♦◊♦ Throughout my adult life, no woman ever broke up with me that I didn’t want or even subtly encourage to leave. Nope. I was the one who ended intimate relationships. I see now I was also the one who never fully showed up for those relationships. But I only finally realized this after a woman
♦◊♦ (note: this happens in all relationships, straight or otherwise. It’s actually a masculine-feminine dynamic, not a man-woman dynamic.) I’ve discovered a tragic cycle in intimacy: WOMAN routinely lets man know he’s “not enough” (doesn’t feel enough; not emotional enough; not expressive enough; often combined with he can’t get it/do it right). Having no idea how to please her,
♦◊♦ UPDATE: Just 4 months after I originally wrote this, I met the most exquisite woman I’ve been waiting a lifetime for. We’re engaged now … so take this to heart! : ) ♦◊♦ Recently, I wrote this popular post on Facebook: I’m single. Committed single. Until life drops an exquisite woman onto my path with whom
♦◊♦ A man recently told me that his wife said she doesn’t feel connected to him. When she said it, he looked around, quickly noticed they were both physically in the same room talking to each other, and exclaimed with frustration drenching his words, “What the f**k are you talking about? I’m right here!” She didn’t feel connected to
♦◊♦ I spent 5 years hurting a good woman by staying with her but never fully choosing her. I did want to be with this one. I really wanted to choose her. She was an exquisite woman, brilliant and funny and sexy and sensual. She could make my whole body laugh with her quick, dark
♦◊♦ We are deeply disoriented. Our intimate relationships routinely fluctuate between ecstatic and infuriating. We mostly don’t want to live without an intimate partner, yet we can’t seem to learn how to really love one either. We are stuck in a perpetual uncertainty between hope and hopelessness, like monkeys with our hands caught in a
♦◊♦ I’m a huge fan of disillusionment. Having an illusion ripped away from us can be profoundly liberating. Dorothy had to discover the Wizard of Oz was just a conman before she could discover she already had the power to get herself home. When it comes to love, disillusionment is essential, if also profoundly painful.
♦◊♦ Have you ever been in a relationship where the sex was amazing, but most everything else sucked? You know … as long as you were physically stuck together, everything was great. Meanwhile outside the bedroom you couldn’t agree on much (unless it was to have sex outside the bedroom). I broiled in the fire
♦◊♦ Once when I was in college … … a close male friend and I were surveying a group of attractive young women at a party when he leaned towards me and quietly whispered with an unforgettable air of smug confidence, “Bryan, don’t you feel sometimes like you could make any woman in the world
♦◊♦ “I love you.” (nope) “You look beautiful.” (nope) “Let’s go shopping!” (depends how you say it, but still, no) “How’s your mother?” (no, this will just make her suspicious of you) Those are all nice to say, and many women want to hear them from their partner; they like to feel cherished. But none