especially why Marjorie is on the team.
Appreciating a man, not undermining his con.dence, is the best way to get the best out of your guy. And the best way to appreciate him is by being a girl, and especially letting him be a man.
Now, I'm convinced that being a girl is a lost art form something that every woman can use some lessons in. So I've taken the liberty of showing you how to be a girl in some of the basic but most important situations in which you'll.nd yourself with a man. Guaranteed, if he's worth his salt, he'll be all in.
Don't tell him where you'd like to go tell him the kind of food and atmosphere you enjoy, and then let him.gure out a place that he thinks will suit your taste.
Don't tell him you'll drive let him get you to where you all need to go.
Don't tell him you want to go dutch let him pay.
Don't invite him up for a nightcap kiss him good night and let him.gure out what he needs to do to earn the cookie (but not before the ninety-day probation ends).
Don't try to.x the sink, the car, the toilet, or anything else let him do it.
Don't take out the garbage, paint, or mow the lawn that's his job.
Don't do any of the heavy lifting he was born with the muscle it takes to move sofas/television sets/bookshelves and the like.
Don't be afraid to make a meal or two the kitchen is both your and his friend.
Don't wear a T-shirt to bed every night a little lingerie never hurt anybody.
14
Your man knows what you want: the ultimate commitment The Ring. He knows, too, what he needs: you.
It seems obvious, then, that he would get himself to the jeweler, pick out a nice, hefty diamond, and then plot out an on-bended-knee proposal that would make the will you marry me? pitch that Grammy awarduwinning singer Seal made to supermodel Heidi Klum he proposed in an igloo he had built on top of a glacier fourteen thousand feet above sea level look like an invitation to the prom.
But your proposal never comes. And the way your man is acting, it's not coming anytime soon. And so, you wait. And wait. And wait some more.
This is the story of all-too-many women girlfriends who are putting in some serious work not only because they love their men, but because they want to prove they're The One. Everybody is clear about how you prove to him you're The One: Do all the things for him a wife would do support him emotionally, be loyal, work it out in the bedroom, tell him you love him often and show it, too. Maybe live with him. Have his babies. Get close really close to his mom and sisters and friends. Basically, you give him everything he needs and all of what he wants.
Check out this Strawberry Letter from a listener who called herself Biological Clock Ticker, a thirty-one-year-old single, childless woman in a relationship she said feels like a three-year-long booty call:
He tells me he loves me and wants me to have his children. My biological clock is ticking like crazy, and we have been trying for the past year to get pregnant, to no avail (I believe that this is a sign). The problem is that he says he does not want to be in a committed relationship or marriage because he doesn't want to answer to anyone. As long as I have known him, I have shown him that I am not at all like the other women that he has dated. I was there for him when he injured himself, quit his job, when his father died, and when he was unemployed for months. I have been encouraging him, and am there for him.nancially and physically. I've been waiting and hanging in there, hoping he'll marry me because I don't think that I will get anyone else that would want to have a child with me. Am I being a fool for waiting for him? Should I just let it go?
She and all too many women in similar predicaments can't understand why, after all of this hard work, he won't give her the one thing she needs and wants. Well, let me break it down for her and you. Your man hasn't asked you to marry him because of one or more of the following reasons: (1) he is still married to someone else; (2) you're really not the one he wants; or, the real answer you don't want to hear, (3) you haven't required him to marry you or set a date.
In fact, I know of a few guys whose ladies are smack-dab in the middle of this predicament right now. One that stands out is a couple that dated for a year before she ended up pregnant. To her credit, the single mom (she has a son from an earlier failed relationship) knew she didn't want to have a second child with a man who wasn't there to help raise her kids, so she made it simple for him: I'm only going to have this child if you're willing to be a father for real not this part-time/every-oncein-a-while/when-I-feel-like-it kind of dad. And, faced with the prospect of losing her and his baby, he stepped up to the plate: He agreed to be there for their child, and gave up his apartment, and moved in with his girlfriend while they prepared for the birth of their son.
Oh, she thought the proposal, the ring, and the wedding would follow shortly after the baby was born. To his credit, her boyfriend did come through with a ring. But she's been wearing it for seven years now, and though she's been hoping, waiting, and praying for a wedding date, they're no closer to walking down the aisle today than they were the day their child was born. They share a home. They share parenting responsibilities. They share bills, schedules, car notes, church pews, and most certainly a bed. But they don't share the last name or a marriage certi.cate.
She can't understand why they're playing house instead of making an of.cial home together. He feels as if they've got a home, and really, there's not much more need to go any further than they already have.
And this is the dilemma.
See, to some men, marriage.ts into the same category as eating vegetables: you know it's something you should be doing, but you don't really want to because, well, the greasy, fat-.lled, salty, juicy burger and fries is just so much more satisfying. I've told you time and again in this book that we men are very simple creatures, and if it were not for women, we'd be living rather, well, simply the money would go to mostly shiny things, our time would be spent watching sports and strippers, and there would be no need for most of us to keep a clean house or dress nice or do anything other than play video games. We're happy living this way it makes us feel young and carefree. Marriage does not. Responsibility and marriage do not.t into that feeling, until all of the playing gets tired and we realize we have to be grown-ups, or something or someone makes us grow up.
But here's what you need to know: men are pretty clear that marriage is what women want that despite your independence, despite the statistics that say half the marriages in America end in divorce, despite the amount of time, work, sweat, and tears you know you'll have to pour into building an imperfect relationship, in the end, you women still believe in the fairy tale of the husband and the house and the white picket fence and the
2.5 kids.
Men are also clear that they can slowly give out the things that make it seem like they're making the march to the altar just to keep you hanging in there. Trust me when I say this: men do everything with a purpose, and in the case where a man dates you for an extended length of time, or moves in with you, or gives you a ring, but still refuses to be pinned down on setting a wedding date? He's doing it to lock you down. He wants you, and he doesn't want anyone else to have you.
And I'm here to tell you, the only reason a man gets away with a lengthy engagement or holds off the proposal altogether is because his woman hasn't required him to set the date; she is stupidly sitting there allowing her boyfriend to dictate to her when he's ready, though she slept with this man, cut off any other prospective husbands, and, in some cases, moved in with him and even had his children.
I simply can't be diplomatic here.
It's just plain dumb.
Get into your man's mind-set here: if a man is willing to be your boyfriend at length, live with you, be an involved father, or give you a ring, he has already taken himself off the player's list technically, he's scratched his name off the sport.shing registry. He can't bring babes to the house. He can't talk on the phone or take any phone calls from babes at the house. He can't leave to go see a babe when he wants to or stay with her all night. He knows he can't give his money to any other woman because he's pooling it with you. Why does a man in a committed relationship with you accept the above list of he can'ts?
Because he wants you and he doesn't want to lose you.
