My favorite new fact about marriage is not the Census Bureau’s 2010 report that four in ten Americans feel that marriage is becoming obsolete. (In my book, Marriage Shock, I’d already found that women were running away from marriage in droves–even young, newly married women. And that was over ten years ago.) No, the great new …
A reader reminds me that, in my blogs about the Power of the Least Interested, I forgot to speak about how the phenomenon plays out in long-term relationships. Does the least interested maintain power over the more interested partner, once romantic attraction moves into love?
Not for very long. The usual set-up years ago was the familiar eager-to-please woman endlessly trying to engage her distracted, disengaged, or plainly disinterested husband. Her heartbreaking, losing techniques: Asking questions. Repeating questions. Attempting to be seductive, funny, young, pretty. (Just saying these in print makes me mad and remind me of all those magazine articles: “Ten Surefire Ways to Make Him Happy!” and all those songs about how to please, win back and stand by that cheatin’ guy.) One study showing that husbands and wives speak to one another an average of 13 minutes a week (and then, only because they have to arrange childcare and meal issues) says it all: Interest in one’s partner is at risk over time. And if that partner happens to be a woman, well, poor dear.
In this field guide to twenty-first century dating, Dalma Heyn gives women the tools they need to find the partners they want
I hear about it every day: The high-achieving woman and the man who is attracted to her.
Jane came to me two months ago, fragile and beleaguered, just after the end of a grueling divorce. She didn’t want love help, she wanted self-love help. Her skin was blotchy and broken out, her weight high; her self-esteem shot. Her deeply held notions about the importance of aging naturally had become, she said, “a …
"I'm Getting Divorced and I Look Exhausted…Help!" Read More »
Q. Dear Goddess: My husband never remembers our anniversary. Usually, since it means a lot to me, I remind him of it–not to collect a present, but so we can do something fun. But I’m tired of reminding him. I feel like I’m controlling him. Why can’t he remember?” –Perennially Disappointed A. Dear Disappointed Earth …
Q. Dear Goddess: How do I know if a man, whom I love but feel uncomfortable with much of the time, is wrong for me? –Weirded out A. Dear Weirded Out: You know by analyzing this discomfort. Not in your head, but in your heart and in your body. My rule of thumb: If a …
Q. Dear Goddess: My boyfriend of three months and I have fallen into a pattern. I ask him for sex and he says his back hurts, or he’s tired or, well, something…
So, I know I’m not the first blogger out here to rave about Julia Child (thank you, Julie Powell!) and I know it’s all the rage to eat like Julia…but just this once, okay? And, as many of us really want to eat as Julia wanted us to, but also want to keeping our stomachs …
Q.:. Dear Goddess: I keep going out with men who look great, have good jobs, etc., but who are really, really strange once they’re in a relationship. I KNOW this is the men I’m choosing and not all men….but is there a way of spotting these guys? –Miserable A. Dear Miserable: Spotting men unfit for human …
