HaveTheRelationshipYouWant

What would it be like to just be?

...

...

What would happen if I let go of trying to control or manage my husband or boyfriend
and his behavior?

...

...
What are some of the things (reminding him, asking him to do things over and over,
etc.) that I might be comfortable letting go of?

...

...
The way to step into authenticity and vulnerability is not to change your man so that you
can trust him, but to learn to trust yourself first.
This next exercise is a meditation. I call it simply a Sensual Meditation. The idea is to
actually experience a new level of openness and vulnerability that might help you, anytime
you want, to answer those questions on an ongoing basis.

Tool: The Sensual Meditation

1. When you practice this, you may want to be alone in your home, or at least alone
in your bedroom, and feel safe that no one will enter. Wear as little clothing as
comfortable.

2. Lie down on your bed. Spread your arms out to the sides and relax your legs.
Bring your awareness to the air around you, the air touching your face, your
hands, your feet.

3. Breathe in and allow your body to meet the air around you as it rises with your
breath. Consciously relax into the bed. Feel yourself melting, like candle wax, onto
the bed.

4. If your head is filled with thoughts and chatter about the day, or about how you
feel doing this, just let them go. Sink your awareness into your body, and how
relaxed and molten it’s getting.

5. Take your breath into each part of your body that you notice – your neck,
shoulders, stomach, thighs.

6. Imagine that the air around you, and the sun or moon outside your window, are
touching you, literally.

7. Allow your body to make contact with them.
8. Keep breathing, keep melting.

Allow your heart to expand to meet and take in the air around you, and at the same
time, allow the energy flowing from the ends of your fingers to move outward toward
the walls of the room, past the walls, so that it feels as if you’re being touched by
more and more air, more and more space.

Do this as often as you like, and as you become more comfortable, expand the
experience even more by going without any clothes at all. Allow the air, the light, the
energy in the room to touch you. Let the touch become more intimate, until you feel
almost as though you’re melting and floating away at the same time.

Take some time to write down some of the sensory details of this experience. Try to
express on paper the colors, sensations, textures, atmosphere of the meditation.

The more you do this, the deeper you’ll be able to go.

If you’re willing, you can take it a step further, into a Sexual Meditation:

Tool: The Fantasy Lover

Here, the process is the same. Only this time you bring your husband or boyfriend, or
your favorite movie star, or a fantasy man, through your imagination, into the room
with you.

• Imagine him being there. Take your time looking at him, and using the breathing,
relaxing and expanding techniques, let him get as close to you as you can tolerate.
• Imagine that he is very passionate, very sweet and loving with you, that the look
in his eyes excites you.
• Go very slowly, allowing your imagination to take over, allowing your husband or
boyfriend to take on the persona of the man of your dreams, allowing yourself to
respond.
• Only go as far as you enjoy – if your mind intervenes with anger, or other
thoughts, and you are unable to let them go, stop for now and instead process the
feelings that are coming up.
• As an alternative idea, bring in a fantasy lover that is not your husband or
boyfriend. Allow yourself to go as far out, and as deep inside yourself as you can
tolerate, allowing the sexual aspect of the meditation to go as far as you can
tolerate.

This exercise is about becoming a more sexual, sensual being on your own. Whatever
you open up in yourself through these meditations becomes yours.

The new energy you’ve experienced on your own will transform your relationship
beyond sex.

Bring this experience into other parts of your life. When you touch any object,
become aware of your arm, and how it’s moving through the air, how it meets the
energy of the object, how you’re moving through space.

When you have sex with your husband or boyfriend, or lover for now, breathe and
melt in the same way, and allow your energy to experience the energy of his touch.
Instead of trying to accomplish anything, respond to him by simply being.

This is very different than being sleepy and just lying there. Opening your heart,
breathing, melting, and allowing yourself to be vulnerable to his eyes, ears, and touch
is extraordinarily sensual. And if it’s new to you, it’s also an act of bravery.

Tool: The Portable Sensual Meditation

Now I want you to take this sensual meditation out into the world – as a moment-by-
moment, day-by-day “practice.” It works like this – you:

Feel your surroundings, listen to people you know and care for, and listen to strangers
you meet.

Listen for birds, listen for children and music, and most of all, listen for the voice of
your own heart.

Your emotions are your compass in the world. Tune out the chatter in your head by
allowing what you feel – really, literally feel, touch, hear, see and taste in the present
moment – to fill your life.

Take this portable version of the Sensual Meditation with you everywhere. Do it at
the market, waiting in line at the DMV, sitting at the PTA meeting, at Speed Dating, at
the movies.

You can use it while you’re waiting in your car to pick up your children, waiting for
your date to arrive, washing the dishes, talking across the table on a first date or in
the middle of a potential argument with your man.

Anytime you feel yourself caught up in the chatter of your head, or split in a million
different directions trying to multi-task. Anywhere you can take a moment to breathe
and focus on what’s right in front of you:

1. Put your hand on the table, or chair, or shopping basket, or whatever is in front of
you.

2. Feel the surface of it. Run your hand along it. Take a deep breath and then let the
air out.

3. Now just allow yourself to feel the piece of furniture or the object – wood, plastic,

metal, glass. Stay connected to the object and the feeling of realness, of solidity.

You may instantly feel all the chatter in your head stop and the energy from your
thoughts move into your hand and the real thing you’re touching.

Don’t worry if the feeling only lasts for an instant. That’s all you need.
4. Now hold the other arm gently out to the side, away from your body just a bit. Let

it hang in the air.
5. Imagine the air touching your arm, caressing it, imagine the light in the room

touching you. Allow it to touch the skin of your arm.
6. Take a breath and allow the air to touch your face.
7. Close your eyes for a second and allow the air, and the sound of people’s voices to

touch you.
That’s it.
This is a small, simple thing you can do anytime. If you can do even a little of that
in public, imagine what you can do alone, in your bedroom, all by yourself, with no
clothes on!

Chapter 19

Putting It All Together

“Being ladylike or gentlemanly and denying one’s anger simply results in the unconscious sabotage of
relationships. Expressing one’s anger is transformative because it allows for a true and open, honest
relationship. It makes way, therefore, for love.” (Carol Pearson)

Deciding to express feelings – even the ones you don’t like – in a way your man can hear is
pretty much asking yourself to dismantle your entire defense system. You can do it overnight
if you’re brave enough, and yet, one step at a
time – baby ones – will do the job faster than
you can imagine without shocking your
system.

Taking the leap to speaking about our
feelings when we’ve spent our whole lives
working very hard to do just the opposite –
whether we’re afraid of what someone will
think or do, or whether we simply want to
be more highly conscious people and have
more refined emotions – takes courage and
commitment to the process.

The way to refining our emotional reactions
is in not resisting the ones we actually have.

Denying who we are now impedes our
progress toward who we want to be.

The moment we acknowledge and share where we are at this moment, the more quickly
we move through it, bond with the human being we’ve just shared with, and go on to the
emotions we feel better about.

Here are some things to consider along the way:

1. The relationship comes before the restaurant, the movie, the route you take, whether
or not it’s fun or pleasant or what you want, the garbage, the chore, the mess, the
scheduling, the bill paying, the household issues.

2. Saying how you feel (without mentioning your man at all) honors the relationship and
demonstrates to your man that you trust him. (No matter how it seems to you or him in
the heat of the moment,)

3. Saying how you feel is sharing how you feel.

4. Sharing how you feel is sharing yourself.

5. Sharing yourself is not giving, it’s surrendering your defenses and just being.

6. Just being is allowing connection with the person in whose presence you are being.

7. In order to just be, you must surrender your defenses.

8. In order to surrender your defenses, you must trust your own boundaries.

9. Having boundaries means being able to say “no.” It’s expressing what you do not want –
about the way you’re treated and spoken to and the way your life is – even if you have to
say it over and over again.

10. Boundaries – or expressing “no” and what you don’t want – are about the relationship:
How you are treated, how you are spoken to, how your life is. It’s not about the garbage
or the household chores, or the movie, or even about sex. The garbage, the mess, the
schedule, the logistics, whether or not you’ll have sex on a date – these are chores and
details and choices about which you have a preference.

Sometimes you feel strongly about a preference – I don’t want to take out the garbage
or paint that wall. I don’t feel ready to have sex yet. I don’t want to be just a “friend.” Or
even, as you learn more about Circular Dating – I don’t want to be a “girlfriend…” Saying
I don’t want about a preference is another way of expressing and sharing a feeling – it’s
not about your core boundaries. Those core boundaries are essentially you believing
that you trust yourself, that you trust yourself to take good care of yourself in the
presence of a man, and that you’ll be okay no matter what. It’s you treating yourself so
well and lovingly that any treatment less than that from anyone else doesn’t feel right to
you. It’s you standing up for treating yourself beautifully.

11. If he does not take your feelings into account, you can either continue to share how you
feel about that, say what you don’t want, and ask again what he thinks should be done,
or – if you cannot tolerate the energy – leave the room.

12. Negotiating is asking a man what he thinks you should do together to solve the problem,
after he takes into account both your feelings and your boundaries.

Use the techniques of saying I feel… I don’t want… What do you think we should do?
until solutions to your pain – the emotional distance in the relationship, the amount of
time together, the anger you feel and can’t get rid of, the trash piling up, the light bulb
that needs changing, the mess in the living room, or whatever else has been gnawing
at you and hasn’t been fixed by small expressions of feeling and conversations in the
moment – are presented and agreed on.

13. This negotiation, even though it centers on solving a problem, must be about the
relationship. It’s about restoring, creating and enhancing harmony, connection, and
romance. Only superficially is it about the garbage, the smoke detector, the mess, the

schedules, the phone calls, the money.

14. Whether you’re single or married, expressing your feelings, negotiating, setting
boundaries and choosing your words is a way to bring your man closer and allow him to
feel safe to share his feelings with you. When a man feels safe with you, he’ll feel more
attracted to you and be drawn to you.

If you’re dating, you’ll begin to notice a difference in how he interacts with you. He’ll want
to know more about you and he’ll really listen when you express what you like, don’t like and
want. He’ll go out of his way to make sure you feel loved. He’ll surprise you.

If you’re married, you’ll notice that your husband will begin to open up more to you and be
compelled to spend time with you. His affection and adoration for you will grow. He’ll step
up and be pro-active to meet your needs and desires, simply because he wants to. And he’ll
feel great doing it!

For a woman who wants to be the receptive, feminine-energy partner, all these Tools
are about authenticity, vulnerability and the expression of feeling. It’s never about blame,
responsibility, agenda or outcome. It’s about getting the relationship you want by putting the
relationship first, and submitting to the sublime dance of masculine and feminine energies.

Chapter 20

I Believe In You

We all say we’d give anything for love, and yet when it comes to real intimacy, really
showing ourselves in all our vulnerable glory and truly trusting ourselves enough to cast our
lot in with a man when we can never predict
what the future holds – we all instinctively
want to shy away.

We want it both ways – to be adored but still
have control. To have a life partner who’s a
real and good human being, and yet manage
him. To be loved, cherished, understood,
heard and cared for, and yet tell him how
to do it.We can’t have it both ways. And in
this book, you’ve learned what only very few
women know: How to give up control over
a man in order to feel and experience real
love with him, AND... how to turn that same
desire for control into a mastery of our own
powerful selves. Into a working knowledge of
our own habits and patterns and inner voices
so that we can feel incredibly strong, desirable, powerful, useful and magnificent enough to
surrender to love.

And I know you can do this. I have total faith in you – and I have complete faith in these
Tools.

I know they work because I’ve seen my own life, and the lives of so many of my clients,
turn around quickly.

What’s in this book for you is almost a new language. A language of your heart – feelings
and sensations.

This new language is meant to replace the old one – the one where you yell at yourself and
accept the judgments and pronouncements and instructions of your Nasty Voice.

The one where you see a man as the enemy, to be watched with suspicion and not trusted
to do the simplest thing without your approval and instructions – almost as though your own
Nasty Voice has somehow translated into your own voice when you talk to or think about
him. This new language will help you connect with a good man almost instantly, and revive

a fading connection just as fast. If you practice these Tools – I mean really practice them
– you’ll see a difference in your love life within days. AND you’ll feel SO good you may be
shocked.

Most of all – I know you can do this because I believe in you. I know you found me and this
book for a reason. And I know that if you practice these Tools, you’ll see them work magic in
your life.

You may not feel the truth of what I’m about to say right now – but, as you practice the
Tools, you will: You are a magnet for love just because you’re a woman. You already ARE
what he wants. You already ARE a magnificent life partner for a great man – one who’ll
suddenly show up, or the man you’re with right now.

What this book and the Tools in it will do for you is to finally bring down the blocks to love
that you and I and all of us have been holding up our whole lives.

And once they’re down – love will come pouring in.

Things will change. You will change, and he will change, and everything you thought a
relationship was supposed to be will change.

Please feel free to visit my website at www.HavetheRelationshipYouWant.com and take a
look at all the in-depth Tools and programs I offer to help you bring him closer and turn your
love life around.

Please let me know how this all works for you – and keep me up to date on everything
you’re doing.

My Story

“You can close your eyes to the things you do not want to see, but you cannot close your heart to the things
you do not want to feel.” (Anonymous)

I’m a trained coach, I was once a crisis counselor, and I have a wonderful private practice as
a relationship coach for women. All of my clients use my Tools, and so do I – every day – and
yet, my biggest credential is my personal story.

My whole life, up until about 6 months before I met my husband, I was the queen of taking
crumbs. The queen of hanging in and hanging on to men who didn’t love me.

I was the queen of working hard, too. I worked hard at flirting, and I was very successful
– so successful that I’d get the guy for the night, think I was lucky, and then never see him
again. It was like, well, he didn’t want to turn me down, I was cute – but he certainly wasn’t
inspired to be with me.

Or I’d be in a “relationship” for more than a year, only to find out he’d always felt we were
“friends.” I could rope ‘em in, but I couldn’t keep ‘em.

So, do you – like I did – sometimes feel like you’re beating your head against a wall?

Like if you could just figure him out – what he’s thinking, what he means when he says
something, what he feels, if you could get him to open up and TELL you what he feels – he’d
just KNOW you’re perfect for each other, he’d shape up, he’d grab you up. But it doesn’t
happen.

It’s really easy for me or any relationship expert to say, “Well, if he’s not doing the job, get
rid of him. Say “next.”

But when you’re involved, when your heart’s invested, and when your hormones are all
attached to him – you don’t want to do that. You want to do EVERYTHING you can possibly
do – everything you read in a magazine, everything anyone says that might work. You just
don’t want to give up on a man who feels good to you – even if he actually feels BAD most of
the time.

I know this. I’ve done talk therapy, psychoanalysis, hypnosis, bodywork, written many
books, plays and film scripts and even more journals, and tried all sorts of therapeutic
techniques.

Everything opened up my heart or my mind a little bit more. I became addicted to the “a-
ha” moments of therapy.

But nothing seemed to change in my relationships. My first marriage to a man I adored had

disintegrated, leaving my self-esteem somewhere below floor level. I was working my way
through dead-end relationships and choosing men who couldn’t go anywhere anyway.

Romances lasted way longer than they should have because I put up with so much. I made
completely wrong choices from beginning to end. I thought I was ready to make the leap into
a great relationship, but I didn’t know how.

Getting Ready For My Mr. Right

For me, information was the missing link. I was successfully working on myself, uncovering
old feelings, changing my actions, but I was like a child in some ways. Getting the great
relationship I wanted and then keeping it great was like learning a foreign language. I needed
a “how to.”

I found the instructions in magazine articles, in books, and from men themselves. I
experimented. I took what I learned into the real world and used dating as a tutorial. I picked
men’s brains, asked about all their old relationships and what they thought and did and felt.

What I was actually doing – before I even knew what it was or put a name to it – was
Circular Dating. I didn’t call it that until more than two decades later when I began coaching
women to use all the Tools I’d been creating my own life.

Circular Dating is what I call “free therapy.” It’s not about “dating” (although it can include
actual dating) – it’s about using my Tools in every interaction with a man (and with women
and children, too) out in the world. It’s essentially practicing my Tools “out in the field”
instead of just working alone.

I used Circular Dating this way: I dated men, often several at a time, and “used” my time
with them to learn more about myself, how relationships work or don’t work for men, what I
needed from a man, what kind of man could really make me happy – and, most important –
how to express myself as a “girl.” How to express my feelings in words a man could hear and
love.

Circular Dating is not about the goal of finding your Mr. Right. I know this sounds weird,
and deeply counter-intuitive – but the more you focus on the goal of finding love, the less
likely you are to attract it!

It’s not because of some rule, or “law” about how things work when you want something –
it’s because goal-setting itself comes from our heads, and not our hearts. And the moment a
man senses your “agenda,” he’s less attracted to you.

Instead, Circular Dating is about YOU. It’s about practicing the Tools in this book, and
discovering how incredibly attractive you are to all men just by focusing on doing the Tools,
and not on their outcome.

Focusing on the practice gets you the results. Focusing on the results gets you what you’ve
always gotten – heartache and disappointment..

How Circular Daring Completely Changed My Vibe

I started out needy and desperate, and no matter how much I tried to pretend I wasn’t –
any man could see I was. And he felt nothing for me. Essentially, if I wasn’t going to show him
who I really was inside, then he sure wasn’t going to open up to me, either!

But when I stopped making any man the center of my life – and instead focused on making
me the center of my life – I automatically became the center of every man who came into my
life.

In my program Targeting Mr. Right, I show you why and how Circular Dating works to
get your emotional needs met by men and how it works to get you the great relationship
you want with your one man. You can read more about Targeting Mr. Right and my other
programs at the end of this book.

When I stopped chasing men – and stopped chasing my desire to have a good man and a
forever relationship with him – it seemed like all the good men around found me.

I Circular Dated, learned a lot about myself and about men, and actually had a great time
doing it...

...And then I met my husband.

He fell into my lap. I couldn’t shake him off no matter how hard I tried. And I really tried.
I thought he wasn’t my type, I thought he was too nice. I didn’t get that intense thrill from
being with him that I felt with other men – the men who never “worked out.”

I put him off for weeks, and then, finally, I looked at him sitting across from me in my living
room and it was as if a mist – straight from a romance novel – wafted across his face. It was
absolutely crystal clear to me that he was “the one.” That I was going to marry him and be
with him for the rest of my life.

And I was not happy about it. I was still hooked into that whole “junkie” mentality of
chasing men who either didn’t or couldn’t want me. I resisted him, but he won me over.

His good-guyness became exciting, as I found myself actually being taken to dinner, asked
out consistently, pursued and looked at as though I was a goddess.

He was actually adorable – much more handsome and appealing than the Karate instructor
or the would-be Jesuit priest or any of the hundreds of men I’d once thought I wanted who’d
offered me so little – and I finally got it.

I wanted to get married and have children, and there he was – right in the nick of time: My
perfect-for-me man. He seemed “ready.” Ready to get married and have children with me –
and that made me want to marry him and have children with him even more.

His “readiness” was a huge part of what made me fall for him. I knew he was in love with
me, and the time seemed about as right as a time could get. We got along, we had fun, I
started thinking about weddings and how he’d propose to me – and I actually expected him

to propose on New Year’s Eve.

Only he didn’t.

When The Unthinkable Happened

New Year’s Eve came, I got dressed up, and instead of the brilliant, movie-like proposal
when the silver ball dropped in Times Square, I got the “speech” about how he “wasn’t
ready.”

He said he “needed more time” – that if I really and truly cared about him, I’d give him the
time he needed.

I was stunned. It felt like a brick hit me and the floor dropped out from under me at
the same time. I almost immediately felt myself falling into an intense state of panic and
desperation, and, yes – fury.

Here I’d gotten myself into not just an emotional bind, but a physical one. If we broke up,
my whole life would have to change. He wasn’t only my boyfriend – he was now also my
roommate. There was no way I could afford to stay in my apartment without him, and even
the thought of getting yet another roommate felt awful on top of the pain of thinking our
relationship was over.

I remember feeling almost violently angry, and then feeling terrified of ruining everything.

“What if all he needs is a bit more time?” I asked myself. “Do I want to ruin it by getting
upset?”

He’d worked so hard to get me – I was just confused, bewildered, angry and tired.

A Series Of Breakthroughs

I realized that instead of “firing him up” about committing to me, I’d actually taken away
my now-husband’s desire to “claim” me forever – and I’d done this over and over and over,
day in and day out, by constantly “thinking” about how I could get him to commit to me and
then by “working” to get him to commit to me.

So I shifted gears. I focused on getting my sense of power back, instead of trying to get
him. I focused on remembering everything I did and didn’t do and did and didn’t say, and
everything I felt in the very beginning of our relationship when he was totally chasing me
and couldn’t get enough of me.

I remembered what that felt like – how it felt for me to be pursued and not feel so invested
in what was going to happen down the line. How I almost didn’t care whether he was in my
life at all. How I just sort of trusted that he wanted to be with me, and allowed that to feel
good.

And instead of working so hard at the relationship and thinking about it so much, I worked
hard to feel good about myself. I focused on how things were going and how I felt about the
rest of my life, on things that had nothing to do with him. I focused on talking to him and
feeling around him the way I had at the beginning.

And Then The Light Bulb Went Off

I finally really “got” that it didn’t work with him if I just “pretended” not to care. The truth
was – I really DID care! He could see and feel straight through my pretending. And that just
made me look even needier than before.

I somehow needed to truly not be invested in what happened to our relationship. And
not because I didn’t care about him and for him – and not because I didn’t care about being
married to him.

I had to not care so much about what happened to the relationship because I knew I’d be
all right no matter what. I had to believe that if I stuck to my own plan for my life, I’d have
the relationship I wanted. Even if it wasn’t with him.

I began to Circular Date again – but this time, I actually “dated” only myself. (I still used my
developing Circular Dating concept to interact with men, flirt with them, talk to them, and
learn more about how I was being when I was relating to a man – even if it was just for a few
moments in the grocery store.)

The most dramatic move I made was going away for the weekend alone. I got a small hotel
room in Santa Barbara, packed up, drove (my knees and heart shaking) and headed directly
to where I knew there’d be friendly people – and most important – friendly men. I went
straight to the folk-dancing place an old boyfriend had once taken me to, and I had FUN!

I danced, I hung out, I talked and flirted until late with a great-looking man who played
Flamenco guitar. I did nothing but make friends with him – no kissing or anything. I went
back to the depressingly empty hotel room on my own, and then I met him and his friends
for breakfast the next morning.

And when I got home – I felt changed.

It was just a short weekend, but it made a HUGE difference in me. I felt myself for the first
time in a long time. I felt like a person, a woman, instead of someone waiting around for my
man to make up his mind about me.

And That’s When Everything Turned Around

The “energy” between us changed completely. In my own mind I became a prize he needed
to pursue in order to “win,” rather than something he was already guaranteed to have for
the rest of his life. And almost instantly, he started feeling that same thing again – that I was

the prize he wanted.

I focused on making myself happy instead of trying to make him happy – or trying to get
him to make me happy.

I knew that the road to commitment wasn’t about a series of events, or a “timeline” that
guaranteed an outcome of Happy Ever After – just as long as we followed a certain recipe of
“what needs to happen and when.”

His Relationship Timeline

Part of what helped me change things so quickly was realizing one simple thing: My now-
husband’s “Relationship Timeline” was completely different from mine. Just as ALL men’s
Relationship Timelines are completely different from ours!

By Relationship Timeline, I mean what happens in what order in the progress of the
relationship – and what all those “events” actually MEAN.

In other words, we women define important “events” completely differently than a man
does. We give them completely different meanings.

We think meeting his friends and family means something. We think dating for six months
means something. We think his “talking about the future” means something. We think the
passage of time means something. We even think his saying “I love you” means something.

And that’s just not how men work.

A man either thinks he wants to spend the rest of his life with you, or he doesn’t.
Everything else is just “dating.”

Even “boyfriend/girlfriend” doesn’t mean anything, because, well, what man wouldn’t
want you for a girlfriend?

I know that’s shocking. But the truth is, even if you’ve been with a man for a whole year –
unless you have a ring on your finger (and even then...), or whatever else you consider a final
commitment that pleases you: A trip around the world, buying a home together – he’s just
“dating” you. In his mind, you are “for now” – unless you’re for “forever.”

And there’s just no way to know if he sees you as “forever” until he takes ACTIONS that
mean forever.

So, how did I get to my Happy Ever After with the Relationship Timeline my man was on?

The Bridge To Real Commitment

I call the way to what we want – Happy Every After – “Bridging.”

I had thought – mistakenly – that he was walking along the same path I was, at the same
speed. Instead, he was stalling. And he wasn’t doing it to hurt me. In fact, trying to figure

out why he was stalling was a big part of what was holding the relationship back from fully
blossoming.

I finally realized what I needed to do and not do. Imagining a “Bridge to my Happy Ever
After,” I realized that instead of letting him pull me off my Bridge and then sitting, idling and
stuck, with him in some “pit” of frustration and despair somewhere below my bridge – I
needed to keep walking down it. No matter what.

I needed to keep my eyes and my heart on my dreams and let this particular man be
wherever he was on my bridge.

I had to keep moving, emotionally and logistically and mentally and psychologically and
imaginatively and creatively down my bridge – toward my Happy Ever After ahead of me –
and simply allow him to either get back on that bridge and LEAD me to my Happy Ever After,
or not.

And either way – I had to know I’d be okay and that things would work out the way they
were supposed to. That, if he didn’t want what I wanted, it would no longer work for me to
try to push his square peg into the round hole I wanted him in.

I had to stop wanting a “puppet” man who would do what I wanted, and learn to be with a
real man, with his own wants, needs, fears and... timeline.

In my Commitment Blueprint program, I show you how creating a Bridge from dating to
a commitment involves bridging a series of shared moments that trigger a man’s desire to
“sew you up” and make you his forever.

And then, even though I’d stopped trying to make anything happen in the relationship,
even though I’d actually stopped caring whether or not something would happen –
everything changed. Fast.

Here I was, more attractive to him when I was radiating a “whatever” vibe than I ever was
trying to make him happy. Less than two weeks later, on my birthday, he proposed to me.

We’d met on my 38th birthday, he asked me to marry him on my 39th birthday, we were
married four months later, and our daughter was born right after my 40th birthday.

And then the nightmare started all over again.

Back To The Start Line

First, affection slowed down. Laughing and being silly stopped. Sex stopped. I was getting
nervous and anxious and not sleeping well. He was moody. Angry. Withdrawing from me. We
tried couples therapy, which only made me feel angrier and more hopeless.

This went on for almost four years until, in desperation, I figured it out.

I’d learned how to attract my man, but I had no idea what to do with him when he was

mine. I’d gone back to the only behavior I knew – what I saw in my own home between my
mother and father, and what I’d done in all my other old, dead-end relationships, including
my first marriage.

I slowly began to see that what was wrong with my now miserable marriage was the same
thing that had been wrong with all my relationships. It wasn’t that he was the wrong man,
or couldn’t be intimate, or any of the other things I’d thought and heard about “men.” It was
me.

I had to find new instructions, a new mentor. But not one single woman I knew was
any more happily married than I was. Again I read, I experimented. I researched. I tried
everything I found, everything I already knew. Then, finally, it all became clear to me.

Creating Real Change

I noticed that I was saying and doing things that were completely destructive to my idea of
what a great romance and marriage should be. I was making sure there was no real intimacy,
trust and passion in the relationship, and I was angry with him about it!

Then I realized how all the men I’d ever chosen had similar characteristics, and that the
relationships had all disintegrated in the same way.

So I experimented with a few ideas. It was changes on my outside – overhauling my
language, actions and attitudes – that caught my husband’s attention, softened our
interactions, and opened the door for me to make the even bigger changes on my inside.

It was my newfound willingness to feel my feelings and express them in a way my husband
could really hear that turned my marriage around forever.

I taught myself to trust myself by setting boundaries and standing by them. Then, slowly, I
learned to surrender my need to control everything in my life.

I stopped trying to control my husband. I learned to surrender to myself, to love, to
intimacy and finally, to trust my husband. I began to believe him when he said he loved me. I
began to believe he was just fine without my help and supervision.

Sex came back. Affection came back big-time. We were having fun again. All of a sudden
we were a team, instead of two “leaders” fighting over who was in charge. I stopped trying
to “delegate” chores to him. He started smiling at me, talking with me.

All this happened in less than a month.

I just built on that, and developed my own Tools, and now, more than fifteen years later, my
marriage just gets better every day. Sometimes I stand around amazed at my good fortune. I
know that my husband is the same good man he was before, and that our amazing marriage
has created a place for us both to grow into the best people we can be, fully supported, fully
respected, fully cherished, fully loved.

And now I look at my lovely husband, smiles on both of our faces, our daughter dancing
around our loveseat like a woodland fairy in some pastoral scene, and I feel grateful all the
way to my toes. “If I’d known then what I know now…” runs through my head. And I know
that if I could do it, you really can, too.

So, If I could help you know now what I learned over many years and heartaches, what
would I tell you?

Love Doesn’t Take Hard Work

It’s a myth that you have to “work” on a relationship.

I believe we’re on this earth to learn and grow and become the best, most fulfilled,
happiest people we can be. And that in a relationship, when we have to share our insides
with someone, when he gets to see the parts of ourselves we want to hide from everyone
else, when this deep “seeing” happens on a day to day basis – that’s when we learn and
grow the fastest.

Every minute you’re with your man – or the man you’re about to meet – who you are and
where you are will be reflected back to you. In relationship, we see each other at our best
and at our worst and so we automatically become more ourselves.

When we’re with someone, we’re constantly getting emotionally triggered by them. We’re
confronting our fears with them, opening up our deep wells of guilt, shame and rage with
them, and learning to trust ourselves with them.

The whole unit of two people in a relationship is like rainwater, like food, like shelter for
each of us – it’s like we help develop each other. We help expand each other. It’s a very
beautiful concept.

And yet – how often do we get in a relationship like that?

Hardly ever. Because almost all of us have been taught to do the opposite of what a great
relationship looks like.

We’ve been taught to hide ourselves. To keep the “ugly” parts of ourselves hidden, to
always have a smile on our face. Or, if we grew up in certain ways, we might always have
drama hanging over us like a costume, or a frown and a cloud raining over us, or a judge’s
robe on our shoulders all the time. We all have our own way of hiding our true selves.

And we’ve also been taught to appear cool and poised and confident and sexy – and after
awhile, when we don’t feel like that, we can’t get up the energy to pretend anymore, and so
we back away from ourselves even more.

The result of this is that we’re attracted to men who can’t be in relationships that support
our personal growth.

Because we’ve spent our lives worrying about letting anyone see those parts of ourselves,

we do everything we can, in an underground, subconscious way, to keep it all hidden.

And we attract men who want to help us keep things as they are. Who want us to keep
ourselves hidden so that they can continue to hide themselves, too.

But what happens is this – if no one shows who they are, nothing happens. Nothing
happens in the relationship.

It may seem like a lot of passion and drama and coming and going and pain and waiting
and great times, but nothing’s really happening underneath.

So you end up with a choice of:

1. A man who has “issues” – who has “stuff” he wants to hide so bad he’ll make sure you
hide all your stuff, too. The man who wants to make sure YOU hang on to all your bad
habits – the ones YOU don’t like about yourself – so he can hang onto his bad habits.
Or...

2. A man who wants a real relationship – where he can expand himself and be himself (the
kind of man you want) – who’ll stay disconnected from you and end up withdrawing if
you don’t show up as who you truly are. If you don’t let your vulnerability hang out and
show – nothing will happen. In a situation like this, you’ll just pass each other like ships
in the night, or it just will end.

A man who can do relationship deserves respect. And somehow we tend to disrespect a
man for being able to do relationship.

We have a hard time, at rock bottom, believing that a really great man would want to hook
up with us for life. It’s the way we were brought up, what we’ve heard our whole lives, and
the voices in our head are screaming at us that failure in love is all we know how to do.

And it isn’t true. We’re built to bond together with another human being. At least that’s
what I believe. And I know that you have all the hope in the world. I know you can do this –
because if I did, you can. And so much faster and easier.

I hope my journey of trial and error can save you time and pain.

Read the book again, be sure to do all the exercises, and watch in amazement as things
turn around for you. I wish you love, and I know you’ll have it.

About Rori Raye

As a relationship coach, crisis counselor, actress, director, stage producer, mother, author,
seminar leader, public speaker and wife of a successful executive coach, I know how
challenging it is to balance the masculine energies I use in business and the tasks of daily life
with the feminine energies I surrender to in my two-decades-long marriage.

Many years ago, I turned my own conflict-ridden and fading relationship nearly
overnight into the vibrant, thrilling, totally satisfying marriage it is now. My husband is the
same man he was during “the awful years,” and yet he seems to have changed completely.
I know I’ve been transformed. From the moment I made my commitment to refuse to try
to “manage” my husband and my destiny, my life has been a treasure of peace, fun, love,
success, and surprises.

Through my writing, speaking and teaching, it’s my mission to help other women
rediscover passion and joy in their relationships and marriages.

My Advice Programs

My programs are full of advice, tips, Tools, and techniques you’ll want to refer to again and
again – whether you’re single and looking for your Mr. Right or you’re in a relationship and
want to experience more connection and passion together. You can read about all of them
and try them out risk free on my website at www.havetherelationshipyouwant.com.

Video Programs: Watch Online Or Download

MODERN SIREN

You CAN be the kind of woman who effortlessly makes a man feel hypnotically attracted
and deeply connected… Learn the secret to being so irresistible, he’ll risk everything to be
with you. Includes signature Tools you can start using right away.

LOVE SCRIPTS FOR RELATIONSHIPS

This program will teach you how to transform your relationship with your words, by
learning the words a man needs to hear – and HOW he needs to hear them – so that he feels
like you’re the kind of woman he needs to respect, adore, and make happy… and you’ll feel
safe and secure in his love.

LOVE SCRIPTS FOR DATING

You’ll learn, step by step, the very words to say to a man in any situation, that will make
him fall for you and inspire his total devotion – from a first date all the way to commitment,
so you can have the relationship you’ve always wanted.

TARGETING MR RIGHT

Learn how to be the prize a man wants to pursue – even if you’ve been with him for years.
Targeting Mr. Right will help you feel powerful in love and raise your self-esteem so you’ll
actually believe how irresistibly attractive you truly are.

COMMITMENT BLUEPRINT

Getting a man to commit doesn’t require ultimatums or playing games. Instead, you’ll

learn how to NATURALLY inspire a man’s undying devotion so he sees you as the only woman
he can’t live without.

TOXIC MEN

Stay or go? This program shows you how to transform your difficult man into a genuine
good guy and finally have the kind of loving, respectful relationship you’ve always wanted...
or discover if he can never give you the relationship you want so you can open your heart to
a good man who can.

Audio Programs: Listen Anywhere

RECONNECT YOUR RELATIONSHIP

If you’re struggling to keep your relationship from falling apart, then “Reconnect Your
Relationship” is for you. Learn how to turn your troubled relationship around – no matter
how bad it seems now – and inspire him to be your perfect partner.

HEART CONNECTION TOOLKIT

Even if your self-esteem is at rock bottom, and you’re feeling hopeless about ever having
the relationship of your dreams, this program has “the plan” that will teach you how to
quickly feel confident and BELIEVE it can happen for you – because IT WILL.

Full Access To My Entire Catalog

MY COMPLETE COLLECTION

You can try all of my love advice programs for a fraction of the cost with “My Complete
Collection” - You’ll learn everything you need to know about Love & Relationships:
Attraction, Commitment, Communication, Intimacy, Dating and so much more.