Barbara Angelis - Secrets About Men Every Woman Should Know

40-59 points: YOUR RELATIONSHIPS WITH MEN ARE IN SERIOUS TROUBLE. You have some bad emotional habits that are keeping you from receiving the love and appreciation you deserve. You’ll never get the respect you want if you continue to give up your power around men, behave like a doormat and pretend everything is fine. It’s time to make a change. The first step is to be honest with yourself about how dissatisfied you really are. Practice everything you learn from this book, ask your friends for support, and make a commitment to start living as the powerful woman you are meant to be.

39 points or below: EMERGENCY! YOUR RELATIONSHIPS WITH MEN ARE UNHEALTHY. You’ve been in pain and felt unloved for so long that you’ve probably forgotten what it feels like to be yourself around a man you really care about. You may not even know what a healthy relationship with a man is. It’s time to take immediate action, and you can’t do it alone. Reach out to other women for help; find a loving and experienced therapist; join some support groups; use this book as much as possible, and do whatever you can to begin to love yourself again. Fight off that numbness, negativity, and resentment. Stop playing the victim! Only you can make the change. You deserve much more than this.

I suggest you take this quiz over again from time to time to measure your progress in becoming a more powerful woman. First put the principles in this book into practice, and then come back to the quiz several weeks later. You should notice some real improvement reflected in a higher score, and you’ll be well on your way to creating the loving relationships with men that you deserve.

Whether you’re aware of it or not, you may be bringing out the worst in the men you love by how you behave around them.

I am not saying that the problems in relationships are all the women’s fault, or that how we behave is “wrong” or “bad,” or that men don’t need to change and we do. I am saying that how women act around men is 50 percent of the problem.

Many of the behaviors we’ve adopted to try to be “loving women” are the very behaviors that are destructive to our relationships with men

Of course, we don’t make these mistakes on purpose. Most of us were taught these behavior patterns by our mothers, and their mothers before them, but when we act out these old roles and habits, they end up making us feel bad about ourselves as women, and actually encourage men to treat us badly.

THE 6 BIGGEST MISTAKES WOMEN MAKE WITH MEN

1 WOMEN ACT LIKE MOTHERS AND TREAT MEN LIKE CHILDREN

2 WOMEN SACRIFICE WHO THEY ARE AND PUT THEMSELVES SECOND IN IMPORTANCE TO THE MAN THEY LOVE

3 WOMEN FALL IN LOVE WITH A MAN’S POTENTIAL

4 WOMEN COVER UP THEIR EXCELLENCE AND COMPETENCE

5 WOMEN GIVE UP THEIR POWER

6 WOMEN ACT LIKE LITTLE GIRLS TO GET WHAT THEY WANT FROM MEN

Have you ever said any of the following things to a man?

“Honey, did you remember your wallet?”

“Don’t forget to pick up the dry cleaning on the way home.”

“Did you remember to pay that overdue electric bill?”

“Do you realize the petrol is almost on empty?”

“You didn’t remember to make reservations? Never mind, I’ll call for you.”

“How many times do I have to remind you not to leave those wet towels on the floor?”

“Don’t you think you’re going to be cold with that light jacket on?”

If you’re like me, you’re cringing with guilt after reading this list. Mistake #1 is one of the most common and destructive habits we have with men. We treat men like children; we assume they can’t take care of themselves; we act as if they are incompetent, and that they need us to run their lives for them.

Now, I know what you’re thinking - that in many cases, these assumptions are true! And you may be right. But that’s not the point. What’s important is this:

WHEN YOU TREAT A MAN LIKE A LITTLE BOY HE’S GOING TO ACT LIKE A LITTLE BOY. WHEN YOU EXPECT A MAN TO BE INCOMPETENT, HE REMAINS INCOMPETENT

1. Acting overly helpful by doing things for men that they should be doing for themselves.We look for his keys; pick up after him; go in the other room to get him something he can easily find himself; straighten his tie; comb his hair; choose his clothes for him in the morning and lay them out on the bed.

2. Playing verbal guessing games with men, trying to pull information out of them.We say, “Okay, you’re hungry … are you in the mood for cereal? No? What about some pretzels? Not pretzels? Okay, then what about some nice soup? Not appealing. Hmm, let me think … I know … what if I make you a grilled cheese sandwich? Wouldn’t you like that?”

3. Assuming men will be absentminded or forgetful, and reminding them of information they should remember by themselves

“Don’t forget to call me when you get there.”

“Don’t forget to pick up Susie at her dance class.”

“Don’t forget the rubbish needs to go out tonight.”

“Don’t forget your doctor’s appointment after work.”

4. Scolding them as if they were children

“Where do you think you’re going without a jacket? Don’t you know how cold it is outside?”

“How many times do I have to tell you to turn the lights off before coming to bed. Our electric bill is outrageously high.”

“You ate a whole pizza and had three beers at Eddie’s house while you watched the match? No wonder you have a stomach ache.”

5. Taking charge of activities that you assume they can’t do right

“If I let Fred make our dinner reservations, he somehow gets the time wrong, and forgets to request a good table, so I just do it myself.”

“The last time I sent Steven clothes shopping with the kids, it was a disaster - they came home with stuff they could never wear to school. Now I just take them myself. I couldn’t stand to go through that again.”

“I asked Jason to find us a nice hotel in Chicago months ago, and wouldn’t you know that it ‘slipped his mind.’ NOW our trip is three weeks away, and I’m the one who ends up making the phone calls anyway. I should have just done it myself in the first place.”

6. Correcting and directing them

“No, honey, the couple we met on vacation were from Virginia, not West Virginia.”

“The way you just used that word in a sentence was incorrect, dear.”

“I think you should take the Westway to avoid the traffic on the Parade. In fact I’d get into the left lane now if I were you.”

“Why don’t you just call your mother up, and first tell her that the kids aren’t feeling well, and then mention how busy you are this week at the office. After she starts to feel concerned, then let her know that we’ve decided not to come to visit next Sunday. But whatever you do, don’t tell her we saw my mother last weekend.”

I know you hate to think you might be taking a mothering role with the man you love, but believe me, you’re not alone. Why do we act like mommies and treat our men like children?

Women are trained to be mothering and are rewarded for it.When you were growing up, your primary role model was your mother. Watching her take care of you and your brothers or sisters, you learned how to be nurturing, giving, selfless, and attentive to the needs of others. If your mother also played a mommy role with your father, this conditioning was even more powerfully reinforced. Look at it this way: If you almost always saw Mom treat Dad in a mothering way, rather than in a romantic way, you assumed as a child that this is how women are supposed to behave with men. When you grew up and found yourself in a relationship with a man, you unconsciously started mothering him, since that was how you’d been taught women act with men.