If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, he sounds like a total jackass.  But more importantly, you could be in a verbally abusive relationship and you might not even know it yet.   

Many women hear the words “verbal abuse” and they immediately think “No woman in her right mind would put up with that kind of crap.”  But many smart, confident, successful women do find themselves in verbally abusive relationships because this type of abuse isn’t always easy to detect at first.  These men don’t yell and scream and hurl insults on the first date.  In fact, these men can be very charming and charismatic. 

Their abuse starts out in very subtle ways.  Then, they step it up over time becoming increasingly manipulative and controlling.  A woman in this situation grows accustomed to the abuse, adapting to it in a way that makes it difficult for her to see it for what it is.

Here are just a few behaviors that you might not recognize as abuse right off the bat:

*  He refuses to talk to you or listen to your feelings or concerns.  He basically ignores you when you want to talk to him about something that is important to you.  It’s not like he ignores you once in a while when he’s watching a game on TV.  He does it all the time.   

* He contradicts most of the things you say.  He never agrees with you or affirms your viewpoint.

* When you get upset, he tells you that you’re too sensitive or that you overreact to everything. 

* He judges you and criticizes you all the time but then says “I am only trying to help you.” 

* He insults you but insists that he is “Just joking.”

* When you point out to him the fact that he is doing these things to you and that it is hurtful, he refuses to admit that he’s done something wrong.      

The very subtle nature of verbal abuse is what makes it so incredibly dangerous.  It can go on in a relationship for weeks, months, or even years before a woman fully understands what is happening to her. 

And abusive men do have “good days” when they are kind and caring and funny.  These men aren’t always crazy and controlling.  These “good times” make it harder for a woman to recognize a guy’s behavior as abusive. 

In fact, many women blame themselves when a guy acts in an abusive way.  They think “Maybe I did something to set him off.  Maybe I am overreacting.  Maybe I’m too sensitive.  Everyone else thinks he’s a nice guy so I must be crazy.” 

But you aren’t crazy!  If you are dating or married to a verbally abusive guy, he is slowly sucking the life out of you and you need to get out of the relationship.

If you think you might be in a verbally abusive relationship, I highly recommend you read the book The Verbally Abusive Relationship by Patricia Evans.  It provides an in depth look at verbal abuse, what it is, how it makes you feel, and how to respond once you realize that you are in a verbally abusive relationship.

On some level, that cologne sounds appealing if it does what the name implies and changes to fit a man’s situation– becomes less pungent when he enters an elevator or any small public space so the rest of us don’t have to smell him, becomes stronger when his body odor kicks in to mask his personal stench, and turns into a bug repellent when he’s outdoors, thereby saving everyone in his vicinity from mosquito attacks. 

Imagine if you could give the situation cologne to your boyfriend for his birthday, and it would suddenly smell really crappy when he was around other women, thereby warding them off.  

If “The Sitch” does anything along these lines, I say “bring it on Mikey.”

But I am pretty sure this cologne is not going to do be that inventive and useful.  My guess is that it is simply going to smell, like Mike wants it to smell – and tha’ts a scary thought to me.   Because Mike and his fellow cast members have way too much pop culture power lately.  They are already all over the TV.  And a few weeks ago they rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange.  Now they are launching a product line and telling people what to wear?   I mean, seriously? 

Something about the cast of the Jersey Shore infiltrating every aspect of our culture just smells funny to me.   There is more to life than “Gym, Tan, Laundry,” isn’t there?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18077810/wid/11915773?GT1=9303

I really wish I could take credit for the alternative take on this study that I came across this week: 

A study revealed the kind of face a woman finds attractive on a man can differ depending on where she is in her menstrual cycle. 

If she’s ovulating, she is attracted to men with rugged & masculine features.

If she’s menstruating or menopausal, she’s more attracted to a man with duct tape over his mouth & a spear lodged in his chest while he is on fire.

No further studies are expected.

I’m not talking about a guy’s big old butt.  I’m talking about all the junk in his house or apartment — the old posters, DVDs, bizarre figurines, beer mugs, trinkets, Mardi Gras beads, wires, and plastic pieces from old gadgets that that he threw in a box in his closet.

In fairness to men, they don’t see these items as “junk.”  This clutter is their personal treasure, a special little slice of their bachelor past.  They believe there is intrinsic value in that can opener they picked up at Oktoberfest 2002 or the swimsuit model cheese plates they got for their 21st birthday.

And in their defense, some of these items might be worth something someday to someone, somewhere…maybe.  That old rusty electronic thing could be a valuable antique if you hold on to it for another 500 years, couldn’t it?

The problem is that we, as women, do not want to eat, sleep and live our life amidst a mountain of man junk.  We want to live with him, not with his statue of Chewbacca.

So, sometimes no matter how much we love the man, the man junk has to go.

But what’s a girl to do?  Out of respect and courtesy for the guy we love, we can’t just throw away his man junk when he’s not around.  We can’t erase his precious past with one trip to a nearby dumpster no matter how much we want to.  If we lose his junk in this rash and thoughtless way, we might lose him too.

So we have to take it slow, removing the junk a little at a time, deliberately, and with great care so we don’t destroy his ego right along with that ugly sugar bowl in his kitchen.

Here are your main options for getting rid of man junk:

#1: Donate it. The Salvation Army can be your Salvation ladies.  Every month, hold up a few of his items and say to him “I wonder if someone out there would get more use out of this old mug than we do?”  Many times, he’ll agree with you and then you can get these items out of your life without feeling guilty about doing it.  (Just be careful not to dump his dirty movies in the church donation bin or you’ll give a nun a heart attack.)

#2:  Create a “man cave” for his “man junk.” Find a special nook in the house where his furry chair covers can rest peacefully, alone, far away from you and anyone who might stop by to visit.  While a man cave might seem like a painful concession because you’re giving up valuable space in your house, over time you’ll find that it’s worth the sacrifice because you can just shove all his crap inside the room, shut the door and forget about it.  Then, he can go into his man cave, surround himself with furry furniture and roll around in old Farrah Fawcett posters until his heart’s content.

There is one more way to deal with man junk, but it is for extreme emergencies only.  When he owns an item that you despise and even fear, an item that keeps coming back from the dead like a zombie, showing up in the living room again and again no matter how many times you try to bury it, it’s time to use the old “woops, I broke it” routine.   You can rip that smutty pornographic poster right down the center “by accident” when you walk by it.  But remember, ruining his stuff is not cool so this tactic is for extreme emergencies only.

The key to excavating a bachelor pad successfully is to work slowly, carefully, and respectfully.  Don’t try to rid the space of its dingy demons all at once or he’ll definitely freak out.  When it comes to dealing with man junk, slow and steady wins the race to a cleaner, nicer, well-decorated living space.  Copyright © 2010 Alison James

She taught me so much but she didn’t teach by preaching at me.  She taught me important life lessons by leaving really long messages on my answering machine.  

And she also taught me by example.  She tried to live her life the way she wanted me to live my own. 

She showed me that a mother’s love is unconditional and encouraged me to reach for my goals.  She taught me that you should never put a pillow over a man’s head when he snores or you might hurt him; that balancing goopy, saucy casserole dishes on top of the fridge is just a bad idea; and, she taught me that when you paint the bathroom, you should never paint all the pipes, the vanity, and the inside of the tub or your husband will get really mad.

And perhaps most importantly, she taught me that it’s never wrong to have your own sense of style….. well, almost never…..

My Mom in the 1970s

My Mom Today

Thanks Mom!

Nevertheless, there is one topic that does bring women from all cultures together, one bond that can make a room full of diverse women with absolutely nothing in common nod at one another in a rare moment of solidarity.  That topic is men – and our shared frustration with their bad habits and crazy ways.

Case in point: Last week, I was sitting in the dentist office waiting room and there was a girl sitting across from me.  She had freckles, a pony tail in her hair, and she was wearing jeans and t-shirt.  She could have been the poster child for “All American twenty-something.”

As we sat there, a woman walked in wearing a traditional headscarf and spoke to the receptionist in broken English.  Just as she sat down near us, the freckle faced girl’s phone rang.  She answered it and I could hear a guy yelling at her.  She argued with him and it became clear that she was dating the guy.  When she hung up the phone, the woman wearing the headscarf turned to her and in perfect English said “What a jerk. Dear, don’t waste your time on that man.”

All three of us laughed in a special moment of inter-cultural female bonding that the United Nations can only dream about.

So, today, I would like to thank men for their bad behavior for a change.  It is the crazy glue that bonds all women together regardless of where we live, what color our skin is or what clothes we wear.

For example, is there an alien somewhere out there who has to get up for work on a rainy Monday morning? 
 
Will she sit in spaceship traffic for an hour, or ride a miserable alien shuttle bus to a city full of annoying aliens?

Will she get stuck sitting next to another alien who won’t stop talking?

Does that alien sit in a windowless cubicle and spend her days wishing she was somewhere else?

Does she count down the minutes to the weekend?
 
Do alien men snore?
 
Do alien men get yellow armpit stains on their undershirts?
 
Do alien women get really frustrated with alien men because they can’t seem to communicate?  (Maybe all aliens are men and that’s why they haven’t communicated with us yet…)
   
One day in the distant future, we might land our own spacecraft on another planet and discover a new world teeming with life.  But when we step outside, there might not be any fanfare, no band playing or fireworks welcoming us.
 
Instead, we might be accosted by an alien meter maid who raises her antenna and says “Excuuuuse me.  You can’t park that piece of junk here!”

And then we’ll finally know the answer to our question: our world might be really annoying but everyone else’s is too.
  

  

Has she replaced whatever notion of U.S. history she learned in school with information she pieced together from emails forwarded to her by people you only know as snookie3522@aol and grammylove2000@hotmail?

If so, you are probably distraught by your mom’s bizarre information sources, but don’t worry.  You can stop her from being indoctrinated further by spam in one easy step:  Just tell her that every time she opens an email forward, a random stranger at an offshore bank can access her credit card information and take a picture of her.  Make sure she knows that this invasion of her privacy can happen even if the email comes from her very best friend. 

Before you know it, she won’t be spamming anyone anymore, including you.

At first, I was freaked out when I opened one up and saw products like hair nets and denture cream.  I figured someone is playing a joke on me or the universe is trying to remind me that I’m getting older.

But after flipping through a few pages, I was hooked.  These catalogs are priceless gems that provide comic relief like nothing I have ever read before. 

Here are a few of the items featured in one of the catalogs that arrived last week.  After seeing these babies, I am looking forward to eating that extra piece of pie this weekend!   

Here’s what you do:  Regardless of what he’s wearing — a business suit, a t-shirt and jeans, athletic gear, or a service uniform of some kind — look at him and in the most sincere voice you can muster, say “Wow, I love your cute little outfit.”  Then, excuse yourself to use the ladies room and let the words seep into his brain.

Men do not think of the clothes they wear as an “outfit,” let alone a “cute little outfit.”  So when you zing these words his way, they will catch him off guard and strip away his masculinity before he even knows what hit him.

You can use this torment technique on a guy just to tease him, or you can use it to really annoy that egomaniac in your life. 

Just imagine these scenarios:

The jerk you work with comes into the office one day wearing a nice, expensive-looking, classy suit.  He clearly thinks he looks awesome.  What do you do?  You go in for the kill of course.  Catch him in the hallway when a bunch of other people are around and yell out “Wow, I loooove your cute little outfit.”  Then, promptly walk to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee.

Or

Your college boyfriend has been a schmuck lately.  Now, he’s looking for his baseball uniform before his big game.  His friends are waiting for him at the door.  What do you do?  You help him out of course.  Yell to him “I think I saw your cute little outfit upstairs hanging on the back of the door.”

But remember – it’s all in the delivery.  When you say “cute little outfit,” be sweet, sincere, and nonchalant, as if there is absolutely nothing out of the ordinary about those words.   Let the phrase roll off your tongue so it takes him a minute to realize that you just hit his manliness in a way that it’s never been hit before.   

Sigh…so many fun ways to torment men, so little time.  

Copyright © 2010  Alison James