than to run around with two-day old stubble on their face and “bed hair” trying to look like a thug or a flake, no matter what might be “in style”!) Memorize it, and recite it several times throughout the day. Get it done.

It’s time to take charge, and make the world your own. She'll notice. It’s not an act. It’s a matter of first learning how things work and what the best behavior is, then toning down your bad behavior while enhancing the good behavior, and then adding to the good behavior with other traits that you can enjoy having and she will enjoy seeing. There’s a full explanation of all of this and an effective training seminar to help you put it all to work in a natural, stress-free manner, in “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage,” so download it now at http://www.makingherhappy.com. Go ahead, do it now, and start living the “unconquered” life, because life is too short to live it otherwise.
In the meantime, live well, be well, and have a wonderful day!
David Cunningham

Confessions of Bored Women: Everybody Gets Hurt – Stop It from Killing Your Relationship or Marriage!

A woman writes in response to the contest some ladies were having in a previous issue. As she confesses, it’s not just the men that get hurt when women get bored and out of control.

Well Guys, I thought I was going to be able to leave this topic alone for at least a week or two, but when this letter came in, I knew it couldn’t wait. I’ve seen too much of this myself, and I’m sure many of you have seen it, too because it is so common. However, I have to ask how many people ever stop to consider the underlying cause of this scenario or the ultimate impact until it’s pointed out to them. Meet Ursula:

Dear David,

After reading your newsletter from the woman that told you all about the contest her and her friends used to have, I have one of my own. I never thought I would be sharing this with anyone, but I figured if she was able to open up enough to share maybe I should as well.

I had a group of friends that I liked to go out with and we really got crazy at times. We did not call what we did a contest, but we did place bets at the beginning of each night on who would come out on top.

We would go out at night for a few drinks and in the parking lot we would set the rules of the game. The game was to see who at the end of the night had the most phone numbers of the men we met in the clubs.

We’d pick a bar, club or whatever you want to call it and see who could get the attention of the most men in the short time we spent there. We’d have them buy us drinks and pretend to be interested, but in reality we were only after the phone numbers. Once the number was obtained we no longer had any interest in that man and moved on to the next poor sucker.

I know you may be saying “what a terrible thing to do,” but to us it was just something sort of fun to do. Having anything more than watching the kids and cleaning the house or sitting on the couch while our husbands hogged the remote and channel surfed was an improvement. We had no interest in ever using the phone numbers or ever seeing the men again. They were just a tool in the pursuit of attention, relief from the sheer torment of our boredom, and of course winning the bet for the evening. We never gave out our numbers or even fake ones. We would tell them that if they wanted to see us again we would call them and for the most part it worked.

In the beginning I loved the attention and that just fueled the fire to continue, but it was so wrong. The means by which we obtained their number was up to each woman and sometimes it did get into some pretty heavy sex talk. Making them believe that they were going to get something that never was going to happen was common. Men were waiting for a call that was never going to come and the whole time we were laughing and counting the money or whatever the prize was for the night.

When the evening would end we would all meet up and show all the numbers we had collected, laughing the whole time about how stupid most men were to fall for such a trick. The truth is we were the ones that were pathetic, thinking that no one would be getting hurt, it was just a game, right? Wrong. It was people’s lives we were messing with and no one has that right.

The game finally came to an end when my best friend was beaten and raped in a parking lot by man whom she had played earlier. She’d promised him they’d meet later at her place and he waited in the parking lot to follow her home, and got furious when she said she wasn’t going home. She was in the hospital for three days and still isn’t over the trauma. So it’s not just men who get hurt when we get bored and out of control.

As I look back and to tell the truth, not that long ago we were looking for the attention we were not getting from the one that said he loved us. Some had husbands and some boyfriends, but we all had someone. I do not know if any of the other ladies shared this with their loved one or are still living on the thoughts of what we did, but I did come clean with my husband and we have moved on now.

Our relationship is not yet perfect, but we are working on it every day now, thanks to your book, to make it as perfect as it can be, and after just two weeks it’s like I’m living with a different man. I no longer go out with those friends, and we seldom speak except by phone. Now I spend my time with my husband, thankful for each precious moment we share together. With the attention he gives me now I do not have time or desire for games and it was worth everything to me just to have him back and spending time with me and talking to me instead of hiding at work.

Thanks for the ear,
Ursula

Do you see why this couldn’t wait? I’ve been receiving a few letters from some of you guys expressing negative thoughts about the notion of being responsible for a woman’s boredom, but look at what happened here…

One of these women was beaten and raped in a parking lot. She hasn’t yet gotten over it, and may never get over it, and as long as she’s not over it, her family won’t be either. Now think about this: If your wife was mugged in the parking lot of a mall or grocery store and beaten and raped, you’d want to kill the guy who did it, wouldn’t you? And would you not also be thinking, “If I’d only gone with her, this wouldn’t have happened,” right?

So what makes this other scenario any different? You’d still want to kill the guy, and you’d still be saying, “If I’d been there, it wouldn’t have happened.” We’re just talking about a different kind of “being there,” are we not? Being there mentally and emotionally to keep her from feeling abandoned and bored?

For as long as men have walked on Earth, part of our job is to protect our mate and offspring. And sometimes we have to protect them from themselves. There’s no denying it. Kids and adults alike can do really stupid, desperate, pointless things when they get emotionally charged and don’t think about the possible outcomes of what they are doing, or about to do, and when we take on a family, we take on some level of responsibility for helping them to make good decisions and keeping them out of harm’s way.

Some of you might answer that with, “Well, there’s a point where I should be able to expect them to not need my protection.” To that, I must ask you, if you sent your wife, your daughter, your sister, or your mother out the door ahead of you and followed to find her being raped, would you be so cold as to say, “She shouldn’t have done whatever caused the guy to jump on her” or would you jump in and save her? I rest my case.

Living life isn’t about “what should be.” It’s about “what is.” There’s always room for improvement, but you can’t shirk your responsibilities because the improvements aren’t coming as fast as you would like. If you see room for improvement in your marriage or relationship, you have a responsibility to yourself and your partner to make it happen.

If they fail to meet their responsibility, you lead by example in meeting yours and demand that they meet theirs as you have done, and if they still fail, they aren’t worth your time and effort, and you “fire” them, just as swiftly and surely as an employee you catch stealing from you; indeed, such a person would be stealing from you, stealing your life!

I can’t make it any plainer for you, Gentlemen. We’re not the police, and we don’t exist solely to serve and protect, but protection is a part of the job of being a man, a husband, a father, and a friend, whether it’s from a thug or herself, from his fist or her own boredom. (And if you hit that extreme point where “doing your job” as husband makes you miserable, you do have a responsibility to yourself to look at the option of changing “employers,” if you know what I mean.) So is being able to conduct a conversation that actually solves problems instead of just initiates conflict and competition. So is knowing as much about the women in your house as you know about yourself, in terms of needs, feelings, and so forth.

And so is just standing up and being a man, and enjoying it. If you do it well, it’s a job that pays off better than anything you can imagine, especially in terms of benefits! ;-)

So are you ready to do a better job of being a man, and get “paid” for it? I’ll make it easy for you. Just go to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," and see what I mean. Everybody who is using it is getting results, and so will you. After all, you’re a smart guy, right?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

P

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

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

He, on the other hand, has refused (so far) to take responsibility for the condition of their relationship and his influence upon it. And if he doesn’t wake up quickly, she’s likely to just give it up, a decision they may both end up regretting to some degree.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Handling Tough Times and Avoiding Marital Boredom, a Relationship and Marriage Survival Skill

One easy time for a woman to become bored and frustrated is when you have to be away a lot. Let’s touch on that before leaving this subject for awhile.

I got a very humorous and insightful comment on the recent edition concerning how far women will go to escape boredom from one of the newest readers which spawned a great lesson for you. It’s great because it’s an issue that is tough for the untrained man to deal with but the solution is easier and safer to implement than you might otherwise imagine. Here’s the note that started it all (the name has been changed to protect the brilliant):

*****
Note to Self:

Rule #1. Do not under any circumstances allow your woman to become bored. Rule #2. Do not under any circumstances allow your woman to become bored. Rule #3. See Rules 1 & 2, above.

~~~~~~

Hi David,

Damn. That is scary. And VERY instructive.

Thanks, - H.

*****

That made me wonder about the rules, and I wrote back:

*****
Note to H.:

Rule #1: A woman must never, EVER be allowed to be bored.
Rule #2: If you ever fail to be a man, a woman will become bored.
Rule #3: Should you break Rule #1, you will find it happened because you broke Rule #2!

Yep, it is scary, until you realize that Rule #2 makes the whole thing a matter of your choice. That's the silver lining in the "take responsibility for everything" cloud. Once it's your responsibility, it's your choice as to how it works out, and that's not at all scary when you have the information to make it work out. Indeed, it's a lot of fun! You don't even have to worry about tough times if you make the right choices, because a woman will be thrilled to be invited into a challenge. Take for instance you having to do late nights, 12-hour days, for two weeks to get a project wrapped up on schedule. First, you conscript her help:

"Honey, I have a problem at work and I'm going to need your help. I have to do 12-hour days for the next two weeks to bring this project in on time. I need you to take over the (insert list of chores here) that I usually handle so that when I get home, we can still have some time together. (That's leadership, authority, delegation, issuing a challenge, trusting her to be competent, and a whole world of other things that women yearn for, including a commitment to keep her close instead of shutting her out in favor of your work.)

"After the project is finished, we'll take off for the weekend and catch up on some rest and time together. No, don't ask, because it's a surprise!" (Anticipation, mother of all pleasures in a woman's world.)

Being a hero instead of an a**hole is just a matter of paying attention and framing things right. Get it? Sure you do. That was a silly question. LOL!

Take care, and keep in touch!
David
*****

It really is that simple, as long as it’s not an on-going problem. On-going problems like working long hours for months on end are not heroic. They are a declaration that you can’t handle things and your life is out of control, even when she wants to believe otherwise. While there are some predators and parasites around, most women do not marry a man to have somebody pay their bills for them and be gone all the time to do it. They marry a man to have someone to love, trust, respect, be loyal to, and share their life with. Women are generally emotionally-driven creatures, and a large part of why they marry a man is his ability to make them feel things they enjoy. That doesn’t happen when the only time the two of you are together is while you’re asleep.

The point? She will help you get through problems, but only so long as you can continue to give her the companionship (and leadership) she needs. Women are social in nature, and they need interaction with others; it’s a matter of biology, not of choice, so don’t make a habit of over-committing yourself and expecting her to take up the slack. Don’t get into that rut of trying to force problems to go away by just spending more time working on them. Learn to work smarter instead of longer and harder.

How? Get help when you need it! Using work as an example (since I’ve been a management consultant for a lot of years and have fallen into this same trap myself on occasion), there’s a big difference between saying to your boss, “I’ll get this done, no matter what,” and then missing the deadline, missing work because of fatigue, illness or family disputes that arose because you over-committed yourself, and saying, “I may be able to get this done in the time you need it, but the risk to both myself and the company is considerable because I’ll be spread too thin and something can fall through the cracks and hurt us. Get me some help on this to ensure that we come in on time with acceptable quality so that we all look good at review time.”

People who want to get things done will support your effort to the best of their ability because they have others leaning on them for performance. Even the owner of the company has people leaning on him: his customers! Nobody wants to finish the day with egg on their face, and when you speak up like this you establish yourself as somebody who looks ahead and acts rationally instead of an egomaniac with a hero complex or a persecution complex who would sacrifice himself to be noticed and risk his boss’s and his company’s reputation to do it.

Your life has to maintain some semblance of balance for you to be able to enjoy it. Part of that balance is your job, part is your wife and family, part is yourself, etc. If any one part starts getting too much attention, it will be at the expense of the other parts. There’s no escaping or denying it. If you don’t give your job its fair share, you’ll get fired. If you don’t give your wife her fair share, you’ll get fired, too, in the form of a divorce! If your kids don’t get their fair share, they’ll fire you, too, and replace you with whomever will give them the attention they need, even if it’s the local drug dealer, pimp, gangster, or the warden at the jail.

Balance may not be the key to all things in the universe (although it sure looks like it is from here!), but it is certainly an essential part of a healthy relationship, a happy marriage, and a happy life. Take a good look at your life and see for yourself if everything is in balance, and make a serious effort to correct any balance issues you see.

Involve your wife in the examination after you’ve looked for yourself, invite her input and compare it to your own. Impress upon her the need for balance as well. She shouldn’t be letting her job, hobbies, you, or the children consume her entire life any more than you should. She needs the variety that balance provides to keep her from getting bored with any one aspect of her life!

We’ve about beaten the subject of boredom to death, so tomorrow we’ll be moving on to something else, but I hope that over the last few days you’ve come to realize, if nothing else, just how different a woman’s needs are from your own and what you can easily do to fulfill those needs and keep your relationship and marriage enjoyable. We can’t expect them to be entirely like us because they’re not, nor are they entirely different.

Our similarities and differences are not always obvious, and at times are even deceptive; you may recall articles I’ve sent you in which we discussed how men and women can use the exact same words to express the exact opposite meaning, and have no idea that it’s happening. (If you missed it, it’s the third of the communications lessons in my free “Break-Up Busting 101” report, which you can download at http://www.makingherhappy.com/Break-Up%20Busting%20101%20Free%20Report.PDF at your convenience.) We, as men, being born to lead, must be aware of these similarities and differences and should take the initiative to make sure that everyone else in our family understands them as well. Otherwise, we fail as leaders, and we fail as men. I hate it when that happens…don’t you???

It’s time to step up and get the information and training you need to be the man you were born to be, but others have tried their best to make sure you never could be. Conspiracy? Maybe. Theory? Hardly. We’ve been told the wrong things about how to be a man for thirty years or more. We’ve tried it, it’s failed miserably, and it’s time to get back to what works.

Your guide is called “THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage,” and you should go now to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy immediately. Thirty years is long enough to do it the wrong way and be punished for making the effort. Start being a man as you were born to be and be rewarded for it, with happiness, success, and possibly best of all, the love and adoration of the woman you love.

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

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

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

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

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

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

****
Your response to Kent was perfect:

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

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

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

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

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

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

****

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This excerpt is from another of my top students:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Shortest Path to Being the Man Women Can't Resist and Having a Great Relationship and Marriage

An odd chain of events and the resulting train of thought have provided something that many of you will find useful: EXAMPLES of the man women find most irresistible, and how to make sure she sees him!

Today has been an unusual day to say the least. I post this newsletter for broadcast at 8:00AM Eastern time every morning because that’s when statistics say it is most likely to be read by the most people, but as many of you know, it is composed at least one day prior to broadcast. (Those of you who want an early jump can always check my blog at http://blog.makingherhappy.com because it gets posted there as soon as it’s finished, often 12 hours or more ahead of the e-mail broadcast!)

I mention that so that the following comment makes sense: I’ve been at my computer for eleven hours straight answering reader e-mails! That’s not necessarily odd, but their polarization certainly has been. The gross majority of them have been questions about attraction, especially what a woman needs to see for it to be triggered, especially if it has been lost and the man is trying to recreate it.

There are a few of my newsletter lesson editions that always receive abnormally high reader response. I retransmit them every few months because most people just don’t have the time to browse the newsletter archive and it’s easier for them to see the best-received lessons if I send them out quarterly or semi-annually, but I don’t use or even have boilerplate responses to reader e-mails or questions. While many of them have common elements, each situation is different and requires a personal response, so can you imagine what focusing on the same subject that intensely for eleven hours might produce?

This came after I was asked today by a blind man how he might project a more attractive image to his wife, who had grown a bit frustrated with his borrowing of her eyes, and he confessed that he had been asking her to do things that he did himself when he was alone. I reminded him that instead of feeling and acting dependent, he should feel and act heroic, relating to him a flood of stories that came to mind about athletes who had lost legs and ran races on their prostheses, and Def Leppard’s drummer who lost an arm and instead of retiring, re-engineered his setup and retrained himself to play as well as he had before with only one arm and his feet.

Then came the first revelation: men with this heroic, leader’s attitude that women find so irresistibly attractive don’t do things to prove that they can, they do them simply BECAUSE they can and want to. They live to IMPROVE, not to PROVE. They literally define authority at the most basic level; they don’t care what anybody thinks of them or their achievements. They achieve because it suits them to do so, because it MAKES them a better man, not because it makes them APPEAR as a better man. There is no form of authority, role model, or leadership higher than that.

I tripped over another great example in that same letter. In trying to explain the hero’s attitude and how he could continue to “borrow his wife’s sight,” but in a way she found attractive instead of a way that made her feel like his keeper, I said (paraphrased), “Assuming that you lost your sight and have a sufficient frame of reference to remember a sunset, there is a big difference between saying to your wife, ‘I wish I could see a sunset’ and saying, “I want to see the sunset. Describe it to me so that I may enjoy it with you.’”

That differentiation has universal application, Gentlemen. You can feel sorry for your shortcomings and complain, or you can work around them and live your life. That’s what being a man, and for that matter being human, is about, and that, more than anything else, is what women find attractive in a man, because it is that attitude that makes everything else work.

A secondary theme that kept reappearing was regaining trust after a bad period in a relationship. Yes, attraction is dead at this point, but there is also a wall up, and while attraction is an automatic thing, it can be not resisted, but confounded, when there are trust issues. A woman needs to feel “safe” in letting you into a position where you can significantly influence her emotions, and while you are making these improvements that will reignite attraction, you also need to radically improving your communication skills. Why?

Because that’s where women gain trust, through the intimacy of talking and being heard. It’s how they commune. We men commune primarily by sharing acts of achievement or crisis and getting through them, while women commune by talking about their experiences, especially the emotions of their experiences. We DO, they TALK and then do if something needs done.

When a woman feels you aren’t listening or understanding her, or especially that you don’t care about her feelings, that connection cannot be made, let alone made strong enough to let her tear down that wall and let you back in. Luckily for you, as complex as it seems, the whole communications issue boils down to three simple rules that you can learn in minutes and master over a period of days, not decades. And those rules are in my book, of course! ;-)

So there it is, Gents: the product of eleven hours of answering the questions of troubled men wanting to put their relationship back in working order. Use it in good health. And if you’re ready to rise to the challenge of putting your house back in order, go to http://www.makingherhappy.com and download your copy of "THE Man’s Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," right now, while it’s still there to be had and correcting your problems is easier than it will be months down the road when you have much more to correct and much more pain to heal.

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

What Are Outside Influences Doing to YOUR Relationship and Marriage?

Is your environment, especially the part of it you choose and create for yourself, increasing or killing your attractiveness? It’s easy to tell by taking a good look around you, if you know what to look for. Do you?

I get a lot of mail from men who are feeling bad about themselves, complaining that their wives disrespect them, don’t like their job, feel like they’re alone and have no friends, and generally have a crappy outlook on like. There are a lot of causes for this, but generally when a man is disrespected, disregarded, and/or has nobody around him he would call a friend, it’s the result of bad attitude. And that’s fixable.

Most of the causes of both good and poor attitude are in the things that surround us daily. Let’s take a look at your living and work environments to see what they may be doing for you, or TO you. Much of male attractiveness is the direct result of attitude, self-esteem, and confidence, and your environment can impact those things directly, so it can impact your attractiveness directly, which in turn determines how – and whether – those around you will want to interact with you.

Feeling good about yourself requires that you take action to succeed, which in turn requires that you feel worthy of success and motivated to go after it. How does your environment affect you in this regard? Everything around you can impact you, so let’s look at some of the big ones to give you a feel for what to look for, and you can refine your search from there. Let’s start with music.

Yes, that’s a biggie! Even if you aren’t listening actively, it’s still there, being interpreted and assimilated, and there are subconscious mechanisms that act upon what you hear, so to what influences are you exposing yourself? First, what do you choose to listen to? If it’s depressing, as a lot of alternative rock, death metal, and some country and honky tonk, ballads, and of course, blues can be, it’s working on you. In my own experience, according to pop culture lore Michael Bolton was a great guy, but his music was so depressing that I couldn’t listen to it, and while I like some of the instrumental portions of Iron Maiden and Metallica, the death-oriented lyrics of many of their songs make me want to just shake somebody and tell the to wake up and get a clue. (The same goes for the angry-sounding rap that glorifies rape and cop-killing; fortunately, this isn’t all rap, just the worst of it.)

I grew up in an area where country, bluegrass, and honky tonk music was popular, and in my childhood, country music was all about trouble. Even if somebody had something good to say in a song, it was in the context of missing it, or somebody else having it and wishing they could have it. I can remember even as a small child wondering why people wanted to listen to songs that spoke of people hurting each other, breaking up, divorcing, being lonely, etc., and I could see that those who listened to depressing music were depressed. That made me wonder which was the cause and which was the effect. I learned later in college that it goes both ways, and once in the rut, it