There Is No Prince
And Other Truths
Your Mother Never Told You
A Guide to Having the Relationship You Want
Scroll down in this book and discover the secrets that have helped thousands of women have what they want with a man.
If you have ever . . .
Fallen in love with someone who wasn’t good for you
Settled for someone because you didn’t want to be lonely
Tried to change someone so he would be what you want
Stayed too long in a bad relationship
Been with someone who didn’t want what you wanted
Ignored the signs that it wouldn’t work
Said “yes” when you meant “ no”
Didn’t take care of yourself in the relationship
. . . then you know how painful it is to be in the wrong situation with the wrong man. Or perhaps you’ve sworn off men, figuring they’re just too much trouble. Yet you still yearn for a good man in your life.
Based on Life Works’ popular two-day workshop, “Having What You Want with a Man,” There Is No Prince will help you uncover what it is you really want a man for and then prepare yourself to have him enter your life. Whether you date frequently but aimlessly, are in a relationship that isn’t good for you, or just realized you’ve been putting relationships on the back burner so long you’ve forgotten how much you truly desire a good man in your life, this book will show you that you really can have what you want with a man, starting today.
What women who have taken the Workshop that inspired this book are saying…
“After years of thinking I would just grow old and do good work, I took the workshop and now I’ve been in a relationship—a comfortable, wonderful, and very loving relationship—for four years. That just wouldn’t have happened had it not been for the ‘Having What You Want With a Man Workshop.’” Literary agent, age 58
“I’ve read all the other books and they’re just so many words. This work actually gives women a vehicle, a technology, for turning their lives around. It not only makes sense, it works.” Corporate lawyer, age 42
“I realized that I don’t have to live by someone else’s expectations of what I should want in a man. I get to choose for myself based on what’s authentic for me. I’m not in a new relationship yet, but I can already see how this work is affecting me in job situations with male bosses. When we drop our expectations that men will behave like women, all our relationships are a lot easier.” Office manager, age 26
“I always thought I’d have to settle and have things that I didn’t want [in a man and in a relationship]. But I didn’t want to settle, so for years I just haven’t been in a relationship. The workshop gave me a whole new perspective on who I am and what I desire and who men are. I feel so much more empowered now to have my own feelings, judgments, and intuitions. Now I can actually dare to dream of what I want. “ Television producer, age 47
“It was so reassuring looking around and seeing all these attractive, successful women who were having the same issues with men. Just knowing that there’s something systemic to it and that we weren’t given the right information about men has been helpful. I also realized how much I had to do with not having a man in my life. I had a lot to clear away. Before the workshop I would have never seen my husband—would have never even seen him—sitting right there next to me.” Ad executive, age 41
“In the workshop we talked about lists—having lists of what’s good for us and what we must have in a man and in a relationship. These lists have really helped me attract the kind of men who would be good for me, and they have also saved me from being with men who weren’t good for me. This surely has saved me great heartache.” Financial analyst, age 35
“The workshop allowed me to see what I put in my own way—and how I was carrying certain unconscious thoughts that were causing me to react in ways that didn’t work. Whether with a man or in any kind of relationship, this has helped me to think differently and get out of my own way.” Retail manager, age 32
“One of the greatest things I learned in the workshop was that there simply doesn’t have to be a battle of the sexes. I learned to own my power, to use my female power and not feel manipulated. I don’t feel like a victim anymore. Realizing that men are not the enemy makes for peace, and peace makes for happiness. This has helped me tremendously.“ Graphic artist, age 29
“The workshop really helped me expand my relationship with my self. From a place of self-love I can have what I want in all my relationships—with a man or in a work environment or with friends.” Executive assistant, age 39
“It’s nice to know that men and women are supposed to be different!” Artist, age 23
“Before I did the workshop, I always blamed men for going away. Now I get it that I have something to do with it. I realize that although I’ve always said I have, I really haven’t wanted to be in relationship.” Photographer, age 64
“The workshop actually healed my relationships with women. It made me appreciate women like I never did before. I also started noticing men, men, and more men. I realized that when I’m not looking for a prince, all these men just appear! Pretty amazing.” Club manager, age 32
“I never saw men as human beings. Now I can. I feel so much more compassion for men, even though they’re so different from women. At Life Works I learned to have compassion and an open heart toward men.” Freelance designer, age 55
“I felt a softening toward myself and other people, especially men. I realized how much I stand in my own way and learned not to judge myself for it. “ Retired teacher, age 68
“This work has truly transformed me, which in turn has changed the types of men I attract. I’m just much more able to have come my way the kind of man I really want.” Office manager, age 46
“I see a river of hope that I’ve never seen before. There seems to be light there.” Divorced mother and government worker, age 53
This wise guide takes you step-by-step through the process of preparing for a 21st century relationship with a flesh-and-blood man, demonstrating that while there are no princes, there are plenty of men who would be delighted to act princely if known and treated well by a woman just like you.
Marilyn Graman has helped thousands of smart, capable, successful women clear a path so that good men can come into their lives. And she can help you do the same. “The reason we don’t have the relationships we want,” write Graman and Walsh, “is that, for all the successes we’ve had, we have yet to dismantle old romantic ideas about dashing princes on white horses coming to take us away. More recently we have tended to expect men to be more like us and don’t see them for who they are.”
“Continuing to resent the fact that men are not more like us,” the authors suggest, “only makes us miserable. It doesn’t work. Seeing them for who they are, on the other hand, gives us power because we know what we can expect and we’re not surprised when they seem like cavemen.”
In There Is No Prince, Graman reveals the secrets she has shared with thousands of women in her popular workshop over the past 26 years; secrets – about men and women – that have helped even the most die-hard skeptics find good mates, get married, and create their own happily-ever-after. Whatever your age, whether you’re new to dating or dating for the first time in years, moving on from a relationship that isn’t right, or nursing back to health the relationship you are already in, you will discover
the underlying issues that keep you from having the relationships you want.
practical, simple ways to shift and heal what isn’t working and how to become irresistible.
that loving yourself is central to having what you want with a man.
how to go about having what you choose and what is good for you in a relationship.
Graman and Walsh bring over 70 combined years of experience to their warm, insightful, and clear-headed guidebook which treats this delicate subject with tenderness, insight and heart. The authors guide you to love yourself first, then begin to see all around you the great men who want to give you what you want.
Also by the authors
The Female Power Within
A Guide to Living a Gentler, More Meaningful Life
How To Be Cherished
A Guide to Having the Love You Desire
There Is No Prince
And Other Things You Mother Never Told You
A Guide to Having the Relationship You Want
Marilyn Graman and Maureen Walsh
with Hillary Welles
Copyright © 2003 by Life Works Books
Marilyn Graman and Maureen Walsh
with Hillary Welles
Cover design by John Buse
Page design by Jason Gray
Illustration by Paul Manchester
Smashwords Edition
ISBN: 9780971854888
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or was not purchased for your use only, then please return to smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of these author.
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional service. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought.—From a Declaration of Principles Jointly Adopted by a Committee of the American Bar Association and a Committee of Publishers and Associations
Names of persons used in stories and examples have been changed to protect the person’s privacy. Any similarity to any known persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
Catalog-in-Publication Data (please contact publisher)
Includes bibliographical references.
For all the women known and yet to come
who by their use of the information contained here
have more love in their lives
Contents
Preface
Introduction
Chapter One
There Is No Prince
Chapter Two
What You Were Taught About Men
Chapter Three
The Beliefs You Formed
Chapter Four
Promises You Made
Chapter Five
Finding a Man Begins With…
Chapter Six
Feeling Bad So Good Things Can Happen
Chapter Seven
Having Your Future Be Different From the Past
Chapter Eight
Owning Your Part
Chapter Nine
Understanding a Few Things About Men
Chapter Ten
He’ll Be Your Hero If You Let Him
Chapter Eleven
Knowing Your Power
Chapter Twelve
The Man You Want Is Out There
Chapter Thirteen
Looking Forward
Afterword
Quick Help For Having What You Want
Additional Resources: Books and Web Sites
Acknowledgments
Preface
I was standing on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Eighth Street in the Village on a beautiful April morning when a car honked at me and the person in the passenger seat waved. Though I wasn’t sure who it was, I waved back. Partway down the block the car backed up and stopped in a bus zone. Out of the car popped a familiar-looking woman. She opened the door behind her, taking a baby out of a car seat while the driver came around to join her. The woman strode toward me with a little girl on her hip, followed by the driver who was clearly the toddler’s father. Although I couldn’t recall the woman’s name, I suddenly recognized her as having sat on the left side of the room in our “Having What You Want With a Man” Workshop a couple of years before.
“Marilyn, please forgive me. I’m such a terrible letter writer, so when I saw you I had to stop and thank you. I sent you a wedding invitation and a picture after I got married. My friend Sophia who did the Workshop later told me she saw it on the office bulletin board at Life Works. But then after Steffie was born eleven months later, I always meant to write you a note to tell you how much that weekend changed my life.”
“I’m so glad for you. It makes my day when I hear that women are using what they learned in the workshop,” I said. My heart swelled with gratitude for all the women who had put themselves in my hands at my workshops.
Her husband thrust his hand forward to shake mine. “You changed my life too, Marilyn. I want to thank you for the work you did with Marion. I met her two months after she did your course. She quotes you often, as if you’re a family member. I feel like I know you and you’re a fairy godmother in our lives.” He hugged her close to him. “You know, I’d been looking for Marion for a long time.” Our eyes misted over with the deep feeling he had just touched in us all—there at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Eighth Street.
A rose is itself
and the bee comes.
Introduction
Every woman deserves a man who can stand behind her and applaud as she blossoms. She deserves a man who can be a best friend, consort, cheerleader, listener, cuddler, financial partner, father to her children, companion, and fellow traveler—a man who is an asset to her life. Every woman deserves to have a man who supports her and cherishes her. She deserves her own life, one she shares with a man she loves. She deserves to create the balance that works for her—and to choose the man and the relationship she desires. In short, every woman deserves to have the relationship she wants.
If you’re wondering why you don’t already have what you want, you are in good company. Millions of intelligent, successful women like you have been asking themselves the same question. So many of us have been putting our energy into making new choices and finding what’s authentic for us. We’ve been building careers and perhaps putting off marriage and family for later —until one morning we wake up to find that “later” has arrived. Or we’ve had our hearts broken so many times it just seems hopeless or too much trouble to even put ourselves out there anymore.
Too many women think there’s something wrong with them because they don’t have the relationship they’ve always dreamed of. Listen. There’s nothing wrong with you! You’ve just been given wrong information. It’s as if you’ve lost your keys to having a good relationship in the grass but were told to look for them on the sidewalk because that’s where the streetlight is shining. No amount of looking on that sidewalk is going to help you find your keys. No. You have to learn to look somewhere else. Look where no one told you to look before.
The focus of this book is to help you figure out how to see into that new place, to find what is uniquely true for you, and how to have the relationship you want. We want to cheer you on as your perceptions shift and you awaken to notice all the available and desirable men, sometimes right under your nose, who want to love and cherish and support you, who share your deepest values and beliefs, who can be your hero, your best friend, your fabulous lover and give you all the space you need to maintain the balance in your life that works best for you. There may not be any princes, but there are plenty of wonderful men out there just waiting for a woman like you.
Over the past few decades, women have made incredible breakthroughs in the areas of career, politics, and just generally choosing what their lives will look like. We have come a long way toward having what we want in so many new areas of our lives. Yet we are still trying to figure out who we are supposed to be in a relationship. Can we have a successful career and a successful relationship? Do we have to give up our careers to have a man? Is it okay to want to stay home and have children? Is it possible to be independent and also have a man in our lives? These are the relevant questions women everywhere are asking today and the reason so many of us don’t have what we want with a man.
We have options our mothers and grandmothers never dreamed of. But nobody taught us how to be choice-makers. We don’t have a blueprint for how to be in a relationship, how to heal decades of heartbreak, when to have a family, and how to balance home and career. Nobody taught us how to be independent and have a loving, supportive relationship. We were trained to surrender into a relationship and make a man the center of our lives. Then the women’s movement showed up, and although we now have some other ways to live, that early training is still with us.
No matter what your mother told you, the truth is that there is no right way to have a relationship. You get to decide what you want—and yes, you can have it. You can have a great marriage—with or without kids. You can pool your money or keep it separate from his. You can choose to spend a few nights a week taking classes or going out with friends, or you can spend all your free time with your man. You can live in community with other families. You can let go of your career to tend the home fires or make more money than your husband or share a home-based business with him. And you can choose a man who really wants to be with a woman just like you. But in order to have what you want with a man you have to know what you want, and that starts with having a loving relationship with yourself.
Women have been conditioned to love others, but we’re not always as good at loving ourselves, and not always aware of the ways we keep ourselves from having the things we say we want.
When we’re self-loving, we let things take the time they need to instead of rushing into relationships to avoid being lonely. We have compassion for ourselves. We know how much space we need and how much closeness. We know what is acceptable to us and where to set limits. We know how much time we want to spend on our careers and how much with the man in our lives. And, perhaps most importantly, we realize that we can create full, rich lives—with or without a relationship.
Learning how to become so self-loving and so awake that the man who can love you best just walks into your life—that’s what this book is all about. Wherever you are along the relationship continuum, this book is for you. It’s for you if you are single—whether you are not currently dating, haven’t dated for a long time, or are thinking about dating. It’s for you if you are reading the personals or surfing the Internet, if you’re actively meeting men, or if you’re tired of dating. It’s for you if you’re seeing many men or if you’re exclusive with one. This book is for you if you’re having a relationship—whether it’s one that is not committed or one that is. It’s for you if you’re married or living with a man or if your relationship needs help or is in trouble. It’s for you if you’re divorced or widowed. The truth is, you can have the relationship you want from wherever you are—whether that means getting off the couch and meeting a man, giving up a man who’s not good for you, sampling a lot of men to know who’s out there, deciding whether you want to commit to the man you’re with, or making a shift within yourself so your marriage can be better.
Who We Are
We have been helping women have what they want with men for over twenty-five years. At our Life Works office in New York, our bulletin board is covered with photographs and letters from women who have taken our weekend-long “Having What You Want With a Man” Workshop and then found husbands or partners. Their letters and photographs express how much their hearts and lives have opened through what they learned. We wrote this book so that women everywhere would have the opportunity to experience heart-opening shifts like theirs.
After women complete the weekend course, many join a Relationship Support Group which is our weekly session to help them continue to explore and practice what they learned and uncovered in the Workshop. Additionally, they are offered the opportunity to work with a woman who has been trained in the Life Works points of view and information for at least three rigorous years. These sessions are a combination of listening, clearing, guiding, and sometimes coaching and cheerleading. Because of the delicate and intense nature of their work, we created a new title for this process. The work they do is called Guiding and the practitioners are called Guidesses.
Women who have participated in our workshops contributed all the stories in this book. Their names and identifying details have been changed to protect their privacy. “We” refers to Marilyn Graman, a psychotherapist who designs and delivers most of our courses, and Maureen Walsh, a producer at heart, who guides the development of new projects, creates and delivers specialized courses, and is the business side of Life Works. As in our last book, The Female Power Within, writer Hillary Welles brings the perspective of a younger generation.
How to Use This Book
There is no formula or prescription in this book. All that is required is a willingness to become more aware—to use our information and make it your own.
This book will help you understand why you have what you have and what you want and how to have it. It will also give you a new appreciation of men. As you read, your perception of men and relationships will shift. You will no longer blame yourself or the men in your life for what’s happened in the past, and you will be more optimistic that your future can be different from your past.
The next 13 chapters take you through the process we teach at our Having What You Want With a Man weekends. As you read, images and memories will come to you. Your mind will make interesting connections you may not have noticed before. Imagine that you have a room in your mind full of file cabinets. They contain all the experiences you’ve had in your life, what you decided because of them, and what you felt about yourself each time. Many of these files have been in deep storage, and you might not even be aware they exist. Yet, as you think about how you came to be who you are now, you can trust that the right file drawer will slide open and the right file will appear.
When a file opens it is often in the form of random thoughts. It is important to pay attention to your files because they offer important clues about why your life is the way it is. We suggest that you get a notebook and carry it with you so you can record the thoughts as they come up.
Everything you need to know is included in these chapters. If you want to go deeper, you can also do the exercises at the back of the book, which are organized to correspond to the chapters. The exercises help you discover how this work applies to your life. There are a few things to remember as you begin:
1. Don’t make changes right away. This work will touch you at a deep level and some of it will happen unconsciously even after you’ve finished the book. Putting off major changes is wise because it gives you time to integrate your new knowledge. We usually suggest that women wait three weeks after taking our workshop or reading this book before making any major changes in their lives.
2. Try it on. Sometimes the information you read may have you feeling stimulated, challenged, or sleepy. When this happens, it’s a good idea to let yourself pause and ponder how the information is affecting you. You might automatically agree with some of the information and other points may pose a difficulty for you. If you don’t agree with something, try it on for a while. You may discover that it has some wisdom for you. The information in this book is based on years of experience with thousands of women. If it is true for them, there is a good chance it might be true for you.
3. Try to stop looking for the exceptions. The things we tell you are true—except for sometimes. There are always exceptions, yet focusing on the exceptions is counterproductive. If we say, “Men want to make us happy,” for example, we know it is not true for every situation or every man. Know that we are speaking in generalities and keep that in mind without dwelling on the exceptions.
4. Be kind to yourself. You are human and being human means you don’t always get it right the first time. It’s a trial-and-error universe and you are doing the best you can. Let yourself feel compassion for your struggle, and don’t hold it against yourself that you don’t have it all figured out yet.
5. Be willing to be wrong. We all hate being wrong. Yet if you’d been right about everything until now, you would already have what you want with a man. If you find yourself arguing with what you’re reading, remind yourself that being wrong is good news because it means things don’t have to be the way they’ve been. Making us right means you can have something different than what you’ve always had.
6. Lean back and smile. When you lean back, your view is broader and you can open your arms to let in new information. Sit somewhere comfortable and allow yourself to relax as you read. A little humor can go a long way, too.
7. Expect regret. As you explore your past, you may experience regret. It’s natural to feel sad about things you wish you’d done and didn’t do, or about things you wish you hadn’t done but did. It’s healthy to let yourself feel the sadness. Suppressing it will only hold you back from healing. Allow yourself to breathe into the feeling, welcoming it as a necessary step toward having what you want.
8. Allow things to take the time they take. Your mind can conceive of change in an instant but it takes time for change to happen in real life. Having what you want with a man may not happen overnight, and cultivating patience will help you to be aware of each step in the process.
9. Look for what’s working. It’s easy to notice big changes, yet our work is often subtle. It’s the accumulation of small changes that allows your life to be different. Be open to noticing how you’re doing things differently, or how men may be treating you differently. Give yourself lots of praise for the work you’re doing.
10. Make the information your own. This is not a book of rules. We are making suggestions based on our experience. We know what generally works. The information is here to help you in whatever way you choose to use it. Every woman uses her new understanding in her own way.
11. Expect to feel good about yourself—to feel relieved, refreshed, and have your life look different to you. As you read this book you will be able to relax into your life knowing that what you want is coming to you. It will happen—it’s just a matter of time. You can have what you want—once you are clear about what that is. You can create a relationship that is good to you and good for you. You can choose what you want based on the wisdom you’ve gained.
By the time you finish reading this book, your world will have changed. You will think differently, feel differently, approach things differently, and see yourself and men differently. You’ll still recognize yourself in the mirror, but you might have a new glow because your new relationship to yourself is opening you up to having all kinds of wonderful new things happen in your life. Your load will have lightened. You will have answers to questions that have plagued women since we were cave dwellers. You will see that it is up to you to love yourself and choose men who are right for you. And you will have the very tools you need to have what you want with a man, starting today.
Think about…
What do you want a man for?
Exercises
Exercises found at the end of each chapter were designed to support you in making the material in this book real to you. They are designed to be done as you finish the chapters, as a way of supporting yourself further as you shift your life from where it is now to where you want it to be. Do not feel that you have to do them all. You can pick and choose as you like, and take them at your own pace. It may be useful to read the book through once and then read each chapter again as you do the exercises.
Some of these can be done at first glance. Others may take some consideration and some time. Feel free to do the exercises as many times as will serve you. Let the answers drop onto the page without censoring them. And expect to be surprised. Please allow the responses to take the time they need. You are worth it.
Since this work and its results can be very subtle, you may not see obvious changes right away. We believe that the smallest shift is a leap into the future because change is made from an accumulation of small steps.
We have selected several films as suggestions for viewing with each chapter. They are designed to inspire, enrich, and illuminate what you will be thinking about as you move through the book. We intend for them to provide experiences of the relationship dilemma, the process of change, and the triumph of the human spirit.
If you have any films to add to this list, please email us with your suggestions to be reviewed for future editions.
Enjoy yourself and relax with a good movie.
Introduction Exercises
You can start to get clear about what you want right now by asking yourself:
“What do I want a man for?”
You’ll want to refer to your answers to this question as you go through the book, so it’s a good idea to write the question at the top of the page in your notebook. You can add to the list later if you want to, but don’t be surprised if it’s not too long. Chances are, what you want a man for is actually less complicated than you thought. Getting clear about what you want a man for will prepare the way for you to gain a deeper understanding of why you’ve had what you’ve had—and how to go about having something different.
Terms of Endearment
Class Action
Dangerous Beauty
The Contender
Chapter One
There Is No Prince
“I’ve been single long enough,” Jillian wrote on the first page of her new spiral-bound notebook. “I am ready to find out how to have a great relationship with a man.” Suddenly she felt the same kind of giddy anticipation she’d felt in college when she sat in a classroom at the beginning of the semester. She leaned back expectantly. Marilyn Graman entered the room and stood in front of the group of women. Smiling, she looked around and said, “Welcome to ‘Having What You Want With a Man.’ Congratulations for getting yourself here. Sometimes that’s the hardest part.”
“Hard to get myself here?” wrote Jillian.“It took me years—and I still almost didn’t come today! All I’ve had is lousy relationships—with me going back and forth between wanting to be married and promising to stay single forever.”
Jillian could be any of the thousands of women who have come to our weekend-long relationship workshop. We call our course “Having What You Want With a Man.”
Notice that we call it, ‘having what you want with a man.’ Lots of women come to our workshop thinking that it is all about getting what they want from a man, but we’re not about teaching any new tricks. When you take our course, you begin to think differently, feel differently, and approach things differently—about yourself, about men, and about relationships. Our book is designed to bring you the same results. As you read, you will discover that there are as many ways to be in relationships as there are women, and that you get to choose the kind of man and relationship you want. It’s a relief to find that out, isn’t it?
This book is designed to help you understand yourself better and understand men better. It will give you a new bridge between your past and the future you want. We all need that bridge, because somehow the future always does end up looking like the past. This book can help you make the changes you need to have something different in your life.
Congratulations on picking up this book. You have just begun your journey to the future—and the relationship—you want.
As Marilyn continued to speak, Jillian began to feel more relaxed.
“Why do you keep doing what you’ve always done? Because your images of how life can be are based on the past. Really making changes means going into the unknown—creating new pictures based on what you really want. And to do that you will want to clear away old ideas and patterns that don’t help you. You’ll need to separate yourself from your history and do something different from what you’ve always done.”
“Clear away past junk,” Jillian wrote in her notebook. “Sounds good!”
“The first thing you need to know if you want things to be different is this: We all repeat our history over and over. You learned everything you know about men and relationships when you were very young—and those first experiences are still running your life right now.”
Marilyn paused as a ripple ran through the room. “Now I know you’ve learned a lot since your childhood, but listen to me. Your early experiences are still running your life. Just try out the idea for a while. I promise you that if you “make me right,” that is, if you try on my point of view, and if you are willing to release the threads that are binding you to the past, you will have the opportunity to have what you want with a man.”
“Make Marilyn right,” Jillian jotted down, though with some hesitation. “Okay, will try. ??? Done lots of work and just don’t see how childhood still matters. Will keep open mind, keep listening.”
“You were influenced about relationship in two ways when you were a child,” Marilyn continued. “Number one was by the culture and the time period you grew up in. The norms, stereotypes, and expectations of our society taught you what your relationship should look like. You got those messages mainly from movies, television, magazines, books, and songs. They gave you an idealized version of relationships that no one could live up to—think Grace Kelly or Lady Diana and their “fairy-tale” marriages to Princes.
“Number two was by your family. While the culture was giving you messages about the ideal relationship you should have, your parents or the adults who raised you were modeling what a real relationship was like. And that was probably really different from the Hollywood or romance novel version of relationship, right?”
Murmurs of assent swept through the room.
“So the models for relationship you were given as a child were unrealistic, fairy-tale Hollywood relationships—and your parents’ relationship, which had its own problems.”
Jillian wrote, “Hollywood=unrealistic, parents=too depressing.”
“Now you’ve probably been wondering why on earth an attractive, intelligent woman like you doesn’t have the terrific relationship she wants,” said Marilyn. “And I’ll bet you’ve come up with one of two answers—‘There’s something wrong with me,’ or ‘There are no good men out there.’ Or both. Those are the answers women tend to end up with after years of disappointment in relationships. But I am here to tell you the good news.
“The good news is that there is nothing wrong with you, and there are plenty of good men out there. The reason you aren’t in a great relationship, or the one you’ve always wanted, is not that you’ve got some kind of fatal flaw or that all the good men are taken. It’s simply that you were never taught how to have what you want with a man.
“As a child you got handed a lot of wrong, unhelpful, and conflicting information from the media and from your parents—and then you were told to go out and find happiness with a man. It’s as if you were shoved out of an airplane by a skydiving instructor, but instead of a parachute, she shoved you out with a pack full of dirty laundry. You couldn’t possibly have a successful experience—yet you think there’s something wrong with you because you’re not floating happily through the air.”
“There is nothing wrong with me, and there are plenty of good men out there. Have been given wrong information,” Jillian wrote, underlining it in red ink. “Maybe this means it’s not my fault I’ve never had the relationship I wanted???”
“We were taught what our relationships ought to be like from movies, television, books, songs, and magazines—and we learned what our relationships would be like from our parents. And much of what we learned has been unhelpful. Not only does it provide us with unhealthy or unrealistic role models, but the messages are outdated. The culture has shifted greatly in the past forty years, and what we learned as children no longer matches up to the reality of everyday life. Women’s roles have changed, and what women want and need in a relationship has also changed.
“It’s really unfortunate and unfair that you were handed all this wrong information,” Marilyn went on. “When you can explore your past and find out what you learned back then, it will help you see why you have the relationship you have today. If you’re single, understanding what you learned in your past will help explain why. And when you understand why you have what you have today, you will have the power to change it.
“Before you can change what you have, though, it is absolutely crucial to understand how powerfully you have been repeating your history. You are living with certain expectations about relationship based on what you learned as a child. You anticipate that a man or a relationship will be a certain way, and your assumptions keep you from seeing what is really there. It’s like your history provided you with glasses that only let you see certain kinds of people or situations. What you expect is what you get—it’s practically a law of nature. If you expect men to be distant, for instance, you may attract men who are very busy with work or who live out of town. And the woman sitting next to you expects something else based on what she was taught. It’s amazing how much what we expect comes into our lives. So I am saying to you that it is almost impossible to overestimate the influence your history has on what you have in your life right now.”
“What you expect is what you get,” Jillian scrawled, underlining in red. “Oh no!”
“We will talk about your family history in a little while,” said Marilyn. “Right now I want to focus on our shared cultural history—what we were taught about relationships by movies, television, magazines, books, and songs. I’m going to start out with a modern fairy tale that will illustrate what I’m talking about.
“Once upon a time there was a Martian named Oona who decided she wanted to travel to Earth and discover what it was like to be human. She went to the Elders of Mars to ask if she could travel to Earth for a while, and after much debate they decided to let her go.
“Before she left, the Elders spent a lot of time telling Oona how to survive as a human. They taught her that humans need certain fuels to keep them alive. One is called food. The other, they explained, is a green fluid called water. Whenever she felt an empty sensation in her middle, which humans called hunger, she would need to ingest some food. The Elders explained to Oona that there was a great variety of food, and told her where to get it and how it would look and smell. Whenever she felt a dry sensation in her throat, which the humans called thirst, she would need to drink the green fluid called water. So Oona went off, confident that she would survive with the good instructions her Elders had given her.
“Oona landed safely on Earth and spent the first few hours wandering around in a daze. After a while she started to feel tired and her middle ached. ‘What is wrong with me?’ she wondered. Then she remembered that this was her signal to find food. She found a place called a supermarket and paid for something called bread, and once she had chewed it and swallowed enough times the empty feeling in her middle went away and she felt energized.
“By the end of the afternoon Oona felt a strange sensation in her throat and her head started to ache. ‘Oh,’ she thought to herself, ‘I must be experiencing what is known as thirst. It is just as the Elders said—first I was hungry and I ate food and I felt better, and now I am thirsty and I must find some of that green liquid called water to cure this dryness and this headache.’ She went back to the supermarket and asked a man in a red apron where to find the water. He led her to an aisle filled with bottles of clear liquid.
“‘No, I need the green water,’ Oona explained to the man.
“‘Lady, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Water isn’t green, it’s clear,’ said the man and walked away.
“Oona left the supermarket feeling weak,” continued Marilyn. “She walked all day and all night, and all the next day and the next night, but she couldn’t find green water anywhere. Everywhere she asked for water they showed her the clear stuff, and yet she knew she could only drink green water because the Elders had told her so.”
Marilyn paused and took a sip from her own glass of water. “Clear,” she commented with a wry smile, prompting titters around the room.
“Note to self: Water is clear and not green,” Jillian wrote with her green pen. “But what does this have to do with anything?”
“After three days of searching, Oona couldn’t walk anymore. She lay down on a bench, feeling so weak she didn’t even care if she could find the green water. She fell asleep, and in her dream a beautiful woman in a flowing gown waved a sparkling wand and spoke to her in a silvery voice.
“‘Oona, the Elders were wrong,’ whispered the mysterious woman. ‘I know that is hard for you to believe because they are supposed to know everything, but if you want to survive you have to believe me. Water is not green, it’s clear. And if you drink some soon your human body will live. If you hold out for the green water, you will die.’
“Oona tossed and turned in a fitful sleep. ‘I don’t believe you,’ she said. ‘How could water be clear when the Elders told me it would be green? They’ve always been right before.’
“‘Trust me,’ said the shimmery woman. ‘Be willing to be mistaken about this one thing you learned from the elders, and you will survive.’ She waved her wand and disappeared.
“When Oona awoke she felt so awful that she could barely sit up. She decided that she had to believe the woman in her dream even though it meant going against everything she’d learned. She went to the supermarket and gave the man in the red apron some paper bills for a large bottle of the clear liquid he claimed was water, and though she was afraid she unscrewed the cap and took a long drink. Miraculously, she began to feel better. She took another drink, and felt instantly stronger.
“After drinking the entire bottle Oona felt ready for anything, and yet she was disturbed. The Elders had given her the wrong information. She decided to be more careful from then on and discover for herself what it really meant to be a human. And she lived happily ever after … realizing that what she was taught was not necessarily the truth, making many mistakes, and learning all the time.”
Jillian was scribbling as fast as she could. “Aha! Green water is the wrong information—elders were wrong!”
“So,” Marilyn clasped her hands and held them to her heart, “like Oona, we have all been given a lot of wrong information that has caused us pain. It’s hard to believe it is wrong because it’s so ingrained in us and was given to us by supposed authorities. Once we can see that the truth is different from what we were told, though, we can start to see why we haven’t had what we wanted.
“When you were a child you were trying to make sense of life all the time. You didn’t have a fairy godmother who whispered explanations into your ear like Oona did. You had to figure it out by yourself, and you got your information from the culture and the family that raised you. So now I am going to play the part of your fairy godmother. I am going to help you by telling you the truth.”
Marilyn glanced at her watch. “Why don’t we take a two-minute stretch break?” she suggested.
Jillian stood and stretched her hands above her head. She felt curiously light and floaty, as if her sense of reality were shifting somehow. She sat down again and put her notebook in her lap. Her pen was poised, but she wasn’t sure what to write yet.
Your mother never told you…
that you were given the wrong information about men and relationships.
Reality check
A hush fell over the assembled women as Marilyn took her seat again.
“Like Oona, you have been misled,” Marilyn began. “You were told water is green and you have been diligently searching for green water, not realizing that you’re looking for the wrong thing. In case you hadn’t guessed, the green water represents the perfect man you were promised—the man who would provide everything you want exactly when you want it. The man who would be unfailingly romantic and attentive, and who would know what would make you happy without having to be told. The man who would be kind, nurturing, sweet, masculine, strong, handsome, considerate, gallant, and gentlemanly. In short—you have been promised a Prince.
“Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty taught you that you ought to wait for a Prince to make your life complete. Yet the Prince is a fabrication based on the ideals of chivalry, gentlemanly conduct, and fairy-tale endings. You didn’t know this when you were a child trying to make sense of life. The Prince was presented to you as real and you trustingly followed what you were told. Like Oona waiting for the green water even though lots of clear water was available, you have been passing over a lot of fine, decent, caring human males because you are waiting for the perfect man, the ideal man, the knight in shining armor … Prince Charming. And you have been suffering, haven’t you? You’ve been thinking that there is something wrong with you because you haven’t found the Prince yet—and you might feel like you are dying of thirst.”
“Waiting for a Prince,” Jillian wrote with a purple pen. “I thought Ernie was one until he forgot my birthday and left empty soda cans all over my apartment…”
“The reality is that there are plenty of decent, kind, caring men who want relationships with women just like you—and you, and you,” continued Marilyn, making eye contact with each woman in turn. “And once you can look at what’s happening in your life in the light of what you learned as a child, you begin to create an opening for a man to come into your life. When you stop waiting for the Prince to come and whisk you off on his white steed, you can start seeing all the interesting, interested men who are all around you. But first you have to accept the fact that
There is NO PRINCE.
Marilyn paused and repeated, “There is NO PRINCE.”
Jillian scrawled, “No Prince!!! Ack—is that true? What about my friend Carol’s husband? He’s so good-looking and even watches the kids sometimes. What about that guy I met at Caroline’s? Wait … I want one! Not sure I want a real live man who can’t save me with a kiss! Couldn’t there be just one Prince? What about Jackson, the guy I met at the mayor’s ball. He’s so tall, dark, handsome, charming … Maybe he’s the only Prince—and I found him—”
“There is NO PRINCE.”
Marilyn reiterated as if in answer to Jillian’s question. “As long as you are waiting for a Prince you are bound to be disappointed over and over again. A man can look like the Prince at first. You see him across a crowded room and he’s handsome, witty, and charming. Yet once you get into a relationship with him you always find out that he is a human male with his own problems, idiosyncrasies, insecurities, and fears…and you feel cheated.
“Then you start thinking maybe there is something wrong with you because it looks like other women have found their Prince, and you don’t have one of your own. You may not realize that your friends haven’t found Princes either. They’ve found human males and simply accepted that they’re not Princes after all. They know they haven’t found a Prince because they are dealing with their men’s human foibles, habits, and moods all the time. These men may act princely sometimes when the women in their lives are open to receiving what they have to offer, but there is NO PRINCE. If you see a man who looks like a Prince, talk to his ex-wife—she’ll let you know exactly how he’s not the Prince. Even Princess Diana didn’t consider Charles a Prince.
“It’s tragic when we start thinking there is something wrong with us because we don’t have a Prince. We just got the wrong information, that’s all. I hope it is huge relief to know that it’s not your fault. You were brought up believing in something that isn’t real. You didn’t have a fairy godmother to take you aside at the age of five and explain that everything you were watching, listening to, and reading was based on wishful thinking and that your idea of romance was based on an ideal that simply doesn’t exist. So I’m being your fairy godmother now and telling you…
“There is NO PRINCE.
“Not anywhere.
“No man—not one.”
Your mother never told you…
that there is NO PRINCE.
Think about…
How knowing that there is No Prince
opens you to seeing men differently.
Chapter One Exercises
1. Reflect on the statement, “There is No Prince.” What can happen for you now that you know there is No Prince. Take notes on your thoughts and feelings.
2. Notice men who do not fit your picture of the Prince. For each man, ask yourself honestly, “What might women see in him?”
3. Like Oona, what information have you been given that now seems like “the wrong information”?
Snow White
Cinderella
Sleeping Beauty
Lady and the Tramp
Little Mermaid
Chapter Two
What You Were Taught About Men
“I can’t believe I’ve been waiting for a nonexistent Prince,” Jillian wrote in black ink after absorbing Marilyn’s words. “After all, I’m an enlightened twenty-first century woman!”
Jillian isn’t the only one who was waiting for a Prince. On some level, we are all waiting for a fairy-tale ending. If you were like most little girls, some of the first movies you saw were Disney’s version of fairy tales. These movies caused a lot of mischief for little girls the world over as we absorbed the messages of the movies into our hearts. Cinderella was impossibly good, but that wasn’t enough to save her from a life of drudgery. Sleeping Beauty was beautiful and sweet, but that wasn’t enough to save her from the evil Maleficent’s curse. Prince Charming, of course, was the one to save the day and the girl. Today, because of the awareness raised by the women’s movement, it is easy to see the unhealthy pattern being set up—but as a four, six, or eight-year-old, you learned it well. And if you think about it, you’ll see just how much what you learned back then is still influencing what is in your life today.
Each of us grew up steeped in specific cultural circumstances that, along with our parents’ relationship, influenced our expectations about what we would have with a man. Our religion, the era we were born in, the country we grew up in, and our family’s cultural heritage all contributed to an environment where certain things were acceptable and others were not, where certain things were taken for granted and others were unthinkable.
But whether we grew up in the war-torn 1940s, conservative 1950s, the radical 1960s, the wild 1970s, or the decadent 1980s, we couldn’t escape the cultural influences of the increasingly powerful film, magazine, and television industries. We watched movies and sitcoms, pored over women’s magazines, and read romance novels—and our expectations about men and relationships were set.
Love, Hollywood Style
If your fairy godmother had come to you when you were five, she would have whispered in your ear that Disney’s versions of Snow White (1937), Cinderella (1950), and Sleeping Beauty (1959) were fantasies. You couldn’t possibly be expected to be as good, as beautiful, or as lucky as any of those heroines. She would have added the fact that the Prince in each of these stories is idealized, that no man would always measure up to the Prince’s manly valor and silent heroism. And finally, she would have informed you that no relationship between a man and a woman could be sustained from two sentences of dialogue, a pretty face, and a kiss.
But because our fairy godmothers failed to show up and enlighten us, we were left to draw our own conclusions. And because the fairy tale was much more compelling than the reality of our parents’ marriages, we swallowed it whole. We believed the story of the green water to such an extent that as adults we are still rejecting the clear water because it just looks wrong to us.
Take the example of Snow White, a woman who lived with seven men who adored her and would do anything for her. (Not only that, but also they were willing to share her among all seven of them!) The problem is that they were short, funny looking and had weird names—so she didn’t even consider them as potential mates. The only one who could save her from her poisoned sleep, the only one she could fall in love with, was Prince Charming, who didn’t do anything except lift her onto his horse and ride away with her. He was not the one who worked all day and brought flowers to her glass coffin every evening. But he had to be the right one because he looked like the right one.