This week’s hot Hollywood news item is that the stars of the blockbuster Twilight series, Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart, may be getting back together. Why not? One affair doesn’t have to be the end of a relationship. In fact, it can be a new beginning and actually bring a couple closer. But there are things to watch out for along the way if you want a healthy, lasting relationship post affair. Here’s my advice for Robert and Kristen, and all couples in this situation. Also in this podcast: How to recover from break-ups powerfully so that you can return to being open to the possibility of a loving, lasting relationship! Listen Now You can download this podcast as an MP3 file: Right click on “Listen Now,” choose “save target as” and save it to your music folder on your computer. Sync with your MP3 player or iPod, and listen to Nina Atwood, the Singlescoach®, anytime! Amazon.com Widgets
Continue Reading September 21st, 2012
Tina Marie Jones, Voice America Radio Host Extraordinaire, interviews Nina in this candid discussion about what happens when women give away their power in a relationship. Listen in as Tina Marie and Nina examine the top three myths that keep women stuck in a cycle of relationships that are unloving and unsafe. Find out what you can do as a woman to begin a new relationship on the right path, or correct the path of your current relationship. To find out more about Tina Marie and to access her radio show and other offerings, visit her website. Click on the arrow below to listen now, or download and listen to this podcast later. Listen Now You can download this podcast as an MP3 file: Right click on “Listen Now,” choose “save target as” and save it to your music folder on your computer. Sync with your MP3 player or iPod, and listen to Nina Atwood, the Singlescoach®, anytime! Amazon.com Widgets
Continue Reading February 24th, 2012
Dear Nina: I met a really attractive and intelligent woman at a party a few weeks ago. It was a public event at an art gallery. She seemed very educated and sophisticated; we’re both in our late 20s. We had been talking for about a half hour and really seemed to develop a great rapport. We had even made tentative plans to meet for coffee sometime. Then, things suddenly went downhill. There was a pause in the conversation and I commented that she had a really nice, hourglass figureť. I thought she would take it as a compliment but instead she became deeply offended. She said, “Excuse me? Why are you talking about my figure?” I went into damage control mode and tried to clarify my comments but I think I only exacerbated things as she rolled her eyes and shook her head. She told me I was being “inappropriate” and with a look of complete disgust, WHAP!, she slapped my face and departed. As I stood there alone rubbing my cheek, I was trying to figure out why she was so upset. It seemed like [...]
Continue Reading May 1st, 2011
Dear Singlescoach: I am a 28 yr old woman and I am dating a 17 year old guy. He will be 18 in 5 months. And amazingly this has been the best relationship I have ever been in. However, there are a few problems… His parents don’t approve (especially his mother) and my sister thinks I’m making a mistake and being foolish. Age of consent in the state we live in is 17, so that’s not a problem. But the town we live in is small and the gossip has gotten so bad about us. People are talking about it like it is terrible. But the fact is that we really love and care for each other. Sex is not what our relationship is about; we haven’t even had sex yet, and we have been together for two months. We get each other; we make each other laugh, we have similar interests, and we are so happy together. I want to know what you think about this. How should I handle parents? How should I handle [...]
Continue Reading July 21st, 2010
For years I’ve written about the importance of communication in dating - being able to open up and express what you really think and feel; listening to understand - so that you can really get to know the person you are thinking of spending your life with. New research shows that being able to open up about how you feel is vital to women’s health. What this research tells us about dating is that you need to date someone long enough to get past the enchantment stage, get into some arguments, and discover your style of communication during the discussion of stressful topics. Women need to pay attention to these factors: Does he listen to me respectfully? Does he acknowledge my point of view, even if he doesn’t agree? Does he respond to me with warmth? Does he give me time to air my thoughts and feelings? Of course, this same checklist applies to how women listen to men. You must give what you expect to receive. In dating, you give and then you pay attention to [...]
Continue Reading July 7th, 2010
Dear Nina: I work with this guy who is 30 yrs old. I just turned 40 but look 32. We have become great friends but it is starting to develop into something more. I do have feelings for him; we have kissed a few times but more on a friendship level. My problem is I lied to him; I told him I turned 31 not 40 because I was afraid he might reject me. I don’t want to lose him but I hate the fact that I lied; what do I do? Also, is it good to take this slow like we are doing? – Linda Dear Linda: One of the Temptations of the Single Girl is Dating Without Integrity, and that is the trap you’re in. Relationships are all about trust, and you will have none if you don’t correct your situation pronto. Lesson for the future: Don’t lie about your life to catch a guy; it always bites you later. Now, let’s get some perspective on your current situation. You can’t lose him because you don’t yet have him. What you’ve described is a guy who is still checking [...]
Continue Reading June 29th, 2010
Dear Nina: I have been with my boyfriend for seven years. I am a divorced mum of one child; I have tried to prevent further trauma to my son by remaining in the marital home. My relationship was very up and down with this man for the first four years and after many split ups he appears to be more committed; i.e., not going out to night clubs. The problem is that he is very jealous and upsets me when I try to do things on my own like going on a conference for my business or doing things with my friends. In my previous marriage I could do whatever I wanted and now I feel that I am stunting myself. I do love this man but how do I keep me. – Vivienne Dear Vivienne: I don’t know which came first: his jealousy (maybe he’s just wired that way) or your lack of commitment as displayed by remaining in the same home with your ex-husband (maybe you provoked him into it). Either way, you have a complicated situation that is not conducive to a [...]
Continue Reading June 25th, 2010
I’m a male, 33, and I’ve committed myself to stay out of the bedroom at least until there is a commitment and hopefully even until marriage. I feel that finding out sexual compatibility before marriage should NOT be a requirement. I cannot fathom being in love and then letting performance in bed be the deciding factor! This position makes it difficult for me to ask women out, as I’m afraid that she will demand an early sexual relationship. How do I stick to my principles and let go of this anxiety so that I can date? - Matt Contrary to popular belief, sexual compatibility is not about performance in bed. The mechanics of sex are just that – mechanics. Do this, do that, put this here, and touch that. These are things that can be learned from sexual how-to manuals and from teaching each other what you like and don’t like. When two people love each other, are committed to the relationship, have good communication skills, and are unafraid to discuss the intimate details of [...]
Continue Reading June 23rd, 2010
Cindy met Bill through her tennis club. He was charming, good-looking, and he swept her off her feet in a whirlwind courtship. Pushing for a quick marriage, he proposed after only two months. Though she felt a few flutters of anxiety, Cindy accepted, hoping for true love. Six months later, she deeply regretted the haste. Bill turned out to be both alcoholic and verbally abusive, with the threat of physical abuse lurking in the volatile atmosphere. Frightened, she moved out and filed for divorce. Later, she reflected on how she had gotten herself in such a painful place. Something deep inside Cindy had sent up warning flares, telling her that she was moving too fast. But she’d plunged ahead, repressing her own better judgment, which was trying to get her to slow down. Why had she ignored the signals? “I was afraid that if I told him I wanted to slow down, he might lose interest. He was so passionate, so full of life, and I felt so flattered that this great looking guy wanted me. All the women liked him. It [...]
Continue Reading June 21st, 2010
Dear Nina: What is the definition of a “rebound relationship”? Is it true they can be unhealthy? I’ve recently started dating someone who is barely divorced. My friends say she’s on the rebound. - David David: Rebound relationships occur very shortly after the end of a significant love, and sometimes begin before the end. The problem with a rebound is that it doesn’t allow time for the grieving and healing process to be complete. When this happens, there is emotional confusion. Sometimes, the feelings for the old partner simply transfer to the new one, and that results in the illusion that you’ve found someone totally “different,” when, in fact, you’ve found someone very much like your old love. Often the issues that drove you away from your previous partner are the very ones with which you eventually find yourself grappling in the new relationship. Rebound relationships serve a purpose: To protect the heart from the devastation of losing someone very important. Like a very big cushion, they protect us from the trauma of the fall that is [...]
Continue Reading March 11th, 2010
Dear Nina: I have been in an on and off relationship for a year and a half and I know it’s not what I want. I’ve started to go out with someone new (only a couple of dates) and I know I need to tell my boyfriend, who in the past has been possessive and jealous. What do I say, and how do I handle his questions? – Carolyn Carolyn: There is no easy way to tell someone that you are moving on, yet it’s not fair to take those steps while keeping the other person in the dark. So, I acknowledge you, first of all, for your honesty and integrity, and secondly, for doing what’s right, especially when it’s difficult. Start with the plain truth, expressed compassionately but without soft-soaping it. “We’ve been seeing each other off and on for a long time and we both know it’s not working. I’ve come to the point that I’m interested in going out with other men and I think it’s only fair to tell you [...]
Continue Reading February 26th, 2010
Dear Nina: I have started seeing this girl recently. She works full time but is also a part time student. We had a great first date, staying out to 2am on a week night just talking and our conversation only stopped because it started to rain. I followed up a couple days later by asking her out on a second date on a Friday night. She text’d me on Thursday saying that she couldn’t make it on Friday, how about Saturday instead. I said ok, Saturday is fine. Saturday, she told me she couldn’t make it because she had to finish her homework for an online class that’s due on Sunday, so lets meet up on Sunday. I said I can only meet during the day because I have other social plans Sunday evening. She said ok, and I suggested lunch. I text’d her Sunday around 10:30am, but she didn’t respond until 2pm. Her excuse was that she stayed up until 5am doing her homework and didn’t wake up until just then. She text’d that she was really sorry for not returning my text earlier. I told her “no worries, [...]
Continue Reading February 5th, 2010
Dear Nina: I’ve been dating my boyfriend for about a month and a half. We’ve been moving at a good pace and I hope we have a strong future ahead of us. I believe he’s going to tell me he loves me soon (he’s given me indications he’s been feeling this way). I’m not sure I’m there yet. Is it concerning for someone to tell you they love you so early on in a relationship? How long should one wait? – Debbie Dear Debbie: In dating, the words “I love you” are often spoken to describe the experience of falling in love, which is not necessarily the same as loving someone. To love someone, and to feel loved, you must have intimacy, and I don’t mean sex. If you break it down phonetically, intimacy is “into me see,” meaning that you are open and transparent enough for another person to have a strong sense of the real person underneath your social mask. In dating, especially at one and a half months, it’s not easy to get to that [...]
Continue Reading July 22nd, 2008
If there’s one thing that tougher to talk about than sex (that’s talk about, not do), it’s money! The top two reasons that couples divorce are often cited as sex and money. So why is it so difficult to discuss? In dating, talking about your net worth - if it is high - can be risky. If you haven’t yet built a trusted connection, you may find yourself targeted by someone seeking to take advantage. If your net worth is low, you may find yourself rejected by someone who is seeking a person of equitable means. If you have a moderate to high net worth, you may not want to marry someone who is deeply in debt and struggling financially. You take on those liabilities when you do. So, you naturally want to know as much as possible about someone’s financial standing before you get in too deep emotionally. There’s the conflict: you need to know, yet you don’t want to tell, at least not too early in the relationship. And when is too early? The reality is that it’s [...]
Continue Reading September 14th, 2007
What happens during relationship conflict when a man feels unsafe emotionally? When emotionally triggered, our brains are wired to send us into “fight or flight.” One way of fleeing is to clam up, withdraw. Observation over two decades of counseling men and women has demonstrated that this occurs when men feel emotionally unsafe. What makes men feel unsafe? Men feel unsafe when a woman attacks, accuses, blames, and generally conveys the notion that the guy is failing her (in her eyes). But what causes a woman to engage in such destructive behavior? Typically, a woman feels angry toward her man because of unmet expectations, and this shows up in a variety of ways. One common unmet expectation is that he isn’t shaping up the way she wants him to; i.e., he’s a fixer-upper in her eyes, she sets out to improve him, and he resists her efforts to make him a better man. Men want to be admired for who they are, not made to feel that they must change or improve in order to maintain [...]
Continue Reading July 11th, 2007
The latest study on interpersonal communication refutes the old stereotype of women as chatterboxes and men as silent and strong. A U.T. Austin research team recorded conversations of university students in a variety of settings and determined that femals spoke an average of 16,215 words per day while males spoke an average of 15,669 words per day, basically a dead heat. This is the first study of its kind, so it doesn’t address a myriad of questions, such as whether or not this proprotion of talk holds up as people age. It turns out that there’s never been any real science behind the idea that women talk more than men. However, it has been shown that women spend more time talking about their relationships, primarily romantic or spousal, than men. This makes sense, as women for thousands of years had to focus on understanding the most critical relationship to their survival – that with their mates. Currently there are few studies on the difference between men’s and women’s degree of talking in certain contexts. For instance, in a work [...]
Continue Reading July 10th, 2007
Guys prefer straight talk. Is it easy to do from a woman’s perspective? Not for most women. Women are socialized to be nice, and maybe we’re a bit hard-wired that way as well. For thousands of years (and it’s only begun to change in the last fifty years), women’s survival depending upon men – first on father, then on husband. In some of the most highly-populated areas of our planet women still depend heavily on men for survival. So it makes sense that in order to maintain the attachment to a man (i.e., the ticket to survival), a woman had to defer her thoughts, opinions, and feelings. But we live in a society now that enables a woman to carve out her own unique path in the world – to be educated, to establish a prosperous career or business, and to achieve financial independence. With those changes we’ve developed a far larger voice, but that voice is still developing. Too much socializing and hard-wiring sometimes translates to games in dating instead of straight talk. Trying [...]
Continue Reading July 6th, 2007
Since a significant number of singles (30% of men and 19% of women) using dating web sites believe that it’s okay to lie, that puts the responsibility for detecing liars squarely on you. But how can you tell if someone is being honest with you or not? First the truth about liars – there are some people who are able to con almost anyone, so don’t be too hard on yourself if you get fooled. And don’t expect to develop a 100% accurate internal lie detector. In fact, studies indicate that the average person’s ability to detect deception is about 50% accurate, not much better than a coin toss. You can, however, improve your ability to detect dishonesty. One way to do that is to put what you hear in context – the context of other data points about the person’s life. If someone brags about business success but never seems to have much money, your internal b***sh** meter should go off. If someone says she’s single, but is never available on the weekends, never invites you to her [...]
Continue Reading June 19th, 2007
Julie has a teenaged son. Being a single mom, she’s a bit stressed out. Her son, lacking the day-to-day infuence of a Dad and a solid family, acts out. He talks back, doesn’t always comply with her rules, and sulks around the house. Julie wonders if she should tell men on a first date that this is the center reality of her life. What if a guy thinks she’s looking for a surrogate Dad? What if a guy shudders at the thought of having to bypass the hormonal teenager to court the Mom? What about you? Do you have something major in your life that you’re uncomfortable sharing early in a relationship? Here’s the reality – with vital statistics, such as children and number of marriages, it’s best to tell right up front. Here’s why. When you withhold important information in the beginning, out of the fear of scaring them away, you save yourself some immeidate discomfort but may sacrifice in the long term a budding relationship. Later, when the truth comes out, the other [...]
Continue Reading May 31st, 2007
You’re standing there in front of someone new, someone cute, someone you would maybe like to date. Suddenly, you’re tongue-tied, at a loss for words, can’t think of anything intelligent to say. Your brain does a quick file scan, searching desperately for a good “line.” Before you can let the words out, your brain sends you a second message: “What if this sounds like a line? What if I turn her off because I sound like some slick dude trying to score?” More consternation and another protracted pause. Do you feel your anxiety rising as you recall times like this? Let’s push the pause button for a minute and take a look at what’s really happening. First, your investment in the situation skyrockets when you feel strongly attracted. She’s hot, you want her, and suddenly what you say (or don’t say) becomes too important. Irrationally, your mind hangs your future marriage and mother-of-your-children on this moment in time. That is way too much pressure! A far healthier perspective is this: While this person is attractive, I have [...]
Continue Reading April 30th, 2007
The cure for mixed signals in dating is simple: over communicate! If you have a tendency to hold back your thoughts and feelings, hoping that the other person’s behavior will eventually reveal the truth, speak up! Ask, reflect, give your perspective, clarify, listen, push back when it doesn’t make sense. In short, open the dialog and keep it open until you get that solid feeling in your gut that says “I get it”! Read my books and listen to my tapes for all the tools for communicating powerfully as you date and decide. Watch out for your own agenda. If you’re feeling anxious about the relationship; if you’re investing too much hope that this one is “the one,” and you don’t feel like you can easily let go if it’s not, then your personal agenda will act like earplugs. You won’t want to hear what you need to hear, and that places you in emotional danger. If this is you, then take a step back and get real with yourself if you want a more fulfilling life. [...]
Continue Reading January 26th, 2007
Unilateral decision making is a huge mistake in relationships. What does that mean? In dating, it means trying to draw conclusions about someone’s thoughts, feelings, and intentions minus feedback. Carry this habit forward into marriage and one day someone comes home from work to find the furniture moved and a divorce petition in the front hallway. Relationships are a two-way street and that means constant feedback. While you can create certain theories based on behavior and life history, it’s impossible to really know another person’s mindset without asking them. In healthy relationships, there’s an ongoing exchange of mindsets, an ongoing dialog that begins on the first date and continues for a lifetime. Nothing’s foolproof, but all the marriage research points to this: the best, happiest relationships are the ones between two communicators. That means both people are willing to speak openly and honestly and listen to one another without prejudice. You don’t have to agree about everything to be happy; you just need to be able to discuss it respectfully. It all starts with the first [...]
Continue Reading January 25th, 2007
Another common dating mistake is trying to read someone’s behavior with no context to refer to. The context I’m talking about is “life context,” meaning the person’s personal relationship history. How do you find out someone’s “life context”? By asking lots of personal, even intrusive, questions. Dating is personal. Sometimes people say, “but that’s so personal! How can I ask that on a second or third date?” My answer is: dating is personal! Dating is about deciding who to bond with, invest with emotionally, and ultimately, who to marry. It doesn’t get any more personal than that. Making powerful decisions requires understanding. In dating, that means creating open, honest dialog for the purpose of opening a window into one another’s values, life direction, goals, and future behavior. Yes, that’s right, future behavior. While you can’t know for certain how someone will behave with you, you can make good assumptions based on past behavior. Or, you can leverage your understanding of past behavior into the current relationship. When Kristen started dating Alan, she discovered that he [...]
Continue Reading January 24th, 2007
Viv’s question in the last post highlights another common dating mistake: overanalyzing others’ behavior to try to figure out what they’re thinking and feeling. Carrie and friends in Sex and the City did this constantly. First, the long descriptors of his every action, word, facial expression, and body language. Then, the dissecting. What does it mean? What does he mean? What does it mean for our future? Do we have a future? Overanalyzing is a way to stay emotionally safe. In the comfort of the company of good friends, it’s safe to examine his behavior. There’s no emotional risk in having a conversation with someone else about the person you’re unsure of. He’s not there to tell you the truth, to reveal his honest feelings and thoughts. Relationships are risky, there’s no doubt about it. The more we let down the emotional walls, allow intimacy (“into me see”), the more it hurts if things don’t work out. We invest in relationships sometimes not knowing whether that investment will pay off. Yet, if we want the rewards of [...]
Continue Reading January 23rd, 2007
Dear SinglesCoach: If a man treats you like a queen but has a “friend” ( he never calls her a girl friend) that he says he is not committed to should I run? He seems wonderful and has helped me tremendously in the last 2 years but his signals are very confusing. When I am around him, he is attentive, affectionate (hugs and brief lip kisses) has done a lot of nice things for me in the last year. All things I was missing in my marriage. I feel like he is a soulmate. He invited me and my brother and sister who were in town to go to a concert with him and a “friend”. Ends up it was his girlfriend much to my surprise. At the concert, he sat beside me and told me he really missed me as we haven’t been seeing each other as often. I quit seeing him because of my growing feelings for him and knowing he had a girlfriend. I’m confused at his mixed messages. One thing I didn’t do in my last marriage was communicate. There’s [...]
Continue Reading January 22nd, 2007
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