Your Woman is Wonderful

So I did my homework on books about how to find and keep a great woman. Went online and did a search. To get a basis for comparison, I started searching for books about “finding a good man.” I came up with a load of books for women of every age, race, religion and description.

For the married woman: Good Husband, Great Marriage: Finding the Good Husband...in the Man You Married
For the religious woman: In Search of the Proverbs 31 Man: The One God Approves and a Woman Wants
For the Type A woman: All the Rules: Time-tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right
For the black woman: The Sistahs' Rules: Secrets For Meeting, Getting, And Keeping A Good Black Man (Not To Be Confused With The Rules)
For the angry woman: Seven Attitude Adjustments for Finding a Loving Man
For the mature woman: How Not to Stay Single After 40: The Secret to Finding Passion, Love, and Fulfillment--At Last!
For the maybe not so mature woman: How to Avoid a Stupid Man: A Woman's Guide to Attracting Her Soul Mate
And my personal favorite: Why Men Marry Bitches: A Woman's Guide to Winning Her Man's Heart

Next, I typed “finding a good woman” into the search. The results? Drum roll, please….

More books about how a woman can find and keep a MAN!

Winnifred Cutler’s Searching for Courtship: The Smart Woman's Guide to Finding a Good Husband came up third on the list. There was also Dating Rocks! The 21 Smartest Moves Women Make for Love by Steve Nakamoto, a former Dale Carnegie instructor, personal development trainer, and international tour director. (I am not making that up.) The cover art is a picture of a guy’s hand reaching under the table for a woman’s thigh. Also on the list—and I’m not making this up, either: The Women’s Basketball Drill Book.

God Bless Ronn Elmore. He’s the author of How to Love a Black Woman: Give and Get the Very Best in Your Relationship which is apparently the only book in the whole world that offers instruction to men about how to treat women.

Is it me or is there something wrong with this picture? One thing I know from having worked in publishing: They don’t keep printing the stuff if no one’s buying it. So why are women so eager to pore over books on how to find a man, please a man, hold a man? And why aren't men just as eager to get their relationships right?

Maybe it's not the motivation. Maybe it's the approach. That was the hint I got from a counselor today.

“You’re working too hard,” she said. All my sincere, heroic efforts—the talking and reading and journaling and blogging and working and working and WORKING and WORKING on the relationship isn’t actually doing much of anything for the relationship--and it's doing less for me. “You’re doing all the work and he gets off the hook,” she says.

Her suggestion (though not her exact words): Get a life. Spend more time focusing on me. Do what I like. Do more of what makes me feel happy and creative and fulfilled. Stop and let him do some of the heavy lifting for a change.

My secret fear: That he won’t lift a thing. But then, if he’s not willing, why should I bother? And if I’m busy having a wonderful time in my own life, how much would I care?

Whether he's willing or not remains to be seen, but if he isn't, he should be. He was lucky to get me. I'm creative and smart and not too hard on the eyes. I have a sense of humor and a sense of spirit. I was a good catch. And he worked hard to reel me in. I need to see in me now, what he saw in me then.

Maybe there really is the need for the book called Your Woman is Wonderful. But maybe it’s us women who need to read it.