A Woman’s Role in Dating

This week I had my fourth session with my relationship coach Sheila Paxton.  On the agenda was a strengths inventory that was designed to get me to understand the ways in which I am a “catch” and would make someone a great romantic partner.  Since confidence is one of my strengths, it wasn’t difficult for me to do this exercise.  In fact, I had already written a blog post about what I liked most about myself, so I based it on that.  When re-reading the post, however, I realized that I should add much of that information to my online dating profile.  As soon as I did, some new men showed interest in me, so I suppose I can say that Sheila’s exercise has already paid off.

However, what I found most provocative about our session was our discussion about how my understanding of my strengths shapes my relationships with others.  I know that I am strong, smart, grounded, and emotionally aware.  I am a very competent and self-sufficient woman.  I confessed to Sheila that I often struggle in my relationships with men because it is really easy for me to take the initiative and be the assertive one.  There are many dating experts (and my friends included) who believe that men are the ones who should play that role, not women.  That has always felt uncomfortable to me, both personally and ideologically.  Sheila encouraged me to reach out to men online (or in real life) and ask them out.  She thought that was a great idea, but she did think that once we did have a first date, I should be patient and wait for them to reciprocate.  I immediately pounced on her word “patient” because it made much more sense to me than the other word that I was associating with this action, which is “passive.”  I have always had a rebellious feminist streak in me that disdains the social norms of female passivity in the face of male initiative.  In fact, I have basically resisted the concept of gender roles in general.  In my mind, each gender should be free to adopt or pursue any role that he or she sees fit.

However, Sheila placed this into a new context for me.  Instead of seeing it as a gender imperative, she pointed out that it is important that I teach others how I want to be treated.  If I always take the initiative, as I have done in a few of my past relationships, I send the subtle message that I like that role, when what I really want is a partner who will also take the lead.  As she was saying this, I realized that this dynamic is not only present in my romantic interactions, but also in parenting and friendship as well.  For example, I haven’t really taught my kids basic household chores like setting or clearing the table, cleaning up, or making snacks for themselves.  It is so easy for me to just do those things for them, and I know that they will be done quickly and well, if I do them.  So my strength and competence are both wonderful attributes and liabilities because they sometimes don’t allow others a way to give to me.

So my new goal is to think about what message my actions are sending, how I am teaching others to treat me.  My first step starts with my kids.  I have been encouraging them to pitch in more, and they have been responding well (with the occasional grumbling of course).  Sheila also gave me the homework of allowing my dates to do “more” in some way, shape, or form.  The first thing that came to mind was the way that I lead the conversation on most of my dates by asking them lots of questions about themselves.  I often leave dates disappointed that the men have not asked more about me, but I have to admit that I often don’t offer them much time and space to do so.  So I have to let them ask more questions.

In addition, I am trying to be mindful or intentional about how my actions subtly reinforce behaviors that I don’t want to support, like my children sitting on their butts and asking me to wait on them.  Or a friend of mine who often overreacts in anger towards me, while I plead for forgiveness even when I know I have done nothing wrong just because I want to keep the peace.  On the flip side, my discussion with Sheila also has me examining the relationships that are going well, and how my actions have positively contributed to that.  In other words, Sheila is certainly living up to her title as relationship coach because the insights I have made are not just applicable to romance.

So, my friends, I now invite your input.  Do you properly acknowledge your positive attributes?  Are there places in which your strengths can also be weaknesses?  Are there any relationships in your life in which your actions are subtly teaching others to treat you in a way you might not want to be treated?  Do tell…

I am Mad…at Myself

Disclaimer: I seem to be in quite the snarky mood, which is unusual for me.  I think it’s because my kids have been gone all week, and I decided to live off of salads and bits of dark chocolate.  I was feeling so skinny, so “beyond” the need to really eat dinner, and I thought it was an ingenious way to avoid cooking and cleaning.  Well, it don’t think it has been good for me, but I thought I’d blog while I’m in this mood because maybe a new kind of edginess would come out of my writing (like I’m so avant garde).

Anyway, have you ever gotten really, really angry at someone?  So angry that you wanted to burn all bridges and just let the person really have it?  And then you calmed down just a touch and you realized that the person that you were really mad at was yourself?

As many of you know, I have recently started working with a relationship coach, Sheila Paxton, of Intentional Relationships.  Yesterday was our third of ten sessions.  Her objective is to get people to think about dating and relationships in a new way so as to not repeat old patterns, and in order to find the kind of relationship that really suits their needs and jibes with their values.  As I have been doing her work, I have been finding a certain struggle between what I thought was my head and my gut.  For those of you who are interested in personality typing systems, I am an ENTJ in the Meyers Briggs and an 8 in the Enneagram, which means that I make decisions very intuitively, including decisions to get romantically involved.  As Sheila and I were talking yesterday, she was encouraging me to be more patient, more present, and not to make snap judgments about a date.  When I told her this was a struggle for me, she said that it would appear that my gut had led me astray in the past, and that I needed to be more objective and mindful (which, to me, sounds like using my head more).

Well, today when I got really mad at this person, I eventually realized that I was frustrated more at myself.  This person’s actions were, in a lot of ways, congruent with what I had seen when we were first getting to know each other.  However, I overrode my intuitions about him because I was hoping that we could make a relationship work.  I wanted him to be my prince charming, so to speak, and in a lot of ways, he played that role valiantly.  Yet the gut response that I had when we first met turned out to be right.  I certainly don’t regret anything that I did because 1) I had tons of fun doing it (until the breakup of course, that’s never fun) and 2) it has led me to some important insights.

My intellect and my intuition are not at odds, as I had led Sheila to believe, yesterday.  I’m just not always listening to my intuition.  Sometimes her voice is so subtle that I can’t hear her speak.  She is the quiet student in my class who infrequently raises her hand, but when she does, she has tremendous insight.  At times there are louder, more charming, more loquacious students who dominate the field, but this student will always have the right answer when I remember to call on her.

This is why I need yoga.  This is why working with a coach has been so fruitful.  This is why I need to write (or journal, as my friend says) because it helps me connect to that inner voice of wisdom, call it my higher self or my godhead (as the Gnostics would say).  Whew.  Now I can breathe again.

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Second disclaimer: Sheila has agreed to waive her fee in exchange for me writing about my work with her.  But as you all have come to expect from me, I’m always honest about what I think.  So far, her counseling has been very helpful.  Go check out her website.

Addicted to Fantasy

There is a great Sex and the City episode (yes, I love that show), where Carrie has plans for a first date with writer named Jack Berger.  He leaves a witty message on her answering machine (remember those?), and she declares to her friends that they are going to be very happy together.  Then she says, “I love that period before the first date when you can say that and really mean it.”

Fantasy can be one of the most enjoyable aspects of a romance, as we notice a few appealing characteristics about a man and then extrapolate a whole future with him based on the limited information we have.  I have always agreed with Carrie’s line because I love the excitement that a new potential romance holds.  However, my new relationship coach, Sheila Paxton, is encouraging me not to engage in this kind of fanciful speculation.

Why, you ask (and I sure asked it).  Because it clouds my vision.  She actually wants me to forgo even looking at a man and asking myself if he has long-term potential.  That was particularly surprising for me.  I know that I sometimes wear rose-colored glasses at the beginning of a relationship, but I thought that if I tried to choose a man who would make a suitable long-term partner, I would be taking a step in the right direction.  However, Sheila says that this is part of the fantasy as well because my desire to find a life partner could cause me to see a man not for who he really is, but for who I want him to be.

Instead, she wants me to approach dating like a scientist (not such a sexy term, is it?), collecting data on each man that I spend time with.  She wants me to make unbiased observations about each guy to see if he shares my core values (I am going to be doing a values inventory for our fifth session).  As a person that tends to make intuitive and instinctive decisions and judgments about people, my first reaction to this advice was, “I’ve never done it this way before.”  She cheerfully reminded me that the reason that I am working with a coach is to try a new approach.  And she’s right.

However, in order to adopt this approach, I am finding that I have to resist my natural impulses.  Being present in the moment isn’t hard for me when I am on a date, but before or after a promising date, I notice that my romantic enthusiasm tends to run wild.  When I feel chemistry with someone or have a fun or witty interchange, my mind tends to race ahead.  I feel like an excited teenager, who wants to make declaration about how great the guy is for me (a la Carrie Bradshaw).  Geez, I’m such a girl.  However, it just might be time to aspire to be an adult in romantic relationships.

On a final note, today my yoga teacher Brandon instructed us to “stay conscious and stay coachable.”  My work with Sheila is the first time that I have had a coach, and I am really enjoying the experience.  As Brandon gave me some really great assists in certain yoga postures, I realized that coaching feels analogous to his help, which allows me to explore the poses in a deeper way, in a way that I couldn’t quite get to on my own.  Sheila is giving me insight into some of my relationship patterns and helping me explore some uncharted territory.  I’m looking forward to seeing what unfolds.

Past, Present, and Future

I had my first coaching call with Sheila this week, and my mind has been swirling with ideas.  Of course, I love it when someone makes me think, especially when they make me think about myself in a new way.  The starting point of our session was to go over the relationship scan that she had me fill out.

Her first observation was that I give men a huge benefit of the doubt.  Of course, I’d put that in a different way, which is that I strive to see the positive in everyone.  However, what she was saying is that in the past I have hoped that my partners might change, and her opinion is that they won’t, unless they see both a need to change and are taking concrete actions to change.  I know that I did this with my ex husband, but of course he was my husband, we shared kids together, and I therefore had a huge incentive to hope that he would change, that he would be less angry and more lighthearted.  In fact, I still have hope that he will, but I’ve gotten more realistic about it.  I’ll admit that this Christmas I almost gave him an inspirational book of quotes, but got the better of myself and gave the book to my sister, who was over the moon about it, because SHE likes to be inspired.

In my attempt to wrestle with the demons of my partners’ pasts, I wrote a piece called “We Have No Secrets,” which touched a nerve for a lot of people.  In that post, I was trying to work out some of my own doubts about how to deal with the past mistakes of my partners and my attempt towards unconditional love.  Sheila’s perspective on how to approach that issue seems to be one that I have never before embraced.  It has two parts.  One, maintain some mystery in the beginning.  Don’t start revealing all your junk in the beginning.  I could write a book about all the things that men have revealed to me on first dates, including one that told me that he was hospitalized for depression and on suicide watch.  No mystery there.  I, myself, am not the most enigmatic, demure person.  I write a confessional blog about relationships, for heaven’s sake.  How am I going to maintain some mystery?  I’ll let you know when I figure that out.

Secondly, she also gave me license to judge someone for their past.  Let me reframe that.  It’s okay for me to hear a handsome, sweet, intelligent, great guy tell me something that makes me decide that he’s just not the right man for me.  That’s basically what I did with the architect this fall, but it took something dramatic like hate graffiti from his ex wife on his bathroom wall to scare me off.  And even then, I must admit that I would have given him the benefit of the doubt if he had offered me the committed relationship that I was looking for.  So yes, I think Sheila is right.  I need to ask myself if the man that I am dating is the kind of happy, confident, well-adjusted, self-reflective man that I am looking for.  Clearly, sometimes the writing is plainly on the wall, and I need to recognize that instead of hoping for things to be different.

Furthermore, Sheila gave me some advice on how to proceed with my current dating.  She told me to keep my eyes wide open and cultivate a sense of curiosity about my dates.  In addition, she said something that hit me like a ton of bricks.  She told me to stay in the present, to observe my date in the moment, and not start imagining the future.  These were her parting words to me, and so we didn’t get to discuss them, but that felt like a huge insight to me because there have been times where I have been caught in the imagination of a wonderful future with someone and have ignored the problems in the present.  Jon and I were a perfect example of that.  We were so excited to find someone that shared our vision of the future that we weren’t really examining our present dynamic to see if it was what we wanted.  I certainly don’t regret it because it was fun to dream about buying a house together and getting married on the beach of Cabo San Lucas, but it was a fantasy.

Future tripping can also lead us to dismiss someone, as well, as we might reject a man because we can’t imagine a future with him.  I often ask myself when I go out with an older man, what we he will look like in 10 years.  Will he be in good health and shape?  Instead I might ask myself if he is the kind of guy who, like me, is committed to health and fitness.  Not only because of what that might indicate about the future, but because that would be something that we would share in the present.  Sheila’s encouragement that I focus on the present reminded me of the kind of advice my yoga teachers give.  She told me to be mindful and just catch myself each time that I was future tripping and then bring myself back to the present moment.  I thought that was excellent advice.

So that is my new, very simple, yet perhaps not so easy approach to dating.  See how a man treats me now.  Observe our interaction in the present.  Don’t talk about our past lovers and why they didn’t last.  Don’t create a romantic fantasy about our future together.  Don’t discard him because I can’t imagine a future with him.  Just experience him in the moment and see if I like him.  Be here now.  Oh that Ram Dass was such a wise man.

Call Me

I haven’t had my first coaching session yet (that happens tomorrow), yet I have already learned something from her.  Sheila had me fill out a relationship scan to inform her about my dating history.  She asked about any marriages, of course, and then about any relationship that lasted over 6 months.

That number kind of threw me off because I have had lots of relationships since I broke up with my husband that have seemed significant to me, yet I have only had two that made it past the 6 month mark.  It was interesting to note what those two relationships had in common.  We had long, almost daily, intimate phone conversations.

For months now, I have been trying to write a piece on relationships and technology because I have noticed how much Facebook and texting have changed my romantic connections.  It could really be a several part series, but what I will say now is that, for me, texting, email, instant messaging, and Facebook are not satisfying substitutions for talking to my lover on the phone.  I like to hear a man’s voice, to hear how he responds to my words, and to experience the back and forth flow that only a telephone or face-to-face conversation can provide.

Coincidentally, one of the aforementioned exes has recently ended a relationship and moved back to Northampton, where I was visiting friends this weekend.  We got together for coffee and talked non-stop for two hours.  I told him about the relationship scan that I had done and how I had thought that what had really kept us together for as long as we did (about 15 months) was our daily conversations.  He agreed and made a couple of great observations about technology.  Having a conversation with someone who checks their smart phone is like having a three-way, and that third person is an unwelcome intruder.  He also noted that as fun as Facebook and texting are (and God knows that I love them), they don’t qualify as deep, meaningful conversations.

Inadvertently, I have already learned something from Sheila: that I want to be with a man that likes to talk on the phone because with child custody schedules, it is the only way for me to feel like I can keep the intimacy alive.  In fact, now that I think about it, phone conversations are what have kept me so close to my family in California all these years of living on the East Coast, and they have helped me feel connected to my closest friends in Northampton.  Clearly, Deborah Harry was onto something when she said, “Call me on the line. Call me, call me any, any time. Call me.”