The 1970s revolutionized the way in which we raised children, as
evidenced in Dorothy Brigg’s book, Your Child’s Self Esteem”. It was an abrupt departure
from the 1960’s “Mad Men” era, where children were to be seen and not heard. Building your child’s self-esteem meant teaching them that they were valuable with their thoughts and
place in the world, and were special and unique with all-important
needs. But like many social phenomena, the pendulum swung so far from
the ’seen and not heard’ direction to the ‘you are number one’ direction
that a society of self-involved, self-indulgent, people with too much
self-importance was created. We’ve all met the princess who thinks the
world, and everyone on it, should bow to orbit her needs. And we’ve all
met the self-entitled goddess who makes everyone else wait for her
because her demands are not being met precisely as she sees fit.
True
self-esteem is not self-importance, but is more aptly defined as
someone who is flexible and has the ability to preserve harmony and
dignity under conditions of stress. They are in a friendly relationship
to facts and can acknowledge mistakes because their self-image is not
tied to one of perfection.
A woman who walks into a room with
an air of importance begs for others to treat her as such, and
strangely, subjects unintentionally fall to service her in her
self-proclaimed significance. Unaware we are even doing it, we jump to
her every whim. The self-absorbed prom queen has us all believing that
she is more relevant than everyone else, and we actually believe it. Is
this really the woman a man wants to marry? Servicing a queen can get
pretty tiring after a while. If a man wants to be treated as a king, his
servitude is not conducive.
For example, if you take two
women on vacation and one has real self-esteem and the other has high
self-importance, the one with real self-esteem will not express a strong
need to sleep in one bed versus another or eat at one restaurant versus
the other because she doesn’t think her needs are more important than
the other vacationers. The woman with high self-importance, however,
will be very adamant about where, and for how long, she wants to sit,
eat, lounge, sleep, walk and dress, and her feet will hurt, her eyes
will water, her stomach will ache, and everyone around her will be
required to attend to her discomfort and wait for her as she dictates
when the party will proceed from one event to the next. She is entitled
to it. It is her birthright. She has been told her whole life that she
is number one and all-important, and she has been told that she has
great self-esteem.
In the long run, men want a partner who is
willing to compromise her needs to benefit the partnership—not herself. A
marriage requires surrender and accommodation, and spouses need to
adjust to the demands and needs of both partners. It shouldn’t be a
contest with someone who dissents and quarrels because they are rigid in
their requirements. A person with high self-importance can be a turn on
at first, but marrying someone with real self-esteem makes for a
happier marriage.
For more information, contact Melinda Maximova, matchmaker with Perfect Search
There is an expression men often fling around in humor, “For every beautiful woman, there is a man who is tired of F______ her”.
Well, touché, here is an expression for those men: “For every neglected woman, there is another man wanting to F____ her”. Take your woman for granted and she will be drawn to the affections of other more attentive admirers. Men may stray because they are craving someone different, but women stray when they are feeling neglected at home. Women love the attention of suitors and become accustomed to it in our teen years and 20s. When this affection disappears she will easily be sucked in by the adoration of other, more amorous wooers.
So for all you men who have grown bored with the same ole, same ole, you better figure out how you can spin her to refresh your libido because neglecting her will only be inviting other “snakes in the grass” to do your job for you. And they will. Oh yes, they certainly and willingly, will!
Before considering marriage, or getting seriously involved in a relationship, one should really check references, much like a prospective employer checks references for a job applicant. Think of all the time, money and heartache that would be saved if everyone got the real story from a former wife or ex boyfriend. After all, checking applicants’ references is one of the most important procedures in the hiring process for a job. Is marriage really any different? Get the goods on a mate before you tie the knot. Qualifying a fiancé’s attitude, skills, and attendance record before taking a serious plunge shows due diligence on your part and will protect you from being a next, ex husband or ex wife.
Before embarking on your 3rd party inquisition however, be sure to inform your “honey bun” that you will be checking references and will need the phone numbers of at least three past lovers before the relationship can expand. This either scares them away at the onslaught, or insights an instant recount of all past relationships citing their side of the story. Let them know that you will be verifying basics such as sexual proclivity, finances, and domestic duties, looking for discrepancies. For example: How did he/she contribute to toilet washing, credit card expenditure or initiating sex? These are all fair questions with telling results. Don’t forget the most important question of all, would they marry someone like that again? You can determine a lot from this answer and don’t be too shy to pry.
You can also use former neighbors or in laws as references too. If your fiancé is dragging their heels on passing out an ex’s number, contact the ex mother in law, or ex’s best friend. I am sure they would both be more than happy to spread some light on the topic. Remember, there are always others who were familiar with the past relationship and can provide a reference if you have trouble contacting the ex directly.
The following are 15 critical questions to ask your fiancé’s ex
What was their fidelity record?
What were their domestic responsibilities?
Did they come home promptly after work or were they frequently late?
Did they drink or do drugs behind your back?
How would you rate their fiscal responsibility?
Can you evaluate their sexual performance and frequency?
Through out my career as a matchmaker with Perfect Search Through out my career as a matchmaker with Perfect Search I have come across many examples of the Power Shift dynamic and how it affects dating divorced men. Many women I have matched let some really great guys slip through the cracks because they expected men to cut all ties to their past relationship immediately and expected monogamy too soon. Pulling out of a long-term relationship is often painfully slow and takes time and patience. Understanding this process and not expecting monogamy too soon with a divorced man will help to create a smoother transition from his past relationship to his current one.
Roger, a recently divorced client, had been married for many years and was trying to date for the first time. After a long, 20-year marriage, he had no idea how to do it and needed coaching. He was good looking and girls liked him, but he talked about his past relationship and his divorce on all of his first dates. The women I set him up with weren’t having any of it, especially women in his age group, mid to late 30s, who had been serial dating for decades. They were chewing him up and spitting him out, exclaiming, “Next!” at the first faux pas Roger made, and he made a lot of them. Like many men who are freshly divorced, Roger had no filter or social skills that would help him get a second date. A great guy, deep down he was a sensitive and emotionally available man with financial success, but his problem was his lack of experience in the dating department. Having been married most of his life, he didn’t know the rules and subtleties that dating required. In dating, it’s easy to dismiss each other the first time someone does something wrong, not knowing that it can take several dates to see the real guy behind the gaffes. I knew that Roger was actually a diamond in the rough but would need a lot of coaching if I was going to find a successful match for him.
I presented one of my candidates to Roger. Melissa was a beautiful, optimistic, open-minded, fun and adventurous woman who was career driven, but she also had a creative and artistic side. They were both raised with alternative parents who allowed them to express themselves freely, and they were both ambitious and success minded. She was a perfect fit for Roger, except…he had a problem: Melissa was too old. Even though Roger was 47, he had set his mind on a woman who was between 28 and 33. Melissa was 39. He also didn’t want a woman with kids or pets and liked blue-eyed blondes and wanted someone who was at least 5’8”. Superficially, Melissa was nowhere near Roger’s match. She was a 5’ 5”, slim-hipped, brown-eyed, brunette with a teenager, a cat, and two dogs! On the surface, it didn’t look good, but I knew that if I could just guide these two through the initial stages of the relationship, they could potentially be a happy couple.
The physical attraction was instant the first time Roger and Melissa met. Sparks flew and the chemistry was definitely there for both of them. They were excited about the prospect of future dates; however, whereas women are emotional creatures and can fall in love fast and hard, for many men, true love happens at a slow burn. Roger was especially slow. Melissa was ready for a commitment long before Roger, and although Roger really liked Melissa, he wanted the freedom to date other women simultaneously. He didn’t feel he was quite ready to jump back into a relationship after such a long marriage and declared that he and Melissa’s relationship was “open” for the first three months.
During those three months of courtship, Melissa was his favorite girl, but Roger loved his newfound power in the dating scene and was taking all those coaching tips I’d given him and exercising that power with waitresses, hostesses, store clerks, and any cute young thing that bat her eyelashes at him. It was tough knowing how much Melissa liked him, but I didn’t say a word. I knew that it would be in her best interest to stay cool and let him play out his freedom. Roger needed to fall in love with her at a man’s pace—pressuring him too soon would have killed the seedlings of their developing new relationship.
Besides, she was busy, as well. She had lots of things going on, or at least that’s how she acted. Men want women who are ever so slightly unavailable, so women have to create a slight chase to keep men interested. She has to project a mysterious edge that keeps him intrigued. Melissa may have suffered jealousy toward the other women he was seeing, but he never heard a peep about it from her.
Delayed Monogamy
Many women feel that a relationship should become monogamous the minute they become intimate. Unfortunately, this is unrealistic. If a guy has been single for any length of time, it’s likely that he’ll have several irons in the fire and won’t feel the urge to pull them all out immediately. The longer he’s been single, the more accustomed to “hunting mode” he will be, and the longer it will take him to get out of it. He will be so used to looking at every woman as a potential option that, even if he does find his dream girl, it will be hard for him to suddenly stop. A woman should give a man at least three months before requesting monogamy and a year before expecting him to lose his “hunting mode” altogether. I coached Melissa to lie in the grass and keep her cool for three months until she was certain that Roger was sufficiently hooked on her, and then she put her foot down.
“There will be no other women,” she said.
“Okay.”
Roger agreed without so much as a question because he was ready. He had the opportunity to explore hisoptions while simultaneously dating Melissa and was able to compare her to the other women who had been midstream when he and Melissa first started dating. By allowing Roger the time to phase out the other women in his Rolodex, slowly Melissa allowed Roger to fall for her on his own terms.
Gum on a July Sidewalk
Roger was still mourning the loss of his twenty-year marriage and the break-up of his family, which included children. As a result, he was going to have a hard time cutting the ties to an ex-wife who had been the focus of his life for the past twenty years. As hard as it is to get a relationship to stick, it can be just as hard to peel one away. Trying to break up a long relationship is like pulling gum off a hot July sidewalk. The more you pull however, the thinner the strands become and eventually they will snap altogether. The worst thing a new girlfriend can do is to put unreasonable pressure on a divorced man to cut all ties to his ex-wife immediately.
Roger’s relationship to his ex-wife was long, involved, and complex. Since the divorce was still fresh, he would get swept up in sadness every time he visited his kids. In this situation, it was important for Melissa to be patient. According to Avalanche, LLC, who conducted a survey on how people deal with break ups, a surprising 85% of men admitted to falling into depression after a break up, compared to only 8% of women. An ex-wife may haunt a new relationship, causing a divorced man to act cold and ambivalent at times, but ultimately, over time, the sadness will eventually fade. It is important for the new woman to acknowledge this dynamic and allow her divorced man time to be sad when remembering his previous life. Melissa had to understand this if she wanted to keep him and not put undue pressure on Roger to cut ties to his past relationship. Time heals wounds and, on average, five years after their divorce, the majority of men report being happier with their post-divorce lives. Love is a process, not an event. And successful love requires compromise.
Compromise
Like a lot of young men, when Roger was in his early 20’s, he was powerless over women. He was an awkward, lanky teenager and delayed in his sexual maturity. Cheerleaders rolled their eyes at him as he beckoned to their will, hoping for a glance or a smile. He met his wife in college, and, since she was the first beautiful woman to pay attention to him, he married her—thinking it would be his last. Although he was married for twenty years, he was still immature when it came to dating. When I first met Roger, he was enamored with childish humor and acted in many ways like an adolescent when it came to women.
Melissa, on the other hand, had been a “hottie” in high school and when she was in her 20s, guys were clamoring for her attention. She could get virtually any guy she wanted. Like most attractive women in their 20s, she had all the power. By the time she turned 39, she had plenty of dating experience and was mature in her understanding of men and sex and relationships. In addition, she had three previous long-term relationships in her past, while Roger had just one.
Because Roger and Melissa were at different stages in their dating savvy, it would take compromise, patience, and understanding if they were going to get through the initial stages of their relationship. Roger and Melissa had come from two completely different frames of reference and to expect their paths to be identical would have been unrealistic. It would have been easy for Melissa to dismiss him the first time he said something stupid, but she remained open-minded and let their relationship develop slowly. Compromise means meeting halfway and understanding that people do change over time. If a good man does a bad thing at the beginning of a relationship, it doesn’t mean that he can’t learn from his mistakes and become Mr. Right in the future. When men are in love, they will go the distance to adjust and accommodate to a woman’s wishes.
Melissa didn’t run for the hills like so many of the other women in Roger’s early post-marriage dates. She could have dismissed him unjustly and said, “Next!” just like those women, but she had the wisdom to understand that Roger genuinely didn’t know any better. He was clueless in the dating department and just as confused as she was in the beginning of a new relationship. Roger and Melissa have progressed slowly, and after four years of a slow courtship, were happily married on their five year anniversary. Roger was honorable, sensitive, sincere, and genuinely a kind person, and Melissa understood this. She had to jump through a few hoops to reel him in, but in order to get a good man and keep him, she knew that women need to adhere to the Power Shift and understand that they are not the only prize in the relationship—men like Roger are a prize, too.
Not all women in their 30s and 40s are in the same situation. Some
are searching for their Mr. Right, and some are married, trying to hang
on to their Mr. Used-To-Be-Right. But all will navigate the Power Shift
phenomenon in one form or another. One woman who joined my matchmaking
candidate poolcame to me, lost and utterly confused. She was
blindsided when her husband cheated on her and left their 17-year
marriage. She tried to dissect the series of events that led up to the
split, and in the process, revealed the many common mistakes married
women make who don’t heed the Power Shift. If not carefully tended to,
difficult issues can arise during a long-term marriage, including
midlife crises, sexual apathy, excessive weight gain, and a lack of
commonality. Ignoring the Power Shift in a marriage can damage or
destroy the relationship beyond repair if couples don’t take precautions
to prevent it.
Take Sheila for example, who was stunned when she joined my candidate
pool after the loss of her marriage. She met her husband, Jeff, in
college when they were both still in their early 20s. She described the
first time they met and how he took her breath away with his handsome
looks. “I knew the minute I laid eyes on him that he was the ‘one’,” she
remembered.
In the beginning, they spent every waking hour together and were
joined at the hip. Jeff was completely hot for her and made love to her
anywhere and everywhere, while also waiting on and adoring her. After
four years of early marital bliss, he got a job promotion and they moved
to the suburbs to start their family. Sheila didn’t need to work, and
she could focus on getting pregnant and raising children. That is when
everything changed.
The new baby arrived, and Jeff’s attention shifted to his financial
responsibilities at work. The romance began to slip as their sex life
gradually became less and less important. Sheila felt more like a mother
than a lover, and her physical attraction toward Jeff began to dwindle.
Jeff became grumpy and impatient when he was home, escaping into his
own world on the couch.
Then came baby number two. The second child only drew them deeper
into the morass. Sheila missed her pre-pregnancy body and blamed her
weight gain on Jeff’s lack of interest in her. She tried to lose the 30
pounds she’d gained after the first child but couldn’t bring her weight
down. It was hard to feel sexy when she felt fat. To Sheila’s relief,
Jeff stopped asking for sex. Next came the separate bedrooms so that
Jeff could sleep through the night and enjoy a fresh start in the
morning for work. Sheila knew the relationship was unfulfilling for both
of them, but she truly thought it would recover once the kids got older
and they had more time for each other.
As the years drifted by, Jeff became more and more distant and
increasingly worked later and later at night. Then one day when she was
going through some bills, she noticed daily calls on Jeff’s cell phone
to a number she didn’t recognize. She dialed the number that Jeff had
dialed each day for many months, only to hear a woman’s voice on the
other end answer and confirm her worst fears. Jeff was having an affair.
When confronted, Jeff didn’t deny it and instead blamed it on Sheila
and their unfulfilling marriage.
“You lost interest in all the things that used to make us happy,” Jeff
explained. “Including sex. I’ve spent time doing things with her that we
used to do. I wish it could have been you. I love you. I love the
children, but she is more interested in doing the things that I enjoy
than you are. We’ve drifted apart.”
“Well, you will leave her immediately,” Sheila demanded.
“No.”
The message was loud and clear. Jeff wanted out. What happened to
Sheila and Jeff’s marriage is not uncommon. Sheila took her man for
granted once they were married, thinking she had him hooked forever. She
thought he would never leave her once they had a family. But marriage
is never a prison. Staying in a marriage is always an option for both.
After you get your man, then you have to keep him. Sheila was now faced
with the reality that, as a 40-year-old mom, she would be single and
competing in a dating world where men are typically drawn to women 10 to
15 years younger.
Jeff left Sheila, but not for the other woman. The affair was a
symptom of a failing marriage, not the cause. He left both the mistress
and his wife and began a single life, trying to find a healthy, hot, fun
relationship with someone who appreciated him and didn’t take him for
granted. He was searching for someone who was young and sexual and had
her own career and interests, as well as someone who respected him for
the successful man he had become.
Couples who have been married for a long time like Sheila and Jeff
can encounter a long list of disappointments. Partners struggle with
their own loss of youth and wonder if they are missing out on life by
confining themselves to one person. Men going through a mid-life crisis
may respond by paying attention to other women who validate them. Wives
who understand the Power Shift phenomenon can fill this role and can
anticipate the crisis and, in all likelihood, avert it. Those who don’t
are likely to find themselves in divorce court. Sadly, Sheila didn’t
understand it and lost her husband.
Midlife Crisis
When men grow older, they may feel a desperate sense of their lives
coming to an end. Mid-life crises are real for men, and women who simply
ignore it, or worse yet ignore him, will lose him. As a man, his entire
self-value system has been based on conquest and strength. When he hits
a point in his life where he feels his youth slipping away, he thinks
he is missing out and fears he may have settled for less than he could
have achieved. He sees the end of his life for the first time, and it
terrifies him that he may be losing his virility.
A mid-life crisis translates into many difficult behaviors, which for
the wife, can prove challenging. He may secretly crave hot, sexy, women
while he still can get them, or he may want fast cars and adventure
before it’s too late. Many men become the “grumpy guy on the couch.” He
may take the relationship and his wife for granted and stop talking,
giving compliments, making romantic gestures, and offering to help.
Women have to lead by example to guide their husband through this
time—now is not the time to take him for granted. A marriage of 17 years
has many highs and lows, stages, and challenges. Even though he is the
grumpy guy on the couch, a woman needs to see him as her grumpy guy, and
she is going to have to be the strong one to help him get through the
crisis if she wants to keep the marriage.
Keeping It Sexual
When the marriage was young, Sheila and Jeff had sex all the time,
but as soon as Sheila let the sex slip, she ran the risk of losing her
man. She had no idea that her marriage had an expiration date.
Withholding sex is one of the biggest mistakes many women make during a
long-term marriage. Men are sexual, and by withholding sex, a wife is
not only hurting herself, but also the marriage. Sex glues a
relationship and should never be used as a weapon. A wife should
simultaneously support her husband and call him on his bad behavior
during his mid-life crisis, but she should also show him that she
appreciates him and that she is trying to keep the love alive. She
should let him know and show him that he needs to try, as well. Keeping
it sexual is the best tool women have in their arsenal.
Jeff was a scoundrel for cheating on Sheila, but Sheila should have
heeded the Power Shift in order to save her marriage. When men go
through mid-life crises, they may crave hot sex with younger women,
because it validates their sustained virility. But if the wife provides
the sex that he is craving, she can prevent him from acting out his
fantasy. Wives need to remember why men like younger women:
1. Younger women are less jaded.
2. Younger women smile more often.
3. Younger women are more fun.
4. Younger women are not stuck in their ways.
5. Younger women admire older men.
6. Younger women don’t compete with older men.
7. Younger women have younger bodies.
Sheila had all of those qualities when Jeff fell in love with her.
What happened?
Women Who Gain Excessive Weight
While Sheila may not have her younger body anymore, she could have
still kept her body hot. Men want hot. Men are visual and care about
looks. Women are likely to fall in love with a man in spite of his
looks, but men will fall in love with a woman because of her looks.
Whether he likes curves or bones, he will want her to maintain the
hotness that he initially fell for in the beginning. It is one thing if
she was heavy when they fell in love, and quite another if she let
herself go simply because she no longer cared to attract him. It is more
than just a vanity issue—it is a consideration issue. In asking him to
be faithful, she needs to be willing to put the effort it takes to
remain desirable.
The flip side of the coin is the man who cheats on his gorgeous wife
with a woman who can’t begin to compare in looks. These wives are not
only shocked and hurt by his infidelity, but also confused by the woman
he chose—with her?! She is a bulldog! Many men explain their actions and
choice by saying that the wife was a lazy lover and became boring in
bed. She was fun when they were young, but that was just because she was
beautiful and he was full of lust. As he got older and began to
appreciate the subtleties of great sex, he was no longer satisfied with
the one-sided effort. Being passive is fine sometimes, but a man wants
to surrender power on occasion, too. Sometimes, he wants to be worshiped
and adored, just like he used to worship and adore her. Men often want
their woman to take sexual control and show him what it is like to be
completely devoured and appreciated. His “bulldog” may have understood
this in ways that his wife did not, and his “bulldog” may have become
his friend during his time of crisis.
Women Should Work
I’m sure we’ve all heard the other side of the story, too. The wife
sacrificed her career to raise the children and support her husband
emotionally as he built his career, but after she turned 45, he dumped
her for a younger woman. That is a low blow. That is a rotten husband.
That is not, however, the whole story. As in Sheila’s case, they could
afford a nanny and a house cleaning service and Sheila could quit work
completely to become a stay-at-home mom. She didn’t want to worry about
bills and expenses and only wanted the task of raising their children.
After spending years raising kids in the suburbs, Sheila became bored.
Not only did she become bored, but she also became boring. She was
depressed and felt uninspired and lazy, and as a result, she continued
to gain the unwanted pounds. She felt lost and incomplete as a woman.
Jeff couldn’t help her because, in all honesty, he found her boring,
too. A non-working woman has been the ruin of many marriages and
long-term relationships. A woman needs a career or some outside
interests in order to maintain a strong sense of herself and hold the
interest of not only her husband, but also herself.
Jeff and Sheila’s initial attraction was based purely on lust. In the
beginning, they were both hot for each other and full of hormones.
However, as the years passed and sex waned, they found they had nothing
in common. They lacked an actual friendship to maintain the
relationship. Their relationship was all about raising the kids however,
once the kids grew older, there was nothing left to glue the bond. Jeff
may have become grumpy, but Sheila had become boring and sexually
apathetic—something no man finds attractive or appealing. It takes a
strong, committed couple to handle midlife crises, unwanted weight gain,
and boredom in the bedroom. Apparently, Sheila and Jeff didn’t have the
strength to hold it together. Before marriage, make sure the bond is
based on actual friendship if you want to maintain the relationship
through the ebbs and flows that will naturally occur. Make sure that
your Mr. Right doesn’t become your Mr. Used-to-Be-Right.
As reported on Oprah.com, San Francisco was rated the #5 best city in America to meet single men over 35. San Jose was #1 and Fremont, #6. So why do so many Bay Area women complain about finding and keeping a great guy?
It is because women in the Bay Area want “Guys With Game”. They want a cool, smooth, female magnet who melts her with his quick wit, humors her with his quick tongue, and well… leaves her with his quick exit. Forget Neil Strauss’ book, “The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pick-up Artists”. If Bay Area women want a really great guy, the kind who will love her faithfully and marry her, she should go for the “Guys With No Game”. These guys may have two left feet on the mating dance floor but “Guys With No Game” make great husbands.
Remember, the “Guys With Game” always have game – even when they are married, so expecting them to shed their super powers is like telling Super Man he can no longer fly. The word is “Game”, and by definition a game is a challenge, and a game is fun, and men who are good at it, have not only the admiration from their peers and the credibility of their prey but also the longing from those with whom they have not yet conquered. So when you go for the one who swept you off the floor and whisked you away with his charm and smooth moves, you have essentially married a female-netting champion. He is an Olympian with so many gold medal notches on his bedpost that his face adorns the Kellogg’s box of love. Be very careful what you wish for.
On the other hand, the “Guys With No Game” may still want to look at other women but you can be rest assured that if given the chance he will most certainly fail. You’ve seen him in action. You know his muddled moves will drive even the most desperate “cat in heat” away because you remember when he laid his lines on you. And you know that even if he does get tempted he will come running back to you after the inevitable rebuff because your love for him has to do with his kindness, generosity, and strength, not his game. You love him for all the qualities that do make for a good husband.
KRXA Radio Interview With The Client Who Married His Matchmaker
Sheila Gale interviews the client who married his matchmaker in this intimate and honest discussion of why he hired her, mistakes he made, and how they fell in love.
Listen to the KRXA radio interview on the The Sheila Show
My new husband’s college buddy came to visit the weekend before my wedding for one last hoorah before the big day.This being both of our second marriages my fiancé, thankfully didn’t feel the need to have a bachelor party instead opting for a weekend on the town with his old buddy from college.He asked me to join them and against my better instincts, I assented and joined in the revelry.This was a mistake.
Bachelor parties are a tradition that enable men to have one last night of single dome before tying the knot in commitment and fidelity to just one woman.Should you let your guy have a bachelor party?Is he wrong for wanting one? Should you join in the fun?
For many women, joining is exactly what they want.They are willing to let their guy have a bachelor party as long as she too can attend. By injecting herself in the event she essentially lays interference to any possible temptation by her future husband of strippers or hookers, or both who may also be in attendance.We used to call them stag parties and the guys would sit around watching porn movies projected onto a big screen, while getting drunk.Now it more likely involves strippers who after a certain amount of libations and monetary incentive, will resort to unsightly behavior better left to the imagination. Sounds like a party I could skip.Being around a room full of drunken, horny guys acting like college boys does not appeal to me in the slightest. In fact being around my guy in this environment would turn me off completely.I don’t want to see my guy revert to the asinine adolescence of his college years.
Which brings me back to the college buddy visit.So the buddy comes to town to party down and walk down memory lane with his best friend, my future husband.Memories of college days when they were, as described by others, dubbed, “Dumb and Dumber trying to get laid”. And the more they drank the easier it was for me to visualize this dynamic duo in their “Dumb and Dumber” prime. At first I tried to be a trooper and laugh along with the stories they told but in reality the stories were a big turn off and as the night wore on I not only began to dislike the energy of the college buddy, but also the behavior of my fiancé himself.I wasn’t intending to marry a college kid was I?.
So, in retrospect, I wish I hadn’t joined in at all. By joining them I had managed to sour the mood for the night, my future husband began to look like a toad, and my finance’s attempt to introduce me to his old buddy ended with the buddy not particularly liking me, or me him.
Thankfully, my husband didn’t want a bachelor party, but if he had, I wouldn’t have wanted to be the one to prevent a tradition, or right of passage, that was important to him.What kind of climate is that for forging into a marriage?Instead, I would let him have his party and would have stayed as far away as possible.Going would only present a side of him to me that I may not want to see, a side that is long gone with youth but still a side that he may want to re-visit with his college buddies on occasion- with out me next time.I don’t need to be buddies with all his friends.We have our own friends together, but just like women need some alone girlfriend time, men also need alone time with their buddies where they can be “Dumb and Dumber” remembering the years of trying to get laid.
San Francisco was ranked the number one best city to be single… If you want to stay single, especially if you are a single mother. A lot of men don’t want a woman with kids, and it doesn’t matter how lovely or adorable your child is. When a guy has a line of twenty-eight year old, never-married, hotties knocking on his door, a single mom can look like a lot of baggage. I was no exception.
Finally, I found a younger man to love. Six years my junior, he looked up to me and respected me and was attracted to my nurturing personality and guidance. We stayed married for six years before he began to stray. When he turned thirty-three, he noticed the evolution of his own power and wanted to explore it. I, on the other hand, was almost forty and no longer interested in going to nightclubs or participating in the singles scene. While my husband was attracting women as young as twenty, his interest in our marriage continually lessened. One night, he didn’t come home and stayed away for five more nights. If I’d had trouble hearing it before, his message was now loud and clear. He wanted out.
Suddenly, I was a divorced mom navigating the dating scene in what was inarguably the most difficult city to find love. I knew that if I wanted to get a good man, I had to get a plan and be proactive. I needed to find the diamonds in the city and create close intimate relationships with the winners. I needed a really great guy with a great attitude who would love me and take me away from the drudgery of dating. I needed…
… To become a matchmaker. What better way to weed out the duds and find the diamonds than starting my own matchmaking company? What better way to get inside the locker room and become one of the guys?
It worked. Men came out of the woodwork. Handsome and successful, they were great catches who were looking for love. I hit the jackpot. I had access to the best of the best, right at my fingertips. Not only was I becoming a friend, date coach, and matchmaker to the most eligible bachelors in the city, but I was also helping them find true love.
One client in particular was very intriguing. He was 47, 6’4”, handsome and sexy, and had many qualities girls desire. But, he could have won a “Razzie” in the dating department and needed a lot of personal date coaching. He wore his heart on his sleeve and didn’t filter what came out of his mouth. He literally talked his way out of any chance of closing a deal—with some really great women. I had no problems setting him up with women, but the girls were running for the hills after the first date. He had been married for twenty years and was recently divorced, without a clue how to navigate the dating scene. With his handsome, good looks, he could easily get a girl to go out with him, but inevitably, he would blow it. His list of dating tragedies could have been better categorized as dating disaster bloopers. One girl even jumped out of the car before it stopped moving. These women were chewing him up and spitting him out before he could get a second date, and I was stuck trying to help him through it.
Now granted, he needed a lot of coaching and obviously, he shouldn’t show up for a date with three martinis under his belt, but in my humble opinion, these women had no idea that a really great guy was hiding beneath the gaffes and goofs. They didn’t realize that with a little patience and careful tending, this “Neanderthal” could actually become Mr. Right. I saw a lovable, fun, engaging, sweet, guy who genuinely didn’t know any better. Yes, he was clueless, but he had a great heart and deep inside was still a confused little boy attempting to fumble his way in the scary world of adult dating. I had a keen insider’s view of this man. I was his professional matchmaker, and I could see Mr. Right beneath the Neanderthal exterior.
His lack of success wasn’t entirely his fault: He was dating women who didn’t know how to navigate the Power Shift. He was not the only one making mis-steps; his dates were making mis-steps, too. I knew him in a different context, but his dates didn’t see what I did and dismissed him out of hand. They were women in their late 30s who were behaving like princesses and, ultimately, were missing out on a relationship with a really good man.
“Let’s go younger,” he announced one day. “Let’s try that sweet spot between twenty-eight and thirty-three, when women still have their looks but haven’t become jaded or bitter. Let’s go for fun and for someone who will value me.”
He was already forty-seven, but he still had a tall trim body and a handsome face, and I didn’t have any reason to think that younger women wouldn’t find him attractive. Moreover, I was used to this request. Most of my clients wanted to meet women in this age group. Regardless of my clients’ ages, they all seem to want women in this same “sweet spot,” between twenty-eight and thirty-three.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s give it a try.”
He was able to date much younger women. He took twenty-eight year old Yvonne salsa dancing and shared drinks and intellectual banter with Nicole, a thirty-year-old law student. He had a lot of fun with these young women but in the end reported back to me saying that he felt they were too young.
“She isn’t ready for a relationship. She seems like she still wants to play the field.”
“Well,” I said, “you know, women in this age group are very sought after. They have a stream of guys trying to date them. They have all the power. They see you as just another guy in a long line.”
It’s a common dilemma. My client wanted a woman who was youthful, fun, and exciting. He wanted a woman who valued him and appreciated his power, but he also wanted a woman who had her own power. She should be a woman who was grounded and intelligent and someone with whom he could communicate as a friend. In short, he wanted a woman his age, but who looked and acted much younger.
During the turmoil with my own unraveling marriage, the dynamics of my relationship with this client shifted. Having just gone through a divorce himself, he was now the expert on this subject, and he started coaching me. He helped me through the pain of rejection and distracted me with trips to Lake Tahoe and Las Vegas and we became very close friends… But just friends.
From my perspective, he was funny, sensitive, and engaging. We had tons of chemistry, but I wasn’t attracted to him sexually. He was a little dorky at times, and I tended to go for macho men. I usually went for men like my father, who as a teenager, would get in fistfights for fun, or like my ex-husband, who was a competitive boxer. My client was a great friend, but I couldn’t imagine intimacy with him.
Absent of pressure to take this friendship to a different level, we had fun. Lots of fun! And we also had deep conversations about life and social dynamics. I developed a lot of respect for him. He was competent and obviously successful, owning multiple vacation properties, and he could be a guy’s guy, but he could also engage in pillow talk with me like a girlfriend. As time went on, I began to realize that I was falling. I was falling, slowly, ever so slowly, in love.
However, I knew that I had an uphill battle if I wanted a relationship with this guy. I knew that if I wanted to land this fish, I would have to pull out all the tips, tricks, and skills that I preach every day in my work as a matchmaker. I would have to play my cards right and put my money where my mouth was and forgive him for his missteps and misspoke words. He certainly had no “game” on the dating dance floor, but he was someone who had all the components of a great husband. I knew I needed to be youthful, but grounded, in my own wisdom, and admiring, yet independent. In essence, I had to become the woman that all men seek. I needed to become the wise and powerful woman with a youthful and open attitude they desired. For the first time, I had to test my theories by putting them into practice in my own life.
San Francisco may not be an easy city for single women, but a woman who uses her heart instead of her pride will go a long way in finding her Mr. Right. I turned a Neanderthal into “Cary Grant” and married him. Sometimes, a girl has to be proactive if she wants to get and marry a really great guy. My goal now is to help my other clients morph into the Mr. Right women crave and to help the women they date see the potential “Cary Grant” glimmering within the Neanderthal exterior.
Being in the business of getting high-net-worth men married off has made me uniquely privy to the all important, and often contentious, prenuptial agreement. Even saying the word can sour many a love struck couples. But the reality is that prenups are important and should be handled with an open mind and an understanding from each side’s perspective.
I have had several clients tell me the horrors they experienced during divorces, sans a prenuptial agreement. One in particular was so disturbing I even wanted to go to court for him. He was a successful surgeon and fell in love and married a nurse on his floor at work. She was already 35 when they married and they never had children during their rocky, 5-year marriage. Because California law states that married couples split assets 50%-50% upon divorce, she was not only entitled to monthly alimony payments, half of his money, half of his properties, but also half of his practice. These were all assets that he had before their short marriage. One’s business is an asset just like any other and so in the case of a divorce, the business is split as well. And he had a business partner who, after the divorce had to share the ownership and control with the bitter ex wife too. If he would have removed or limited any claim to any portion of the value of the business in a prenup, he would have not only saved himself, but also his partner and his practice.
It is one thing when you marry young and neither has money and you build a family and buy a house, accumulating wealth together, with one supporting the other through school, or one manning the house while the other works. This is a case where the 50%- 50% asset division makes sense. But in the case where one, or both persons already has assets before coming into the marriage then communal property doesn’t make sense and a premarital agreement is important. Protecting your wealth, which you worked hard for your entire life, from falling into the hands of an ex who now hates you is just a smart thing to do. No matter how much in love you are before the marriage, and no matter how sure you are that a split will never occur, you have to protect yourself from the ‘what if” scenario. Even the most wonderful man or woman in the world can spin out and become miserable to live with over time.
If both parties have assets before coming in to the marriage it can be pretty straightforward. If they divorce, they only get what they brought into the marriage and they divide equally, or quit claim each other from, what they accumulate during the marriage. Not too complicated. But when one person has assets and the other doesn’t it can get tricky. It wouldn’t be fair for a woman to spend her youth with a man, building a home with him, only to have him boot her out penniless, for a younger woman when she gets old. This is the risk of having a flat out, “You get nothing in the case of divorce,” scenario. One candidate of mine got married in her early 40s after signing a prenup that waived all claims to his assets and during the next 10 years her husband acquired large amounts of wealth. Feeling very suave, he began using his money to lure young women into his bed and after his wife caught him he promptly left her for a 24 year old! She was left in her fifties, with out a job or a place to live, regretting the signing of their iron-clad prenup.
I had another client who married one of my candidates with a prenup that waived her claim to all assets and alimony, and all future claims to, or ownership of any property they acquired through out the marriage. This prenup was good for the husband because it gave the bride incentive to be a good wife, but bad for the bride because it didn’t give the groom any incentive to be a good husband. He could leave her high and dry at any moment and she wouldn’t have anything more than years and tears on her face, making it more challenging to replace him. Like any deal, it has to be fair and ethical for both sides.
I had one client who presented a prenup to his bride-to-be, a month before the wedding causing her to burst into tears. His prenup kept her from all his assets, any future property they acquired during the marriage, any alimony payments and kept her out of his will if he should die before her. He preferred to leave his assets to his three children from a previous marriage. This was complicated by the fact that the children were minors and so the assets would essentially be in the hands of the contentious ex wife if he died prematurely. My client was so paranoid about his future wife using him for money that he was ‘throwing the baby out with the bathwater” so to speak. He ended up causing irreparable damage during the negotiation cycle so that the prenup was never signed and the marriage plans were abandoned altogether.
These are all examples of pre marital agreements, or lack thereof, going awry. There are good examples though too, that can be used as templates for crafting a protective prenup that is fair, compassionate and honorable. Some prenups have milestones in place so that if the spouses stay married for five years, for example, a prenup might reward the wife more money, and even more if they stay together for 10 years, and so on. That gives the wife an incentive to stay in the marriage and be a good wife. There is a danger however, if the husband starts getting bored with the marriage at year five, he would have an incentive to divorce her rather than hang in there because the longer they stay married the harder his fiscal punishment would be in a future split.
Another kind of prenup could be drafted with milestones that stipulate the wife doesn’t get anything if she leaves him, but gets incrementally more alimony over the years if he leaves her. This would deter both parties from initiating a split. However one could argue that he could just behave badly and force her to leave him rather than leave her. I had one candidate who signed a prenup like this and her husband simply quit coming home rather than legally filing for divorce. Therefore he wasn’t actually “leaving her” and didn’t have to give her anything according to the prenup.She left him anyway and got - zip.
A “sunset clause,” is where the prenup states that the agreement’s going to last for a certain amount of time, say, ten years, and then they’re not going to have it anymore at all. This rides on the assumption that if the couple makes it this far, they’re gong to make it the distance. This is a good faith measure showing the spouse with lesser assets that trust and faith will evolve over time. This can be dangerous however, if an unhappy wife waits until the 11th year and then leaves her husband and gets half of his assets and cashes in on his monthly alimony payments.
Drafting the right prenup for your relationship should be an individual document according to individual circumstances. The number one thing to remember is that the time before a marriage is supposed to be a romantic one and so negotiating the details of the prenup should not take an emotional toll on the relationship. Honesty about what you each have, honesty about what you each want, and compassion for the other’s interests are all critical for drafting a fair agreement that protects both parties. The one who pushes for an unfair prenup will run the risk of seeming distrustful, and lacking commitment to the marriage.
Making sure the prenup holds up in court after a divorce is equally important. Otherwise, what is the use of the document? Each party should have their own lawyer, there should be ample time to negotiate the document before the wedding date, and the agreement should not leave either party destitute. No matter what state you’re in, the courts look for equity to make sure that one spouse is not taking advantage of the other.
teaching them that they were valuable with their thoughts and
prospective employer checks references for a job applicant. Think of all the time, money and heartache that would be saved if everyone got the real story from a former wife or ex boyfriend. After all, checking applicants’ references is one of the most important procedures in the hiring process for a job. Is marriage really any different? Get the goods on a mate before you tie the knot. Qualifying a fiancé’s attitude, skills, and attendance record before taking a serious plunge shows due diligence on your part and will protect you from being a next, ex husband or ex wife.
do so many Bay Area women complain about finding and keeping a great guy?
Stumble it!
