LeslieBeth Wish - Smart Relationships: How Successful Women Can Find True Love

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR SMART RELATIONSHIPS

Smart Relationships is a welcome departure from the plethora of simplistic self-help books that line bookstore shelves and sit on page after page of online bookstores. Dr. Wish is a leading authority on the love issues of todays women and a thoughtful researcher who interviewed thousands of women over a number of years to write what will certainly be the must-have book of the decade for real women in real love relationships. This book is their story and YOUR story, and offers practical exercises, easy-to-understand charts that offer mind-blowing insights and page after page of solid, reliable content, and a much needed view of the real state of womens intimate relationships! If you only buy one book this year, make it Smart Relationships.

Jackie Black, PhD, BCC, internationally recognized relationship expert and author of LOVE Like a BLACK BELT: Cracking the Code to Being a Happy Couple.

Even the savviest women can stumble in their desire to find true love. Just as Dr. Wish advised women about love with her charming cartoon book, The Love Adventures of Almost Smart Cookie, once again, with her new book, Dr. Wish proves to be an innovative and deeply informative educator about women and love. The insightful strategies she uses are spot on. Dr. Wish elaborates with ease and understanding, as well as highly sensible and usable advice. As a dating coach, I recognize the problems that her research has uncovered. All busy women can benefit from this book, which also includes some of her fun cartoons that teach with solid help and findings that will really open womens eyes to their love patterns.

Betty Russell, CC, BCC, Dating Expert, Coach, and Educator,www.BeFreeToLove.com

Just as we would expect from Dr. Wish, she continues to provide women with an effective, inventive and highly informative way to reach and teach about their most common love traps. And what an extra bonus that Smart Relationships includes some of her wise, fun and right-on-the-mark tips about top dating and relationship issueslike falling for individuals who demand too much or give too little. Dr. Wish writes from both her research findings and her heart.

Jodi Rigotti, Senior Editor, www.QualityHealth.com, a Top Ten Health Site

Dr. Wish has hit a home run again! Smart Relationships offers women that missing piece in self-helpan education about how relationships function! Todays women want more than clever tips. They want something that will guide them through all their intimate relationships. As an educator, I need to make sure that my students receive material that is solid and trustworthy. Women can rest easy that Dr. Wishs book comes from sound research findingsand she offers them in a very original way that does not skimp on depth for todays women who want and expect more from relationship help.

Jane Roberts, PhD, Chair of the Duvall Family Studies Initiative, University of South Florida

Resounding support for Smart Relationships. As in her other work, this book offers answers to many of womens life, social and familial snafus. More hats off to LBa writer, therapist, role model and recent recipient of the Focus on Women Magazines Women of Impact Award.

Joslyn Wolfe, Professor and Publisher, Focus on Women Magazine

Its reassuring to find an expert in the field of womens issues who offers wisdom, wit and advice that has depth and ease of use. Smart Relationships is a very valuable guide for relationships that are truly satisfying. Again, Dr. Wish delivers on her promise to help us all learn from her research findingsand her cartoon character Cookies mistakesso women dont have to repeat them.

Jed Diamond, Ph.D, author, MenAlive: Stop Killer Stress with Simple Energy Healing Tools

SMART RELATIONSHIPS

SMART RELATIONSHIPS

HOW SUCCESSFUL WOMEN

CAN FIND TRUE LOVE

LeslieBeth Wish, EdD, MSS

NEW HORIZON PRESS

Far Hills, New Jersey

Copyright 2013 by LeslieBeth Wish

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever, including electronic, mechanical or any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted in the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the publisher.

Requests for permission should be addressed to:

New Horizon Press

P.O. Box 669

Far Hills, NJ 07931

LeslieBeth Wish, EdD

Smart Relationships: How Successful Women Can Find True Love

Cover design: Wendy Bass

Interior design: Scribe Inc.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012945211

ISBN 13: 978-0-88282-439-0

New Horizon Press

Manufactured in the U.S.A.

17 16 15 14 13 1 2 3 4 5

For Erilda Waters, one of lifes angels, and for all the brave women who told me their stories

Authors Note

This book is based on the authors research, personal experience, interviews and real life experiences. In order to protect privacy, names have been changed and identifying characteristics have been altered except for contributing experts. All of the stories and individuals represented are composites and do not represent any one person or story but many combined.

For purposes of simplifying usage, the pronouns his/her and s/he are sometimes used interchangeably. The information contained herein is not meant to be a substitute for professional evaluation and therapy with mental health professionals.

Contents

I f you are an ambitious and capable working woman, it can be very confusing to be smart about your career but not about love. You wonder how your relationships started out one way but ended up another, why recovery from hurt takes so long and what made your affairs go wrong. You go to sleep disappointed, wake up anxious and spend the day mistrusting your judgment about men.

Being unhappy in love becomes larger than just a problem to work on. It makes you worry that something is wrong inside. And then it hits youyou may have broken through the glass ceiling at work, but you havent broken through the love ceiling. As one of my clients, Jennifer, said about her previous relationships, I feel that I missed out on being a full adult member of the world. I guess I dont do love, and it embarrasses me to admit it.

If those words sound like your feelings, you are not alone. This love shock has also baffled more than nine hundred women in my research about their intimate relationships and the thousands of women Ive counseled over thirty years. Like them, youre used to achievement and results. Youre educated, trained, responsible and respected. Youre in charge of your money, lifestyle and body. Nevertheless, when it comes to men, your past mistakes in love have made you pickier but not smarter.

Its not that you havent tried. Youve likely received some counseling or read books about communicating better, recognizing abusive behavior or honoring your needsall worthy relationship topics. Yet something was missing. You have gathered bits and pieces of information, ideas and tips that have some meaning for you, but you want more.

I am both a psychologist and a licensed clinical social worker, yet in my perspective as a therapist trying to help women who were in bad or no relationships, I was frustrated too. I ran out of books to recommend and I was baffled by the love problems of such capable women. Though I offered my clients some help, I knew I could do more. My goal was to offer women more than just tips and tools. I wanted to help them gain a bigger picture of their dilemmas, educate women and arm them with a template that would aid them regardless of the relationship problem. And when I met with women, they said that was what they were looking for too.