How to Get Out of Your Own Way Page 16
Don’t rob a man of the opportunity to move on or not because you’re keeping him in the dark about what you need, what you’re doing, and who you really are. And if you put it all on the table and tell your man what is lacking in the relationship, what you would like more of, all the things that you want, and he doesn’t love you enough to make any adjustments, then you need to pack up your stuff and go. Because at this point you may decide to uncharacteristically start cheating or lying. When you’re mad, frustrated, and miserable, you may act upon impulses and start doing things that you would have never remotely thought of doing before.
Positive Affirmation: Men Are Like Babies
Some women are going to know their men cheat. They’re going to scream and hoot and holler because they don’t want to make a guy feel comfortable about sleeping with another woman behind their back because it upsets them. This will slow a guy down a little bit but it won’t stop him if it’s something he wants to do.
Your reaction is important especially if you’re in an abusive or dysfunctional relationship.
Even if a woman isn’t cheating on her man, she could still be causing him the same amount of pain as when a man cheats on her. A woman can cause a man a lot of pain in the way she talks to him or if she overlooks his efforts. If the level of pain a woman feels when a man cheats on her is at a thousand, when someone’s efforts are overlooked—if a woman does not recognize when her man steps up and does the things she asks him to do, applauding her boyfriend and making him feel good—she’s causing the same amount of pain that a man can cause her by cheating. Most women will say there’s no way I can compare these two kinds of pain, but they are the same. They’re both pains of pride.
Women have to think of men as babies in that we need positive affirmation. When a child makes a mistake, you get on the little child, but as soon as they stop doing something wrong or correct it, you applaud them and encourage them and recognize that they did a good job. That’s important for a child and it’s also important for an adult. Men are like babies. We make mistakes and get chastised, but once we correct the mistake we want to be applauded, and we want to be reminded of the fact that we did something really good. We want a woman to make us feel good that we stepped up to the plate and delivered on whatever our women asked us to do. We don’t want our efforts to be overlooked.
Many women don’t understand that if a guy finally decides to hear his woman’s cries to stop hanging out with certain people or stop doing something, he needs her to make him feel amazing, because he never would have stopped doing it if she hadn’t asked him. You ask a guy to stop doing something because you love him and when he does, he needs to be applauded and appreciated for actually stepping up to the plate.
Many women just complain, scratch, bitch, and moan about what a man’s not doing and what they want him to stop doing over and over and over, but once he stops doing it, they don’t follow it up with an equal amount of appreciation. That affirmation is extremely important in a relationship—for both men and women. A woman has to recognize when her man steps up to the plate—like if a man is being an amazing father. If your man is not a horrible father to your child or messed-up like some of your girlfriends’ men, he deserves to be applauded, loved, and upheld. It’s expected that a woman will be a good mother, because women are naturally nurturing and embracing. If you have a man who is a great father, you have to make him feel amazing about being who he is and what he is when it’s going great.
Maintain positivity in your relationship with positive affirmation because men have emotions, too. It could be for the smallest thing—setting the table, running the bath, picking up the kids. Just say thank you. Make him feel like you recognize and appreciate the things he’s doing.
Of course, a man should also do this for his woman! Men should not overlook the work their wives or girlfriends do in the home. She may take care of the kids and the house full-time and may even be working on top of that, too. It takes a lot of patience and tolerance to be around a kid twelve hours a day by yourself. Women need positive affirmation, too. If somebody never gets affirmation or compliments, it’s similar to getting put down. Women and men have to be recognized and applauded for the great people they are in their relationships and their lives.
I’ve learned that most women think that if they give their man too many compliments it’s not a good thing because he will think he doesn’t need to step up or go to the next level because his girl is happy. But there is no such thing as too many compliments. You can never assume that your significant other even knows that you think of something as beautiful or flattering or considerate until you speak on it. For example, I was in a relationship with a woman, and the smallest things would make her look at me and say Wow. She would wake up and find that I had plugged in her cell phone and laptop. She thought that was the biggest deal—and I had just thought she’d need her phone in the morning. Or I may notice that my girl is running low on gas so I’ll fill up the tank when I’m out getting groceries. Small things are a big deal to most women. It’s important for a man to do those things, but it’s also important that a woman lets her man know how special it was to her because it will motivate and encourage him to keep doing those things for her.
The more positive affirmation you can give to your partner, the further the negative spirit will be from your relationship.
Are You Keeping Sex Sexy?
Rev Run told me that he did not have sex with his wife until they were married. I respect that, but I don’t know if I could do it. Some people may say it’s good to test the waters before you dive all the way in. For us Christian folks, the Bible tells us to not have sex before we get married. Do I respect that? Yes. Have I practiced that habit? No. Do I respect celibacy and people maintaining their virginity before they get married? I respect that one thousand percent and I encourage every man and woman out there who has not yet had sex to maintain their celibacy and save themselves for marriage. But I think the mind-set of most people today is that if they are already sexually active, and they are planning to marry someone who has not been sexually active or a person they have not yet slept with, they may be rolling the dice. They will wonder what they are signing up for. They may worry that they could be marrying bad sex. You may not want to find out that you have no sexual chemistry—or that you will have to work on taking your sexual chemistry to another level.
At the end of the day sex isn’t everything but sex is very important in most relationships. Sexual chemistry can keep a lot of people in dysfunctional relationships or marriages. Two people may not get along, but when they get into bed and have sex it is incredible. They figure that if the sex is that magical there must be a way for them to figure out their problems. Then there are other relationships where people are on the same page in every way except their sexual chemistry.
Women out there who complain that they don’t want a minute man should know that no man wants to be a minute man either. Any man in this world will want to get in bed and go at it for a nice, decent amount of time, but you should feel that it’s a compliment when a man has an orgasm really fast—it means you’ve got some great sex. Have you ever looked at a porn and asked yourself why the guy is taking so long to have an orgasm? It’s likely because the woman he’s having sex with has had so much sex that while he’s inside her he doesn’t really feel anything. He could go on forever, and nothing will ever happen.
You have to know if your sex is worth a man deciding he has everything he ever imagined at home and has no need to get it from anywhere else. This may be hard to hear, but I want to keep it all the way real with you. Are you sexually capable of keeping your partner focused? Ultimately, if a man is going to cheat, he’s going to cheat whether you give him the best sex or not. But you have to know if your abilities are up to par. Do you know how to go down on your man? Are you willing to get better, to know what pleases him? As long as you don’t feel demeaned or uncomfortable, you should work on keeping each other happy at home sexually.
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The same goes for men; it works on both sides. There are some women who can’t depend on their men to make them happy sexually, so they go off and find another man or end up pleasing themselves at home with vibrators and other toys. A guy has to please his woman and figure out how to do it better if what he’s doing is not working for her. Figure out a way to step up your sex game, get creative and change it up. Do what you have to do to keep it interesting and keep the sparks flying.
I encourage all of you to keep your relationships going. If you have any type of trouble, on any level, talk to your pastors. When you get married, the devil gets busy. If God is in it, it’s right.
Allow your self-value and self-love to determine whatever your decision is going to be in a relationship. I cannot tell you that you need to leave your man if he’s cheating, because every situation is different. My rules and my laws are mine. If a woman ever cheated on me, one time, the relationship would be over. I know that’s a double standard, but I’m all about honesty at this stage in my life. It all depends on where you are within the respect you have for yourself. Allow the respect you either feel or don’t feel to determine what you’re going to do. Some men are worth keeping.
You have to figure out what your relationship is worth to you. Think about it according to the 80/20 rule, which I heard about from Why Did I Get Married?: When your relationship is 80 percent good you always wish you had more of that 20 percent—whatever it may constitute for you. So the question becomes, do you leave your 80 percent to go out and find someone who could offer you more of the 20 percent you’re looking for, or do you hold on to your 80 percent and work hard at improving your relationship one percent at a time till you get to 100? When it comes to love, winners never quit and quitters never win. Most men are not able to say that our actions, approach, or outlook are the same that they were even two years ago. Men can change and it takes a firm, strong, and solid woman who has a very high tolerance for bullshit to introduce us to a better version of ourselves. Women should assume that men are just creatures of habit, and for most of us, our approach to love, relationships, and women is based on our upbringing. But there is a way to change all these things. You just have to be patient and not give up on us.
Chapter 6
Do I Love You More Than I Know You?
A lot of times we don’t know we’re in a relationship that we’ve set up to not work. Some of our relationships are not healthy from the start—and I’m a victim of it, too. You’re in a relationship and you say “I love you” when you see him, you kiss, you hug, you’re—supposedly—making love. But do you love him more than you know him? Do you love her more than you know her?
You would figure it’s impossible to love someone as much as you do if you barely know them, but sometimes our emotions are too far up the street. Let’s say when you first meet each other, you started on First Street. You’re thinking, He’s sexy or She’s got a nice body or He’s tall, he’s handsome—all the things that attract you and can make you start to catch feelings instantly. Just a few weeks into the relationship, you barely know each other. For example, you only know each other up to Tenth Street, but your emotions and your feelings and your love are on 150th Street.
It is possible for you to love someone more than you know them because it’s really hard to control your feelings. Your feelings can be based on a lot of different things. They can be based on physical attraction or sexual chemistry. A lot of the time, sex does it—you feel more connected to someone because you were intimate.
I’ve learned that someone being sexy as hell can speed up the feeling called love. I happen to be a fan of exotic-looking women with all-natural everything—flat stomachs, nice breasts, and big asses. Those things can do something for a man and can make a man decide instantly that they “love” you.
I’ve also heard women say that they loved a man really fast because they had a great conversation, he was physically attractive, and there was great sexual chemistry between the two of them. All these things are very impulsive but don’t feel very impulsive while you’re in it.
Other times, the reactions and approval you get when your homegirls meet your man, or when your homeboys meet your girl, can make you love somebody much faster than you know them. Some women are on a mission to prove all their homegirls wrong. For example, when a woman finds somebody really special—or someone they think is special—they run around bragging, showing off, telling everybody they know. That’s when things go left because you run around painting this picture of this man you feel like you know and have all these feelings and thoughts for, and then the truth as to who he really is comes out. That’s when you get embarrassed, when you start keeping secrets from your friends, because you painted the picture that the person you’re in a relationship with is just amazing, flawless, and near perfect before you discovered that they’re really not.
Some people will read this and say it is realistic to fall in love with somebody, make a commitment or marry early and get to know them on the other side of marriage. I am sure it does happen, but those are very unique, one-of-a-kind godsend scenarios. There are plenty of stories out there about love at first sight. It does exist. There are plenty of people that are able to say I met my wife, I looked her in her eyes, and I knew at that moment that she would be the woman I marry and they go on to get married and spend the rest of their life together. But what normally happens is that people create in their minds the picture of the perfect man or woman just to find out that they are not who they thought they were. For the most part, these impulses—I gotta love you, I gotta settle in, I gotta be your wife, I gotta get serious and make everything happen—these moves (like the ones we see on reality television) set most of us up for a major letdown. How do you try and get in front of emotions, impulses, and love?
When you love somebody more than you know them, you set yourself up to be disappointed when you discover the things about their personality that drive you nuts. If you love your man or woman so much, once their negative characteristics or the truth about who they are is revealed, the reason you’re so hurt is because you created the idea in your mind as to who you thought they were. Based on who they appear to be, you’re already in love. You’re thinking, I love him so much, how can he talk to me that way? Or, I love her so much, how can she treat me that way? How can she embarrass me like that? How can he front on me like that? Why is she putting me down and making me feel like this? Why is he cheating on me? Why is he looking at other women while he’s with me? Why does he treat me differently when we’re alone compared to when we’re with his friends? Is he ashamed to love me publicly the way he does privately? These are the thoughts and feelings that run through most people’s minds. Would you really feel this way about somebody you claim to love so much?
Stop acting like you know him or her—you don’t! If you are able to control your emotions a little bit and take it one day at a time, you’ll be able to stop yourself from going so far up the street and actually love him as much as you know him. Then, once you discover all of the things that you don’t like about him or her, you’ll save yourself from heartache.
Paint the Picture Along the Way
The problem with most of us is that we create an image in our minds as to who the person we’re with is, and we think we have them all figured out, but we don’t. We don’t know who they are! You’re projecting your feelings and your ideals on that person. When you create in your mind who this person is and the picture is already complete, you think you know who they are and what the outcome of the relationship will be. You are trying to predict the future. You’ve created this whole image in your mind based on your fantasy. It’s not real—you set yourself up to be disappointed. You have to discover who this person is along the way.
My ex-wife and I had this thing we used to say: You have a paintbrush in your hand, and I have a paintbrush in my hand, and we’re going to paint the picture of who we are and what our relationship will be along the way. We painted the good,
the bad, and the ugly so that we wouldn’t allow ourselves to be let down by a picture already completed in our minds. Our marriage and our relationship was going to be a work in progress.
Put the paintbrush in your hand and paint the picture along the way. Add the good and bad to the painting as you discover it so the love story you’re building with this person is forever evolving.
In most cases you’re meeting someone’s representative. Everybody is presenting their best self. Like a magician, their mission is to use smoke and mirrors and make you believe the things you’re seeing with your own eyes. While you’re sitting in the audience watching the show, you’re going to be convinced that 98 percent of the things you see with your own eyes is really happening. That’s how it works with most relationships. You let down your guard and surrender your heart, spirit, and mind to this man or woman based on what he or she appears to be. In a lot of cases, they will live up to what they present themselves to be, but unfortunately many others won’t. So once someone gets comfortable and they get relaxed and they fall into the everyday routine and you start to see their true colors, sometimes you won’t like what you see.
Allow yourself to take the time to get to know somebody before you start loosely using the words “I love you.” Ask yourself, Do I really know this person I’m with, whom I’m telling I love? Do I really love this person, or is it a sexual thing, or is this person just an answer to my loneliness? Are they filling in some void, that you had everything else but a man or woman in your life? Since you met this special person, you allowed your feelings and emotions to go five thousand miles up the street instead of pacing yourself and really taking the time to feel it out and give them time to show you who they are. Try your best to give yourself that time, so you will be in control.