You tend to notice things that you wouldn’t have noticed otherwise.

I noticed a lot of co-coupling.

Do you know what co-coupling is?

It’s when couples go together on a vacation.  It’s no longer a couple’s vacation; it’s a co-couples vacation.

I was sitting at dinner and I overheard a co-couples conversation behind me. One woman said to another, “I’ll be honest right now.  We have problems. I just have so much to unload right now…”

They bring the other couple along not for companionship necessarily; they bring them along so they have somebody who will understand their situation.

It’s either that their kids have been difficult or their marriage isn’t great right now, so they bring along the friend, the companion.  That way then their husband—who they probably don’t want to be with as much as they think—goes out to play golf with the other male half of the co-couple, she has someone to get her nails done with.

Or vice-versa. When the ladies are shopping, the men can do man-things all day.  They can play man-golf, they can do man-tennis, they can go man-surfing, they can do man-bonding.  They can leave the women to sit around and basically unload on one another about where their life is at, what they’re doing, and whether they’re happy.

That’s what a co-couple vacation is.  You’re bringing along your shrink, your friend, your buddy, your adversary.  That way, if you get into it with your husband or your wife on the trip, you’ve got somebody to back you up.

You sit around and you watch people on vacation and the way they interact, the way they move together, they way they don’t touch.  You can really tell a lot about people by just watching them, by looking at them.

And that’s something that I stress to all of you all the time.  If you just do this and you ignore the screens on your smartphones and pa attention to the world, you’ll notice so many amazing things about life.

And then you’ll never run out of things to talk about.

I could have easily interjected into that conversation I overheard.

“Oh, I get it. You can’t wait for dinner so you can get to the part about the kids.”

Just something simple, said with a smile and it could have led to more. If they really were going to bitch about their husbands then they really may have enjoyed a man saving them from having that conversation, and turning it into something light.

Little things lead to conversations.

That’s how simple you can make life by just paying attention to everything that’s around you.

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!

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.

You know what my favorite part of a relationship is? The part of the relationship where you have to prove that you love the other person. Prove that you love me. If you love me, you will do this for me. People are nuts when they do that crap.

Prove it? You know, it kind of makes me scratch my head a little bit and makes me think. What, everything I have done up into this moment does not say that I love you? Are we misinterpreting each others’ actions so much that you just don’t understand anything that I do?

So many times, somebody will say that. If you really love me, you will cancel your night out with your friends tonight, and you will come and take me out to dinner. Or, if you really love me you won’t go visit your friends this weekend. You will fly around the world to go see me. Prove that you love me.

How To Prove Your Love

Let me tell you something. You don’t have to prove anything. If they don’t believe that you love them — if they don’t believe that you are into them, then you know what? Those relationships are not worth pursuing. They really aren’t. Any relationship that causes you grief — any relationship that just drives you off the wall and you have to consistently prove yourself to somebody is a relationship with a very needy person. An extremely needy person. Needy people always want things proven to them.

In reality, though, the reason why they always want things proven to them is because they don’t trust themselves in the first place. Prove that you love me. Have you ever dated somebody like that where you have to prove everything, and you are constantly on edge? Share with me today.

Whether you are currently married or are recently divorced, I want you to think about whether there was ever a time that you really forget that you are someone’s husband or wife. This is a really important thing that most of us don’t think about nearly enough — or at all.

We have so many different roles in our lives. Some of us are bosses, and some of us are employees. Some of us are parents, and some of us are not. For those of us who are married, though, we always have to play the role of husband or wife.

I am a firm believer that when you are married, your spouse is number one. Your kids came into your life because they were created by you and your spouse. Also, by showing your kids that your spouse is number one — someone you find amazing whom you honor — you are showing your kids how to have healthy relationships with the opposite sex as they grow older.

I think a lot of couples split up because they forget about how to be each other’s husband and wife. A mother becomes a mother and she forgets to be a wife. A man becomes a father, and maybe he becomes a workaholic who forgets to be a husband.

How To Be A Good Husband

I truly believe that there are times in relationships when couples do this to each other. When they do this, it becomes very destructive to their relationship because it makes the other person feel not wanted, not needed and not desired.

So ask yourself if you have ever made your spouse feel this way. If you and your spouse have separated, ask yourself if this might be one of the causes. Maybe you forgot how to be the other person’s husband or wife.

Today’s blog is all about taking responsibility for everything that has happened in your life (or that is happening in your life right now). Stop blaming other people — stop blaming your spouse — and start looking in the mirror.

I learn about my own issues and my own “stuff,” like my own fears that I may not even have realized I had. I am not talking about fears having to do with when I coach guys how to approach women. I have zero apprehension about that.

I go deeper. So ever since I recorded that podcast, I have been thinking about it and one word keeps coming up: resistance.

I have realized that I have had resistance in a lot of my relationships. Giving in seems to be a big theme Giving in seems to be the big theme. Giving in and losing control seem to be big themes.

Now granted, there are things that you can’t give in to in relationships — things that you are very passionate about or which are part of your core belief system or whatever it might be. Even if you are passionate about certain issues, though, you can still discuss them and learn from each other.

You can find common ground, or you can compromise and find a new way. People who practice resistance tend to never compromise or, if they do, they do it without really compromising.

So I find resistance — resisting things — to be my theme. I seem to resist things that I may or may not want, or that I may or may not have ever thought I wanted. I seem to resist people in certain situations, and maybe resist letting go or letting go of control.

Has Your Relationship Hit A Brick Wall

I seem to attract people who have the same issues because of the the law of attraction. I believe in the law of attraction.

The law of attraction is basically that you’re going to find someone with whom you share certain traits, because the two of you still need to learn certain things. It’s the reason why you are put on this Earth together at the same time.

It is so both of you will teach each other and help each other grow. So grow through your resistance or whatever your issue might be.

Now I want to go even deeper. I want you start thinking to yourself about all of the people you have attracted, and about all of the lessons you’ve had to learn. Were you able to blast through that lesson with somebody, or did those lessons repeat themselves with the next person and the next person and the next person you met?

Life is a mirror. You’re going to attract someone who is exactly where you are at right now in your life.

So resistance was the word that came up for me. I am sure if you look deep inside, some of your words might be different. Some of you may not be able to come with any words. I know myself so well that I was able to come up with a word for myself. So take some time to see if you can find a word for you that represents what you have to learn.

It’s amazing that when we’re unsatisfied in a relationship — feeling like our partner is not satisfying our needs, wants and desires — that we feel afraid to tell them. It’s amazing that we are afraid to be that open, honest, raw and vulnerable with our partner.

Instead, what people do is search for that perpetual carrot.

Say your partner never really comes onto you, even though you’ve told them how important it is to you for that to happen. Then one day, out of the blue, your partner does it. Somehow if someone does something one time, we think to ourselves, “Wow they understand me. They get it.”

That is the carrot. You tell them how great that was and how much you loved it, but then they don’t do it again for two months even though they know how important it is to you.

It’s that perpetual carrot backed up by passive-aggressive behavior. You are probably not doing something that is important to them, and that is their way on a very deep and subconscious level of getting even and keeping score.

Relationship Promises

We do this, and are not really even aware we’re doing it most of the time. It’s just how we react as humans when we’re not getting our own needs met and we’re not fully satisfied.

We react by taking away from someone something they really need, want or desire. We do that in a very passive-aggressive way, and then we’ll throw that carrot out there.

Do you know what the solution is to all of this madness? The solution is to step up to the plate, and be raw and honest with each other about how you feel.

Maybe you can’t satisfy each other, but you’re holding on anyway. A lot of people do this for years — five, seven, even ten years — hoping that the relationship will work.

The bottom line is this: You need to be raw and honest with someone today — right now — if you want to make your relationship work. Stop holding out for the carrot.

Usually, these men like to take their women shopping, get them all dolled up and spend money on them to make them look pretty, and then take them out to dinner or to a social function. But too many times the motivation behind these actions is that they just enjoy having this woman, this “figure”, as their beautiful, dolled-up possession. They enjoy parading around the trophy.
It isn’t because he wants her to feel good, it’s because he wants to look good with her by his side. Like I always mention on the blog, I’m not judging anybody. But for me personally, I don’t want a woman as my possession. It’s just not my style. I like a woman to be her own person, with or without me. That to me is sexy.

But I do know many people and I do know men very well. I have worked with a lot of very wealthy, very successful men over the last 20 years of my life, and I know a LOT of successful guys who treat women as possessions. It’s the way they are, it’s the way they feel comfortable. To me that’s not a very deep relationship, there’s not enough quality or depth to that kind of relationship to keep me satisfied.
But once again, who am I to decide what other people want? We should all be entitled to live whatever kind of life we want to live. We’re all entitled to go down the path that we decide to choose. What may not work for me, or what may not work for you, may in fact work out just fine for somebody else.

So, today I’d like us to take some time to embrace who we really are. Are you somebody who can have a relationship rooted in that possessive outlook? It’s ok if you are. Men, are women a possession to you? Women, do you like when men see you as “theirs”? Do you enjoy being a trophy? Or we can even role reverse: women, do you see your man as your possession? Do you want a man toy or do you want a woman toy?
Let’s open this for debate today. Let’s see what you guys think.

You go to your first dinner party, and most of your friends — the ones who used to go out drinking with you a few years ago — are married and looking at you as the lone single guy. You’re like the Lone Ranger all by yourself.

It actually makes you feel like something is wrong with you. Your own mother and grandmother gang up on you and say, “When are you finally going to meet someone and settle down? We need grandchildren!”

It’s called the late pressure. It’s almost like the full-court press, or like Rex Ryan sending seven defensive backs at you when you only have three wide receivers. How are you going to find the open man?

How are you going to find that woman with whom to ‘settle down?’ You start to put pressure on yourself, and you do what I did in my late 20′s: You go on a wife hunt.

The wife hunt is very scary because what you’re doing is you’re looking for somebody with whom you can join that dinner party. You are finding someone so that you no longer have to go to those dinner parties alone.

I did this. I went on a wife hunt, and I ended up with somebody who was really one of my best friends. I was never really super sexually attracted to her. I loved her, but always looked at her at that friend. You don’t want to make that mistake.

If you go on a wife hunt, you are probably just going to accept whomever comes your way and you are not going to get exactly who you want. Marriage is really serious, though, and you need to think it through before you do it.

You need to find someone who is just like you — thinks like you, acts like you, and shares the same beliefs and interests. You need to find someone who can teach you things and help you grow as a person.

When you go on a wife hunt, there’s no way in the world you’re going to find that. You are going to find whatever is available.

It’s almost like when you go to rent a house. Just imagine if you gave yourself two years to find the perfect house to rent, and during that time you go and look at a lot of houses. Eventually, you are going to find the right one. You’re going to find the one that fits who you are. You’re going to find one in the right location and at the right price.

When you have to have something — or feel pressure to get something — within a certain time limit, then the results of what you end up getting is never as good. If you feel like you need to find a wife in six months or less, then you may find one but she likely will not be the right one. You’re not going to find the woman with whom you want to spend the rest of your life.

This is your life. So the next time someone starts asking you why you’re not married yet, realize that there is no good that comes from feeling the need to act under their pressure.

Instead you should look them in the eye and say, “I just haven’t met the right person yet. Do you have anybody you can introduce me to? I’d like to meet someone amazing. I’d like to meet somebody with whom I can spend my life, but I am not going to rush it.”

This is exactly what I used to tell people after my first wife hunt. People would look at me and sometimes you would see that look in their eyes that said that they found their wife on a wife hunt (and may or may not have found the right person).

This is your life. Take your time. Enjoy it! Find the right wife even if it takes a long time, and be sure sure to enjoy every moment and every woman you experience along the way.

Now you’re about to make one of the biggest decisions of your life. You’re in love with a fantastic woman. You think she’s the one.

You want her to move in, but you’ve heard stories from so many other people about how everything changes once you move in with someone. The truth is that this is one of the most fascinating times of your life.

I remember when I first lived with somebody. I was 23 or 24 years old, and it didn’t last longer than two weeks. At that time, I really wanted to just move in with someone. I wanted to be an adult. I wanted to say that I lived with my girlfriend.

It was no longer enough for me just to have the relationship or to have sleepovers. I wanted to live with my girlfriend. I wanted to experience that. Unfortunately it didn’t work out.

Since then, I have lived with quite a number of women. I can tell you that living with someone makes the relationship take on a whole different dynamic.

You’re no longer playing sleepover games, or having those great 11:00pm phone conversations that end with you going over there late at night for incredible sex. You’re now part of their life every single day. Every day.

You wake up next to them, you have dinner with them, you share the refrigerator with them, you go to sleep with them, you learn their habits, and you learn what TV shows they like to watch. It’s not like spending the weekend together or spending the night at someone’s house three nights a week.

You are with them all the time. Their friends are in your house. Their phone calls are in your house. Their television shows are in your house.

You no longer can have that great signed football picture of you and Peyton Manning that was taken during the Indianapolis Colts’ training camp as the centerpiece of your living room decor. You are now going to become a highly domesticated man.

When you are living with someone, rules change. Sex will change. It’s not going to be as exciting as it once was.

It’s very hard to recapture those first six months of a relationship (when you’re not living together) once you are living together. You’re going to have to learn to make efforts with each other, and to be more aware of each other’s feelings, emotions, needs and desires.

You need to know when the other needs space or needs alone time. You have to understand each other’s moods.

You also have to “report in” when you live together. If you’re not going to be home until late one night, you’ve got to tell that person. You are not longer living alone, and you have to realize that you now have someone who will worry about you so you have to keep them posted.

You are now in adulthood. You are now living and breathing and wanting to be with that person every single day. You are in that adult relationship, and this is one of the biggest parts of adult adolescence.

This whole dynamic of what you thought relationships were is going to change right before your eyes. You’re going to have to become a person who not only thinks of themselves, but who thinks about somebody else (and sometimes thinks of someone else before you think of yourself).

There will be a lot of change from when you were living separately. You’re going to have women come over to your house for “girls nights.” You’re going to come home and have to listen to a bunch of women talking about things you have no desire to hear.

So what you need to do is to develop your own personal “man cave.” This is something I have determined is absolutely necessary if you are going to move in with a woman. Make sure your house is big enough so that you can have a man cave to go to when you need to just be yourself (and need to be by yourself).

You need to have a place you can watch football, read ESPN on the Internet, and talk to your friends on the phone. You need to have a place you can decorate any way you want. You need to have personal space in order to make a relationship work.

Moving in together is a big step. Moving in together is exciting. Moving in together is a part of your future. What you need to realize, though, is that moving in also means that you need to know how to coexist .

You need to understand that this woman you know now is going to change in a lot of different ways. When you are comfortable with each other, you change.

You need to realize that romance is not going to be something you not only have to think about, but you might even have to (gasp!) have to take a day or two a week and plan it. When you live together, you tend to take people for granted. So remember all the amazing things that you had together when you were courting each other — remember all the great sex and the spontaneity.

If you can remember all that — and keep that when you’re living with them — then the relationship has a great chance of success. Give each other space, make sure there is enough romance, and make sure that you continue to develop the friendship. When you do fight, make sure you have a space to which you can go back. Welcome to a real, good, fun and challenging time of your life.