She Keeps Sabotaging Herself in Love and Life

Hi Terry,

What do you do when your whole adult dating life has been this: "I see you only as a friend, a buddy, nothing more? I cannot handle anything more than that. Do you understand?"

This has been the story of my life, every man I ever dated, I was always the friend. The buddy. Nothing more. Now it is happening again. A man I dated for 3 years, suddenly decided, after I sent him an email asking for more than what we have. He said "I am not able to give you any more. I hope you never thought of me as a boyfriend, I never was." I only saw you as a friend, whose company I enjoyed. If you want more, then I suggest we end this now."

Before I sent the email, this man was very romantic with me, very kind. He was moving slowly, but moving in the right direction. With every guy I have ever dated I have played the same game. I can look back on my life and realize that I keep making the same mistake. I am 52 years old, never been in love, never been able to get past the friendship.

Every guy tells me I play too many games. I do not seem to learn from past mistakes. I do the same things with every job I have. Funny, I have been fired from every job I ever had. And forget references, they do not exist.

The man I am dating now wants to talk to me on Friday. I know what the talk is. How do I move on, or repair the damage I have done? And how do I stop sabotaging my life?

-Answer Me

Dear Answer Me:

Your letter breaks my heart.

You're wise to have come to the conclusion that you are the common denominator in your problems. Many people never, ever do that and keep making the same mistakes forever.

To find out why you keep sabotaging yourself, it's important that you contact a (good) licensed therapist, someone who will help you stop the sabotage so you can achieve a healthy, loving relationship and the ability to succeed in a job. With the right help, you can turn things around.

In the meantime, I recommend you read a wonderful book by Louise Hay entitled You Can Heal Your Life. It's helped many people, including me.

I wish you every good thing in the world, and I truly respect you for taking responsibility to change things.

Terry

She's Standing By Her Man

Megan McAllister, the fiancee of Philip Markoff, issued a statement through an attorney yesterday: She's in love with the accused Craigslist killer, and she's sticking with him. In the Today clip below, psychotherapist Robi Ludwig explains why it's natural that she's doing this, even though the evidence against him is piling up.

But Megan McAllister is lucky. She's been spared the agony of being married to an alleged sociopath. Seven years from now, she won't be worrying about police banging on her door while terrified small children dig fingernails into her calves.

Still, the past two weeks must have been so disappointing, scary, sad, and confusing for this woman and her family. The weeks and months ahead of her will be difficult. I'm praying she gets the strength and comfort she deserves, along with the ability to trust her own instincts and enjoy life again.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Secrets of a Happy Marriage

There's a lot to glean from a New York Times 'State of the Unions' interview with Andrea Perlbinder and Garth Stein, a married couple whose wedding the reporter, Lois Smith Brady, covered in 1993.

I especially liked the couple's attitudes about marriage:

“For one thing, Ms Stein said, she still believes doubts are the most corrosive thing to a relationship. So they don’t indulge in them. 'If there’s any doubt — the minute you throw the ‘but’ in — you’re throwing in enough energy to make it a struggle,” she said. “There can’t be any ‘buts’ basically.'

Also, there cannot be any lies. 'Be honest, maybe brutally honest,' Mr. Stein said. 'I think honesty is the key to all relationships. If you’re pretending, it’s just the same as with writing: you can see it in two sentences.'

I like the way they work together to solve problems. Two of their children suffered from food allergies, and the couple moved heaven and earth to resolve them. They eventually succeeded, but until then, Mr. Stein said, "“Every time we went to a kids’ party, we had to bake our own cupcakes.”

I really like that "we" and "our" stuff. "We" and "our" stuff goes a long way in building a happy, healthy, and lasting relationship.

Check out the rest of their story here.

Stuff I Won't Do for Money

Every now and then I get an offer from some Internet-based outfit looking to team up with me for a joint-venture. The point of a JV is to help both me and the other party to make money.

Some of the suitors offer products I consider of value (for instance, Kathy Wilson's program which teaches ordinary citizens how they can start businesses of their own on the Internet), but some of them are downright heinous.

Last week, I fielded an offer from a guy who claims he admires this page and asked me to post a link to a site for married people who want to have affairs. If he'd even taken a look at this page, he'd have figured out pretty quickly that promoting infidelity isn't my thing.

And not too long ago, I got a request to do a JV venture with a woman profiting from a program that promised to convince a man's wife or girlfriend to agree to a threesome (featuring a second woman, natch).

Ugh. Get the hell away from me.

On the other hand, if you happen to promote a product that actually contributes to people's happiness and to the betterment of society, and you think we can help each other, feel free to contact me about it.

She's Having Trouble Visualizing a Perfect Relationship

Dear Terry,

I bought your e-book recently and your tips make perfectly sense to me. However I have a question about how to generate that warm and strong FEELING when you think of the man who possesses all of your desired qualities. I came up with a generous, caring, creative, exciting, faithful, loyal, cosmopolitan, emotionally expressive and committed guy)...a long list ...I know :-)

I can say these qualities, write them down ( I did!), but I cannot somehow FEEL them in my stomach and the man who comes along with these qualities. and I realize how important that part is in attracting what you want. I played with different qualities, different words but that didn't change anything..I cannot picture this man or feel him being with me.

After three long relationships ( 2-3 years) which were partly good, painful or just didn't work out I somehow I cannot FEEL anymore that this man exists.

Can you help?

Thank you so much!

Best,
M.

Hello, M.-

When I started visualizing, I found it just as difficult to 'feel' emotion as you do now.

So I can tell you that if you persist in visualizing, the pieces (which feel very mechanical and unnatural right now) will start to fit, the person you envision will begin to flesh out, and you will start believing this relationship is not a product of your imagination but a fact of your life. So please keep it up.

Also, if you can think of specific disappointing incidents between you and former boyfriends, write them down, and then ask yourself what emotion you felt at the time (boredom, sadness, anger?), and then ask yourself, "How could this situation be changed so that in a future relationship I feel joy?"

In other words, if you once found yourself eating cold french fries under fluorescent light in a fast food restaurant, noting the size of your then-boyfriend's pores, wondering if that particular relationship was as good as it would ever get for you, ask yourself: What would have made that situation joyful instead (a restaurant with better food and lighting, and, oh, maybe a waiter; conversation with a much-different guy in which you found yourself excited and laughing?)

What, for instance, would you and this emotionally expressive guy you're now envisioning do together? Where do you go? What do you talk about? What do you see, hear, feel, smell, and taste? (He's cosmopolitan; you meet him after work. What's he wearing? Where are you going? If it's drinks and dinner, where do you go for drinks and dinner? What's the temperature? What do you eat? And so on....)

All you really need is to create one joyful situation and keep bringing it to mind throughout the day. You've already started the ball rolling by writing the qualities down, so now bring this man and the relationship you desire to live in your imagination. Keep going. Joy and excitement will begin to rise up.

It also helps (a great deal) to listen to music that hits you in the solar plexus when you're doing visualizations (these days it's Coldplay for me; once upon a time it was Simple Minds and Kate Bush).

I hope this helps.

Terry

Away From My Desk...

I'm in Manhattan visiting my sister and trying to keep an eye on her very active 4-year-old, so I won't post today.

At home, my Internet connection should be restored Friday morning (keeping my fingers crossed). Hope to post again then.

Sex and the Fledgling Relationship

Hi Terry!

I subscribe to your mails and was wondering what you thought of this blog post by a girl whose sense of love, life and everything I love and follow. She is a very popular blogger based out of NYC and New Zealand, and one of her recent blog posts talks about sleeping with a guy on the first date.

Especially when it comes to things like the law of attraction and my belief in it and things like what conception do you have of yourself, I feel what she says makes a lot of sense too. What do you think? I'll be interested to know.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Take care,
Keep My Name Out of It

Dear Keep-

Thanks so much for letting me know about this blogger and her take on sleeping with a guy on the first date. She's very funny, and she brings up an excellent point (that I should also have made in my recent email and didn't):

It's sexist and misguided to hold off on sex purely so that some guy will love or 'respect' you for it.

My feeling is that a man who would sleep with you but disrespect you for sleeping with him is a hypocrite and should be discarded immediately.

The important thing is that a woman not sleep with a guy because a) he's pushing it, or b) she thinks he expects it, or c) she thinks it will keep his interest.

She must be true to herself.

Now, I'm a bit of a germophobe, so I would be reluctant to sleep with a guy on the first date because I haven't had enough time to assess how frequently he showers, whether or not he washes his hands after he goes to the bathroom, if his hard drive is cluttered with questionable porn, or if he has any diseases.

See, I was at the OB/GYN not too long ago, and a sales rep floated in with a wheelie cart filled to the tippy-top of an 'as-seen-on-TV' herpes medication. When I got in to see my doctor, I asked her, "Are there really so many people afflicted with herpes that sales reps are passing out that number of samples?"

Her response?

"One out of five people have active lesions. Another percentage carry the virus and don't know it."

From a Law of Attraction standpoint, visualize and 'feel' yourself in your perfect relationship. Don't worry about sex. When that perfect relationship shows up, my hunch is your subconscious (which you're programming to work in your best interests) will show you the way to go.

I hope this helps, and thank you for helping me to further clarify my feelings on this matter.

Why He Didn't Call You Back

Just back from a day with my aunt, so check out this eye-opening Today segment with Dating Coach Rachel Greenwald, author of Why He Didn't Call You Back: 1,000 Guys Reveal What They Really Thought About You After Your Date:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Twelve Springtime Tips for Meeting Men

Spring can be a brilliant time to meet new men. People are clicking off the remote and getting out of the house again. Here are 12 tips for meeting a guy who'll make you happy you clicked off yours:

1. Write a list of the qualities you don't want in a man (for good material, think about your old boyfriends).

2. Turn it around and write the qualities you do want.

3. Read this list three times a day. Visualize yourself with such a person. Bring up the emotions you'd feel being with him.

4. Go where men go. Become a regular face there. Sign up for sailing lessons or fishing trips. Show up at readings at your local bookstore. Spend Sunday afternoons enjoying a cocktail at an outdoor restaurant. Find something you like to do and do it. Become a regular. Much more important, become a friend.

(NOTE: This does not mean you should pretend to love fishing if you hate it; it means you should do things that you like to do -- or would like to try --that men tend to like to do.)

5. Dress appropriately. For instance, wear sportswear instead of low-cut dresses to sports bars. You'd be shocked how many smart women try to get attention by looking overly sexy, but they strike others as being 'on the make.' As a result, they attract guys on the make. Look pretty, but blend in with the crowd.

6. Avoid singles-only events. They draw creeps like ants to a picnic.

7. Accept invitations to family barbecues, christenings, and weddings. You never know when someone will bring along a new face. (I did tell you the one about the woman who met her future husband at her own sister's dinner table, didn't I? Her brother had brought along a new friend and romance ensued.) Do not allow yourself to be held hostage by smug married people who imply you're defective because you're single, or who yammer on endlessly about their children's achievements.

8. Spend time with old female friends and make new ones (women friends are a good source for making new men friends).

9. Get out of your car. Take mass transit. Walk. Wait on line for a bank teller instead of whizzing into the drive-thru.

10. Smile at people. Most humans (the ones worth getting to know, anyway) will smile back.

(NOTE: This tip doesn't always work in large urban areas like London or New York City, where you could be mistaken for a crazy person. It does work almost everywhere else.)

11. Learn to flirt. This does not mean batting your eyelashes like a big dummy. Women who are successful with men are not necessarily beautiful, but they do know how to talk to them.

12. Take a second job. If you like people and could use extra cash wait tables, preferably in a restaurant that caters to successful people. A friend of mine met her affluent husband this way. Fifteen years later, they have two children and two beautiful homes. (They're also wild about each other.) The musician Phil Lesh didn't end up with one of the thousands of fans he met during his career with the Grateful Dead. He married the waitress who served him breakfast in a coffee shop near his home (lest you fret that his wife still serves him, his autobiography mentions that Phil washes dishes and used to drive his children to school). He has been married for more than 20 years.

The world is full of wonderful men, so please do back away from Rock of Love Bus with Bret Michaels. Determine the qualities you want in your wonderful man. Bring him to life in your imagination. Then put yourself in places where you're likely to meet him.

"Over 90% of Attraction is Based on How You Feel About Yourself"

So says Dating Coach Ronnie Ann Ryan, who'll once again offer her popular Flirt School on April 18th in spectacular Shelton, Connecticut (well, we're hoping Shelton will be spectacular by April 18th. It's been a ridiculously long winter).

I've heard Ronnie speak. Not only does she give excellent tips for getting out and meeting people (and, more importantly, feeling comfortable doing it), she's highly humorous. So, you'll have a good time.

If you can't be in Connecticut on the 18th, check out Ronnie's book, MANifesting Mr. Right, where she tells how she met her Mr. Right after age 40, and how you can meet yours at any age.

If you can be in Connecticut (somebody really should offer me a job with the tourism office), here are the details:

Saturday, April 18th 9am - Noon Shelton, CT
Location information supplied with completed registration.

Early Bird Registration (before April 8th): $35
(Late registration: $45)
Includes Ronnie's book, MANifesting Mr. Right, or any audio program of your choice.

Register online here, or call Ronnie at 203-877-3777.

Get Your Ex Back

We all fall in love sometimes. And sometimes things work out, and sometimes they don't.

Sigh.

And when they don't, our minds tend to go into overdrive trying to figure out how to get the object of our affection to love us back. The Queen of Relationships offers sensible (and humorous) advice.

Read it here.