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20 May 2012

Here’s a 7-step blueprint for a happy marriage, money-wise

Not if your goal is to avoid the No. 1 reason marriages end in divorce: money problems.

Everyone knows, or should know, this. But love and a reluctance to take a hard look at our own financial habits, often keep us from seeing, much less confronting, potential financial troubles in a relationship.

Failing to do so can lead to serious trouble.

“Mature, responsible conversations about money are a sign of a marriage that’s going to be healthy and wonderful and enduring,” says Brooke Salvini, a certified financial planner based in San Louis Obispo, Calif. “If you can’t talk about money when you are dating, that is a red flag right there.”

To get the conversation rolling, here are seven steps experts recommend to steer clear of potential marital money troubles:

1. DISCLOSE FINANCIAL RECORDS

Before corporations merge, both sides get a close look at each other’s financial records. Take the same approach before you get hitched.

Swap statements for your bank accounts, credit cards, student loans, retirement accounts and so on. Also share credit reports and FICO scores.

“Not only can you start to put together a balance sheet of what the two of you own and what your debts are, you can start to discuss ‘do we want to combine our checking account?’” says Salvini.

2. DISCUSS FINANCIAL GOALS

A huge part of getting in sync with your spouse begins with discussing major life goals and the necessary financial commitments.

Discuss short-term goals, such as paying off credit card debt or buying a car, and longer-term goals such as buying a house, then craft a budget that sets you clearly on a path toward your goals.

3. BUDGET YOUR SPENDING

Failing to create and stick to a mutually agreed budget can lead to marital strife.

It doesn’t have to be complicated. Start by listing monthly income. Be sure to add in interest earned on money-market accounts and dividends from any investments. Then add up expenses, from car payments and rent to groceries, gym membership and utilities.

If you’re making more than you spend each month, you can begin planning how to set aside money for an emergency fund, and for long-term financial goals.

If you are spending more than you earn, it’s time to consider ways to cut spending.

4. TREAT YOUR MONEY AS OUR MONEY

Many newlyweds see the money they earn individually as their own, much as if they might merely be roommates. They keep separate bank accounts and pitch in, perhaps equally, or not, to pay bills.

But that can lead to problems, especially if one spouse earns a lot more than the other, says Anthony Chambers, a clinical psychologist at the Family Institute at Northwestern University.

If both spouses work, he suggests they arrange for their paychecks to be deposited directly into a joint account used to pay all shared expenses. If they feel they need to have some of their own money in a separate account, that’s fine. But Chambers says that money should come from the joint account, so both spouses know where the household’s money is going.

5. KEEP CREDIT CARDS SEPARATE

It’s not necessary to make your spouse a joint account holder on your credit cards, especially if he or she has a poor credit history, which can drag down your own credit rating. Instead, make your spouse an authorized user of your credit cards. This will avoid any potential impact to your credit rating. Authorized users are also able to check account balances and track spending on the card.

6. DON’T SPLIT COSTS 50-50

In marriage as in most other scenarios, money is power. Although splitting household costs down the middle may work early in a relationship, it can breed resentment in a marriage when one spouse makes a lot more money than the other. It also can foster a sense that the person who pays more should have more say in financial matters.

“Very few things in marriage are exactly 50-50,” says Chambers. “And that can really start to bring up all of these other issues of fairness.”

Even if costs aren’t split down the middle, it’s important that each spouse have equal say in money decisions.

7. TALK ABOUT SPENDING

Even after you’ve reviewed all the financial paperwork, it’s even more important to find out how your spending habits match up.

Often those habits are developed early and are entrenched. One person might have grown up in a family that counted every penny. Another might part far more easily with money because shopping became a hobby.

Beyond how much someone likes to spend, there are potential conflicts over what we see as a must-have.

Even small differences can become wedge issues.

“The central task of marriage is the management of differences,” says Chambers. “So you want to be able to know early on what those differences are.”

Category: How to Find Love  Tags: ,  Leave a Comment
20 May 2012

The hurtful family secrets that brought my famous twin back to me: On the eve …

  • Paul and Tracey who were raised by their mother Pauline were inseparable when they were young
  • Their childhood idyll was shattered when they discovered their father Enver had another family and three other children

By
Adam Luck


PUBLISHED:

18:54 EST, 19 May 2012

|

UPDATED:

18:54 EST, 19 May 2012

This Friday, the concrete and glass halls of Margate’s Turner Contemporary gallery will echo to the sound of champagne corks popping and the conversational hubbub of distinguished guests, punctuated perhaps by the occasional nervous laugh from Tracey Emin.

The artist is hosting a private viewing in her home town to mark the formal opening of her exhibition, She Lay Down Deep Beneath The Sea, which features both new and existing works on the themes of love and sensuality.

But the viewing represents far more than just a homecoming for Tracey. It will also be a hugely  significant family event.

Connection: Tracey Emin and her twin brother Paul were close when they were six-years-old (pictured) and the bond remains strong

Tracey is to meet 11-year-old Jaden, the long-estranged son of her twin brother Paul, for the first time.

Paul says: ‘It was Tracey’s idea to invite Jaden to the private viewing. She invited my son and his mother Louise, which was very sweet of her.

‘Tracey is very good at pulling all of the family together.’

It will be a poignant moment for the artist, 48, who is unable to have children of her own following an operation for endometriosis, and who recently said that her sex life was probably over. 

She considered adopting children but her experiences as the child of a single parent seem to have made her decide against it.

Tracey and Paul have followed profoundly different paths. She is Professor of Drawing at the Royal Academy.

One of her neon light installations resides in 10 Downing Street, her work sells for astronomical sums and she has met the Queen.

He is currently a dealer in architectural antiques and was once a carpenter, but cannot be said to have enjoyed unqualified success in either field.

However, while circumstances may have occasionally strained the ties between them, they have never actually broken.

Both now seem ready to move on to a new phase in their relationship, with Tracey’s desire to meet her nephew the catalyst.

Close: Paul and Tracey (pictured in 2002) were raised by their mother Pauline and were inseparable as children and even when they were young sharing a private language

Paul and Tracey, raised by their mother Pauline, were inseparable as children. Paul, who lives in Deal, Kent, says: ‘As twins, we have always shared a common bond and even, when we were young, a private language.

‘No matter where we are, that connection is still there. When we were babies, we slept in the same crib and one night I kept crying. 

‘My mother came up to settle me, but by the time she reached the bottom of the stairs I was crying again.

‘When she came back up, Mum realised Tracey was suffocating after rolling over on a pillow.’

But their childhood idyll was shattered when they discovered the reason that their father Enver flitted in and out of their lives.

Paul says: ‘It wasn’t until we went to school that our mother told us that we had to share our father because he had another family and three other children by a woman called Sheila.

‘Initially, Sheila resented my mother Pamela, but over the years the rift  was healed.’

'Ladies' man: Enver Emin was absent during Tracey and Paul's childhood and they had to 'share' him with his other family

‘Ladies’ man: Enver Emin was absent during Tracey and Paul’s childhood and they had to ‘share’ him with his other family

Enver, a one-time property developer, claimed that Sheila had given her blessing to the affair and his dual life had been ‘open and above-board’.

Tracey later told her father: ‘It was never above board, Dad! It’s not above board to have two families, right?’

The twins’ contact with their father was limited largely to his periodic  visits to their Margate home.

Paul says: ‘This was a bittersweet experience because he would turn up out of nowhere and take us off for a picnic or a birthday party.

‘On one occasion he turned up at our home dressed as Father Christmas with lots of presents, and for several years afterwards Tracey and I thought Santa was this dark exotic Turkish man.’

Tracey and Paul had to get used to their father’s inherent unreliability as well as his sense of fun.

Paul says: ‘You also never quite knew what to expect with him. We could be on a day out with our parents and then my father would tell us that he had  to pop out and see someone, and you would be stuck there in the car for two hours while he cut a business deal.

‘For two restless seven-year-olds, this was not the best experience, but that was our father: he was always wheeling and dealing.’

Enver later turned his hand to the import/export business, travelling across Africa, Asia, Turkey and Cyprus.

Paul says: ‘I think that this gave Tracey and me the idea that you could do anything. But whether it was money or a woman, it was the chase that motivated Dad above all else.

‘He was a ladies’ man and he was always suited and booted. He loved his suits and was one of the snappiest dressers in London and I think, in part, Tracey got her love of clothes from my father.

‘The fact that Dad had so many different women and different lives made a big impact on Tracey, as well as me.

‘There was a secret world there because Dad was so often absent, and I think that this comes across in Tracey’s art.

‘Tracey is, contrary to what people think, actually a very private person and that must reflect my father’s influence to a certain extent.’

While Tracey was laying the foundations for a career that would bring her international acclaim and make her millions of pounds, Paul was drifting into crime.

Two decades ago, he served an 18-month jail sentence for fraud. Meanwhile, Jaden is one of three children he has by three different women. He is estranged from his other children.

Family ties: Tracey Emin is to meet 11-year-old Jaden (pictured left), the long-estranged son of her twin brother Paul (pictured right) for the first time at the opening of her new show in Margate

Paul says: ‘I was living in Ramsgate with Jaden and Louise when I started mixing with the wrong crowd. I was getting drunk all the time, and Louise and I grew apart. She left me.

‘I carried on hitting the self-destruct button and then realised that my  mental health had deteriorated. It was decided I needed a break and I went to Australia in 2003 to sort myself out.

‘Afterwards I sold the house, moved to Deal to get myself out of that environment and lost contact with Louise and Jaden.’

His relationship with Tracey also had its ups and downs. She has helped him out financially but has occasionally grown exasperated with his precarious lifestyle and there have been periods in which they did not speak to each other.

However, Enver’s death two years ago made Paul realise he was echoing the behaviour patterns of his father.

Then, a chance meeting with a former business partner prompted a reconciliation with Louise. 

Paul says: ‘His wife used to know Louise, and eventually I managed to get in contact with Louise and Jaden through her.

‘About a year ago, I met Jaden for the first time since he was a baby. It was very emotional and we cried a lot.

‘At first I spoilt him because I had  so much guilt in me. He had not had so much as a Christmas or birthday card from me, but I began to realise that I was repeating what my father had done with me.

‘I then emailed Tracey a picture of Jaden and she was very happy that I had got in contact with my son.

Huge success:Tracey Emin, pictured here in 2004, has become one of Britain's most celebrated living artists

Huge success:Tracey Emin, pictured here in 2004, has become one of Britain’s most celebrated living artists

‘Tracey could have laid into me because of the way I had behaved, but she didn’t and I respect her for that.She was non-judgmental. Perhaps our childhood played a part in that.’

Paul believes that his father’s unconventional lifestyle has taken its toll on him and Tracey.

He says: ‘I have found it difficult to sustain a long-term relationship. I have never been able to live with another person for more than four years.

‘I simply had no role model. I think that when Tracey was younger, there was an element of searching for a father figure to compensate for our father’s absence.

‘But when she was in her 20s, Tracey became close to our father. In our own ways, Tracey and I have been determined to succeed and on our own terms, which was very much like Dad.

‘We wanted to show him that we could be successful and we wanted to live up to his expectations and get his approval.’

Enver, who was 89 when he died, had spoken of his pride at his daughter’s success and his conviction that her art lay in her childhood.

He said: ‘She expresses her feelings, she expresses what happens. I think deep down her motive is her childhood.’

He had also acknowledged that his frequent absences from her life caused problems.

He said: ‘Sometimes I had to talk to her when she couldn’t understand why I couldn’t be there with her all the time.’

Paul believes that their father  provided at least some of the inspiration for his sister’s success.

He says of the exotic holidays that Enver sometimes took them on: ‘Our father’s warmth and generosity took us all over the world, opening our eyes to its wonders and its arts, and a sense that anything was achievable if you really wanted it.

‘But Tracey and I also had to share our father with another family and it was his absence as well as his presence that shaped both our lives. In Tracey’s case, I believe it has also helped to determine the direction of her art.’

Much of Tracey’s art is autobiographical and confessional, and it has frequently focused on sex.

She first came to prominence in 1997 with her work Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963-95 – a tent covered with names.

Two years later, her installation My Bed, which consisted of her own unmade bed and included dirty linen, used condoms and bloodstained underwear, was nominated for the Turner Prize.

However, Tracey recently admitted that her libido had vanished and said: ‘I don’t look at myself in a  sexual way.’

Despite, or perhaps because of, the controversy Tracey is now regarded as part of the British art establishment.

Indeed, she has achieved national treasure status and in Margate, a town she has done much to promote, she is virtually revered.

Tracey, as one of Britain’s most celebrated living artists, is undoubtedly Margate’s most famous daughter. She loves the town and the town loves her.

She officially opened the £17 million Turner Contemporary gallery last year and she has said of her new exhibition: ‘The pressure is huge.

‘I want lots of people to go to see it because it will be good for Margate. I want them to run out of ice cream on the beach.’

In a personal invitation to residents asking them to come to her show, she wrote: ‘If you haven’t been to the gallery yet, you should. It’s fantastic and free. I really hope you can come.’

New show: The art work Laying On Blue by Tracey Emin features in a new exhibition of her work in Margate which is her home town

Autobiographical: I Said No, a painting that is included in Tracey Emin's new show in Margate
Tracey Emin's new show in Margate Kent is called She Lay Down Deep Beneath The Sea includes the painting Last In Love (pictured)

Confessional: Tracey Emin’s new show in Margate which opens on Saturday will feature the paintings titled I Said No (left) and Last In Love (right)

‘Tracey is really happy about the move, without a shadow of a doubt.’

For Paul, the success of his sister has thrown the difficulties of his own life into stark relief.

That has not always been easy to bear, but now he says: ‘There are positives and negatives, but the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. It opens doors.

‘I am happy with everything in my life and immensely proud of Tracey. I am looking forward to introducing my son to her this Friday.

‘She has said nothing about the meeting to me, but we can talk about that when we meet. We can confide in one another. We are twins, after all.’

* She Lay Down Deep Beneath The Sea: Tracey Emin is at Turner Contemporary in Margate, Kent, from May 26 to September 23.

Here’s what other readers have said. Why not add your thoughts,
or debate this issue live on our message boards.

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I can’t believe that people actually pay for junk like that!

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I am an artist “Hardcaw illustration”, but I think there should be a distinction made between craftsmanship and the rest of this nonsense!

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artist ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????, the mind boggles

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Although the people who buy her paintings would disagree, I think this girl is totally without talent. She is not creative, she is not inspiring, she is not clever with colour, her work is over rated and it is all media hype. Most people could produce a similar item.

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Category: Love Secrets  Tags: ,  Leave a Comment
20 May 2012

Healthy relationships begin while dating

Spring! A time of new beginnings, of new relationships. Maybe your first date was to the prom or you are looking forward to a June wedding. In any case, it is essential that we look at the positive role dating plays in helping us make healthy relationship choices.

Building a good relationship is not easy, but it is worth the effort. Good dating relationships help people know more about themselves, including who they are and who they would like to be. In addition, they learn about others and the qualities they admire in those other people.

In a healthy relationship, both partners feel good about each other and the relationship. They treat one another with respect and courtesy. They communicate clearly and let one another know what they really think. These couples feel free to question each other and explore problems. In addition, they accept that even healthy relationships don’t always work out, and there is no shame if that happens.

A healthy dating relationship is based on equality. It exhibits respect by communicating openly and honestly. Partners listen non-judgmentally and are supportive and understanding. Opinions are valued and each point of view is important.

There is no violent behavior in these relationships. Angry feelings are expressed without acting out violently. One person should never fear the other. Each person should accept responsibility for his or her own actions and be open to feedback from the other.

Trust and support are crucial to a relationship. The rights and feelings of each should be respected. Each partner must maintain his or her individuality or separateness, friends, activities and opinions. Individual goals should be supported, and any feelings of jealously, envy or resentment need to be overcome.

It is vital that healthy sexual boundaries be maintained. Any decisions regarding sexual activity must be mutually decided upon, and no means no. Each person has the right to control his or her own sexuality and not be forced to do anything that feels uncomfortable.

Personal possessions have to be valued by both members of a relationship. Both must act with consideration for the other’s property and decisions regarding property must be honored. People who care about their partners do not destroy their partner’s property.

Important decisions should be made together. People must be willing to negotiate and compromise. It is essential that couples arrive at a win-win situation and problem-solve to the satisfaction of both. Both partners should feel safe and comfortable to express their own opinions and thoughts.

A relationship with all of these characteristics has a wonderful chance for success. If your relationship is not based on respect, trust and love, you may want to look closely at it and your future together. It is never too late to leave an unhealthy relationship and secure the life that you deserve.

Turning Point offers a 24-hour hotline for victims of domestic violence. If you or someone you know needs help or if you would like more information, please call 800-232-6505 or 740-382-8988.

Category: Relationships  Tags: ,  Leave a Comment
20 May 2012

Love: Cannes Review

Magnificent in its simplicity and its relentless honesty about old age, illness and dying, Michael Haneke’s Love (Amour) is a deliberately torturous watch, one that is going to weed the master’s fan club of the lightweights who went along for the ride with the morbid mental puzzle-solving of Hidden and Palm d’Or winner The White Ribbon.

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No riddles to figure out here in a script that is utterly linear and unfrilly, but at the same time executed with such clarity that there is never a false step or superfluous scene. Career-high performances from Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva as a genteel Parisian couple in their eighties illuminate the difficult, oft-treated subject matter, but however upscale the trappings it’s hard to imagine this downbeat study can reach the same audiences as Haneke’s recent work.

Accessibility is clearly not the issue, as everything is laid out in plain sight from the bang-on opening scene: the fire brigade breaks down the door of a spacious Paris apartment to find a long-dead old woman lying in bed, her head surrounded by flowers. The rest of the film is a claustrophobic flashback leading up to this moment.

GALLERY: Cannes 2012: THR’s Video Diary 

Switch to a classical music concert in which only the audience is seen from the stage in a single elegant, long-held shot. Among them are Anne (Riva) and Georges Laurent (Trintignant), two music aesthetes long into retirement. He hobbles a bit but they seem to be a cheerful, alert and loving pair who treat each other with enormous civility. Coming home that night, he makes an offhand comment about how pretty she looks that expresses all the tenderness of a life-long relationship.

Then Anne has her first stroke, a mild affair mistreated with an operation (evidently at Georges’ insistence) that leaves her half-paralyzed and in a wheelchair. And so begins their terrible ordeal, whose outcome is already known.

Moment by moment, the actors delicately describe Anne’s descent into physical and eventually mental debilitation, while Haneke focuses with physician-like steadiness on the test it puts on Georges’ love for his wife. When he steps out of the apartment to attend a funeral, she tries to jump out the window. She feels humiliated by her condition and hates to be seen, but she can’t refuse the agitated visits of their daughter Eva (Isabelle Huppert, star of Haneke’s The Piano Teacher, another uncompromising exploration of love.) Huppert negotiates a persuasive middle road, alternating hysteria and a conventional, teary reaction to Mom’s plight with a little chat about investments.

All this serves as a stark contrast with her father’s measured words and behaviour as he tries to keep up Anne’s spirits and preserve her personal dignity.  Looking back, the two remember emotional moments from the past, but not the events themselves. After Anne has a second stroke, Georges bows to the need for part-time nurses. The degenerating nature of her illness is very painful to watch, as she gradually loses the power of speech and seems to return to a state of early childhood, inarticulately crying out her pain.

If Georges and Anne find no emotional support from family, there is not the slightest vestige of religious comfort in the household. Society is simple absent, and even the funeral he attends is a ludicrous flop – he describes how everyone giggles at the slowness of the urn being mechanically lowered into the grave. Thus the great dignity of the film’s wrenching final scenes soar high above any kind of moral or ethical debate, which other films have dealt with extensively, and beyond the questions of evil and responsibility that Haneke himself raises elsewhere. This lack of familiar handholds will make the film steep climbing for many viewers, putting them face to face with the nature of love in its most unromantic and weighty moments.

Trintignant and Riva are consummate veterans of French cinema but put aside their baggage of famous films from his And God…Created Woman to her Hiroshima Mon Amour to approach these roles with concentrated freshness, making each moment a deep plunge into a heroic side of themselves. In a special cameo, young classical pianist Alexandre Tharaud (who performs Schubert, Beethoven and other music in the film) appears as Anne’s brilliant pupil, who has become a world-famous recording artist.

With practically all the action taking place in the Laurents’ apartment, production designer Jean-Vincent Puzos positions them in a falsely safe world of refinement filled with tapestries and bookshelves, Persian carpets and a grand piano. Darius Khondji’s rich, warm cinematography echoes the cocoon feeling of a world that time catches up with, just as a stray pigeon wanders behind locked doors from time to time.

Venue: Cannes Film Festival (competition), May 20, 2012.
Production companies: Les Films du Losange, X Filme Creative Pool, Wega Film
Co-Production: France 3 Cinéma, ARD Degeto, Bayerischer Rundfunk, Westdeutscher Rundfunk
Cast: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Emmanuelle Riva, Isabelle Huppert, Alexandre Tharaud, William Shimell
Director: Michael Haneke
Screenwriters: Michael Haneke
Producers: Margaret Menegoz, Stefan Arndt, Veit Heiduschka, Michael Katz
Executive producers: Margaret Menegoz, Uwe Schott, Michael Katz
Director of photography: Darius Khondji
Production designer: Jean-Vincent Puzos
Costumes: Catherine Leterrier
Editors: Monika Willi, Nadine Muse
Music: Schubert, Beethoven, Bach played by Alexandre Tharaud
Sales Agent: Les Films du Losange
No rating, 127 minutes.

Category: Words of Love  Tags: ,  Leave a Comment
20 May 2012

All about the dogs

No doubt, Joyce Morales said, west highland white terriers are the objects of her adulation.

“One hundred percent. I’m always with them,” Morales said flatly on Saturday, two of her five terriers tugging their leashes in downtown Coeur d’Alene.

Daily, Morales fluffs them and combs, keeping their coats shining like snow under the sun. She has relinquished sizable sums of money on plush dog beds, tiny sweaters, vitamins, top brand dog food.

“People will say, ‘Your dogs are in better shape than you are, and I say, ‘sure,’” the Post Falls terrier breeder said. “With bathing them, grooming them, making sure they’re good, I’m on the back burner.”

But their happiness is her happiness, she said. They love to settle in her lap, trot after her from room to room, and growl to warn her of strangers.

“They’re such a joy to me,” Morales said as she coaxed them toward Dog d’Alene, the Coeur d’Alene Downtown Association’s annual event to celebrate all things canine. “If you’re into your dog, that’s what it takes.”

Saturday’s event, a meet-and-greet for dog owners stacked with events like a dachshund dash and a sheepdog competition, was an appropriate fit for Kootenai County.

After all, dogs are omnipresent companions in Coeur d’Alene and surrounding towns, with pooches seen diving after sticks in Lake Coeur d’Alene, and trotting steadily after hikers up Tubbs Hill. In town, window shoppers grasp leashes like a bouquet, and sling purses from which fuzzy heads protrude.

Dog d’Alene seemed a tribute, more than anything, to the common love threading local dog owners together.

“We take them wherever we go,” said Angie Crawford, a Chihuahua dozing in her arms as she ate lunch and talked up her family’s four dogs. “We like pet friendly restaurants.”

“And hotels,” said her husband Kurt Farnsworth, adding that the dogs accompany them swimming, hiking and boating. “Coeur d’Alene is cool, because places don’t charge a surcharge.”

They don’t want their dogs to feel neglected, Farnsworth explained, adding that it’s rewarding to dote on creatures that don’t filter their love.

And dogs make pleasant, open-minded companions, Crawford said.

“They’re always happy,” she said. “They don’t care if you’ve gained a few pounds. They’re good.”

The blue plaid collar on dachshund Jazzy was chosen to match Britney Harris’ shoes for their jaunt to Dog d’Alene.

They made an elegant pair, the dog serving as both happy companion and fashion accessory.

“(Jazzy) is spoiled rotten,” admitted Ethan Dodson of Coeur d’Alene, who owns the dog with Harris. “In the car, if someone’s in the backseat, it’s one of us, not her.”

It’s not for superficial reasons they give the rescued dog every comfort, he said, like a roofed doggy ramp from the upstairs of their home to the backyard.

Jazzy is simply too sweet to ignore, he said. She’s loyal, gentle. Timid to the point that she’s eerily quiet even when she plays in the yard.

“She’s not needy at all. She’s just kind of … happy,” Dodson said. “It’s how we all want to be treated, and if we can give that kind of love to an animal, it’s worth it.”

Tom Hannon held back his samoyed Sosh, desperate to lunge forward and sniff every passerby.

Training to be a show dog, Sosh is not so much a pet as a sidekick, Hannon said, loping beside him on hikes, tugging him forward on cross-country ski trips.

“Training a dog, you have to train yourself, too. It’s like having a little kid,” said Hannon, from Spokane but member of a Coeur d’Alene club of samoyed owners.

But his fuzzed cohort serves as a badge of pride. Where some parents love to talk up their kids’ reports cards, Hannon lauds successful training techniques.

“It’s like when a child gets A’s in class,” Hannon said, adding: “He’s on Facebook.”

It’s all fruitless without companionship on the side, Hannon acknowledged.

“I can’t tell you how it feels when you’re just sitting late at night, and a little snuggly, fluffy thing sits on your lap and needs some TLC,” he said. “It’s hard to explain.”

As dogs at the event tangled leashes, owners cooing over similarities, Don Mitchell sat apart from the hubbub with his dachshund.

Mitchell gleans companionship from his dachshund, bichon and toy poodle, he said, since his wife died a few years back.

“They’re my whole life,” the 83-year-old said. “I don’t have any girlfriends.”

The Coeur d’Alene man relies on the pups for protection, he said, insisting that despite their size they can definitely hear intruders.

And after the dogs have been so long in his company, he added, nestling close beside him in bed, watching him garden, they are acutely aware of his senses.

“The other night I was watching a movie, I thought I heard my wife’s voice in the hallway and I turned,” he said. “All three of the dogs turned, too.”

Man and beast, they’re all in it together.

And they always will be, he said.

“I couldn’t live without them,” Mitchell said.

Category: All about Love  Tags:  Leave a Comment
19 May 2012

Maybe We’re All Just Too Selfish & Immature To Find Love



10 Unhealthy Dating Patterns And How To Break Them


I’ve been thinking a lot about a date I had this weekend. I’m not sure that the guy and I are a right fit for some compatibility reasons, but we did end up having an interesting conversation over coffee on Saturday night. We were discussing the different ways that online dating sucks for girls and for guys. Girls, I was telling him, are inundated with creepy, overly sexual messages from random dudes, including dudes who are way, way, waaaaay too old for us. And this guy was telling me how for dudes, one of the worst things he experiences on a date with a girl is when she is too guarded and gives off a vibe of “I don’t need you.”

The  stereotype may be that women are “too needy,” this guy told me, but the reality of dating strong, successful, accomplished, financially independent women is the exact opposite. “Okay, great, so what role am I supposed to have?” This guy asked me hypothetically. “It’s great if a girl’s got her life together. I think that’s awesome! But I need her to want me to be there because she needs a partner in some way, or else, what’s the point?” I’ve been thinking about this conversation because in the past few years I have had an enormous amount of growth when it comes to love and relationships. I had believed, romantically and perhaps a bit naively, that all it took for a relationship to work was the presence of profound love. I thought that the existence of that love could conquer any and all negative forces that were trying to snuff it out.

I was wrong: it isn’t so simple. Relationships need both parties to have strength, endurance, dedication, selflessness and passion. And since learning that, I’ve dated men with the knowledge that this recipe has more ingredients than I’d perviously thought.  

I’m hardly the first person to write on The Frisky that dating can be disappointing, frustrating and demoralizing. I meet plenty of great guys who are attractive, interesting, successful and claim to have similar goals in terms of settling down and starting a family someday. But I see again and again that those ingredients, that full recipe, isn’t there. And through discussing this topic at length in therapy, I think I’ve finally put my finger on it that a huge part of the problem is the extended adolescence so prevalent in America today.

This revelation came from, of all things, reading this blog that’s marketed towards dudes called The Art Of Manliness that I came across a few years ago. The Art Of Manliness is about “reviving the lost art of manliness” and covers topics like how to tie a tie, how to carve a turkey, and how to ask a woman out on a date. I wrote about it a long time ago because I thought the blog was promoting the enforcement of traditional gender roles in a way that I thought was problematic. I still don’t like the assumption that there are certain skills/qualities one needs to know/possess in order to be a “real” man or woman. Indeed, that’s what feminism is all about, not enforcement traditional gender roles. Yet in the many, many years that I’ve followed this blog, I’ve come to appreciate that it also has some more thoughtful commentary about broader gender issues. In particular, a recent piece about men’s confusion about their identities in regards to the changing face of gender roles today. 

Called “Want To Feel Like A Man? Then Act Like One,” the author Brett explained that “manhood” and “masculinity” mean today are in flux because of changing economical and social shifts, as well as the lack of a traditional rite of passage. This is the part that hit home for me:

One thing that I’ve learned over the years is that many grown men out there simply don’t feel like men. I’m not talking about “feeling like a man” in the cartoonish, hyper-masculine sense. Rather, I’m talking about “feeling like a man” in the sense of that quiet confidence that comes from moving from boyhood into mature masculinity.

Many of the guys I’ve talked to (particularly the ones in their 20s and 30s) have confessed to me that they still feel like a teenage boy walking around in a grown man’s body. Because they don’t feel like mature men, many of these young men are putting off adult responsibilities like careers, families, and civic involvement until they can look at themselves in the mirror and say: “I’m a man.”  In the meantime, these young men drift insecurely through life, wondering when they’ll finally start feeling like grown men.

Reading this, it suddenly hit me: I am dating these men.

I am dating 20- and 30-something men who are walking around feeling like and behaving like teenage boys.

I am dating the men who behave selfishly because they’re not mature, or don’t feel mature, enough to do otherwise.

I am dating the men who, at 34-, 37-, even 38-years-old, are still “putting off adult responsibilities” they claim to want to attain, just because they can.

I’ve mentioned on The Frisky before that I’m the youngest of five children and my three older sisters are actually biologically half-sisters from my father’s first marriage.  My dad married when he was 21 and had my three sisters with his wife. Then, when they were both 28-years-old, his first wife died suddenly and my dad became a single parent. My sisters were all under the age of seven.

It was weird for me this year turning 28 and knowing how different our lives have turned out. At my age, my father had already gotten married, was financially supporting his family, and was the single parent of three small kids. Me? My iPhone got briefly turned off two days ago because I didn’t pay the ATT bill on time. To be clear, I have no doubt that if, say, my older sister and brother-in-law died in a horrible accident and I had to step in and raise my nieces, I would rise to the task admirably. But on a day-to-day basis, I’m still able to behave selfishly like, say, “a teenager-plus.” I do this just because I can. The responsibilities in my life are very, very minimal: show up to work on time, pay my bills, take out the recycling, and don’t get so drunk that I fall onto the subway tracks. 

But I’m somewhat different than these guys that The Art of Manliness is writing about — which are the guys that I have had firsthand experience dating.  I want that grownup life. I do feel like a “real woman” already. I want more responsibilities. I want to nest, to make dinner for my family every night, to someday have children. I want to stop being able to be so selfish and be selfless with a partner. I want to settle down and live with the maturity that I know I have within me and stop living like “a teenager plus.”

I was talking about this yesterday with my therapist. I was telling her about the Art of Manliness post and how it made me think about my disappointment with the past several guys that I’ve dated.  One broke up with me because he clearly wanted to keep “sowing his wild oats” instead of settling down. Another one I broke up with was an adult man who had to have everything his way and if he didn’t get what he wanted, on came the toddler-grade temper tantrums. These men were 28 and 34, respectively.  ”Do I have to go to the freaking old folks’ home to find a man who is a mature adult and wants settle down?” I whined to her. 

“Well,” she replied, “who do you think is allowing these men to be this way? I don’t mean you, particularly, but this isn’t happening in a vacuum.  Men are this way because women have allowed them to be this way. And I’m not saying that’s a bad thing! I remember when I was your age, getting married and having kids in your early 20s was just what you did.  Now society has changed so much in a generation and a half that there isn’t a script anymore. That’s why I think ‘Mad Men’ is so popular. People knew what you were ‘supposed’ to do … and that just isn’t the case anymore. You’re not the first person to sit on this couch and be confused and disappointed about this.”

Great, I grumbled to myself. Even my therapist seems to think this is a lost cause.  

Upon further thought, I think my date this weekend and I may be having the same problem — but from different points of view. Maybe both genders are just being too selfish just because both of them can. And maybe my therapist, as much as it sounds sexist to phrase it this way, had a point: maybe men need women to tell them it’s time to settle down because we need them to be grownups.

I’m not trying to make it sound like feminism has failed, Don Draper wasn’t selfish, or that “Mad Men” was some sort of ideal for gender relations.  Of course not. I am saying, though, that I think I need to make it clear that I’m not interested in dating someone who is “28 for the fourth year in a row,” as John Mayer put it on “Ellen” this week. Otherwise, we I taking my business elsewhere because I’m not interested. 

I don’t know if this is the answer.  But I do know that going forward in dating, I’m going to be more particular about how selfish and self-centered the men that I get involved with are. I just can’t do it anymore, to date these grown men who are “teenagers-plus”; I want to date someone who is secure in his maturity, and that includes his willingness to be selfless. 

[Art Of Manliness]

Contact the author of this post at Jessica@TheFrisky.com. Follow me on Twitter at @JessicaWakeman.

Image via Thinkstock

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19 May 2012

Jay Leno on Comic Highs and Lows, Cars, and Secrets to a Successful Marriage

The late-night landscape is dramatically different than it was when Jay Leno took over from Johnny Carson in 1992, but the Tonight Show host is sticking to his program’s tried-and-true format. “I love Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, but they’re doing a very specific kind of comedy,” says Leno, 62. “I’m doing this broad thing of a smart joke, a silly joke, and then a joke unrelated to politics. That’s what The Tonight Show is—it’s big-tent comedy.” He discusses stand-up and career longevity with Mary Margaret.

Leno Recalls His Most Memorable Interviews and the One Gig That Made Him Nervous

PARADE Did you always want to work in entertainment?
When I was 7, I went to the movies and watched Elvis Presley in Loving You. The girls went crazy when he sang “Teddy Bear,” and I thought, “This is the way to make a living.” I even took guitar lessons, but when that didn’t work, I decided to tell jokes instead.

What was your first joke?
In fourth grade, the teacher was talking about how cruel the Sheriff of Nottingham was and something about Friar Tuck, and I said, “Do you know why they boiled them in oil? Because he was a fryer.” It got a laugh.

First Jobs of the Rich and Famous

You had some lean years starting out. What was your low point, and what advice do you give to struggling comics?
My low point was sleeping in an alley off of 44th Street and Ninth Avenue in New York, right near the Improv. It was awful. I always tell comics, do what you have to do and take every gig that’s out there, no matter how demeaning, because you learn something.

Has the digital age affected how you approach comedy?
You know, humor doesn’t change a whole lot. If you watch a comedy from the 1920s, the fat rich man stepping out of a Cadillac and into the mud is just as funny now. You can use all these new elements, but that part of the process doesn’t really change.

How do you like to spend your Sundays?
Working at my garage. I have about 135 cars and 90 motorcycles. It’s a little silly, but my thing has always been one woman and 200 vehicles. It’s cheaper than one car and 200 girlfriends.

See Exclusive Photos of Jay Leno!

What’s with your off-duty uniform of denim work shirt and jeans?
That comes from me telling the wardrobe guy, “Run down to Banana Republic and get me 20 pairs of jeans and 40 shirts.” Then I’m done for the year.

Do you and your wife still have date nights?
Yeah, she’ll find a restaurant, some fancy place in Beverly Hills. I’ll stop at In-N-Out Burger first since I’m not a big restaurant guy. But she likes it, and when you’re married, that’s what you do.

What else keeps a marriage working?
If you don’t fool around, it’s not that hard. I think the key to life is low self- esteem—believing you’re not the smartest or most handsome person in the room. All the people who have high self-esteem are criminals and actors.

What lessons did you take from the late-night wars in 2010—when Conan O’Brien left NBC and you returned to The Tonight Show?
Oh, probably never explain, never complain. I make my living making fun of people, and if people make fun of me, that’s fine. My only rule is it has to be funny.

Why do you still tour?
When you live in show business, people will tell you something is good even when it’s terrible. But on the road, you find out what they really think.

Are you always on the lookout for a joke?
If you have to write 10 to 14 minutes [of material] every day, you have to keep your eyes and ears open. It’s like how I was in school: I didn’t study a lot but I never missed a class, so I was taking it all in. I’m always listening.

Category: Love Secrets  Tags: ,  Leave a Comment
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