Do you wonder why your relationships
always fall apart? What pushes men
away? Are your expectations about love
too high…or too low? How can you
recognize dead-end relationships and
stop wasting time on them? What are the
signs he’ll never commit? What are the
red flags you should never ignore? What
factors decide whether a relationship
succeeds or fails? What do men want
from a relationship? What are the most
common relationship mistakes women
make? Why do men lose interest? And
most importantly, what are the real
reasons you can’t find lasting love?
My new book, Everything You Need to
Know if You Want Love That Lasts will
answer all these questions and more and
provide you with everything you need to
know to find and keep love that lasts.
Writing a book is a big learning process
and I always come away with many new
epiphanies. I pulled a selection of my
favorite, and what I consider to be the
most important, insights from each
chapter, the tidbits that would have
saved me a lot of heartache and pain
had I learned them sooner!
Here you go:
1. Choose Wisely
I spent far too many years wondering
why my relationships always fell apart
and I couldn’t get anything to last. The
answer was so obvious I felt like a fool
for failing to see it all along: I was
choosing the wrong men. I was choosing
the men who wouldn’t or couldn’t give
me what I wanted. When I finally wised
up and started dating with more of a
purpose, dating with the aim of finding
something long lasting instead of dating
around just for the sake of dating
around, I cultivated a new mantra: I
want a partner, not a project.
2. Love is amazing … but It isn’t a
fantasy
Love won’t make all your pain and
problems go away. It won’t erase the
memory of all your old hurts and
wounds, it won’t give you a healthy
sense of self-esteem, and it won’t open
the gates of everlasting happiness and
bliss. Love can enhance your life in
many ways (healthy love, that is), but it
will never be perfect. There is no such
thing as a perfect partner or a perfect
relationship.
This one took me a while to fully grasp
because like many women, I fell for the
popular ideology our culture perpetuates
about love. I thought that with the right
person, it would all just work out and
everything would be amazing. I thought
love was enough. But it isn’t.
It’s also about timing (it has to be the
right time for both people), fundamental
compatibility, similar goals, and
emotional maturity. Love can be a
beautiful, transformative thing, but not
in a vacuum. A lot of other elements
need to align, and you need to accept
and embrace the fact that it will take a
bit of work.
3. Sometimes you’re the problem
Being single for an extended amount of
time can be for two reasons: you
legitimately haven’t met the right guy, or
you aren’t yet the right girl. I dated my
husband in high school and we ran into
each other countless times over the span
of a decade. Our last chance meeting was
two months before we actually started
dating again. For whatever reason when
he saw me that day in Central Park, he
wasn’t overcome with a desire to ask me
out. Then two months later he was. By
our second date he knew I was “the
one.â€
So what changed? Nothing changed
about me physically, but a lot internally.
(I detail all of it in the book.)
4. Stop Wasting Time!
Oh what I would do to get back some of
the time I’ve wasted over the years on
total losers. If he won’t be your
boyfriend, if he won’t commit, if he
treats you badly, if he doesn’t appreciate
you, if he only appreciates you for s*x
and can’t be bothered when you’re fully
clothed, forget him. It seems so obvious,
yet so many of us fail in this area. Why
does it happen?
Essentially, we see the potential and get
enamored in thoughts of what could be.
And we don’t see him as the problem,
we think we need to try harder, we need
to crack his code so we can get him to be
the man we want. It doesn’t work that
way. Doing this usually causes more pain
and is a huge waste of time.
5. Everyone makes mistakes
When I talk about mistakes women make
in relationships, a lot of women will get
hyper defensive and say I’m blaming
them and it’s not their fault because all
men are jerks. That’s one way to look at
things, but it’s not a very productive,
helpful way to look at things.
The fact is we all need to understand
how relationships work: the dynamics at
play, what sets the foundation for an
amazing relationship, why some last,
and why others don’t. It requires being
open to the idea that you may be doing
things wrong, and that’s OK! The biggest
relationship mistake that I see being
committed, and I was once a major
offender, is being too needy and
expecting way too much out of a man
and a relationship.
6. Self-Love is everything
What keeps us in bad relationships isn’t
that all men are jerks or that
relationships are so hard or that we’re
unworthy or that all the good guys are
taken. What keeps us in bad
relationships is low self-esteem. When
you don’t value yourself, you will accept
and even welcome people who don’t
value you into your life. You won’t see
how wrong this is, how unacceptable this
is. If you treat yourself badly, you will
accept bad treatment from others. Self-
love always comes before healthy
romantic love.
7. The Chase is Nonsense!
OK not total nonsense, it does kind of
work. But it isn’t sustainable! The chase
creates the illusion of confidence and
leaves enough uncertainty to create the
illusion of chemistry. Everything feels
more dramatic and exciting when we
don’t know how the other person feels.
But a relationship isn’t built on
uncertainty. Yes, that can galvanize
things, it can rouse interest, but you
need something real in order for that
interest to remain and deepen.
8. Men and Women Fall in Love
Differently
They also need different things in a
relationship. Men primarily need to feel
appreciated for who they are and what
they have to give. He needs to feel like a
winner. If he doesn’t, then he won’t
want to be in the relationship for very
long. You’ll notice in most breakups and
divorces that the guy says the reason it
ended is he no longer felt appreciated,
he felt like he couldn’t make her happy,
like she was always harping on him
about something.
Men need to feel like the man, they need
to be respected for what they provide
(this does not only mean material items).
Find any man who is unhappy in his
relationship and ask him why, and his
answer will fall under the umbrella of
this concept every time.
9. Men Lose Interest for Reasons
You Can’t See …
There are overt behaviors that push men
away, and there are covert ones … the
latter causing a lot more confusion than
the former! It can really hurt when a
guy who seemed so into it at first does a
complete 180 seemingly out of the blue
and it’s hard not to take it personal.
This usually happens for visceral reasons
you can’t see, but that he can feel, and
usually comes from too much stressing.
Stressing over a relationship usually
ruins is. As does getting attached to a
certain outcome. When you expect a
serious relationship to unfold with a guy
you’re casually dating, then you lose
something if the relationship ends.
When you can just go with it, you only
have something to gain.
10. It doesn’t matter what you say,
it’s the way you say It
I used to be a terrible communicator.
No, scratch that. I was able to effectively
communicate in certain settings. My
direct, no-nonsense, intellectually
thought-out and unemotional way of
speaking served me well in terms of my
career, but it didn’t do me many favors
when it came to my relationships.
Communication is a huge determining
factor in whether a relationship will
survive or fail. You have to learn how to
speak in a way so the other person hears
you, otherwise you’re just wasting your
breath and getting nowhere.
