Love Distortion: Belle, Battered Codependent and Other Love Stories is being offered right now on Amazon’s Kindle for FREEEEEEEE!!!

That’s right. I want to gift a copy of my book to you for free!

AND you can share it with your friends for free!

I only ask one thing. Please leave a review on Amazon.

Now go! Go get your copy! Quick!

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I’ve been reflecting on marriage lately.

I have many friends who have chosen not to get married. They have been in marriage relationships that have all the fixin’s of a “real” marriage, but they have not held a ceremony or signed any legal documents. They don’t want to be “defined by the marriage” or they don’t want to make such a serious commitment with this particular person.

They don’t want to get so invested that they’ll get hurt is closer to the truth.

Like this woman who wrote All the Single Ladies, which tries to make romance and marriage academic. What she is really doing, in my opinion, is waiting to put herself out there for some promise of perfection, a guaranty that things won’t go wrong or some ideal man who will “be her equal in every way.” Which, because relationships are between fallible and ever-changing humans, does not exist whether you marry someone or just shack up with them or just date them indefinately. Not choosing is choosing by default.

The funny thing is that as the years pass you do become invested with this other person. If, of course, you have the emotional guts to get involved with another human being for any duration. You do become financially and emotionally invested. If you have children then you are inextricably tied to the other person. Whether male or female you end up being in some way, whether emotionally or financially, dependent on your partner whether you marry them or not. To think you won’t is self-delusion.

Marriages and pseudo-marriages don’t always work out. As I witness marriages and pseudo-marriages dissolve some realities strike me.

Those in pseudo-mariages are just as hurt and equally angry. They have to start over and redefine their lives in the exact same way as those with legit marriages. The grief cycle is identical. The attachments they shared with the partner, the compromising, the sacrificing, the dependency are mirror images of legal marriages. If they have children, the children are impacted by both dissolutions of the partnership in very similar ways. In other words, not marrying and not making “the commitment” did nothing to shelter them emotionally.

The difference, from what I can tell, is that with the legal document there is economic protection. Those who didn’t marry, but invested in their significant relationship for over 10 years, did not accrue their partner’s social security points while they took time off to raise children. If their partner chose to take back property given them for birthdays and anniversaries, there is little recourse. Property acquired during the marriage is not “communal property,” but divided up randomly, usually without the protection of the court. If there are children shared, the custodial partner may qualify for child support, but spousal support is non-existent even if they were financially dependent.

This is on top of the years spent in the relationship where they might have gotten insurance benefits and marriage tax credits from being married. They didn’t get the marriage points on their car and home insurance. If their partner dies property, bank accounts, investments and life insurance don’t automatically revert to them as the surviving spouse.

Gay people, for instance, though they do not have access to the legal protection, do not have any immunity to being entangled in the other partner’s life in every way. Nor are they exempt from the emotional trauma of a break-up or death of a partner. If for no other reason, this should be enough to allow them the legal protection that marriage provides.

Certainly not every relationship is marriage-worthy. But, in my assessment it’s simply a good financial gamble as long as women take measures to protect themselves.

The only way to protect yourself from any emotional wounds at all is to wrap yourself in a cocoon and refuse to participate in any and all relationship commitments. But, if you choose that you also insulate yourself from intimacy. No Risk = No Reward. To me, even if it doesn’t end in Happily Ever After, it’s a bold and radical act to jump into the deep end in a relationship and give it your all.

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I have lowered the price on Love Distortion: Belle, Battered Codependent and Other Love Stories. 

My intention with this book is to help parents understand the way the culture sets girls up for victimization, coercion and manipulation by distorting what love is. Some of the messages are subtle and some are overt.

My intention is for people to read the book. Therefore, I’ve lowered the price to $3.50 plus shipping and handling. Which covers the cost of the book only.

Simply click here and order NOW.

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Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. —1 Corinthians 13: 4-7

Generally this verse is presented as how we should behave toward others.

My interpretation, and the one I recommend for you to share with your daughters, is to use this as a guide to know whether people truly love them, or want to possess them, want them to be their servant, want to use them as emotional crutch or emotional punching bag.

As a test, we should ask ourselves, and teach our daughters to do the same : Is this person patient and kind? Or envious, boastful, arrogant, rude, insisting on his own way, irritable, and resentful? Is he rejoicing in wrong-doing and being untruthful?

If he can’t pass this test, then, this is not Love. It must be something else then.

There are other things that masquerade as “Love.” Especially when we’re young, naive, inexperienced and hormones are coursing through our mind, body and soul, throwing us off-kilter. Most media messages about love do us no great service by making every single emotional and sexual attraction out to be love.

Our daughters need to know that there are other exciting and thrilling emotions that masquerade as love. You’re the perfect person to explain this, because you’ve probably experienced some of them.

It might feel like what you imagine love might feel like, a rush of Oxytocin to the brain, a Love Drunk, a passionate high, a crazy persistent, all-consuming crush, the smell of his pheromones lighting up yours, sexual attraction, physical chemistry, an irrational need to be desired by a specific person because he’s the quarterback or the cutest guy you’ve ever seen.

Still, if he can’t pass The Love Test, it might be a lot of exciting, thrilling, scary, intoxicating, dangerous things, but it’s not Love.

It’s a great test for any human being who claims to love you, but behaves otherwise.

Valentine’s Day is coming. Now, would be a prime time to address the difference. Love is in the air. But, so are a whole lot of other things masquerading as Cupid and Aphrodite.

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Teen girls aren’t as stupid as I thought. I know, this is a totally pro-girl website. That doesn’t meant I think girls are always the smartest. Sometimes — especially when boys and men are involved — girls can be quite stupid. Myself included. Hell, historically, myself mostly.

I’ve been subbing at the high school and junior high this year. It’s pretty fun. I adore teenagers. I’m a freak like that. I’ll take a classroom of teens over a gaggle of snotty toddlers that want to cuddle with me any day.

Their regular teacher warned me that this class was really, really bad and that they couldn’t be trusted not to talk if I even let them whisper and she wanted names of anyone who uttered so much as a whisper and she would dully punish them.

Uh ok.

The whole not talking thing struck me as stupid when I was in junior high. It still does.

I went back to reading the 3rd book in the Twilight Series, Eclipse. What I won’t do for The Girl Revolution, caught off guard with nothing to read, with access to a junior high library.

If you’ve been here before you know that I hate the Twilight Series because I think Bella is the stupidest girl character on the Planet Earth. But, whatever, at least girls are reading. Who cares if they’re reading training material for being a battered girlfriend?

That teacher was so right. As soon as the girls saw what I was reading they started talking about Twilight. This is, after all, THE girl-culture phenomenon of their time. They couldn’t escape it if they wanted to.  Everyone’s talking about it, everyone has seen the movies, read the books, bought the branded accessories and school supplies.

Bella is so stupid! one girl said.

Really? How so? I said, totally shocked.

She wants to die. Don’t you think that’s stupid? they said.

Yeah, I think it’s stupid, but I thought girls thought it was romantic, I said.

No, she’s totally stupid. She goes for Edward and he’s totally ugly! they said.

In the book he’s not ugly, he’s the most beautiful man in entire history of mankind, well vampirekind! I argued.

In the movie he’s ugly and pasty. Jacob is sooo hot! they declared.

One girl pulled out a photo of Jacob. He’s hot.

So, you don’t think it’s romantic to give up everything and die for a boy? I asked.

No way! I don’t want to die! Why would you want to die? Would you want to die with an ugly man? they asked.

I hate to break it to you, but most of you will probably die with ugly men. Look around ladies, this is as good as boys get, eventually they are old and bald and pot-bellied, I said. I’m sorry I can’t help myself. The truth pops out of my mouth before I can stop it sometimes.

They looked around shocked and laughed.

One of the boys said something like, Twilight is so stupid.

To which I responded, Smart boys will read it so they know what girls want. Otherwise they’ll constantly be wondering how come they disappoint their girlfriends.

Seriously, you don’t want to give up your whole life, your whole family, your ability to have children, college, careers and all that for a boy? I asked them. I thought perhaps I might cry with relief.

No way! Besides, she should have gone with Jacob, he’s way hotter, they said.

That settles it. There is hope for the future of girls in spite of trashy-romance-novels-turned-propaganda-for-eternal-marriage.

In fact, now that I think about it, it makes those girls smarter than lots of women I know. At least for now, while it remains hypothetical.

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