Relying on Chemistry – Part 2

Relying on Chemistry (Part 1)

Women Still Cheat

Much of our bandwidth as it relates to relationships that make headlines is taken up by stories of cheating boyfriends and husbands. But there’s a fundamental component that’s making waves more and more – which is both unfortunately in its reality but helpful in dispelling myths – and that is: women stray as well. No one is automatically immune from the possibility of infedelity.

An article on Foxnews.com this week points out that often when men cheat they’re doing it for sex while women cheat for love, therefore more relationship survive male cheating. Issues related more to sex and physical attraction are seen as more commonly able to be worked through where as issues related to falling out of love with your partner and falling in love to someone else are viewed as insurmountable.

As I talk about in my book, Adultery the Forgivable sin, I believe there are few things – adultery included – that couples can’t work out if they’re both committed to doing so. One of the things I suggest as a way to work through a troubled relationship is to take a break from eachother. Sometimes given a bad rap by being seen as the gateway to the final divorce or break up, I think a break, when done properly by two committed people, can save a relationship. If you’ve suffered a breach of trust with your partner – whether male or female – I urge you to, of course, talk to someone in counseling but to also consider (under their supervision) breaking up to make up.

If you’ve decided this would be a good step for your relationship, how do you engage in a “break up” with the intention of helping your long-term relationship?

1. A break up must never be used as a threat or for revenge.
2. It should only be used as a wakeup call.

3. If you don’t do a break up to MAKE UP, it is a high risk of a permanent
break up or emotional breakup (A Brush with Divorce).

4. The less emotional and more loving you are when you initiate the break
up the better.

5. If you don’t do the “break up” (The Brush with Death) carefully, the

relationship may permanently end.

In some cases, you may need the extreme feeling of experiencing life without the other person in order to determine how much they mean to you. This “brush with death” will help determine that, will give distance to things that may become too heated to discuss in the current state of the relationship, and can renew each person in their commitment to each other.

Young women seeking wealthy?

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi shocked feminists everywhere we he said that women seeking a life partner should “follow the money” and marry wealthy. Of course, we all know we shouldn’t be taking relationship advice from 73-year-old Berlusconi: he was recently embroiled in a sex scandal based on reported encounters with younger women, including prostitutes. Although he denies the prostitution charge, he admits he’s “no saint” and he and his wife have since separated. Throughout the years, he’s told the media young women should look for wealthy, older boyfriends so when he dies they can inherit his wealth.

There’s much to be said about what’s wrong with this viewpoint, but in a country where we do value money and power very highly, the attraction to wealth can lie not far below the surface even if we’re not as vocal about it as Berlusconi. That said, it may be interesting to note that as women are making more, the so-called “need” for this type of perception is shifting to one where men may start to feel outpaced.

The majority of layoffs during this recession have hit men.  Womens’ status as breadwinner continues to become more and more prevalent, according to a New York Times study. Last year – as companies from Citibank to GM announced massive layoffs – 82 percent of the people laid off were men. It won’t be long before women become the majority of the American workforce. Not to mention, women now control roughly 60% of wealth in the country due in part to the fact that they often outlive men and thus inherit family wealth.

So the question is no longer “How can women get wealthy?” – since they’re already doing so, and often without the help of a man – but “What can women do with their wealth?” According to a study by The Hartford Financial Services Group, women’s worries focus on three major areas: inflation, health and longevity.

According to the specifics of the study, which examined the projected retirement levels of nearly 2 million employees at 72 large U.S. companies,  “both men and women are on track to replace 85 percent of pay at retirement, assuming average life expectancy. However, women, on average, need to replace nearly 130 percent of their final pay at retirement because they often take time off to raise kids. That’s seven percentage points more than men. When factoring in differences in longevity, that disparity jumps to 10 percentage points.”

So while women are making great strides in terms of earning power – and breaking assumptions like those made by Berlusconi that they need a man’s help to develop wealth – it’s important not to lose sight of the importance of planning. Nowadays (most) women’s retirement plan is not to marry wealthy, but to create wealth of their own.

Fewer women, more marriages

If there are few eligible women in your city, you’re more likely to get married. A study published last month in the journal of Evolutionary Psychology found that in areas of the country where there are more women than men, women are more likely to get married at a younger age.

The study puts forth several ideas for this including the likelihood that men won’t want to let a good catch get away and therefore propose marriage earlier than in places where they, perhaps, feel like they have more options.

According the MSNBC, to conduct the study, Daniel  Kruger, evolutionary psychologist at the University of Michigan analyzed data on the average marriage age and the number of men and women in the nation’s 50 largest cities.

Using the data, he calculated what’s called an operational sex ratio, which is the number of sexually available men per 100 sexually available women, multiplied by 100. A ratio of 100 means a balanced population, while numbers larger than 100 indicate a surplus of men. A ratio of 110, for example, means 11 men are available for every 10 women. A ratio of 90 would mean nine men are available for every 10 women.

Regardless of how the ratios are in your area, there are a few things that I advise people to do to make it past the first date. Yes, statistics about gender, age and location can play into things but that doesn’t mean you can’t take control of your dating life and help steer it in the direction you want it to go.

First up, toss the notion that if he or she doesn’t call right away it means they’re just not that into you. We need to employ common sense here – sometimes that can be the case, but chances are, the person you’re waiting to hear from just doesn’t want to come across as needy or clingy. I suggest women should make the first move in connecting for a first date and getting past that possible lull of uncertainty. If you like him, tell him! But make sure that first contact is a phone call – texting or emailing first can leave too much open to interpretation.

Secondly, talk about money on a first date. That’s right, I said bring up the elephant in the room. It will help alleviate the awkward “who’s paying” moment, but it will also help start you out on the same page. I don’t mean that you have to talk about your exact salary or how much you put into savings each month. Starting off by discussing your family patterns as related to money – what I call your Financial Imago – can be a good place to begin.

Third, utilize what I call Smart Heart Skills. I discuss this further in Make Up Don’t Break Up and usually I encourage couples who have been together for a while use it as a way of getting through rough patches and creating a place where it’s safe to speak their mind. But it can work for early dating relationships as well. If you start out a potential relationship by being honest with eachother – by asking some of the tough questions – if you continue to date you’ll start out on the right foot, and you’ll find out early on if you don’t want the relationship to progress.

No matter where you live and how many available men or women there are, you can empower yourself to take matters into your own hands!