I teach a ”Psychology of Women” class at a community college, and your book, "10 Stupid Things Women Do to Mess Up Their Lives" is required reading. I ask the students to choose a chapter to write about, and how it relates to their lives. One woman wrote:
Upon reading Chapter Two, "Stupid Courtship," I see many points expressed in this chapter that I have done.
I used to find myself being disappointed by lousy dates, but even more disappointed by not getting a call back. That started the cycle of beating myself up and obsessively thinking about what I did wrong for him not to call back. Dr. Schlessinger states that dating should be about selecting, not being selected. The mind set I had since I started dating was wrong. I acted like a beggar to see who would "take" me, saying yes too quickly to too many of the wrong men so that I wouldn't have to deal with being alone.
I never thought there would be an alternate solution to not feeling alone or feeling better about being alone. My idea of core fulfillment always included a man by my side. I was always afraid to live on my own and doubted my capabilities of holding the responsibility of maintaining a job and housing on my own. So, at age 22, I married my boyfriend of almost two years and left my mother's house. I took an enormous leap in an act of what I thought was survival. Five years into my relationship, three years of marriage and one child later, I face many difficulties due to these stupid actions I have taken.
After reading the chapter, I was completely overwhelmed, depressed and even angry that I did not read this book before. On a positive note I have had a major “head change” and see that I can pinpoint major problems in my marriage and myself and try to work on them. I think it is useless to think about "what ifs" of "if I did it all over again" because I can't. One of the positive outcomes of my poor decisions is that at least I will be able to guide my son through his life so that he can have confidence, and not make the mistakes I did.
Leslee
