Break Emotional Unavailability, Embrace Loving Relationships, Grow Self-Esteem

The Ruse: When Someone Tells You That They Can Show You Proof or You Can Ask Somebody

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proofreading

A few months back I shared how I ended up telling an acquaintance that the man she suspected of telling her porkies was in fact married. I’d met him a few months beforehand with a few other people and when she described him I was like “Well it must be X because the one you’re describing sounds like Y and he’s married”. She kept telling me I’d got them the wrong way round and by the time I realised I actually hadn’t got them mixed up, the truth became very clear. Mor-ti-fi-cation!

Now one of the things that annoyed me at the time was this whole ‘Man Code’ thing (you know the so-called unspoken rules between guys), so he had told her that if she didn’t believe that he wasn’t divorced, she could ask the boyf. Of course he knew she was highly unlikely to follow up.

When someone pulls The Ruse, they tell you that they can show or do something or that you can ask somebody else, so that they can verify their claims knowing damn well that it’s highly likely that you will be reluctant to do it for fear of coming across distrusting or creating conflict. The aim is to silence any queries and allay your fears and ultimately gain your trust. Another aspect of the trick is saying stuff like ‘Just ask X’ or ‘If you don’t believe me ask Y’ or ‘If you don’t believe me, we may as well end it now’.

They make what they’re suggesting sound like a fact, so you take it as the truth and assume that the ‘evidence’ that they point to is there should you decide to avail yourself of it – as it’s supposed to be fact, you assume it’s immovable.

Even if you do say ‘OK then, I will‘ you’ll be guilt tripped, accused of not believing them -‘Is my word not good enough for you?’ or ‘Well this obviously can’t go on if you don’t trust me’ – or they’ll string it out.

Take this married guy. He believes the Man Code is alive and well and assumes that if she called up the boyf that he’d verify the story without him even having to ask him to do it (like hell he frickin would).

They may get melodramatic or just plain mean so that somehow you forget that this is about questionable ‘truths’ and you end up being guilt-tripped. You feel bad that they feel bad and feel guilty for having justifiable concerns which will lead you to question your judgement. If you don’t follow through and clarify, this is an example of a trust point being setup, from then on you will be inclined to take information at face value for fear of reprisals if you question it.

Why He’s Not An Assclown Because He Broke Up With You/Doesn’t Want a Relationship

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Is he an assclown because we broke up?

The moment that the decision is made for a relationship to end and the words are final, we feel an immense sense of loss, of insecurity, indignant hurt, and as the dust settles and the days and weeks pass, white space appears where you originally had plans with them. Depending on how you tend to cope with loss (and it is a loss, whether it’s of a relationship or the idea of one) and whether you’re the type that does hurt but gradually starts to heal, get over it, and get on with their life, or whether you sink into a slump, wallow, and let your life come to a halt as you desperately try to find a way to get him and the security of the relationship back, you may draw the conclusion that he’s an assclown because he ended the relationship.

Likewise, it can feel like a blow to the solar plexus when it becomes evident that the person who we feel so much for doesn’t feel the same way. Maybe you’ve discovered that he’s with someone else or he’s started avoiding your contact or has straight up said ‘I’m not interested’ or ‘I don’t want a relationship’ or taken the easier route and said ‘I’m not ready for/looking for a relationship right now’ or even ‘I can’t give you what you want’.

For the demise of a relationship, you’ll be outraged and indignant that he’s not still there with you wanting what you want. You’ll think about how you feel and wonder how he can’t feel the same way. You may wonder if there is someone else or whether he’s confused/scared/having a moment and be plotting how to get him to come around to your way of thinking. You’ve already decided that you’re more than happy to try, to keep working at the relationship and you can’t understand why he doesn’t want to try. Or you may be using every expletive under the sun as you rage at yourself and anyone else who will listen about the fact that the relationship has ended.
If he’s communicated that he’s not interested, you’ll sting from the rejection and may wonder why he doesn’t want you, what you ‘did’ to turn him off, what you ‘could’ do to win him over, or go into a downward spiral because it reminds you of other past rejections.

However you react you may have decided that he’s an assclown, but in general, a man breaking up with you or not being interested does not an assclown make.

Not every relationship has potential or is built to last and not every man has to be interested. Relationships do end and, men are allowed to break up with us and not be interested.

You may be OK with things as they are or constantly trying to ‘make things work’ but the fact that he doesn’t share that same desire is not a crime and it certainly doesn’t make him an assclown.

Likewise, you may see wonderful potential in a relationship between you both and feel a great deal of interest in him, but that doesn’t demand an IOU and if he’s not feeling it, you don’t want to be that persistent car salesman that’s running after the uninterested customer begging them to take another look or lowering your price.

You have to ask yourself why you want a relationship with someone that doesn’t?

If he wants out of the relationship, why don’t you want out of the relationship?

What are you seeing about the relationship that he doesn’t?

What is he seeing about the relationship that you don’t?

Why are you so interested in him?

It’s also important to be honest with yourself and ask whether you feel the level of intensity towards him because you know that the relationship is unlikely to happen, that you get more interested the more resistant they are, or that it’s catering to negative beliefs that you have about relationships, love, and yourself.

The biggest thing that you have to accept about breaking up or being turned down is that it’s not just about what you want.

You cannot project what you think, feel, want, and need onto someone, and assume that ipso facto, they think, feel, want, and need exactly the same things as you. You may have been in a relationship but it doesn’t mean that you have to lose your sense of self and merge each others personalities, characters, and desires.

You may get trapped in your feelings and try to stem the loss and the feeling of rejection by seeking attention from them, giving you a temporary fix but inevitably opening you up to more pain, and potentially causing you to engage in, what is at best, embarrassing and at worst downright humiliating behaviour. You’ll do this to avoid processing how you feel about the end of the relationship or them turning you down, but you’re prolonging the inevitable and beating up your self-esteem and removing your own dignity in the process.

Men cross into assclown territory when they break up with you, not because they broke up, but because of how they choose to end the relationship or how they behave afterwards or in the run up to it. There isn’t a clean, pleasant way to tell someone that a relationship is over, but that doesn’t make it justifiable to do shitty things.

Treating you like shit until you get the message and bring about a confrontation so that he can orchestrate his ending is pathetic. Cheating on you or trying to line up his next ‘victim’ so that he can ensure continuity of en ego stroking is downright nasty. Refusing to give you space, or insisting it’s over, getting a new woman and then calling you up and ensuring that you don’t move on is idiotic. Putting all the blame at your door for why it has ended so that you end up agonising over what you coulda, woulda, shoulda done is cowardly. But when what he does is end the relationship and is upfront with you, it doesn’t make him and assclown, it just makes him uncomfortably (for us) honest.

Men also cross into assclown territory when they know you’re not ‘The One’ and actually know that they have no genuine interest but look at you as an opportunity for a shag, ego stroke, a shoulder to lean on, money, cheap babysitter etc, in spite of knowing that you want more.

There you are seeking validation asking what the deal is with you both, whether he loves you, wants you and he’s like ‘Of course I do baby now listen to my problems/give me a blowjob/buy me stuff ‘. Decent guys, and there are plenty of them, are not comfortable letting you think that the relationship or their interest are more than what they are, and will bite the bullet and be honest with you, or even distance themselves from you if you won’t listen.

And this is why it is important to listen and to open your eyes. Avoid loving and trusting blindly and keep your feet in reality because you have a responsibility to yourself to act in your own interests and make yourself opt out of situations that detract from you even if you have to experience initial pain. Be under no illusions even if that means confronting a painful truth – if you stick around with someone who wants out or who shows or voices their disinterest, you’re only lying to yourself and opening yourself up to more pain.

Your thoughts?

 

Getting Real About Recognising Inappropriate Relationship Behaviour: He Doesn’t Need To Cheat (or Beat) To Be An Assclown

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In my last post I wrote about the key behaviours that assclowns rely on to mistreat you and manage the relationship on their terms including passive aggression, erasing the past by pressing The Reset Button, and deciding that ‘I’m not that bad’ because they have other ideas of what they constitute as ‘bad’ so they feel within their rights to invalidate your perception of their behaviour.

I think the most common misconception I come across is that people seem to think that for their guy to be an assclown, they need to be cheating.

While this is an example of assclown behaviour, you can be involved with a faithful assclown but that doesn’t change the fact that their behaviour is completely inappropriate.

When you use the likes of cheating or even beating as a barometer of what constitutes inappropriate relationship behaviour, not only do you fail to see the wood for the trees, but you’re actually setting yourself up to take a hell of a lot of poor behaviour in a sort of ‘waiting for it to get really bad’ mentality instead of recognising that it actually already is really bad. It’s like ‘I know I’ll leave if he cheats on/beats me because then I’ll know I’m in a really bad relationship, even though you’re already in your own personal hell. It’s a warped glass is half full optimism.

Just because someone hasn’t shagged behind your back or left visible bruises on you, doesn’t mean that you’re not being bruised, battered, or even broken by their behaviour.

It’s really good to assess what your beliefs are about love, relationships, and yourself because when you use cheating (or beating) as your marker is tied to ideas that stem from the belief that a faithful man, even if he’s of jackass proportions, is better than no man, or not as bad someone who does cheat (or beat). In fact, I have even come across women who think that a guy that thumps them around but is faithful is ‘not as bad as he could be’.

So for example:

‘I believe that most men cheat’ is a belief where if you believe that your man isn’t cheating, things can’t be that bad.

‘I believe men cheat when something is wrong with the relationship or me’ is a belief that will have you also believing that things aren’t as bad as they are because if they were, he’d be sleeping with someone else.

It may be because you’ve witnessed it with your parents or in previous relationships and homed in on these behaviours and believe that they’re key things to look out for they are, but they are not the only dubious actions to look for.

Do not perpetuate the misconceptions in society and in particular, often held by these people, that communicates that poor relationship behaviour only comes in certain guises, otherwise you will find yourself in dangerous and damaging situations that bust your boundaries and are not a reflection of healthy values that you may possess.

Remember it can be very convenient and comfortable for someone to stay in the relationship and enjoy the fringe benefits like a shag, an ego stroke, a shoulder to lean on, money, status, a convenient smoke screen that detracts from the ‘real’ them and more. I’ve come across a lot of women involved with faithful guys who are ‘faithful’ as in they stick around, but they are totally withdrawn, use and abuse them, and wheel them out like show ponies to remind themselves that they’re not the man they see when they look at themselves in the mirror. That doesn’t mean that it’s a relationship to value and hold on to – you want someone who is faithful and treats you with love, care, trust, and respect. If these are absent, you’ve got no relationship whether they’re there or not.

I’ve come across many a woman through this blog who has dined off the ‘good points’ and the ‘good times’ – how else do you explain how they can wax lyrical about, for example, 10% of the entire relationship while 90% of it is awful?!

I don’t doubt that most people have their ‘good points’ and ‘good times’ but it’s what on balance, the good points look like when the not so good and downright outrageous bad points are taken into account. If you’ve ever, for instance, been involved with a narcissist, you’ll know that when the going is good it’s great, but you’re only a hop, skip, and a jump away from the bad times, and they’re very, very bad.

People who have to talk about ‘good points’ and ‘good times’ work off the premise that these are evidence that things could be like this all or most of the time, when in actual fact, they’re not. A person is the sum of their entire characteristics and qualities, not just the convenient bits that suit your vision of them and the relationship. They may consistently be someone who exhibits their bad points.

Do you know that serial killers can often be charming, help out the little old lady next door and have glimmers of kindness? While it’s an extreme example, my point is that at a stretch we can find something decent to say about most people, but it doesn’t mean that they’re great relationship material or a great person that you share values with.

In my next post: Is he an assclown because he broke up with me or doesn’t want a relationship?

Also check out how to spot emotionally unavailable men

Your thoughts?

 

Am I Involved With an Assclown? How To Spot Someone Who Means You & the Relationship No Good

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Am I involved with an assclown? How to spot someone who means you and the relationship no goodAn assclown is someone that deliberately and consistently goes out of their way to treat you without love, care, trust and respect. They add little or no value to the relationship and the cost to you of being with him/her is often your self-esteem, your well-being, and in some instances, your career, family, friends, finances and more.

They only have one foot or possibly even a toe in the relationship, or even nothing at all, and they knowingly (even if they deny it) mess you around and enjoy the fringe benefits of being with you (ego stroking, sex, a reliable shoulder to lean on, money etc) even though they don’t actually want you or have no intentions of ever giving you the relationship that you want. Often mixed in with Mr / Miss Unavailables, while some unavailable folk are super shady because they actively and knowingly seek to mistreat, exploit, and abuse people they’re involved with, not all unavailable people are assclowns, especially because their ‘fallback’ counterpart (the person they’re involved with) is also emotionally unavailable.

All assclowns are emotionally unavailable, are narcissistic or certainly have narcissistic tendencies, in some instances are sociopaths, but whatever label you might want to put in psychiatric terms, bottom line is that they don’t mean you any good, regardless of how charming they can be at times, and they veer between, at best, being users and at worst, being very dangerous.

You know they’re an assclown when they rely on The Outrageous Principle and busting your boundaries – They’ll take a chance and ask or do the most ridiculous thing to test to see what they can get away with, and with your little or no boundaries, taking this risk often pays off. They’re always trying to push the boundaries and have little or no respect for any that you enforce. Basically if you have boundaries, a relationship with an assclown cannot and will not work (you are unlikely to give them the time of day in the first place or for very long), because they on do things on their terms.

You know they’re an assclown when they have an ‘I’m Not That Bad’ attitude and outlook – They’ll often compare what he/she deems to be worse to cast themselves in a better light and won’t consider something to be bad if they don’t think that there’s been a tangible and severe enough consequence, i.e. what would typically be the natural consequence of mistreating someone – that person not having anything to do with them anymore. They’ll believe that they’re ‘not that bad’ if they believe that you don’t know the true extent of their dubious actions plus, coupled with his/her selective memory (see below with The Reset Button), they see themselves in a near glowing light anyway. They then back up their ‘I’m not that bad’ attitude by justifying it with ridiculous utterings (see below).

You know they’re an assclown when they liberally press The Reset Button – They possess a special ability to reset the relationship to whatever point that he/she feels most comfortable with, which is effectively like erasing the past. This is how they breeze their way back into various exes lives, disappearing for long enough and then bamboozling his/her way back in and trying to force out the memory of their misdemeanours. You’ll either remember them but be so fricking relieved to have him/her back and feel like you’ve ‘won’ that you go along with their brainwash or you’ll try to reason with them and explain your point of view about past events and they react negatively, effectively teaching you (see below with passive aggression) that if you ‘remember’, they’ll be offski and/or difficult to deal with.

You know they’re an assclown when they shed Crocodile Tears – He/she uses tears with little or no sincerity in them that are used to get what they want. These are often mistaken for evidence of emotion, or remorse. Unfortunately it fits in well with pressing The Reset Button and shifting the focus off their bad behaviour or the impact on you.

You know they’re an assclown when they use The Drip-feed move – Instead of being upfront and giving you all of the information, he/she makes the private decision to only tell you what they think you can handle at that time. Then it’s drip…drip…drip. Unfortunately for you, if you’re an eager listener willing to believe they’re reformed or that they’re keen to be honest, you’ll take their latest drip as the truth and then become unseated when it turns out that you’re basing your relationship on another half-truth. You are very likely to be caught out by this if you’re in denial about who they really are and don’t want to let go of your illusions.

You know they’re an assclown when they engage in Future Faking – Letting you think that there’s a future so that he/she can get what they need in the present, you’ll be spun tales, taken on whirlwind rides where they promise the sun, moon and the stars, be told that they want to have babies, get engaged, get married, buy a house, and may even show pony you around to friends and family, and then shazam, the future’s not so bright. When you call them on their rinky-dink behaviour, they look at you blankly, say you misunderstood, say that you didn’t meet his/her standards, or claim that they just need ‘time’ or that it turns out that they’re not over their ex, or even worse, they’ve been shagging someone else the whole time while they’ve been spinning tales. You’re very likely to be caught out by this if you buy into the fairy tale illusion and don’t think it’s very odd when a someone you hardly know is making grandiose promises and gestures that start to dwindle sharply. In fact, you don’t find it odd when someone wants to fast forward you through the initial stage of the relationship.

You know they’re an assclown when they amend the ‘terms and conditions’ of the relationship – Constantly switching the goalposts after luring you in on a temporary deal where you probably didn’t read the small print, little do you realise that they’re mentally tweaking up the ‘agreement’ with every boundary busting move they can manage. Tied in with their future faking, they reserve the right to withdraw the offer at any time or to roll out a different deal and if you want to be with him/her, it’s their way, or no way.

You know they’re an assclown when they do the ‘Showing You The Door’ act – Dumping you to gain power and control, or giving you periodical ‘opt-outs’ – ‘If you don’t like how I roll, you know where the door is….’. They use insecurity and fear and the prospect of telling you to beat it, to keep you in check. You’ll fall foul of this especially if you ‘cry wolf’ and engage in Women Who Talk (and Think) Too Much syndrome because they’ll realise that you’re crying and talking/complaining, but not going anywhere, and so recognises that the threat of him/her going or them disappearing after you voice any opposition, will create maximum impact, possibly even silencing you.

You know they’re an assclown when you get caught up in their passive aggression – Despite appearing to be on board, they obstruct and undermine through resistance that let’s him/her do as they always intended. As an example they’ll agree to go somewhere with you and to pick you up at a certain time. You hear nothing from them on the day and an hour after they’re due to show up, they say they’ve got problems at work and will be there soon. You wait. They call throughout the evening and then say that they’ll be there about 10 minutes before the event is due to finish… It’s the same when they say, ‘Of course I’ll be faithful’, and then they continue shagging around behind your back, or they claim that they’ll move in and then come up with every obstructive move possible. If you don’t get wise to this very quickly and keep buying into their lies, you will be stuck in The Disappointment Cycle.

You know they’re an assclown when they rely on The Status Quo – A behaviour that’s also seen with Mr/Miss Unavailables, assclowns also try to keep the relationship in their own comfort zone by blowing hot and cold and managing down your expectations. What separates an assclown from someone who is unavailable but not shady, is that they have lots of other dodgy or downright outrageous behaviour that they’re doing while managing down your expectations.

Check out my post on how to spot emotionally unavailable men

Your thoughts?

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Why aren’t I attracted to the good/decent/nice guys?

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go slow signI get so many emails lamenting the confusion of women knowing that they’re with a decent guy but feeling a lack of attraction for them. Let me tell you why this happens…

The term ‘nice guy’ is a blanket description used by women as an excuse to not pursue a second date/relationship and to give a wishy-washy reason for their lack of interest. When we use this excuse you will hear words and phrases such as:

‘boring’ ‘too nice’ ‘too quiet’ ‘not exciting enough’ ‘didn’t make me feel horny’ ‘would make a great friend’ ‘no sparks’ ‘unassertive’ ‘bland’ ‘would rather watch paint dry’ and the list goes on…

Men use it as the ideal blanket excuse for their lack of dating success. Can’t get past date number two? Oh, it must be because I’m too nice/They don’t ‘get’ me/I don’t wanna treat her like shit/I’m a decent guy/I want to treat her like a princess and she wants to be treated like she doesn’t exist and bla, bla, bla.

Hence it would seem that whether women or men are speaking about the whole ‘Nice Guy’ issue, it’s all a bit of a get out option – we don’t have to delve any deeper into why we’re not attracted to him, even if it actually stems from something negative within us, and the guy gets to duck out of confronting any real problems and blindly chooses to bumble along assuming that he’s God’s gift to the nice boy camp.

If you have a consistent habit of being involved with dubious men or in dubious relationships, it’s because you’re attracted to men that reflect the negative things that you believe about love, relationships, and yourself. This is why there is this common misconception that women are chasing Bad Boys/Jerks/assclowns when really, women with negative or misguided beliefs are drawn to and draw in relationships that cater to the negativity factor.

If you’re thinking ‘But I really want to be loved and cherished so why aren’t I attracted to the good guys?’, here is why:

You keep invalidating/cancelling out your own feelings about the relationship because you don’t know what a healthy relationship looks or feels like, so you’re geared up to chase the type of guy that makes you miserable – your ‘type’, the one you profess better compatibility with that you share ‘common interests’.

When you’re confronted with a ‘nice guy’, you feel suspicious, wary, are looking for the catch and may even feel like he’s mocking you. You’ll be in suspended disbelief and even though you may find it flattering at first, because you haven’t changed your own beliefs about relationships, you just won’t believe that this is something that is good for you. You may even sabotage the relationship with your insecurity, acting up to see if he really is that nice and treating him like he’s one of your exes giving you reasons not to trust him, when he may actually just be a decent guy wanting to spend time in your presence.

Ever said stuff like this:

It all seems too…normal.

I’m not really used to being treated like this.

I’m starting to feel a little claustrophobic as he wants to spend so much time with me. I need some space.

I feel like I’m turning into my ex Mr Unavailable/assclown.

Nobody can be this nice!

Myth: There Are No Good Men to Date – Part One

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I regularly receive emails that are along the lines of what Barbara, 41, recently sent me :

“You are absolutely right in everything that you say about these men and the relationships that result but you don’t understand what it’s like. It feels like all the good men have just disappeared or been snapped up and I’ve been left with the sh*t! Guys my own age or older have big ego’s and want to date younger women than me.

I want to meet someone on my level. Whilst I get approached by younger guys, they’re not what I want and some of them play the silly games that the older guys do! I’m pretty sure that it’s because I’m really successful and don’t appear to be some sort of damsel in distress why the guys I like don’t want me and most of the guys have several traits that suggest they’re emotionally unavailable. And don’t get me started on online dating! I have to use dating sites because you meet a lot more guys that way, but I am yet to meet someone who isn’t a liar, a cheat, or constantly trying to hook up with lots of women. I’m destined to be alone!”

Now I wouldn’t even begin to bullsh*t you and say that dating is easy and that meeting men is a walk in the park, but there are so many things wrong with this tale of woe that it’s no wonder Barbara and many other women like her are spending too much time with chumps.

1. Negative mindset – your beliefs and mindset feed your behaviour and there’s a definite resigned attitude

2. Reliance on online dating. Nobody has to use dating sites!

3. She’s not attracted to the guys who are interested in her and she feels attracted to the guys who are not attracted to her (this in itself should set off some alarm bells).

4. Focusing on the wrong things such as ‘age’ and how successful she is and how it must be scaring off men.

For a start, it’s such a broad sweeping, negative statement to say that all the good men are gone, or the age old lament of ‘there are no good men to date’. Yes, good guys do get snapped up, but plenty don’t and the reason why Barbara is not involved with ‘good’ guys is because they’re not the ones that she’s attracted to and even if she does meet a ‘good’ guy, she’s not likely to recognise it, or even if she does, she’ll over-intellectualise it and decide he’s not that great because he’s not the right age, financial, or educational profile, or whatever other criteria she has for someone who is ‘on her level’.

We tend to attract and are attracted to people that reflect what we believe about love, relationships, and ourselves. To actually go out there and date with such negative ideas about men is a recipe for dating disaster because you will go out there with your back up, expecting something bad to happen, and lo and behold it will, because you’ll gravitate to situations that reflect your beliefs.

The reason why women say that there are no good men to date – they let themselves off the hook to continue their pattern of behaviour. It gives them a reason to believe that they don’t have to change.

It’s easier to say ‘there are no good men to date’ because it let’s us continue to focus on ‘them’ as the problem rather than look a little closer to home and deal with the things we can actually influence.

I believe there are no good men to date so this means that my options are assclowns and Mr Unavailables and this is why I continue to be with them because there’s nothing better out there for me and it’ what I’m attracted to anyway. It’s too hard to change myself at this stage. The decent guys will probably be snapped up by a better, younger woman. Even if I did meet a decent guy tomorrow, it wouldn’t last. He’d probably go off me…

And so the negative train of thought continues…

The Life Lessons: How relationships teach us more about ourselves

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lesson one written in chalk on a blackboard

Last week I talked about being authentic for more positive living; knowing who you are and standing by you even when the times are tough. Knowing yourself enough to assimilate what you’re feeling and recognising when things are not in line with desires, needs, wants, and values that you profess to have, and more importantly, keeping it real rather than being lost in illusions.

As I’ve said many times, we tend to attract or be drawn to people that reflect things that we believe about ourselves, love, and relationships and when there are conflicting beliefs and negative ones, you can find yourself being involved with people that cement the negatives in a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I’m also a believer that relationships serve to teach us more about ourselves.

If we don’t pay attention in class, play hooky/bunk off, and fail the tests, we’ll keep having the lesson put in front of us until we learn the lesson and pass the exam. The ‘tests’ are those situations where you have the opportunity to do the right thing by yourself and lay down your boundaries and say no. The ‘tests’ are where you have the opportunity to make a different choice, or continue to do the same thing (or variances of it) and expect a different result – relationship insanity.

I read in the current issue of the UK’s Red Magazine about how we get the right people for us at that time. I actually agree – I’ll be honest with you, if I’d got involved with the boyf before I did (we had actually moved in the same circles for a few years and he and one of my best mates shared a house at uni even!), it would have been like me holding a hot potato ready for me to drop it! I’d have effed it up and I might not even have recognised how great he is and valued it. He’s the same and we met each other at the best points in our lives.

If you keep finding yourself in the same situation again and again, ask yourself what it is that you’re supposed to be learning.

What is it about that person that stresses you? It can be very revealing when you look closely at someone else’s consistent character and how that can reflect to you. Look at my posts on recognising things about yourself in the men you profess to love – so for example, if he’s a flip flapper, you tend to be indecisive, and if he’s a liar and talks a good game without very much action, you’re into illusions and denial, and the ones that behave like total assclowns indicate a penchant for drama.

Defining Assclowns: Men you shouldn’t want to date: Part One

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las vegas clownThe term ‘assclown’ is one I’ve been using for a few years and when its come to describing my exes, it fits them all like a beautiful, big, enveloping glove. I have since used it as a blanket term for inappropriate men but I’m going to explain the term a bit more and there is a reason: in my experience of writing about dating and relationships and reading the thousands of emails from women who want me to decipher their situation, we love to believe that our guy is different.

You only have to look at the number of women with emotionally unavailable men (Mr Unavailables) and the quintessential cheater with a wife or a girlfriend in the background to know that there is a hell of a lot of hoping going on out there.

Morphing: Trying to fit in too much with your man

By Reading Time: 3 Minutes

morphing coloursYesterday I wrote about common ground and how we have to be careful of placing too much emphasis on our belief that we have so much in common with a man, when in reality, if he’s not in the relationship with both feet or has already bolted, you don’t share the right common ground.

Because we find it all too easy to sideline ourselves, two things can happen that are dangerous:

He makes himself number one and you make him number one, which is why you don’t have the common interest of a relationship. You certainly don’t even share a common interest of YOU.

You think you have a lot in common when in actual fact, you’ve morphed to fit in with him.

The most common example of this is when you date a guy and because he can’t commit, and he pulls disappearing acts, treats you badly etc, you then decide that it must mean you don’t want a relationship and you let him pretty much abuse what little boundaries that there are left. Suddenly you have assumed the role of the girl who understands her man and is letting him do his thing.

But we have so much in common! That shaky ‘ole common ground in relationships

By Reading Time: 3 Minutes

anxious womanI was scanning my backlog of emails from readers looking for advice, most of it about a chump that is totally not worth their while and I could not believe the number of women who said they had so much in common with their guys.

The sheer numbers of you that profess common interests like golf, reading, music, books, outdoors, cooking, eating, DIY (you doing work on his place for free whilst he actually treats you poorly), only seeing each other when it’s dark once a week, walking dogs, making you laugh, molecular science, and yada, yada, yada, is damn well terrifying.

But let me turn this upside down for you –

If you guys don’t share common ground on the things that are actually important to the relationship, the fact that you both like Pavarotti really…doesn’t mean jack sh*t!

Harsh but true. All it means is you both like Pavarotti. If he’s cheating/beating/lying/disrespecting or whatever his MO of choice is, his musical tastes and the fact that he lets you join him on the golf course is nonsense information.

Why don’t women enjoy a healthy relationship after leaving a damaging one?

By Reading Time: 5 Minutes

man and women figuresOn Thursday I wrote about how expending energy better used elsewhere discussing and talking and explaining to men who are not worthy of your time is a futile exercise and stalling strategy where we as women get to avoid making a decision and doing something about our problems.

As I read through the comments, an age-old problem repeatedly reared its head:

Women who have a relationship history of being in inappropriate relationships with assclowns and other such men, do not know how to have or appreciate a relationship with a decent man.

In fact, more often than not, if this predicament does not get dealt with, the woman who has likely been a Fallback Girl in the past starts behaving like Mr Unavailable. Why?

Because ladies, you are still caught in the negative relationship patterns. You have started a relationship without getting to a healthier place within yourself first.