A Woman's Survival Guide to Difficult Men: Introduction

INTRODUCTION: Dearly Beloved, We Are Gathered Here Together

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction inspired by emotional truths. Names, locations, timelines, and professions have been changed, blurred, or combined to protect privacy—including my own. These stories reflect patterns from many women’s lives, not just mine. Any resemblance to actual people is coincidental and unintentional.

Photo by Azrul Aziz on Unsplash

Shortly after my husband Dean and I started dating, during an emotional, marathon conversation that would lead him to quit drinking for good, he remarked, “You should write a book called A Woman’s Survival Guide to Difficult Men.”

I laughed. Between him and my ex-husband Jake, who once gave me a book called How to Hug a Porcupine, he may have a point.

“Maybe so,” I told him.

Two weeks later, I lay on a table covered in acupuncture needles in the treatment room of Dean’ Chinese doctor in New York City as she worked on the chronic cough I’d had since a difficult marriage to (and subsequent divorce from) Jake. Suddenly, a flash went off in my brain.

Yes! I should write A Woman’s Survival Guide to Difficult Men. After two decades in the film and television industry, I knew how to navigate every variety of difficult man and finally land my forever man.

I’d stockpiled stories, notes and emails about the guys I’d dated in show business for twenty plus years. I could write about different archetypes of difficult men and how to deal with them. These men spanned the set from directors to location scouts and celebrities and also the psychological spectrum from narcissists to commitaphobes to faux Prince Charmings. The last chapter would be called “The Catch,” about Dean, my sexy, soulful cinematographer, whom I finally found after an ill-fated marriage and a string of dysfunctional relationships.

“I’m going to write this book,” I told Dean. “And maybe young women will benefit from my experiences. Maybe they can avoid my mistakes and find their catch sooner.”

But that wasn’t the book I wound up writing.

After nearly seven years together, Dean and I found ourselves at a crossroads. Would we grow and stay together or would this, too, end up on the scrap heap of love that unraveled once shit got real? (Would he become the Catch and Release?)

By the time I met Dean, I’d spent more than twenty years in the film and television industry. Perhaps no other landscape is more hyperbolized than show business where everything, including romance, borders on the extreme. People who are attracted to the dramatic arts tend to be attracted to drama. In that sense, Hollywood is the boot camp of dating. Work and love have taken me from Los Angeles to New York and Miami, from Sydney to London and Venice. While working in feature films, then writing and producing reality TV shows, including America’s Next Top Model, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and Bizarre Foods, another reality show was taking place behind the scenes: the adventures of my crazy love life. My relationships unfolded much like the reality television shows I produced. There was a plan at the outset, then we’d veer off in wild directions we hadn’t anticipated and fix the narrative in post.

When Mr. Perfect reveals his imperfections and you unveil yours, how do you know when it’s time to cut bait or to pry that ugly oyster open for the shiny pearl inside?

That’s what these pages explore.

This memoir is about us, the women, and how we self-actualize in our quest for true love. We seek therapy, consult psychics, ruminate, endlessly discuss, cry on the phone to each other. In short, we need a guide. These may be my stories, but they’re your stories, too. It’s about the choices we make and how they impact our lives, how deranged these emotions can make us, and what joys they can bring us, too.

While some of these stories may feel loaded, let me assure you, every finger is pointed at myself. It’s a little scary to release all the skeletons from my relationship closet, but memories of old lovers feel like ghosts haunting my present relationship. As terrifying as it is to lay bare the details of my wayward love life, it’s necessary in order to change the channel in my marriage (preferably to a classic rom-com where the protagonists live happily ever after). So, I’m opening up the closet, rattling bones and summoning ghosts to figure out how to release old patterns and create a new paradigm of healthy partnership.

Memory is a tricky measure of the truth. It’s been said that “all memoir is fiction and all fiction is memoir.” There are usually three versions: mine, his and The Truth. I dug deep for you. I’ve tried to be as honest and raw as possible, and I own every choice I’ve made along the way. I hold love in my heart for every one of the men in these pages. Especially the a**holes. They taught me the most.