And then.

Out of nowhere, the mercury shoots up. For one last weekend, you wear your cutoffs and sit in the sun. You begin to think longingly of lazy, lolling days on the beach. You forget how you used to lose half the skin on your thighs every time you tried to get out of your car. You forget about sticky, sleepless nights. Summer never looked so good. You love summer. Summer’s the best. Why did it have to end?

No, you haven’t accidentally opened the Farmer’s Almanac. See, it’s still us, Val and El. We’re just getting a metaphor thing happening, to illustrate a point. That being: You can be buzzing through your life, feeling almost normal, hardly dwelling on your ex at all. And just when you think that you’re finally over him, wham, something slams into you. Out of the blue, you’re . . . blue. Without explanation, you miss him all over again, maybe even worse than you did before. It’s so unexpected. It’s so unusual. What horrible thing is happening to you now?

We like to call this knotty little phenomenon heartbreak. Everyone experiences it, but few of us discuss it. Like menopause, we’re oddly embarrassed by it. We think that this lapse is a sign of weakness. That it means we’re maladjusted or something. That it’s an indication that we’ve lost the only true love in our life and we’ll never get over him.

Hardly. The bad news about heartbreak is that it’s no company picnic. The good news is, it’s no company picnic. What’s more, it’s usually the last gulch to cross in the long obstacle course that is your breakup. Just as you need to hit the bottom of the pool in order to push up to the surface, your emotions need to take one more downward dip before they can start a steady climb upward.

So let’s do what we do best and pick apart this feeling until it no longer resembles anything at all. Remember the upshot on this last heartbreak hurrah—after this, it’s all downhill.

What It Is

Well, you have the general idea: heartbreak is basically a second wind in your breakup depression. What makes it different from the first rush of tears? In a nutshell: time. You’ve had time to process what happened; you might even think you’ve recovered from it all quite nicely, thanks. And just when you think that you’ve stabilized, you find yourself singing a whole new set of sad songs. Which makes sense if you think about it. All the thrashing about you did in the immediate breakup aftermath was just to keep your head above water. It was about survival, not form or technique. Now that you know how to swim, you’re faced with the struggle of finding out which stroke works best for you.

Which still leaves you waterlogged. Just because heartbreak means that you’re on the way to a healthy comeback doesn’t mean it’s any fun. Most of the women we talked to said that this second wave was less dramatic and hysterical than the first, but more despairing. “It was a mellow kind of depression,” says one twenty-seven-year-old public relations exec. “I wasn’t all riled up; I just felt like life sucked. I accepted that I was just one of those people who would never meet someone; I accepted that my life was a miserable, empty shell. I figured I would just resign myself to the facts instead of crying about them. I stopped talking about my ex. I stopped going on dates—I had gone on a million and hated them all. I was so picky—one guy had a freckle on his lip, and I hated him for that. It was pointless. Everything seemed pointless. I wasn’t sad, I was bitter. I decided I didn‘t care if I was alone. I got into a routine of my own. My apartment was my best friend—I even felt sad to leave it in the morning.”

Almost everyone seconded this experience. “I had this terrible sense of waiting for something good to happen,” a twentynine-year-old TV programmer recalls. “It was like I was waiting for a voice-mail message that would change everything. When it didn‘t come, I was angry, resentful. I walked around as though there were a black cloud over my head; I couldn’t shake it. It was a quiet time; I just wanted to be left alone. In a way, I was bitter because I felt pressured to get out there, but I just didn‘t want to. I felt guilty for my reclusiveness — and bitter because I didn‘t want to have to feel guilty.” Another woman describes this period as “the time when my hate for one person—my ex—metamorphosed into hate for the whole world.” And a thirty-one-year-old actress says she”experienced severe mood swings. I was surly, cranky as hell. Whereas right after the breakup I was morose and couldn’t eat a thing, now I was aggressive. I said fuck it and ate everything in sight. I didn‘t hide my feelings. I stopped pretending to be happy for my girlfriends who were getting married or starting new relationships. On the whole, I was an incredibly unpleasant person.”

According to Dr. Bonnie Eaker-Weil, a relationship therapist in New York City, heartbreak is the final stage of soul-searching that has to occur before you can embark on another relationship. “At first,” she says, “you might spend a lot of time doing things that help you avoid the pain—crying, railing against your ex-boyfriend, going out like crazy, holing up. Then, things even out a little. You start to date at a fairly steady pace_; you might even be feeling pretty optimistic. But as time passes, you find yourself meeting more and more people whom you simply can’t connect with, maybe people who are just as sad and lonely as you are. You realize afresh what you lost. You idealize your ex—and then won’t give anyone else a chance because they naturally can’t compare to the icon you’ve created in your head. This is generally when you distance yourself from the world and take time to think about yourself. You become extremely reflective about your breakup. Although you’ve mourned before, now you finally have the strength to step back and start the healing process. And while this is healthy, you have to be careful not to fall into it for too long. Being introspective and reflective is good, but you can’t use it as an excuse to keep from rejoining life.”

I think what is really meant, is that older people sometimes react in ways that seem irrational — and this is equated with the reactions of children. It is often not understood what caused certain reactions. You cannot deduce from your frame of reference what prompted certain behaviours, so you simply say to an elderly parent: “You’re acting like a child.” I would like to prove that old(er) people are not like children.

Older people are demanding – just like children

Some older people are demanding, many aren’t. This characteristic is not exclusive to older persons. A demanding old person was probably a demanding young person. Characteristics are exaggerated in later years but it’s highly unlikely that someone’s essential nature will change. Demanding personalities are probably created during childhood. A child who had to demand attention because the parents were too busy or too ignorant to give it, might well grow into a demanding adult.

The problem with direct demands is that they evoke a negative reaction in others. We tend to avoid people who are demanding. This often aggravates the problem. What would ease the situation for you would be to recognise that you have a demanding parent, that he/she has always been demanding and little is going to change that. All you can do is give that parent a little more attention.

You may well be thinking, “The more I give, the more he/she demands”. Unfortunately that sometimes happens and then you must simply say, “I’m sorry, that is all I have time/money/ space for today.”

Older people and children are always frustrated

We’re all frustrated from time to time. But frustration in older people may have special causes. One may be lack of education, which leads to a feeling of being unfulfilled. Lack of financial resources could prohibit indulgence in certain interests. Well-meaning, loving children may compound the frustration by not letting the parent lead his own life. Doing everything for a parent can be counter-productive. Many of us have this silly notion that older people should cut down on their activities.

In reaction to this frustration older people may become irritable, cantankerous or apathetic. Encouraging them to participate in suitable activities (suitable by their definition) is the most constructive way to lessen the frustration.

Children are frustrated because you, as their parents, have imposed certain restrictions on what they’d like to do. This cannot by any stretch of the imagination be compared to the frustrations caused or felt by your elderly parent. Your child’s opportunity to indulge in life’s offerings will come — for your parent, the prospects ahead are not so promising.

Older people and children are always bored

This statement is wrong. Boredom afflicts every one of us who lacks the inner resources to generate interests, occupations or pursuits. These give our life purpose and shape. Boredom is not reprehensible but sad, because it’s a waste of life. It’s heartbreaking when it occurs among the elderly as it often overtakes someone who has possibly been active and involved previously. Boredom sometimes stems from neglect or a lack of contact or opportunities to become involved. A negative and common side-effect is hypochondria.

We all dread illness, but the fear is suppressed by other thoughts and activities that are part of a normal busy life. When we have time on our hands “sickness anxiety” tends to dominate our thoughts.

Children, on the other hand, are naughty when they are bored. They do all sorts of mischievous things to alleviate their boredom. They do not normally develop hypochondriac tendencies.

Older people might also alleviate their boredom by developing petty grievances or an obsessional preoccupation with routine.

I remember rushing off after a day of teaching to purchase my mother’s groceries, mark books, and do various other essential chores, before delivering the groceries. My mother usually started preparing dinner at five o’clock sharp, but I unavoidably arrived at five-thirty on that day. It is hard to imagine, unless you’ve experienced it, how thirty minutes can throw a person right out of gear! She was frantic because:

• something may have happened to me
• dinner would be late (because the ingredients arrived thirty minutes late)
• the rush would be on to ensure that dinner would not be later than “normal” despite the delay in delivery.

It is utterly useless to look at the situation from a “full day” point of view. One has to try and view such or similar incidents from an older person’s viewpoint. There were many idle hours in her day and because she was waiting for her child and her food and looking at the clock at ten-minute intervals, thirty minutes was a long time. I, on the other hand, had so much to do that I was hardly aware of the fact that I was a few minutes late!

It is fallacious to think that older people become smaller in body, mind and spirit. Externally they may shrink a bit, but why should a spirit or mind contract? Why should an older person be more or less bored than any other person? The stimuli needed to make us feel satisfied or exhilarated are highly subjective at any stage of our lives. At no stage do any of us want to experience boredom.

To combat boredom, it would be advisable to look at various options with an elderly parent and to encourage him/her to pursue one or more of those options.

Well-meaning, loving adult children sometimes lavish too much care on a parent. You insist: “Let me make the tea, do the shopping, take you here or there, wash your hair.” If the parent is able and enjoys doing all those things, you are, in fact foisting rest and freedom from responsibility as a life style on your parent.

The funny thing about rest is that it is only enjoyable when it alternates with activity. Haven’t we all experienced the lovely feeling of sitting quietly with a book in the garden, or of soaking in a warm bath or lying on the sofa, half-dozing, half-listening to music in the background? Blissfully restful activities after effort and challenge – self-rewards, little indulgences – just to charge the batteries again for more effort.

Now try just resting, lying in a warm bath and so on. Try it today – all day, tomorrow, this week, next week, next month . . . Then tell me whether you feel bored or not.

We really need to bear this in mind when we, with so much love and care, unintentionally deny our parents the opportunity to do things for themselves.

to be continued

Face it: What seems like perfectly normal behavior to us is bona fide alien-nation stuff to them. And yet, often, with great grace and good humor, men do their level best to accommodate the needs of these strange female creatures. One woman recalls how a guy she befriended in an Austrian airport walked all over said airport with her in a feverish, furious quest to purchase . . . a lipstick. “I had lost my luggage and I felt so grungy and unkempt,” she says. “I just really needed some lipstick. This guy, Jan, walked from kiosk to kiosk with me for about an hour. He really tried to be helpful—he kept holding up mascaras and sunblocks and saying, ‘Is this what you’re looking for?’ The only time he got irritable was when we finally found some and the shopkeeper accidentally tried to sell me the wrong color. Jan acted as though the guy had tried to kill my whole family or something—he was so indignant and adamant that I get exactly what I want.”

Another woman remembers how she and a male co-worker used to go every day to pick up lunch at a deli nearby. “I was on a diet at the time. I used to order the same salad—just lettuce and tomato, no avocado, no croutons, and just vinegar, no oil, on the side. I made a real stink about it_; I must have seemed like such a little fusspot—like Sally from When Harry Met Sally. Very high-maintenance. Anyway, one day, we got back to the office and Chip unpacked the bag. He looked at my salad and exploded, ‘Those idiots! They didn’t put your dressing on the side! And there are croutons all over the place! How the hell do they expect you to eat this?’ Before I could stop him, he had stormed out, salad in hand, determined to right this great wrong that had been done to me. I loved him for that. Because it was important to me, it became important to him.”

Basically, even if it doesn’t make sense to them, men will, more often than not, do their best to keep their mouths shut and go along with the whole rigmarole. They can be a pretty accepting bunch—which is more than we can say for us. So the next time you’re tempted to snatch the remote control out of the hands of your brother or roommate (or even your new boyfriend?) and shake it in his face and scream, “What is this, an extension of your penis?” stop and think about the night he unquestioningly walked around with an extra pair of black stockings in his breast pocket, in case the ones you were wearing sprouted a run. And then shake it in his face anyway. You can’t help yourself.

Because they don’t want us to be afraid.

Sure, we’re brave and independent. We are woman, hear us roar. But there are still times when even the most self-sufficient of us can turn into shrinking violets. When we might feel paralyzed with fear. Times when it can be awful nice to turn to some guy and silently mouth, “Help!”

Which is, more often than not, exactly what he’ll do. At the top of the list of Situations Where We’d Most Like to Have a Man Around the House are those that involve visitors from the insect world. “For three years, I would call my super to come up and kill waterbugs in my bathroom,” said a thirty-year-old New York district attorney. “They were so big_; they terrified me. Every time he came up, he’d give me an indulgent smile and then quickly whisk the thing down the toilet. When I apologized profusely, he’d always say, ‘No, no, I understand_; they’re big, these waterbugs. Hard to kill.’ He never made me feel ridiculous or wimpy. And he never complained about doing it.” Another New Yorker told us how she used to tape paper cups upside-down over roaches she found in her kitchen and then have a male friend who lived a block away come over and dispose of them. “I couldn’t stand the crunching noise they made when I stepped on them,” she says. “It was scary enough just trapping them under the cups. I needed my friend to do the rest. He was always nice about it — he’d try to make me feel better by telling me that it wasn’t a roach, it was a piece of food, or a ball of lint, or a paint chip. Once he even tried to tell me it was a ladybug. He wanted me to think that I didn’t have a roach problem; he didn’t want me to stress out about it.”

But bug squashing isn’t the only way that guys can soothe our fears. Don’t forget all the times a guy has insisted on driving or walking you home after dark, the way he’ll wait in the car until he sees that you’re safely in the door. A woman who felt nervous about living in a first-floor apartment regularly depended on the kindness of neighbors—more specifically, her upstairs neighbor. “We had become good friends, and often we’d go out at night, to dinner or a movie,” she says.

“When we got back, if it was late, I would be anxious about walking into a dark apartment. It was irrational—the building was perfectly safe—butI was always afraid that someone would be lurking in the shadows somewhere. We fell into a routine—I’d unlock the door and he’d say, ‘Wait here,’ and then he’d go methodically from room to room, switching on lights and looking into closets. Then he’d say, ‘All safe,’ and I’d go in. It was so silly—I knew it and he knew it—but he always acted as though my fears were perfectly normal and legitimate. He never made me feel stupid about it.”

Or what about the woman who was watching a video with a good male friend when a rather spectacular car accident occurred, right outside her window. “We heard the screeching of tires and then the crunch of metal. He looked out the window, gasped, and then, right away, turned to me and said, ‘Don’t look. Don’t look—you’ll be scared.’ Then he ran to call 911. Of course I eventually looked anyway—some poor motorcyclist was lying on the street under a car—but I always remember how my friend’s first thought was to save me the awful sight. In that totally inappropriate moment, I felt happy that he was such a good friend to me.”

to be continued

Many of the women we spoke to had such wrenching physical reactions to their breakups that, had they been weaker creatures (say, men), they might not have lived to tell( As one twenty-eight-year-old management consultant described it, “Right after my last breakup, I lived in a shroud of sheer, raw physical pain. When you’re so connected to someone and then the connection’s broken, you feel as though a part of your body has been ripped off. Like you’re missing a vital internal organ.I was overwhelmed by the enormity of bad feeling. I’d wake up in the middle of the night; my eyes would just fly open. I’d lie there, my eyes darting around the dark, and I’d feel so alone. My body rebelled against the stress: My skin, which is usually clear, broke out. My stomach was killing me. At that point, I wasn’t even concerned about whether I’d ever have another boyfriend—that came later. I was just terrified that this horrible diseased sensation would never end.” Another woman told us,”I had always had a regular twenty-eight-day cycle since I was fourteen—it was like clockwork. After the breakup, my cycle suddenly became erratic: fourteen days, twenty-one days, thirty-five days. It was weird; it was as though my body were going haywire along with my emotions.”

For many of our mourning glories, the ravages of heartache were most apparent in their appetites. Several women said they didn‘t eat for a week and then “ate everything short of the wallpaper off the walls.” “Eating was my biggest problem. Every time I sat down to eat, I felt nauseated. I’d have to talk myself through meals: Okay, you can take one more bite. Just take one more mouthful. I was pretty thin to begin with, soI couldn’t afford to lose much weight. But if I didn‘t eat slowly, I would throw up. I was eating with friends a lot then, and that made it harder—they were watching me, monitoring every forkful. I became horribly gaunt. I was exhausted. I would spontaneously burst into tears—after a while I didn‘t know if it was because I missed my boyfriend or because I felt so damn awful. I can’t think of another time in my life when I looked or felt worse.”

For some women, the food fixation is lasting. “After my fiance and I broke up, I couldn’t eat,” said a twenty-seven-year‑ old public relations manager. “I dropped ten pounds in a few weeks. When my appetite came back, I got paranoid that I’d regain the weight, so I cut all fat out of my diet. All of it. To this day, I don’t touch the stuff; I only eat fruit, vegetables, and the like. Before the breakup, I never worried about my diet_; I ate everything and never really gained weight. But after, I was obsessed. I also started exercising like crazy—the time I spent working out was the only time of the day that I didn‘t feel pain.”

So, what’s the deal? According to Dr. Lonnie Barbach, a San Francisco psychiatrist, “After a breakup, you can tend to feel out of control. Your bills may be coming in and you can’t pay them. The tears might be flowing and you can’t staunch them. But you can decide what you put in your mouth—you can control your eating. I can see how that would be an attractive alternative to uncertainty, but it’s not a good one. When you see yourself fixating or obsessing with food, it’s a pretty sure sign that there are some things in your life that need to be addressed. Recognize the obsession_; monitor how often you focus on foodeating disorders are crisis- inspired_; many women try to take control of their lives by altering their food intake. So not only is the heartbreak diet unhealthy, it’s wildly unoriginal. Who needs to be a statistic? and then find other things to fill your thoughts that better address the problem.” A brief sermon, girls: Statistics show that a large number of

But enough preaching. It’s not as though we don’t understand the appetite-suppressant powers of depression ourselves: Post-Mark, Val subsisted mainly on a diet of coffee, vodka, and cigarettes. Post-Jake, Ellen dropped to a staggering ninety-eight pounds—even the Duchess of Kent wouldn’t have approved. Our take on this weighty issue: For a week, do whatever the hell you want. If you want to try life in the fast lane, don’t force yourself to eat. If a food fest makes you feel better, munch away. Then, after your seven days are over, stop and reassess. Being a perfect ten doesn’t involve looking like either a sticklike number one or a big round number zero. So eat—or stop eating—already. Put your skewed food anxieties in the pantry; you’ve got better things to think about.

As for the rest of the wreckage, try to use a little common sense (not always easy to come by at an emotional nadir) to smooth out the rough patches. Stay clean: Wash your face, wash your hair, put cold compresses on your eyes. Ellen turned to Ivory soap and liberal applications of Clearasil to soothe her complexion woes. Val favored Turns and a heating pad for her gastric distress. Almost everyone we interviewed touted the virtues of an ice pack (cucumber slices and wet tea bags were close runners-up) for the puffiness after the bawl. Aspirin, cold compresses, and nice friends who’ll give you back-rubs were also voted emotional first-aid requirements. One final note: Keep up the ablutions. We mean it. Don’t forget the deodorant. Put on your favorite sexy/comfy outfit. Get a manicure. What the hell, get a pedicure. In other words, get a sartorial grip. As one woman said, “You’re already monumentally depressed—why depress yourself even more every time you look in the mirror?”

A tough call, on both counts. On the reconciliation front, there are some key questions to ask yourself: First off, do you really want this? Are you pursuing him because you love him, or because you’re kind of used to having him around and you’d rather be with him than be alone? If your reason is the latter, you’re just going to keep yourself from getting on with your life—and probably bust up a good deal of self-esteem in the bargain. One twenty-six-year-old woman told us how “the one thing I obsessed the most about was how I could get him back. I actually bought a book called Getting Him Back and kept it by my bed and read it every night. I knew it by heart; sometimes I would call up friends and read them passages from it. My mind was locked—I couldn’t think or talk about anything else.” Another woman said that she wouldn’t flirt with anyone or accept any dates because “I just wanted to get him back. I was convinced that if I couldn’t be with him, I didn’t want to be with anyone. I totally cut myself off—and probably missed out on some things that would have made me happy.” Think through your motives carefully. A little misguided obsession can turn into full-blown depression. Our advice: If your mission isn’t in the name of true love, don’t waste your time.

The next question: Was it really such a great relationship, or does it just seem like it was great because it’s over? It’s an odd, unproven scientific fact: A man gets approximately 44 percent more desirable the second he returns your key. “When my boyfriend and I broke up,” said one twenty-seven-year-old grad student, “everything that seemed bad in the relationship magically became great. Before, I had hated that he spent so much time studying (he was in med school); now I loved the fact that he was becoming a doctor. His family was French and it used to bug me that he spoke French all the time_; now I loved his European-ness. I thought, I’ll never have that again_;I’ll always be plain old American. I was immersed in the classic postrelationship rose-tinted hindsight.”

As we said before, it’s human nature to want what you can’t have. But actually pursuing it might not be such a good idea. “If he’s interested, he’ll come back,” says Dr. Barbach. “It’s better to do nothing than to try and force the issue. Back off. You don’t need to beg — that’s not a position you want to be in.” So get off your knees, girls—it’s time to stand on your own two feet.

As for the revenge aspect of this question, well, we would never go in for that sort of thing. Well, almost never.

A lot of the women we polled, however, found themselves mired in self-recrimination. About 70 percent of them spent a lot of time asking, where did I go wrong? “I knew that I drove him away,” said a twenty-five-year-old subject, “and I spent a lot of time blaming myself. Two years later, I still think it was my fault. I thought of all the things I would have done differently. I prayed I’d get the chance.” Another woman, twenty- six, also confessed to heaping on the mea culpas. “I don’t even like to talk about it with my friends,” she says. “I always feel like I’m the one who ruined the relationship, and I feel like a jerk telling everyone all the mistakes I made.”

Or get this one: One twenty-eight-year-old woman we interviewed told us that she felt like such “low-down scum,” she made huge posters of all the mean things he had ever said to her (some choice examples: “Who could ever love you?” “It’s time to take off some of that weight”) and hung them up all over her room. “I needed to remind myself of how bad I was,” she says. “I was a masochist.”

We’ll say. The bottom line is, breakups are almost always joint ventures—you could never be solely responsible for such a cataclysmic event. Besides which, maudlin self-pity and blame will get you nowhere. Fast. So don’t beat yourself up — you’re going to need all your strength in the weeks ahead.

I now have a more vulnerable and more effective approach, which I’ll explain.

Let’s suppose you want more attention—more romanc_e i_nyour marriage. Let’s suppose further that your husband is gone a lot because he works too much or plays golf frequently. You might feel that if he would just work or golf a little less and stay home a little more, he would have more time to for you. In your mind, whateve_r is taking all his time is preventing you from having long conversations, candlelight dinners and bubble baths for two. You might begin to resent whatever he does while he’s away because, in your mind, you are in competition with that activity for his time and attention.

Megan felt this way about her marriage. Her husband, Steve, was in a high-tech business and frequently worked late. She often told him she was sick of his working so much and that she needed help around the house. Of course, this didn’t keep him home more.

Steve probably felt defensive and unappreciated too. I’ve heard men say things like: “Doesn’t she realize that the reason I work so hard is for her?” Megan’s requests probably sounded like pressure to her husband who was trying to balance the needs of his job with those of his family.

After surrendering, Megan learned that beneath her obvious feelings of anger was a more vulnerable feeling: loneliness. She missed her husband when he was gone a lot. Asking him to do things or “choring” him was her way of getting him to stay home. Instead of drawing him to her, her constant nagging was repelling him.

The turning point for Megan and Steve came when she found the courage to tell him what had been true all along: that she missed him!

As you can imagine, this approach had an impact. Steve didn’t say much, but he smiled and looked at her appreciatively. To her surprise, Steve managed to leave work earlier twice that week.

By letting him know she longed for his presence and his company, Megan was complimenting him where she used to harangue him. She made him feel important and needed on an emotional level, rather than just a utilitarian one.

The next time you find yourself wishing your husband wouldn’t read, watch TV, work, golf, or tinker so much, tell him _you miss him. Say it as often as you feel it, even if you are self- conscious hearing the words come out of your mouth.

No matter what you miss your message is the same

Some women object to telling their husbands they miss them because they say that’s not how they feel. “I’m just overwhelmed taking care of the kids by myself all the time,” they tell me. The truth is these women do miss something about their husbands. Whether you miss his help disciplining the kids, his masculine presence, or your lover’s touch is immaterial. There’s only one message to convey: You miss him!

I know that it will take courage to deliver this message, but remember your husband loves your tender side. Think of how much dignity you’ll feel when you don’t hear yourself screeching and complaining like your mother on her worst day. Imagine how much energy you’ll save and harmony you’ll enjoy when you pass up the temptation to complain in favor of revealing your deepest feelings. If you crave romance, I assure you this is a worthwhile risk.

No matter what he does for her, she is always driven to do more. On a feeling level, he feels cut off from her. If he cannot do for her, then he cannot receive her love. He doesn’t feel that he can make a difference in her life. In a very real sense, her independence and sense of autonomy push him away.

These women do not understand that men love to make a difference; to be fulfilled a man needs to feel successful in providing for her fulfillment. This is how men experience greater intimacy with women.

How to Attract Mr. Right

Because it’s more difficult for women who do too much to start relationships, they commonly ask me how to attract a man.

My response is to ask them why they need a man. The question invariably takes them by surprise. They give answers like: “Well, I don’t know if I really need a man” or “I’m not so sure that I need a man.”

Others are more deliberate, clearly stating, “I don’t really need a man, but I want one.”

If these women are to secure a lasting relationship, they must first begin to open up to their feminine side, which feels no shame in saying “I need a man.”

If women are to secure a lasting relationship, they must first begin to open up to their feminine side, which feels no shame in saying “I need a man.”

The Magic of Trust

When a woman is in a hurry or desperate for a relationship, she is definitely feeling from her female side, but it’s not sufficiently nurtured to attract the right man. Through nurturing her female side something magical begins to happen. She feels her need for a man and trusts that at the right time and in the right place she will find him. This openness can be cultivated by finding fulfillment in her female friendships without depending on a man, yet remaining open to receiving a man’s support.

How Men Experience Intimacy

We must always keep in mind that a man bonds emotionally by successfully doing for a woman. A man experiences greater intimacy each time he succeeds in providing his partner with fulfillment. We must also remember that women experience greater intimacy primarily by receiving love and support. This is a very important distinction. If a woman cannot slow down and allow a man to nurture her female side, she will have trouble creating a bond in the first place.

A simple example of the advanced relationship skill of slowing down to allow a man to support more can be seen very simply and graphically: a man and woman approach a door. Women who do too much will speed up, politely open the door, and wait for the man to walk through. They give to others what they need themselves, which only reinforces the tendency to give and not receive. To nurture her female side, a woman should practice slowing down to make sure he gets to the door first, waiting for him to open it, walking through, and thanking him. When she lets him open the door for her, she gives him an opportunity to support her successfully.

Rituals for Finding Balance

Through this dynamic, a man is placed in the masculine role of providing, and a woman moves to her feminine role of graciously receiving. It also clarifies her real need, which is to be cared for. She doesn’t physically need him to open the door, but when he does, it supports and nurtures her female side. Her femininity needs and thrives on this kind of support in order to find balance.

When a man opens the door for a woman, it is as if he is saying “You are special to me, I care about you, I honor you, I am here for you, I understand you do so much for everyone so I am happy to help make things easier for you whenever I can.”

When a man opens the door for a woman, it is as if he is saying “You are special to me, I care about you, I honor you, I am here for you.”

This loving message is given each time a man goes a little out of his way to show consideration for making his partner’s life easier and more comfortable. Actions speak much louder than words.

Here one partner has an imaginary kitbag. Every little injury, every little offence, every little hurt is carefully stored in the kitbag. At the time nothing much is said. The person who uses this technique usually suffers in silence — until the kitbag is full. Then when the next disagreement occurs (and usually it’s an insignificant issue) there is an explosion! All the pent-up feelings and emotions come pouring out — usually to the utter amazement and total disbelief of the other partner, who simply cannot understand why such a small issue should bring about such an intense reaction. As one friend explained to me, “When my wife and I have an argument she usually becomes historical.” “you mean hysterical,” I replied. “No, historical. She keeps bringing up the past.”

Few people can withstand such a barrage of emotions, and most of us would succumb to such an onslaught. The people who use this technique therefore get their own way, and they start storing up “ammunition” again until there is enough in the kitbag to warrant another outburst.

Again, one of the partners may win, but the relationship suffers, and with time the other partner will become immune to these emotional outbursts. The outbursts will have to increase in volume and intensity, if they are to have the desired effect.

Blaming

A useful technique to get your own way is to blame your partner for the things that go wrong. If your partner points out any faults in your behaviour, you can always get him off your back by blaming him for it and making him feel guilty.

A friend of ours had often asked his wife to have supper ready at 17h30 so that he could have more time available in the evening. Whenever she was late with supper she didn’t wait for him to criticise her — she delivered the first blow by telling him that he expected too much of her and that he made impossible demands on her. By doing this she made sure that she “won” before the conflict over the late supper had even surfaced — but it did nothing to enhance the atmosphere in the home.

It is easy to blame your partner and to arouse his feelings of guilt. “You make me angry. You never help me around the house. You never take an interest in my work. If it wasn’t for you, I would have been able to …. ” etc. This seldom accomplishes anything, for attack leads to counter-attack and both partners end up on the losing side.

Criticism

Closely linked to blaming, is fault-finding. This is very easy to do for we are all aware of our partner’s shortcomings. A wife may complain to her husband about his trampling mud into her clean lounge carpet. He immediately counters with an attack on her appearance — that she’s always walking around in curlers: This may put her on the defensive, so that he “wins” the argument about the dirty carpets. But he forgets about the resentment she harbours as a result of his criticism.

When we criticise our partners, we often tend to generalise. “You never hang up your clothes.” “You always come home late.” Such generalisations are seldom true. It’s a foul way of fighting — and nobody ever wins.

Whenever people are dissatisfied with themselves they tend to find fault with others — particularly those closest to them. Because they cannot cover up their shortcomings in front of their partners they feel vulnerable and exposed. They try to counteract their feelings of inferiority by constantly criticising their partners and at the same time keep their partners at bay. No relationship can survive in such conditions. Husband and wife become entangled in a vicious circle of attack and counter-attack. In the process they destroy each other. No wonder that God warns us that if we “keep on biting and devouring each other” we will destroy each other (Galatians 5:15).

Ridiculing

All the techniques described so far, with the exception of reasoning, have concentrated on getting your own way by attacking your partner as a person. In most cases it is not the problem that is attacked, or the inappropriate behaviour — but the individual himself, or some personal characteristic. This is particularly evident when a person resorts to ridiculing as a method of getting his own way.

Ever heard a husband tell his wife not to be so stupid? Or a wife saying to her husband, “What do you know about a thing like this?” I have sometimes used high-flown words, and when my wife asked the meaning I have replied, “Wheat! don’t you know what it means?” in such a deprecating manner that she stopped asking. It was one way to win an argument, but it was definitely not a healthy one.

One of the most common ways of ridiculing is to accuse your partner of being childish. Another way is to laugh condescendingly in response to an opinion expressed by your partner, with a “how-naive-can-you-get”-look.

These techniques are all aimed at demolishing the op- Position. They may be acceptable practices in parliament (although even there they can be very counter-productive) but in marriage they are devastating. The relation always loses — and subsequently both husband and wife lose, regardless of who “wins” the argument.

By all means, let’s “fight” — conflict is a natural part of marriage. But let’s keep it clean and fair. Foul fighting leads to both parties being disqualified — both lose as far as personal growth is concerned.

On coming face to face with your kitten or cat for the first time on your mutual big day, don’t abruptly bundle it into its carrier: spare a few minutes to give it some attention so that it knows that your intentions are friendly, and also be patient as its previous owner bids it farewell. Remember to ask for any tips, for example, regarding the diet or type of cat litter that it’s been used to, and only then lift your cat gently into its carrying basket. As you wend your way

Home together, make soothing noises in response to any terrified yowls that your cat may make to express its fear at being torn away from the safety of its home by a stranger — it will inevitably be terrified, particularly if it’s enduring a close encounter with a car for the first time. Do not, however, under any circumstance, be tempted to remove it from its carrier to stroke or cuddle it: the best-case scenario is that chaos will ensue.

Once you have arrived home, set the cat’s carrier in the room that you’ve temporarily allotted your cat and don’t let it out until you have taken off your coat, have shut the door and are ready to give it your undivided attention as it takes its first tentative steps out of its basket and into its new home. Give it some words of gentle encouragement, but don’t make a lunge for it to give it a reassuring cuddle, which would only scare it. Instead, sit back and let it explore its new surroundings. If, as is likely, it either slinks or bolts to a spot that offers its cover and a sense of security, such as behind the sofa, don’t attempt to haul it out, just wait until its curiosity prevails and it’s plucked up the courage to venture out again. Watch patiently as it explores the room and, when it feels confident enough to approach you, offer it a caressing stroke, but don’t make any sudden movements. If it hasn’t already discovered them, and when you have built up sufficient trust between you to enable you to pick it up, take it to its litter tray and rater bowl – it may be very relieved to make Heir acquaintance – followed by its bed.

Don’t feed your cat until you are certain that it is starting to feel at home (a good sign is when it starts washing itself, which indicates that it’s feeling relatively relaxed). Thereafter, if both of you are still up to it, you could introduce it to He rest of the house – but not to the garden – taking your time to allow it to investigate each room in turn, a process that, depending on the size of your home, it may be sensible to stretch out over some days. Don’t leave it to its own devices, but shadow it to ensure that it doesn’t bolt – or creep inside a fridge-freezer! Finally, exploration complete, return to the room from which you started out together, which it should by now regard as the core of its new home.

At a kitten’s bedtime, tucking a hot-water bottle or heated pad under one side of its bedding for the first few nights of its residency will provide some reassuring, sleep- inducing warmth (older cats may appreciate this, too). Some people also advocate placing a clockwork alarm clock near it – but make sure that the alarm’s switched off – to simulate the familiar rhythm of its mother’s heartbeat.

Whatever your new cat’s age, it’s best not to give it access to the great outdoors for at least a week (and in the case of nervous felines, three) to give it the opportunity to become thoroughly familiar with its home, to which it should then always return, if only at feeding time!