19 December 2025

What is happiness? When it comes to external things, for me it's living in a beautiful surrounding. A nice apartment, doesn't have to be big. In a pretty town. Surrounded by sun and sea.

My experience when it comes to happiness is quite the opposite of the well known expression 'Pursuit of Happiness'. 'Pursuit' in itself is all wrong I learned. We pursue the things we missed in our childhoods, I read once in an article. If we grew up poor and it was painful, then we'll pursue money. If we were lacking love, all we will be focused on is finding love. That used to be me.

Doesn't that seem like the opposite of actual happiness? That is just one big lack of...something. 'Pursuit', the word itself express a lack of happiness. And suggests we can catch it, find it, but all we actually do is run after something and increasing that gap that we feel.

Until that one year in Mexico, after I read a great book on Tao of Love, where I focused on learning to be happy in the moment. The key was to BE in the moment. Anyone who touches on the spirituality of life, be it Yoga, Buddhism and such, will have come across the concept.

Remember when we were little and completely immersed in the game we were playing or the drawing we were creating or the tent we were building in our garden with our best friend? Remember how nothing else existed? How nothing else mattered? 

We were in the moment. And we were never happier, only we were not aware of the concept.

Only later in life when we lose the capability do we know something is missing or even wrong. And we start chasing things and concepts. We start 'the pursuit of happiness' because we don't like where we landed.

But weren't we able as children to lose ourselves in building that tent with our friend despite the general fact that we were growing up in say a difficult household? Oh, yes we were.

But when we do that as grownups, it could look like living in denial. That's not what I wanted for myself. I wanted to be able to be generally happy, no matter what the circumstance. Happy with myself, within myself at any moment. The first step towards that was to learn again to STAY in the moment. And I did. I focused on the steam rising from my morning cup of fruit tea. I focused on the heavy raindrops falling on my window and thought of nothing else. I discovered again what I found pleasurable in life, those tiny things and also big things like travelling and meeting new people.

When I landed in my next marriage and yet again in a difficult relationship, just as I was growing up, I realised that I still felt stable within myself, still happy with who I was. I might not have liked my surroundings too much but I tried to find those beautiful spots, some woods, good walks, good talks with new people.

I believed in something that my ex and I were building at the time, so I stayed far past a point that I usually would. But everything difficult were only outer circumstances that could be changed. I could leave the relationship if I needed to, I could change towns. None of that is really tragic.

The only "tragic" thing perhaps was that I was repeating a pattern yet again, despite having learned so much about myself and relationships and love throughout the...well, decades, not just years.

I didn't NEED the love of this man to feel happy. I had love, my own love, for myself, for the world, also for this man. And I thought I had his love. Until I realised he was incapable of accepting actual love and that was HIS pattern. I had my own - choosing intimate relationships where there was either safety in me being in control, or safety in the knowledge that this 'love' will also go to pieces. My programming was such that as soon as I became intimate with someone, all my focus would zoom in on the needs of that person, to the detriment of my time and energy.

Yet another thing we are not being taught - accepting certain things - and then seeing if they can be changed after all. This time I had to accept my 'programming' of which I wasn't really aware or perhaps I just kept denying how heavy it was.

We like to think that we're in control of who we are, don't we? It's terrifying to admit we run on a program from our childhood (still) and there might be nothing we can do about it.

Right now I'm starting from the point that there isn't anything I can do about it. Say I can't ever trust myself to choose or let into my life a safe and loving partner. Then what? Is it the end of my world?

I decided that it isn't. It would have been nice to have that quality in my life, but there were so many other things that I found more important, always have - like the relationship with myself. Building - myself. Focusing on - myself. For me that's the hardest thing to do. But when I'm not in a relationship, I actually manage to do that to a certain degree. Not as much as I'd like to but still. 

And with that follows logically that I need to stay single, possibly forever.

What about sex? I've been living like a nun. And I don't see that to change any time soon because (finally!) I have come to the point of actually valuing myself and I will not let anyone touch me that I don't trust. And trust doesn't come easy to me at all. I am terrified of men and them wanting me or something from me. Because it's never about - Me. I don't even know what it looks like when someone actually would find me great enough to wait. 

Then again the times we live in don't teach us to wait for anything any longer, right? Everything is gearing us towards wanting and GETTING it NOW. That is what we value in this new century and new era of technology.

Fine, so be it. Chances are very slim that anyone will every bring up the patience and persistence trying to get to know me, winning my trust. Because it might take months, perhaps a year or longer before I would let someone really close to me.

Am I worth it? Of course I am, I know I am. But I'm not the only great person out there. There are plenty more who don't need that kind of time because their trust hasn't been completely smashed when they were little - and then time and time again later in life.

That's ok. All my life I've been about love and sex and hoping for a good relationship, but also far too impatient and afraid to say no when someone was interested, never putting the person to the test. It's not meant for me in this life to experience the beauty with someone else that I perceive in sex and love. And that's really ok.

Far more important is now to not just accept my programming, but also understand and possibly learn to change it at least so far that I learn to reach out for the work in life that truly makes me feel alive. I know exactly what that is. I had (single) moments when I already made it happen and that's my events, public speaking. But certain fears (programming) are in my way and I'm learning to choose to overcome it. Apparently that's what you need to do. Not to wait for courage but courage means to CHOOSE to do certain things despite your fears. (See Tim Ferris on YouTube, that's my current favourite thing.)

To fully become myself and manage to express all the creativity which bubbles underneath the surface... THAT is the dream :). That would be the highest expression of love - for myself.

Only then perhaps would I be ready to look at letting someone else close again. We shall see...

25 Jan 2021

This will be short and sweet. We all want to be happy, so we say. We even have a movie “The Pursuit of Happiness”. In the end there are two types of happiness or two ways to reach it. Or three? We shall see.

I came to the conclusion that most of us are not in pursuit of happiness, but in pursuit of feeling good. We just want to feel good. Either loved, touched (wanted), feel the thrill of achievement, of a runner’s high… And in that pursuit some reach out for the shortcuts like a drink or drugs or food. I’m the one reaching out for food.

But I’m mostly still happy. How come?

Of course everything can be a matter of perspective and it’s important to develop that sense of humility and gratitude.

Here it comes. One way I ever feel happy is when I feel proud of myself. I feel proud of myself when I managed to accept a challenge, something I’m perhaps a bit afraid to do, something which demands either courage or perseverance or both. For example.

Years ago when I was stuck in the rut of office work, I asked myself what scares me. The answer was, wedding photography. I was reading up on it and preparing my skills for three years and yet I didn’t dare to do a wedding, because I knew what a great responsibility it was. Thinking back on the crazy challenges I’ve accepted in my life makes me proud, makes me happy.

Second. Taking over responsibility. Now this one is linked with the first one but not necessarily. The first one is about MY own challenges, for my amusement at the end of the day. But what I mean by ‘taking over responsibility’ is for someone else. For your partner, for your children. In my case, it was really scary to take over responsibility for my step children. As a step mom, I’m in a tricky situation and yet also a great one. I can’t bitch and moan at the kids, that would only make me seem like the evil step mom. So I’m forced to find other ways. Like simply singing to myself every time I’m cleaning after them, it’s only for a couple of years.

Meanwhile I got used to the effort. I try to teach them how they can do things better, and I try to live by example which I know is the biggest influencer down the road. They always find me kind, in a good mood and if I can’t be in a good mood, I at least explain that it has nothing to do with them and I apologise for not being all smiles. But that’s rare these days.

Cooking every day, cleaning every day on the go without being able to moan about it reminds me that I chose this role, this life and I better step up to it and do it with some dignity and grace and without any martyrdom.

And then there is the other kind of happiness.

While the first two are about taking on a challenge or responsibility, for yourself, for others, the third one is simply about learning to stay in the moment. This is more than just the buddhist view of life.

You’ve heard this often I’m sure “It’s not about the goal, it’s about the journey.” But actually it’s not even about the journey in this case. OK, wait a second. I think I need to split this one in two.

When it comes to taking on a challenge or responsibility, applying this view is indeed about the journey, to simply enjoy the chores, enjoy the effort that goes into the challenge, or the overcoming of your fear and finding yourself in the middle of a wedding, not thinking and being totally in the zone of trying to capture those magical moments. So it’s action taken, in combination with enjoying the journey of it, the effort.

The thing that reminds me best of that is sports. I did a lot of sports as a kid and I LOVED the effort. Not many people do any more.

And then there is the other kind of staying in the moment, which has nothing to do with action or movement, and everything to do with simply being present.

Some people find it in meditation and that’s one way, a good one really. I remember, I was sitting in my simple room in Mexico, sitting at the edge of the bed, hands on my thighs, eyes closed, trying to clear my mind, hearing the birds outside, or the heavy rain, the fan on the ceiling… Then I would go down, make myself a herb tea and drink it very slowly, feeling the heat of the cup on my hands and pressed against my chest when it wasn’t too hot any longer. It took some practice, staying in the moment.

Today I did it differently. We had two days of snow (very rare in England) and it was a sunny day, so I finally went for a walk. And it was a glorious walk! I stopped at branches, really looking at the snow glittering in the sun. Then I took some between my fingers, felt the cold, and then put it in my mouth. I haven’t eaten snow in ages! I used to do it as a kid. But I didn’t rush to those memories, I stayed in my moment, I enjoyed it today. I kept walking, enjoying the sound of the snow crunching under my feed. What a delight! And then I found some fields and I stood alone in the middle of snowy fields. On my way back home I discovered a new beautiful path with trees on both sides reaching over on the top, forming an arcade almost. The sun was melting the snow off the branches, so glittery droplets would be falling sideways, carried by the light wind… 

These are just ways how to pull yourself into the present. The art is staying in the present, not wishing for anything else. Not for a goal, not pursuing anything. I know that when I’ve reached a goal, I might get a slight rush of endorphins, sure, but it’s over in a blink of an eye. It’s not worth it. That’s why I don’t care much for reaching a goal. Sure, I will try to complete it, like publishing my book would be a good example. What makes me happy is looking back and being proud of myself that I was able to finish something. The work itself was often tedious. The day I published my book I felt more relief that it was over than a thrill.

I don’t need goals to be happy in my basic self. I’ve learned in Mexico (because I was reading certain books, not so much because of Mexico, but the surrounding helped), that happiness is already in me. I know, I know, it sounds so cheesy. “Love is already in you, happiness is already in you.” But it is! Look. A simple example. Where do we take our capacity for love from? Does it need to be inspired from outside? No. You know that, I know that. We don’t act like it, but on some level we realise that.

I… I can choose to love. My capacity for love is already there. For myself, for a partner, for the whole world if I like. Most of us are trying to reserve love only for the one person who impresses us enough, perhaps for some friends or family. I find we’ve become very afraid of love and kind of scarce with it.

No, it’s not easy to love the whole world. It’s scary and why would I, right? Well, I chose to. What was the alternative? To hate everyone? What kind of existence would that be? A bitter and lonely one.

So I learned what my boundaries are and I chose to find a deep understanding and compassion for people in general. For men in general. It wasn’t a blind decision, it was an informed one. I learned about men, I learned about women, about our pain and how to deal with it. To open your heart outwards as well as inwards (letting yourself be loved) is truly scary, yes. Hence – boundaries (and confidence) and then it’s much easier and not that scary at all any more.

Happiness works in the same way as love. I can choose to be happy, no matter what circumstances I’m in. It’s a very quiet happiness. It feels more like eternal calm.

If I want some extra happiness, I take on a challenge so I can feel proud. I don’t need the validation from others, just from myself.

Everything else are extras, wonderful extras! If you have lovely people around you that you can trust and who love you, that’s amazing! If you are surrounded by beautiful nature, a beautiful home – extras. Anything outside you which makes you feel good is an extra and it’s welcome.

But what do you do when you can’t choose your surroundings like for example we’re in this lockdown and because the children have moved in, I don’t have a room of my own any longer (which is the fate of most women I suppose). And that’s not easy to bare and it could drive me mad or crazy, but it does’t any more. I can’t change this right now, perhaps one day. So I focus on how I can make others happy and also myself. I can cook for my family (love indeed goes through our stomach) and it makes me happy to see them happy. And then there is my writing or other little things I can do myself, for myself, and redirect my focus on what I CAN do, instead of what I can’t change right now.

Being happy is an art.

Feeling good, chasing the feeling of feeling good is a nice chase and can be fun and there is nothing wrong with it (like having good sex for example), as long as it’s not lazy and destructive.

I like to use the saying ‘The soul will always do what it needs to do” but that doesn’t mean I will ever stop trying to force my thoughts and with it my soul in the right direction, a healthy and useful one. Because if I had always followed my destructive instincts, I would have successfully killed myself long ago, weigh 600 pounds or try to ruin other people’s lives.

I know that sometimes it seems impossible to prevent being self-destructive and we need to hit rock bottom before we can get up again. It’s only human, it’s how we are built and it’s one of the things which frustrate me the most.

But there is the hope that we will always find the strength to at least TRY to go against our destructive instincts, to fight that inner fight, even when we are losing – until one day the fight pays off.

Of course there are great tools that can help us inspire being in a good mood if that’s what we want, like music, laughter… But while my husband will use music every day to get himself moving and be joyful (annoyingly so at times, LOL), I find myself mostly enjoying the quietness. What I need is the sun but for that I live in the wrong country :). Hence why you hear me dreaming of Mexico so often.

27 Nov 2020

The pros and cons of the social premise where having three dates means sex.

As a hard-boiled European person and a woman at that, when I first saw in series and movies this dating rule where in the U.S. people have sex on the third date, I was shocked. Times have truly changed from when I was young. Gee, that makes me sound so old and I’m only 44.

Having grown up in small towns, a boy could not ‘misbehave’ without consequences. If a boy was only interested in getting girls into bed, the word would spread quickly and there would be none of that any longer, he would be cut off from the potential ‘cookie’ as Stephen Harvey calls it.

So back in my younger days, getting to the point of having sex took far longer than three dates, I can assure you;)

Now we live in big cities, we move and change countries and don’t know the people we meet any longer. And neither can we check with our neighbours if they know anything about the person which used to be the ‘background check’ of a small town.

What I’ve noticed though is that we behave now as if we were still living in a trusting small town and instead of giving ourselves MORE time to do our ‘due diligence’ about a new person, we went into the opposite direction and are enjoying the freedom of Tinder and Bumble and Grindr, sleeping with complete strangers without even a date.

Freedom. It’s the one thing I love about our western culture. I guess one really needs to learn how to deal with freedom.

No, not everything is perfect, FAR from it when it comes to our freedom. But unlike the rest of the world, we are not cutting ourselves a leg and an arm and half the head off by limiting women to the kitchen.

If only we learned a bit quicker to forget the concept of ‘racism’ as well and stopped missing out on all the brains and talent of everyone else around us! We’d already solved every single problem on earth by now, don’t you agree?

But the thing that’s great about our western culture is the freedom of choice, also of being able to choose and make mistakes. Because only that’s how we grow and learn, fair enough.

People, I went through some serious shit in my life, but I still would rather know everything I know, including the pain of abuse, and be able to lead a creative life or a life in which I can fight for the right thing, today — than be in a culture where I would still get a lot of abuse but would be able to do absolutely ZERO about it and would be limited to staying at home and bearing children and cooking.

I wouldn’t be able to write a book, I wouldn’t be able to teach men and women how to communicate better, I wouldn’t be able to have a career as an executive assistant (it’s just a glorified term for bad-ass secretary, paid three times more than a nurse which is somehow simply just wrong but I can’t complain now, can I?), I can just travel and do whatever I please — including meeting and dating anyone I want and jumping into bed with them too quickly.

That’s freedom. Right?

Sex on the third date…

What’s the good thing about it? Well, at least you’re giving yourself A BIT of time before just jumping into bed with a complete stranger.

What else? At least there are some rules and clarity what’s expected. We need so much more of that!

And the cons?

Two or three dates don’t necessarily show you who the person really is unless you’ve done an actual background check yourself, asked a ton of questions and had him show you where he lives, where he works, who his friends are — but who would ever insist on that on the first few dates? You would come across like a policeman and you don’t want THAT, now do you?

You want the guy to like you, right? And we all know men are like deer, easy to spook;)

Sorry, guys, joking a bit, but unfortunately that’s how some men come across at times.

Effectively, if you decide to sleep with a man on the third date (– or the woman!), you don’t really know who you’re dealing with.

My husband paid dearly for that in his early twenties. Before he knew, it was too late. He stayed stuck in a toxic relationship for over a decade and it nearly killed him. She…nearly killed him.

Oh yes, it can go the other way as well. Which is WHY I’m absolutely baffled that men will so easily jump into bed with women these days. In the end they are in just as much danger as we women are.

Taking your TIME to date and get to know someone, what are the pros and cons of that?

Well, let’s start with the cons. I admit, one can lose a lot of time and money dating someone for longer. Which also costs a lot of money. Especially men are hit with that more than we women and I get that.

Pros you would think is to get to know the person.

Here is the tricky bit though.

Once you invest more hopes/dreams/time/money into a person, you start getting (emotionally) invested.

By the time you have figured out that you’re not compatible, instead of shaking hands and walking away, you now don’t want to feel like you’ve wasted all that time and it was all for nothing. So you stay and keep fighting. It would also possibly hurt and you’ll be heartbroken. Or you don’t want to break the heart of the person you were seeing.

But guess what, people, that’s called life. Shit happens and you need to deal with it. You can’t go on like a 15-year-old teenage girl and try to avoid pain and life altogether.

Who knows the movie “The Jane Austen Book Club”? Guys, don’t roll your eyes, it’s actually a great movie, even for a chick flick. It’s very realistic, one of my favourite movies of all times. Anyway, one of the characters has been married six times in her life. And she says to the lady she just met: “You know, it’s always great in the beginning. What counts is how you feel in the end.”

Exactly! I thought to myself. Why don’t we have a plan then, perhaps an agreement at the start, how to deal with things in the end, if they don’t work out? Well, because we don’t want to think about things not working out, am I right? We completely push that away. Dreaming about the perfect life is so much nicer! (Yes, I’m being sarcastic, for those who didn’t pick up on that. Have to make sure;)

And here we are — confronted with the choice of either dealing with the pain of proper dating and trying to have a relationship, or just hopping from one bed to another, avoiding the possibility of pain altogether. I get it… Why not at least have some fun and sex and get the closeness we need, even if it’s just for the night?

Why not? I’ll tell you why not. I know that it was leaving me emptier and emptier when I was doing that myself. I felt more and more lost. But I’m a woman, women are like that, getting quickly emotionally attached, right? Wrong. I read an article that this doesn’t apply just to women.

A study has shown that bed hopping has a negative lasting effect on men just as well, if maybe not as much right away. I could imagine that’s true. At the end of the day we all crave love, being accepted for who we are, feeling heard and all that jazz. Men no less than women, I know that for a fact, through my own experiences, I don’t have to read articles about that.

So what should we do then? If we all crave love and are afraid of too much pain or lost time, then what?

Simple:)JCompromise. Speak up. Dare to be bold. What do I mean with that?

The example which made the biggest impression on me and which I applied myself is this one:

I was reading Jonathan Robinson’s great book “Communication Miracles for Couples”. He’s a couple’s therapist, he really knows his stuff.

So one day this couple walks in, I believe the woman knew Jonathan already, a friend or something. They sit down and she asks Jonathan Robinson to evaluate their relationship. They’ve been together for three months and wanted to see if they were really compatible or wasting their time. What a fantastic pragmatic approach!

You see, once you hit 30 or more, you start thinking about these things.

So Jonathan gave them a simple questionnaire to fill out, each separately, with stuff like “How much TV do you watch a day”, “How much do you drink a day” etc… Really basic habits which you have and what you expect of a relationship.

The differences turned out to be so big, that they quickly shook hands, thanked each other and went their separate ways.

I loved that approach of that woman. So she dated a guy, took her time to get to know him a bit who he really is, no pressure right from the start, but she kept in mind that there is no point in rushing and committing her heart before she was sure.

And that’s what I did with the last guy I met because I was fed up with the BS out there.

We met online, we couldn’t stop chatting all week. He then wanted to meet me, organised our evening, I paid for one round of drinks as well (only fair, right?) and still we couldn’t stop talking. The waiters had to throw us out of the bar, not because we were drunk but because going out would have meant going home and having to say goodbye to each other.

Two weeks later I saw where he lived and yes, I slept with him on practically our second date. But by then he has shown me who he is and we started to talk for real. Given that he wanted to try this for real, I asked all kinds of questions and made it clear right there and then — we can try this but I need to see that he will sort certain things out within a year or two or I walk away.

I was 41 by then and I didn’t mind investing two years into someone I thought was really right for me. BUT! I meant it when I said I would walk away if it turned out he couldn’t sort his mess out and that he would pull me in some kind of drama.

At 41 I wasn’t planning to have kids any longer and what I really wanted is to enjoy my life and travel if possible a bit more. What I would have welcomed was an interesting partner I could share my joy with. JOY please, not BS drama. But if there was no drama, I was prepared to enjoy my life on my own, why not?

He kept his word. And I kept mine. The two years timeline was also meant for me. I also needed to prove myself that I will live my own life, not someone else’s. I guess we both kept our word.

After two years I let my heart go out to him. Oh yes, I kept it on hold all that time. How do you do that? Well… Let me think back, what did I do? I stayed a bit cynical. Maybe sometimes that’s not a bad thing. I stayed cynical in the sense — “Yeah, I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Sure, I loved the man, but by then I also knew — love alone is not enough to lead a successful relationship.

But there’s another little trick I had up my sleeve to be able to do that — in the year before I met this guy, I learned and have proven to myself how to be happy on my own again.

This helped because I KNEW — if this relationship wouldn’t work out, if he wasn’t a man of his word, I could easily be happy on my own.

The time wouldn’t have been wasted. I stayed as long as I was prepared to stay. Had my cuddles, plenty of sex and kisses and amazing talks. I learned a lot as well. And we had no arguments. Time well spent I would say.

But he kept his word and he made the effort and when he asked me to marry him, I could say yes with all my heart.

And yet… Ladies and gentlemen, I know this doesn’t sound romantic, but…

We’ve had a contract right from the start. We have updated that contract as we got married. And if my husband should break any term of that contract or not stick to it NOW, I will walk away. First for a while, without a divorce. But I would take my lovely energy, company, love AND money and spend it on my own travelling or whatever. Until he sorts his promise out.

And if that’s not possible, or he even breaks it, guess what? Yes, divorce. So what?

Just because we’re married, it doesn’t mean we can take each other for granted. We are humans, we are flawed. The way I deal with it is to be realistic about my so called weaknesses and trick myself out. Having a contract is one way to make sure I behave as well. Because my husband is just as entitled to walk out if I don’t uphold my end of the promise of not making my unhappiness with my career his problem. For example.

So who knows, maybe we need to re-think the whole dating scene. Introduce far more honesty right from the start. Maybe also more financial equality, have the girls pay half of the check or every other date. It would take the pressure off of the guys.

Hm… Is THAT why men are pressuring us into bed as quickly as possible, because long dating is just costing too much? LOL

Look, we want equality? Let’s start right here. Both invest the money but then also both should be prepared to answer some tough questions right at the start. Why not make a game of it, just like Speed-Dating but tweak the rules.

I’m just saying… We need to start helping each other get what we both need. And we will get there quicker and with less heartache if we started with some honesty and re-think everything we knew until now because guess what?

Everything we’ve been doing UP till now these past few decades — clearly isn’t working in our favour long term.

As my husband says every day: “Pragmatism is a beautiful thing! Oh yeah! Mwuahahahaha!”

Or am I seeing this entirely wrong? 🙂

Hey, I’m always up for a discussion. Go on, comment, comment, comment! Let’s hear it.

As I’m becoming the step mother of 4 children, 3 of them in their teens, I have to ask myself, should I teach the boys and girl all the same, or not. And if not, why not. They have started doing chores and I’m feeling really proud of them how willingly they are doing them and above all, learning. They never had to do them before and yet they seem to be yearning to learn more.

Basic things like washing the dishes, learn how to do the laundry (come on, it’s really just pushing a couple of buttons!), what cleaning products to use to scrub the bathtub, how to make pancakes, mop the floors, go shopping. They get attention, time spent together, and in the end praise and a valuable lesson in the value of work.

Best partners so far have always been those for me who had a mother who expected them to take over some responsibilities. So the answer is really quite simple – I should teach the girl and boys the same tasks and not make any difference. 

Also children learn from observing their parents without realising. Parents can’t be slobs and then expect the child to have a tidy room. Yes, I’ve seen cases like that. Funny thing is, I wasn’t the tidiest kid myself, my room was often a mess, but at least I kept surfaces clean, never left food around to go bad, no sticky tables or floors. My mother’s nagging to put things away, a plate from the living room and bring it into the kitchen for example, definitely worked as well. It’s fairly automatic these days and I hope it will become a good habit also for my partner’s children. 

So where did it go wrong? Far too many people these days don’t have these good habits. I’m not surprised that many men don’t have them, they were spoiled by their mothers. Slovenian mothers are particularly famous for that, or Italian I guess. I get it that a male dominated country produces entitled men, but countries who claim equality of sexes are quite disappointing in that regard.

There seems to be a bit of a difference though between Europe and the UK when it comes to this topic. Good house habits need to be learned. That kind of knowledge needs to be passed on then. But what if there was an era, say the 2nd wave of feminism in the 70s, in which women saw house chores as a form of oppression and started to refuse doing them and also refuse teaching their children how to do them. Then you suddenly have a generation without that knowledge and they can’t pass it on, not about cleaning, nor all those little things which make a house a home, or about how to shop and budget in your household.

I had to ask myself if Slavic countries are just more stubbornly macho, perhaps because of the influence of the Catholic Church, or do women just love cleaning there so much more? Neither. The answer lies in the history of politics. Yugoslavia for example determined right after the WW2 that women are equal, have the right to vote and to work. The pay wasn’t the same for women as for men, but fairly close. All the rights for which other countries had to fight for even as late as in the 1970’s, we had from the get go. So when flower power hit my country, it mainly influenced the fashion, the boot cut jeans and long hair, but it didn’t inspire to burn any bras. And therefore the old habits and knowledge were passed on, the good ones to the daughters and some bad ones to many boys.

I was told it happened differently here in the UK. I can absolutely understand the need to shun house chores in the form of protest, but did the fight go too far? Men are still very clear on their role (well, most of them I hope) and still see themselves in the role of the provider. Being in a relationship means pulling your own weight. Is it really enough to produce 4 or 5 children but not be able to teach them how to deal with their daily chores later? To be a mother is a full time job, yes. But the way I saw the women of my country do it, they had no time to watch Eastenders on TV. Maybe in the evening after all was done. But they would cook and clean and shop and run around, making sure the homework was done, the house was in order and their men fed. And there was no such thing as “takeaway”, all was cooked fresh from scratch. And I hate to say it but they also had jobs. They had to, one salary just wasn’t enough. And being on job seakers was a disgrace. But those were different times, no one ever really had to be on job seakers for long, there was always plenty of work to go around. Same can’t be said for the current system in the UK. 

I’m asking myself: if the men know they need to provide and have a clear role in the household, what is the role of the woman – considering the whole debate of equality and fairness and feminism. If it’s not keeping the household intact, what is it then? Well, maybe instead of throwing household chores out of the window, our mothers of the 70’s should have tought the boys (and girls) how to take over responsibility – equally. This is where it all starts and ends, with the mom. 

Sounds unfair? It’s also unfair how little acknowledgement a father gets for being a parent. No matter how great he is, even if he’s ten times better than the mother, the mom will always be appreciated more, loved more, seeked out more by the children. It’s only natural, there’s nothing we can do about it. So like it or not, us mothers, we have a huge responsibility – to make our children into great partners. And a big part of that is teaching them to manage a household without a second thought. Because let’s face it, most of us don’t have the money to hire a cleaner and a cook and a gardner. No matter how poor, in Europe people are house proud. The poorest household will still have flowers on their balcony and coffee for guests. Knowledge costs nothing after all when it comes to taking care of your home.

Why does equality start here teaching boys and girls the same things? Because if you have a couple some day and they both keep the house effortlessly in order, they will both have the time to go and work and have fulfilling lives. Happy adults make for happy parents. Don’t all children need happy parents? 

I know the sytem right now sucks in many ways, not just here but in the whole of Europe. Even those countries like Slovenia, who used to have free childcare, that is all changing. The state is taking away any support that was there before and we are left with impossible choices – like for example for a woman to go back to a job she had or not because childcare would eat up almost her whole salary. This is ridiculous! 

What can be done? I don’t know. Companies could help by adding a bonus in the form of free childcare at work. Greed can’t rule everything, it makes it literally impossible for two partners to be equal in their lives, even if they wanted both to work.

Many things in the way we act, which are not ideal these days, are not our fault. But there is a lot we can still do I hope, not give up on what’s right, make the effort to teach our kids whatever we can and if we don’t have the knowledge, even parents can look things up these days on Youtube. I wonder if that’s why Martha Stewart became so popular lol. Because she was teaching things we should have learned from our mothers – and fathers of course. Nothing wrong with a girl knowing how to change a tire on her bike;)

2 Aug 2019

A good friend of mine just shared an incredible experience. You see, she’s from Poland, her husband is from Greece. From the very start they were like cats and dogs, fighting all the time, but funnily enough they could agree on all the major things they both wanted in life. He clearly loves her but the fighting wouldn’t stop, not even with the cute baby they got soon after they married. She didn’t give up, she really tried to accept his ways but when her mother visited them and tried to help in the household by shopping, she had to discover that her daughter was shaking when she brought home 12 eggs instead of 6. That’s right. Why?

Also when HIS parents visited and my friend thanked his mother for cooking, his father told her she shouldn’t thank her mother in law. In fact, he was telling his son his whole life he shouldn’t thank his mother for anything because this was her duty anyway, to cook and take care of them. He didn’t mean it in a mean way, this is just how things were. Suddenly everything was clear to my dear friend. 

I’m from Slovenia and Germany, right? So I had to understand two very different cultures right there. I’ve met people from around the world as a student in Germany since I lived next to them in the student dormitories. Then I went to London and you have the whole world there too. And finally I travelled a little bit, to the States and Latin America. My point is – no matter from which cultural background, the women were always strong and independent and went on with our modern times, trying to establish equality and a better relationship. Many of them gave up on their own men though. Well, they either accepted them but ridiculed them behind their backs and kept their own real opinions to themselves. Or they gave up on relationships altogether, focused on having work and a career but no family, because they knew if they should be having a relationship and children, it was automatically a given that she would stay at home and do whatever the man wanted. Including accepting his cheating ass. Their words, not mine. 

I just found that sad. I tried to have relationships with such men myself, from Cameroon, South Africa, Mexico, Puerto Rico…it all ended in disaster. Oh, my relationships with German guys ended just as well in disaster but for different reasons. But those who have read my articles until now know that I don’t hold a grudge and condemn people for who they are, instead I try to understand them. Obviously I dove into history and books, talked to a lot of people and had to sadly admit, machismo, chauvinism is still very much alive and strong in most of the world. 

Which means…!! Which means that what we have here in Europe and in the USA is really precious. Even we still have a way to go before we shall achieve great understanding of each other but at least there is real hope for men and women to harmonise. While in countries like in Africa or Middle East, India and Latin America I just can’t see anything happening at all. Oh, don’t get me wrong, you have amazing men in any of those countries and I’ve met those as well, but usually they leave their countries and end up in Europe or the States – I guess for a reason. No one will ridicule them for not “being real men” in Europe for respecting his wife as he would be in his own country. 

But we are talking about Greece her. Greece! Europe actually. Well, in countries like Greece or the former East Block, it’s kinda 50-50. I don’t really know what the proportions are but there are certainly more men who grasp equality and what a woman needs even in Greece than in a pure muslim country for example. Hm, perhaps I’m wrong, who knows.

I asked my friend – he clearly loves you, so what was the problem? You could see it perhaps as lack of respect for the work of women. It’s not intentional, people are warm and mean well, but this is cultural history. And that same understanding of the dynamics and roles in a relationship, was taken over by her husband. One can’t escape the culture you were brought up in, especially if that culture favours you and doesn’t make you question the order of things in society. And with that heritage he tried to control every little thing she did, nothing was ever good enough, she didn’t get the approval she needed and he didn’t hear his wife how important this is to her, no matter how many times she told him. And this is where things crumbled. Not because of a lack of care in his heart but because of perhaps an inability to even contemplate that such a little thing as feeling appreciated and hearing the words could mean so much.

We all have our own need how love needs to be shown to us. Some of us need to hear it, others need to be praised, I for example am big on touch, then again some need gifts… No, not every woman cares about gifts. You can’t be a dick to her and then buy a present to make it all good. I for example don’t give a fuck about gifts. Sorry for the language but that’s how strongly I feel about such an empty gesture. I know though that my partner likes gifts, meaningful gifts, so he gets them from me. And because I know it’s important to HIM to also give me something, I graciously accept and appreciate it. 

What my friend needed was appreciation, exactly the one thing her husband was taught not to show. Small thing, big catastrophe. 

Every time they argued, he even said, “fine then, let’s get divorced” but she never jumped on that sentence. But after a year when her mother visited and saw her beautiful, warm, giving, intelligent, independent daughter (all qualities he claimed he loved about her) shaking because of too many eggs in the fridge (something her husband didn’t approve of) – her mother opened her eyes to her own anxiety she allowed to stay in. And as my friend woke up to her own suffering, completely unnecessary and unacceptable suffering, she took the little daughter, packed her bags and left with her mother for a couple of weeks to Poland, saying for the first time, she wants a divorce and the daughter will stay with her and it won’t be in the UK. 

Now she’s back, he has dropped the control issue over night, is now reading the book “5 Love Languages” and trying to understand himself and her as well. He is finally communicating calmly, listening, responding.  It’s been 3 months now and they are still going strong. Well done! Honestly, I couldn’t have stayed with someone I was fighting so much from the start anyway. But they had something real between them and she was ready to fight for it. Bravo! Bravo for not giving up on him. And congratulations to him that he found that place of understanding where it’s not about being right or wrong and how his wife didn’t want to win, just wanted to be loved and love him. 

Now here is my question (the above was just an observation). I’m trying to understand what are certain cultures trying to achieve with controlling a woman? I could understand (to a certain extent) if the motivation was to protect the wives and children. I absolutely agree that it’s in a man’s nature to want to protect. But we’ve discussed the masculine energy before  – the tricky bit about it is that it can be used to protect or opress. But somehow in these cultures men have managed to use it for both simultaniously! LOL? Should I laugh or cry at this point? And it’s tricky to oppose a man who is restricting you, when he then turns around and says “But I’m just trying to protect you.” 

Oh, I know that one too well! My (oh so modern) first boyfriend from my own country said EXACTLY that. He wouldn’t let me go dancing with my girlfriends or visit my best friend in Germany – because he wanted to protect me from myself because, apparently, I just wouldn’t be able to help myself NOT to cheat on him. He was worse than my own mother. Oh, who also by the way used total control my whole life – ‘because she wanted to protect me’. How would that work? Well, by keeping me in fear, I would then listen to her whatever she told me to do (or not to do) and therefore she would be able to protect me from the world. 

And what happened? The complete opposite. I became a lamb for the slaughter of countless abuse from others which ironically she never noticed and also couldn’t prevent. I get it. Something horrible happened to her and then she lived in fear and wanted to protect me from evil but achieved the exact opposite unfortunately. That’s why I KNOW that trying to control others never ever ends well. 

In Latin America it’s even more complicated but let’s leave that for another time.

You see, this is what I think: we are who we are – all of us human. All of us needing the same things in the very basic corners of our being. Obviously there will be a problem if any of us are denied freedom (of movement, speech, you name it), respect and love. Sure, people put up with a lot of bullshit but not forever. But it’s not about that. 

My point is – cultures who oppress certain groups are missing out on so much beauty and potential, talent, work force and brains who could invent the next Enterprise! 

And men, who are restricting women, are actually cutting into their own flesh. They are taking themselves away the possibility of being loved, of seeing his woman joyful, sharing this joy with him and the family… And when I say joy, I also mean sex. 

My friend has proven to me how much can be changed if both partners start learning about communication and how we function. Maybe all we have to do is drop our shields for a moment, sit down and learn. Learn from books and learn from each other. 

If you want to learn to communicate better, read my favourite book “Communication Miracles for Couples” by Jonathan Robinson. I might have mentioned it before and I sure will again, can’t recommend it enough because it’s so damn practical and on the point.

Next time – more on the dynamics in Mexico and what I learned overseas about love.

1 March 2019

Have you seen the latest comedy special of Ray Romano on Netflix? I love how comedians dissect relationships between men and women. Their observations are spot on I must admit.

Here are two of Romano’s examples. He says, at the beginning we are in the “can do no wrong zone”. We forgive each other all minor lapses and our faults are charming. But when you’re together for a long time, you come to the “can do no right zone” and I hate to admit but he’s right. (My comment usually is: As soon as we become comfortable in our relationship, we also become quite selfish and self-absorbed. We don’t ask any more what can we do for our partner, instead it sneakily turns into the demand of ‘what can (s)he do for me!?’)

So Ray was getting popcorn for his wife, they’re watching TV and he gets up and asks if he can bring her some popcorn from the kitchen because he knows she loves popcorn. But she growls at him there better be enough popcorn! LOL?

And then he talked about attention. How he thought he was out of any danger for the day, that he could do no more wrong in any way because she fell asleep, but then she wakes up and asks what was he doing. “Reading a book.” “But I thought we were going to talk.” – “???…yeah, but you fell asleep…” – “Oh, so the minute I fall asleep, you go and read a book?!”

And then Ray gives the solution and a very accurate answer – if you wanna be on the good side of your woman, have all your attention on HER. And if she falls asleep, you go and do a sketch of her, so when she wakes up, you can go “Look, look, look what I did! I made a sketch of you!”

This isn’t even an exaggeration. We women DO want all the attention on us. There might be exceptions, sure, or there might be women who have given up on getting the attention they crave but I would claim this is exactly how we feel.

Now Ray gave a “solution”, but is it really a solution? How long can even the best of men keep up with that? Perhaps the better question is my favourite one – why do we women need all this attention and why do we become so mean about it later on? And just to be fair to both genders I shall ask – do men need attention as well?

I’ll start with the last one and answer according to my own observation, but you guys please do pitch in with your experience and when I say ‘guys’, I do mean men please. My mother said to me when I was younger “You just keep on praising him for every little thing he does and he’ll be happy like a little kid.” Now this was one of the few useful advices she ever gave, even if it sounded almost a bit mean. We women tend to see men as perpetual boys (and not only make fun of men because of it but kind of lose respect at the same time). Heck, even men say that often about themselves, how they are kids forever, and in that statement I sense a delightful and spiteful defiance to…to what actually? To the world being mean to them? To women not understanding them and not giving them what they need? Or simply out of that notion, resenting having to grow up? Boys or not, I would agree – men need a lot of attention in the form of appreciation. Their need to be enough for this world, to make a woman happy and to manage to please the world around them seems to come from almost a child-like place. But is it wrong because it comes from such a basic place in their souls?

Well, let’s explore our female need for attention. One could argue it comes from that same basic, perhaps child-like place. So why is it ok for us to be so needy in getting attention and not ok for men to look for appreciation? Both is attention, just in a different way. We women care a lot about comments of how we look, which tiles to choose for the bathroom, anything that is important to us should be important to our man.

But here might be the core of our miscommunication – the things which are important to each of us, are so different. And while we women scoff and turn our eyes loudly at the childish delights of our husbands (like comic books, cars, videogames, you name it), we are deeply hurt if his attention is not entirely on us, the wife, the girlfriend, and if they’re not interested in the female “nonsense”.

So back to the question, why do we women need this absolute attention? I’m diving deep into myself to feel the answer… I don’t want to just say how we girls never got the attention we actually needed. That is true by the way and the less attention and more critique or even abuse we got, the needier we might have become in relationships. I know in my case, for decades I felt I needed to fill that gap of feeling loved because I never was. Nothing else mattered. Nothing! Of course looking for a partner from such a place of enormous neediness is never a healthy start to find someone who really suites you. But you’ve got to start somewhere, right?

But perhaps there is a deeper reason for this, buried in our bones. When I dive into the feminine energy, all I can think of is that I want to feel safe. I want to enjoy my capacity for emotions and life and for that I crave the arms of a strong man who would be able to relax me into my most beautiful self. Certain attention from my partner helps create that feeling of safety. No, it’s not enough for him to just be…there, present, sitting on the couch and playing a video game. LOL. I need to know that he sees me, that he loves me, that he’s there for me. In short, I need to feel loved.

Each person feels loved in a different way. Now I don’t know but I wonder – could it be if a woman doesn’t get the feeling of being loved(enough), then she lashes out? Why? Fear runs our lives, perhaps even more so in women than in men. Would the right attention and enough attention calm a woman down? Make her feel safe enough? So if she doesn’t get what she needs…does she become scared? Is that why women become so extra demanding and mean? Or is it just something we learned from our mothers? Maybe both.

(That a woman could give herself a lot of the things she actually needs, that thought doesn’t seem to occur to anyone:))

As I know people though, a) we are not even aware of the possibility that we can’t read each other’s mind, b) we assume our partner needs the same kind of attention as we do, in fact we assume the whole world feels and thinks as we do, duh, c) don’t have the basic knowledge about love, d) even if we had it, we still don’t talk to each other to explain. Because let’s face it, it sounds bizarre to have to explain something so “obvious” to the one we love or who claims he loves us.

Just because someone loves us, doesn’t mean they know what we need. That someone loves us for his reasons, not for the reasons we think. Our partners are not our parents. So NO, our partners are not here to love us in that unconditional way our parents did or should have. Is THAT the core problem? Is this what we expect from a partner, unconditional love we give a child? Newsflash – we aren’t children any more! We might have deficits from our childhood, absolutely. And therefore we act in a very needy way. But if we could stop ourselves for just a second and ask ourselves – what makes me feel loved here and now as an adult? Could you answer that to yourself? Good. Now – can you tell that to your partner?

Let me give you an example where things almost went terribly wrong because I thought it should be sooooo obvious to my man.

Last week my partner got offered a potential contract in Germany and possibly other parts of EU. He was all happy about the prospect of a new adventure and then coming home on some weekends and split the time to see his children and me.

My heart sank. It sank deeply. He was about to go even further away. Not even with a word did he mention he would want me with him.

I wanted to pack my things and run away. Because this is what I do when I don’t feel wanted. It was not a case of feeling rejected. It’s not the same. Just not…wanted.

Then I shook myself and called him.

“Here is something you need to know about women – in particular about me….” I told him what I just told you. And he answered: “I didn’t want to just assume you’d drop everything and come with me. I didn’t want to impose myself.”

“Well, and I didn’t want to impose myself either. So once more out of politeness and being too careful, we could have had a catastrophic result, do you get me? I will just ask bluntly – DO you want me with you?”

“Of course I do! Dasha, will you come with me?”

“Good. Remember – when in doubt, always ‘impose’ yourself on me. Do the opposite – and I might disappear without a word.”

So much for not telling each other what we need. And since I already tend to look for reasons to sabotage a good thing, I always have to overcome my sadness or anger and simply speak my mind or risk losing the relationship!

I believe I’ve mentioned it before, my way of feeling loved is through touch. I need my partner to touch me even if just passing by. It can be on my neck or my bum, I don’t care. He can even slap me hard on my behind, attention is attention, as long as it’s meant lovingly. And if we are enduring a long-distance relationship as we have been these past 8 months? Then he has to make up for it when we see each other and while we are apart, it does help to communicate during the day but it’s not a substitution.

So the question at this point is: if a woman was to get the kind of attention she in particular needs to feel loved, would she feel happier and be less needy and mean in demanding attention non-stop or in grand gestures? I’m not sure. All I can verify is how it worked for me and the answer is, yes, I need less attention than I did before. My partner listened to what I really need and gives it – and THAT in itself, the fact that he took it to heart and I didn’t have to tell him a third time what works for me, that already calmed my heart way down.:)

And the other way around? I read a few years ago what a man in general needs – some solitude and appreciation. I tested the theory and I can only say it works like magic. My partner gained his confidence back within weeks. People saw the difference right away in contrast to his previous relationship where he was abused on a daily basis. He calmed down, became ultra-productive, a joyful person everyone loves to be around. I asked him what makes him feel loved. He couldn’t think of anything because apparently he already got what he needed, mainly me listening to him, taking him seriously. But then he came up with something after all. He wished I would play a video game with him.

And so I did.

11 Jan 2019

We need more inspirational couples like the Obamas, Don’t you Think?

We have the power to create, right? You know what fascinates me? How a certain part of town can be transformed from a scrappy old antisocial place into a trendy hip one. A beautiful place where people like to hang. And how does it happen? Certainly not through some fancy investors and developers renovating the houses.

No, it starts small. Someone opens a really cute café where people feel great. Someone has a vision and transforms one little shop into an oasis of kindness. Because that is why we love going to our pubs and café, isn’t it? Because the beautiful surrounding sooths our soul and the attentive staff warms our heart. We get a bit of attention and a hot coffee and we are happy. 

Simple. 

This is how I see relationships sometimes. I’ve never been interested in finding a rich guy. I also never thought a rich guy would be interested in me. Not because I wasn’t worthy but because rich people feel they deserve the best and when they look for the best, they naturally look for not just young but perfect. Slim, fabulous, maybe even educated. And they have every right to, why not?
Well, I’ve never been model slim and I sure as hell have never been fabulous, lol.

So what was left for me on the “playfield” were all the normal men. When I was younger, these men were still finding their way in the world and there was no telling how successful they will be and/or how happy. And it didn’t matter.
And now in my 40’s the playfield didn’t change much. Sure, working as a secretary in banks I could have targeted a certain successful crowd but those men are always working late into the night and never know how to stop – that’s certainly not my dream scenario. 
I’ve always wished for a man I could share my life with, maybe even share a career.
And if I ever had a man who earned plenty of money, then I’d rather know that I had something to do with it because I believed in him and was there for him.

No, it starts small. Someone opens a really cute café where people feel great. Someone has a vision and transforms one little shop into an oasis of kindness. Because that is why we love going to our pubs and café, isn’t it? Because the beautiful surrounding sooths our soul and the attentive staff warms our heart. We get a bit of attention and a hot coffee and we are happy. 

Simple. 

This is how I see relationships sometimes. I’ve never been interested in finding a rich guy. I also never thought a rich guy would be interested in me. Not because I wasn’t worthy but because rich people feel they deserve the best and when they look for the best, they naturally look for not just young but perfect. Slim, fabulous, maybe even educated. And they have every right to, why not?
Well, I’ve never been model slim and I sure as hell have never been fabulous, lol.

So what was left for me on the “playfield” were all the normal men. When I was younger, these men were still finding their way in the world and there was no telling how successful they will be and/or how happy. And it didn’t matter.
And now in my 40’s the playfield didn’t change much. Sure, working as a secretary in banks I could have targeted a certain successful crowd but those men are always working late into the night and never know how to stop – that’s certainly not my dream scenario. 
I’ve always wished for a man I could share my life with, maybe even share a career.
And if I ever had a man who earned plenty of money, then I’d rather know that I had something to do with it because I believed in him and was there for him.

And there they are, our lovely men – all of them trying to prove themselves in this world, trying to feel worthy, hoping to be appreciated for their effort. Are we appreciating them?

So I find the idea much more intriguing to meet someone who’s life is in in the making. To meet someone where we can build something together. It’s fun when I manage to create a safe space for the man I like, a space in which he feels appreciated, where he starts believing in himself again…and then I watch the miracle of creation unfold and how that man reaches his full potential.

I’ve done it a couple of times. At first these men, as they reached their full potential, then turned around and left and found the love of their lives, some got so scared of the possibility that they could actually become happy, so they ran like hell…

Of course I wondered if someone will stay one day. If someone will ever invest in me. Of course I started investing in myself and managed to build quite a few things on my own but it felt a bit tedious. 
Now I’m watching a man building himself once again. He seems to want to stay and not only that – he is building and pushing me as well to become my best self. It’s refreshing! 

Together we can achieve so much more! Maybe we can achieve the most when the support happens in both directions? I have to admit, I admire the Obamas. First she supported him but it was always clear, they were a team. And it doesn’t surprise me that Michelle Obama might run for president next year and her husband would be there for her. He clearly already is, always has been, no? What a pair! 

Be it a town or a person, we can work wonders with a little faith in them. Is there a guarantee of success? Of course not! But it is definitely worth a try. We are watching all these movies of super heroes and magic because we love magic and wonders. But we can create magic ourselves because what is more magical than watch the world transforming from a caterpillar into a butterfly, knowing we caused that transformation? How? With love and imagination:)