Relationship Advice - Attract Men - Find Your Soul Mate

Hi Carlos,

I have a question for you. How should I respond to my ex who still wants to be friends when he says that he has 'feelings ' for his ex wife, who is now living with another man and has three kids by him. My ex cheated on her, and that's why they broke up. He told me that she carries a ton of resentment against him.

Since I learned about this five days ago, (he told me in an email) and after I asked him about it. He said that he couldn't talk about it at the time that we would discuss it later.

I have not contacted him at all since he put me off about it, and at this point I won't be contacting him again, unless he does. I haven't heard from him. I want him to desire me not her.

The reason we broke up is still confusing to me. He came on so strong.. in the beginning, writing me love poems, proposed marriage etc, and now I'm beginning to wonder if it was his way of getting back at his ex by using me. In that same email, he said that he wants to 'love me better'... but I haven't heard from him in five days, I don't think he really wants to.

Help!

Alice - Wichita, KS.
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CARLOS XUMA ANSWERS:

Thanks for your question, Alice... I think this is a common situation that many women out there can relate to. (And believe it or not, a lot of guys can, too.)

I'll bet you felt very confused and disoriented when his reactions became very "illogical" and inconsistent. This is one of those situations where a man's behavior seems to be so contrary to what he SHOULD be doing.

Let's talk a moment about his "feelings" for his ex-wife...

In a great many of the men out there who stray outside their marriage, there is a sense of "let me fix it" that they go through after the situation is exposed. Men feel a strong internal compulsion to regain their honor by fixing the situation and getting things back to "where they were."

Back in the "safe" zone of a happy and consistent marriage.

But the problem is that he's turning his internal problem of dissatisfaction with the marriage into an external solution of reclaiming the "image" of the marriage by chasing what he lost.

There is nothing more motivating to men and women than the perceived threat of loss of something we value. We work harder to keep what we've got than we do to gain something new.

What he's doing right now with his emotions is holding on to the last connection he has to his big-time screwup. By having "feelings" for her, he's really saying that he is now challenged by the fact that:

A) He messed it up and wants to fix it

and

B) Knowing that his wife doesn't want him anymore (or emotionally resents him), makes him feel challenged again to regain her love.

Simple, silly, and stupid, but it's the way our emotions work.

Remember this rule: If you go seeking a LOGICAL solution to your EMOTIONAL state, you will always be confused and frustrated. Emotions have their own logic.

He may have come on so strong to get a little revenge, but more likely he came on strong to try and create - and I'm sorry for how this will sound to you - a "consolation" prize to his broken heart.

The first and most unhealthy thing we do after the loss of an important relationship is to immediately throw ourselves into another to regain the loss of emotional security we feel.

When you break up from a long-term relationship, it's the same thing to your brain as the loss of a heroin addiction.

LITERALLY.

The chemicals that certain emotions stimulate in your brain actually affect your experience, and are stronger than most of the illegal mind-altering drugs you can get on the street.

Just think back to the "high" of a new romance, and tell me you've ever experienced anything so thrilling and exciting...

Let's sum this up:

- If he REALLY wants to "love you better," he would TREAT you better.

- Never listen to a person's words. Only pay attention to their ACTIONS.

As the saying goes, what you are speaks so loudly I can't hear what you're saying.

This guy is damaged goods right now. It takes at least a month for every year you were in a relationship to rehab from it. (And this means ALONE.)

There are a lot of wishy-washy advisors out there that would tell you to just "be careful" with this guy.

I'm telling you to AVOID this guy. He's a road-hazard to your emotional life, and he's delaying you from finding someone who is genuinely INTO you.

You deserve a guy who will focus on you and NOT lose interest.

You don't want to be this guy's rebound. Stay clear of him, and watch his actions to determine how he REALLY feels about you.

Remember, this doesn't reflect on YOUR value, as much as it may feel like it when he backs away. If his head was clear, he would probably romance you and stick with it.

But his head is not there. And that's not your fault.

Or your problem.

If you're reading this now and thinking to yourself that you want to avoid this kind of thing and not get involved with the guys with these kinds of issues, I encourage you to take a look at my CD program: "Get Your Man."

As Alice has discovered, it's got all the right focus on all the right parts of creating the kind of powerful connections with a man that you need.

You can see it right HERE: GET YOUR MAN

'Could Mr. Right be white?' More black women consider 'dating out'
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RICHMOND, Virginia (AP) --

For years, Toinetta Jones played the dating game by her mom's strict rule.

Whitney and Roslyn Holcomb watch as their 3-year-old son, Luke, plays.

"Mom always told me, 'Don't you ever bring a white man home,"' recalled Jones, echoing an edict issued by many Southern, black mothers.

But at 37, the Alexandria divorcee has shifted to dating "anyone who asks me out," regardless of race.

"I don't sit around dreaming about the perfect black man I'm going to marry," Jones said.

Black women around the country also are reconsidering deep-seated reservations toward interracial relationships, reservations rooted in America's history of slavery and segregation.

They're taking cues from their favorite stars -- from actress Shar Jackson to tennis pro Venus Williams -- as well as support blogs, how-to books and interracially themed novels telling them it's OK to "date out."

It comes as statistics suggest American black women are among the least likely to marry.

"I'm not saying that white men are the answer to all our problems," Jones said. "I'm just saying that they offer a different solution."

She reflects many black women frustrated as the field of marriageable black men narrows: They're nearly seven times more likely to be incarcerated than white men and more than twice as likely to be unemployed.

Census data showed 117,000 black wife-white husband couples in 2006, up from 95,000 in 2000.

There were just 26,000 such couples in 1960, before a Supreme Court ruling banished laws against mixed marriages.

Black female-white male romance has become a hot topic in black-geared magazines and on Web sites, even hitting the big screen in movies like last year's "Something New."

That film centers on an affluent black woman who falls for her white landscaper, a situation not unlikely as black women scale the corporate ladder, said Evia Moore, whose interracial marriage blog draws 1,000 visitors a day.

It features articles like "Could Mr. Right Be White?" and pictures of couples like white chef Wolfgang Puck and his new Ethiopian wife.

"Black women are refusing to comply with that message about just find yourself a good blue-collar man with a job, or just find a black man," Moore said.

She pointed to low rates of black men in college, a place where women of all races often meet their spouses.

Black women on campus largely are surrounded by non-black men: In 2004, 26.5 percent of black males ages 18 to 24 were enrolled in college versus 36.5 percent of black women that age, according to the American Council on Education's most recent statistics.

Even after college, Roslyn Holcomb struggled to meet professional black men.

"I wanted to get married (and) have children," she said. "If I was only meeting one guy a year, or every few years, that wasn't going to happen."

The Alabama author eventually married white.

"I think a lot of black women are realizing or feeling that the pickings are slim," she said.

They're made even slimmer, grumble many black women, by high rates of successful black men choosing blondes. For some, they argue, white wives are the ultimate status symbol.

"They don't want a dark chocolate sister laying around their swimming pool," Moore said.

Nearly three quarters of the 403,000 black-white couples in 2006 involved black husbands.

Meanwhile, psychological barriers have discouraged black women from crossing racial lines.

"Black women are socialized to stick by their men," explained Kellina Craig-Henderson, a Howard University psychology professor who studied 15 black women dating interracially.

She said modern black women agonize over breaking male-female bonds forged in slavery and strengthened through the Jim Crow era.

"It may be even more of an issue for educated black women who have a sense of the historical realities of this country, where black women often were abused at the hands of white men," Craig-Henderson said.

Jones remembered being troubled when a white man politely approached her around 1990. Her stance softened years later, after a sobering party experience.

"All the black men literally pushed (us) out the way to talk to the blondes," said Jones, who soon declared, "I'm going to date whoever."

Black men and women have openly feuded before.

At places like Atlanta's Spelman College, black women have rallied against black male rappers characterizing them as promiscuous.

But black men are voicing their own frustrations with women they feel regard them with suspicion. "They treat us all the same," said W. Randy Short, a Washington writer who dates across races. "The rapist on the TV is the same as me."

It's a frustration director Tim Alexander tackles in "Diary of a Tired Black Man," a frank film covering everything from black women's demeanors to their weight. Frustrated by black women, the main character dates a white one.

"To a certain degree, black people are sick of each other," Alexander said. "It would be better for black men and black women to open their options."

But Ayo Handy-Kendi, creator of Black Love Day, argues blacks are simply reacting to messages linking success with whiteness. She referred to a string of successful athletes with white partners, including golfer Tiger Woods.

"They normally rejected their culture and they went to the acceptable standard of success -- a white woman," said Handy-Kendy, who thought it ironic high-achieving black women were mimicking the behavior.

Back in Virginia, Jones feels life is too short to ponder race when it comes to love.

As for mom, Jones figures, "she really admires the fact that I did something she may have really wanted to do, and never did."

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