(My article appears in the Jewish News of Greater Phoenix Online (and print) in the September 11, 2009 edition)

Dating success, like success in life, is often a function of our attitude. Carry optimism, hope and openness, and your chances of success are infinitely greater than when you’re dragging around negative, limiting beliefs.

As much as most daters don’t care to admit it, they are unintentionally undermining their own attempts at success with internalized and destructive messages, or IDMs, about their dating lives.

IDMs can come in one of two forms: either as negative self-talk (such as how we talk to ourselves about dating) or as critical or judgmental assumptions and beliefs about the potential mates in our dating field. When we listen to IDMs, we either abruptly stop ourselves short, or stop others short, and destroy opportunities that have not yet been created. We shut down and say “no” before we’ve had an opportunity to say “yes” to others or possible dating opportunities.

To date or to be in a relationship is to risk getting burned, and a lot of daters can’t let go of some of those previous fiery experiences they’ve had. They’ve been hurt, and to help prevent themselves from being hurt again, they generate limiting beliefs about themselves or about their potential dates. In some cases, these messages have been there all along, from childhood, in different ways.

Fear and vulnerability drive many IDMs, and keep us caged inside our own heads. We generate unconscious and irrational stories to keep us from having to deal with the pain, anguish and fear that may come up in another dating situation. Dating has not been kind to us, we say to ourselves, and we’ll go to great lengths to see that we’re not hurt like that again.

One popular IDM I hear a lot is, “Well, there are no good men/women out there in the world anymore. They’re all taken.” I find that one disputable, and it’s a negative message that guides all too many people through dating, unfortunately.

The problem is that those destructive messages get communicated either verbally or nonverbally to people in our lives (including possible mates). Others will feel turned off or generally uninterested in learning more if those messages are communicated to them, intentionally or not. Or we may attract other negative people or toxic dates into our lives. Most of the time, though, we are so unconscious about what we speak verbally and say in our body language to others that we end up turning others off.

Maybe you’ve been rejected by a mate, or have suffered a recent divorce. It’s possible that your last relationship was awful, and you’re still nursing your war wounds. If so, IDMs may be floating around inside your mind and ruining the possibility of a relationship. Change your negative beliefs, and you change the way you relate to your dating life. People are far more attracted to people who are positive and open-minded.

If you’re ready and willing, turn around the IDMs, and you’ll attract a whole new kind of person into your life.

Jason Fierstein, MA, LPC, is a counselor for men and couples and practices in Phoenix. Call 602-309-0568, or visit phoenixmenscounseling.com for more information.

(This article originally appeared in the Jewish News of Greater Phoenix Online’s August 14, 2009 edition.)

I’m not mourning the death of the traditional dating experience quite yet, but I do see the heavy use of social media speeding it up.

Social media is now everywhere. Facebook boasts more than 250 million active users, and Oprah recently ushered Twitter into mainstream status. Is the heavy use of social media another death knell for traditional dating as we know it?

I think that the forces of texting, smart-phone use and social media addiction, combined with a wider cultural acceptance of “hooking up” (read: sexual encounters without the need for traditional relationships or intimacy), are making it much more difficult to really get to know someone in the way that the dating process did previously.

Although communication is light-speed and readily available, I don’t know that it helps us understand dating and mating any better. We’re talking a lot, but are we really saying much at all sometimes? For the daters that I talk with, it seems even harder to connect with someone in a meaningful way, now that we’re all wired, active and interconnected. Loneliness still festers, even if it’s digitally.

As evidenced by popular dating Web sites, like JDate, Match.com and eHarmony, we want to put on our very best face to prospective buyers. I think the same idea carries over to the use of social media, where that invisible electronic buffer allows us to show only those parts of us that we want others to see, and keep hidden the rest.

In some ways, revealing oneself on a social media site is more instantaneous and easier to do from behind a keyboard than in front of a live person.

But how much are we really revealing? Did the “archaic” dating process allow us the slow “meet and greet” process that social media simply excludes?

The mystery of getting to know one another as a time-honored process is simply too lengthy and too time-consuming. For many formerly “traditional” daters, going on a date with a guy or girl is simply outmoded, considering that they can communicate directly with them in 140 characters or less. Why spend the money and time on dinner and a movie when we could be getting to know someone online in a more efficient manner?

The evolution of the Internet and social media forecasts some very interesting changes happening with the way that we date and create relationships. I hope we can still take the time out to get to know people the way we used to in the past. In more than 140 characters.

Jason Fierstein, MA, LPC, is a counselor for men and couples who practices in Phoenix. Call 602-309-0568 to set up an appointment, or visit phoenixmenscounseling.com for more information.

(Great article from CNN.com by Celeste Perron – Feb. 11, 2009)

When Lynn Houston was 27, she met an affectionate young man during a business trip to Virginia. Although she lived in Arizona, the two began dating; they married six months later. But after she joined him in Virginia, he became distant and had angry flare-ups, Houston says.

He barely resembled the man she’d married, but he did remind her of another man she knew well: her father.

  (more…)

(Great article from CNN.com by Celeste Perron – Feb. 11, 2009)

When Lynn Houston was 27, she met an affectionate young man during a business trip to Virginia. Although she lived in Arizona, the two began dating; they married six months later. But after she joined him in Virginia, he became distant and had angry flare-ups, Houston says.

He barely resembled the man she’d married, but he did remind her of another man she knew well: her father.

“They were both very emotionally unavailable and prone to outbursts of rage,” says Houston, now 44 and a business consultant in Phoenix.

After six years of attempting to rescue the union through therapy, Houston filed for divorce.

Alison Wobschall also married a man like her father, but with much better results. “I have a great relationship with my dad, so I suppose I looked for a partner who shares some of his good qualities,” says Wobschall, 22, head of marketing and public relations for a Minneapolis nonprofit.

Both men are “really interested in politics and the stock market, and they agree on everything,” she says. “Also, when I’m upset about something, they’ll always help me put it in perspective.”

Both share the name Mike, and they even look alike. And Alison bears a striking resemblance to her mother-in-law, in appearance as well as personality. “We always laugh at the same things, even if nobody else is laughing,” she says.

Although Houston’s and Wobschall’s marriages couldn’t have been more different, both women chose partners who resembled a parent. And, say experts, their experiences aren’t that unusual.

Comfort in familiarity

Berkeley, California, psychotherapist Elayne Savage says familiarity is a big reason people may choose someone like Mom or Dad as a partner.

“When you grow up familiar with a certain type of person, you’re attracted to that same type of person because it feels comfortable, whether you like it or not,” says Savage, author of “Breathing Room: Creating Space to Be a Couple.” “That’s what people mean when they meet a potential partner and say, ‘It ‘feels like I’ve known him my whole life.’”

Anecdotal evidence also suggests that a parent’s physical or intellectual traits may have some influence. A Hungarian researcher studied the facial features of 52 families and found a significant correlation between the appearance of men and their fathers-in-law and those of women and their mothers-in-law.

And in a survey of approximately 2,700 “high-achieving” men — those in the top 10 percent of their age income bracket and/or with an advanced degree — a University of Iowa researcher found they are likely to marry women with education levels and careers that mirror those of their moms.

Miami resident Aaron Gordon, 27, wouldn’t argue. Gordon’s wife, Rebecca, 27, has the same career as his mom — teaching gifted elementary-schoolers — and the women share a love of cooking and talking on the phone.

“When I met Rebecca, she was pursuing a career in advertising, and it wasn’t until well after we started dating that she decided she didn’t like advertising and opted instead to get her master’s in education,” says Aaron. “Although I definitely wanted to marry an educated woman, I wouldn’t say that it was critical that she match my mom’s level of schooling — though in the end, they both earned master’s degrees.”

Rebecca says Aaron is just like her dad. “The longer I’m with Aaron, the more I notice idiosyncratic things, like the fact that they both love politics, and are both bad drivers, and both love going to supermarket for like two hours and buying too much stuff,” she laughs.

Righting old wrongs

Sometimes, people choose mates who resemble their parents not because of fond memories, but to make amends for an unhappy childhood.

“This is most common if you felt rejected or abandoned by a parent and still haven’t worked through it,” says Stephen Treat, director of the Council for Relationships, a Philadelphia nonprofit. “Your psyche wants to go back to the scene of the crime, so to speak, and resolve that parental relationship in a marriage.”

Women who felt abandoned by their fathers are likely to choose emotionally unavailable husbands, for example, and men raised by hypercritical moms will be drawn to wives who pick on them, he says.

It’s not a good idea. “You think you’ll be able to heal this way, but you’re probably no more equipped to deal with the situation than you were as a child, and the parental dynamic gets repeated in your marriage, usually with bad consequences,” he says.

Reclaiming personal history

Does that mean it’s a mistake to marry somebody like Mom or Dad?

Casey Clark Ney, 30, hopes not. She and her dad, who is now deceased, lived in different states after her parents divorced when she was a child. Although they had a warm phone relationship, Ney only saw him once or twice a year, and he wasn’t very physically affectionate.

Her husband, James, 31, resembles her dad and has a similar “hard-working, calm, kind” quality. But James, too, isn’t very affectionate.

“He grew up in a family who didn’t do a lot of hugs and kisses and ‘I love you’s, and that does bother me,” says Ney, a freelance journalist in Boise, Idaho. “I think there could be some truth in the idea that I’m working through my history in my marriage.”

Breaking the chain

Despite evidence that suggests some of us are attracted to mates who resemble our parents, it’s not a foregone conclusion, says therapist Barbara Swenson, director of the Couple Center in Sherman Oaks, California.

“If you want very badly to have a different and better relationship than the ones you grew up with, you can accomplish that if you go about it very consciously.”

Swenson offers these pointers:

• Don’t jump in. ”Ideally you should date for a couple of years before engagement — and not just long distance,” she says. “You need to be together on those days when your car won’t start … to see how you and your partner support each other.”

• Don’t be afraid to disagree. ”Assert yourself and see what your partner does with that,” she says. “Can they put their needs aside and follow your lead once in a while? Make sure your relationship has room for give and take.”

• Talk about life issues. Some questions to discuss sooner rather than later: If we have kids, will one of us stay home? Who will manage our money? “Premarital counseling can get these questions out on the table in a civilized way, and prevent problems down the road,” says Swenson. 

(This article I wrote also appears in the Jewish News of Greater Phoenix, October 10th edition)

Every good general has a battle plan, and, if you’re like my former self, you’ve spent enough time alone waiting for the right date to come around. My friend Jay used to call me the hardest-working dater he knew. (Now I have bestowed that title on him.)

Although I really wasn’t sure how to feel about that honor, I did learn volumes about the dating process, and about myself, in the experiences that I had before I found success. Although there are forces that are sometimes beyond our control (the mysterious and cosmic powers of chemistry, for example), there are things that you can do in preparation for getting a date to improve your chances of finding the partner that you want.

What is essential to consider is this: Do you know exactly who you are looking for? Could you write a fictional profile of the woman that you are looking for, down to the name of her dog and her favorite flavor of ice cream? This may seem extreme, but until you have honed and refined your ideal mate, you widen the gap and allow for a lot of ambiguity and indecision to flow in. What you’re doing is creating the idea of your mate in your mind. Take some time to consider this invitation to create a profile of the woman you want. Identify her personality traits, values, physical features, professional aspirations and hobbies or interests - everything that you can think of. I’ll bet that when you put your ideas on paper, you’ll find out much more than you thought you would, and the results may surprise you.

Second, how is your networking “presence”? Do you set yourself up to meet as many ideal women as you can? The Internet - whether that’s JDate, Match.com or any other Web site - can be a great tool, but if that’s the only place you’re looking, you’re limiting yourself. Once you have done the first step of writing your profile, you’ll familiarize yourself with the places and settings where your ideal date will be, whether that’s at a film club, at Papago Park doing some hiking or at a yoga class. (Hint: Guys, go do yoga right now - if you’re not already. You’ll get a great workout, find tranquillity and meet women all at once).

Third, and this is important because it’s the hardest, how will you convey interest in her when you meet her socially? Will you walk the plank and take the risk of approaching her when you find her?

I will share with you my philosophy about kamikaze dating: Act fearless and summon the strength to go over to her even though your fear tells you not to (the girls without the wedding bands, of course). Your kamikaze mantra will become this: “There is nothing that I can say or do now that will kill me,” to borrow from Friedrich Nietzsche.

Unless you are a total bumbling idiot and drool or speak incoherently, she will appreciate your summoning the strength to go over to her, even if she doesn’t show interest back. Let me ask you this way: Do you want to live with the regret of not approaching her and the fantasy of “what if it did happen?” What could you be missing out on because you colluded with the fear inside of yourself instead of taking the risk?

For those less brazen souls, be everywhere you can where there is the possibility of meeting someone special. Don’t be shy if you really want it, and if you want it, you need to place yourself where you have better odds. Being at home obviously lowers the odds quite a bit more than being out where your date will be.

Next article, we’ll talk about how to create success while on “The Date” itself, and how to get her interested in you and on your side in no time. Stay tuned.

I was having a conversation with my business coach, Marco, and he was talking about this idea, which led me to seek out the article on (gasp!) Oprah.com. It’s interesting, and looks at the reasons behind why men cheat. It’s usually not about the cheating per se, but about a vacancy or an unmet need from within the relationship already. Do you find yourself fantasizing about cheating, or about other women in general? Would you suspect that there is something lacking in your relationship as it is?

See the article here:

http://www.oprah.com/slideshow/relationships/couples/20080827_tows_cheating

I’ve been working with this idea a lot in my sessions, about how men feel unfulfilled or not totally “in” the relationship, and then, on top of that, don’t have or haven’t learned the tools to get what they want or what’s lacking. Sometimes, infidelity or even “checking out” of the relationship has already happened, and then counseling becomes more like a clean up job.

If you suspect that there are some things in your relationship that you are not getting from your girl – sex, love, affection, validation, support, fun, intimacy, communication – maybe these are things that begin to create the problems that lead you to avoid, withdraw, or generally “check out” of your relationship. She probably knows that you’re doing this, and may or may not be saying it in words. Get some help now, before it’s too late for your relationship.

This post is the second in a series on dealing with how pornography affects marriages and relationships. Today’s post is an interview with Leanne Grant, Ph.D., who has worked with women who are affected by online pornography in their marriages.

Jason Fierstein: I am interested in learning about a woman’s perspective on the role of pornography in one’s relationship. Could you help me understand more about this?

Leanne Grant, Ph.D: Men don’t understand, from a woman’s perspective, to imagine their significant other getting off to pictures of the opposite sex and how threatening that feels to a woman. I imagine that any guy who comes home to find their wife or girlfriend to watching nude photos of men would feel threatened. For women, the message of “I’m not good enough” and “my guy is looking elsewhere to be stimulated” instead of with them is what comes up for women. Porn is physiologically stimulating, and is new and novel, so is attracted to the newness or the novelty. 

For women, it triggers a cycle about insecurities about their bodies. No woman can compete with an airbrushed image online. Visually, a woman couldn’t be that perfect, but women become obsessed about trying to become that image. Look at industries such as weight loss, plastic surgery, liposuction, Botox, exercise, cosmetics, and the list goes on and on.

Women get obsessed with trying to compete with the images that their men are watching online. Women think that “I’m not good enough,” and remember the point in their relationship that their man was really into them in the beginning.

Women see their guy looking at porn, and imagine to themselves that “he must be falling in love,” and “what if he is falling in love with somebody else.” The initial spark (during the honeymoon phase) can’t last over time. 

JF: So how does a couple break the cycle?

LG: Women need to talk about their own experience, and men need to talk about their own experiences together. Women are making it more severe in their own minds. 

The work becomes to create that spark again in your own relationship again. Women need to understand that that spark between them and their partner needs to be reignited over and over in a relationship. It doesn’t happen as spontaneously over the course of time as it did when you first start dating someone. It’s learning together how to bring that sense of excitement and novelty into your life.

JF: What happens if that doesn’t happen, though? It’s fairly common to see these things not happen, and for a relationship to get much worse?

LG: If it’s not happening, then you need to take the next step and get some outside help, because there might be something else getting in the way, such as feelings of hurt or resentment that impede your communication and intimacy. In the communication, it is important that you talk about how you feel – both you and your partner.

For example, as a woman, you need to admit that you feel scared to your partner when confronted with this. Men need to be able to communicate about why they are doing it, and what they might be needing. They may not need their wife or girlfriend to look like Scarlett Johannsen, but that they need their wife or girlfriend to talk to them.

Each other needs to be able to to express the feelings that each other has. Once you are able to talk about your feelings about it, it takes the tension out of the relationship, and can bring some playfulness and passion back into our sex life.

JF: So, there might be some positive aspects to talking about pornography in one’s relationship?

LG: Yes. Maybe we can look at pornography as the door to improve or enhance our relationships.

So you aren’t sure if you want this relationship. OK. Maybe it’s been really great for a while, and now you’re just not sure. You know you’re confused, that’s for sure. And you think you want to stay with this girl, but, damn, there comes the confusion again. OK. You’re sure that that you want it now – the times got good again! Oh, wait, uhh, maybe it’s going bad again…. you just have no idea, and you are driving both of you crazy.

Here’s what I think: something else is going on (you’re thinking, yes, Jason, of course it is). Here’s some (oversimplified) explanations that might point you in the right direction and help lower your immediate confusion. These tips/ideas are by no means a quick fix, and understanding where you are stuck will take some time and work to unravel (preferably in men’s counseling). But, it’s a beginning to bring your sanity back.

One: maybe you’re afraid to commit to her. The stereotype that men are afraid to commit in an intimate relationship has some truth, and, although I shy away from stereotypes (especially about me), this one may have some truth to it. Is this you? You may not know the answer to this, except to know that when you get closer in your relationships, you freak out and either directly (or more likely, indirectly) “plug out” or “check out” of your relationship.

Two: you do really know what you want, and it’s not with her. Except you’re too afraid to be alone, and the mere idea of being with the loneliness could keep you in your relationship, even though you don’t want to be in it at all. It’s “sustained comfort,” and you can have this is you want. But it’s fear that is motivating you, and you’re not taking responsibility for your own happiness, and not allowing your beloved the chance to get on with her life and meet someone else.

Three: You’re scared of not meeting someone again (or someone like her). It took you this long to meet her, and the idea that it will take you all that time again is really overwhelming to you.

Four: You have messages from the past about saving your relationship, or not being a kind of person that ends a relationship. The thought of it is incompatible with your idealized image of yourself. You don’t see yourself as someone to end this relationship, help it, or make it grow. You stay trapped in the relationship, and in indecision.

Taken further, some guys then stay stuck in the relationship, and then do stupid stuff and push their girl away, so that she is forced into ending it. And then you don’t look like the bad guy, because she ended it. If you’re doing this, get in here right now and see me. That’s just passive-aggressive behavior, and you need some help communicating yourself clearly and directly.

So, these are some ways that guys stay in relationships, and really don’t want to be there. Let’s talk if one of these things defines the way you do relationships.

- Jason

In celebration of Labor Day Weekend, I was reminded that relationships take a lot of work to succeed. My reaction was “Of course I know this,” and then I thought a little about it, and about what constitutes that work. What are the elements that define that often nebulous statement?

It’s safe to say that for men, these three things are the most important keys to a happy relationship. They are what will make or break a relationship – absolutely, hands-down and no qualms about it. Other than healthy communication, if your wife or girlfriend is not feeling loved, wanted or seen, you’re doomed, brother. You should some in so we can talk and fix the situation.

On being loved, wanted and seen: They have to know it from you. You have to show them regularly that they are well loved. I get this feedback regularly from Leanne, my own partner (Welcome, Leanne, to the blog!). She tells me that girls need to know those things through these ways (take notes, guys):

• complimenting her/validating her on her looks, body, charm, etc.
• telling her that she is beautiful and/or sexy; communicating sexual desire of her
• Initiation of sex (yes, fellows, believe it or not)
• telling her that she is good at something in her life, smart, etc.
• Simply telling her (genuinely) that “I love you.”
• generous supply of meaningful hugs
• planning events or date nights out, and then following through on them
• spontaneously doing things for her that communicate “I’m thinking about you.”
• watching the criticisms/judgments or her or her behavior

One of the things that I have been thinking about is how we play games to avoid the fear of being rejected by women. I notice this with some friends I have, and with some clients. The one way in which this seems to be most apparent to me is by displaying the opposite behavior: rejecting the woman or potential relationship partner first. 

It happens less that people actually own up to being afraid of rejection, because a lot of the time, they don’t know it’s there. Honestly, I think we’re afraid of the fear. We are afraid that if this person gets to pierce through our facade, they will find someone that they didn’t bargain for, someone less adequate than the initial facade that was show to them through the dating process. Sex is used in this way, to speed up the intimacy process and to bypass the getting to know you process.

Some men that I know reject women after sleeping with them, over and over again. Not only do I feel ashamed as a guy, but feel bad for the female rejectees who are probably relationship-minded and are seeking something else during the act of sex with this person. Women are more intimacy and relationship minded; when we reject them after sex, or soon thereafter, we give them them messages that they are not good enough or unworthy or our affections. In effect, we are displacing (or projecting) our inadequacies onto them through the very act of rejecting them. 

Men have a notoriously difficult time opening up to their feelings, and opening up to fear of rejection is by no means any exception to that rule. It gets transformed into a socially acceptable thing – to bed women and conquer them, which creates an endless cycle of loneliness and misery. It’s very difficult to create a satisfying relationship under these conditions, and a lot of guys are left to do this cycle over and over again.

I can help you with these types of problems if you suspect that you are a guy (or girl) who creates this “rejection cycle” for him (or herself). It’s hard to break this cycle on one’s one, and as a Counselor for Men, I know the inner workings of this cycle to help you break the cycle once and for all. Call me at 602.309.0568 to set up a free consultation to talk about this with me.

- Jason