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.

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 being an adult.

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.

Of course you are in a relationship at this time in your life, and a really good relationship at that. It took a long time to find that really amazing woman. She’s your best friend. You have even uttered the word “soulmate.”

It is a great connection. The sex is great. It could be a little better; it’s not as hot as it was with that crazy woman you used to date (because in reality you never end up staying with the crazy woman).

The reason why sex is so great with crazy girls is because it has to be. Who would stay with them is the sex wasn’t great?

So you’re with somebody who could be a little edgier in bed, but you’re satisfied. You don’t need much gentleman time in the shower alone. She satisfies most of your needs and desires.

So you set up your best friend’s bachelor party. You don’t want to do the cliched stripper because your buddy, who has not really grown up at all, wants to have “one last night” with another woman.

This, by the way, is a big dilemma for you. If you set this up, you’ll know everything that happened at that bachelor party and you’ll have to deal with knowing that when you have “couples night” with him and his wife in the future. You’ll also have to lie to your girlfriend and say that nothing happened.

So here you are. You make the call. You tell them that you need a blond and a brunette. You didn’t check them out at all because you’re not so into this, and because you are happy in your own adult adolescence and your own relationship.

So you get to the bachelor party, and what happens? The stripper did everything that that crazy ex of yours used to do. She is like a reincarnation of your crazy ex.

It ignites this feeling within you. You almost feel like an animal again.

Then you make the biggest mistake you can make. You start talking to her and she’s really nice (because the crazy ones are always nice in the beginning).

You think to yourself, “I’m really connecting with her. She likes me.” Guys always do that with strippers. They always think that strippers like them.

I love when men say “she really likes me” to me. No, she likes what’s inside your wallet.

So the stripper keeps coming back to you because you’re the guy who organized the party. She keeps making sure that everyone is having fun. You think you’re connecting with her in certain ways.

Then it’s the end of the night. Everyone is happy. Your best friend did what he shouldn’t have done with the stripper. The stripper looks at you and says, “You know, I could take care of you too just as an added tip.”

What do you do in that situation? Do you cross the line?

Your friends are all passed out drunk because, of course, you did the cliched bachelor party and rented a room. All your friends are all laid out all around the room like a bad scene from the movie The Hangover. The only thing missing is Mike Tyson and the tiger.

The stripper looks at you and leads you to the bedroom, because these women know exactly what to do. She throws you down down on the bed and starts massaging you.

What do you do in this situation? Your friends are all passed out. Nobody’s going to know. Do you cross the line?

My advice is this: don’t cross it!

If you have an open, honest and great relationship then don’t lie to her. Once you cross that line in a relationship where you cheat and get away with it — whether it’s with a stripper or on a business trip — you have a whole new addiction coming your way.

We’re men. We like new conquests. Not only that but if this woman is better in bed than your woman, you’re going to re-ignite old feelings for every crazy woman you’ve ever slept with in your life.

Don’t cross the line. You need to learn how to say no.

I know how hard it’s going to be in that situation. She’s hot and she smells great. Every stripper seems to smell great. She tells you it’s a freebie because she’s hot for you and because she probably thinks she connected with you. I understand all of that, but don’t do it.

Don’t cross the line, because once you cross that line you’ll always cross that line. You’ll ruin what might be the best relationship of your life.

If you do cross that line, then you need to really explore a little deeper what your relationship is all about. She might actually be lacking things that you need.

I have no problem saying no. The times I have crossed the line in my life, I know exactly the reason why I did it. I wasn’t happy in my relationship, and it was a wake-up call.

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.

So you’re in a relationship, and you do any of the following things:

• After getting a little tipsy in a bar, you swap spit and play some serious tonsil hockey with the hottie with whom you did a few shots

• You go to a happy ending rub ‘n tug massage parlor and, Heavens to Betsy, the female rubber tugs at you at you at the end of the massage.

• You go to a strip club, and the stripper grinds against you leaving a deposit on your jeans.

• You’re a woman who at a bachelorette party slowly kisses this cute guy you met that night.

• You are on vacation, and you perform oral sex but don’t have intercourse.

So where am I going with all this? What defines cheating . . . and what actions do or do not constitute cheating?

Some people think cheating only occurs if intercourse happens. Other people think cheating is when you just think about it.

Some people say just making out with someone is not cheating. Ask any man who goes to a rub ‘n tug, and he’ll tell you that he’s not cheating. He’ll say that’s not cheating . . . it’s a massage.

So today, we’re going to open up the forum and see what you guys think. What is cheating to you?
That’s the question of the day.

I want to correspond with all of you. I want to hear your thoughts on what constitutes cheating.

I once had this funny little thing that read: “It’s not cheating if you do it in another time zone.” This meant that if you live in New York City and you travel to Los Angeles, it’s 8:00 pm. Los Angeles time and 11:00 pm. New York time. So you basically have three hours to fool around before it’s 11:00 pm your time.

It’s like time travel. If you keep your watch on eastern time, then it’s like you never cheated (sort of like the five second rule – something falls on the floor and you can eat it if it hasn’t been there longer than five seconds).

Instead of the “five second rule,” this is the “three hour rule.” Other people have a different version of this rule: “It’s not cheating if you don’t speak the language.”

People cheat for all sorts of reasons. Let’s hear your definition of what cheating is, and then another day we’ll talk about why people cheat.

I don’t agree with either of the rules above. You can rationalize it any way you want, but my opinion is that the minute your lips lock with another person, you’ve cheated.

What’s your opinion on this issue . . . and don’t hold back! Looking forward to this discussion all day!

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.

It’s a great quote, and the reason why is because it’s so true. So many guys have a limited mindset when it comes down to women. They don’t believe that they can meet women. They don’t believe that they deserve women, and they never even try to improve themselves.

A lot of guys will just gain a lot of weight, and they’ll just say to themselves, well I just can’t seem to lose the weight. A lot of guys will go out there and pretend to try to meet people, but in reality, they put themselves on an Internet dating site, and the first and only woman that e-mails them is the one that they marry.

Women know it because when they ask what your dating history is, you have none. And usually the type of woman that you end up is a woman that knows how to control you and doesn’t have any respect for you, because you don’t have respect for yourself.

Dating And Life Expert Ferris Bueller

If you feel this way about yourself, it’s okay. I understand. But it’s time you actually did the work in order to feel better about yourself. Start working out a little bit. Start doing things that you love, and start saying hello to people and start being social. There’s a world of women out there that want, desire and crave you. Don’t just go out and get the first girl that comes along, because as Ferris Bueller said, only the weak get screwed — the bold survive.

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.

Let’s talk about marriage . . . kind of. Does anybody else feel like the standoff between the NFL and the NFL Players Association right now is like a bad marriage?

For those of you who have been married and are now divorced, do you remember what it was like to argue with your ex over money? Your spouse might have thought you were hiding money — that there was more money there and now there isn’t enough.

Then you went to a mediator, to whom you had to turn over all of your books and records to show proof about your finances, and to settle suspicions of whether one party was not paid all to which they were entitled for their time in the marriage.

I read and I listen to what everyone involved in this has been saying. I’ve listened to their B.S. (there’s no other way to put it), and I realize they are all so selfish.

First of all, if you own a business in which you are making all the money and you are very generous to the players (or, in the context of a marriage, if you supported your spouse), then there is no need for you to show your books. They don’t need to see where all of your money is going — especially money unrelated to the money in dispute. If you want to build a new house, or build a new stadium, they don’t need to know what they’re getting. They are already getting a lot out of it.

What I don’t like about this whole thing with the NFL players strike and the NFL owners, is that they forget about all the ‘little people’ and how it is them who are most affected by all of this.

I really don’t feel sorry for millionaires. Apparently, they are putting together a rookie fund for all the poor first year rookies from last year who only made the league minimum — which I think was around $320,000.00.

Really? You can’t make ends meet on $320,000.00? That’s insane. I mean, absolutely insane.

Then there is the NFL. All of this affects a lot of people outside of the owners and the players. What about all the people whose lives are being affected by this? There is an affect on people from the executive level all the way down to the average joe.

The ad execs who sell NFL advertisements get commissions based on the ad time they sell. If there are no games, they won’t earn any commissions. So they will be affected.

Outside of the executive level, there are a whole host of people who are affected. How about the guy who is hustling outside the stadium to sell those foam “#1″ fingers? He only has eight regular season and two exhibition home games a year to sell his stuff and earn enough to support his family. Without that income, he is going to have to stand outside U-Haul every single day hoping and praying that someone has an odd job for him to do.

How about the food vendors or the seat ushers who work for minimum wage? What about all of the ‘little people’ who are affected by what’s going on between the NFL and the players?

So we get a divorce. Nobody ever thinks about the repercussions of that on other people — and it often those “other people” who are affected by it the most.

The little guy who sells those foam fingers outside the stadium is like the kids during a divorce. While all the mudslinging is going on, the kids are affected by it — and affected by it more every day it continues.

Both sides realize that there’s plenty of money to go around, but right now feel like it’s easier to be apart than it is to be together. Is it really though? Is it really that difficult to come to an agreement so that other people are not affected long-term by this?

So I have a little message for both parties to this football marriage: Come on! Drop the egos NFL players! You get paid enough. Wise up NFL owners! You’re making money.

I’d love to have a job where I get paid $3 million a year for playing a game. That is a privilege.

Granted, there are repercussions for playing a game like NFL football like injuries and medical issues when your playing days are over. You knew all that, however, when you signed up for the job.

Come on folks. Think about all of the other people who are affected by your selfish ways. Sit down, come to an agreement, and allow other people to work and support their families.

I don’t feel sorry for the spoiled millionaires (or, in the case of the owners, the spoiled billionaires). The people I feel sorry for is the average guy — that foam finger selling kind of guy, or the hot cocoa vendor running all over the stands kind of guy — who are truly being affected by this egotistical standoff between the NFL and NFL Players Association.

So what does this have to do with dating.

Dating is all about being able to talk about everything that is going on.

I know most women will not care about this topic, but I think all of you can figure out how to twist and turn this to make it very conversational friendly.

So today I want to see how all of you would twist and turn this into a conversation, that you can speak about with the non football fans out there.

So many great tidbits here.

I can see a theme about our work ethic and entitlement society that we are in.

That’s just a hint.

What do you all see here?