"Don't talk of love, show me..."

Continuing my list of tactics for the "Toal Love Attack" strategy:

• LINGERIE – This can be risky because there’s a good chance your wife doesn’t like a part of her anatomy and that’s likely to be highlighted in anything you buy. It’s probably one of your favourite parts and you’ll be amazed to find out it’s her least favourite. (Women are irrational about their bodies. They have deep-seated insecurities about how they look. Even the top models hate their bodies. It’s a crime.) Don’t spoil the surprise by asking her advice. Take a risk. You’ll soon learn what not to buy. Plucking up the courage to walk into a lingerie shop can be the toughest part of the process. But once inside the assistants are used to embarrassed male customers and all will go smoothly. I have spent eight hundred dollars on a small piece of lace and cloth sewn together by some French label and forty nine dollars on a two piece outfit, lace and satin… both delighted my wife and she wears both. The French stuff is usually quality. And you take fewer risks with quality. Ask the shop assistant to teach you how to tell a quality garment. Become an expert. Lingerie is not only nice to wear, it stimulates a woman’s sense of femininity… and can lead to erotic outcomes which are mutually pleasurable and good for mending broken hearts.

Total Love Attack

Here are some of the tactics I employed to execute my strategy of a “Total Love Attack”:

• Flowers – A good solid performer, especially if they are unexpected. I surprised my wife by filling her bedroom with long stemmed roses (five or six dozen) one day while she was out. That’s a demonstration of commitment. In our gridlocked days she would have complained about the cost. But now she simply lets me go at it. She can’t stop me, anyway.

• Jewellery – Women tend to love it, so go for it. I bought her about six or seven smaller items and hid them – gift wrapped – all around the house in places Louisa could find them. The surprises were better thant the pieces of jewellery.

• Out to dinner – We do this anyway. So it’s not a big deal unless it is to someplace special or if it is unusual for you or there is …. (drum roll) … dancing! Girls love to dance. Men usually hate it because we’re brought up to run the ball upfield, not trip the light fandango. Don’t worry if you can’t dance, just be there with her and make an effort. Let yourself go and you’ll find the more relaxed you are, the sooner the dancer in you will emerge.

...more to come...

How to woo a woman everyday

You remember how to woo a woman, don’t you? How did you win her the first time? You paid her attention. You took her to places. You had fun together. You were a fun guy to be with because you were interested in her.

You were interested in her. She was amazing – so beautiful and fresh and sexy and interesting. And best of all, she was interested in you. This made her even more interesting. You cared about her. You did not want anyone or anything to hurt or upset her. You were considerate. How did you show it? Do it again.

Now.

And then don’t stop.

Ever.

Women love to be pursued

Women love to be pursued. Not harassed, but pursued by consent. They love the feeling of being a prize that a man will quest for. It makes them feel special. So they like persistence. Too many men – afraid of rejection or anticipating failure – give up the chase long before it is time.

This is true for sex with your long time partner as it is for capturing the affections of a new partner. A woman might say goodnight and mean it, but she is still open to seduction. She’ll tell you if she’s not when you start. The most seductive thing you can do is capture her attention with words. Sometimes a fantasy story spun out of your imagination – about how the two of you meet in an unexpected encounter and how it leads to a sexual experience – can get the juices flowing. Sometimes a woman can get turned on by hearing about your encounters with other women in past lives. (Sometimes not. It depends on the degree of trust you have won. Tread lightly with this one.)

Keep a close watch on her reactions and pursue the hunt where it leads. At the same time, don’t ever back away when she wants to be the aggressor. Don’t think you’ve got to be the one on top. Learning to receive is as important as learning to give.

The tactic that delivers lots of unbelievable sex

Let’s get down to it. What do you want out of life? Wait: I can guess: lots of unbelievable sex and a life free from nagging. Well, here is the carrot for following the steep path of love. You get to do the things you want to do – have more sex, stay up late to watch the game, eat unhealthy food, etc. And you get to laugh a lot more. Why? Because your wife is happy because she is in love – madly in love – with you.

How can this be? It’s because you have wooed her all over again, only this time the infatuation doesn’t fade. It becomes permanent… because you dedicate yourself to wooing her. Everyday. Ceaselessly.
Why must you woo her? Because inside their minds and hearts women only want one thing: to be in love, all the time. Sweet romantic love, from a Prince Charming who showers them with attention and affection. It works like a perpetual motion machine:

Step 1. You act in a loving way.
Step 2. She becomes more loving and loveable.
Step 3. You in turn find it easier and more fun to give her loving attention.
Step 4. She in turn becomes more loving… and on it goes.

The term “making love” means having sex today. But there was a time when a man could be making love to a woman just by paying her attention. Women love attention. They feel affection for those who give them attention. You “make” love grow in a woman by wooing her. She in turn makes love grow in you by her reaction – sweet, sweet lovin’.

First aid for sick marriages

Surrender is emergency treatment for a marriage sliding into the divorce courts. If you do nothing else in the short term but Surrender, you should have bought the time you need to salvage the situation. In most cases. If you can get her to stop seeing the lawyer, stop kicking you out of the family home, stop walking out the door herself, you have stopped the bleeding. Now you need to work on a cure, and fast.

Surrender is so unexpected and powerful, it usually stops women in their tracks. They can’t handle it. They’ve never seen it before… especially in you. The uncharacteristic behaviour that follows catches them by surprise and puts a question into their minds. “Maybe he’s genuine. Maybe he’s flipped his lid. He might have changed. Let’s see…”

And you’re back on the front foot. You’re controlling the agenda. You’re controlling the timing. You are centre stage. Now it’s time for the performance of your life. Now it’s time for the wooing to start again, big time.

Throw down your arms! Surrender!

Recently Marie read the manuscript of Man Overboard and wrote detailed notes (which I will treasure and learn by). In more than one place she brought up the issue of sexual politics and the power imbalance in many relationships. This forced me to confront the feminist paradigm and say which side I am on...

Here is one such comment, followed by my reply:

"Page 24: Many women will be alienated by "you will love a woman into submssion". Women do not want to submit as they already feel imbalanced from a power perspective. This line may put them into the opposite affect of needing to overcompensate for their lack of power. They want to be equal and respected and in doing so will love back in a way that will respect and pleasure their their partner as well."

Dear Marie,

You have opened my eyes to another perspective. I will re-read the manuscript with your suggestions beside me.

Meanwhile let me address one theme – about sexual politics. I feel there could be a new paradigm.

I am aware of the issues. I was Miriam Dixson’s research assistant when she was writing The Real Matilda, a feminist history of Australia. That was in 1975. I haven’t read the books you mention.

Have you read The Surrendered Wife by Laura Doyle? I think I quote it in the manuscript. It takes a radical position re sexual politics. She believes that women (many women) want to be ‘husbanded’ - made to feel secure and protected by a man. She recommends that women force their husbands into this role and stop letting them off the hook by doing the family finances and planning all the outings and holidays and replacing the light bulbs, etc. while he plays golf or earns a living or whatever excuse he hides behind. She also advises women to stop belittling their men and reducing them to the status of naughty boys or incompetent nincompoops. She advises them to say, “Whatever you say” when he makes some lame-brained suggestion, throwing the responsibility back on the man to think through the consequences of his decisions. Be the helmsman instead of the passenger. Once given the power to wreck the ship, he is more likely to seek his wife’s opinion. The old-style traditional male position was all power no responsibility. A man fulfilling the role of husband - protector and provider – has all the responsibility and his power is prescribed by his desire to make his wife happy.

I could leave the dishes in the sink, but I won’t because I want to make my wife happy. I could leave the bed unmade but I won’t because... I could stay out late drinking .... And so long as my life is dominated by its chief function – making my wife happy – power relations don’t come into it.

That is what I mean by loving her into submission. It is not a submission to my will but a submission to her desire to be loved, cherished, cared for, thought about, considered, made to feel special...
Remember that my action plan involves complete submission on my part... Total.

I am a feminist. I have always been ideologically a feminist. (Not always practically or domestically. That has been a hard lesson to learn, having been bought up by a mother who did absolutely everything for me.)

I never sought to dominate a woman or sexually control a situation. I erred on the side of giving control to the woman. And guess what? Those same women were suckers for guys who treated them bad, used them then drifted away... I was always a ‘friend’, but when it came to romance they went for the blokes who were bastards to them. I could never figure it out, until my epiphany. I now believe that, primally, women have an echo of their ‘submissive’ role in ancient times when survival was by brute force and a woman needed a man to protect and provide for her children as they grew to self sufficiency...

But even then the woman held great power. In a fantastic book called Driven: How Human Nature Shapes Our Choices by Paul R. Lawrence, the author argues that women in these times bred selectively only with males willing and able to bond (ie. Stick around while their kids could grow strong enough to fend for themselves in the wild). In other words, women decided whose genes would live on and whose would not pass on. The modern man’s impulse to bond is the outcome of generations of choices by females.

As evidence of this primal echo, I believe women like to be pursued. Sounds like caveman stuff, but these are the facts of life as I have encountered it.

My fundamental thesis is that love submits to love. Love dissolves the power struggle.

Sexual politics is the negation of love because politics is the mechanism whereby sectional interests compete for dominance. That means ego seeks to defeat ego.

But love is not ego. Ego is the negation of love. We can’t love when we focus on ourselves. (However we can’t give love to another until we first learn to love ourselves.)

I believe in sexual politics if it means kicking him in the groin to get his attention. A crisis must be precipitated. I believe in differentiation – being self-validated. Being the change you want to see in others.

I am on the other side of the crisis, waiting with my radical strategy of unilateral surrender that endures as long as it takes to win her confidence and erase the pain of all the insults and injuries. Once back in balance (the woman decides when it is time to swing the pendulum back to the middle) things will never be the same. For love to prevail, there can be no seeking after justice. It’s best not to expect it.

The Prayer of St Francis says “Father may I never seek as much to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love...”

This won’t work for everyone. For some people the pain is too great, the leap of faith too far, the risk too big. But for those who ‘get it’, it makes a permanent change.

And love grows by this magic process: Love sees love loving and loves love.

I know there are many damaged women, damaged by damaged men, who in turn were damaged by damaged women and men. The path to healing for them is forgiveness because it is empowering and re-integrating and reaffirming of a person’s personhood.

Since writing the book I have learned a lot about love – that pain is its twin and they travel everywhere together. Pain is bearable when it has meaning. The pain of love has meaning.

I am sorry, this has been a rant. You were so kind to read my manuscript and thoughtfully so. And to spend the time critiquing. I want you to understand the clear distinction I draw between love and sexual politics and why I don’t dwell on the latter.

Yours,

Michael

"I read it in one sitting and was rivetted"

Michael,

Thank you for the copy. I read it in one sitting and was rivetted. As a woman, wife and mother I found it refreshing. As a psychotherapist I believe it will be useful. There are some specific points I would like you to consider in relation to comments that I have and will reply with those over the next few days as I have a chance.

Regards

Marie

(Thank you, Maria. Your comments will be very welcome. And you, dear blog reader. Your comments would be welcome also. You'll find the complete manuscript on the September 2005 post that started thid blog.)

Crushed like a grape

If ever a book was divinely inspired, it is The Mystery of Marriage by Mike Mason. Every page is a revelation. Try this:
"Socially, legally, physically, emotionally, every which way, there is just no other means of getting closer to another human being, and never has been, than marriage. Such extraordinary closeness is bought at a cost, and the cost is nothing more or less than one's own self. No one has ever been married without being shocked at the enormity of this price and at the monstrous inconvenience of this thing called intimacy that suddenly invades one's life."
The best is yet to come. Mike knows the answer to the question: why is loving so hard to do? "All of life is, in one way or another, humbling. But there is nothing like the experience of being humbled by another person and by the same person day in and day out. It can be exhausting, unnerving, infuriating, disintegrating. There is no suffering like the suffering involved in being close to another person. But neither is there any joy nor any real comfort at all outside intimacy, outside the joy and comfort that are wrung out like wine from the crush and ferment of two lives being pressed together."
Like a humble grape, being crushed in a wine press.
When I hear anyone's story of suffering in marriage, I recall the days I spent wandering around that farm in the New England for 10 days alone after meeting my future wife. Thinking there was something momentous about to happen, teetering on the edge of a chasm that I wanted to fall into to. Sinking, surrendering to the overwhelming power of love, with the feeling deep inside that danger and suffering awaited me there. I couldn't run away, but I yearned that the cup be taken away. The suffering of loving is as inevitable for me and you as it was for Christ in the Garden.
Surrendering to it does not make it any less painful. But it does give meaning to the pain.
The Garden was called Gethsename. I was looking just now, before posting this, for an image and came across the fact that the word Gethsemane is Aramaic for "place of the wine press".
We are all of us in the Garden of Love, Marissa.

And it stoned me

"Love doesn't just sit there like a stone.

"It has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new."

Ursula K. LeGuin

Marissa's Story: A kick in the groin?

This email was sent to me by Marissa in response to a post dated 7/2/06 "The moment of terror that lasted 30 years". Marissa kindly gave me permission to post it here as it is... My advice to her follows at the end.

....................
I read Michael Kiely's account of his "terrifying" feelings of marriage after realising the gravity of the commitment he had made and thought about the question he asks: "Is this a psychological condition that people go through? Should marriage carry a warning label?".

I am not sure that anyone can answer such a question as a generalisation, and still make it meaningful to the reader. For my part, I was certain I wanted to marry my now ex-husband - never an ounce of doubt. I did not marry with any ideal or illusion that life would forever be perfect, because it didn't have to be to meet my needs. I knew all of his "baggage" and he knew mine. I was happy to accept eveything about him even when things began to go horribly wrong. We married in 1989 but formally broke up in early 2004…

In my marriage, I can only lament that he never felt the need to be faithful or at least honest about his discomfort with, or desire to leave the marriage.

Having said this, it was not until I left our home (most reluctantly!) and performed an autopsy on "what happened" that I realised the indicators were always there that he wasn't sure at all - not about me, but about himself.

For example, he revealed to a close friend that he first became concerned that he married "the wrong woman" after I had played the 5c pokie machines during our honeymoon trip…

Retrospectively, I believe in his own strange way he "loved" me, but only married me because there was pressure amongst his peers to move out and settle down. However, unlike our marriage, his peers stayed faithful and devoted to their families, so much so, it deeply hurt his best friends to know of his infidelity and deceit.

In fact, on some pressure from me and in a rare moment of honesty when he finally revealed his disatisfaction with his life, much to my relief, I featured at the bottom of a list of some seven issues of angst and frustration, which included his job, house, car, income, unfulfilled career expectations, etc... By way of example, the three things he claimed to most "hate" about me were: 1) I wiped my 'hands on the tea towel'; 2) I had 'good communication skills' and that 3) we would 'argue every six months'. Foolishly, I saw these things as somewhat of a "positive" or "successful" marriage myself, but go figure!

After the second reason given for his misery in the marriage, I was left with almost nowhere to go in terms of trying to improve myself and trying to make things better for him; even though by then I had stopped wiping my hands on the tea towels and decided to stop challenging his views and wishes on almost anything - letting him have his way. Of course, that made him no happier!

Despite my last-ditch bid to save the marriage over some 5 years, it proved entirely futile to that end. I now know nothing could have saved it because our breakup was not really about me. Having said that, I do believe I am a better person for having tried, even though in many respects I have set myself back at least five years, career-wise and financially.

However, had I not made every effort at that critical time, I would now be living with more regret than I would care to be burdened with. Equally, I would have made more foolish, hasty and ill-considered decisions based on anger, spite and hurt rather than the love and respect I want to be able to feel for him for the sake of our kids, as much as any other reasons.

I would urge any reader who is currently facing the hard decision of "Do I stick-it-out or do I end the relationship?", to do the former, and to stick-it-out for as long as possible. Use that as an opportunity to look at yourself and how to bring out the best in the other person through your own personal development, if that is at all possible. Forget trying to change the other person first. That never works for very long.

Work on "non-violent acts of love", guided by forgiveness, patience and
compassion (corny as that sounds) and, above all, always keep the lines of communication open and non-threatening (and, boy, can that be trying and difficult!). It was advice given to me by several dear friends and worthy advice I heeded and never regretted. Of course, it's always easier said than done - but therein lies the challenge. {If you don't know what I am referring to, read Martin Luther King, Ghandi and Nelson Mandela's worksand apply it to your home situation - no matter how troubled or dysfunctional.}

One day, after coming home and being given a box of chocolates for a special occasion by my husband, I was most hurt to find he had shared the entire box of chocolates with friends, and I missed out on even one.

However, this was just one in a long series of upsetting things that week which I had noted from him and I really didn't care about the chocolates anyway. More, what I believed to be a deliberate act of calousness or carelessness on his part. I was so angry and offended by his behaviour, I spent three days carefully "psyching myself up" and working on what my "act of love" response would be, even though I was quite convinced he did not deserve it. Nonetheless, as it was a personal undertaking I had every intention to follow through with that promise to myself.

So I organised a special Mexican dinner - his absolute favourite! I phoned him to arrange the menu, shopped for the ingredients, set the table, cooked it to perfection and he ate it with relish. I made dinner a most genuinely pleasant occasion from my part. I even got thanked for it, which was a bonus, lame as that sounds...

However, it was not long before another incident erupted where again I was left feeling rejected and he knew how offensive his behaviour was (I don't even recall the detail of it now). After bursting into tears, I confronted him and asked, "Have you not noticed that every time you do something hurtful, I respond with something kind?". His answer was "No!", which only added to my hurt. I then pointed out that I had been practicing my "non-violent" responses to his every slight or rejection of me for over two years, at that stage, but that my kindness was never being noticed and that this left me feeling my efforts were totally in vain... I am certain that had he tried "non-violent actsof love" he might have genuinely felt some along the way (ie. "do the actions first, the feelings come later").

In the end, I can honestly say I didn't "give up" on my marriage (although I felt guilty about it for a long time). Rather, I only gave him what he really wanted - his freedom from remaining married.

I would, however, like to believe that my promise to "act out of love" is something I will continue to work on now in my dealings with everyone who really challenges my opinion of them and my patience.

.........

MY RESPONSE (NOW):

I think you got the message of my book wrong, Marissa. "Non-violent acts of love" is how males should react to female behaviour. If your ex was as screwed up as you say, you owed it to him to commit some violent acts of love on him to shake him up, like a kick in the groin. You see, men are so stupid when it comes to women and love. IS this man happily enjoying his freedom? No, he's bloody miserable.

MY RESPONSE (WHEN I FIRST RECEIVED THIS EMAIL):

I am very touched by the story of the "passion" of your marriage. (Passion in the sense of suffering for love.) I know the dimensions of your anguish, although I can never know how badly you were hurt.

If only we can get some meaning from what appears to be futile suffering. If it is meant to be, someone tell me why. Why were your loving responses rebuffed and ignored?

Infidelity is a cry for help, like shoplifting and many failed suicide attempts. You (ex)husband sounds like he has got a lot of growing to do. The petty irritations mask a deeper wellspring of fear.

I'll pray that love triumphs in your situation, as it must. The solution to every situation lies in the infinite possibilities that arrive on our doorstep with every new day.


MY PREFERREDRESPONSE: The kick in the groin.

"Only a wife would say that!"

The words popped out of my mouth before I could stop them: "Only a wife would say that!" They came so naturally and yet their effect was explosive. Let me explain: Occasionally, in the heat of conversation, you'll be explaining something and you'll quote a figure or state a fact that is not in itslef important, but you miss the mark recollecting the exact figure or fact and you blurt out something to support your point, then move on. No one but a pedant would sotp your flow and humiliate you in front of a group of people, but this voice pipes up: "No, that's not right. it's nearer to (whatever)..." And it is th melifluous tones of your beloved's voice. A sane man simply looks at his watch, shouts "IS that the time?" and rushes out of the room. An insane man says: "Only a wife would say that!" I am insane. I had to apologise like a bastard, thinking all the time "It's you who should be apologising." She was deeply hurt by the remark, perhaps because it hit home. Your best friend wouldn't do it, so why will a wife do it? Exercise compassion, Michael. Likely explanation: she realised what she had done and attacked me for saying something that humiliated her in public (the mirror image of what she had done to me). Often when we have a go at somedone for doing something, if we look back at ourselves we find that we have done the same thing and we're covering for ourselves. (The Bible says don't worry about the spec in your brother's eye, worry about the log in you own eye.) The fact is I humilated her in retaliation, without meaning to. It comes so easily to me to hurt her feelings, as it does to all of us. ("You always hurt the one you love..." goes the old song.) Why are we so cavalier with the feelings of those closest to us? Why can't we say all the praiseworthy things they do all the time?
Anyway, as luck would have it, a couple of days later she was in a position to say, "Only a husband would say that..." and we had a laugh. She's a wonderful woman because she's human and subject to human frailty. By sheer luck, so am I! We will stagger on together, wearing off the rough edges of each other to make the perfect partner, like it says in the book.

Who are you calling 'submissive'?

I found the following on a blog called “Yes, I'm a submissive man!” (I lifted the illustration to show you.)
This blog describes itself as “The online journal and insights of an evolved, respectful submissive man in Portland, Oregon. I hope to encourage thoughtful Female-friendly discussion of the benefits of Female Led Relationships as well as celebrate and discuss the Dominant Female/submissive male dynamic in relationships and society. All are welcome.”

It had this article on it about submissive guys – which is possibly how I come across in Man Overboard (thanks to the strategy of radical surrender). But I’m not naturally submissive. So to clear this up, I am running the item I found plus my comment that I left on the blogsite:

………………………..
The Five Levels of Matriarchal Marriage

by Michael Blanc

A marriage does not take place in isolation. It is a social understanding that involves not just the couple involved, but family, friends, workmates and all members of the social system.

Because of this, there is an extraordinary amount of pressure to conform to patriarchal traditions. The threat of losing the support of family, losing friends and perhaps even a job (though no employer would blatantly admit that this may have influenced them) is a ponderous weight that results in many couples simply caving in to the pressure.

The net result of this is that a huge percentage of married couples that are in female-led relationships are not formally acknowledged or identified as such by the larger culture. These couples can be categorized in at least five disparate groups.

Level 1. The first group is composed of couples that have come to an informal -almost jocular - acknowledgement of their relative positions within the relationship. You'll often hear older men refer to "checking things out with the boss." In such relationships the reality of the power structure in the marriage is camouflaged behind a guise of good humor, and is accepted as a joke by others around them.

Level 2. A second group is "yes dear" group that includes passive men and dominant women who quietly go about their marriage without much fuss or the raising of eyebrows by others. In both of the first two groups there is a conspiracy of silence between the wife and the husband, so that the issue of power dynamics is never really dealt with at a conscious level. Problems come up, decisions are made and the couple goes about their lives with a quiet understanding of their roles, but with no formal discussion of them. In another time, men in such relationships were mocked for being "henpecked", yet ironically, such couples were often well matched and their marriages were quite stable and enduring.

Level 3. A third group (of which my wife Lori and I are a part) is comprised of couples that are able to honestly discuss the disparity in their respective roles, and acknowledge in the privacy of their homes the primacy of the wife in the decision making role. Once this private reality is accepted and a covenant is made, it begins to open the door to a new realm of previously unchallenged sex roles at the dinner table, in the car, in daily household chores and--yes--in the bedroom as well.

Level 4. A fourth group includes couples that have come to an understanding of their female-led relationships and have had the courage to reveal its nature beyond the private confines of the home. One would likely begin to find men here who have taken their wives surnames in marriage. In this group there is no attempt made to hide or deceive others regarding the nature of the relationship, but neither is there any attempt to confront cultural norms by flagrantly and vocally disclosing information that might otherwise be kept private. Couples in this group do not shy away from disclosing truth, but usually haven't the time to deal with the battles that confrontation might bring.

Level 5. The fifth group is only now emerging, as is evidenced by the new Venus On Top book and Venus On Top Society online community. These are couples that are willing to invest the time and effort to advance the cause of female-led relationships for others for whom this is right. It can be an exhausting task and may at times seem all consuming, but it's probably a necessary step to make this vision of a new world a reality.

As a psychiatric social worker, I've often had the occasion to counsel couples who are struggling with a culturally expected gender roles, yet find it's a poor fit for them given the realities of their personalities.

Currently, even the more modern social ideal of the 50/50 relationship is probably only workable for about 60% of married couples. For another 20% - the traditionalists - a male-led relationship might be appropriate and should be accepted by the greater society. At the other end of the spectrum is the neglected or ignored 20% that is only now beginning to be the source of discussion.
The Venus On Top Society is rendering an incalculable service to those who have struggled long to deal with themselves, their marriages, and cultural dictates that are so opposed to everything that is so right for them.

MY COMMENT

I discovered the way to repair a damaged marriage and pull mine back from the brink of divorce was total submission - complete surrender to the woman. However unlike your 5 typologies, the dynamic shifts as the repair takes place and she learns she can trust me. Absolute surrender, compete unilateral forgiveness, and then unrelenting wooing were the three strategies I employed, and with dramatic effect. WOMEN must have sovereignty in a relationship, not necessarily all the power. They enjoy being swept off their feet by a masculine man, ravished, the placed back on a pedestal, not back in the laundry or the kitchen. This isn't a modern development. There's a celtic myth about the hag or princess by night or by day who decided, because the knight (who was being forced to marry her) had given her the right to choose, to be a princess by night and by day. It's magic. All women become princesses when they are given sovereignty, and they then free the knight to live his life in relative freedom, so long sa he remebers who set him free and wins her hand and her heart every day. I have written a bit of a book about it and it's available free on my blog http://manoverboardbook.blogspot.com. It's called Man Overboard: A Self Defense Course For Men In Marriage. It helps the traditional male realise it was never going to last. It helps the 50:50 get back to square after the inevitable explosion and it justifies the submissive male and reveals the heroism of his choice. More than mere survival, he has recognised the joy, not oof submissiveness as weakness, but of the submission of his personal interests to the interests of the woman he loves. The sublimation of ego through love. Love begets love. Submission begets submission. Loves gyroscope spins. Love is the only form of energy that can be created or destroyed. I'm for creative submission._And so is she.__Michael Kiely

The Physics of Love

'LOVE IS THE ONLY FORM OF ENERGY THAT CAN BE CREATED OR DESTROYED'

Energy cannot be created or destroyed. Matter cannot be created or destroyed. According to the Law of the Conservation of Energy, developed by Albert Einstein (I'll check that), we live in a Universe that is a closed system. You can transform matter into energy and vice versa. And Quantum Physics tells us all matter is energy anyway. But no matter (heh!) how hard we try we cannot destroy either of them.

Love is a form of spiritual energy. Love is different to physical energy because there are no limits on it. You can grow the love you feel, fill a room, fill a football stadium with it. If all the people in the world grew their love by 1%, imagine the incremental change in the atmosphere.

The Maharishi's organisation has proved scientifically many times that a group of people practicing meditation together can change the atmosphere in a location. A small group practicing the "Siddhi" form of transendental meditation can lower the crime rate in a city. This has been verified. The theory is that we are all connected on many levels - quantum mechanics tells us we are part of the same power grid of energy below the surface of the atoms, where our eyes cannot see.

If this is so, you can generate love around you simply by feeling more love - for life, for nature, for others, for anything.

And love can be destroyed. Usually by fear. Fear is the absence of love. Love is a positive energy. Fear is a void of positive energy. And evil is the result of a prolonged absence of positive energy.

Love is the antidote to the poison circulating in the world today.

I owe these thoughts to the teachings of Deepak Chopra, a fellow old boy of Christian Brothers College, his being in Mumbai (Bombay), India, and mine in Tamworth, NSW.

You can grow your heart, starting today

Everyone in the world is in some kind of pain.
Feel it, and you will understand them.
When they feel you understand, they will hear you.
Only then will you know what to say.

--

To live in harmony with another person you need more than good intentions.. You need to build a bridge. The best bridge you can build is the one that spans the river of pain.
You might disagree with that first statement above, but I believe it's true. Everyone suffers from pain of some description. For many it is physical. For many more it is emotional pain - memories of past trauma, anxiety about the future, fear of patterns repeating themselves. For the vast majority it is the pain of loneliness, which is in epidemic proportions in our society. And for many there is the spiritual pain arising from a sense of meaninglessness of life. Most people spend their time running from the fact that their time here is finite and that one day they will die. We fill our lives with amusements and obsessions while the Grim Reaper stands waiting at the back of the room. And the question this forces on us? What does it all mean? What is the meaning of my life? The lack of a satisfactory answer brings pain.

Buddha's great insight was that the whole of life is suffering. And he developed his system of spiritual practice to eliminate suffering - which he said was caused by our attachment to the material world. The principle of Surrender that I recommend in the book man Overboard is a Buddhist principle. It is also a Christian principle. Surrender to Christ, and, through Him, to each other.

Each of us bear our private pain courageously. Just living through a day for many is a triumph. But the light comes breaking through the clouds when another human being acknowledges our pain, can feel what we feel. These moments confirm our existence and affirm our goodness. Finding someone who does this can be like falling in love. I suspect there is a good deal of this behind Infatuation. Perhaps the illusion of genuine understanding.

The word for building such a bridge across people's pain is COMPASSION. Christ was said to be full of it. Mother Teresa's compassion was legendary. We all have the ability to be compassionate, like the Good Samaritan.

The Dalai Lama, who doesn't believe in romantic love, says the two building blocks of human love are empathy (identifying with another person) and compassion (feeling their pain).

In fact compassion means, literally, "suffering with" another. Walking alongside someone. That's how a Christian Brother described his version of Christian love.

When someone attacks you or is angry wiht you, and you can understand that they are simply expressing their pain - searching for someone to acknowledge it - you will feel less inclined to counter-attack and more inclined to seek to make peace.

If you can see all the people suffering and feel a little of it, you can grow your heart, literally. You can grow your ability to feel love.

Now ain't that something?

If you hate women...

Seek help if you feel you are chronically depressed or suffer from a psychological disorder that is making it difficult to enjoy normal relationships. If you “hate” women, you need help. I saw my first counsellor more than 30 years ago and have used them whenever I’ve felt the need to sort myself out. It doesn’t mean you’re looney if you see a psychologist – the real looney is the person who needs help and won't ask for it.
Some men's rights websites are run by psychotics who need professional attention. Their rantings encourage mysogeny (hatred of women as a gender). In reality they are so consumed by self-hatred they can't have a normal loving relationship themselves and so they encourage others to be like them.
They are scared little boys calling out for help but blocked by their macho self image from accepting any.
These lunatics are nancy boys who don't have the guts to love a woman because they can't take the pain involved.
They run away from women and hurl abuse from afar.
A real man, fully mature, knows that love means joy and pain in equal measures, and accepts the challenge.

Divorce is not the doorway to happiness

People who bail out of marriage are generally no happier than those who stay and fight for their marriage, according to University of Chicago studies in the 1980s and 1990s. Divorce is not the answer in most cases. And because the problems travel with the partners into new relationships, it’s better to stay put and solve the problem than seek greener grass on the other side. Second and third marriages fall apart faster and more often than first marriages.
Married people are also usually healthier, wealthier, happier and enjoy more sex than singles or divorcees, according to British research. Married men live longer. So saving your marriage could mean saving your life.


THE FULL TEXT OF THE BOOK MAN OVERBOARD IS AVAILABLE IN THE FIRST POST ON THIS SITE (SEPTEMBER 2005)