Expert: Dr. Dennis W. Neder - 12/25/2006

Question
Dr. Neder,

   How dare you judge me or my faith. You don't know me! You call me a coward, but you are a low life, immoral bully. Sex out of marriage is a sin, therefore I do not engage in it. Yes, the Bible does say divorce is wrong as well, but sometimes the other person bails. Not that it is any of your business, but I did not consider dating until my ex-wife remarried.
 Now, let me tell you whare you are wrong. You have bought into this "sexual compatibility" crap. The only thing you know when you are sexually compatible with a new partner, is you are sexually similar to his/her previous partners. Sex is a gift from God, it is His idea, within the confines of a marriage. I don't expect you to agree, but please have the decency to respect my views. Men like you have no clue what it means to be a man. A real man is someone that lives his faith, regardless of what the world thinks. A man is not someone who jumps in bed with a woman to see if they are compatible. Compatibility comes from communicating to one another likes and dislikes.
  You obviously have no clue what it means to be a Christian. Christianity is not based on rules we keep. It is based on a relationship with God, and it is NOT a religion. The only worthwhile thing you said is telling me it is not my weight or financial position. It may be those things, and if it is she is not the woman I hope she is. You say not having sex before marriage is the stupidest thing you have ever heard, but the stupidest thing I have ever heard is someone actually purchasing a book on being a Man by someone who obviously has no idea as to what that means. Dr. Neder, you are no Man and you have no business advising anyone on how to be one!



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The text above is a follow-up to ...

-----Question-----
I have been dating a very sweet lady from church for about 9 months. We have never kissed except for on the cheek, and never really even held hands. I have told her I am crazy about her, and sent her flowers, cards, etc. She says she likes me, but that's all she says. I think I have been clear how I feel about her. I have a 12 year old daughter and she has a 10 year old son. In all these months, we've really only been out alone a few times (3?). I am 42 and she is 47. We are both devout Christians and sex outside of marriage is not an option, but it would be great to be able to kiss her. She is not the type of person to lead a man on, and I do think she is attracted to me. I have had some financial instability lately and I am overweight. I don't know if I should just up and ask her, make a grand gesture, or wait until I am more financially stable and drop some of this weight, before pushing the issue. I really think I could love this woman, but have tried to restrain my feelings to avoid being hurt. i am also somewhat shy. I think it is also important to tell you that her son's father is not a part of his life, and it has pretty much been just her and him for almost all of his life. She is currently staying with her parents and renting out her house, in order to save some money. What should I do?
-----Answer-----
Hello Steve!

I always hate hearing this. What an incredible mistake it is to avoid sex before marriage out of religious reasons! It doesn't appear that divorce is out of the question however!

Steve, you're going in so many wrong directions, I don't know where to start with you! Almost nothing here is "right". No sex before marriage, your weight, thinking that you're "going out" with her, not kissing her, thinking that she's not "that" type of person - wrong, wrong, wrong!!!!

Perhaps the best way to approach this is to take everything you believe about this "relationship" and just throw it away and start again. Even better, just flip it on it's head and you'll be much closer than you are right now. Let me help you here:

1) You aren't "dating" this woman. You're her "buddy" only. Dating means that you've kissed her and things are progressing somewhere. This is going nowhere, really, really fast.

2) Being "devout" Christians to me means that you follow the letter of your religion as dictated by your church. Divorce is not one of the edicts of Christianity that I'm aware of! Thus, that means that you (and she) follow only the parts you want to follow. I have no problem with this whatsoever, but don't use it as an excuse - I know better.

3) Not having sex before marriage is the stupidest thing I've ever heard! No doubt you've heard that "...sex isn't the most important thing in a relationship..." But let me assure you - it's in the top 3! What if you and she aren't sexually compatible? It takes more than just having the opposite plumbing! What if you only had 2 of the 3 skills you needed for your job? Answer: you'd be fired and replaced by someone that had all 3! Same with marriage.

4) Your weight and looks have almost nothing to do with any of this. It's in YOUR mind only.

5) Financial instability? So what? Everyone goes through ups and downs with money. This is yet another excuse!

6) Shy? No, you're not shy. Let's be honest here - you're a coward.

Ok Steve, you didn't write to me for a beating, but I'm trying to impress on you how much of your own mistaken beliefs and directions are actually PREVENTING YOU FROM HAVING WHAT YOU WANT! I honestly believe that you're a good man and could make a great partner for any woman - but YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS - not me!

That means that you need to get in touch with reality and start to do (and to be) the things that sell you as this guy. It's not a woman's job to see under the hood - it's your job to bring out that masculinity into the fresh air and give it life.

If you really want this woman in your life as more than a pal to hit a movie with once every 3 months then you're going to have to make some dramatic changes here.

First of all, after the holidays, call her up and tell her you're going to go out on a date that next weekend. Don't go overboard on this and don't spend a fortune (after all, you can't really afford it right now anyway), but make it fun and start building some connnection between you and she.

Plan to kiss her already! Rmember this fact: first kisses are never "given" or "agreed upon" or "negotiated" - they are STOLEN. I know, I know - the 8th commandment, "Thou shalt not steal" - but it doesn't apply to kisses. You'll be ok, trust me!

You've got to turn up the chemistry here - and that means intellectual, emotional AND physical. Your mistaken belief about avoiding sex prevents you from making this happen. Trust me, she needs this in order to feel connection with you.

Start a path here. Start going to church together every week and even get together and study the bible if you wish. Just remember - these are DATES, not a couple of pals getting together.

Plan some future things together. Maybe take a vacation or go on a short trip together. Take some pictures of having a great time as a couple. Get together with friends as a couple, etc. In short, start acting like what you want to have in your life.

Steve, I'm afraid you need a complete re-education about your role as the man in a relationship. I can't urge you strongly enough to read my books, "Being a Man in a Woman's World I & II" and get this education. Haven't you floundered long enough on all of this wrong-headed thinking?

Best regards...

Dr. Dennis W. Neder
President
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.
Remington Publications
818.334.8826
www.beingaman.com
Publishers of "Being a Man in a Woman's World I & II"

Answer
Hello again Steve!

You fucking ignorant hypocrite! Who exactly is "judging" whom here?

While I can't deny being a low-life, immoral and a bully, I stand by my claim that you're a coward. You hide behind beliefs that you neither fully understand nor follow and for those you don't follow, you blame others and make excuses. Let me let you in on a little secret - you CHOSE this woman to breed with, (although, perhaps she had good cause to bolt after reading your response!  [kidding]) If you really want to be a man, why don’t you accept responsibility for these things instead of making excuses and paying lip-service to them? I can't imagine why waiting until she's remarried makes it better for YOU to start dating, but then, there's much I can't accept about your choices.

I'm afraid you're ignorant on the concept of "sexual compatibility". Psychologist's offices and divorce courts are filled with couples that want to be sexually compatible but can’t figure out how. If they followed your ridiculous beliefs, they'd never even have previous partners in order to know what compatibility is! Somehow, they're just supposed to "figure it out". Some "gift from God" as he didn't seem to bother to give us the most important part of the “gift”! I suppose God "likes" mammals since we all use sexual reproduction, but he "hates" many other forms of life that only have asexual reproduction? Steve, have you even bothered to ever THINK about what you believe or do you just say, "Well if I didn't read it in the bible, and I can't find some other excuse or need to explain it away, it must be divine"??? What a tool!

Let's talk about marriage for a moment, since you don't know much about this institution either. Sex; being a "gift" within the "context of marriage" is downright foolish. Marriage is a new concept in human history; having its origins starting in the 1200's and didn’t become the “modern” version that we know now until the 1500’s with new concepts and laws added 300 years later than that. That means, that for 1200 year's after Christ's birth, (and by the way, millions of years before) that sex was somehow “immoral” because marriage didn’t even exist. So, what you're saying is that God just had some “aha! moment” and figured that marriage needed to be invented to make millions of years of sex “legitimate”??? Pah-leaze!!!

Now, let’s talk about respect. You seem to believe that I should just accept and respect your views and those of Christianity. Sorry, it doesn’t work like that. I don’t respect Christians or Jews or Baptists or atheists or Eskimos or men or women or factory workers or politicians. I respect only individuals and then, only based on what they do or say. Foolish, ignorant choices are not due respect by me or anyone; thus, you are due no particular respect just because of your views unless those views are worthy of it BY YOUR OWN, PERSON EXPRESSION OF THEM. By “respect” of your views, you actually mean acceptance and it’s those very views that are causing you the problems you’re having with this woman (and likely, others; past, present and future.) If you already have all your answers then what are you writing to me for?

So, you know what it is to be a man? Fine, I’ll concede that you have a penis, but we definitely have different opinions on what it is to be a “man”. To me, someone that lives by blind faith; and though ignorance of fact and reality; even defending that ignorance, isn’t a “man” or a “woman”. That person is a genderless child without the ability to think and reason for themselves. Even worse is someone that claims to be “devout” to a particular doctrine or belief and then begins to manipulate it to fit their own shortcomings and poor choices in order to expound their own pious virtue. Sound anything like the sin of pride to you?

One of my closest friends (now deceased) was a Christian minister. He was also a “real” man and has always had my greatest respect. He used to try to teach people that faith was more about how it applies to one’s life to make it better than being a dogmatic set of rules. My favorite quote of his was this: “Faith begins only after you’ve answered all the questions you can answer without it.” That’s worthy of some pondering in my opinion.

Steve, you should be ashamed of yourself. Why don't you go sit in judgment of yourself for while? Compare what you have and are now to what you want. Interesting - they don't match! It must be that you're not praying hard enough, right?

Look Steve, you wrote to me with questions on what to do about your “relationship” and I gave you (kindly pardon my continued arrogance here) quite excellent advice. If you don’t like it then don’t use it. Just continue to do things your way as they seem to be working out really well for you. On the other hand, if you open your mind to new possibilities and ideas, you might start having what you want. You deserve it whether you believe it or not. I’m sure even God would agree with that.

Best regards...

Dr. Dennis W. Neder
President
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.
Remington Publications
818.334.8826
www.beingaman.com
Publishers of "Being a Man in a Woman's World I & II"