Steve Harvey - Straight Talk, No Chaser - How to Find, Keep, and Understand a Man

QUESTION NO.1: How’s your relationship with your children?

The Answer That Makes Him Look Best:

It’s great. When we’re together, it’s nothing short of magical. My son is just like me-athletic and strong. And my daughter is smart and so beautiful. They’re amazing kids.

The Breakdown:

This answer makes him seem like he’s a fantastic dad, committed to his children and putting in work to mold them into good human beings. It plays into your natural desire for a man who will faithfully and happily participate in the rearing of the family you hope to have someday.

QUESTION NO. 2: How is your relationship with their mother?

The Answer That You Want to Hear:

It’s cool. We do what we can to get along for the sake of the kids. She doesn’t make it easy, but my kids are worth it.

The Breakdown:

He’s telling you what you want to hear-painting a picture of himself as the good guy in a relationship gone bad and the man who is willing to endure suffering and strife if it means he’ll get to be with his kids. Now, he’s looking like a superhero in your eyes because there is nothing sexier to a woman than a man who will bend steel and leap tall buildings to get to his children. You start imagining him rubbing your pregnant belly and reading to your babies and standing over the grill cooking up a home-cooked meal for the entire family while you stand by, looking on admirably at your magnificent catch of a man. What you missed was that he said his ex doesn’t make it easy for him to see his kids, and that he sees them when he can, not necessarily on a regular basis, and certainly not in the most pleasant of circumstances. Get to the bottom of it with this…

QUESTION NO. 3: If you and their mother don’t really get along, how does that hinder your relationship with your kids?

The Truth:

Well, because she and I don’t really get along, it’s hard for me to see them as much. I see them maybe once a month and talk to them occasionally on the phone. But there’s some distance there because of the drama with my ex.

The Breakdown:

The only thing left for him to do was to admit that he’s got some baby mama drama that keeps him from being the superdaddy he originally made himself out to be. The mother of his children may have good reason for cutting back on his time with his kids, or she could be a lunatic; in either case, you’d have some issues to deal with if you got into a relationship with this man-namely a potentially dramatic and volatile relationship with his ex, and some real inadequacies he may have as a father.

Getting to the bottom of that information allows you to make an informed decision about whether you want to start something with this guy. It’s not hard-women are inquisitive by nature. You and your girlfriends ask these same questions when you recount your dates for each other anyway. You and your girls get to the bottom of things quickly. Do the same with him. Put aside all the romantic notions and approach this thing with eyes wide open and a clear mind.

My wife, Marjorie, played this really well when we started dating again. Of course, she was already privy to my shenanigans; I’m a public figure so there was already a lot of bad stuff about me out there-all she had to do was a simple Google search and everything she ever wanted to know about me, the good, the bad, the ugly, and the lies, was right there at her fingertips. I came in the door with publicized relationships gone bad. My advantage was that Marjorie already knew the real me; we’d been friends for twenty years and dated a few times by the time we got back together, so she knew there was some good there. A lot of good. But to figure out if I was truly ready to share that good with her, Marjorie knew I was going to have to add up some things for her. First, she asked why my first two marriages didn’t work. I had a pat explanation at the ready:

“I was on the road touring and it kept me away from home a lot,” I said simply. “The separation just grew and kept us apart and I wasn’t there enough. I was working and trying to make it for us, but bringing home a check wasn’t enough.”

My veiled attempt to end this line of questioning by telling Marjorie I was committed and hardworking was no match for her; she kept the questions coming. “But what specifically made you decide those marriages weren’t for you? Is it that marriage isn’t for you?”

I brought my A-game on that one-told her what I thought she wanted to hear. “Well, I’m a romantic and I love the idea of being married. I want a committed relationship, I want a family, and that hasn’t changed just because the first two marriages didn’t work out. I have a lot, but I really want someone to share it with-a woman who can be loyal to me, who will support me while I’m out doing what I have to do to take care of our family, a woman who wants to share all the blessings in my life.” I gave her details about how it all went down-about how my first marriage ended after I went away to become a comedian, and some of the problems that grew from my second marriage too.

Now, I thought I’d made it through-that I’d said what it took to get Marjorie hooked on the idea of being with me. But she just wouldn’t let it go; she needed more from me-not because she was trying to give me a hard time, but because she really needed to make sure that her heart was protected. See, she’d already been through two marriages that didn’t work, and she was in a good place-raising her kids, working hard, and really secure in knowing what she needed out of her next relationship. She’d made very clear that she didn’t need to be in a relationship to be happy-that being alone was okay. But if she was going to get into another relationship, she needed to make sure that not only was she ready for it, but that any future mate was ready too. So a few days after our initial discussions, Marjorie pitched the third question: “I get that when you started telling jokes things weren’t the same, but why did you just go away? Help me understand this thing.”

I’d already told her what made me look best (I’m a hard worker), and in the second conversation, I told her what I thought she wanted to hear (I’m a romantic looking for a partner with which to share this journey). But in response to this third question? There wasn’t any more carpet and cushioning I could put on the floors, no curtains I could use to dress up the windows, no faux finishes I could throw up on the walls to make me look better. I’d run out of ways to decorate the truth, and it was clear to me that she wasn’t going to stop with the questions until she got the truth, so the truth was what I had to give her. And when I opened up to her, I revealed to Marjorie that the truth was that I was too young to get married the first time-that I should never have been anybody’s husband at twenty-four. I didn’t have it together in any way and really, the shortcomings in our relationship were mine-I was to blame, not my ex. All I could do in that first marriage was protect my wife and profess my love for her, but I simply wasn’t capable of providing for her in any meaningful way. Not only couldn’t I provide, I didn’t even have a plan for providing. I knew from age nine that I wanted to be on television, but I wasn’t doing anything useful to make that happen; I’d gone to college and gotten kicked out, and while I was working at the Ford Motor Company, I dreamed about being a star but had no real, tangible way of becoming one. “If my ex didn’t believe in my future, I couldn’t say I even saw it for myself,” I told Marjorie. “Still, I resented her and anyone else who didn’t support my vision. So really, I couldn’t stick around for that.”