Forgetting Valentine’s Day is no coincidence

If a partner is missing out on Valentine’s day, he is missing out on one of the most romantic days and moments for potential intimacy. Forgetting the holiday is often a recurring pattern, so I suggests combating that by encouraging wives and girlfriends to take the initiative. Remind him about the Valentine’s Day, go shopping with him for it, and get him excited about the celebration. To seize the moment, use Dr. Bonnie’s Smart Heart tips from her book “Make Up, Don’t Break Up: Finding and Keeping Love for Singles and Couples ” and accompanying video “How to Fall in Love and Stay in Love for Singles and Couples.” Since Valentine’s Day can be used to measure the temperature of a relationship, more often than not, men forgetting Valentine’s Day is a sign of something more. These warning signs can be signs of adultery or the ripening of a relationship for an affair, so heed the warning. Men are not in touch with their feelings and typically hold in these feelings. Men need to be guided as they don’t always know how to feel or what they feel. Most men are “connectable by instruction.” To quote Dr. Jeff Weil, Dr. Bonnie’s husband, “If I knew what I felt, I would tell you, so I welcome your help.” SmartHeart dialogue was born by dialoguing to help Jeff understand what he was feeling and be able to express it. SmartHeart dialogue helps them dig deep with small doses of communication and results in an endorphin high with “play” after the talks.

Beyond forgetting Valentine’s year after year, some other signs that he may be secretly harboring a grudge include,: excusing his behavior, minimizing the holiday, putting down his partner for wanting to celebrate, makes fun of the holiday, acting like a Scrooge, pushing partner away, turned off when affection is initiated by the other, leaves early in the day, comes home late, is argumentative, is not talkative around you but is with others, little or no intimacy with partner, “too tired” or uses work to distance themselves, shuts down when approached, stonewalls with silence, denies anything is wrong, does not want to discuss the grudge, or gets moody when asked about it.

To grudge bust,: do not say yes when mean no, watch out for delayed reactions that cause resentment later, stand your ground, don’t cave even if it’s easier, “act as if” even if you don’t “feel” the good feelings, do not do “peace at any price” it leads to war, write letter representing partner’s apology for hurt caused and show your partner the feelings.

When one or both of you are holding a grudge, part of the reason is because you didn’t and still don’t feel safe enough to tell your partner what you need and stand your ground. In order to be able to do this, you need to restore safety to the relationship. The following ground rules should be closely adhered to so that you both feel safe enough to begin dissolving the grudges.

Smart Heart Ground Rules to Increase Safety for Dissolving Grudges:

• Stop beating yourself up; forgive yourself.
• Stop beating up your partner; forgive him or her.
• See each other as wounded children.
• Take and give space without guilt or manipulation.
• Disconnect and reconnect with announcement, preparation, and tenderness.
• Don’t punish or shame.
• Remember that it will take a while to get your feelings back; that doesn’t mean the love is gone.
• When you’re dealing with your partner’s hurt, you are healing your own as well.
• Use attachment skills and have sex even if you don’t “feel like it.”
• Doing it will make you feel like it and help you to knock down barriers the grudges have built.
• Check in daily to see how your partner is doing and how you can help.

Once safety is restored in the relationship—or is on its way to being restored—it’s time to begin dissolving the grudges. Take on only one grudge at a time. If you are both holding grudges, take turns, so that you can both feel good about the progress that is being made. It’s important to work as a team on each grudge, no matter who’s holding it, or for what reason.

We want to help you prevent cheating in your relationship this holiday season, get our FREE online resource!

Here is to finding and keeping real love!

Dr. Bonnie Eaker Weil, Ph.D. – Love and Relationship Therapist, Mentor & Coach

Best-selling author of:

Make Up, Don’t Break Up: Finding and Keeping Love for Singles and Couples

Adultery: The Forgivable Sin

Financial Infidelity; The #1 Relationship Wrecker

Is Your Choice of Divorce Really Your Fear of Reconciliation? 

This is the continuation of my previous post.

How you and your partner answer the next questions, how much effort you are willing to put in, will decide reconciliation or divorce.

Ask yourself and your partner these questions BEFORE, you make any decision about divorce or reconciliation.

1.  Are you leaving mainly because you can’t deal with the uncertainty any longer?
2.  Are you leaving because you just want to take any action, even if it is not the right action?
3.  Are you leaving because of confusion or hurt?
4.  Are you leaving because of emotional exhaustion?
5.  Are you leaving mainly because the hurt has numbed your love?
6.  Do you feel not in love anymore, even though you fell in love once and you married for love?
7.  Are you leaving mainly due to stubbornness, which is preventing you from rebuilding and reconciling?
8.  Is your indecisiveness—not knowing who to choose—causing you to leave those whom you love?
9.  Are you leaving mainly because your partner refuses professional help? Are you aware that sometimes the runaway is slow to come around and you, the pursuer, need to lead?
10.  Do you see that divorce doesn’t solve your problem?
11.  Do you feel blame gives you more control, and you can’t get beyond this?
12.  Are you leaving mainly because you believe getting rid of a person is getting rid of your problem?
13.  Do you understand the fragile nature of relationships and the skills necessary to do it differently?
14.  Do you know divorce doesn’t always end a relationship, especially if you have children?

If there are more yes’s than no’s you may be divorcing for the wrong reasons. If there are more no’s than yes’s, your marriage probably can be saved, so work harder.

Take the time to recapture that love underneath the anger and hurt you are now feeling.

If you are thinking about dumping your husband or partner, think very hard about your reasoning.

The questions above come from my book Adultery: The Forgivable Sin, Chapter 16 – “When the Forgivable Sin Is Not Forgivable” if you would like to read more about saving your marriage.

As I stated in my previous post, most marriages/relationships can be saved even with adultery. Most people leave instead of working harder.

They don’t know where to start or how to reconnect when anger and hurt, numb the Love and Connection.

Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself, and I also I talk more about that in Adultery: The Forgivable Sin.

I’m asking couples to melt hearts by melting grudges. Hold hands, not grudges. These tips can be found in my book Make Up, Don’t Break Up: Finding and Keeping Love for Singles and Couples, Chapter 22 “Repairing The Damage” (pages 307, 308, & 309 one if the physical book) where I state that grudges come from trying to gain control and trying to cover up the pain, the hurt, and the anger and they never work. That’s why forgiveness is a gift you give yourself.

Remember that it will take a while to get those feelings back, that doesn’t mean that love is gone. Positive actions can negate the grudge.

Whatever you do and practice the most you become. That is why positive thinking and being grateful is so important, even if you don’t feel romantic, be romantic, take action steps and your loving romantic positive feelings will follow.

Here is to finding and keeping real love!

Dr. Bonnie Eaker Weil, Ph.D. – Love and Relationship Therapist, Mentor & Coach
Best-selling author of:
     Make Up, Don’t Break Up: Finding and Keeping Love for Singles and Couples 
     Adultery: The Forgivable Sin
     Financial Infidelity; The #1 Relationship Wrecker

Seasons Cheating

Sex has no calories, but sugar brings out cheating.

Most affairs start at holiday parties so BEWARE!

Tips on how to hold that line. How not to be tempted. If you or your partner is tempted

The do’s and don’ts

Check out my cheating predictor cheat sheet to see if you or your partner is ripe for an affair and temptation.

Want to have an affair with your OWN partner? Start by bringing him or her to that office party!!

Adulterers and sexual harassers like Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey, among others are people who act out through sexual deviation.

It’s important to note that they are even more triggered under the influence of alcohol. The reason being is that alcohol and other food or drinks high in sugar and addiction of all kinds, especially adultery are related!

Let me explain, stress, loss, or separation (we see this with politicians, Hollywood figures, corporate executives, etc.) creates a “fight or flight” behavioral reaction and most people turn to sugar or alcohol as they thrill seek to calm them and their anxiety down.

They then self-medicate from thrill-seeking and dangerous behavior which temporarily relives their stress and blood sugar fluctuation from the stress to create a “high.”

This causes “acting” out behavior or poor impulse control and a form of the obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) which Dr. Bonnie believes can be treated, controlled and even cured with a special diet free of sugar; taking supplements to create clarity and good judgment to minimize the OCD and control impulses; and special exercise to create the “high” from the endorphin rush.

The high from the endorphin rush is a similar rush the sexual harasser experiences with thrill-seeking and dangerous behavior. My opinion is treatment centers alone do not suffice, as the diet change, exercise and supplements are not part of the treatment. If people take the supplements described and stick to the special low sugar diet and psychotherapy if followed, they can be treated and even cured.

To avoid seasons cheating, it’s important to keep this in mind that during this season, starting now until after the New Year. There are high expectations for fun combined with job and family stress which leads to high emotions and correspondingly low inhibitions.

If you are a partygoer, you may be just as tempted to indulge in extramarital sex, as you are to pig out on fattening food.

It’s important to realize that “emptiness” is at its peak during the holidays. Why? Nostalgia and yearning from warm memories from the innocence of childhood make us vulnerable to temptation.

Remember, monogamy is a conscious choice, and you cannot make that choice when vulnerable.

People are looking to reclaim a lost utopia during the holidays for unmet needs and frustrations and hurt from either their childhood or being in or out of a relationship.

Adultery becomes a natural painkiller during times of stress and blood fluctuations from stress helps to create a thrill-seeking “cocktail.” Adding sugar or alcohol fuels the “thrill seeking” behavior where there is no clarity of judgment to hold that line (where monogamy and “proper” behavior would be a choice.)

A lot of the sexual harassers in the news over the past two months are examples of this.

It’s time we stop shaming and blaming as we did with alcoholism and not only treat this as a disease but see as it a disease. The OCD, the lack of clarity, and judgment, along with poor impulse control can be changed with the protocol I outlined.

We are now seeing a shift where women are speaking out because they realize that by doing so, they are no longer enabling the behavior. This, however, is not enough. This behavior needs to be seen as a disease that needs treatment rather than shame and judgment, or it will rear its ugly head over and over again.

If we want the harassment to stop, we need to TREAT the problem and not judge those who have the problem.

We are now seeing a flood of people who have experienced harassment, both men, and women. This is a wake-up call for all of us.

Doesn’t this tell us something if so many people in our society are experiencing this type of treatment and staying quiet about it? It’s important not to make light of the situation at hand, but this disease is just as prevalent, in my opinion, its a HEALTH issue like alcoholism, obesity, and diabetes. It’s good that this disease is finally getting the attention that it needs, although in a negative light. We still don’t have the UNDERSTANDING that this is a disease that I call the biochemical craving for connection.

Its time we stop blaming and shaming and get these thrill seekers the help they need instead of firing them.

As we are now seeing this is an epidemic. And just like obesity, diabetes and alcohol go together, adultery/sexual harassment and sugar also go together.

So many innocent men and women are affected by harassment, and since there is NO recourse in place when they do speak out its time we do something about this!

We need to TREAT this problem and not just JUDGE those with the problem.

From my practice and from my experience from childhood with my father who was an adulterer and cured his problem. With his help, I found that there is a link between, sugar, diet, stress and adultery/harassment. It is hard for all of us to see because adultery/sexual harassment is so hurtful to so many people. We are so turned off and put off by this behavior that it is hard to see as a DISEASE.

This is a societal EPIDEMIC that needs to stop NOW!

Step 1 is to speak out.
Step 2 is to STOP IT!
Step 3 is to treat it and not judge it.

Firing people is just putting a band-aid over the cut with cleaning it out.

Again, I refer to this disease as the biochemical craving for connection.

The time is NOW to fix this, my father did and so can any adulterer/sexual harasser who follows the protocol I referred to earlier.

We want to help you prevent cheating in your relationship this holiday season, get our FREE online resource!

Here is to finding and keeping real love!

Dr. Bonnie Eaker-Weil (Dr. Bonnie) is a relationship expert known as one of America’s best therapists, and by New York Magazine as one of New York City’s best therapists.  US Commerce Association voted Dr. Bonnie Best Therapist 2011-2017.

Known as “The Adultery Buster” and the “No. 1 Love Expert,” she is the best-selling author of Adultery: The Forgivable Sin (adapted into a Lifetime movie starring actress Kate Jackson), Make Up, Don’t Break Up: Finding and Keeping Love for Singles and Couples, Can We Cure and Forgive Adultery?, Staying Not Straying, How Not to (S)mother Your Man and Keep a Woman Happy, and Financial Infidelity; The #1 Relationship Wrecker.

Relationship Questions & Answer from Doctor Bonnie

Celebrate Our Anniversary And Our Romance Magic

Celebrate Our Anniversary And Our Romance Magic

We’re celebrating our anniversary and real life love – the kind that lasts forever – is the most magical heart-melting gift life has to offer.

In the last chapter of my book Make Up, Don’t Break Up titled “I Did It, So Can You!” I wrote it because most of my patients and people in general who don’t believe they can get married after the age of 40, that time when our biological clocks are ticking.  In this chapter, I visualized and believed that I could get married again.  After years of not dating, my mentor asks why I was not dating or married yet; he mentioned he believed I was scared to get married again because I was so into my career.

After hearing that, I began my therapist work with not only couples but single people like myself who have never been able to get married and hearing the loud tick of their biological clock.  And what I found was, I had the same fears that I thought all the men I met at the time which was commitment issues, I was fearful as we, as we all are at this stage.

With that said, when I wrote Make Up, Don’t Break Up I wanted to share with everyone how I got over my fears and how my husband got over his as well.  When I say I did it so can you I am so happy my husband, and I found each other. Because we did not stop the relationship before it really got started, which is what a lot of single people do, I did it when I was dating we made it happen.  We put our own barriers in the way, not realizing we are holding ourselves back.

In this last chapter of the book, I Did It So Can You; I talked about our Smart Heart Vow:

“I will connect with you,

detach myself from my own thoughts

and emotions so I can hear you and walk in your shoes.”

It’s our 25th anniversary, and we realized we’d been together 30 years, which is amazing, and we would not be together if we didn’t do the Smartheart Skills and dialogue that my husband developed.  While dating, whenever we had a fight he would dance me around the room and I realized by doing this, it made me feel better, my endorphins were going off.

In our vows, he called me the guardian of connection which is interesting because in makeup, Don’t Break Up I talk about the woman making the first move.

I made the first move by helping him get over his fears.  Many times women think the man should make the first move, so they wait, and the man doesn’t make the first move because he may be more afraid of rejection than the woman.  That term guardian of connection that he referred to in our vows meant to him that if it weren’t for me, we wouldn’t be getting married, so I was the one who connected both of us.

He also talked about me being electric and magic and how I helped him see the world differently because I like to have fun and he has been a more serious and a workaholic.  So, because of me he’s been sowing the flowers and seeing the world very differently.  Love is fragile, and we had Calla Lillies (flowers) in our wedding because they are very fragile.

Just like those flowers, he said they were fragile like our love which had to be watered, maintained and taken care of or it will die.  We follow those Smartheart Skills and dialogue, creates a bond, makes you feel safe, it’s mutuality, using love instead of fear to get you closer every day.  That later led to Fantasy Friday’s which is what we will be doing on our anniversary.

Fantasy Friday is every week one of us kidnaps the other and doesn’t say what we’re doing, and the other person is not allowed to complain. It’s a surprise, and the element of surprise is always good for the dopamine because it always gives you that excitement and novelty in a relationship.

This week we’ve moved the date to Sunday (Fantasy Sunday 😉 to celebrate our anniversary.

The Country Club where we got married is a half-mile away from our home; we took a pontoon boat to the club the day of the wedding.  It was a different kind of wedding, we docked the boat and got married outside despite the fact that it was windy and the canopy was blowing.  It looked like a storm was coming with all the wind that was blowing through.  But as soon as we docked our boat the sun came out.  Everyone clapped and was excited.  And that is the way our life has been.  When we found each other we were both coming out of stormy relationships and then we met, and it was a ray of sunshine.  We love water; so living on the lake and by the east river is very special to us.

Fairy tales may not come true, but the magic of true connection outshines even the best of fantasies.  Don’t let love pass you by.  Go out and make it happen.  You deserve to have the best life has to offer, so reach for the stars, keep your face to the sunshine, and remember that without the rain and the wind, there would be no flowers.

I did it, so can you!

From my heart to yours,

Dr. Bonnie Eaker Weil