what's in rubberbands and ropes?

Ah, ... so I mentioned rubberbands and theories a few posts ago.  I've been pondering this a bit over the past couple years, and more recently, the past couple weeks.  Conclusion.  Yes, I believe them. 

Rubberband Theory:
So this was the invention of John Gray, author of Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.  Awesome and worthwhile read if you haven't read it yet.  Synopsis: the rubberband theory refers to the male intimacy cycle.  Men lose themselves when he has been deeply intimate with a woman for an extended period of time - in pulling away and going into a "cave" (figuratively), it's a way for him to find himself again.  Gray says, "Pulling away gives him time to reestablish his personal boundaries and fulfill his need to feel independent."  So that's the rubber band theory. 

Advice for the woman who has a partner in "cave" mode:

1. Don't chase, pull, force it, demand from him.  Give him space. 
2. Trust in your man, your relationship.  Rubberband stretches away - and rubberband will bounce back to you stronger than before.  Rubberband and cave time is good for him and the relationship.
3. Take care of yourself. Remember what I wrote before?  Confidence is a woman's inner goddess - hang with the girls, do girls' trips or girls' night out, spa days, read a book, chick flicks, ... 

Rope Theory:
Now rope theory - I had never heard of this before until I overheard the crew of colleagues I work with in my day job as a happy-go-lucky IT consultant.  It's always so interesting to hear this stuff from the man's point of view.  Background - my IT consulting colleagues are generally men.  No surprise there - IT, high tech, men.  My particular company, group of IT consulting colleagues are good men.  Good people - very important to me.  In general, my colleagues are happily married devoted family men - so when I heard them chuckling away at this rope theory, my ears perked up and away I went asking them questions about it whenever I got a chance.

Rope theory: when in a relationship, men have to remember to "pull the relationship rope".  Rein the rope in.  I heard this and I went, "WHAT, FOR SERIOUS!?"  Wait, what do you mean?  So you've heard me say it before many times, man must treasure his woman, woman must respect her man, - this totally goes along with that idea.  I realized that until very recently, I've been looking at the relationship bus all wrong.  The bus driver is not the man, it's the woman.  The navigator is not the woman, it's the man.  Net - the man has to give his woman a lot of rope, to say what she wants to say, to be who she is, do what she wants to do; and if she starts driving the bus off the prescribed path, the man's gotta pull the rope in and get the bus back on track.  (Of course, all this in an appropriate manner and respectfully.) 

An example one colleague gave me was one where he described his very extroverted wife who loves to pack their social calendar.  He's a very introverted guy and doesn't enjoy the social events as much.  The events become draining - and home duties start piling up when the couple is out often.  He reigns the rope in and says something to the effect of, let's take it more easy this weekend and take care of our home... what do you think? 

There's a bit of truths in these theories.  I'm liking these.  More to ponder...

~Arry

is it okay now for me to fall?

Read 2 books this weekend. I had been resisting this book for so long but finally broke down and read it (after cleverly loading onto my delightfully naked Kindle) the yesterday after my catchup phone call with Kate. She said I had to read it. Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.

I agree. Definite must read. I had no idea it would be so insightful. Mina mentioned it cleverly yesterday too. She is so wise.

24 hours later, I spent today pretty upbeat and optimistic about the world around me. My usual routine involves regular pep-talks with Mochi (yes, my dog) and my imaginary BFF whom I have inner monologues with. I read blogs now. I find words of wisdom, quotes, write down thoughts that give me that "umph" of emotional caffeine to get me up and going - I tweet them. I do. I put on a happy face, I put on an air of Miss Tough Independent Super Cool Fun Go Getter Chick - I go about my day. Today, that did not happen quite according to plan.

6AM - Woke. Energized. Threw in a couple blog entries. Felt proud. Yea!!
830AM - Walked Mochi. Started eyes down tho. Reminded myself, hold your head up. It's ok.
9AM - Back in bed. Reading. Semi energized and optimistic (from the Mochi-walk pep talk)
10AM - Sinking and my mind is vacillating between an emotional blank stare and sleep
11AM - force myself to get up and clean
Noon - Work meeting. Met with Matt to go over piles of financials and PnLs.
2PM - Grab brother and go to dear Sonja's place for an amazing meal. Stuffed my face for the first time in weeks. Food actually stayed in - and is still in.
530PM - Back home. Pangs of regret and realizations of relief start hitting me.
630PM - Advil. Advil. Advil. My body hurts. My head hurts. My heart hurts.
730PM - Distracting myself via emails, business plans, BRDs
800PM - In bed. "Darkness" is setting. My body still hurts. My head hurts. My heart hurts.
10PM - Another realization: I haven't allowed myself any time in the "dark" side in months.
1030PM - Writing about it so I can share it with someone other than my inner BFF.

It's been a rough past few months. When the stress gets loaded on, I tend to try and load on more because that forces me to go into "survival" mode - I get more done, I put on a stoic can-do attitude, I'm here for you. Work stress, my family in town, brother moving to Seattle, relationship, businesses, projects, friends in hospital, people to meet, things to do, smiles to wear, money to raise, people to help, smiles to share.

I haven't let myself just be in a few months (Result: on the verge of tears always. A passive aggressive happy yet bitter attitude - commentary made on this the other week by colleagues). It hit me today - I think I'm actually finally allowed to be right now. I'm going to allow myself to be - to not worry about being strong for someone else. They are okay - they will be okay - I trust that. I'm going to fall now and deal with all the negative emotions, the hurt, the tiredness, the loneliness, the pain, the fear of letting someone down, fear of being fat, fear of looking ugly, ... and just be. Falling hard.

That's the realization. While men need to retreat into caves to deal with solving problems/ overwhelming stress, be selfish and find their inner "mojo"... women need time and a safe place to just be, to be weak and vulnerable, to release sadness/anger/pain/tiredness - that's how women find our inner goddess. Don't judge her while she's at the bottom of the well.

~Arry
PS. Fail - blog post greater than 500 words. Oh well.

how to play the game the right way: are you worth it?

Recently, I read a Steve Harvey book recommended to me by a neighbor. Steve's an actor, comedian, radio personality (the Steve Harvey morning show), and author of "Act like a Lady, Think like a Man".

There's a short story in it that I want to share with you. The point of the story is that 1) men always have a plan, and 2) men act accordingly. Women need to get into the habit of figuring out if his plan includes her in it as long term potential - and a woman does that by having standards. Values. Requirements. Standards from day 1. Always. Men call it high maintenance... high expectations.

So ladies... say it with me, "I'm so worth it".

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... one of my daughters brought home her alleged "boyfriend" to the house for a family dinner. You should know that my father-in-law is one of the smartest men I ever met in my life - he's a man I look up to, and I look up to very few men. The things that come out of his mouth are usually, if not always, on point and make me think: The same was true this particular evening when he lined up this boy on the living room couch and asked him plain as day, "So what's your plan with my granddaughter?"

The young man, about thirty, asked very simply, "What do you mean by that?"
"I mean just what I asked," my father-in-law said. "What is your plan?"
"I don't have no plan," he said.
"Then what are you doing?" my father-in-law asked.
"I'm just trying to get to know her," he insisted.
"But what's your plan? Where is this going?" my father-in-law snapped back.

Finally, under the pressure of the questioning, the squared shoulders, and two straight-faced black men making it clear we know the game, the boy finally broke down and said those four fateful words: "We're just kicking it."

My father-in-law sat there and stared at him for a minute, satisfied, finally, that he's gotten to the bottom of it. He tasted blood. "Okay, then - cool," my father-in-law said quietly. "Let's share that with her, that you're just 'kicking-it.' Let's see how she feels being the kicked one. Let's take that back to her."

She looked so crazy when, a few minutes later, we let her know about her man's plans - that they're just "kicking it". Because she knows that from our constant talks and updates and sessions about men when it comes to relationships, you're either being kicked or you're potential long-term material. It can't be both. Clearly, he had a plan that was different from what she wanted.

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If a man likes what he sees - he will always find some way to you. Always. He will always want to sleep with you. So - Women need standards. Values. Requirements. Let the man know up front - and if your price is too high to pay, suggest that he move on.

Men always have a plan. I tend to think that a man knows very (let me stress ~very~) early on whether or not you (the woman) are long term potential (in the forever sense). If so, he'll do is damn best to make it happen. Watch his actions. Don't "stick it out" with a man hoping he'll come around, change, etc... he may, but really, do you want to be with a man by default, or because it was the "right thing to do"? Ideally, no.

~Arry

the platinum rule of a polarized relationship

The platinum relationship rule goes something like this:

Man must treasure his woman;
Woman must respect her man.

Many of those who hang around me enough have heard me say this many times. Some even say that I sound like an old lady or a fortune cookie - yea, so what? I've spent at least the past decade of my life trying to understand relationships - and this is the holy grail to the world of relationships (between man and woman - other gender pairings, I do not know) that sums up my beliefs.

What do I mean by having spent the past decade of my life trying to understand relationships? For one, I grew up in a very conservative family where the past generations of women did not date. When they came of age, the family found a respectable suitor and they married. It's the way it was. Unfortunately, my mother and some aunts did not marry their preferred choices - and some are still married, and some are not. I decided early on that I would take charge of my own destiny. I’ve done things differently than the family prefers. I wanted to test and learn about the world of relationships before happily committing to my one and only forever. I've dated younger, older, shorter, investment banker, lawyer, deep sea diver, poet, rocket scientist, engineer, ... (and by dated - I mean researched, and anywhere from 3 dates to full on years of real relationships, but mostly 3 dates or weeks). I also spend countless hours talking to people about relationships - why did they marry, how did they know that s/he was the one, do they fight, why do they work, why didn't they work, etc...?

Polarized relationships: This is probably worth another blog article, but I'll give you the quick and dirty. Today, many people believe the ideal relationship is one where you are equal partners, everything split 50-50, and right down the middle. Man and woman sharing responsibilities 50-50 in everything: cooking, cleaning, yard work, etc. Boring. Right. Why? Because men and women are different. We have different needs. We should have different roles and responsibilities (think 80-20 rule). Polarity between a man and a woman is what creates that tension between two people, also known as chemistry, zazazoom, and passion. Without it, you might as well be dating/be married to your brother or sister. Men and women are not equal (at least in relationship speak).

So back to the platinum rule of relationships: Now, agreeing that men and women are different and understanding that a polarized relationship is important to a happy relationship - with mutual respect towards each other a given, of course (emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually) - this is the platinum rule. Man, who loves to be the protector driving towards his vision of happiness, needs a woman partner whom he'll treasure and find his sense of freedom/peace with. Woman, who loves to be giving and filled with love needs a man partner, whom she'll respect and entrust him to drive/steer their journey together. Yes, not so "P.C." - we need to get over that.

As for me, that means I need to be with a man whom I can trust - where I can be free to let go of some of these reigns and take care of the things that really matter to me: family, home, art/ music, helping others, and changing the world.

~Arry