Of Course a 19 Year old is going to make an old dude feel like Superman!  His wife uses the same bathroom!

It’s not good to air your laundry on the front lawn, unless you are at the beach and it’s towels. I suppose living in the Hampton’s qualifies as living at the beach, so confusion sets in…. however, I take a deep sigh, and although I don’t agree with cheating on your spouse with a 19 year old when you’re marriage is in a lull, I wouldn’t be caught dead discussing it on national TV (it’s too Denise Richards for my taste and America’s pallet), and I’m totally against airing your dirt in a disgusting court room to fight over who gets to see the children more (or have more blame to screwing them up in the long run), I’m glad to hear that Peter Cook is admitting to what millions of married couples ignore every day… they are taking each other for granted and they were on a slow drive down the dead end road of Unsatisfied Street.

Peter Cook, a wealthy man, with a hot supermodel wife, had from the book cover what everyone wishes they had. However, I think that when he opens his book from his perspective, what the footnotes reveal is that it wasn’t that he was addicted to online porn or masturbation, or that he eventually ended up screwing a 19 year old, but although he was a Master of The Universe from the world’s perspective, he felt like he was just a means to an end…an accessory…to his spouses ideal lifestyle and he felt it was a thankless job. He didn’t feel needed.

The 19 year old just made him feel like “Superman”, and the “Supermodel” made him feel like a money tree.

I have friends that are going through a similar, yet less superfabulous, ordeal. They are the best of friends, and both stunningly gorgeous, but totally disconnected in terms of appreciation of one another and are both failing miserably in terms of making the other spouse happy. The husband is failing the wife in what she expects from him, and the wife is failing the husband because she can’t solve their financial crisis.

Financial crisis is self-engineered. They can’t sell any of their houses which they’ve mortgaged their financial shortfalls (both lifestyle and inherited parental behavior) over the past 10 years of their marriage…well, he’s been procrastinating putting anything on the market because the truth of being over mortgaged is just to revealing, and their credit is destroyed because he’s paid bills late so many times that they’d never re-qualify for another mortgage. So now they are over mortgaged, over credit carded, and over extended….Wachovia just put a call on their line of credit and they are cashless to pay it back and equity-less to finance it. Financial ruin.

To add icing to this meltdown pie, She wants sex. He wants a job that makes him feel like a master of the universe. She wants to come home from work with a picked up house and the kids under control. He wants her to tell him he’s amazing and he should have any job that he sees posted for twice as much as they want to pay – not just the job that get him in the door.

Last winter, she gets a bonus. He pays the bills, she gets a fresh set of titties, and he borrows money from a friend. They go lingerie shopping to get her new bras and matching panties. The houses sit – messy, with no for sale signs in the windows – and their children are a fantastic mess of chaos and uneasiness. They drop out of socializing with our family.

I’ve been a bystander for the past 15 months wondering how they are financing their lifestyle and she’s affording True Religion jeans.

Months go by. He handles all of the bills. Her credit card gets declined when she checking into a hotel on a business trip. He confesses to borrowing money from a friend. She’s mortified. She tells him that he’s disappointed her, and that he’s failing his family. He tells her he can’t imagine making love to her since she thinks that he’s such a disappointment. It’s October now, the last time he had sex with her was May. She buys sexy lingerie that she can’t afford to get his attention. Nothing. He tells my husband she’s gotten a Brazilian and he’s convinced she’s cheating. They get a loan on his car.

She wants him to cook dinner and do the laundry so that in the chaos of their world the house is a sanctuary. He’s ordered out and charged it because the three kids are exhausting and their home is overrun with dirty laundry, dishes, and trash bins.

He thinks she’s cheating on him – but she’s not – and on and on and on it goes. Candice Bushnell couldn’t write any more reality than this one.

They are at the end of their relationship before the financial crisis that all of America is facing truly tears it apart. Besides being bankrupt, She’s done and he’s clueless.

When John and I first got married I didn’t think that we’d make it two months. He came home with a book the week of Thanksgiving called, “His Needs, Her Needs” and told me that he’s like me to read it… I read it and was So pissed and we didn’t speak for the next week and I seriously considered annulling the marriage…

What in the hell was wrong with him? Couldn’t we just be married, happy, and best friends? But ten years later, I specifically remember some of those points that the book discusses that I counsel marriage after failing marriage in terms of fixing what’s wrong…It was the best book I could have ever read as an equal participant and owner in my marriage.

1. 1.What do you need him to do? What does he need you to do?

2. 2.How do you show him you love him? How does he show that he loves you?

3. 3.How do you need him to show you that he loves you?

4. 4.How does he need you to show him that you love him?

5. 5.If he needs sex….give it to him, as often as he needs it.

6. 6.If you need to be told that you’re gorgeous…make sure he knows that he needs to tell you that.  If you need sex….tell him. If your spouse needs dinner on the table and the house picked up after working all day to provide for the family, then do your part and provide for your spouse in return.

7. 7.Thank you goes both ways. Say it. Say it often.

8. 8.Know the expectations, and make sure you meet them.

9. 9.If you don’t give your spouse what they need, you can’t expect that they won’t go elsewhere to get it… and you can’t act surprised or amazed if they finally decide to have someone else give it to them.

10. 10.If you don’t know what they need, isn’t it time that you asked?