If you search the Internet you’ll always find an answer. There will always be somebody that will tell you that you can get your ex back, or they’ll tell you that you weren’t energetically aligned, or that your astrological signs didn’t match, or whatever. We’re always trying to find out why something didn’t work out. We need to find out.

Well here’s the deal: instead of looking at why it didn’t work out, ask yourself what you really need to experience that you were afraid of. Let’s go even deeper into this. What do you need to experience based on the experiences that you had with this person? Why do you keep attracting the same type of person in your life, and why are you so afraid to experience what you really desire? Why are you so afraid of become raw, open and vulnerable?

It’s really time to get Naked. I was told—by some great philosopher no doubt—that the question “why?” is one of the worst questions you can ask. “Why?” can almost never be answered alone, in your head—especially if it involves someone else. “How?” is a much better question. It’s more empowering. Instead of “why did they do that to me?” you could ask “how can I grow from this experience?”

We always try to figure out why something didn’t work out. But in reality, there’s a great message as to why it didn’t work out that can’t be rationalized by numerology or anything else. It’s a message that presents itself over and over again with a lot of our lovers and a lot of our relationships.

And until we figure out what that message is, we never move forward and experience what we really need to experience.  And that is where you need to look within.  Because looking deep within is going to enable you to really process it, in a way that you’ll grow instead of just saying it didn’t work out, because you weren’t “energetically aligned”.

You’ve heard so many nightmare stories about it. You’ve heard about children acting up. You’ve heard about the lack of intimate one-on-one time.

There are so many things that can potentially go wrong. There is no spontaneity. Everything you’ve heard about children is multiplied by twenty because this kid isn’t even yours.

You’ve also heard about the tenacious sex drive that single moms have. Because they’re with the kids five days a week and they only have two days free, in those two days they need to satisfy all their urges. They want to have sex, but they’re not about wasting time because their free time is so limited.

So here you are. You’ve met an amazing woman and you’re dating “the single mom.” This is something you’ve never wanted. Welcome to one of the toughest times of your adult adolescence, because this is the time that you are forced to grow up faster than ever before.

I remember when I was living in Boulder, Colorado. I met a great woman named Denise who was beautiful and sexy. Everything about her was perfect, except she she had a four year old kid (and a boyfriend at the time too).

I remember that I would flirt with her every time I saw her. About a year later after flirting with her and being friends with her boyfriend, she came to my office one day and told me that she wanted to take me to dinner.

We went out to dinner. At dinner she looked at me and basically told me she was in love with me. I didn’t know what to do. I just really never wanted to adopt someone else’s kid, and she knew this.

So a few weeks later, she actually dropped her kid off for a few hours at my office. It was torture. It was hell. I was exhausted. I wasn’t ready for that kind of commitment.

I moved to San Diego. About six months later, I actually called her and said, “Moving to San Diego and walking away from you was the biggest mistake I ever made in my life.” By that time she had met someone else.

I wasn’t ready to date a woman with a kid. I wasn’t really mature enough. I realized, though, that not doing it was one of the biggest mistakes I ever made.

It’s true that there are going to be limitations when you date a woman who has a kid. She is still a woman, though, and she still has needs, wants and desires.

Also, it’s true that the child isn’t yours and that it is not a dream situation. In life, though, we can try to live the dream situation or we can just live life and take things as they come.

In life, everything doesn’t go according to plan. Everything doesn’t go the way you think it’s supposed to go.

So if you meet an incredible who has a child, and the child has a father who is in his or her life, then all that woman is looking for from you is to be a great man for her. When you spend time with the kid, enjoy the kid.

Kids are beautiful. Kids are great. You can learn a lot of things about yourself through the child.

She doesn’t need a substitute dad. She just needs you to be her boyfriend, to be her man.

So if you’re dating a single mother, enjoy it! This woman may have a child, but you may not be able to meet another great woman like her.

This is a great time in your life. It enables you to grow and experience things that you never thought you would experience. So, enjoy that single mother!

I was about 33 when I got divorced. After my divorce, I remember my buddy Rich and I went out to a bar. I was standing in that bar drinking a Margarita, and all of a sudden I realized I was “him.” I was that older guy in a bar full of 20-somethings, nursing a drink and looking at women. At that moment I realized that those days were over for me.

Do you want to be ‘that guy?’ I never wanted to be that guy standing in a bar. There wasn’t any joy anymore being in a bar. I wanted to meet real women.

I didn’t want to get involved in idle chit-chat about nothing, meet somebody when they were drunk, call them the next day and have to remind them of the conversation we had. I was past that point in my life. I wanted to meet someone real.

So let’s talk about what to do after you get divorced. The first thing you need to do is make sure you clear your mind. Don’t go out and start trying to meet women just because your wife has left you (or because you left your wife).

Spend some time with yourself. Get to know yourself again.

Start to think about what YOU really want. What are you looking for in life? With what type of woman do you want to spend your time? What did you learn from your last relationship?

Think about how you feel right now. Are you happy? Are you sad?

Spend time by yourself. Take some time to hang out with friends and get to know them again. Spend some time doing “guy things.” Enjoy yourself and don’t even think about women.

Once you’ve done this, then the next step is to actually go out there and start meeting women doing things that you enjoy. You don’t want to be that guy standing in the corner of a bar or nightclub wondering if you’re going to meet women.

Instead, think about what you like to do. Make a list of five things that you really enjoy doing — five things that are really important to you and five places you’d like to really be seen.

I remember doing this exact exercise when I was 35 years old. I found that I really enjoyed meeting women when I was “out and about.”

I enjoyed meeting women in supermarkets because I always had something to talk about with them (since food is a passion of mine). I enjoyed meeting women at coffee shops because I enjoy drinking a cup of tea. I really enjoyed meeting women when I was working out. I enjoyed meeting women when I was at the movies if I was able to talk to them before the movie or after the movie.

I wanted to meet women who shared the same interests as me. I wanted to meet a woman who was really like me — someone who likes to travel, eat great food and stay healthy.

That’s important. You want to really start figuring out who you are and what you’re all about. That way, when you are out meeting people you won’t make the same mistakes.

In all my years of coaching men in dating and relationships, I’ve found that men who jump back into the dating world too soon after a breakup or a divorce tend to find the same woman over and over again (and tend to marry the same woman again). They do it because that same woman is what they are used to.

So learn from your experience and from your last relationship. Embrace all the lessons from that relationship so that you can go out and find what you really want. You deserve it. Whether your last relationship ended because she left you or you left her, you deserve to be able to get back out there and find what you want.

Well now your friend is about to marry a crazy one. What do you do?

Let’s add a little fun dimension to this. You’re at a party one night. You open the bathroom door and that crazy lunatic woman is making out with another guy only a few months before your friend is scheduled to marry her.

She looks at you and she smiles. Then she corners you and says, “Don’t say anything to him. That was just an ex, and I really needed to just get that out of my system before we got married.”

What do you say to your friend, knowing he is about to marry this crazy one? Is it your place to say anything to him? I think it is, and I’m going to share something with you from my own personal experience.

Back in 1987, my best friend Mark was about to marry a woman I didn’t particularly like. I’ve known Mark since I was seven years old. I didn’t particularly like her because I found her to be very controlling and a little uptight sexually. From what he described to me, she just seemed like she had an underlying plan and I didn’t trust her.

When I asked him how the sex was with her, he said it wasn’t that great but was nice enough. He told me he wasn’t even that attracted to her, but that he felt he should marry her because she was the nicest woman he’d ever met.

That’s the problem about being in your mid 20′s. We tend to go off and marry someone who’s just so nice to us, but yet we’re not really into them.

About a month before Mark’s wedding, I confronted him and I told him that I didn’t think he should marry that woman. I also told him all the reasons why I didn’t think he should marry her. I had it all written down on a piece of paper, so I wouldn’t forget anything.

Do you know what happened? He ended up marrying her anyway, and I wasn’t the best man at the wedding.

Guess what happened fourteen years later? You got it . . . He had to write a really big check when the two of them got divorced. He had to move out of the house he bought.

Being the controlling woman I knew she was, she of course started manipulating the kids and telling them what a horrible father they have. Now two years after the divorce — after all the messes and financial cleanup has been done — his own kids don’t talk to him.

A real and true friend will be honest regardless of what the outcome is going to be. Your friend will make whatever decision he is going to make no matter what. He may marry the crazy, manipulative woman or he may listen to you. He may actually open his eyes and realize you are only looking out for his best interest. Regardless of what decision he makes, a true friend will still tell him how he feels.

Welcome to a really hard time of adult adolescence called honesty with your friends. Don’t sugarcoat things any more.

They’re dating a nut or are about to marry a crazy woman, then you as their friend better try to shake them into reality. They may be dating that woman or marrying that woman based on their own insecurities or their own fear of not being able to meet someone else. They lack an abundance mentality when it comes down to meeting women.

So you need to wake them up — and wake them up fast — because that divorce is going to cost them a lot of money in the future.

It’s amazing. As each year passes, there seems to be less news and more pop culture dressed up as news.

It seems like all anyone was talking about was Ryan Reynolds and Scarlett Johansson’s divorce announcement, and the seemingly impending breakup of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ marriage. Apparently Katie wants to leave Tom, and the battle over daughter Suri will be a fierce one.

Do We Really Care?

The news — and television in general — nowadays is all all about other people’s “stuff” and exposing all of their personal business in the public arena. This is especially true when it comes to exposing the intimate details of other people’s love life.

People can’t seem to get enough of hearing about celebrity divorces. There are also just so many dating shows out there. They have figured out about every angle there is about dating . . . and divorce.

Think about the show The Millionaire Matchmaker. Can’t millionaires find love?

I’m sure you’ve seen at least some of these shows. If you have, then you know that it is no mystery why a lot of these people can’t find love. They are too dysfunctional to find love.

What has this to do with us and our own dating lives? Well too many people are so caught up in everybody else’s “stuff” (the drama and the garbage going on in everybody else’s dating life), that they don’t do enough work on themselves.

Let’s say you’re divorced. Where are you going to turn for guidance or inspiration for how to get healthy emotionally and move forward? Where are you going to learn how to get back in the dating scene if you’ve been married and haven’t dated in years? You’re certainly not going to gain anything by reading up on how a celebrity feels about being divorced, because their life is totally different than yours.

Think about who you’re reading about in terms of people dealing with and moving forward after a divorce. Hugh Hefner is getting married . . . again. At 85, he has found love again after divorce.

Really? At age 85 he found love with a 24 year old? Lust maybe, or maybe amazement that a 24 year old finds you (and not just your money) attractive.

We read so much about these celebrities, and we watch so many of these dating shows, that all people are hearing is very celebrity-geared advice. There’s no real advice on these shows.

There are no shows out there about how to really move forward after a divorce, and how to go out there again and start dating. There are no shows that have the message, “Hey you’re divorced and you need to learn how to date all over again. We’re going to show you how to do that.”

If there was a show like that, it would probably be called “Divorce Survivor” (or something like that) and I can envision exactly how it would be structured. They would have a group of divorced people who would battle one another and sleep with each other’s ex-spouses as they were trying to be the last one standing to win money at the end of the show.

There is no good, “real truth” advice for people like you and I who go through a real-world divorce. I’ve been divorced, and I know what it’s like to go back out there into the dating world after that. I know what it’s like be dating again and to be thinking, “Wow, I have to get back out there after all these years.”

Here is some great advice for you if you are in this place in your life right now. I’ve written this before, but it is some of the best advice you can hear about this: Focus just on you and your own life.

Choose only one person right now from whom you are going to take advice (so you don’t get conflicting advice). Whom should you choose? The person you need to get advice from is yourself.

Sure, you can read books and check out my blog posts, but what I really want all of you to do first is to figure out where YOU want your life to be post-divorce.

Concentrate on what you really want. What type of man or woman do you want to meet? What did you learn from your past relationships?

Don’t compare yourself to anybody else — not your friends, your neighbor or any celebrity. Look at you and your personal situation. Enjoy the process.

That’s why I recently wrote that blog about getting rid of bitterness and forgiving after a divorce. When I say this, I am talking not just about forgiving your ex, but also about forgiving yourself.

So what I want all of you to do this week is to come up with a game plan. Write down all the places you go where there are women (or men) you’d like to meet. Then when you’re out at these places every single day, start saying hello. start being more open and communicating.

Put down the iPhone or the BlackBerry. Stop thinking about work. Take a break from worrying about what your kids are doing at that moment.

Start being 100% present in the moment. When you’re out and about becoming more open and being friendly, people will want to meet you and be in your space.

There’s a big world out there. So start looking outside and make that list right now. Sit down in front of your computer and make out your list of all the places you see people that you’re attracted to.

Then set a goal for yourself and get out there the next day to achieve it. Your first goal could be to say hello to three people. Do that for a week, and then set your next goal. Maybe your next goal will be to start actually talking to people and asking how they are doing. It doesn’t matter what it is; it only matters that you do it.

The greatest thing about divorce is that you get to do the dating thing this time around with all the knowledge and wisdom you have learned from your past relationship. You can have fun dating and find true love.

Dating is fun, and falling in love is amazing. All of you deserve that.

So get out from behind the computer. Stop worrying about how celebrities are handling their divorces and their lives, and start being open to all the wonderful opportunities available to you in the post-divorce world.

After my divorce, I remember my buddy Rich and I went out to a bar. I was standing in that bar drinking a Margarita, and all of a sudden I realized I was “him.” I was that older guy in a bar full of 20-somethings, nursing a drink and looking at women. At that moment I realized that those days were over for me.

Do you want to be ‘that guy?’ I never wanted to be that guy standing in a bar. There wasn’t any joy anymore being in a bar. I wanted to meet real women.

I didn’t want to get involved in idle chit-chat about nothing, meet somebody when they were drunk, call them the next day and have to remind them of the conversation we had. I was past that point in my life. I wanted to meet someone real.

So let’s talk about what to do after you get divorced. The first thing you need to do is make sure you clear your mind. Don’t go out and start trying to meet women just because your wife has left you (or because you left your wife).

Spend some time with yourself. Get to know yourself again.

Start to think about what YOU really want. What are you looking for in life? With what type of woman do you want to spend your time? What did you learn from your last relationship?

Think about how you feel right now. Are you happy? Are you sad?

Spend time by yourself. Take some time to hang out with friends and get to know them again. Spend some time doing “guy things.” Enjoy yourself and don’t even think about women.

Once you’ve done this, then the next step is to actually go out there and start meeting women doing things that you enjoy. You don’t want to be that guy standing in the corner of a bar or nightclub wondering if you’re going to meet women.

Instead, think about what you like to do. Make a list of five things that you really enjoy doing — five things that are really important to you and five places you’d like to really be seen.

I remember doing this exact exercise when I was 35 years old. I found that I really enjoyed meeting women when I was “out and about.”

I enjoyed meeting women in supermarkets because I always had something to talk about with them (since food is a passion of mine). I enjoyed meeting women at coffee shops because I enjoy drinking a cup of tea. I really enjoyed meeting women when I was working out. I enjoyed meeting women when I was at the movies if I was able to talk to them before the movie or after the movie.

I wanted to meet women who shared the same interests as me. I wanted to meet a woman who was really like me — someone who likes to travel, eat great food and stay healthy.

That’s important. You want to really start figuring out who you are and what you’re all about. That way, when you are out meeting people you won’t make the same mistakes.

In all my years of coaching men in dating and relationships, I’ve found that men who jump back into the dating world too soon after a breakup or a divorce tend to find the same woman over and over again (and tend to marry the same woman again). They do it because that same woman is what they are used to.

So learn from your experience and from your last relationship. Embrace all the lessons from that relationship so that you can go out and find what you really want. You deserve it. Whether your last relationship ended because she left you or you left her, you deserve to be able to get back out there and find what you want.

How do you deal with that?

How do you deal with the ex when you see them?

We’re going to talk about that in today’s podcast.

It’s a subject into which I’ve never delved and, let me tell you, it’s pretty damn controversial.

This is one podcast you are not going to want to miss . . .

Click here to listen now:

Click Here To Download Today’s Podcast

We’re getting to the real root of cheaters right now. You’ve been cheated on in the past.

If someone asks you what happened in your past relationship, is your answer something like this: “She was a great girl, but all of a sudden something happened and she started cheating on me. It was ridiculous. I don’t understand why she cheated on me. I did everything for her.”

Immediately, the person you’re saying this to is going to look at you and wonder what made that person cheat on you. When you’re cheated on, it means that there is something that’s not working between the two of you of which you are not aware.

To tell you the truth, I’ve never been cheated on, but I have cheated one time. I know exactly why I cheated on them. It was because the communication in our relationship was dead, over, done. I wasn’t happy anymore.

So if you tell someone on a first, second or third date that you’ve been cheated on, they’re going to really wonder about you. They are going to wonder why you didn’t realize why you were cheated on, and why you aren’t taking responsibility for your part in it.

A lot of people don’t understand that cheating is a two-way street. In order to push someone out the door to cheat, you must be pushing them one way or another.

There’s something that you’ve been doing in that situation. Maybe you were not aware of the person’s needs, wants, and desires. Maybe you wanted more out of the relationship than they did. It could be a number of different things.

So if you’ve been cheated on and someone asks you why that relationship ended, just say “It ended mutually” and leave it at that. As you get to know someone better, you can uncover the depth of your last relationships.

In the first couple of weeks, though, people are judging and looking and evaluating you. It’s not that you want to hide things, but you just want to get to know each other on a fresh face.

You don’t need to tell every negative detail of your past. You don’t need to dump everything about each other in the first few weeks. You want those first few weeks to really bond with each other, to build up the trust, so then you can talk about all that stuff later when you’re in a safe space with each other.

People are still judging in those first few weeks. So the next time someone asks you if you’ve ever been cheated on, just say “You know what? I have been, but it’s no big deal. I learned a lot from that. I really learned that my communication in that relationship wasn’t good and I take full responsibility for it.”

Take the high road in everything. Anytime you take the road of a victim, it means that you don’t know how to communicate properly with anybody else.

You have already made a determination that they don’t understand you, that they will never understand you and that the relationship just won’t work out with them. So, all of a sudden, the incredible anger that were starting fights decrease.

You start walking away from them. You used to feel like she was busting your balls or like he was riding you and not understanding you. Now the minute you get into a fight, you just walk away from it.

The fact that you are on opposite sides of the bed, which used to bother you and keep you up at night, turns into the natural way things are and you are able to sleep with no problem. You go to your side of the bed, they go to theirs, and you both just go to sleep.

You are not up for four hours every night thinking, wondering, feeling and missing them. You just want to go to sleep.

When it hits this point, i.e., when it hits the breakup point, then you need to face the business of breaking up. You know breaking up sucks, but there is only one good way to do it.

When you think you might have hit that breakup point, you must tell the person that you’re disconnecting from them. You need to be honest and raw.

If you don’t think the relationship is going to work or you know you’ve already disconnected based on how things have been going, then you might want to consider walking away for a week. Spend a week without that person.

Go visit some friends or family. Really think about what life would be like without that person. How would you feel without them being there?

When you’re in the thick of things, they never seem to be able to work out. So take a break. Take a walk. Take a week long walk.

Take that week to ask yourself some questions. What does your life look like without them? Do you like and enjoy the way it feels?

Then, after you’ve taken this time, go back and either take a stand for the relationship or break up. Whichever decision you make, you need to be honest with yourself.

Life is too short! There are a lot of wonderful, amazing people out there whom you can meet.

When you take this time to think, be sure to think about what it was like when you first met this person. How did you feel about them before things got so frustrating? Did you feel like they were your soulmate and the two of you were meant to be? You’ve got to dial back into that.

A friend of mine said to me one time, “Pretend you just got amnesia and all of a sudden someone told you the person with whom you are living (or in a relationship) is the person you are going to marry. You would have none of the bad feelings and none of the fights. What would you do in that situation?” What you would do in that situation is try to get to know that person again without all the anger, fights, frustration and history getting in the way.

So maybe take a week to yourself and then a week with that person. Get to know them again and remember the reasons why you fell in love. If you guys can do that, then you might be able to save your relationship.

My weekend will be hanging with some great guys doing a bootcamp.

For those of you who are thinking of taking a bootcamp this summer, we only have 2 left this summer.

Check the schedule on the home page and lets get you to a bootcamp this summer!!!

Today I am going to share some great tips on how to date after a divorce.

Enjoy and have an amazing Friday!