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Welcome to our ongoing, interactive forum, the "Focused Points Blog." This is a place where you can ask for relationship and dating advice, and perhaps get a dialogue going about any topic that is presented. Since so much is changing in the world today, our need for a loving and committed partner is even greater. So I will cultivate this Blog to help you to better navigate the road to finding a life partner. It'll be like getting Personal Coaching for free!

Wednesday, May 19, 2004

I shared a ride home the other night with two men who had attended my lecture in Queens, New York, entitled "Overcoming Your Relationship 'Fear Factors'." I asked them this question: "what do you want women to know?" While they came up with a variety of ideas, the one that they agreed on the most had to do with what they felt was the toxic influence of a woman's circle of friends, and how it prevents women from getting married. Truthfully, I had not seen this in my many years of clinical practice working with singles looking to get married, nor in my dabblings in matchmaking throughout the 90's. But what they told me was indeed eye-opening, and merits sharing with women -- after all, because I offered to give this message to women, I am now obligated to spill!

They told me that they believed it a good thing for women to have friends, of course, but they have to share the same goal of getting married. This goal has to supercede any personal relationship they may have with one another. For example (and this is my example, not one of their's): if a woman has plans with a girlfriend but is asked out on a date by a man, then the girlfriend has to understand, and support, the woman's need to cancel their original plans. Moreover, if girlfriends share the goal of marriage, they will support and encourage eath other's efforts to create a healthy relationship with a man, and not shoot him down. It should be the woman's own conclusion that a relationship is not right for her, and not her up to her friend (with the exception of abuse, I will add). If she needs help in making ANY relationship decision, she should seek coaching or professional help. Women friends should not spend time together commiserating their single status, but actually DOING something to oversome it. These men felt that women's friendships have the potential to be such an obstacle to creating a relationship with a man that they will avoid a woman that they see as too attached to her network of girlfriends.

How's that for socking it to you, huh? Well, I'm not totally convinced of the toxicity of this phenomenon, but my eyes have certainly been opened. In future postings, I will share more about what men say about women, and women say about men. In the meantime, I invite you to let me know what you believe should be conveyed to the opposite sex :-)

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Wednesday, May 12, 2004

Finally, it's May! I have been looking forward to a real feeling of Spring for a long time and had designated the beginning of May as the time when I'd indulge. And wouldn't you know it? New York City is getting a drenching. Again. Which reminded me of last spring, when we had record-breaking rainfall, especially on the weekends. I felt a depression coming on . . . but then I was able to stop myself.

What popped up into my head was a song lyric by Bob Dylan: "Into every life, a little rain must fall." I began to realize that, well, maybe I need to accept that not every day is going to be a sunny one. Hmmm, I thought, if that's the reality, then maybe I can learn to accept other unwanted situations, too. I then made a pledge not to do what I did last year, which was to let the rain wash away my good spirit for spring.

I have found that a similar attitude is also useful for singles who are actively searching for a life partner. You might not have thought that you'd be in the same situation this spring as last spring -- still searching. But instead of succumbing to a negative attitude, I challenge you to make an adjustment. If "into every life, a little rain must fall," it's therefore up to you to do something different to handle the rain, i.e., an unwanted situation. You could read a new book, or attend a live or virtual class in order to develop better relationship skills. Or you could participate in new activities where you'd have opportunities to meet some new people.

I admit that an unwanted situation can tend to be immobilizing. But it's really an opportunity for us to make the most of it. After all, how would flowers bloom if it weren't for the rain?

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Friday, May 07, 2004

Focused Friday. Hi Janice, I have gone out on two dates with a woman and I think she has lots of potential. However, I am still getting suggestions from friends and matchmakers about other women. I'd like to give the woman that I'm currently dating a chance, but I'm continuously wondering if the other women might be better. This is obviously distracting me. What should I do? Gerry

Gerry, You are describing a very common situation that singles experience when they are dating -- the continuous sense that there might be someone better just around the corner. This is the essence, the kernal, of what is commonly known as "committment phobia." It's a fear of committment, which starts from an inability to give whomever you are currently dating your full and undivided attention, in order to see if you can become exclusive partners.

When you determine that a woman is a viable candidate for becoming your partner, you realize that you do have to give her your full attention. It means deciding to be exclusive (i.e., not dating anyone else) which I consider a form a pre-committment. In essence you are taking yourself on the road to commitment by saying "I will make a committment to see if I should make a committment." It's only after you have gone out on enough dates to have gained sufficient enough information so that you can say, "I don't see you as a partner for me," would you end the relationship and start to date others.

This is a good strategy for a number of reasons, the main one being that if you are not fully concentrating on your dating partner, you won't be able to obtain the information you need to make a healthy decision about continuing. Being distracted keeps you from using all of your intellect and emotions to make this healthy decision, which will last a lifetime.

This means that you have to tell other people looking to introduce you that you are "busy," but that you will get back to them if you need to. This may feel strange to you, but it's the only way to rid yourself of any "commitment phobic" tendencies!

Good luck!

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Thursday, April 29, 2004

Focused Friday. The ex and I have gotten pretty close again and talk every couple of days now. Well, we have decided to meet up when she comes back to town. We planned for her to stay with me for 5 days, even though we haven't seen each other in over two years. I planned a bunch of fun things to do; I just don't know what to expect while she's here. We have talked about us a little, and about who we were. She always says that no one has ever affected her like I have, and she has never loved anyone like she loved me. I just want to know how I should handle our time together. Any suggestions? Ed

Well, Ed, I think that the only way you're going to find out what to expect while she's visiting you, is to ask HER. But, more importantly, I'd be interested in knowing the answer to this question: What's different now? When I've spoken with singles who are considering a reconciliation with an ex, I suggest that they focus on two things: what's different? and, what are each of us willing to do differently now in order to make our a relationship a success?

I need to warn you however, not to be seduced by your ex's "euphoric recall" -- remembering all that was good about your relationship -- when there were obviously enough bad things that caused you to break-up. Get into reality instead! Figure out, together, what went wrong, what's different now, and what each of you are willing to do to make the relationship work this time. If you need help, you know how to find me.

Good luck! Janice

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Wednesday, April 21, 2004

I'm back, although a little later than I had anticipated! One of the issues that I recently heard about was whether or not singles should go into their relationship history with whomever they are dating in the present. I believe that this can be dangerous. If you reveal all (or some) of what went wrong in your previous relationships, you run the risk of creating an unflattering image of yourself in your current relationship. As you describe and discuss the failures and rejections that you experienced, your date is given the opportunity to begin to imagine you as a failure. And how good can that be??

This perspective was challenged the other night by a woman who said that she'd want to know what kind of obligations her date had, as a result of his previous relationships. She went on to explain that it's important to know if the guy she's dating has kids, what kind of relationship and custody and visitation arrangements he had, what his relationship was like with his ex, and what his financial and time obligations were. This would be the kind of information that she'd need in order to determine how to proceed with a life partner candidate.

So, overall, I don't disagree with the need to gather information and observe the behaviors of your dating partners. What I suggest is that if the information is related to past relationship failures, that you are especially careful about how you are portrayed. After all, you don't want to be judged on who you were with another partner, since hopefully you will have learned from your mistakes and grown into a more mature, experienced individual.

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Friday, March 26, 2004

Focused Friday.I'm going to be taking off from about March 30th to April 18th for "spring break." Well, actually, it's Passover in my house, and there's lots to do. But before the end of March, I'll be sending out another issue of my Focused Points email newsletter. In the last issue, I wrote "Is *Age* a Dating Challenge?" I argued against a current misconception that since "older singles" typically have more life experiences and accumulated knowledge, it may seem that age is a dating challenge. I emphasized the need for singles, especially older singles, to perform a major self-assessment of their needs, habits and routines in order to increase their capacity to accommodate another person into their lives.

That issue didn't seem to cover all that I wanted to discuss. So my next article will present a rebuttal to another common age-related misconception -- that the complexities of any one person's life can be distilled into one single number.

Ooooooh! It's a good one, I promise. So be sure that you're a Focused Points subscriber by going to the "Contact Us" page and sign up!

While I'm away, you can still go through archives of past issues, as well as send in your registration for the upcoming teleclasses that I'm giving in late April. You can find out more by going to the "Teleclasses & Events" page.

Happy Spring!

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Tuesday, March 23, 2004

I've been speaking recently with some women about "settling for less." This is a difficult area to coach on because what's acceptable to one person may not be acceptable to another person. But it reminded me of a book that I bought about 5 years ago when I first started getting serious about coaching. The book is entitled Be Your Own Dating Service. A Step by Step Guide to Finding and Maintaining Healthy Relationships by Nina Atwood, M.Ed. She gives lots of good dating advice, but what I remembered was her criteria for identifying if you're in a "settling for less" relationship. Here they are (with some editing by yours truly):

A. You have strong doubts about the relationship and your partner. You continually question the rightness of your romance, talking about it to friends and family without being able to come to a resolution.
B. You feel that something important is missing. Even if you can't put your finger on it, overall you have the sense that a vital ingredient in the relationship just isn't there.
C. You have difficulty imagining a future with your partner. You can picture this person in your life for now, but not for the long run.
D. You don't ever feel excited about the relationship. Eventually, you may grow to love the person you're with, but you never quite feel excited about the relationship or that you ever were.
E. Part of you is still looking for someone better. You tend to compare your partner with others that you meet, finding that he doesn't measure up. You think about being able to date around again.
F. You unconsciously try to drive your partner away, rather than be the "bad guy" and break it off. Instead you may unconsciously do things which upset your partner, pushing him/her away.
G. You rationalize yourself into staying. You say to yourself, "This is a good person, there's nothing wrong with him. What's wrong with me that I can't be happy? I should stay because . ." The bottom line is that intellectually you decide to stay, but your heart's not in it.

Singles have so many fears about being alone that sometimes they will decide to "settle for less." This is an individual decision that no one can make for you. My advice is to take a business approach, that you're making a "deal." I suggest that you be extremely conscious and realistic about what you're getting and what you're not getting in the deal. When you decide to sign on the dotted line, you have to be able to do so knowing that you won't be allowed to hold any grudges in the future about what you're signing away/not getting.

This is where I'm holding right now about this topic, and I'll keep you posted on any new developments.

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