Hi Evan:

I think I know the painful answer to this one but here it goes.. I married a guy 10 years younger than me (then 31/21). It was great for the first 3 years, and then he left for no good reason. One day, he just said "I want to be married but I want to be single too". He said that he would only be gone 2 months. Well, 2 months turned into 18 months. He came back but was never, ever home, so I kicked him out.

Now he’s back, saying that he wants to come back and really try. BUT he wants to come back in a month. The problem is that my kids really love him and I do (or did…I don’t even know!). All I know is that he has caused me more pain than anyone ever has. I keep thinking that he will grow up, and I always hope that he will start making better decisions in all aspects of his life for his own sake. But it never seems to happen. When is enough enough? I have been waiting for him to grow up for 6 1/2 years now. Do I give it another month or tell him “Adios”? He is a nice guy but one really lousy husband/boyfriend so far.

Candace

Dear Candace,

I’d like you to meet my friend, Ben Franklin. Ben has a few words for you that might be helpful:

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

An asshole is a nice guy 80% of the time.

Hate to be the one to break it to you, C, but you’re acting a little insane. Then again, all of us do when we expect others to change for our benefit.

How are you acting insane? Let me count the ways.

I married a guy 10 years younger than me (31/21). 21-year-old men, with rare exceptions, are not ready for marriage. Too little life experience, too little money, too many hormones.

I want to be married but I want to be single, too. Isn’t that like saying “I want to be a vegetarian, but eat meat, too”?

2 months turned into 18 months. The single part of marriage can be somewhat addictive, I’ve heard.

He came back but was never, ever home. If a tree falls in the forest, but sleeps around when you’re not looking, did it really happen?

Now he’s back, saying that he wants to come back and really try. BUT he wants to come back in a month. And I’m going to start my new diet as soon as the holidays are over…in 2014.

I keep thinking that he will grow up, and I always hope that he will start making better decisions in all aspects of his life for his own sake. You mean, for YOUR sake. He IS making decisions for his own sake.

When is enough enough?

Now that you’ve read what you’ve wrote – and had it plastered right in front of you with semi-sarcastic commentary – it’s your turn to answer the question, Candace.

When is enough enough?

Only when you say it is.

Only when you determine that your life without him is better than your life with him.

Only when you realize that you will never have a stable healthy relationship as long as he’s in the picture and owns a piece of your heart.

You say he’s a nice guy, Candace. He’s not. To borrow a quote from my book, “Why You’re Still Single”: An asshole is a nice guy 80% of the time. Assholes don’t torture old women or throw puppies out windows. Assholes do exactly what your “husband” is doing to you. They’re unreliable, emotionally abusive, and they lie – all while they’re charming you and claiming their devotion to you.

To make this crystal clear, Candace – you’re in a relationship with a jackass, but it’s not the jackass’s job to change.

You want to stop his selfish rampage over your existence?

Throw him out. Refuse his calls. Move on.

Because at this point, it’s not his fault for being a liar.

The harsh truth – the one that you already know – is that it’s your fault for not having the strength to walk away.

Want better results in your love life? Click here to read my FREE eBook "7 Secrets for Dating Success" and receive news about all my new articles, products and seminars.

Click here to get my blog emailed to you when it comes out! 

 

I hope you don’t find me to sound conceited or picky, but anyway I am hoping you can help me here. I am a 34-year-old single mom with a beautiful one year old daughter from a previous relationship that didn’t work out because my ex BF didn’t want the baby. I have never been married.

I am bothered by the fact that I’ve never been married. I SO desire to get married within the next couple of years or so, but I want it to be with the right person. I wish I was married about 5 years ago or so.  Like virtually all women, I would like to have my "princess day" of getting married before I go completely gray and I look too old. I am also very worried that if I don’t get married soon enough while my baby is young, she will never have a father figure in the picture whom she can comfortably bond with.

I believe I am reasonably attractive and on the "cute" side. I am five feet tall, a little over 100 pounds, and have very long dark hair.  But, to this day I have a hard time finding the right guy. I don’t feel any chemistry when I’m not with a guy I find equally attractive.  Sure, of course personality counts, but I just don’t feel comfortable with kissing a guy whom I don’t find attractive.

To sum things up, over the years I’ve found that the guys who are interested in dating me are either too "geeky" looking and unattractive, too old, or, if they ARE my age and I find them attractive– they don’t seem stable in life and don’t have a good job OR they’re just plain conceited jerks (like my baby’s father). I’m not kidding. I’ve been trying online dating with several different sites, but that hasn’t worked out for me.

Why am I having such a hard time in finding someone who is mutually interested in me whom I find attractive, who holds a steady decent job AND has a decent personality?  I don’t think I’m asking for too much here, or am I? Should I force myself to be in a relationship with someone whom I don’t find terribly attractive and I don’t feel any chemistry with (whom I just don’t want to be "intimate" with?).

Paula

Dear Paula,

We covered this recently, but since you speak for a lot of women out there, I wanted to try to tackle your question in a slightly different way.

First of all, I want to validate all of the women who feel just like Paula does. I know it’s not always easy to hear the other side of things – or even consider that there IS another side of things – but we’re here to try to get down to a core truth. This isn’t about right and wrong; this is about effective and ineffective. If your goal is to get married and find a father for your baby, you always have to keep that in mind.

If you want someone stable and kind and attractive and tall and personable and age-appropriate and financially well-off, and you can’t seem to find him? Maybe you need to compromise on SOMETHING.

And I think that’s where the Lori Gottlieb critics went a bit astray. See, if your primary desire is to lead an exciting, passionate life, then, well, you go, girl. But if you want someone stable and kind and attractive and tall and personable and age-appropriate and financially well-off, and you can’t seem to find him? Maybe you need to compromise on SOMETHING. You can transpose the world “settle” for compromise, if you like, but we’re talking about the same thing here: giving up one thing to get something else….

Continued on next page >>       Pages:   1 2

Dear Evan,

I keep losing relationships when I say that sex isn’t right outside of a marriage. I used to think that women have more self-control than men, but have since realized that we are all humans.

Is it ever possible to have a year-long relationship without sex? Even the most conservative girl I’ve met gets heavy on that after a while. I feel pressured. They ask questions like "will we be doing that (whatever is the action in the movies) in future?"

I think maybe I’m the problem. I’ve been called frigid, gay (am not), etc.

There’s so much more to life than sex, right? Maybe I should look for intelligent scientists.

Jon

Dear Jon,

You sound a bit like the guy who insists on buying flowers for women on first dates. He seems like a really nice guy, but what he doesn’t get is that his views are out of step with the majority of society.

So it’s not a matter of whether he’s right or wrong; it’s a matter of whether his behavior is effective or ineffective.

When you lead your question with “I keep losing relationships when I say that sex isn’t right outside of a marriage”, you make it abundantly clear that your moral stance is quite ineffective. That doesn’t make you wrong. That makes your choice a highly questionable one as far as most women are concerned.

And, as I am wont to do, I’m going to use this platform to ask readers to consider if they have any hard-wired minority beliefs that prevent them from making a connection. Again, I’m not a moralist; I’m a pragmatist. Just because a guy tells me that his mullet hairstyle is the purest expression of how he likes to look, doesn’t mean that wearing his mullet in his online dating photo will help him woo the ladies.

Just because a guy tells me that his mullet hairstyle is the purest expression of how he likes to look, doesn’t mean that wearing his mullet in his online dating photo will help him woo the ladies.

Lest you think I’m joking – that’s a true story. I had a client four years ago who was a grown-up 70’s rocker who teaches guitar lessons. Nice man. Very passionate. But in his insistence on “being himself”, he pretty much eliminated every woman who tossed her AquaNet out the window in 1989. Same goes for my Jewish client who loved his dreadlocks, and was surprised he didn’t get much attention on JDate. Somehow he was shocked that all the Ivy League women who want to marry doctors and lawyers weren’t flocking to his unwashed nest of hair. Doesn’t mean he’s a bad guy – it just means he had to make some tough choices: Keep the hair and lose the women. Or lose the hair and get the women.

Since I’m not a psychologist, I’m not gonna worry in this space about WHY you’d opt for abstinence. That’s between you and your clergyman. All I can say is that the number of people aboard the no-sex train is increasingly small. So as I see it, you have two choices:

Keep beating the drum that says sex is wrong outside of marriage and continue to wonder why most women keep running away, OR:

Get off your moral high horse and start sexually servicing these women the way they want to be serviced.

If not, someone else will. I guarantee that.

 

Hi Evan,

My boyfriend and I have been living together for about three months and dating for seven. I love him to pieces but I don’t feel we’re both pulling our weight as far as finances and the typical chores at home. We’re both 37, he went back to school to finish his engineering degree so he’s going to school three nights a week. I really admire him for this but at the same time I don’t feel he’s working as much as he should or could. His work is flexible and many days he’s done by 2:00 in the afternoon — I guess I’m resenting this and don’t know how to handle it.

Thanks,

Julie

Dear Julie,

I forgot where I heard this, so forgive me if I’m misquoting:

We are all experts in our own behavior.

In other words, we know exactly what we do. I can rattle off every kind and generous thing I ever did for any of my ex-girlfriends. I remember making late-night airport runs, going out to dinner with her mom, soothing her emotional crying jags, coming up with thoughtful birthday and anniversary cards, paying for every meal, drink and coffee during her unemployment, and so on.

You know why I remember this? Because *I* did it.

What I don’t remember as clearly is what she did for me. How she took care of me after I had sinus surgery, how she made me a three course dinner, how she bought a dress to go to a wedding with me, how she made my bed while I was in the shower, how she held her tongue after I said yet another stupid thing.

These are is two major disconnect we have in dating.

• We remember all of our good deeds and forget all the nice things that our partners do for us.
• We ignore our own bad qualities and focus on our partners’ bad qualities.

I have a friend who was dissecting her new boyfriend to me the other day.

“He’s not great in bed. He has a questionable past. He’s moving too fast with the relationship”.

These are fair enough reasons to be concerned. Then I asked her to tell me what reasons a man might have for not wanting to be with her. She took a second to think, before responding:…

Continued on next page >>       Pages:   1 2

Wouldn’t it be great if people were like computers? Instead of acting on things like "feelings" and "emotions", we’d work off facts and empirical evidence, so that we’d never be fooled by the same racket twice. Sure, no one would be able to cry at chick flicks or sense when something’s wrong when you come home from work, but who cares? The day you emulate your laptop will be the final day you look across the dinner table at your boyfriend and ask yourself, "What the hell am I doing with this guy?"

Regrets? I’ve had a few. And after each bad relationship, I find myself retrospectively scratching my head, wondering how I could have been so blind. Ever ask your friends, "Now that we broke up, what did you really think about him?" Sure, you have. Upon which you learned that everyone unanimously felt he was a jerk since Day 1. What are friends for, if not to lie to you by lending unconditional support?

So if the rest of the world can see that someone is toxic, why do we stay? How do we end up with people who turn others off, but turn us on? I think it’s those damn human feelings getting in the way again. Even a total jerk can be expected to be a nice guy 80% of the time. And that 80% is all the positive reinforcement you need to stick around for too long with the wrong guy. If you were to be an impartial third-party judge of your own life, you might act differently. But it’s a lot harder to leave your own neglectful boyfriend than it is to tell your girlfriend to dump hers.

It’s simple to put labels on a guy to justify why he should be dumped– he’s neglectful, he’s abusive, he’s selfish, he’s gay, blahblahblah. What’s far more interesting is when you find yourself wholly invested in someone who defies any of these "bad" descriptions. In fact, you’re pretty sure you’re dating a good person. He was generous when courting you, he was respectful when he met your parents, and he gets along really well with your friends. You couldn’t have seen his downside when you first got together. But since he lost his job, you’ve discovered he has a really short temper. Plus, he hasn’t been too aggressive in finding work. In fact, he said that he’s contemplating a new career, although he doesn’t know what that will be quite yet.

Revelations like this present a real problem. People fall hard and fast for each other, which is wonderful and normal. No one should begrudge anyone’s puppy love. But as any parent will tell their teens, puppy love is evanescent. True love takes endurance. Which is why there’s no point in beating yourself up about not trusting your judgment. It doesn’t do you any good.

By the same token, I’m not saying that you should always trust your judgment. We’re humans. We make mistakes. However, like lab rats who get shocked when they go for the wrong cheese, we have the capacity to learn from them. And if you’re going out with the same narcissistic guy or the same alcoholic guy or the same emotionally unavailable guy over and over and over gain, THAT’s where you need to beat up on yourself. The one thing you can trust is that you’ve been down this path before and you know how it ends….

Continued on next page >>       Pages:   1 2

Hi, Evan!

What are your thoughts on stating explicitly in my profile what I categorically do want in a relationship and, conversely, what I categorically do not want? I know we’re supposed to keep our profiles positive, light, and personal without being scary. Is there an upbeat, non-attacking way to say that I want to get married and will only consider meeting men who want the same? I don’t want to sound harsh (or scary), but neither do I want to spend any more time in my life getting to know someone only to discover that he isn’t looking to get married.

I don’t see much benefit in wading through all the ambivalent suitors out there just to be polite. Related to this, there are some matches that just will not work with me — smokers, for one, and guys who are enraged with their exes and monologue about them ceaselessly. 

So, in sum, I want to meet emotionally and legally available guys who are serious in their intent to marry and who are willing to consider me as a possible mate, applying to me the same thoughtful consideration that I must apply to them. If I am not a contender for the one-and-only spot in someone’s heart, I don’t want to chat with him through a dating site. And presumably, a fellow looking for something that I can’t/won’t provide might appreciate it if I say at the get-go what a no-starter for me would be. 

All this deal-breaker kind of talk does seem rather heavy for an introductory profile. But I wouldn’t interview a computer analyst if I were hiring for a forest ranger job, and I wouldn’t audition for Cirque de Soleil if I were afraid of heights and couldn’t do all those bendy things (much as I would love to be in Cirque de Soleil). At some point both parties have to lay it on the line, and today I’m thinking that sooner rather than later is the way to go. What do you think?

Suzan

Dear Suzan,

A snippet from a man’s profile:

“If you’re over the age of 34, don’t waste your time. If you don’t like guys who flirt with other women, stop reading. If you’re not fit and thin with curves in all the right places, we’re probably not a match. If you can’t feel secure unless you’re telling me what to do, you might want to skip the rest of this.”

Listed above are the needs and wants and thought processes of a good number of men. You might think they’re shallow and meaningless, but men want what men want. A young, hot woman who is easygoing and will allow him to be himself at all times. Yet if you read that profile above, you wouldn’t give the guy a second look. You’d probably pass it along to your friends because he sounds so horrible.

This is what happens when you state explicitly what you DON’T want. You sound shallow and negative and picky, even if what you desire is quite reasonable.

So for your rule of thumb…

Don’t say what you don’t want. Say what you DO want. Find the positive. Always. If you have been with fiscally irresponsible men in the past, say, “I want a guy who knows how to balance a checkbook – even if it’s online.” If you have a past with abusive men, say, “Chivalry and kindness are the keys to my heart.”

Which brings me to my other major point – one which probably should have led off this blog post:…

Continued on next page >>       Pages:   1 2

Okay, Evan, here goes. I find men and they want to get serious right away, i.e. marriage! I have been divorced for 18 years. I was married for 13. I am alone, my daughter is grown. I love doing my own thing, such as watching a race, rather than doing what HE wants to do. I know it is selfish, but yet I keep them hanging on, hate to let go, and then miss them when they do go!

What is wrong with me? Am I afraid to commit? I don’t want to be alone, but yet I don’t want to do what I don’t want to do. I know, I have to give, and I do. But the way I handle this is by just not answering calls. Caller ID was the best thing that ever could have happened to me! I was engaged 3 times and backed out. I did have one serious relationship for 5 years after my divorce and would have married him, but he left me because I was working for a band and going away on weekends. (I did ask him to go also but he worked a lot). It was too much of an experience for me NOT to do it. Now, I find myself pushing them away when they want to be close and wanting them when they do finally start giving up. HELP.

Barb

Barb,

I know a writer who was aimless in his career. He was a hard worker who had a lot going for him, and after years of toiling away in the wrong jobs, was determined to land the right one. A friend hooked him up with a bigwig in the life insurance biz and he decided to give it a shot. A year later, he quit. Took another job in life insurance. Quit. He continues to look for work in sales and yet I see no indication that anything is going to change.

It’s easy to see that this guy should not be selling life insurance. Yet it’s what he knows; it’s what he thinks he wants. It provides security and comfort and structure. The problem is that it’s ill-fitting. He’s trying fit a square peg in a round hole.

So are you.

Based on what little you shared with me, it seems pretty clear that you think you want a relationship, but you don’t actually want one.

And there’s nothing wrong with that. Being single is great – if you want to be single. The problem is that you – and lots of people - spend their lives chasing things they don’t want.

In failing to clarify our goals, we create a cycle of dissatisfaction and resentment. As stated in this blog entry, happiness is when your goals and actions are aligned. And if your goal is to be free to do whatever you want, whenever you want, guess what?

You’re going to be pretty damn miserable as part of a couple.

No matter what you’re creating, it helps to have a plan. …

Continued on next page >>       Pages:   1 2

Dear Evan,

I’m in my early thirties and recently married. I’d consider me and my female friends to be very independent by nature. We received good educations, advanced in our careers and had the moxie to travel far off the beaten path. Quite a few of these girlfriends are now at that stage where they’re moving in with or getting engaged to their significant others. Being at this point in our lives has led me to make an observation:

For all the effort we women put into finding a mate (and I was no exception), it seems that life becomes a little dull for a girl once her match has been made.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I LOVE my husband with all my heart. He’s my best friend. It’s just that, before I found him, life felt full of possibilities. I do still try to mix things up. I’ve just started training for my first triathlon. I enrolled in new subjects at the local college. And yet, overall, it seems my life course has been charted. Focus has been set (as in babies & making a bigger/better home for our family) and for the most part, everything seems pretty predictable.

In my girlfriends, I’ve seen various examples of how having a settled lovelife can change you, and not necessarily for the better. One girlfriend, whom I’ve always described as reliable has suddenly become flakey about every activity that doesn’t involve her live-in boyfriend. Another gal pal, who used to be up for any spontaneous adventure, now won’t even agree to a dinner double-date unless it’s at one of a tiny handful of restaurants, her boyfriend being such a picky eater. My friend who used to be one of those women you see jumping around on ESPN in bodybuilding competitions, now physically can’t perform half the fun activities she used to do with me because her fiance’s foot injury has kept them from exercising.

Another friend’s fiance persuaded her to do one of those expensive personal development seminars - you know… one of those $2000 weekends where, once participants "graduate" from the program, their next major "personal development" task is to recruit friends and family to sign up for the next $2000 seminar. Anyway, needless to say, she’s become a bit less interesting to talk to.

I really do GET most of the choices my friends have been making, since I find myself doing uncharacteristic things too for the sake of our relationship. My husband is a solid, affectionate, dependable guy with many things in common with me; he is nevertheless a different person with different interests. Plus, he’s caught up in the same family goals as me, which leaves us less time to relax and have fun together. When you’re married, you just have to put the partnership before oneself in order to make it work. I know it’s absolutely worth it.

It’s just… some days, the tedium gets to me more than on others. It really makes me wonder about how to keep one’s identity intact once you’ve committed to a whole other human being.

Continued on next page >>       Pages:   1 2

I am 25 years old and I’ve been dating my boyfriend for 3 years. I’ve had a couple of relationships before him, one was serious.  He’s had several relationships before me but he told me he’s never been in love. 

We have a good relationship, we do lots of things together, have the same friends, we like watching sports together, we have a really good friendship. We do have some pretty bad fights, some important and some ridiculous, but we usually bounce back pretty fast. I really love him.

Up until a few nights ago, he never told me he loved me. I’ve been going through a rough transitional period and feeling very insecure.  He just started a new job as a teacher and his life seems pretty set. 

We’ve had conversations in the past about marriage and he would always say he wasn’t sure if he wanted to marry me, but he knew he wanted to be with me. I never put any pressure on him to tell me he loved me or marriage or anything else. 

I’ve been really depressed about my life lately and the other night we had a fight and after we were talking things through. He went to bed but then called me over to lie down next to him. He said: "I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about you and our relationship, and I want you to know that you really mean a lot to me. I’ve never felt this way about anyone before and I want you to know that I do love you. You deserve to be loved." I started to cry a little, hugged him and told him how much that meant to me. He said he doesn’t want to say it all the time, only when he feels it and that he never wanted to say it unless he was sure he wanted to marry that person. I’m positive that he still doesn’t know if he wants to marry me. 

My question is:  

Does it sound like he told me that to try and make me feel better, because he felt bad for me? I want so badly to believe he really loves me but I’m starting to think he said it because he felt he had to and thought it would make me feel better. I have a tendency to over analyze things and I don’t want to ask him a million questions and make him regret telling me that. How can you tell if your boyfriend really loves you? I know I must sound crazy. I’ve been going through a rough time and I’ve been having trouble processing thoughts and emotions. I would appreciate any thought or advice you might have to offer.

Thank you,

Lisa

William Goldman said this about Hollywood, but I’d say that it’s more apropos in describing matters of the heart:

“Nobody knows anything.”

That’s right. I may be a dating coach, but I’m not omniscient. I certainly know less about your life and your boyfriend than you do. So whatever I’m doing here is just making an educated guess.

I’ll admit, I was a little choked up when you got to the part where he told you that he loved you. It’s really hard for some guys to say those words, and that’s not just an excuse for my gender. Since women place such great meaning on “I love you”, men have learned to adapt in one of two, super-logical ways:

Saying they love you without really meaning it.

Not saying they love you until they’re really, really sure.

Sounds like your boyfriend is in the second category. And yet, you’re not sure if you even believe him. Well, what could he tell you that would make you believe him? “I love you-will you marry me-here’s a ring-do you believe me now?”

You’re really asking two different questions here, Lisa.

You want to know if he means that he loves you.

You also want to know if this means he wants to marry you….

Continued on next page >>       Pages:   1 2

Evan,

Currently, I am using online dating to meet new prospects, though I choose not to date anyone who is going through divorce. I am divorced and have been for two years and am of the opinion that there is too much other stuff going on in one’s life during a divorce to date, as well. Also, it seems that about 40% of the men who state they are divorced are actually still going through the process. Lying from the start just cannot be good.

That stated, I have come up to some heavy objection from both family and friends - hence I’m here. They have given many examples of relationships that began quickly after a separation/break-up, so I am beginning to wonder if I am selling myself short - being too rigid. 

As a dating coach/expert, what do you think of the idea of dating someone who is still in the process of divorce? Do you advise your clients to take the date or run as quick as possible?  Any advice would be wonderful- thanks in advance for your response!

Sara

Dear Sara,

We all make judgments based on our own experience.

You had too much going on during your divorce to possibly consider dating. Therefore, you seem to think all men should feel the same way.

I assure you, they do not.

But you are correct in proceeding with a sense of caution. Not so much because he’s too busy with lawyers. Not because he listed himself as divorced but is really separated. But, most likely, because he’s still emotionally reeling from the death of his relationship.

I wrote about this extensively here, in a post called “When Do You Begin Dating Again After a Long-Term Relationship or Marriage?”

In it, I concluded that it’s up to the individual. The exact quote was “if you’ve mourned, if you’ve healed, if you’ve made peace – then you’re ready whenever you say you’re ready.”

Allow me to correct myself. This isn’t entirely true.

We often think we’re ready even when we’re not. And just cause you WANT to move on from your previous relationships does not mean you’re really READY to. You’re not ready to give. You’re not ready to compromise. And you’re certainly not ready to love with reckless abandon. Generally, if you’re dating immediately after divorce, you’re hurt, reeling and looking for a safe harbor in the storm that is singledom.

I have a client who went out with a man who was separated. It wasn’t a question of whether he and his wife were going to divorce – the relationship was toxic, the lawyers were in place, it was definitely over. The real concern was whether this guy needed time and space after the demise of his marriage. He assured my client that he didn’t. They fell in love. They were well-matched and perfectly adorable together. Two peas in a pod for eight months. Until he freaked out. He needed space. He thought he was ready for another committed relationship but needed a break before moving ahead. Months of agony ensued. He told her he’d come back after he had time to sort things out. He said he missed her. He said he loved her. She believed him. And it just didn’t matter.

He just wasn’t ready.

This same script, I’m reminded, played out in the life of one of my favorite clients who fell in love with a separated man. He gave a lot to her during their time together, but, when it got right down to it, he really needed to sow his oats for awhile. It’s not that he didn’t care about her; it’s that he wasn’t ready for another commitment so soon after declaring his bachelorhood….

Continued on next page >>       Pages:   1 2