You’ve met someone, new love is in the air, butterflies in your middle, a swoon when they walk in the room; this is the good stuff in life. You have waited too long for this. You deserve your moment in the sun. You don’t want hard conversations or conflict now. You want to lean in and lose yourself in this wonderful feeling. You have a pep in your step; a permanent grin. It’s easy enough to work around the tricky areas. They seem so small in comparison to this grandiosity of goodness. Maybe you’re not feeling it in the bedroom; the potential is there but you don’t want to feel awkward, or pushy or make it an ‘issue’. You don’t want them to feel inadequate! You cross your fingers, talk to a bestie or a bro. You try a hint or two; a sideways angle. You arm yourself with positive reinforcement but there isn’t enough to reinforce. Weeks go by. You list all of their positive attributes. You judge yourself for being too shallow. After all, they are so good to you. Weeks turn to months. The cuddling is great, you tell yourself because its too late to say something now. That would mean admitting you weren’t really satisfied this whole time. It would mean making them feel bad. It would be embarrassing. It might not end well. Did I mention that it would be…embarrassing? You ever so slightly rewrite your expectations.
Or maybe you’re worried, just a little about money…money shouldn’t matter because the Beatles told us it can’t buy you love, but it just so happens that you’re not that risk tolerant or spendy. You feel an inner pang whenever they pull out the card and drop that much on that. You don’t want to pry but you don’t want to be the only responsible one, again. You convince yourself that in time it will balance itself out. You swallow your discomfort. I mean maybe you’re a bit to controlling or uptight. It would do you some good to live a little, loosen the purse strings. Maybe you notice they are a bit too frugal, fearful, judgy when it comes to spending. Remarks slip out. You find yourself justifying your choices, or hiding them. The future is slightly less blinding with its brightness. You take off your shades.
And just like that a pattern emerges, seeds of future conflict are planted. You hold onto your glow but you feel a little less and less safe. You focus on what you love about them, a little bit harder.
And what about needs? Don’t even get me started on needs. What do you do the first time they drop the ball? Forget something important to you, fail to listen, respond, prioritize your time, express enthusiasm, feel enthusiasm. What happens when they, god forbid, seem a little questioning, concerned, dissatisfied, confused, with something you have done, or failed to do? You can hear your well meaning friends, loud and clear, can’t you? Before you can even hear your own thoughts. They are telling you NOT to put up with that BS, disrespect, inattention. They can see your ex, all over again and god help them they are bent on saving your from your inability to save yourself. Of course you don’t want that, and you don’t see it the same way because you have hope, but maybe hope is foolish and the fear begins to creep and creep. You are going to say something; demand what you deserve, point out the inacceptable, call them on their shit, strike an ultimatum. But then a WORSE idea intrudes. What if you are just needy? Your friends aren’t seeing it. They’re too busy protecting you. What if you just seem like a needy, clingy, shlep, because you are a needy, clingy, schlep?
My dearest human, it does not have to be this way. You do not have to choose between relationship bliss in the short term and success in the long. You do not have to betray yourself, guess constantly, cross your fingers and whisper prayers to the holiness under your breath that it’s not going to end badly, or worse, become a twenty year purgatory that has no hope of either ending, or fulfilling your life.
There is a better way. A one bazillion times better way. And there is a small but fiercely shiny light at the end of this sad sad tunnel.
The thing is, you can’t do the thing that the World has taught us to do in hopes of keeping love alive: Stand in front of a room of 200 (give or take) friends, loved ones, family and random plus ones, DECLARING your oh so heart felt, strong and desperate intentions for a marriage that dances you through life, PROMISING that you will love, honour, cherish and obey, or mutually respect more modernly speaking, until you get dead, in hopes that this will KEEP IT ALL GOING SMOOTHLY FOR 4O YEARS.
The answer is in the question. The entire NEED for the declaration is the absolute LACK of ability of humans to make a relationship stick once the giddy shit wears off a little. Now you can biology me all you want, I can take it, but this isn’t just because we need to procreate. I guarantee that biology is a mess like we are if you look closely enough. It’s because we don’t have any tools or skills, or language, or support for setting the next 40 years up for success, so to speak.
I love me a wedding, but we have to wing and prayer via some hard core vows, because they’re going to white knuckle us through all the shit that goes wrong when we don’t know how to think about, understand and talk about relationship essentials. Like needs. And money. And sex. And parenting. Oh my list goes on.
This is why I, me, myself and my team at Dateable, have created our signature, wonderful, life and relationship altering masterclass, a term that I may soon replace on account of its over usage. Except that it is a class in mastery, that makes short work of all of this work.
I, friends, have seen too much. I cannot unsee, or unknow –how a woman exits a twenty year marriage never having had an orgasm. And a man exits not knowing he’s never known. Ugh. But sex is just the tip of the iceberg, the cherry on top. I have seen, before, during and after, how it derails when there is no need for the derailing. Communication, expectations, sneaky little patterns, compensations.
And I have dug oh so deep to make it stop. I have helped you stop circling the drain, get your relationship, never mind your mind (jk) out of the gutter. Together we have healed your trust, regained your faith in marriage, recovered your intimacy, made the intimacy better than ever –we have learned to champion, to embrace one another’s strengths. We have unwound yarn balls of conflict and felt incredibly inalterably unburdened. We have healed old wounds, forgiven, discovered how to move forward safely. We have felt confident for the first time in our own hearts, minds, skins to thrive in relationship, because we are thriving on the inside, where the digested chocolate bars and wine live (it’s been a long winter).
But my real passion, my super extra excitement factor, is getting it off the ground right. Trading the twenty years of what could have been, almost was great sex, for ACTUAL great sex. Leveraging money so that you aren’t figuring out at 60 that you coulda woulda shoulda done it your way.
I call this lovely learning, this magic if I may, Relationship Readiness, and the team and I have put it together into a program for you. You. Yes. Yours truly.
I’m not going to sweat the details here. But I will say it’s short and sweet 3 months, that you will be living through one way or another, with or without me. It’s an intensive, so it covers a lot in a little. It’s keeping it real, in other words, its accessible, and street smart, and not like a bunch of fluff that is sold in the self help isle. It’s easy to practice. The exercises are made to be easy in light of the demand on time and attention.
But best of all, you gain the built in conversation. You gain the tools and the frame of reference to ask them where they land. To initiate the discussion before it’s an issue. To explore the best of each other and change the way it all evolves, proactively.
This class is like a reversible blanket. You can use it as a single, so that you are ready, you walk in with an in depth understanding of yourself, your needs, and everything else under the sun. But you can also use it as couple entering into a serious relationship, eager to build it on solid ground. You can have all of those groundbreaking moments together, welcoming tools that make it easy to build it right. And last, but oh so not least, you can take it as an established couple. You can use it to augment what you have, to steer what are building, or to breathe life into what is ailing.
We all despair, as individuals, as a culture, as beloveds, that marriage ends in divorce. That relationships are “hard work”; a grind. But it never occurs to us that it might not be the nature of love itself, or the institution of marriage but rather that we don’t invest in it; we put on our fairy wings and sail our way to Lalaland on something like a prayer.
It’s actually not that much work to figure it out ahead of time.
It’s actually a little bit of investment that makes the rest of it pay dividends.
It’s actually less than a vacay, or a car, to have a permanent vacay from misery.
We RISK hundreds of thousands of bucks on divorce, the grueling conflict, the emotional despair, the depression, the entire war of it, and yet we don’t think to give ourselves some insurance, in well being, thriving, ease of communication. In joy.
For ourselves. Our children.
And as I’m fond of saying, for the love of all things good and beautiful.
Like you. You’re good and beautiful. Do it for the love of you.
We need to start putting some TLC into the love, instead of cleaning up its messy dissolution.
Okay, well, it got a bit intense over here. Only because I have twenty three years of rescuing babies from the bathwater.
You get me?
Relationship Readiness.
It’s a thing.
It’s a hopeful, smart, life altering, divorce statistic bending, happiness jolting thing.
Ask me about it.
Sign up today.
Make it part of your matchmaking contract.
Or part of your commitment to love yourself more in 2024.
Make it a first step.
Love is just too good to leave to chance.
Better to lock that shit down.
I’ll show you how.
Much love,
Erin