Are You Afraid of Falling in Love?

You may have been single for a long time.

I can very much empathize with you.

As much as I talk about my marriage these days, you mustn’t forget that for ten years, I was a serial dater, a single and frustrated struggling writer who went out with hundreds of women in notoriously weird and shallow Los Angeles.

And I’d be lying if I didn’t admit at certain points I wondered whether there was anybody right for me out there. I’d wasn’t sure monogamy was for me, or if I could handle all the compromises necessary to be part of a couple.

Then I became a dating coach.

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit at certain points I wondered whether there was anybody right for me out there.

I listened to men. I listened to women. I saw the commonalities.

I started applying what I learned to my own life.

Ready for Lasting Love?
Ready for Lasting Love?

And I ultimately got married based on a lot of experience, an educated guess, and a leap of faith that I was investing in a woman of character and kindness.

What a decision I made!

After three years of marriage, I’ve come to the revolutionary conclusion that in a good marriage, you don’t give up any freedom at all.

You gain it.

When I was single, I was free to go out on Friday night to parties or bars on the Sunset Strip. I was free to approach unapproachable models over thumping bass music and offer to buy them drinks. I was free to take out random women on JDate for dinner, only to find out that there was no connection.

So what kind of freedom did I give up when I got married?

Only this: I gave up the right to sleep with strangers.

Everything else is a net positive.

I’m free to act like myself around my wife.

I’m free to be moody and brusque when I feel like it.

I’m free to retreat to my office to read the Huffington Post or ESPN.com or look at pictures of Kim Kardashian on celebrity websites.

I’m free to practice guitar poorly and to complain about my tight hamstrings.

I’m free to watch football with my friends or go to Vegas for a bachelor party.

I’m free to be a giver — to find new ways to make my wife happy, to buy her things she wouldn’t think of requesting.

As a result, NOBODY is freer than I am.

DO YOU WANT TO FIX YOUR BROKEN MAN-PICKER?

I have a partner in crime who loves me for me, doesn’t expect me to change, and treats me like I’m her hero.

It’s not that my wife thinks I’m perfect; it’s that she’s wise enough to spend most of her time reminding me why she loves me, instead of “fixing” what she doesn’t.

In exchange, she gets the full force of my love and devotion.

This is what happens when you choose to marry the right person.

So if you’re reading this and thinking that this can’t happen to you — that any man that you’ve ever been with was verbally abusive, asked you to lose weight, criticized your intellect, and refused to treat you properly, all I have to say to you is:

STOP choosing the wrong men!!!!

If you want to be at peace, to feel the liberating feeling of being loved and accepted for who you are, in full, try making THAT your FIRST criteria for a partner:

“Loves me unconditionally and accepts me in full”.

Despite the inherent compromises of marriage (we now have a pink baby room, for example), I can assure you that there’s not one moment I have to pretend to be anything other than myself.

This is joy. This is freedom. And it’s within reach.

All you have to do is compromise on a few non-essential things.

DO YOU WANT TO FIX YOUR BROKEN MAN-PICKER?