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| How Many Of You Are Doing This?
Posted: 11/7/2009 2:40:00 PM | Self Help Books are acceptable to understanding how to fix things (do it yourself), but when it comes to love matters, no one really knows how these things work. Why would you take the philosophy or advice from someone else, when you yourself know who you really are, therefore it's up to you to discern what is best for you and how to go about it. Who is this author and what makes this author the authority on such things? What is the credentials and experience of this author that makes him or her the know it all when it comes to relationship advice.
Even the so called Relationship Experts (Therapists) gets divorced, and we may not even know what's really going on at home and they are giving advice when some of these so called "gurus or experts'" own personal love matters at home are a sham.
There is no "expert" on such matters where love matter concerns, other than you knowing yourself and going from there. | |
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| How Many Of You Are Doing This?
Posted: 11/7/2009 2:49:46 PM | LDYnBLK writes:
mentally/financially stable
In other words, golddigger. So if the guy is working a good job and is laid off, are you going to dump him until he finds another one? "Come back when you earn six figures." Sometimes what you flag as a red flag can be ... well, a red flag.
My wife left me because I was laid off. She didn't want to be married to "a bum." I reminded her that marriage was for richer or poorer. That's when she recanted her vows. I signed the car over to her name and wished her luck - it was all I could do. | |
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| How Many Of You Are Doing This?
Posted: 11/7/2009 3:01:54 PM | Red flags to me are instinctual danger signals. You know, meeting a guy or girl who creep you out that kind of thing. Someone who creats a 'fight or flight' response. Don't need no stinkin self help book for that feeling.
On the other hand, I love reading self help books! I am interested in psychology..... | |
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| How Many Of You Are Doing This?
Posted: 11/7/2009 3:02:20 PM | How does that saying go - those that can't do it, teach it?
Makes me wonder about the author. Is she single?
She's founded and accepted herself by giving credence to a negative word and is now lining her pockets with it.
Can't blame her there. But has any of this gotten her man? I'm not saying that getting a man should be important to anyone when it comes to self-improvement, but it is apart of the title so she thought helping someone get a man would be important to them.
Bottom $ say she is single.
CallmeKen, your bitterness is showing. I'm sorry you got GOT (well, not really but it sounds good to say), but do realize that may be evident when you date and bitterness is not an attractive feature. | |
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| How Many Of You Are Doing This?
Posted: 11/7/2009 3:51:47 PM | It's just a matter of degree. Read all you can, but take everything with a grain of salt. Each book writer is just like each forum poster: they write from their experience-informed prejudice, more than from a truly broad view. What works for one will destroy another.
Red flags, or anything like them are tools, and like all tools, you can use them to great success, or you can cut off your own leg.
Book writers are mostly out to get you excited enough to buy and read the book, so they can sell another one. I remember waaaaay back in the early 70's, there was a couple who wrote a book extolling the wonders of what they called "Open Marriage." They really just meant it was okay for both of them to screw around while still coming home most of the time. They went into great detail about how it all worked, how beneficial it was to their mental health, how much it brought them closer, yadda yadda. A few years later, ONE of the same authors brought out a book about how it destroyed their relationship and turned their lives to crap. This is an extreme case, but people who write books and are so excited that they've found THE INSIGHT which will make your love life blossom are fooling themselves just as much. | |
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| How Many Of You Are Doing This?
Posted: 11/7/2009 4:21:10 PM | I didn't read the article but i read your post and it makes sense to a certain degree, especially what's a major flaw and what a minor flaw is, then again you have to understand what one person may see major another may see minor or vice versa and that little insuccinctness, may end up in disharmony.
I also agree with the focusing on the positive because focusing on the negative is noise, but if that negative is glaring and a "can't" miss, the harmony thing comes into play again.
Yes, i believe people should become more open, but at the same time people have their preferences and i believe people should stick by "their" preferences no matter what accepting all consequences. | |
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| How Many Of You Are Doing This?
Posted: 11/7/2009 4:32:42 PM | Focusing on the positive is fine, but many people focus on the positive and ignore negatives that really should be addressed. Look for the good but don't turn a blind eye to the bad and you're good.
I dated a guy that had numerous positives and in many ways exactly what I wanted, but the negatives were too big to overlook. He was jealous, not horribly but he needed way to much reassurance and I found myself editing everything I said because he was searching for hidden meaning.
Sorry, the perks weren't worth the fatigue that would have resulted from being responsible for another person's happiness.
Even the so called Relationship Experts (Therapists) gets divorced, and we may not even know what's really going on at home and they are giving advice when some of these so called "gurus or experts'" own personal love matters at home are a sham.
Knowing what to do and implementing it are two different things and you also cannot be married by yourself. If you made a poor choice, just because you know what a functional relationship is doesn't mean you can steer the partner toward it.
Self-help books provide a different lens for looking at things and people should take from different theories, etc. what works for them. | |
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| How Many Of You Are Doing This?
Posted: 11/7/2009 5:55:40 PM | No, that is NOT what I was referring to, callmeken, and I think you know that. I'm referring to a man who has bills up the ying-yang who drinks excessively while smoking pot.....and there are just as many women who slip into this catagory, too, I imagine.
When you get to be my age (63), you should be near retirement and not looking for someone to put your butt on a gold platter. I work. I pay my bills. I'm not looking for a bank account. I'm looking for a friend, buddy, foot warmer on a cold night and someone who will 'add' to my life....and I don't mean $$$$.
LIB | |
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| How Many Of You Are Doing This?
Posted: 11/7/2009 7:09:00 PM | .
Even the so called Relationship Experts (Therapists) gets divorced, and we may not even know what's really going on at home and they are giving advice when some of these so called "gurus or experts'" own personal love matters at home are a sham..
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Knowing what to do and implementing it are two different things and you also cannot be married by yourself. If you made a poor choice, just because you know what a functional relationship is doesn't mean you can steer the partner toward it.
- Exactly. It takes two to make it, one to break it. You cannot cary another person in a relationship; you can either be a partner or a counselor, but cannot play both roles at the same time, fully.
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it could be said, that women, on average, are better at relationships. Yet, they are the ones who buy most of the relationship books! .
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What I see is a correlation.....perhaps women are better at relationships because we work harder on ourselves and on the relationships.......
- I used to think that way, years ago... and you may be partially correct. If women have a better, shall we say, aptitude for understanding relationships... perhaps they find it easier... and therefore tend to naturally do more work for/toward relationships. I hope that makes sense.
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Are women really better at relationships though? I'm not convinced. .
- Yes, they are. First of all, twice as many women file first for divorce than men. Secondly, the area of a woman's brain where red flags are deciphered, sometimes called intuition and gut feelings, is twice the size of a man's! And red flags are the most valuable tool we have in navigating relationships. Perhaps this is why it's normally referred to as "women's intuition". men have it, but because women typically do it much better, I suppose some believe it's a silly woman's thing... which it's not... I'm a man... and I'm here to tell you... intuition is so important, I've referred to it before as the secret to understanding women.
The problem is, like I said... it takes two to make it, but only one to break it... so, in reality, it only gives them an edge... but a noticeable, sizable edge. But again, this is only on average... there are women who stink at relationships, and there are some men that can hold their own with women as far as being able to pick and choose, avoid rejection, and find and keep happy partners. | |
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| How Many Of You Are Doing This?
Posted: 11/7/2009 7:33:05 PM |
Yes, they are. First of all, twice as many women file first for divorce than men. Secondly, the area of a woman's brain where red flags are deciphered, sometimes called intuition and gut feelings, is twice the size of a man's! And red flags are the most valuable tool we have in navigating relationships. Perhaps this is why it's normally referred to as "women's intuition". men have it, but because women typically do it much better, I suppose some believe it's a silly woman's thing... which it's not... I'm a man... and I'm here to tell you... intuition is so important, I've referred to it before as the secret to understanding women.
Perhaps one needs to look at social evolution.....women were the primary caregivers of children since the dawn of time (likely). When you are responsible to care for and nurture a little person who cannot tell you what they need, you need to be intuitive to read their body language and tones of cries. It makes sense that women would then be more intuitive than men...a necessary thing for a woman to have for the survival of the species.
I don't need to hear words to know when a relationship is failing...I can read the body language and actions of my partner quite well. I will try what I can do to save it but in the end, I would rather be alone that be taken for granted or unloved in a relationship.
I do think men are more likely to remain in a failed/failing marriage because of the children and fear of losing financially.........
I've said it before in other threads using different words but I will say it again in this one......women's roles have evolved, so have the needs of women....men must evolve also and the ability to relate to each other will be rocky until we are once again in sync with each other.....men need to become more intuitive and more understanding of the relationship dynamics and need to make an effort to understand their partner. Women do not "need" a husband the way they used to....but women still "need" men and men still need women. Women just need a different kind of man these days...we don't need the breadwinner, pants wearing kind of man of yesterday.....we need a true partner.... | |
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| How Many Of You Are Doing This?
Posted: 11/7/2009 9:01:47 PM |
Perhaps one needs to look at social evolution.....women were the primary caregivers of children since the dawn of time (likely).
Certainly back in the olden days when everyone breast fed their kids because that is what the girls are for, and the kids were pretty much strapped to mom for easy feedings and then, because they were likely gathering or farming rather than hunting, they stayed with the women while men were out hunting.
Even as society changed, the roles did not as for the intuition, I think that can be as much a deficit as an advantage because many women look for deeper meaning in things that are pretty straight forward or they think they know how their partner feels rather than asking him. | |
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| How Many Of You Are Doing This?
Posted: 11/7/2009 9:11:17 PM | One section of it caught my eye, because I'm finding that more and more people, including myself, are committing this error or taking it to an unrealistic extreme with anything resembling a minor flaw as a so called "Red Flag."
No... I'm completely sick of that f*cking "Red Flag" catch phrase. I go with my gut feelings and instincts. It really doesn't matter to me whether it's something minor or major that's causing my gut to signal me on whether to stay or go... my gut feeling has historically been accurate. It's when I've ignored it that I've gotten into trouble. | |
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| How Many Of You Are Doing This?
Posted: 11/7/2009 11:03:40 PM | How would one seek a one perfect match, you'd have to date many people, get to know them, and then figure out who matches the best to what works for you...the kicker being them feeling the same way about you....it's called DATING. 
When you know there's nothing there to work with, you move on, others you might take more time getting to know, sometimes you mistake it for love and have to later move on. But you still have to date people no matter if you are seeking someone perfect or just seeking someone good enough. Why is this so hard to get? It's pretty simple. | |
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| How Many Of You Are Doing This?
Posted: 11/8/2009 2:27:41 AM | once i saw some "red flags" but -- on an isolated basis -- they were nothing major so i didn't want to be "too picky".... yes people, i seriously believed that "the other qualities of my partner were attractive enough that, on balance, i could overlook it". guess what, he was a true asshat. the only thing i wasn't discerning enough about were the "red flags"... and connecting the dots. let that be a lesson to ya.
vvvvv lol DIV... let me just say i didn't overlook them per se... i extended what's commonly known as "the benefit of the doubt". hindsight is 20-20! foresight... not necessarily so. well, even the shitty aspects of a relationship have valuable things to teach... lesson learned!!
vvvvv nope, i didn't know that... and what did the obituary say??? | |
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| How Many Of You Are Doing This?
Posted: 11/8/2009 3:20:22 AM | | No one is perfect!!! To me some people are way to picky yet by the time they find this "perfect" person once the new wears off what are they going to be thinking ... idk but Americans have a funny way of stuff !!!! | |
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| How Many Of You Are Doing This?
Posted: 11/8/2009 5:41:06 AM | 'Red flags' are simply intuitive warnings and they should not be ignored.
I've been accused of seeking the negative but that is said by the person I'm being negative about. Duh.
If I like everything about a man, and can overlook his more endearing annoyances, then I am prepared to give that relationship a 100
% effort. My absolute criteria however is that he considers me a priority. eg. If I ask him to help me with the windshield wipers, not once but 3 times over a couple of months and he never does, then I don't feel that my safety is important to him. If things like this happen continuously, then I begin to question the sincerity of his 'love'. Those little things are red flags to me. | |
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| How Many Of You Are Doing This?
Posted: 11/8/2009 6:08:56 AM |
I think that can be as much a deficit as an advantage because many women look for deeper meaning in things that are pretty straight forward or they think they know how their partner feels rather than asking him.
Someone with strong intuition and a willingness/ability to communicate with their partner....yup that is what I want.
I know what you mean packagedeal.....but there is the flipside to it that sometimes people don't know themselves very well and the intuition is correct even if the person doesn't want to know/accept it. Many times I've heard stories on this thread of people asking why someone is doing something......the responses that they get are very similar....and yet if they asked the person why they were doing something, they would not get the same type of response. People can be in denial or their own motivations so intuition should never be ignored. | |
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| How Many Of You Are Doing This?
Posted: 11/8/2009 6:23:55 AM | Dude, I don't think most of us are looking for the "perfect" person but who's "perfect" for us. Of course your partner will have a few less than redeeming qualities when you get to know them but I, for instance would never entertain dating a man that didn't love the water and didn't want to make an effort in maintaining and protecting our ecosystem as I do. I'm a nut about that stuff and want my partner to feel the same. To me, what you're saying is try to 'settle' for what's out there or try to 'mold' that person to where they can fit into your life. Neither will work...sooner or later the resentments will pop up no matter how good looking or charismatic that person is.
They just weren't for you. I would rather be alone than waste my time trying to give the dude next door a chance at a relationship with me simply because he's a good person, etc.
Through much trial and error I was lucky enough to find exactly what I was looking for and no, he's not perfect, rich or highly educated. But he's what I waited for for 51 years and life with this man is better than any fairy tale could ever be.
Most articles like that are read by people that are actively seeking the 'right one.' I believe if you just forget about having someone in your life completely, then the right one will just show up when you're ready to accept them in your life. At least that's how it happened for me.
Sans | |
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| How Many Of You Are Doing This?
Posted: 11/8/2009 6:27:34 AM | Firstly I'd say - perhaps, sometimes these books have value.
Possibly for those that want to study, for others to get an inkling of what for others is common sense and lastly for the author and publisher.
red flags, some are common sense. Some are not. How many of you went out with a complete fruitcake, and now better recognise how to avoid it again?
quirks, 'cute' quirks, and things you love ... well, subjective... here I can see something - if you aint got over the last one(s) you might get over picky. Its a defense mechanism. Live, learn.
Settling? Yea, why settle when you can search for Jesus in the people around you, surely one of them must be perfection itself, complete with sun shining out of the back orifice.
Its not about settling - its about being real. Sure there preferences, not the same as being real, or settling. Not one of them are the same as the other - possible may overlap though.
I don't think of perfection being involved in the equation. I prefer other words. Someone with whom it works well. | |
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| How Many Of You Are Doing This?
Posted: 11/8/2009 6:34:59 AM |
I HATE SELF HELP BOOKS I feel an absolute aversion to them as well. Far in the past, I read a few but gave them up many years ago. They are boring. If they have any useful information, it is obvious, superficial and usually redundant. I wonder why people feel they need to read a book to understand how to date and form relationships, unless they see the process as some kind of game where strategy is necessary: meeting/finding someone to love, developing and maintaining a relationship: these are natural human endeavors. It shouldn't take a textbook to be able to do it. | |
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| How Many Of You Are Doing This?
Posted: 11/8/2009 9:14:34 AM |
Perhaps one needs to look at social evolution.....women were the primary caregivers of children since the dawn of time (likely). When you are responsible to care for and nurture a little person who cannot tell you what they need, you need to be intuitive to read their body language and tones of cries. It makes sense that women would then be more intuitive than men...a necessary thing for a woman to have for the survival of the species.
- There are a lot of compelling arguments from evolutionary science that make sense... but they are just logical theories... hard to prove. Love and relationships deify logic in many key areas.
I do think men are more likely to remain in a failed/failing marriage because of the children and fear of losing financially........
- Sometimes, but that is not the main reason more women file first. When people leave a relationship, women tend to flake out more either very early in the dating process before they have fallen in love, or... after they have fallen in love, they tend to hang on to the bitter end more often than men; they wait until they build up so much resentment that they snap... then they can get nasty. Men, more often than women, sometimes disappear somewhere in the middle of things, at least a little more often than women do. Of course, both men and women leave at any stage and do the same things, I'm just saying that across the board, the different genders have their preferred methods.
I do believe that divorce laws are skewed and need to be changed. But more important than that, is that people need to be educated about love and relationships so that they can navigate their love lives successfully and avoid divorce before it happens. Knowledge is a huge power in this world. I have never heard of anyone who got married with the goal of getting divorced.
I've said it before in other threads using different words but I will say it again in this one......women's roles have evolved, so have the needs of women....men must evolve also and the ability to relate to each other will be rocky until we are once again in sync with each other......men need to become more intuitive and more understanding of the relationship dynamics and need to make an effort to understand their partner. Women do not "need" a husband the way they used to....but women still "need" men and men still need women. Women just need a different kind of man these days...we don't need the breadwinner, pants wearing kind of man of yesterday.....we need a true partner....
- I understand that women are more independent these days and that many earn their own paychecks... but just as a side note here, women need to stop writing it in their profiles... I understand that it can be a positive thing, it shows that they are responsible and it has value... however, it's tmi... in a profile, it's a little over-the-top and can be taken the wrong way, as aragance... it turns a lot of guys off. There is a space for "profession", that's enough. Besides, everyone needs other people... so, the statement is not really correct anyway, and I think people sense this.
I'm not sure the word "evolve" is correct... as far as love and relationships, while we may be more sophisticated in some areas, basic human behavior in this area has remained unchanged for thousands of years... and people are not going to evolve to any degree that we would notice anytime soon. Most of the advancements are based on material products, machines, inventions, roads, planes, trains, automobiles, computers, mass production, rockets, and shopping malls. Don't be fooled by all the window dressing; we are still just better looking, sounding, and smelling cavemen with a lot more tools and toys. LOL! Bill Clinton would be a good poster-child!
Yes, women's roles have changed.. at least a superficial one... now they have freedom and choice to work. However, the main underlying role of a woman, as it relates to men, has never changed. The main role of men and women in relationships has always been as a helpmate. Whether or not the woman works at home as a house wife or has a job outside the home makes little diffrence... in both cases, she is still contributing to the family. That's the bottom line.
Power. - Perhaps the biggest difference in relationships since the fifties is that, with women now working, men are no longer the primary breadwinner, and have lost that power over women, traditionally. Yes, unfortunately, they do not have as much value as they once enjoyed. However, other than a woman's self-preservation and her children, they still remain as the next-most valuable commodity in the world for women. The reason? - same power women have... love... women want to fall in love with a man. So, men who once were wanted for money and/or love are now wanted mostly for love... but the more money he has, the better. Beauty is one of the top powers also. What we end up with, mainly, is a lot of men chasing a smaller number of beautiful women, and because women know more about relationships, and fall in love slower, they pretend or operate as if they are more picky and have a longer grocery list and want more... here, we end up with a larger group of women chasing a smaller group of well-groomed and toned men with money, status, and good attitudes. But at the end of the day, most women will give less weight to their grocery list when they fall in love... many loose them real quick! Women have some big ideas, but all of us are full of hot air to some degree!
Men being the protector is a power men have less of now also... today, we have police.
But yes, the point is that men do not, across the board, have as much overall power and value as they did at one time.
But again, they still have the big one... love... women still fall madly everyday... and if the guy is a good guy and continues to do the right things in a relationship to keep her in a high state of love... especially if she loves him more... she will be his love slave... willingly!!! If the guy is good, women don't mind a bit... the benefits can outweigh the maintenance fees by a large margin. It's good work if you can get it!
Even as society changed, the roles did not as for the intuition, I think that can be as much a deficit as an advantage because many women look for deeper meaning in things that are pretty straight forward or they think they know how their partner feels rather than asking him
- Right, women love to rationalize just like men, and many do it too much and confuse and sidetrack themselves... but they need to learn/be educated to trust their gut more. Trust me... across the board, women have an easier time with relationships overall... but perhaps not much overall... perhaps just enough to be noticeable and add to the chaos. | |
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| How Many Of You Are Doing This?
Posted: 11/8/2009 9:16:31 AM |
The people who read self-help books lack common sense to begin with.
I respectfully disagree.....or rather would prefer to edit the comment to say that they lack common sense in that which they seek help with....
I have great common sense in those areas of which I have experience and knowledge. If I hadn't acquired that experience or knowledge, would I know the right way to do something?
I grew up with a father who is an alcoholic...I knew it affected me but I had a hard time dealing with it. I knew I wasn't "normal" and wanted to feel like everyone else, react like everyone else but before I could I knew I needed to understand what happened to me in that environment that affected my development. Understanding a root cause is key to changing it permanently and even then it is a difficult road to recovery. | |
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| How Many Of You Are Doing This?
Posted: 11/8/2009 9:46:57 AM |
^You overlooked the red flags!
How dare you!
The "benefit of the doubt" died in 1984................you didn't know that?
I know you are primarily being flip but there is a distinction between choosing to give someone the benefit of the doubt which requires actually recognizing that X behavior is or could be a red flag, and those that don't see them at all or refuse to recognize them as significant character flaws. In Motown's example she readily admitted that they were red flags but wanted to see if the good stuff outweighed the bad. Same result but a distinction that seems important.
As far as the self help books, like anything else in life they are beneficial if used properly and proportionately. I think it is a shame that self-help has been ridiculed to the point that people of average or above intelligence are embarrassed to use them.
Someone who walks around quoting portions of a book verbatim like our red silk clad self-help addict did for soooo many months, duh, this is someone that doesn't see the book as adding to the store of knowledge and self-understanding but finds each book to become a bible or somehow a manual for life that will prevent one from making mis-steps.
I have self-help books that I have bought over the years either because I felt it might help with a problem, was knowledge that would be good to have even if I had not dealt with the issue addressed in the book, or because it seemed interesting and reading a book to me, is not that different from talking to another person. Obviously you can't pick an author's brain or participate in a conversation that is essentially one-sided, but what difference is the self-help book from mentioning a problem to a friend to see if your ideas/feelings are reasonable and/or seeking a way to deal with a situation or to for dating, approach it better the next time?
How many times do you read a thread and someone says something you have known for like a decade but they phrase it in such a way that it makes the concept easier to actually apply? This to me is the point of self-help books. My ex is bipolar, my kids are all teenagers, and they aren't doing as well as I or they would like in properly expressing or dealing with anger in particular but other emotions as well. My toolbox outside reiterating the same things, is now pretty much empty.
I am finally able to get them into counseling but in the interim have bought them some books that might help them in a way I have yet been unable to. So the answer for many is to get counseling or read books, both of which may be beneficial or a waste of time but I would rather have wasted my time than sit waiting for a lightning bolt of clarity.
I don't see any common sense in thinking that you know everything. | |
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| How Many Of You Are Doing This?
Posted: 11/8/2009 9:53:17 AM | Division[[[[It takes common sense to know and understand this.
The people who read self-help books lack common sense to begin with.]]]]
That's a blunt generalization. Some people lose the ability to rely solely on their common sense, when they have just been traumatized via a break-up, death, injury..etc. Before they can start over again, and date, maintain a relationship, whatever...they need some guidance.Do you think people who attend grief support groups, or AA are lacking common sense too? Because those things are just self help books, spoken out loud. But they are crucial to those who need it at a bad time. Becoming single again, after years of marriage can be like a brand new experience. Marriage destroys dating skills, in case you didn't know. ;) | |
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