SECRETS

ABOUT

MEN

EVERY

WOMAN

SHOULD

KNOW

Barbara De Angelis, Ph.D.

TO JEFFREY

for teaching me that I don't have to

chase after love anymore

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Introduction

SECRETS ABOUT HOW WOMEN RELATE TO MEN

1 Men: The Final Frontier

2 The Six Biggest Mistakes Women Make with Men

3 Filling in the Emotional Blanks: How to Stop Giving More Than You Get in Love

SECRETS ABOUT MEN

4 Solving the Three Biggest Mysteries About Men

5 Secrets About Men and Sex

6 Men’s Top Twenty Sexual Turn-offs

SECRETS ABOUT MEN AND WOMEN TOGETHER

7 Secrets for Communicating with Men

8 Helping the Man You Love Open Up

9 Becoming the Powerful Woman You Were Meant to Be

Acknowledgements

By the same Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

INTRODUCTION

Have you ever wished that men would come with instruction booklets? If you buy a toaster, or an answer machine, it’s always accompanied by a nice little booklet that helps you understand the product, explains its features, and tells you how to avoid hurting yourself when you use it. Well what about men as women “use” men more than any other “appliances”, yet we’re expected to work out how they work all by ourselves.

Every day of our lives, you and I deal with men – our husbands or boyfriends, our bosses or employers, our fathers, our sons, our friends. We try to understand them, to take care of them, to love them – and to get them to love us back. When it works, we think men are fantastic, and we’re sure we couldn’t live without them. When it doesn’t work, we think men are impossible, and that we’d be much better off never having to deal with them at all. If you’re like me, I’m sure at some point in your life you’ve thrown your hands up in frustration and felt like saying, “Send this man back to the factory – he’s defective! There must be a part missing, because he sure isn’t functioning properly,” or, “Maybe this model has been discontinued – I can’t make him work right.”

As a woman you have three choices as to how you are going to deal with the men in your lifetime:

Choice #1: You can get angry at the men in your life for driving you crazy and spend your time complaining about them. (This is fun for a few hours, but after a few years, it loses its attraction.)

Choice #2: You can give up men entirely and buy a nice fluffy dog. (This is cheaper, and less work, but not very fulfilling.)

Choice #3: You can decide to learn everything there is to know about understanding and getting along with men, so that you can have the wonderful relationships you deserve.

I’ve spent the last fifteen years working with tens of thousands of men and women, learning about what makes relationships succeed and what makes them fail. It’s taken me a long time to understand men. It’s been a difficult and often painful journey – I’ve made a lot of mistakes along the way in my own relationships with men.

I’m happy to say that not only have I survived, I’ve emerged from my struggle with a new understanding of men that has changed my life, and I want to share the things I’ve learned with you. I hope Secrets About Men Every Woman Should Know will be the instruction manual about men that you’ve been looking for. May it help you to create the loving relationship with a man that you’ve always dreamed of.

SECRETS ABOUT HOW WOMEN RELATE TO MEN

1 Men: The Final Frontier

May you live in changing times. – Chinese curse

Imagine for a moment that you’ve been chosen to be part of an expedition to another planet. All that’s known about the planet is that it is inhabited by beings whose physical appearance is similar to yours. After a long journey through space, you arrive at this faraway world. You step out of your spaceship and are greeted by pleasant-looking creatures who do indeed closely resemble your own species. Much to your amazement, they even appear to be speaking English.

Over the next few hours, you attempt to talk and interact with these beings. At first, you seem to be getting along well. But as more time passes, the tension between you and them begins to mount. Even though these aliens seem to understand the English language, they constantly misunderstand your attempts to communicate with them – you say one thing, and they hear another; you try to express curiosity, for instance, and they interpret it as criticism. As you observe these beings interacting with one another, the differences between you and them become even more apparent. Your own species has been trained to value cooperation and emotional sensitivity – these beings seem always to be in competition with each other. You’ve been taught to share your feelings – they seem to work hard at hiding theirs. The more time you spend with these unusual creatures, the more frustrated you become.

Finally, you and your exploration team decide to depart from this strange and unsettling place. You’re certain that these beings will be happy to see you go, since they didn’t show much enthusiasm toward you during your visit. But to your great surprise, they become very sad when you announce that you are leaving, insist that they loved the time they spent with you, and beg you not to depart. In spite of their protests, you board your spaceship, more confused than ever. And as you settle back into your seat and feel the rocket engines lift the steel craft back into space, you think to yourself, That was the strangest group of people I’ve ever met. They said one thing and felt another. They acted like they didn’t care, but they did. They didn’t seem to enjoy having us around, but were unhappy when we left. Well, they were interesting to visit, but I sure wouldn’t want to live with them.

Starting Your Adventure into the World of Men

Well, in case you haven’t figured it out yet, the aliens have landed and are living among us – they’re called “men.” And when you consider the tremendous biological, psychological, and sociological differences between us, men might as well be from another planet. Stop and think for a minute about the odds of your getting along with someone who came from a very different background, was brought up with completely different values, and was taught to think, behave, and communicate in a totally different style from your own. Next to impossible, right? Yet every day of our lives, we attempt to challenge these odds by having relationships with men. The truth is, it’s a miracle that we get along at all!

The differences between men and women have existed throughout the ages, as I explain in the remainder of this chapter. For thousands of years, women accepted these differences, adapted to them, and took on certain roles that were expected of us. But sometime around the beginning of the twentieth century a revolution took place, a revolution in the way women saw themselves and insisted on being seen by men. For the first time, women were demanding equality in all aspects of life, and in the process, were breaking out of those culturally stereotyped roles they and their mothers and their grandmothers and their great-grandmothers had complacently accepted. The later introduction of effective birth control methods and the flow of women into the work force gave women reproductive and economic freedom from dependance on men.

And so, a crisis in male-female relationships was born. Men were used to being in control, and expected women to behave submissively. Now women were saying, “No, I don’t want to act that way anymore.” The truth was that we still weren’t sure of how we were supposed to act as “new women.” We were confused, and our confusion made the men in our lives even more perplexed. It’s as if we were still playing the same game, but all the old rules were thrown out, and we hadn’t finished making up the new ones yet. One minute we wanted to be liberated; the next, we wanted to be taken care of. We went to work and learned to support ourselves, but we still expected a man to hold the door for us on the way into our office. We begged men to open up and show us their vulnerabilities, but found ourselves getting turned off when they started sounding weak. And while our own double standards bothered us, they drove men crazy.

As modern women, we are on the way to mastering our professional and financial lives. But when it comes to our relationships with men, we’re more frustrated than ever, and sometimes it seems as if we haven’t made any progress at all. As one very successful female business executive said to me recently, “I can figure out how to make my company hundreds of thousands of dollars and how to buy my own condominium, but I still can’t figure out how to have a good relationship with a man!” For this woman, as well as for many of us, men are the “final frontier,” the one area that remains an untamed mystery in our lives.

Warning: This is not a “men are jerks” book! It isn’t about blaming men, or making them wrong for how they behave

INSTEAD, IT’S A COLLECTION OF VALUABLE INFORMATION THAT I’VE SHARED WITH THOUSANDS OF WOMEN, INFORMATION THAT HAS HELPED THEM UNDERSTAND WHY MEN ARE THE WAY THEY ARE, AND TAUGHT THEM NEW WAYS TO RELATE TO MEN.

Why Men Are the Way They Are

Have you ever wondered why men prefer to drive around lost for hours rather than stop and ask for directions?

Have you ever suspected that the men who try to control you are secretly afraid of the power you have over them?

Have you ever wondered why men have such a hard time letting you get really close to them?

Have you ever wondered why men get so upset when they are trying to concentrate on something and you try to get them to pay attention to you?

Have you ever asked yourself why a man will insist he isn’t worried or upset when you absolutely know he is?

If you answered yes to any of the above questions, you aren’t alone. Every woman knows the frustration of looking at the man she loves and feeling like she cannot understand why he is the way he is. The first thing you need to know is:

Men aren’t the way they are because they want to drive women crazy; they’ve been trained to be that way for thousands of years. And that training makes it very difficult for men to be intimate

Here, then, is some background information. Let’s look at:

1 Why I Call Men “The Solitary Hunter” and “The Displaced Warrior”

2 Why Men Have Always Dominated Women

3 How Men Are Trained to Be Unfit for Love

4 How TV Teaches Us Stereotyped Sex Roles

Man: The Solitary Hunter

The time is thousands of years ago. The earth is an often violent, changing planet complete with volcanos, ice storms, floods, and harsh extremes of climate. Wild animals roam freely, far outnumbering the still-meager population of human beings, who live in small groupings whenever they can find shelter. The world is a primitive place, where survival of the fittest is the only reality.

Huddled inside a cave on a hillside, a family eats their one meal of the day – the last few scraps of meat from a wild deer killed by the male two days before. The meat is all that is left from that hunt. The male has tried unsuccessfully to find more food, but hunting is difficult in this weather. It’s been snowing for a week, and most of the animals have left and gone south to warmer valleys. But as he watches his woman and their two small children greedily lick every morsel from their fingers, he knows what he must do – he must go out and hunt, and he must not come back until he has killed. If he fails, he and his family will die, and will be eaten themselves by the wolves he hears howling every night.

Suddenly, the male leaps toward the entrance to the cave, his body poised for attack – he thinks he hears a suspicious sound. Perhaps it is another, more powerful male, hoping to kill him and take his woman and the cave for his own. Or perhaps it is a wolf or a lion, ready to attack and satisfy its hunger. Or perhaps it is just the wind; he cannot be sure. He is never sure. That is why he will not sit with his back toward the cave opening, but always faces it so he can see an approaching threat. That is why, even when he sleeps, he does not rest totally – part of him is always listening for sounds of danger.

He squats near the fire again. His heart is pounding in his chest. He is afraid; he is always afraid. But as he looks at his woman and his children, he knows he must never show them his fear. Without his courage, they would lose all hope. Without him, they are as good as dead. No, he must be strong. He must remember who he is. He is a man. He is a hunter.

THE DISPLACED WARRIOR

The life of a man in modern society seems to bear no resemblance to the life lived by this primitive ancestor. And yet, up until not very long ago, man was still hunting and killing the food for his family; he had to be ready to defend them physically in times of war.

Twentieth-century man doesn’t need to hunt or fight. The skills for which he has been trained and bred for centuries are no longer necessary. There are no battles; there is no enemy; there is no challenge. He is the “displaced warrior.”

Is it any wonder, then, that women voice the following complaints about the men in their lives?

“He always seems so defensive – no matter what I say, he seems ready for a fight.”

“He has such a hard time opening up and showing me his feelings – it’s as if he always has to look so strong.”

“I wish my husband would reach out to other men for friendship, but he can’t seem to get close to men.”

“Bob takes his work so seriously that it drives me crazy. I try to get him to lighten up about it, but he acts like it’s a matter of life and death whether he gets a report done today or tomorrow.”

“My boyfriend gets so angry when he feels he’s being criticized or mistreated or challenged by someone – he interprets any kind of disagreement as an attack, and he attacks back with sarcasm and by acting like a bully.”

“When my husband is upset about something, he just bottles it up inside. He becomes cold and distant, and it takes me days of nagging before he’ll admit what’s bothering him.”

I’m sure you can see the remnants of the hunter-warrior mentality in the attitudes and behavior of these twentieth-century men. They are still being affected by forces within themselves that they may be totally unaware of. One theory is that human beings have a “genetic memory,” some kind of consciousness passed down through the centuries that links an accountant living a quiet life in the suburbs with every relative he’s ever had, all the way back to his primitive relatives of thousands of years ago.

It’s as if men “remember” those primitive impulses to defend, to never show weakness, to always stay in control, and unconsciously act these out in their everyday lives

Why Men Choose Certain Seats in Restaurants

Several years ago I had an experience that absolutely convinced me that genetic memory must exist. At the time I was in a relationship with a man who was a teacher and a writer. Every time we’d go out for dinner, I’d notice something strange. We’d enter the restaurant, the waiter would show us to our table, and I would sit down in whatever chair the waiter held out for me. If my chair had its back to most of the restaurant, my partner would take the other chair. But if my chair was the one that offered a better view of the entire restaurant, my partner would look very uncomfortable and ask if we could switch seats. The first few times this occurred I didn’t mind, and changed seats with him. But one night I was in kind of a stubborn mood, and when he asked if he could sit in the chair against the wall that looked out over the whole restaurant, I said, “No, I want this chair. You always get the nice views, and can watch everybody. This time I want to sit here.”

My partner reluctantly agreed, and sat down in the chair opposite me with his back to the restaurant. We ordered our meal and I began talking about my day, and other light topics of conversation, when I noticed how uncomfortable he looked. He was literally squirming in his seat. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I just don’t like sitting here, I can’t relax,” he replied.

“I don’t understand – what’s so terrible about sitting in that chair?”

“I can’t see anything,” he explained, “and I feel funny having my back to the room like this – it makes me nervous.”

For the next half hour we analyzed the funny feeling my partner had about sitting with his back toward the room, and what we discovered surprised us both. Although this man had never thought about it before, he always made a point of sitting so he could see whatever room he was in, whether in a restaurant or at a party. Although his rational mind knew there was no actual threat of danger in these situations, he still did not feel safe with his back turned – it went against something very deep inside him to even think about sitting that way. It was as if he could hear a voice in his head warning, Watch out! Stay alert!

Now, this guy was not what you might consider a typically “macho” man – he was a gentle, scholarly person. He insisted that he’d never been trained to “sit defensively” by his father or by the army, and that until I’d pointed it out he’d never even been aware of what he was doing. We couldn’t come up with any other explanation than the genetic memory theory – he knew he shouldn’t turn his back to the “opening of the cave.”

Since that time I’ve made a point of asking men about their seating choices in restaurants, and the majority of them agree that they do feel more comfortable sitting so they can have a clear view of the room, and do not like sitting with their backs to it. You might want to do your own research on this for fun. (Of course, if you ever want to make a man uncomfortable on purpose, insist that he take the seat with its back to the room, and watch him squirm!)

Why Men Have Always Dominated Women

Until the introduction of birth control, women’s and men’s roles were determined by the simple fact that women could get pregnant and bear children, and men could not. Let’s look in on Jack and Jill Flintstone as they hunt and work together. If Jill doesn’t want to be totally dominated by Jack, she’d better not have sex with him – because once she has sex, she’ll get pregnant, and her equal status will disappear. Soon she will become heavy and be unable to run. Then she will have a baby and will have to nurse it and care for it, preventing her from going out and gathering food with Jack. By the time she has three or four children, she will become dependent on Jack for everything, since all of her time will be taken up with child care.

Meanwhile, Jack and all of his male friends have the ultimate power over the women for one reason – they find, kill, and distribute the meat. And the hunter who kills the most meat becomes the chief. If you’re not nice to these guys, and you don’t follow their rules, they can decide not to give you any meat, and you die. It’s that simple. Perhaps this is why some men still become enraged at the thought of their wives going out to work; their ultimate form of control is threatened when she can bring home her own “bacon.” Of course, centuries after men stopped hunting for their food, women were still bound to their homes because of their maternal and nursing capacities. The men had the economic power in the relationship – therefore, they were in control.

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPLANATION FOR WHY MEN DOMINATE WOMEN

Have you ever suspected that a man who was treating you badly and putting you down was secretly jealous of you, even threatened by you? Many theories suggest that men have been driven to dominate women because of a deep envy and awe of women’s creative power. Women’s bodies go through mysterious changes that men cannot understand; women seem to be endowed with certain intuitive and creative abilities men do not have; and most of all, women can conceive and give birth, certainly the most magical feat there is – all of these factors may contribute to the male need to dominate women.

More recent is the theory that male dominance grows out of a man’s need to avoid identifying with the feminine and reflects every man’s drive to break away from his mother. Because the mother is the primary model and relationship for a little boy, he will identify with her, with the feminine, unless he does something to separate himself from her. We’ve all seen this behavior in boys approaching puberty – they don’t want to be kissed or touched by their mothers; they even insist they hate their mothers in an attempt to define themselves as different, as men. Nancy Chodorow, author of The Reproduction of Mothering, explains.

Internally, the boy tries to reject his mother and deny his attachment to her and the strong dependency on her that he still feels … He does this by repressing whatever he takes to be feminine inside himself, and importantly, by denigrating whatever he considers to be feminine in the outside world.

The rebellious little boy in men, still seeking to prove he is not his mother, continues to attempt to dominate women and see them as inferior as a way of saying, “See, since I have control over you, I am better than you. I am not you!”

Later in this book, I’ll explain how the little boy’s desire for autonomy from Mommy still affects the behavior of the grown-up men we love.

How Men Are Trained to Be Unfit for Love

“It’s a boy!” the doctor announces, and from that moment on, this tiny male person is treated differently from the baby girl in the next delivery room. Consider these facts, compiled from a variety of research studies.

Parents of newborn male babies tend to describe their sons as firmer, larger, more alert, stronger, and hardier. Parents of newborn female babies describe their daughters as adorable, softer, smaller, prettier, and more delicate. The parents actually believe their child exhibits these characteristics, even though according to the hospital reports, there is usually little or no difference between the two groups of infants.

Parents tend to place more demands on little boys than on little girls, expecting them to be more responsible and take more risks.

Parents push boys rather than girls to be independent. They offer less comfort to sons than to daughters when the child is frightened or injured, and they give boys greater freedom at an earlier age than they do girls.

Parents encourage boys to control their emotions, and girls to express theirs. Boys are taught that it isn’t manly to feel strong emotions, not only those emotions considered “weak” such as fear or sadness, but even passion, need, and intense love. In his book Male Sexuality, Dr. Bernie Zilbergeld describes how boys are trained to view showing their feelings:

(They) learn early that only a narrow range of emotion is permitted … aggressiveness, competitiveness, anger, … and the feelings associated with being in control. As we grow older, sexual feelings are added to the list. weakness, confusion, fear, vulnerability, tenderness, compassion and sensuality are allowed only to girls and women. A boy who exhibits any such traits is likely to be made fun of and called a sissy or a girl (and what could be more devastating?).

These days many new parents attempt to avoid stereotyping their children based on gender. But most of the adult men you and I are having relationships with are victims of this early-childhood conditioning.

How TV Teaches Us Sex Roles

As young children, most of us learned how to view ourselves as males and females not only from our parents but from the thousands of hours we spent watching television. There have been some fascinating studies of how men and women are portrayed on TV, and the results are disturbing:

Male characters are generally shown in ambitious, adventuresome, strong, and dominant roles, while females are cast in dependent, submissive, and weak roles.

Males are engaged in exciting activities for which they receive great rewards, while females are involved in activities that support or are less important than the men’s, and for which they receive little reward.

Television commercials present women as worried, tense, and concerned about problems such as toilet bowl odor, migraine headaches, and ring around the collar, while men are shown as authoritative, knowledgeable, and macho.

The TV Western, a favorite with young boys in the 1950s and 60s, portrayed the all-American hero, the cowboy, as a loner, doing what needed to be done, riding off into the sunset alone, with no commitments, no ties – free.

Picture the man in your life during the years when he was a little boy, sprawled in front of the TV set watching program after program, and commercials in between, all depicting men as strong, cool, unemotional, always in control, afraid of nothing. Whether his hero was the Lone Ranger, Zorro, Batman, Maverick, the boys of Bonanza, Peter Gunn, or any larger-than-life cowboy, detective or tough guy, your man knew how he wanted to be when he grew up. By the way, these programs never showed Zorro’s wife, or the Lone Ranger’s girlfriend. No, for these TV role models, intimacy meant having a horse, or maybe a male sidekick, but never a woman.

In case the man in your life grew up with radio rather than TV, he isn’t off the hook – radio dramas contained the same kinds of stereotypes as TV programs, which grew out of the radio days.

The Challenge of Changing Times

By now you’re beginning to understand a lot more about why men are the way they are – why “to be a man” means to hide one’s emotions, to fight off the competition, to struggle against the harsh world and survive, to cling to one’s independence, to stay in control. Men are pulled by habits passed down from generation to generation, and are conditioned by their parents and society, which teach them values that close them off to intimacy.

By deciding to be the “real man” society has taught him he must be, a man chooses to embody the very qualities that make it impossible for him to open up and experience true intimacy with the woman he loves

This chart helps illustrate the tremendous emotional challenge men are facing today:

So here we are, modern women, telling the men in our lives that the characteristics they’ve worked so hard to cultivate are the very ones that drive us crazy and turn us off; and that the characteristics we really want to see them develop are the ones they have been taught to see as “weak” and “unmanly” and have fought so hard to avoid. When you think about it this way, it’s a lot easier to understand why men seem to resist changing, why they feel that we’re pressuring them unfairly, why they appear to be so bad at simple relationship skills that are so simple for us.

We expect men to be competent in skills for which they have absolutely no training – the very skills, it so happens, that women are best at – the ability to express emotion, to be intimate, to nurture, and to love

Over the past ten years I’ve worked with thousands of men, and I can assure you that men do want to open up, to learn to fell deeply and express those feelings to the women they love. But the process is a difficult, even frightening one for them, and I hope that, after reading this chapter, you can understand why. The men in your life need all of the compassion, patience, and support you can find in your heart, to help them open theirs.

The Chinese curse at the beginning of this chapter states: “May you live in changing times,” and these times are certainly changing. The old ways of living and loving don’t work anymore, and we still haven’t figured out the new ways. In the meantime we’re still trying to have relationships, and we’re experiencing a lot of disappointment and confusion in the process. But the challenge of change lies in the incredible opportunity it offers us for new levels of wisdom and new heights of personal growth. This book is dedicated to helping you turn your challenges with men into exciting new adventures in loving.

2 The Six Biggest Mistakes Women Make with Men

Do you ever suspect that everything you’ve been taught about how to behave with men is wrong?

Do you ever do something you are sure will please a man, and feel shocked when he reacts to it so negatively?

Do you ever feel that you must have received, a bad set of “instructions” for how to successfully relate to men, because nothing you try seems to work the way it’s supposed to?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you’re not alone. I’ve worked with thousands of women in my seminars and support groups, and most of them knew that there was something very wrong in the way they related to men but weren’t sure what was wrong or how to change it. Part of improving your relationship with a man, whether it’s your husband, your boss, your boyfriend, your father, or your coworker, is not just understanding his behavior but taking an honest look at your own behavior as well.

How Healthy Are Your Relationships with Men?

Here’s a quiz designed to reveal the strengths and weaknesses in your relationships with the men in your life. For each question, select one of the following responses:

1 Almost always

2 Frequently

3 Occasionally

4 Rarely

5 Almost never

Answer each question as honestly as you can, choosing the response that applies to you most of the time. That means, don’t answer based on how you know you should behave, but on how you usually behave.

1 When I’m around a man I really like or am attracted to, I lose part of myself by censoring my communications, seeking approval, sacrificing my needs, or becoming much more self-conscious.

2 I find myself feeling responsible for the men in my life, and making sure they get done what they need to.

3 I allow men to get away with treating me in ways I’d never tolerate being treated by a woman.

4 I use my sexuality to get my way with men by flirting, teasing, using body language, etc.

5 I allow my fear of how a man might react to prevent me from doing what I want to do or saying what I really feel around him.

6 I feel resentful toward men for things they’ve done to me in the past, or for how they treat me now.

7 I act helpless, overwhelmed, or confused around men to get love or attention or to avoid dealing with their anger toward me.

8 I feel I receive all the respect and appreciation I deserve from the men in my life.

9 I always ask for what I want and need from the men I care about.

10 When I’m around powerful men (boss, Dad, authority figures), I feel relaxed and confident in myself. I don’t alter my behavior so that I appear either unusually pushy and aggressive or unusually timid.

Now, add up your total score. For questions 1 through 7, give yourself the following points:

A: 2 points

B: 4 points

C: 6 points

D: 8 points

E: 10 points

For questions 8 through 10, give yourself the following points:

A: 10 points

B: 8 points

C: 6 points

D: 4 points

E: 2 points

80-100 points: CONGRATULATIONS! Your hard work on yourself and your relationships has paid off, and you’ve learned how to be a powerful yet loving woman with the men in your life. You maintain a strong sense of yourself even when you’re around men who are important to you, and you know that good communication is essential for creating healthy and lasting relationships. To avoid future problems, work on those areas in which you had a lower score.

60-79 points: YOUR RELATIONSHIPS WITH MEN AREN’T BAD, BUT THEY COULD BE A LOT BETTER. Most women fall into this category. There are some warning signs you need to pay attention to, so that in time bigger problems don’t erupt. Work on expressing yourself and your needs more completely, and avoid the six mistakes women make with men, discussed later in this chapter. You deserve much more love than you’ve been asking for.

40-59 points: YOUR RELATIONSHIPS WITH MEN ARE IN SERIOUS TROUBLE. You have some bad emotional habits that are keeping you from receiving the love and appreciation you deserve. You’ll never get the respect you want if you continue to give up your power around men, behave like a doormat and pretend everything is fine. It’s time to make a change. The first step is to be honest with yourself about how dissatisfied you really are. Practice everything you learn from this book, ask your friends for support, and make a commitment to start living as the powerful woman you are meant to be.

39 points or below: EMERGENCY! YOUR RELATIONSHIPS WITH MEN ARE UNHEALTHY. You’ve been in pain and felt unloved for so long that you’ve probably forgotten what it feels like to be yourself around a man you really care about. You may not even know what a healthy relationship with a man is. It’s time to take immediate action, and you can’t do it alone. Reach out to other women for help; find a loving and experienced therapist; join some support groups; use this book as much as possible, and do whatever you can to begin to love yourself again. Fight off that numbness, negativity, and resentment. Stop playing the victim! Only you can make the change. You deserve much more than this.

I suggest you take this quiz over again from time to time to measure your progress in becoming a more powerful woman. First put the principles in this book into practice, and then come back to the quiz several weeks later. You should notice some real improvement reflected in a higher score, and you’ll be well on your way to creating the loving relationships with men that you deserve.

DO YOU BRING OUT THE WORST IN THE MEN YOU LOVE?

Whether you’re aware of it or not, you may be bringing out the worst in the men you love by how you behave around them.

I am not saying that the problems in relationships are all the women’s fault, or that how we behave is “wrong” or “bad,” or that men don’t need to change and we do. I am saying that how women act around men is 50 percent of the problem.

Many of the behaviors we’ve adopted to try to be “loving women” are the very behaviors that are destructive to our relationships with men

Of course, we don’t make these mistakes on purpose. Most of us were taught these behavior patterns by our mothers, and their mothers before them, but when we act out these old roles and habits, they end up making us feel bad about ourselves as women, and actually encourage men to treat us badly.

THE 6 BIGGEST MISTAKES WOMEN MAKE WITH MEN

1 WOMEN ACT LIKE MOTHERS AND TREAT MEN LIKE CHILDREN

2 WOMEN SACRIFICE WHO THEY ARE AND PUT THEMSELVES SECOND IN IMPORTANCE TO THE MAN THEY LOVE

3 WOMEN FALL IN LOVE WITH A MAN’S POTENTIAL

4 WOMEN COVER UP THEIR EXCELLENCE AND COMPETENCE

5 WOMEN GIVE UP THEIR POWER

6 WOMEN ACT LIKE LITTLE GIRLS TO GET WHAT THEY WANT FROM MEN

MISTAKE 1
Women Act like Mothers and Treat Men like Children

Have you ever said any of the following things to a man?

“Honey, did you remember your wallet?”

“Don’t forget to pick up the dry cleaning on the way home.”

“Did you remember to pay that overdue electric bill?”

“Do you realize the petrol is almost on empty?”

“You didn’t remember to make reservations? Never mind, I’ll call for you.”

“How many times do I have to remind you not to leave those wet towels on the floor?”

“Don’t you think you’re going to be cold with that light jacket on?”

If you’re like me, you’re cringing with guilt after reading this list. Mistake #1 is one of the most common and destructive habits we have with men. We treat men like children; we assume they can’t take care of themselves; we act as if they are incompetent, and that they need us to run their lives for them.

Now, I know what you’re thinking - that in many cases, these assumptions are true! And you may be right. But that’s not the point. What’s important is this:

WHEN YOU TREAT A MAN LIKE A LITTLE BOY HE’S GOING TO ACT LIKE A LITTLE BOY. WHEN YOU EXPECT A MAN TO BE INCOMPETENT, HE REMAINS INCOMPETENT

WAYS WOMEN ACT LIKE MOTHERS AND TREAT MEN LIKE CHILDREN

1. Acting overly helpful by doing things for men that they should be doing for themselves. We look for his keys; pick up after him; go in the other room to get him something he can easily find himself; straighten his tie; comb his hair; choose his clothes for him in the morning and lay them out on the bed.

2. Playing verbal guessing games with men, trying to pull information out of them. We say, “Okay, you’re hungry … are you in the mood for cereal? No? What about some pretzels? Not pretzels? Okay, then what about some nice soup? Not appealing. Hmm, let me think … I know … what if I make you a grilled cheese sandwich? Wouldn’t you like that?”

3. Assuming men will be absentminded or forgetful, and reminding them of information they should remember by themselves

“Don’t forget to call me when you get there.”

“Don’t forget to pick up Susie at her dance class.”

“Don’t forget the rubbish needs to go out tonight.”

“Don’t forget your doctor’s appointment after work.”

4. Scolding them as if they were children

“Where do you think you’re going without a jacket? Don’t you know how cold it is outside?”

“How many times do I have to tell you to turn the lights off before coming to bed. Our electric bill is outrageously high.”

“You ate a whole pizza and had three beers at Eddie’s house while you watched the match? No wonder you have a stomach ache.”

5. Taking charge of activities that you assume they can’t do right

“If I let Fred make our dinner reservations, he somehow gets the time wrong, and forgets to request a good table, so I just do it myself.”

“The last time I sent Steven clothes shopping with the kids, it was a disaster - they came home with stuff they could never wear to school. Now I just take them myself. I couldn’t stand to go through that again.”

“I asked Jason to find us a nice hotel in Chicago months ago, and wouldn’t you know that it ‘slipped his mind.’ NOW our trip is three weeks away, and I’m the one who ends up making the phone calls anyway. I should have just done it myself in the first place.”

6. Correcting and directing them

“No, honey, the couple we met on vacation were from Virginia, not West Virginia.”

“The way you just used that word in a sentence was incorrect, dear.”

“I think you should take the Westway to avoid the traffic on the Parade. In fact I’d get into the left lane now if I were you.”

“Why don’t you just call your mother up, and first tell her that the kids aren’t feeling well, and then mention how busy you are this week at the office. After she starts to feel concerned, then let her know that we’ve decided not to come to visit next Sunday. But whatever you do, don’t tell her we saw my mother last weekend.”

WHY WOMEN MOTHER MEN

I know you hate to think you might be taking a mothering role with the man you love, but believe me, you’re not alone. Why do we act like mommies and treat our men like children?

Women are trained to be mothering and are rewarded for it. When you were growing up, your primary role model was your mother. Watching her take care of you and your brothers or sisters, you learned how to be nurturing, giving, selfless, and attentive to the needs of others. If your mother also played a mommy role with your father, this conditioning was even more powerfully reinforced. Look at it this way: If you almost always saw Mom treat Dad in a mothering way, rather than in a romantic way, you assumed as a child that this is how women are supposed to behave with men. When you grew up and found yourself in a relationship with a man, you unconsciously started mothering him, since that was how you’d been taught women act with men.

Julie had been married to Fred for three years when she came to me complaining about her relationship. “I don’t feel like Fred’s wife,” she said bitterly, “I feel like his mother! He seems to act like such a baby around me, expecting me to pick up after him, think for him, and be the one who ends up in charge. He’s getting lazier and lazier, and I’m getting more and more angry!”

Julie wasn’t even aware of how natural it was for her to mother Fred. She’d been blaming him for being immature for so long, that she’d never taken a look at her part in creating the problem. As we talked about her parents, we could both see the roots of Julie’s mommy game. “I can’t ever remember my mother and father being intimate or romantic with each other,” Julie recalled sadly. “My dad traveled a lot for his business, and my most vivid and common memories of my mother are of her packing for him before his trips, unpacking for him after his trips, making sure he remembered to keep his appointments when he was in town, and constantly fussing over his clothes. I guess by the time we were in our early teens. Dad was kind of like one of the kids. Mom would scold us and scold him; she’d shove lunches at us and shove his lunch at him. I never realized that, on some level, I must have concluded that loving a man meant treating him like Mom treated Dad.”

Until recently, being a mother was one of the only acceptable “professions” for women with nurse and teacher close behind. We grew up seeing our mothers rewarded for their nurturing behavior, and getting rewarded for that same behavior in ourselves: “Good Sally, you’re taking care of your little brother so nicely.” “Be a sweetheart, Jane, and bring Daddy his slippers - that’s my girl.”

WE OFTEN RETURN TO OUR MOTHERING BEHAVIOR WHEN WE WANT TO BE LOVED BY A MAN

Darlene, married for fifteen years, described it this way: “Whenever I feel like I’m not getting enough attention from Charlie, I definitely fall back into the mothering mode - I start baking his favorite dishes, or organizing his drawers for him, or trying to be as helpful as I can. What I really want is more affection, more intimacy, for him to act like more of a lover and not just a husband. Of course, this is the opposite of what I get - the grateful ‘son’ thanking me for being so considerate.”

We mother men in order to become indispensable to them. When you work hard to fulfill all of a man’s needs, he becomes increasingly dependent on you. We’ve all seen the television commercials that show the man trying to make dinner for the kids on his wife’s night out. He’s depicted as an incompetent idiot who is helpless around the house without his wife. The more you take care of a man, the more he relies on you and the more indispensable you become. As women, we often deal with our fear of loss and abandonment by attempting to make men so dependent on us that they would never consider leaving us. It’s as if our unconscious mind thinks, If he needs me enough, he’ll never leave me.

Men are accustomed to being mothered and love the feeling of being taken care of. Recently, I was giving a seminar to a group of women and I asked a rhetorical question of the audience, “Why do women mother men?” Someone way in the back shouted, “Because men love it!” Everyone laughed because we all knew that there was a lot of truth in what she had said. Will men complain when you mother them? Sometimes - but not most of the time.

MEN WILL FEEL LOVED WHEN YOU MOTHER THEM

Men grow up with their mommies taking care of them, and they find it very easy as adults to allow the women in their lives to continue playing that maternal role. This is especially true of your man if he saw his mother treat his own father like a child. He might even associate the idea of “wife” with mother, caretaker, and nurturer, rather than lover, best friend, or partner. And if the man in your life didn’t get all of the love and attention he needed from his own mother when he was a little boy, he’ll gladly allow you to “finish the job.”

HOW MOTHERING THE MAN IN YOUR LIFE CAN DESTROY YOUR RELATIONSHIP

Acting out a mothering role with men might appear to have its rewards at first, but in reality, it will have some very devastating effects on your relationship.

1. Your man will end up resenting you and rebelling against you. In Chapter 1 we talked about the psychological need every little boy has to assert his independence from Mommy in order to define himself as a male and not a female. When you take on a mothering role with your man, it’s inevitable that your man will begin to resent you, and eventually he will rebel against you. He may not complain about your behavior; he may insist that he doesn’t want you to stop; but he will end up rebelling, because all boys have to break away from Mommy someday.

Karen, 52, came to me after she discovered her husband was having an affair with a 24-year-old secretary from his office. Karen couldn’t understand why her husband, Leonard, had strayed from the marriage. “He always seemed so content,” she explained as she sat in my office. “I know I spoiled him – he used to say that he hadn’t even gotten this kind of treatment from his own mother – but he insisted that he loved being pampered and coddled. Now he tells me he felt stifled, trapped in the relationship, and that he wants his freedom. He never complained for twenty-seven years. I just don’t understand what happened.”

When I talked with Leonard, my suspicions were confirmed – he felt he was trading in a mother for a lover by leaving his wife and choosing a younger woman. Even the words he used to describe his relationship with Karen – “trapped, stifled, longing for his freedom” – sound like those of a teenage boy who can’t wait to leave home and be on his own. Karen thought she was being a good wife by mothering Leonard, but in the end it drove him away.

2. Your man will end up feeling incompetent. When you continually treat a man as if he is incompetent, he begins to feel incompetent. The more incompetent he feels, the lower his self-esteem, and the more he will actually behave incompetently. This creates a vicious circle:

WHEN A MAN DOES NOT FEEL GOOD ABOUT HIMSELF, HE WILL BECOME LESS LOVING TO YOU

A man’s self-worth comes from his sense of competence. And when a man feels he is not doing a good job in any area of his life, it becomes very difficult for him to be loving toward himself or you. Emphasizing a man’s incompetence by treating him like a child is guaranteed to inhibit his ability to love you.

The other side of this is that the more incompetent your man appears to you, the more turned off to him you will become. Women are turned on by competence. So the more inept he seems, the less attractive he’ll be.

3. You will kill the passion in the relationship.

THE QUICKEST WAY TO KILL THE PASSION IN YOUR RELATIONSHIP IS TO MOTHER THE MAN YOU LOVE

The more you act like a man’s mother, the more he will treat you like his mother. But no man wants to sleep with his mother. The sexual taboo against feeling attracted to a female with mothering energy is so deeply rooted in most men that it will be impossible for your partner to continue to see you in an erotic, romantic way when you are constantly picking lint off of his clothes, reminding him to do his chores, and otherwise treating him like your son.

Of course, treating your man like a child will turn you off as well. How romantic can you feel at the end of the day when you see your man and think to yourself. He couldn’t find his socks, he lost his keys again, I had to call the plumber because he forgot? How excited can you get about someone who you’ve just finished treating like a three-year-old?

I believe that Mistake #1 is one of the primary causes for the lack of a satisfying sex life in many marriages. Being together for twenty years, having financial pressures, bringing up a family – these all contribute to the tension that can inhibit passion. But none of them are as destructive as the transformation of the husband and wife into a mother and her son.

THE SOLUTION: HOW TO STOP MOTHERING MEN

Here are some suggestions for transforming yourself from a mother into a lover with your man.

1. Stop doing things for your man that he should be doing for himself. Treating men like children is like an addiction, and like any addiction the only way to stop is to Stop. This means that when your husband asks you where his keys are, say “I don’t know,” and let him look for them himself. When he is ready to get dressed for a certain occasion, don’t suggest what clothes he should wear. When he leaves a pile of clothes lying on the floor, don’t pick them up for him.

If your man is used to your doing things for him, he is going to have to adjust to your new role. At first, it might be difficult. You may have to put up with his frustration as he learns to do things for himself that he hasn’t in years. And don’t be surprised if your life temporarily becomes a little more chaotic. You may be late for a party because he can’t find his keys. He may leave the house with his tie crooked. But when these things happen often enough, he’ll learn. He’ll remember how frustrated he was looking for his keys and will learn to put them in the same place every night. He’ll recall how many times he’s told his tie is crooked and will learn to check it in the mirror himself. In other words, he’ll grow up and learn to take care of himself.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that the next time your husband asks you if you’ve seen his keys you should respond, “Find them yourself I’m not your mother! “And I don’t believe you should stop being loving, nurturing, and supportive to your partner. It simply means being more of a wife or mate, and less of a mommy.

2. Treat your man like a competent, reliable person. Don’t remind him of information he should remember. Don’t be his brain and his calendar for him. Act as if he is a competent adult who can be counted on. Remember, your man might have gotten lazy since you’ve been doing a lot of the scheduling for him; he may unconsciously rely on you to make sure he doesn’t forget important appointments or responsibilities. So when you stop mothering him, he may find himself missing meetings, forgetting to pay bills, or neglecting to take out the rubbish. If this happens, do not scold him or criticize him, just sympathize with his frustration, and go about your own business.

Let’s say your partner has a dentist appointment on a Thursday. Say good-bye to him Thursday morning as usual. On Thursday evening, he comes home and announces “I’m so mad at myself. Dr. Hopkins’s office called me at work and told me I had an appointment today. I totally forgot about it.” You respond by saying, “That’s a shame, darling. I’m sure you can reschedule.” After enough missed appointments and forgotten events, your partner will learn to keep better track of his own schedule.

3. Don’t speak to your partner in “mommy-talk.” Promise yourself that you’ll stop talking to your man as if he is a five-year-old. That means: No Scolding! It’s perfectly all right for you to let your partner know when you are upset or angry. But talk to him as one adult to another, not as an exasperated mother to her bad little boy.

What about “baby talk” in a relationship? I think some baby talk is natural, an intimate way we share our vulnerable selves with each other. If you and your partner speak in baby talk a lot of the time, however, especially in bed or during sex, then you’ve got a problem. It’s time to have a grown-up relationship.

4. Decide what responsibilities you want him to handle in the relationship, and don’t take over even when he makes a mistake. I know how difficult it’s going to be for many of you to do this. It means letting go of control and trusting things to work out all right in the end, even if they don’t happen as you would have liked them to. For instance, your husband says he will make reservations for dinner one evening, but he calls the restaurant too late in the day, and all the tables are booked. When he telephones you at six o’clock to say he couldn’t get reservations, you say, “That’s too bad. I’ll be ready at eight o’clock as planned. I’m sure you can find some place for us to go. See you then.” He’ll feel stupid for procrastinating, grateful that you didn’t berate him, and will remember this feeling the next time he plans to take you out for dinner.

Warning: You will be tempted to intervene when you see the situation falling apart. Your vacation is coming up, and you know your husband hasn’t made plane reservations yet. Or your boyfriend decides to make some lasagna, and you know he is putting in too much sauce.

DON’T GIVE IN TO THE TEMPTATION TO RESCUE HIM

Let him make his own mistakes, and live with the consequences. That’s the only way he will learn to do things differently next time.

HOW I STOPPED A MAN FROM “DRIVING” ME CRAZY

Having spent fifteen years of my adult lift mothering men, I consider myself, unfortunately, an expert on the subject, and want to share a story about breaking the mommy habit. I was in a relationship with a man who was chronically forgetful. He’d forget his appointments; he’d forget to return phone calls; he’d forget to mail in bills; he’d even forget where he was going when we were driving somewhere, and would miss the correct exit on the motorway. For two years, I took on the responsibility of being his brain, reminding him of what to do and where to go in his life. Whenever we’d drive somewhere, I’d never relax – I’d be on the lookout for each exit and appropriate turn, to make sure we got to our destination on time.

Finally, I got fed up with mothering him and decided that the only way he was going to learn to pay attention on the road was if I stopped doing it for him. One weekend we took a trip to a spa in southern California. We’d been there before and, of course, I knew the exact directions. We’d been driving for about an hour when we reached the signs that indicated that our turn-off was a few miles ahead. I glanced at my partner to see if he’d noticed, and felt my stomach tightening up. Not I warned myself. You promised you weren’t going to say anything. The closer we got to the exit, the more of a nervous wreck I became. And then we were at the exit, and my partner kept on driving. He’d missed it! I clenched my teeth tightly together to keep myself from screaming.

Time seemed to stand still as we drove ten miles, twenty miles, thirty miles past where we should have turned off. It was beginning to get dark. Suddenly he turned to me and said, “Does this area look familiar to you?”

“No,” I replied softly.

“I didn’t think it did,” he said. “Maybe I missed the turn-off.” He stopped at a petrol station and found out that, sure enough, he had just driven forty miles out of his way, making us late for our arrival at the spa. It took all my self-control not to say anything. As my partner turned the car around and headed back in the other direction, he looked at me sheepishly and said, “You knew I’d missed the exit, didn’t you?” I smiled at him; he smiled back. We both knew that he’d learned more of a lesson from driving forty miles in the middle of nowhere than he would have if I’d intervened and pointed out his mistake.

5. Make a list: “The Ways I Play Mommy …” Sit down and write out all of the ways you play Mommy in your relationships. Watch yourself over a few weeks, and add to the list whenever you catch yourself. If you’re really brave, ask your partner to suggest items that should go on the list! You may be surprised at how long your list turns out to be. The first step in changing your behavior is becoming aware of it.

6. Talk with the man in your life about the mommy/son games you play together, and work as a team to create a grown-up relationship. I suggest you give this book to the man in your life, so that he can understand you and himself better. Have some serious discussions about everything you’ve read in this chapter so far, and ask him for his input on the topic. Then make some agreements together, guidelines you each agree to follow that will help you create a grown-up relationship.

7. Be consistent. It’s essential to be consistent in following your new rules and avoiding the old mistakes. Stick to your commitments, no matter what the consequences. For instance, you agree not to clean up after your husband in his bathroom, and that he is responsible for taking his own underwear and towels into the laundry room. After one week you notice that there is a huge pile of clothing in the middle of his bathroom floor, and that he has no clean towels left on his shelf and no underwear in his drawer. Don’t touch that dirty pile of clothes! Wait until he complains that there are no clean towels, or that he has no underwear to put on, and remind him that all his towels and underwear are still on the floor where he left them. He may not be in the greatest mood, but he’ll get the message. If you give in for your own sense of sanity and orderliness, he’ll never take your new commitment seriously, and won’t stick to his.

Remember, it’s not easy to break the mothering habit, but when you do, you will feel like more of a woman, and your partner will look and feel like more of a man.

MISTAKE 2
Women Sacrifice Who They Are and Put Themselves Second in Importance to the Man They love

You’ve just spent several hours preparing a special dinner for your partner, fillet of sole almondine. You’re about to bring the two plates to the table when you realize that one of the portions of fish is larger than the other. Assuming you and your mate have equal appetites, will you give him the bigger portion, or keep it for yourself?

Most women to whom I pose this question sheepishly admit that they wouldn’t even have to give this dilemma much thought – of course they’d give the bigger portion to the man, because they are so used to putting the man first and themselves second. In fact, many women I interviewed said they’d actually feel guilty taking the larger piece of fish; they used words like selfish, stingy, unloving.

Mistake #2 has to do with how we as women sacrifice who we are, and put ourselves second in importance to the men in our lives. How do we do this?

1. We give up our own interests, hobbies, and activities. Sara, 31, used to be very involved in studying and practicing meditation and yoga. She found it helped her relax, and kept her feeling healthy. Then she met Bill, 36, a computer consultant, who had a cynical and skeptical attitude toward “that Eastern stuff,” as he called it. In order to avoid conflict, she stopped going to her yoga retreats one weekend a month, and found she was skipping more and more of her regular meditations, until she stopped entirely. When asked why she gave up these interests, she answered, “I guess I’m in a different phase of my life now. I’ve kind of outgrown those things.”

A year and a half later, Sara and Bill broke up. Within two weeks, Sara finds herself beginning to meditate again. “I can’t believe how much I missed this,” she remarked.

Emily has always loved to dance. She took ballet and jazz when she was growing up, and enjoyed going dancing on the weekends with friends. Dancing makes her feel alive, graceful, and free. When Emily was 29 she met Andrew, 31. They began dating, fell in love, and got married two years later. I recently bumped into Emily at a department store, and after asking her how she and Andrew were doing, I mentioned dancing. Emily looked uncomfortable and replied, “Well, I don’t do much dancing anymore.” When I asked her why, she explained: “You see, Andrew has never really liked dancing. He’s always felt like a klutz, and in the beginning I would drag him to clubs with me, but he’d just sit there all night and refuse to get up on the dance floor. It wasn’t fun seeing him sulk, so we stopped going. He encouraged me to go dancing without him, not to sacrifice on his account. I went once or twice with some friends, but I felt guilty leaving him home alone. I guess I miss dancing, but it’s no big deal, really.”

These women are doing what many of us do – giving up our own interests and hobbies because they are not important to the man in our life. We don’t even realize that we are making these sacrifices. We convince ourselves that we aren’t really missing anything, that it doesn’t matter. But it does. Often we become aware that we have made our own choices and activities second best only after the relationship has ended, and we find ourselves taking up those interests again. Then we remember how much we used to enjoy meditating, or dancing, or gardening, or cycling, or whatever it is that we gave up because the man in our life wasn’t particularly interested in it.

2. We give up friends or family members our partner doesn’t approve of. JoAnne, 26, was a beautician, who met her boyfriend, Lawrence, a 50-year-old antique dealer, on a blind date. JoAnne was bubbly, clever, and vivacious, and even though she’d never gone to college, she had good common sense and was doing well. Lawrence had graduated with honors from an East Coast Ivy League university, and considered himself an intellectual. The problems between them began the first time JoAnne took Lawrence to a friend’s birthday party. JoAnne was having a wonderful time until she looked over and saw Lawrence sitting by himself, “What’s wrong, honey?” she asked.

“I don’t really feel comfortable here,” Lawrence answered with a scowl. “I really have nothing in common with these friends of yours.”

On the way home in the car, JoAnne and Lawrence argued about the party. “I hate you thinking my friends aren’t good enough for you,” JoAnne yelled. “So what if they didn’t go to college – they’re really good people.”

“Look, if you want to spend time with them, that’s your business,” Lawrence replied. “Just don’t expect me to participate.”

JoAnne was furious at Lawrence for his superior attitude, but she secretly wondered if he was right, if her friends weren’t good enough for her. She was afraid of what would happen if she continued to see them. Would Lawrence break up with her? Over the next few months she began to spend less and less time with her old friends, until she stopped seeing them entirely. She felt lonely – but after all, she had Lawrence.

Jackie’s parents had never approved of Mike when Jackie dated him in college, and they were even more upset when the couple decided to move in together. Mike was a heavy drinker, and even though he claimed he could stop any time he wanted to, he never seemed to want to. Jackie loved Mike, and knew he loved her, but was afraid to really confront him about his drinking. Jackie had always been very close to her parents, since she was an only child, but all that began to change once she and Mike started living together. Each time Jackie would mention that she’d spoken to her mother or father, Mike would start complaining that Jackie was still depending too much on her parents, that she was acting like a little girl, and that she needed to break away from them and be her own person. Jackie loved her parents, but she didn’t want to lose Mike, so she began to taper off her phone calls and visits with them, until she hardly had any contact with them at all. Mike told Jackie that he was proud of her for being so “strong.” But Jackie drives by her parents’ house every week, parks the car across the street, and cries.

If I asked you, “Would you reject a friend or family member if a man asked you to?” you’d probably answer with a resounding “No Way!” And yet many women do just that. They turn their backs on people who are important to them rather than risk the loss of a man’s love.

Why do some men try to separate you from people who care about you?

MEN WHO ARE INSECURE WITHIN THEMSELVES WILL TRY TO CUT YOU OFF FROM YOUR SUPPORT SYSTEMS

There are men who need to feel they have total control over their partner, who are frightened of being controlled themselves. One of their tactics for exerting that power over you might be to cut you off from those people and groups who love and support you – your family, your friends, your church or spiritual group. This can have two results.

1 You become more dependent on the man for love, since you’re getting less of it from other sources.

2 Your relationship becomes isolated from the scrutiny of the people who love you, thereby protecting your partner from possible criticism and negative feedback about his treatment of you.

3. We become “emotional chameleons,” walking into the relationship like a blank slate, and becoming whatever the man wants us to be. One of the most common ways women put themselves second is by being willing to sacrifice who they are, and become whatever their man wants them to be. I call this being an “emotional chameleon,” willing to change yourself, your looks, your behavior, and even your beliefs in order to fit your man’s image of his ideal woman. I’ll be the woman of his dreams, we decide, and we proceed to mold ourselves into someone else’s picture of what is lovable.

Here’s a true and sad story about how one woman sacrificed her entire personality for a man. Janice, a 32-year-old singer, walked into my office full of bitterness and rage. She’d just ended a three-year relationship with Tony, a telephone repairman. “Do you know what I did every weekend for three years?” she asked me. “I went to wrestling matches. Not to a movie, or the theater, but to goddamn wrestling matches. And when we were home, what do you think we watched on TV? Wrestling. I knew every wrestler. I knew who hated whom, I knew all the moves.”

“I don’t understand,” I replied. “You still haven’t told me what the problem was.”

Janice looked at me with daggers in her eyes and growled, “I hate wrestling! In fact, I hate sports. But Tony loved it, and whatever Tony wanted, I did. I became a wrestling groupie just to please him. I even convinced myself that I liked it. I thought of it as a love sacrifice.’ Now, whenever I think about it even for a second, I want to throw up. I am so pissed off at myself for being such an idiot.”

Janice had walked into her relationship with Tony a blank slate, willing to alter her personality in exchange for love. Living in Los Angeles, I often meet women who are making this unfortunate mistake in extreme ways, to the point of altering their physical appearance with plastic surgery because the man they’re involved with wants them to look different. I’ve counseled dozens of women who were “instructed” by their men to have their breasts enlarged or their backsides lifted, went ahead with the surgery, and are now dealing with their feelings of rage and humiliation.

4. We give up our own dreams, in order to help a man make his dreams come true. The wife who drops out of school to support her husband while he becomes a doctor, and realizes, fifteen years later, that she forgot about her own dreams of teaching retarded children …

The woman who quits her job in a major corporation to help her boyfriend with the bookkeeping for his import business, only to realize when they break up three years later that she did it for him and not for herself, and that now she has nothing to show for it…

I’m sure that if you haven’t done this yourself, you know a woman who has. It’s so sad that as women we are so willing to give up own dreams and adopt those of the man we love.

WHY WOMEN SACRIFICE THEMSELVES IN RELATIONSHIPS

Perhaps this question seems unnecessary to you. As a friend of mine put it, “Darling, sacrifice is my middle name!” There are several reasons women sacrifice themselves so readily with men.

Men expect us to put ourselves second. They’ve been trained for thousands of years to think of women as second-class citizens, as less important. After all, we live in a world where, in many countries, women still have to walk behind their man on the street as a sign of subservience. Is it any wonder, then, that men expect us to be the one to sacrifice?

We’ve been trained as women to put ourselves second. Many of us watched our mothers and grandmothers sacrifice their talents, interests, dreams and careers in order to be a support system for our fathers. We’ve been taught that putting ourselves first is “selfish.”

We glamorize sacrifice as some kind of achievement, rather than going out and making our real dreams come true. It’s so much easier, and less personally challenging, to say: “Well, I would have gotten my degree and become an attorney, but I wanted to be there for Henry when he was in law school, so I decided to make the sacrifice.”

THE RESULTS OF SACRIFICING FOR LOVE

When you sacrifice for love and put yourself second in a relationship, you believe inside that your man will end up loving you more. This may or may not happen. But what will happen is:

WHEN YOU SACRIFICE WHO YOU ARE IN ORDER TO BE LOVED MORE BY SOMEONE ELSE, YOU END UP LOVING YOURSELF LESS

Each time you give up an interest, a friend, or a dream in the hope of winning a man’s love, you give away a piece of yourself. The more you sacrifice, the less of yourself remains, until one day you wake up and you feel empty. There is nothing of you left. You’ve cut it all away to become more acceptable, and in the process you’ve lost your essence, the soul of your womanhood.

This loss is almost always followed by anger or depression. You feel so much resentment toward yourself for what you have done, and an enormous loss of your self-respect and self-esteem. And you feel resentment towards the man you sacrificed for who, more times than not, didn’t end up loving you the way you wanted to be loved anyway.

THE SOLUTION: HOW TO STOP SACRIFICING YOURSELF IN RELATIONSHIPS

1. Make a list of all the ways you have sacrificed for love in every relationship you’ve ever been in. This is NOT a fun exercise to do, but I highly recommend it as a powerful technique for getting you motivated and disgusted enough so that you will stop putting yourself second once and for all.

2. Make a list of people, interests, activities, and beliefs that are important to you. This will help you remember who you are and what you care about. It will be a lot more difficult for you to convince yourself that you really do enjoy dirt-bike racing, or fishing, or stamp collecting, or whatever the next man you meet is into.

3. Make a commitment to your own dreams, so you can become full in yourself, rather than an empty “emotional chameleon,” waiting to be filled up by a man. The more complete and whole you are as a woman, the less likely it is that you will walk into a relationship desperate for validation and therefore a likely candidate for sacrifice. In the final chapter of the book, I’ll give you some suggestions for becoming the powerful woman you know you can be.

MISTAKE 3
Women Fall in Love with a Man’s Potential

Do you pride yourself on your ability to “bring out the best in a man”?

Have you ever told yourself that, with “a little time and work,” the man you love will become just what you want him to be?

Have you ever felt that the reason your man hasn’t become as successful as he wants to be is that he hasn’t had anyone to “really love and support him” – that is, until you came along?

I don’t know about you, but these questions look painfully familiar to me. Until recently, I made a profession out of Mistake #3 – falling in love with a man’s potential. I was an expert at finding men in need, and focusing much of my time and energy on “helping” them, “fixing” them. Sometimes my efforts were successful, and the man would become successful. Sometimes my efforts failed. But every time, the same thing occurred in my life: I got to avoid my own career, my own dreams by attempting to rescue someone else.

For as long as I can remember, I’d always chosen men who needed fixing in a particular area of their life. Some needed to be emotionally opened up. Some needed to heal the pain of a difficult childhood. Some needed to stop procrastinating, get organized, and use their talents to make money. Some needed to improve their speaking ability or writing skills, or learn how to dress correctly, or how to be an attentive lover. So, I would come to the rescue. I would offer them direction and advice to sort out their confusion. I would give them my love, my money, my energy, and my advice. My friends and family would express their disapproval and tell me I was wasting my time, but that didn’t stop me. And even if the men didn’t seem to be improving, or didn’t appear to want my help, I wouldn’t give up. After all, I’d made a commitment.

Looking back, I realize that each time, I wasn’t really in a relationship – I was working on a project. And I wasn’t involved with a man – I was dedicated to a cause.

I WASN’T IN LOVE WITH THE MAN AS HE ACTUALLY WAS – I WAS IN LOVE WITH HIS POTENTIAL

After many years of frustration, heartache, and disappointment, I woke up one day and realized that I was in my early thirties, and still hadn’t accomplished my own career goals.

That’s when I said to myself, “Barbara, if you’d put even half the amount of energy, creativity, and commitment into your own goals and your own life that you’ve put into helping men unfold their potential, there’s no telling how successful and fulfilled you could become? “And that’s what I did, and you’re experiencing part of the result right now as you read this book.

HOW WE FALL IN LOVE WITH A MAN’S POTENTIAL

1. We go on “emotional rescue missions,” finding men who aren’t willing to help themselves, and attempt to “save” them.

Allison, a 32-year-old real-estate salesperson, came to me for career counseling. The more we talked, the more apparent it became that her problem wasn’t with her real-estate job, but with her other full-time “job” – taking care of Harry. Allison had been living with Harry, a 37-year-old actor, for three years. “I love Harry so much,” she explained. “He had a really rough childhood, and a first marriage that was just awful, so when I met him, he was very insecure and abusive to himself. He’s a good actor, he really is, but he’s had a hard time finding work. He used to do a lot of cocaine and smoke cigarettes. I got him to stop, so that’s been good. Now I’m working with him on setting well-defined goals and sticking to a schedule. I’m sure you probably think I’m crazy for being with him, but I just know that he could be really successful, I can feel it.”

Allison believed in Harry more than he believed in himself. She loved the potential in him, not the man he was living as from day to day. In some part of Allison’s mind, she’d decided that she would be successful when Harry got his life together. So no matter how well she did in her own career, she felt like a failure as long as Harry wasn’t progressing according to her plan.

2. We find men who don’t love us or treat us well, and hold out for the piece we aren’t getting that we know is in there.

Erika, 45, was a perfect example of a woman making Mistake #3. She’d been married to Arnold for nineteen years, and had never been happy for all that time. “I not only fell in love with Arnold’s potential,” she admitted tearfully, “I married it! Arnold has never been a very loving, giving person. He’s emotionally closed off and very critical. But inside of him, there is this sweet, frightened little boy who comes out once in a while and who just wants to be loved. When we were dating, I’d see glimpses of that part of him, and just melt. I remember the night he proposed to me, he broke down and cried for the first time since I’d known him. I realized that he had problems, but I figured, If I just love him enough, he will open up.’ My parents disapproved of the marriage, but I told them they didn’t know Arnold like I did.

“Well, nineteen years and three kids later, Arnold hasn’t changed a bit. I’ve spent most of our marriage feeling unloved and unappreciated, and I can’t take it anymore. I still love him, and I still see that beautiful part inside of him, but I’m finally facing the fact that he just isn’t going to change. I know I’m making the right decision in leaving him, but somehow I feel if only I’d loved him more or helped him more, maybe he would have opened up.”

Erika spent her life longing for that piece of Arnold he was withholding, rather than telling herself the truth about what he was really willing to give her in the relationship, I know just how Erika felt, because I did exactly that in one of my own relationships. I spent several years with someone I loved very much, who not only wasn’t living his own potential, but wasn’t giving me that last piece of his heart, that last 10 percent of emotional surrender and commitment. And like Erika, I set myself up for failure by thinking:

IF I LOVE HIM ENOUGH, HE WILL CHANGE

The truth is, if a man loves himself enough, he will change!

Women who fall in love with a man’s potential often don’t feel good about themselves and think they need to perform in order to be loved by someone else. We choose men who are emotionally challenging and then set out to love them in spite of who they are. Then we get to say, “Look how loving, patient, tolerant, and compassionate I am. I must be lovable, right?”

I finally learned that:

HAVING A HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP WITH A MAN MEANS LOVING HIM FOR WHO HE IS NOW, AND NOT LOVING HIM IN SPITE OF WHO HE IS TODAY, OR IN HOPES OF WHO HE WILL BE TOMORROW

WHY WOMEN FALL IN LOVE WITH A MAN’S POTENTIAL

We get to avoid taking care of our own lives and facing our own destinies by deciding that we are responsible for helping someone else.

We get to feel good about ourselves by demonstrating how helpful, loving, and patient we are.

We get to feel like a failure and punish ourselves for not being perfect when our man doesn’t turn out the way we thought he would.

Women love to take things and make them better! We love doing makeovers on houses, people’s hair, or whatever! It’s an expression of that urge to create that is so natural to us. It’s hard for a woman to resist improving on something.

HOW TO TELL IF YOU ARE A “RESCUE-HOLIC”

Here are some warning signs to watch out for that may indicate you are making Mistake #3:

Telling yourself that your man just needs a little more time to get himself and his life together, and doing this every few months.

Telling yourself that no one has ever really loved your man enough, and that you will be the one to love him enough to change him.

Feeling that everyone else misunderstands your man and that only you know the “real” person inside of him – “You don’t know him like I do.”

Making excuses to your friends and family about why your man either isn’t treating you well or isn’t doing well himself.

Feeling that you can’t give up on this man and leave him, because it will just validate his feelings of worthlessness, and then he’ll never change.

Convincing yourself that, even though your man doesn’t give you that piece of himself and his heart, what he does give you makes it worth staying in the relationship.

THE SOLUTION: HOW TO STOP FALLING IN LOVE WITH A MAN’S POTENTIAL

As a recovering “rescue-holic,” let me give you some suggestions for healing yourself of this painful pattern.

1. Focus your creative energies on your own life and career first, rather than on your man’s. Make a list of your dreams and goals, and a concrete plan for attaining them. Stick to your own schedule, and beware of getting sidetracked. This means that if you plan to attend a networking meeting that can help you get more clients for your business, but your boyfriend needs help fixing up his apartment, go to your meeting! Know what you want in life before you even get involved in a new relationship, so that your agenda comes first.

2. Make a list: “The things I’m avoiding in my life by rescuing men.” Often you won’t be aware of how many of your own emotions or challenges you are avoiding by rescuing men. Making a list will help focus your attention on these hidden areas.

3. Find a man who wants to take responsibility for fixing himself, so that you don’t have to do the work for him. There’s nothing wrong with supporting the man you love in his personal growth and helping him make the changes he wants to make. When two people really love one another, both of them help bring out the hidden potential in the other. But it’s important that you work as a team – that your man is as committed to working on himself as you are.

I suggest that, in the beginning of a relationship, you ask a man what his personal goals are, and how he plans to achieve them. You might find out that even though you want him to become more emotional or expressive, he has no interest in developing that way. Then you’d know he’s not for you. If he does claim he wants to grow in the same ways you’d like to see him grow, give him some time, love, and support, and evaluate him in a few months. If you haven’t seen progress or change, discuss this with him, and find out why nothing has happened. Remember: Actions speak louder than words.

MISTAKE 4
Women Cover Up Their Excellence and Competence

Do you have a bad habit of putting yourself down in front of the man you love?

Do you have a difficult time receiving compliments and praise?

Do you possess talents and abilities your partner isn’t even aware of?

Most women are so good at making Mistake #4 that they don’t even know it. We cover up our intelligence, accomplishments, clarity, and abilities in order to avoid threatening the man in our life and to make him feel better about himself. We do this in several ways.

1. We talk about ourselves in derogatory terms, putting ourselves down for the slightest mistake, and therefore appearing not to like ourselves very much.

“I can’t believe how stupid I was to forget about your business meeting tonight. Sometimes I just can’t seem to remember anything.”

“My boss said he was happy with my report, but I don’t think I did a very good job. I got kind of confused about the financial projections and didn’t really know what I was talking about.”

“I’m so upset about how fat I am getting. Would you look at this cellulite?”

2. We argue with men when they attempt to pay us a compliment and we act as if we want to talk them out of their positive opinion of us.

“Really? You like this dress? Why, it’s two years old. I really don’t think the style is that flattering, but I wanted to get some wear out of it. Thanks anyway.”

“Oh, honey, planning the surprise party for you was really nothing. I mean, it didn’t take that much time, and I had help. You don’t have to make such a fuss over it.”

“You enjoyed my presentation? Well, actually, I felt kind of rushed since I was the last person to speak, and I wasn’t sure if my facts would be well received. I think everyone was just relieved that the meeting was over – that’s why I got all that applause.”

3. We hide our talents and accomplishments from the men in our life.

Sondra was a perfect example of a woman who makes Mistake #4. She’d been married to Greg for seven years, and was an expert at making herself appear to be less competent and intelligent than he was. “Greg likes to feel like he’s in charge,” Sondra confided to me in a soft voice, “so I guess you could say I have always downplayed myself from the time we first started dating.” Sondra was understating the facts – the truth was, she’d never even told Greg that she’d finished college with honors and had earned a scholarship to graduate school. He had no idea that she spoke fluent French, or that she’d been invited to work for a very successful French businessman in Paris before she’d met him. Sondra “neglected” to tell Greg these things about herself because, as she put it, “they’re really not that important anymore.”

Ellen, 37, and her husband, Andy, 39, were a two-career couple. Andy was an investment counselor for a large brokerage firm, and Ellen was in charge of public relations for a clothing manufacturer. They came to me for counseling after noticing some difficulties in their marriage. “I don’t feel like Andy really appreciates me the way he should,” Ellen complained. “I work as hard as he does, but we always seem to discuss his problems and not mine.”

“It’s true, we do spend more time talking about my job,” Andy replied, “but I suppose that’s because my work is more complex than yours.” Naturally Ellen was furious when she heard her husband making his job the more important of the two.

I talked with Ellen and Andy for a while until I discovered the source of the problem. Ellen was making Mistake #4 – constantly hiding her accomplishments from Andy and downplaying the importance of her work in order to make him feel more important. Of course, she wasn’t doing this consciously. It was a habit she’d developed from growing up as the smarter, older sister to a younger brother, and always being told by her parents, “Now Ellen, don’t you go telling Jonathan how well you did in school this semester - you know he’s having trouble with his grades.”

Ellen continued this same behavior with her husband. She never let him know about the important clients she was assigned to meet and work with; she neglected to tell him how well respected she was by her peers; and she rarely shared her dreams and goals for the future with him. “No wonder I don’t feel appreciated by Andy,” Ellen admitted after hearing about Mistake #4. “I haven’t been appreciating myself, and how could he even know how terrific I am if I hide it from him?”

There are millions of us like Ellen and Sandy – competent, talented, hard-working women who don’t know how to celebrate their magnificence with the men in their lives.

WHY WE COVER UP OUR EXCELLENCE AND COMPETENCE

We cover up our excellence and competence because we think men will love us more that way. Do you remember ever being told any of the following things as a young girl?

“Always let the boy win if you play games together. That way, he’ll like you more.”

“Don’t act too smart around men, or they won’t want to take you out. You have to build them up, and make them feel smarter than you.”

AS WOMEN, WE’VE BEEN CONDITIONED TO MAKE OUR MEN LOOK AND FEEL SMARTER AND BETTER THAN WE ARE IN ORDER TO ENSURE THAT THEY WILL LOVE US

We go into relationships with a belief that if we look too good to a man, he won’t want to be with us, and so we work hard to make him look better than he is, and to make ourselves look worse than we are.

We cover up our excellence and competence because we’re afraid to look arrogant or conceited to others. Do you remember being given advice like the following?

“Now Susie, I’m glad that you got all As on your report card, but I wouldn’t tell too many people about it. It isn’t nice to brag, and girls must be modest.”

“Ginny, don’t stare at yourself in the mirror like that. It isn’t ladylike to think too highly of yourself. Girls who are too proud are unpopular.”

I remember my mother telling me when I was still in junior high school that the more successful and accomplished I became, the more people would be jealous of me, the less friends I’d have, and that I should be careful not to intimidate people with my talents. Like all mothers, she meant well, and I can’t say that I haven’t experienced some of these reactions in my life. But she was just passing down a self-deprecating philosophy that her mother had taught her, and that so many of us learned growing up. A woman shouldn’t look too good – it’s not feminine or attractive.

IN AN ATTEMPT TO BE “NICE GIRLS,” WOMEN HIDE THEIR MAGNIFICENCE

WHY HIDING YOUR COMPETENCE DOESN’T WORK

1. Hiding your competence kills the passion in your relationship. When we diminish our accomplishments and hide our excellence from the men in our lives, we think we’re going to make ourselves less threatening and therefore more attractive to the man we love, but in reality, the opposite occurs:

MEN ARE TURNED ON BY COMPETENCE AND TURNED OFF BY WEAKNESS

Men love competence in women. They are trained to be competent themselves, and recognizing it in someone else makes them feel attracted to that person. During my research for this book, I interviewed hundreds of men, and almost all of them agreed that a woman who exudes self-confidence is very appealing. The men respect these women and take them more seriously.

Here’s the irony – women think that hiding their magnificence and acting humble is going to get a man to love them more, when the truth is, this kind of behavior kills the passion in the relationship.

2. When you are in the habit of hiding your competence from men, you end up hiding it from yourself as well. The saying “out of sight, out of mind” definitely holds true for Mistake #4. The more you minimize your accomplishments to others, the less you remember them yourself, until eventually you lose touch with your own magnificence.

THE SOLUTION: HOW TO STOP COVERING UP YOUR COMPETENCE

1. Make a list of all of your talents, abilities, honors, accomplishments, and good qualities, and share this list with your partner. I’ve given this assignment to women in my seminars, and have heard some amazing stories about the results it produced. Many women report that just writing out their good qualities, abilities, and successes reminded them of things they’d completely forgotten and certainly never talked about with their partners. And the men report that they are surprised and delighted to discover more characteristics about their women to love.

2. Catch yourself not accepting compliments, putting yourself down, or minimizing your achievements, and practice CELEBRATING YOUR MAGNIFICENCE. You’ll be surprised to notice how often you make Mistake #4, and how much of an unconscious habit it’s become. Catch yourself in the act, and shift from covering up your excellence to celebrating yourself. The next time someone compliments you, take a deep breath and simply say, “Thank you!” Throw your false modesty out the window.

3. Look for a man who wants to let you shine. We all know there are men out there who, for a variety of reasons, don’t want to be with a woman who appears powerful or confident. It’s hard to celebrate yourself around someone who isn’t interested in seeing you shine. Make sure your partner supports you in becoming the magnificent woman you’re meant to be.

MISTAKE 5
Women Give Up Their Power to Men

I’m sad to say that the phrase “women give up their power to men” is, for many of us, redundant. As we’ve seen so far, throughout history a woman’s role has been to give her power away to a man, so it’s been more of an unfortunate fact of life than a mistake. I can tell you from experience that discovering how you give your power away to the men in your life, and learning how to stop doing it, will be one of the most important steps you can take toward creating healthy, loving relationships.

I have a name for those of us who give our power away to men, hoping they will love us more because of it: Love Martyrs. A martyr is a person who decides to make a personal sacrifice for a cause. In the case of women, we often sacrifice our self-respect, our sense of personal dignity and integrity, and our self-esteem in order to get a man to love us.

ARE YOU A LOVE MARTYR?

Here’s a quiz that will help you determine how serious a Love Martyr you are. It contains ten warning signs of a Love Martyr. You can take this quiz based on the relationship you are in now, one from the past, or your relationships with men in general. Grade yourself on each statement according to how frequently that statement applies to you.

Very frequently | 0 points
Often | 4 points
Occasionally | 8 points
Rarely or never | 10 points

Answer as honestly as you can. You may not like admitting some of this to yourself, but facing it is the first step toward changing it.

The Ten Warning Signs of a Love Martyr

1 You feel like you have to tiptoe around your partner to avoid upsetting or displeasing him.

2 You feel that your partner doesn’t always treat you with respect.

3 You act like a more confident, powerful person at work or with friends than you do around your partner.

4 You don’t feel safe or comfortable giving negative feedback to your partner.

5 You’re hesitant to ask your partner for what you want and need, and sometimes wonder if you are too “needy” or “insecure” anyway.

6 You feel that your partner treats you worse than you treat him.

7 When your partner isn’t behaving lovingly toward you, you tend to become more loving toward him in hopes of winning him over.

8 You feel you have to work to convince your partner of your rights for love, affection, equality, freedom, etc.

9 You often defend or make excuses, to yourself or others, for your partner’s behavior or your life situation.

10 You often feel angry at yourself for acting like a “wimp” around a man, but even though you vow never to do it again, you continue to allow yourself to be treated less lovingly than you deserve.

Now, total up your points.

80–100 points: Congratulations! You own your power around the men in your life, and usually don’t sacrifice who you are in order to be loved. To avoid future problems, work on those areas in which you had a lower score.

60–79 points: You’re not a full-blown Love Martyr, but you are giving up your power too often in certain areas of your relationships with men. Notice how you are letting fear of loss or disapproval keep you from asking for what you deserve from your partner. Work on loving yourself more and compromising less.

40–59 points: WARNING! Whether you want to admit it or not, you are a wimp when it comes to your relationships with men. You allow yourself to be treated badly, and don’t stick up for yourself. You’re such an expert at sacrificing for love that you’ve forgotten how it feels to be relaxed around a man. Follow the instructions in this chapter carefully, and start giving yourself some of the love you give so easily to men.

0–39 points: EMERGENCY! YOU’RE A PROFESSIONAL LOVE MARTYR. You probably have little or no self-respect left, considering how terribly you’re treated by the men in your life. Don’t expect to be loved until you start loving yourself. It’s time to get off the floor and act like a woman, and not a doormat! You need to take action NOW! Use the suggestions in this book, seek some personal counseling for extra support, stop sacrificing and start living with dignity again.

HOW WE DON’T MAINTAIN OUR DIGNITY AS WOMEN

All of these warning signs add up to the same thing: not maintaining your dignity as a woman. That means:

Allowing yourself to be treated in ways you wouldn’t want your daughter to be treated by a man.

Not sticking up for yourself when you know you should.

Living in fear of criticism or disapproval from your partner.

Settling for less than the amount of love and caring you know you deserve.

EACH TIME YOU GIVE YOUR POWER AWAY TO A MAN BY ALLOWING HIM TO TREAT YOU DISRESPECTFULLY OR UNLOVINGLY, YOU LOSE RESPECT AND LOVE FOR YOURSELF

This creates what I call a Negative Self-Esteem Cycle. Here’s how it works: You allow a man to get away with mistreating you – maybe he calls you names, or refuses to comfort you when you’re upset, or acts like an angry child when you try to talk about the relationship, or is insensitive to your feelings in some way. You don’t stick up for yourself, and this results in your feeling upset, depressed, and bad about yourself. When you feel bad about yourself, your self-confidence decreases. And when your self-confidence is low, the next time that man mistreats you, you will have even less courage to stand up for yourself, and the cycle repeats itself over and over.

The Negative Self-Esteem Cycle

There is only one way to break this endless cycle: Stand up for yourself and maintain your dignity; do not allow yourself to be treated with less love and respect than you know you deserve. When you do this, you feel good about yourself, and in turn, your self-confidence increases. The next time you aren’t treated well, you will own your power rather than giving it away.

ARE YOU COMFORTABLE WITH BEING MISTREATED BY MEN?

Have you ever bought a new car, driven it for the first time, and suddenly realized how difficult your old car was to drive?

Have you ever moved from one apartment or home to another, more spacious one, and suddenly realized how cramped your old place was?

Have you ever put on a new, comfortable pair of shoes and suddenly realized how uncomfortable the old pair was?

Whether you know it or not, you may be giving your power away to men and allowing yourself to be treated poorly in relationships because you are used to being treated that way As human beings we tend to become comfortable where we are, and often don’t realize the shortcomings of our situation until we are in a new one. All at once, we feel the contrast between the two pairs of shoes, or apartments, or cars, or relationships, and then we can admit to ourselves that we were uncomfortable before.

AS WOMEN WE ARE SO ACCUSTOMED TO NOT

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