Are You a Love Option

Are you a love option?

Rob came on strong, hot and heavy right from the get-go.

He was reaching for Betsy ‘s hand and smothering her with kisses on date #1.

In 4 days they saw each other 4 times and each time was more intense and exciting than the last.

Betsy and Rob had lots in common and also a strong physical attraction to each other.

Could this be "THE ONE"??

He told her he was in love with her on date #3!

However, he mentioned that he felt they should still date others…. After all, they had only just met, he was newly divorced and he felt he owed it to himself to explore his options.

He is an out of towner and was headed back to his home town, several hours away by plane.

The first time they spoke on the phone after he had gotten back home, he told her he had to return very soon to see her because he would miss her too much.

In his next call he said he wasn't sure when he would be able to get back to her area..

Fortunately, Betsy had been following my blog and also consulting with me on how to identify Red Flags in any new relationship.

I encouraged Betsy to take everything Rob said with a grain of salt and to keep her options open for business.

Rob’s enthusiasm seemed to wane in the following weeks as his calls stopped and his texts petered out.

He was obviously keeping busy somehow..

Betsy kept busy with work and life and also continued to date others. She never initiated any contact at all with Rob.

Then, magically - his texts started up again! He would soon be back in town. Could they get together? He would “love to see her”.

Betsy remained polite but demure.

She would be” pretty busy “at the time he would be in town, and she would have to “see whats happening” by the time he got to her area again.

Betsy had a great grasp of the red flags here. Rob’s erratic behavior also struck her as arrogant.

Was she going to be his “make out date” whenever he was in town?

  NO WAY!

Once a man proclaims his love for a woman, if he is serious about her, he must focus on her and only her. He must set out to win her over. If he is still looking over his shoulder to see the next best thing coming his way, then he is not serious, not to be trusted, not focused on her and not ready to commit. He is a player.

Be very cautious about getting caught up with a man whose words and actions do not line up.

Remove yourself from the equation.

Is it Real When He Comes On Too Strong, Too Fast?

Often we come across the “Master of the Mixed Message” who leaves us reeling, confused and unsteady on our feet because his signs and signals don’t match up with his words and actions.

Don’t fret! 

It only takes a few days, less than a month for sure, to discern this Red Flag!

He may flatter you with his attentions. Surprise you with his pronouncements of love and his vision of the future – all within the first week, and then disappear with nary a warning the next week.

This is an erratic individual.

Please realize that too much too soon is not a sign of love at first sight. It is a sign of instability.

A couple may be instantly attracted to each other, yes! They may immediately realize that they would really like to pursue this thing and see where it takes them, yes! However, if he tells you he loves you on date 3, and then you don’t hear from him for a day or two on day 6,7,or 8, you will find yourself wondering :

what happened? 

Does he still have feelings for me?

 Is he dating someone else?

 Does he have 2^nd thoughts about us?

 Did he fall for another woman?

 Did he fall out of love with me as fast as he fell in love?

 These thoughts are all very troublesome and uncomfortable.

The real truth is that when a man is crazy about a woman he doesn’t let a single day go by without contact, and nobody is too busy for a quick phone call or a text.

No woman should have to find herself in a position of feeling her head spinning from such mixed messages:

“He loves me, He is gone”

All women should take this Red Flag very seriously. If a man says and does too much too soon, you must force him to slow down and maintain a steady pace,  and you must not take his words seriously at all, unless and until you see that his actions match his words and he is in regular contact with you, remains interested and is busy making plans to see you again as soon as possible.

You can learn all about this type as well as many other Red Flag Men, in my upcoming book. 

Meanwhile, subscribe to this blog to learn as much as you about the Red Flag Man!

Love History Is Important! What Would His Ex Tell Us If She Could Warn Us?

Dating should be like Buying a Car

Think of all of the valuable information we could have if only we were able to speak to HIS ex!

-          If we could “check out the merchandise” before putting down our money (heart).

Though there is a valuable wealth of information in the form of Red Flags, which I have made my mission to educate women on, it may not always be enough.  With a chameleon that can change his colors at will, and appear to become what the lady of his dreams is seeking, info from an ex can be invaluable!

Had my friends and I had info from our own exes, here are some of the tidbits we would have known, before the damage was done:

“He is dangerous”

“He has a violent temper”

“He is so controlling and volatile that I had to take my younger kids and run away to my parents’ house”

“He never showed much motivation with work, I used to wonder how he would pay for the nice lifestyle I knew he loved”

“He is a womanizer who cheats”                                    

“He has a drinking problem”

“He is emotionally abusive; his treated his own mother just terribly”

“He is bi -polar”

“His parents are in control of his finances”

“He is a liar”

“He is cheap”

“He gambles away his salary”

“After the wedding night he wasn’t interested in our intimate life”

Had all of us had the above information prior to making our commitments to our exes, trust me, life would have been much easier!

Although I would not suggest that you reach out to an ex- wife or girlfriend, I am totally cool with using any and all connections you may have to get as much information as possible.  I do believe in dodging a bullet whenever possible.

Buyer  Beware!

Do Relationships Come with Warning Signs?

Yes!

We are not victims; we are exercising our option to get involved with Mr. Wrong.

No, people don’t come with warning labels, but they do come with warning signs, namely, Red Flags.

My upcoming book Red Flag Man will educate women on how to recognize and interpret the warning signs always present, so that they avoid plunging into no -win relationships that will end in heartbreak.

- Lauren went onto a Dating site and was messaged by Jay, who promptly informed her that they were meant to be and that he was going to "Rock her world"

. Flowers and limos soon appeared at her door and pressure to commit to Jay after two weeks of knowing him began to mount.

Why the hurry? (what did he have to hide??)

Instead of running for the hills, she allowed herself to be drawn in by his grand gestures and ended up in a quickie nightmare marriage with an explosive, deranged lunatic, requiring expensive expert legal help to extricate herself from.

- Besty was introduced to Carl by a mutual friend .She noticed that when she mentioned his name to people who knew him well, they became uncomfortable, nervous or silent. Some of them mentioned that he had anger issues.. but that didn't jive with the romantic warm hearted man she thought she was being swept off her feet by, and whisked away on trips with, so she ignored those murmurs and plunged right in, only to find herself controlled, lied to, betrayed and ultimately broken hearted.

- Rebecca wasn't overly impressed with Fred when she met him. He seemed to be an underachiever stuck in a time warp, but she was lonely and felt she had nothing to lose. She allowed herself to be drawn into a mediocre relationship but felt this was better than nothing. She went on to waste 4 years of her time trying to get him to clean up his act, stop smoking dope and progress their stalled relationship. Then she finally gave up and convinced herself she was better off alone.

- Gina was warned by several people that her new boyfriend was well known around town as a player who cant commit to any women and who is always looking over his shoulder for "the next best thing". She convinced herself that with her things would be different and that she had attributes those other women didn't posses. Its been two years and he still cant commit to signing on the dotted line. He cites the fact that she has children as the obstacle in his path to commitment.

Hey, didn't he know about the kids from day one?

What do all these ladies have in common? They were all exposed to all of the information they needed, right from the start, to avoid the hurt and disappointment that they all went on to experience.

 The savy girl will read Red Flag Man and will learn to decipher the language of the Commitment phobe, the signs of the Passive Pot Head, the Unobtainable Dream Boat and the Borderline Personality, as well as many other Red Flag types.

Stay tuned as I give you some pointers on those sweeties best avoided, each week in my Blog!

When  should we Cut Bait and Move On in any relationship, Friend or Love Relationship?

If you find that you must constantly work to keep the peace between you.

If you must constantly work to keep another person interested in you.

If you find yourself frequently on the defense.

If you are walking on eggshells.

If you are feeling used, or abused.

If you feel an imbalance in the relationship in terms of who is doing/giving their share emotionally,and/or financially

If the relationship is stagnant because he can’t or won’t move you two forward to commitment, then it’s time to ABANDON SHIP.

Know that you cannot change another person. 

  You can sometimes inspire a healthy individual to be motivated to change the way he relates to you, but you cannot fundamentally change anyone except yourself.

Change comes from within.

When you read my upcoming book Red Flag Man, you will learn to recognize the signs of a hopelessly irredeemable relationship, and if your guy falls into the category of a "Red Flag Man", you will gather your strength, know that someone better awaits you out there, and Move On.

Dishonest? Bully? Let Him Go!

Recently an acquaintance of mine suggested a match for me. On paper he seemed great!

Yippee!

She gave him my phone number and not two minutes later, he called me!

We had a nice long conversation and he was very enthusiastic about flying to Florida to meet me in the near future.

However, because I am now hyper -alert to “red flags”, I replayed the conversation over in my mind a few times and decided that this man is a Red Flag Man.

Here is what tipped me off:

We discussed our child hoods and the anti-Semitism we  had both suffered at the hands of the neighborhood bullies.

He told me that as a kid, he always proudly wore his kippah on the subways to school each day, despite the fact that the other kids would taunt and threaten him.  That sounded brave to me, but on the other hand, he also related that he would regularly get into fist fights, and brawls with the bullies, and had several times gotten his nose and bones broken.

He mentioned he would have liked to come to see me sooner, but was dealing with his lawyers, who he “always had around”, helping him with his current two court cases.

We discussed our work, and he described his work MO. What he does, he explained to me, is seek out houses to “make money off of”. To do this, he targets run down, distressed and under- priced houses which he rents with an option to buy. He then overstays his lease, but does not go through with his option to buy the house. The owner is forced to take him to court in an effort to evict him. He then accuses the owner of not disclosing some flaw in the house, and a settlement is made.

He mentioned in passing that he always leaves himself an “out”.

This information was interspersed with his description of himself as a charitable, religious and likable fellow who loves to vacation at top notch luxury resorts.  He is a man who keeps himself physically fit and who has a good sense of humor. He is a successful entrepreneur who seeks a connection with a loving partner.

In short, here is a guy who in part, sounded perfect for me, however, I am not interested in a person who engages in what I consider to be dishonest business practices. I also picked up on his confrontational style and, considering all the above, decided to pass on this guy.

In truth, in took some years of training to be able to pull apart the various strands of this conversation and to isolate and separate the “Red Flags” from the nicer elements of this person.

My upcoming book, Red Flag Man is intended o educate all women on how to instantly spot and avoid the heartache and disappointment they inflict.

When should we give a man the silent treatment and when should we pour out our heart?

Silence is sometimes the tool of choice when a man has behaved badly towards you, and then is attempting to re- engage you.

If your relationship failed because he betrayed you, raged at you, abandoned you or mistreated you in any way.
If you perceived that you were dealing with a narcissist or a borderline disordered man, and decided to break it off, then the best thing to do is to remain silent.

Know that his efforts to communicate with you post break up are most probably due to his need to manipulate your emotions so that you remain vulnerable to him. Power over you is the food his weak ego craves. The best thing to do is to starve it and to remain silent.

Do not empower him nor get pulled back into his destructive orb.

We are not talking hear about the normal and natural ups and downs or occasional out bursts that occur in  any normal relationship. We are speaking specifically of a situation where you have left a relationship that was toxic to you because your man was unhealthy emotionally and took it out on you, was unfaithful or abusive. This man may very likely reach out to you after a break up, even if he is now in another relationship! He may try to keep a Chanel of communication open with you, remain "friends" or try to re establish the relationship, just when you are finally healing from the emotional wounds he inflicted upon you.

Please know that he does not deserve the gratification of your attentions. Don't try to pour out your heart to him, explain yourself to him or offer him an empathetic ear.
Know that he has a need to feel that he still has some power and influence over you, and this is something that he does not deserve.
Keep Silent.
Let his calls go to Voice Mail.
Block him.

Is Your Love the Real Deal?

In a relationship with a narcissist, or a borderline personality - disordered individual, you will find yourself making all of the concessions, feeling pressure to be what he wants you to be, when he wants you to be it. 

When it comes to dispute resolution, its his way or the highway and you are ALWAYS in the wrong. Usually, unless you apologize for being wrong, even when you are right, there will be no making up after a disagreement.

He will bring up past hurts and enumerate your "crimes", never moving past the past, whenever you are having a dispute.

To protect his fragile sense of self, he will lash out in temper in order to maintain control, rather than have an intelligent adult discussion of your two viewpoints.

If you are experiencing this in your relationship, beware! This is a RED FLAG MAN.

CLOSURE - Do We Really Need it?

Ahh that elusive element - Closure.

Sometimes we find ourselves unable to move on emotionally after our romance has ended, even when a significant amount of time has gone by, because we are longing for the one missing element that we believe will empower us to do so.
We believe we need "closure".

If we have experienced a toxic relationship, with an abusive or personality -disordered man, or if we have been cheated on, or lied to, or whatever the fatal issue was, we still may find it very hard to let go emotionally. 
We may tell ourselves that we could do so, if only we had "closure".

But really, what does that mean?

What it means is that we are still waiting for something from the very person who failed to give us what we needed in the first place!

The relationship ended because we discovered betrayal.
We discovered dishonesty.
We experienced emotional or physical abuse.
Perhaps we discovered that he is married! 
He was never available in the first place!

So we end the relationship, on some level. We stop seeing him but we don't stop obsessing over the details of the story, analyzing it a hundred times and playing it out in our minds over and over again with every conceivable different outcome, like a script not yet written.

What we must realize is that we do not need anything from an individual who has wronged us. 

If the issues that arose were powerful enough to break us apart then we must realize that the issues themselves are the root of the closure .

 We must use our painful experience to move on emotionally  towards a happy healthy new relationship.

Putting ourselves in the position of waiting for anything from Mr. Wrong, is an unhealthy and impractical solution to an unsolvable problem. 

We must empower ourselves, and not Mr. Wrong.

Waiting for an explanation, apology, or excuse from him just weakens us all the more, while assigning him power over us.

Instead, realize that you are the prize and he has just lost it.

Hit the gym, hang out with your friends, write out your thoughts and feelings in a diary and stay far away from any thought of texting, calling or "bumping into " him in search for answers to questions which, if we are really honest with ourselves, are self explanatory.

The flaw lies in him alone.
Be glad you missed a bullet.

Even Elizabeth Taylor had to deal with her share of relationship woes. 

Being beautiful, admired, rich and famous did not shield her from the fallout of her choices to have relationships with narcissist, substance abusing men. 

There is just one thing I would add to her very powerful quote above and that is, YOU EDUCATE  yourself on the Red Flags! That way you can avoid the pain and despair of falling for Mr. Wrong.

The narcissist  male is able to love only one person, and that is his own, emotionally injured self. He has no room in his life for another.

In my book, Red Flag Man, I outline the perils and pitfalls of a relationship with the Narcissist, (and many other Red Flag Men) how to recognize him, how he got that way, how your relationship may play out and why to avoid it in the first place.

Red Flag Man: WHEN IS A FRIEND NOT A FRIEND?We have all been the...

Red Flag Man: WHEN IS A FRIEND NOT A FRIEND?We have all been the...: WHEN IS A FRIEND NOT A FRIEND? We have all been there. Post break- up your ex suggests remaining "friends"Next thing you know...

WHEN IS A FRIEND NOT A FRIEND?

We have all been there. Post break- up your ex suggests remaining "friends"Next thing you know, a steady stream of texts, email jokes, and even phone calls from Mr. Ex.

No, he isnt calling you to ask you out or to tell you what a fool he was to let you go. He just wants to Shmooze.

Since the standard definition of a friend is one upon whom you can depend, one whom you trust, one who takes your concerns and feelings seriously and would never knowingly hurt you, how can your ex be a friend, and what purpose does this "friendship" serve you or him, post break- up?

Often a man with commitment issues cannot commit to NO or to YES. He cannot move forward towards commitment, but neither does he want to completely  sever his ties to  you. Much better to keep his options open. Much more convenient to have you on a back burner. Having you in his life, albeit in a different mode, is a source of comfort to him and allows him to never have to feel the void of your absence. He can still enjoy your sense of humor, your advice, your insights and your concern.

I don't recommend this "friendship" at all.

It would be mighty hard to move forward and to nurture a new, healthier relationship into being, whilst shmoozing with the ex who broke your heart, who perhaps pushed you aside for someone else, who was unable to commit to you, cheated, lied, abused or neglected you.

Post break up, it is best to politely decline the friendship offer, Your real friends are the ones who tried to keep you positive and upbeat while Mr. Ex was hurting and disappointing you.

So please don't feel guilty when you say NO to the post break- up friend offer.

Cut all ties to an ex who hurt you and carry on towards Mr. Right!

Red Flag Man - Beware the Date Site Deceiver!

 Any one who has trawled the date site waters for at least several weeks will surely encounter the Date Site Deceiver!
Its important to take almost every fact published on a date site profile with a grain of salt until facts and references have been check out.
There actually do exist men out there who are functioning like chameleons on line, ready to morph into whatever they perceive you are looking for.
There are also men who think nothing of slicing a decade off of their age, in hopes of netting a much younger woman.
The date site may be a great way to meet people you otherwise may never have an opportunity to meet but beware!
People have spent weeks, even months, chatting with individuals who purported to be something very different from their actual selves!
Upon finally meeting in person, great disappointment and frustration has often been the outcome.
Dont waste too much time chatting. Try to meet relatively soon, and always ask for references and check them out.