Hi Evan. In my search for relationship advice I have found your perspective so insightful and real. Much better than advice from friends that mainly includes “don’t settle” and “follow your heart/gut.”

I’m 31 years old and I’ve been with my boyfriend for over a year. We both feel that communication and respect are most important in a relationship and have many shared interests. My boyfriend is an amazing listener. He’s kind and caring, treats family and friends well, and has a calm yet serious personality that complements my emotional personality, which flusters easily.

However… he is not funny.

I grew up in a home where the men have sharp wit, make puns, tell entertaining stories and speak fluent sarcasm. Life in general is addressed with a side of humor. I am drawn to people with this sense of humor, from friends and co-workers to strangers and customers. I love the challenge and excitement that witty banter provides me. I find it’s my way of connecting with people.

In looking back at my long-term romantic relationships, the guys were always kind, caring and sensitive (something I find desirable and comfortable) but they’ve never been the “life of the party,” making me double over in laughter. I’ve always been the one to end each relationship.

My current relationship is not completely lacking laughter but I am often consumed with thoughts of “Can I live my whole life with a man who’ll never have a witty come back?” Because we have such open communication I’ve been able to explain my feelings to him. It has not upset him that I’m still unsure in our relationship, but for me it has been causing stress from indecision.

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Meet Jerry.

Jerry is 38, makes $120,000/year, and wants to be a husband and father. Jerry’s a man’s man. It’s not that he’s insensitive, per se. It’s that he’s far more comfortable building a deck in his backyard, tinkering with his car, and playing golf than he is talking about his feelings. Still, for all his Marlboro Man demeanor, he’s good-hearted, generous and loyal. He may never be emotive, but he will be a good partner for a woman who doesn’t expect a man to express himself verbally. He shows his love through acts of service.

Problem is that Jerry’s had a hard time falling in love. Women love his manly side, his innate nobility, his serve and protect ethos. What they struggle with is his view of women.

He wants a traditional homemaker as a wife, and in his city, he’s had a devil of a time finding any attractive woman who shared his worldview.

Jerry wants a stay-at-home wife. One who handles the household and takes care of the kids and has dinner on the table for him when he gets home from work. For most of his thirties, he’s been dating attractive women who respond to his masculine energy, and yet each of those relationships has imploded. Because when push comes to shove, Jerry believes in traditional marital roles. It’s not that he thinks women are inferior. Nor does he feel that women don’t have the right to work hard and make equal money as their male counterparts. This is simply about him and his needs. He wants a traditional homemaker as a wife, and in his city, he’s had a devil of a time finding any attractive woman who shared his worldview. Simply put, Jerry likes smart women. They’re more stimulating. And it just seems that all the smart women are so busy juggling career, friends, travel, the gym, book club, and a side business, that he’s not sure about what to do. Should he keep dating the smart women who are out of alignment with his life goals? Should he hold out for Suzy Homemaker, although, after ten years, he’s beginning to doubt her very existence? Or is there a third, middle path – some form of possible compromise?

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Evan, I have been reading a lot of different dating advice websites, especially the ones written for MEN. I have noticed a trend in telling men to get the women to chase THEM. (Ask Men is one example) I see a lot of advice to women about why men disappear, what to do when they disappear, etc., but it seems that men are being COACHED to disappear, as a power play, a way to get the upper hand, and to get the woman to chase THEM. So if women are being coached to play hard to get, and men are playing the same game, what does this mean for male/female relationships?

In this incarnation of my dating life I have decided that I am not going to chase men. (In my younger days I admit that I did, and no good ever came of it.) This time around I absolutely I will not chase men, nor be baited into chasing one. (Yes, men are advised to bait, hook, and then ignore a woman, to get her to do the chasing). BTW, I am not a “rules” girl, I read that book, and feel dumber for having read it. I do want a man to pursue me, but when he does, I will be increasingly receptive to him, and once a relationship has been established, I won’t mind taking the initiative when appropriate. I won’t wait 2 days to return his calls, or only see him 2 times a week, or play all the mysterious stuff that Rules promotes. (They call it mysterious, but I call it secretive & evasive.)

So while I am not a hardcore Rules girl, I am a little old fashioned and want a man to pursue me, not hand me his business card and expect me to call him. Or e-mail me endlessly on Match.com but never ask to meet me face to face. What do you think of the role reversal being promoted by sites such as Ask Men (they call it “The System”) Do you think many men are following that advice ? –S.E.

Hoo boy. I’m not sure where to begin.

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A recent study in the American Sociological Review titled “Religion and Sexual Behaviors,” reveals that religious affiliation has a big impact on the likelihood of sex before marriage.

418,000 people in developing countries were surveyed. All major religions prohibit premarital sex, but Muslims seem to take Islam’s rules regarding sex especially seriously. Sociologists found that Muslims were the least likely of all major religious groups to have had sex before marriage.

If I weren’t already a Jewish atheist, I’d be all over the Buddhism thing.

This isn’t particularly surprising, but what was interesting was that the probability of a Muslim woman having had premarital sex changes depending on how dominant Islam is in the country where she lives.

If this woman lives in a nation where 1 percent of residents are Muslim, her predicted probability of reporting premarital sex would be .72…In a nation where 90 percent of residents are Muslim, the woman’s predicted probability of reporting premarital sex would tumble to .28. We can thereby conclude that national culture has stronger effects than individual preferences.

As for why Buddhists rank highest in premarital sex? The researchers suppose that it could be because Buddhism is not monotheistic, it has fewer “strict rules about specific behaviors.”

If I weren’t already a Jewish atheist, I’d be all over the Buddhism thing.

You can read the original Boston Globe article here and share your thoughts below.

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Evan,
I am having problems with my husband.

He is intelligent but not driven. He is outgoing but is rough around the edges in social settings. He rarely holds my hand, cuddles or kisses me beyond a peck hello or goodbye. We have sex less than 10 times a year, and that has been going on for 7-8 years despite my asking him how we could fix it. Recently I found out he has been taking care of his own needs with porn. If that were in addition to a great sex life I wouldn’t care. Instead it feels like it took away from our sex life.

Our conversations are superficial. We can take a five-hour road trip and barely talk in the car on the way there. He isn’t interested. When we go out to party he binge drinks, becoming another person who often flirts with other women or seems to not be present in his own body. I have begged on several occasions for this behavior to change and it never does.

On the flip side we share a common interest in my college football team, music, concerts, travel, food and more. We are true partners when it comes to taking care of the house and make all big decisions together. While our friendship is fabulous as far as going and doing our romantic life is obviously lacking. I know passion isn’t everything and it waxes and wanes throughout a marriage. But he has always lacked the ability to communicate and show affection. I guess when I married him at age 24 I didn’t realize how important a loving connection was to me. In fact our courtship was full of drama over these same issues.

We have tried counseling. He says he can change the binging, but so far hasn’t. He says he can’t change his communication style. I can’t speak my mind, share a personal frustration or cry about something and expect his support. He shuts down. There are past substance abuse issues that concern me, along with his continued looking at porn. We don’t have children. We are 38 and 40.

I’m so confused. I can’t imagine another 40 years without affection and communication. Am I expecting too much? –Annie

No, Annie, you’re not expecting too much.

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Do women have it a lot easier than men, and do hot people in general have it the easiest? I know what you might be thinking: yes and yes. It’s hardly the unsolved question of the century.

However, it’s always good to back up hypotheses with facts, and that’s what Jon Millward did with this experiment, posted on his eponymous blog. Millward created 10 fake OKCupid profiles with similar sounding usernames, with the same written profile, personal stats, level of education, etc. The only difference? Each account had a different photo of a man or woman of varying attractiveness.

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Evan,
I fall into the majority of divorced women with a degree who are looking on line, but with children. Dating with children changes the rules of the game entirely. For both men and women. As a single person without children you are open to possibilities, open to long distance relationships even, but when the kids are around then we have to change our mindset to realizing that we are Teflon until the kids are out of the house, that the Brady Bunch was just a fantasy TV sitcom, and that living a life of dating without the kids makes us live two lives, one with kids and one without. Soon enough you’re going to resent one of them, if not both, and the idea of bringing your children along for dates is not really something acceptable.

So you can talk about what your dating life as a single man was like –you wanted a woman who you could have children with, so you probably didn’t date women with children and if you did you soon found out that they needed to be thrown back. That’s how I feel, that every man I meet will never really date me for a serious relationship because I have children, and especially if he has his too, then it’s like he can understand but he also doesn’t want to pick up someone else’s slack. Perhaps you can recommend a different resource…or you can explain how your comments apply when it comes to dating with children.

Try it with your wife…pretend the kids were not yours, and you were dating her…how would that change everything? –Joy

Joy,

Thanks for your email, as it reveals both some truths and blind spots.

Truth: it’s a lot easier to date if you don’t have kids.

People without children don’t have much of a concept of what it’s like to be tethered to home for feeding, napping, school, and extracurricular activities. Your life isn’t entirely your own.

The thing is: this isn’t news to anybody.

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Dilbert creator Scott Adams blogged about passion a couple of weeks ago.

“You often hear advice from successful people that you should “Follow your passion.” That sounds about right. Passion will presumably give you high energy, high resistance to rejection and high determination. Passionate people are more persuasive, too. Those are all good things, right?”

Well, as you know from reading this space, there’s a downside to passion, too. Passion allows you to pursue something (or someone) that may not be good for you in the long run. But at least you have your PASSION, right?

That’s what I told myself when I was a struggling screenwriter in my 20′s. That’s what Adams concludes as well.

“It’s easy to be passionate about things that are working out, and that distorts our impression of the importance of passion. I’ve been involved in several dozen business ventures over the course of my life and each one made me excited at the start. You might even call it passion. The ones that didn’t work out – and that would be most of them – slowly drained my passion as they failed. The few that worked became more exciting as they succeeded. As a result, it looks as if the projects I was most passionate about were also the ones that worked. But objectively, the passion evolved at the same rate as the success. Success caused passion more than passion caused success.”

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For six years, I’ve been giving advice to women about understanding men and making healthy choices that lead to successful long-term relationships.

Every month, I get hundreds of questions from around the world. I choose to answer one per week on Monday mornings.

As you can imagine, the questions I choose are not generally ones where the original poster has it all figured out. The questions I choose are inherently ones where the OP has some sort of blind spot that she’s too close to see. If she didn’t have a blind spot, there wouldn’t be very much for me to write about, now would there?

So, if the questions I take are carefully selected to maximize the value of my advice – because validation doesn’t make for interesting reading – it should be somewhat predictable that my answers are often going to challenge the premise of the woman in question.

And if you’ve been reading awhile, you know that these answers fall into largely two broad camps:

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Evan,
I’ve been married for just over 3 months. Prior to marrying my husband, he had a bachelor party. His bachelor party consisted of the men partying and watching football, and then eventually retiring to his friend’s house for 2 full nude strippers in a show. My husband came home completely messed up at 4am.

The issue is that he did not make me aware of the strippers. Later, I saw him bending over and on his ass was a bunch of permanent marker. BUSTED! He kind of came clean, but the timeline of his story and his lack of details make me think it’s worse than I know. He refuses to discuss it with me. Not to mention that when he came home at 4am, he had sex with me. I feel a little used.

Now, 4 months later, I’m still hurt by it and it eats at me that I have no idea what happened with 2 fully nude strippers in his friend’s house or why he would end up home at 4am instead of either a more reasonable time or the next morning. Seems fishy… not to mention he doesn’t even recall having sex with me when he got home.

I’m doing my best to let that go but now we have another friend’s wedding where he is a groomsman. Which means another bachelor party! So, my anxiety is at an all-time high. I’m almost leaning toward telling him if they get private strippers, I will be getting a private massage from at least 1 male therapist, and if they go to a strip club, not a big deal, I’ll stick to a reputable storefront for my massage! Is that unreasonable? Do I seem like an uptight wife? I’m just utterly grossed out by thinking about a nude girl or two rubbing on my man’s crotch! And I’d think he may get a little crazy thinking about a muscular stud rubbing me down with massage oils, so it seems fair, no? –Katherine

Dear Katherine,

I’ve talked about men and their visual proclivities before: namely, here, here, and here.

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