Ken Solin

“How do I find the right woman?” my single friends frequently ask after striking out with yet another dead-end relationship. Good women abound, but men need to ask the right questions before they get involved. The weeding-out process is pretty straightforward.

I started a men’s group eighteen years ago, and we spent much of that time talking about how to find a partner and navigate the rocky shoals of relationships. What I’ve gleaned from that experience—chronicled in my soon-to-be-published book, Bad Boys, Good Men: How Eight Guys Made the Leap—is that most men want to get it right with women, but simply don’t know how.

With that in mind, before dating any woman, getting answers to the following questions can help you find out quickly if she might be right for you. You may have other requirements of your own to add to this list. Also, be prepared to answer any of these questions if, after a woman answers them, she turns the table on you. In truth, if you can’t answer these basic questions positively, you may want to work on yourself a bit more before dating.

Has she ever been in individual therapy or a woman’s group, attended relationship workshops, or at least read any books about relationships? Intimacy is a primary goal in relationships, and a woman who’s done some amount of emotional work is more likely than one who hasn’t embraced it to have had some practice opening her heart. She’s also likely to have developed some problem-resolution skills that will help her hold up her end of the dialogue when the inevitable disagreements arise.

What did she learn from her last failed relationship? Each person plays a role in a failed relationship, and a woman who’s unwilling to own her mistakes and learn from them is either emotionally shut down or dishonest. If you get involved with her, she won’t be likely to admit her part in your relationship issues, either. Look for a woman who gets the lessons and doesn’t want to repeat her mistakes.

Does she have women friends? Loners usually shut themselves off from other women because they don’t trust them, and they may have trust issues with men as well. Getting involved with a friendless woman means becoming her entire universe—an overwhelming, and usually impossible task. The right woman is comfortable in the world and doesn’t need to be saved. Resist the wounded bird rescue fantasy.

Are her values compatible with yours? Opposites attract, and having a partner with different interests from yours may broaden your world. But if a woman doesn’t share your core values—approach to life, attitude about money, desire for children, spiritual outlook, and anything else you strongly believe in—she’s not the one for you. This isn’t a matter of good or bad, right or wrong, or anybody’s character, but just about potential compatibility.

Does she have a sense of humor? After talking with her a while if you have to ask this question, the answer probably is no. Women who take themselves too seriously and can’t laugh at their mistakes and weaknesses probably won’t be able to take yours lightly either. Laughter goes a long way toward releasing tension and keeping perspective in relationships, and can help a couple ride out challenging times.

Each negative answer to these questions reduces the odds that a woman is right for you. So do yourself a favor and weed out the square pegs before getting too involved. You deserve a good woman, and she’s out there just waiting for you to find her. This isn’t a “be careful what you wish for” situation unless you truly believe you don’t deserve happiness in your life. Reduce the

Male anger ranks high on a woman’s short list of relationship issues. Irrational, uncontrolled male anger devastates a woman’s sense of safety and well-being. It is particularly frustrating because the reasons behind the anger and the potential for resolving it are mostly out of her control. Women are not responsible for male raging, no matter how much an angry man insists otherwise. What’s behind male anger? How can men learn to control it? What can women do to help?

What I have gleaned from decades of working with men is that male anger is nearly always linked to painful past events in a man’s life that he mistakenly believes he has resolved simply because he stuffed the pain deep into his psyche and never consciously thought about it again. There is no magic act for making past pain vanish, however; and stuffing it simply keeps it just beneath the surface, where it simmers and is easily triggered.

Failed Relationships

Peter was in our men’s group for several years before he finally told his story which explained everything about his relationship issues. His heart had been shattered by a woman decades before.  Instead of working through his pain when he first felt it, he convinced himself he could simply make it disappear by never thinking about it again. His unresolved heartbreak affected his relationships with every woman he met afterwords. Since his heartbreak was never resolved, his attitude towards women grew into mistrust and anger for all women, including his wife, who he had married on the rebound. He developed a chauvinistic sense of humor about women and disparaged them whenever the topic of women arose. After telling his story a few times he admitted that it no longer held as much charge and that his attitude about women had softened.

What Women Can Do to Help

Men can’t be pushed to do their emotional work—either in therapy or in a men’s group. A man has to want to end his angry cycle and has to realize that only comes with facing the damage his behavior is causing him and everyone around him. What women can do is to encourage their partners to unload the baggage that interferes with their lives together. Listening without judgment or opinion will facilitate this process and make a man feel more comfortable about sharing his feelings. This is the time for a woman to be her partner’s best friend. This is the time for unconditional love.