Take Off the Rose-Colored Glasses When DatingWritten by Susan Dunn, MA, certified Emotional Intelligence Coach
Robin was giving me an anatomy of her divorce. “There were signs,” she said. “Plenty of them. I just ignored them.”“The counselor told me to ignore how he treated other people,” said Manuela, “and concentrate on how he treated me. But one day I became ‘other people.’” It’s typical to do this in early stages of dating and falling in love because, first of all it’s an exciting and complex process getting to know someone, and secondly, there are all those wonderful dreamy chemicals bathing our brains. It’s also a time when we’re prone to be “optimistic,” to assume everything’s going to be marvelous. Nobody starts a new relationship hoping it will be a disaster. We invest a lot of time and energy into it, and we can begin to see what we want to see, not what’s really going on. This, by way, is one of catch points about Emotional Intelligence, and about learned optimism. It’s recommended in many daily situations, particularly performance situations (like giving a speech or pitching an account), but it is never recommended in situations of great consequence. At those times, we need to take off rose-colored glasses. Dating is surely one of those times. While you’re enjoying chemical bath coming from brain-stem and limbic brains, stay in touch with your neocortex – thinking brain – and process just exactly what it is you’re seeing and experiencing. Working with a coach, BTW, can help you with clarity. “No hay casualidades,” say Spanish. Roughly translated it means, “nothing happens by accident” or “there are no coincidences.” Each of these things happened early on in someone’s dating career and were ignored: · We were sitting at kitchen table at his folks’ house and heard a mousetrap go off. Edward sprang to his feet, ran over to trap, freed mouse and then beat it to death with a fly swatter. Somehow I didn’t think that related to anything else but mouse, though it made me sick at time. · Stanton was a good doctor. He had taken a contract and was working from home and made plenty of money and that blinded me. Turns out he’d had a couple of partnerships that had failed because he was so demanding and impossible to work with. Boy did I find out about that later. It’s very strange for a doctor to work out of his home. Somehow that never registered on me.
| | Christmas Gifts Can Be a Cheating Husband’s UndoingWritten by Ruth Houston
Have you been plagued by nagging feeling that your husband might be having an affair? Well. Christmas is probably ideal time to confirm your suspicions and perhaps find additional proof of your husband’s infidelity, as well.It’s only natural for lovers to want to buy gifts for each other like everyone else during holiday season. But this exchange of gifts could prove to be a cheating husband’s undoing. An observant wife can find some important clues if she knows what to look for. Gifts cost money. No man who’s cheating on his wife is going to give his lover a cheap token of his affection. If he doesn’t want to incur her wrath, he has to buy her a decent gift. Unless he’s been squirreling away small sums over a period of weeks of months, money has to come from somewhere. Have there been any suspicious withdrawals from your checking or savings accounts? Check time period shortly before, during, or after holiday season. Have there been any sizeable, unexplained ATM withdrawals during this time? What about credit card statements for same period of time? Has he made any unusual charges at jewelry stores, boutiques or women’s specialty stores? What about actual store receipts? If you find records of purchases made for gift items that you didn’t personally receive, that should raise a red flag in your mind. Who did he give these gifts to, if not to you? Look around your home for hidden gifts – underneath bed, in back of a drawer, on floor at back of closet, back of a little used shelf. Don’t forget to check car, as well. – under seat, in glove compartment, trunk, tire well. If you find a hidden gift, don’t automatically jump to conclusions unless it’s obvious that gift was not intended for you (too large, too small, a color or style that he knows you wouldn’t wear, or has another woman’s name attached) But if New Year’s Day rolls around and you still haven’t received gift, then obviously it was given to someone else. Make it your business to find out who.
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