Have The Relationship You Want

Here’s a piece of a comment from Roxanne  (you can read her whole comment here: )

“Rori, I have been in a relationship for over 2 yrs now. He loves me, treats me like a queen. Made commitments to me but continues to sleep over at his x girlfriends saying she is just a x and is doing secretary work only. They split over 4 yrs ago he lives out of town…So when here he stays with me 8-15 nites a month and then he also sleeps at her place when not with me. I feel like musical beds…He says he does not sleep with her or have sex but I question this. He does tell me he loves me not something he tells others…

(Note from Rori – at this point,    accepted a simple date with another man, and her man got angry…)

“I made a comment that he was free to do as he wanted – he was a free bird and so was I. If he wanted musical beds then so be it. But I would not clip his wings and I too am free…He left here angry an stomped out…Was this wrong or the dating thing since he had committed to me and we had discussed our relationship prior and I did explain to him I was confused and I needed him to help me understand his need to still sleep over there…when I am just less then a few blocks away… Did I make a mistake to try to date?

Here’s my answer:

Roxanne, the first thing I want to tweak seriously here is the order of things: 

If you’ve “agreed” to “Exclusivity,” if you’re already IN the “Girlfriend Trap” – you have to TALK first, then date.

If you HAVEN’T officially made a commitment to exclusivity – you can date first, and THEN talk.

You’ve allowed your frustration and anger (justified, yes) to run you, here.

What you have is a man who is not ready to “commit” – if commitment means to you living in the same house, perhaps even married.

Therefore – it’s an absolute TRAP for you to commit to ANY kind of exclusivity other than sexual – if that’s what you want (many women don’t require that – but that’s not me, and I don’t know too many women who could thrive in a non-exclusive sexual relationship – but I do know several, each quite amazing and unusual, yet I know it wouldn’t work for me).

You must Circular Date until you have the exact commitment you DO want.  And clearly, you don’t have the commitment you want.

Now – under your current “contract” – he’s got you as a steady girlfriend – whenever he wants you, and he can hang out with his “friend” whenever he wants to.

There’s not a man on the planet who doesn’t know what “commitment” means – it means living with YOU, not in two or three separate places – and he’s not at that stage yet.

The thing is – you can’t DATE other men out of spite.  You can’t do it to get back at him, or to ASSERT your “freedom.”  You do it for you.  So that YOU feel sane, like you’re not waiting around.  So you feel strong enough to be VERY SOFT when he DOES show up.  In other words, so you’re not ANGRY with him for living his life the way he wants to live his life right now.

If you’re angry and resentful – it’s not because of what HE’S doing – it’s because you feel you’re compromising yourself, you feel stuck, you feel like you’re committing too much of your heart and time and energy to him and not getting it in return.  It’s very important to “match” a man at the very most.  the moment you start doing and feeling MORE – you’re going to feel angry and resentful.

So – this is something you’re in control of.  Where you focus, and how you treat yourself.  If you treat yourself wonderfully, you can feel open and loving with him, and that’s what you want.

HOWEVER – you DID make the exclusivity commitment – so if you’re going to break it – and you already have, and you MUST – this is how you do it (and then I’ll tell you what to do now…):

1. You Date Yourself.  Get dressed up and go out where there are men and -

2. Flirt.  Smile, hold eyecontact, practice leaning back and Receiving.

So – you can STILL do those NOW.  And I want you to go out and do that.  It’s not about HIM – it’s to make YOU feel better, stronger, more attractive. And then -

3. You TALK to your man. Share that you’re feeling unsettled, and you know things are off and that you’ve upset him by dating, and that you feel upset and angry about where the relationship is at, and is he open to talking about it now.  (And if not now, make an appointment.)

Share that you’re “looking for the whole enchilada – that it would feel great to live with him all the time, and that until he’s ready to move out of his ex-girlfriend’s house, you’d like to keep all yur options open.”

He’ll say - “But I’m not DOING anything with her – she’s just a friend – and it’s my office” -he’ll go on and on making no sense at all to you, but perfect sense to him.

You say: “I hear you.  I hear that you love me and want to be with me, and that this living arrangement is very convenient for you, and I understand.  And what I want is a relationship where we live together, go to bed together every night, wake up together every morning, and spend our free time with each other.  I don’t want another woman in the picture. I understand that this isn’t where you’re at right now, and you’re entitled to have things the way you want. And yet, it doesn’t feel good to me to be exclusive with you under these circumstances.  I would NEVER sleep with or have sex with anyone but you, and I’m trusting that you aren’t, as you say you aren’t sleeping with (ex-girlfriend’s name here) or anyone else – and yet, I need to keep my options open for coffee dates and lunch dates, even dinner dates – so that if there’s a man out there who’d like what I want, he can find me. It just doesn’t feel good to WAIT for you in this way.”

And that’s a “Speech” – you do it one sentence at a time, and listen to him in-between your sentences – REALLY listen, at Level 2 (Listening at Level 2 is in my ebook) when he speaks.

After you get this straight, you may feel sad if he doesn’t step up right away (give him time) – but you won’t feel angry.

Your anger isn’t becasue of what he’s doing, it’s because of what YOU’RE tolerating and the effort YOU are putting out.

Please let me know if you’re in this same situation as Roxanne, I’ll reply to your comments as well.

Roxanne – try this, let me know how it works – even if all you do is just CONSIDER doing this and practice putting together a Speech.

Love, Rori

 

 

 

 

A man can betray us in many ways.

He can betray us sexually.  He can simply lie to us about how he feels.  He can have an emotional connection with another woman that takes him away from us. He can have a fantasy life that keeps him from committing fully to a deep relationship with us.

Mimi wrote a comment to my post on what to do if your man betrays you, and I wanted to use it to jump off of here…

Mimi’s husband fell “in love” with a woman at work 17 years into their 19 year marriage, and he still seems to be “mooning” over her.

Mimi is caught between wanting to save her marriage and just give up and start fresh… She said:

“I am confused because when home he tells me he loves me…How can I approach talking to my husband about this without pushing him away? Should I start looking more at other men and conclude that perhaps we should call it quits? I love him but I don’t want to share his love.”

Here’s my answer:  Mimi, ask yourself if you want to fight this and keep your marriage together, or do you want to give up?

And the weird thing – giving up is the best way to fight!

If you can continue to turn your attention to yourself, feel as great as you can, that’s the starting point.

Use the Tool in my Reconnect Your Relationship program, Change Everything – that means change your hair color and style (keep it as long as possible, no short cuts), change the clothes and colors you wear – in fact pick one color (pink, red, baby blue, lavender) and wear it ALL the time – change your makeup, do things that make you feel sexy. Show your body, wear lace, wear jewelry – whatever feels good.

A pole dancing, or erotic dancing class is a terrific, fun way to really “get into yourself.”  (Remember – this isn’t for HIM, it’s for YOU.)

And FLIRT.  You don’t have to actually go out with other men to talk to them in public places, to allow them to come up to you and start conversations, to flirt at parties. 

Get mysterious by really having fun on your own.  I’m not talking about lectures at the library, I’m talking about dancing, art openings, walks at the beach. 

This will all change how you feel about YOU, and it will start to turn you into the MOST desireable woman – you’ll get a higher Degree of Difficulty, and that’s your best chance of turning things around.

In a way – he has to look at you fresh.

How does this look like “giving up?”  Because it has nothing to do with HIM.  You’re not talking to him about repairing the relationship, you’re not asking him to not think about this woman, or not write emails to himself – you’re focused on YOU.

And, at the same time, you feel the way you feel.  You don’t pretend to be all chipper and happy and upbeat.  If you’re feeling upset and sad, then feel those things – just don’t engage him in a conversation about it, unless he asks.

I know this is the complete opposite of what we all instinctively want to do.  We want to simply go to our man, shake him, and make him do and feel what we want him to do and feel.  And we can’t.  It doesn’t work.

The way to attract a man in a situation like this is to move AWAY from him, not TOWARD him.  And at the same time, whenever he DOES come toward you – that’s the time to be open, adventurous, loving, flirty and warm.  It’s NOT the time to show your anger and distress by attacking him or trying to get him to do something or to understand you.

Being open, adventurous, loving, flirty and warm means you feel what you feel – perhaps wonderful because you’re taking such good care of yourself and having so much fun, perhaps sad and angry because you miss him in the relationship.

No matter what you’re feeling – you WELCOME him INTO your feelings.  You open your heart, let him see whatever’s going on there, let him talk, let him do and say what he does and says, and you respond from your heart.

That could look like: “It feels good to be lying here with you.”

It could also look like “I was feeling so angry and sad, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to even let you near me…and it feels good just to let you close…”

Good luck to Mimi, and plese let me know your story – and your thoughts – too.

Love, Rori

The Internet has created so many wonderful things for us, and it’s also created some nightmares for us women.

Our men can not only look at porn with the click of a mouse, they can also “social network” with women all over the world on all kinds of sites – even legit ones like myspace.

So what are we to do?

The truth is – this has ALWAYS been a problem.

Men who have “problems committing to one women” have always been able to flirt with other women when we’re not around, look at pictures of naked women and pornography in magazines, and contact women all over the world through personal ads and even phone lines.

The Internet may be relatively new, but the core problem and men’s creativity in doing what they feel compelled to do hasn’t changed.

Here’s a letter from “Confused,” whose boyfriend is “perfect” except for one thing – he collects women on myspace.  Even if this isn’t happening to you – I’ll bet it’s happening to a friend of yours, so let me know what you think and feel about all this:

“Dear Rori,
I have been using your tips before I met my current boyfriend and I’ve continued applying all your tools ever since we met, and let me tell you it has worked amazingly well. So well, that he asked me to move in with him after 8 months of dating! I agreed to move in with him, because we had a long commute to see each other and I had just sold my home.

Rori, things are getting better each day (your tools really do work!). However, I feel confused about something. Now that I am living with him, l learned he likes to flirt with girls online, he was using myspace originally and when I told him it really bothered me that he had that account he took it off.

A few months later I learned he had opened a new myspace account without telling me. I confronted him again about this. I got really upset with him. His reaction was surprising: he cried and told me he did not want to lose me that I meant the world to him. He then said that he was using that account to contact friends, and when he contacted girls it was just to flirt, because it boosts his self esteem. He says “some guys go out there and cheat, I flirt online as an outlet”. Two days later, he told me he closed the account.

Rori, as I have said before I have been applying all your tools before and during my relationship, and even though things are moving along just fine, I can’t seem to ignore the fact that my boyfriend contacts other women and exchanges pictures with them. It bothers me tremendously!!!! I have confronted him about this and he knows it bothers me. I told him that as long as he draws the line with these women it’s ok with me.

He is a guy in the end, so I guess guys need that outlet; but I feel like it is somehow going to affect my relationship. I know he loves me, but wouldn’t his habit affect my relationship? I believe that it would. Because while he is with me, he could be fantasizing about these other women. So he is with me physically, but is thinking/fantasizing about these other women which will stop our relationship from growing. What are your thoughts on this? Thank you for everything! Confused…”

Before I could respond, ”Confused” wrote me again:

“Thank you for responding Rori.
I honestly think my boyfriend has a low self-esteem. I don’t know, maybe I am just justifying his actions. When I confronted him about how much this bothered me I made it clear that if he wants to meet/date other women to please let me know. I don’t want to waste my time with someone who is not serious about me, but at the same time I don’t want to be jumping from relationship to relationship. I want to make this work, but I can’t ignore how bad his habit makes me feel.

Thank you again for responding. I will look for your response on your new blog, and appreciate your advice. Still Confused”

***There’s a lot to this, and I want to really talk about this whole subject a lot in this blog ( I hope you’ll join in the discussion and let me know your experiences and how you feel about all this, too).

Let’s start, in this post – with the thing that most stood out for me, Confused’s statement: “He is a guy in the end, so I guess guys need that outlet…”

This is not true.  Guys who CHOOSE to be in committed relationships do not “need” anything like this. Guys who do NOT choose to be in committed relationships are entitled to follow their impulses however they want – they’re entitled to take advantage of every possible way to contact women – but a man in a committed relationship has made a CHOICE.

He either gets YOU, or he gets to wallow in the world of women.

This, to me, is a bottom line, basic Boundary RULE, and you should not accept it, period, unless it FEELS Okay to you. (Believe it or not, there are many women out there who say they wouldn’t mind, and I’ve met and talked to several who say they’re actually okay with sharing their men in this way.  This is what they say, however, and how they really feel might be something else entirely.)

There is one small, subtle thing, here, for us to talk about.

If I say it’s NOT okay for a man to actually make contact with other women (except for work, of course, and that’s a whole other issue we’ll discuss) – and I mean here reaching out to other women, either in real life or online, whether he calls them “friends” or not - then what about PICTURES of women?

Is looking at pictures of women and pornography online the same thing as contacting them, gathering them as friends on myspace, etc.?

And – I’m going to say NO. It’s not the same thing.  A picture is one thing - touching, and voice, email, text, and online contact are completely another.

You may differ with me on this (so let me know your opinion) – and I’ve worked with several clients to sort this out. (One woman has worked so brilliantly, and taken herself so far, that I’ll refer you to her blog when she’s got it up and running – you’ll want to talk to her if this is a problem for you.)

But let’s just say this – it all boils down to how YOU feel.  If what your man is doing (and doing it in front of you is way better than doing it behind your back) bothers you, makes you feel bad in ANY way – we’re going to have to figure out how to help you stand by yourself – even if it means walking away from the man.

My Tools work – Confused is experiencing how well they work – and now, we need to talk about what KIND of man you’re attracting (since you’re now attracting so many men…) and what to do if you’ve attracted a man you like who’s not exactly “perfect…”

Next posts: Standing up for yourself, how to talk to him about this kind of thing to actually give you the best chance of making a change, Boundaries, how to know when to leave…

Love, Rori

 

I remember Bill. He was gorgeous (just the kind of looks that made me weak), his body felt like it fit mine perfectly, and he was still so involved with his ex-wife it was like she was joined to him at the hip.

Looking back – I instantly want to ask myself “What was I thinking?” But I always come up with an answer, too – I always know that I thought I was “beating” her.  I thought I was “winning” him.

Nevermind that his life was littered with “friends” who were once girlfriends.

Nevermind that if the ex-wife needed ANYTHING (and she ALWAYS needed something) he was there in a flash.

Nevermind that he’d bring me places and forget to introduce me to his friends.

Nevermind that he never once referred to me as his “girlfriend.”

But I stayed with him – exclusively – for more than a year.  Until another woman came along.  And then I was no more than the “friend with benefits” I’d always been.

So how do you AVOID having it happen to you the way it did to me? (And I DID learn to never, ever let that happen to me again…)

First – never ever, and I mean NEVER become exclusive with a man unless you have EVERYTHING you want – the ring, the house, the wedding, the trip around the world – whatever it is that makes YOU feel like you have a great relationship that’s in the exact place you want it to be, AND you feel ABSOLUTELY SECURE inside that you are loved, cared for, and come FIRST in his life.

Alright – that’s a lot.

Most of us would think that’s extreme.  And yet it’s the ONLY way to feel strong inside, keep your boundaries going, keep your own LIFE moving forward no matter WHAT your man does or says.

And yes – it IS possible to be fully involved with a man – emotionally, sexually, spiritually and in every other way – and STILL keep your options open until you have all those “commitment” things you want.

More about how to do this in future posts – for now – I want you to IMAGINE doing this.

IMAGINE what it would be like to always keep your options open until YOU feel FIRST in his life.  Until the “ex” either disappears completely, or becomes simply the mother of his children and a friend of both of you in a way that feels GOOD to YOU.

Next we’ll work on the two parts of this “ex” thing – Boundaries so you NEVER feel resentful or angry about the situation, and Attraction so you can bring him closer without ANY effort.

Love, Rori