Podcast Episode:
Ever want to talk to a womanizer? Coming up we have a reformed man of the ladies. He is now an author and relationship coach. Let’s hear what he has to say … on this edition of Frank Relationships.
FRANK RELATIONSHIPS: TERRY BAMS, AUTHOR (THE MIND OF A WOMANIZER), AND RELATIONSHIP COACH
Guests: Terry Bams
Date: July 15, 2013
Frank: Ever want to talk to a womanizer? Coming up we’ll have a reformed man of the ladies. He’s now an author and a relationship coach. Let’s here what he has to say on this edition of Frank Relationships.
Welcome to Frank Relationships where we provide a candid, fresh and frank look into relationships with goals of acceptance, respect and flexibility. I’m Frank Love and you can find me, my blog and my various social media incarnations at franklove.com.
Once again I’m joined by my co-host, psychology expert extraordinaire, Dr. Gayl.
Dr. Gayl: Wow. Hey, Frank.
Frank: You might as well go over to the other side of the ring with our guest, because I know we’re going to be disagreeing today. How the heck are you?
Dr. Gayl: I’m good. I’m good.
Frank: Good. Good. Today we’re going to get in the mind of a reformed womanizer and boy does he have a lot to say. Want to hear about the 90 day rule from someone other than Steve Harvey? Want to know why men cheat, whether the Zodiac signs really matter? Why men love whores? What the two week rule is and a litany of other fascinating opinions, then join me for the next hour as we chop it up with relationship coach and author, Mr. Terry Bams. Welcome to the show.
Terry: Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Dr. Gayl: Good morning.
Terry: Good morning.
Frank: Let’s get started with what’s a womanizer? Seems like something that most people think they know, but I want to hear your opinion.
Terry: Pretty much in the book of the, The Mind of a Womanizer, that came out–actually next month will be two years and now–I defined it and I defined through my life, because so many women have called me a womanizer. But I don’t think people really knew what it was, because womanizers don’t necessarily–I guess using women for sex 100 percent of the time.
Womanizers are what Dr. Gayl would be to psychology: she’d go to school, she learns it; she studies it. That’s what a womanizer is to women. Womanizers study women. They know women like the back of their hand. They know how to use them for whatever the cause may be. Whether its sex, conversation, to learn more about women, money, whatever it is.
Womanizers will never admit it. That’s the thing. A womanizer knows he’s a womanizer, but he will never admit it and you’ll never know.
Frank: Well, is being a womanizer a bad thing? I hear a negative connotation. I’m curious where you fall in.
Terry: Yes, it’s not a good thing. There’s nothing to glorify about a womanizer, because a womanizer he knows what he can do and he knows the powers that he has.
Dr. Gayl: If you’re a single guy just dating, kicking it, going out here and there, are you still a womanizer?
Terry: No, there’s a difference. Like womanizers like within my past, woman knew how I moved. Women knew there were other women. That’s really the root to a womanizer. Women would know that there would be other women, but it would be no problem. That’s pretty much the difference.
Frank: So why is that a negative? If she knows everybody–
Terry: Why is it negative?
Frank: Yeah, why is that negative? Everybody’s educated.
Dr. Gayl: And if you’re dating and the woman is dating as well and no one stated that we’re in a committed relationship, how is that being a womanizer?
Terry: It never turns into that. That’s the big picture of the whole situation. When you’re dating a woman and you start having sex with a woman and now you’re involving emotions. It can start off as just friends and dating and being casual, but it never ends that way and someone always ends up with their heart broken. That’s the difference.
Now if a man is just dating and she’s dating other people, that’s not considered as someone being a womanizer. But someone being *(inaudible) 04:45 a whole different story.
Frank: What’s wrong with heartbreak? You noted that it always ends in heart break. What’s wrong with that?
Terry: It’s like the food chain. Heart breaks only ends as a person for the next person. The more heart break the person goes through, they put up walls, they put up protection, because the one thing that people don’t really deal with well, is heart break. It’s something negative.
So heart break is never good, but we also have to go through it so we can learn from it. But sometimes people put themselves in the same predicament over and over again when in know the outcome.
Frank: I’m not clear whether if we’re learning from heartbreak, is it really a bad thing?
Terry: It’s a bad thing if you put yourself in the same predicament over and over again, which most people do. Most of the time when people end up in heartbreak, it’s never because of them dating like two different guys or two different types of women, it’s them going back into the same situation.
For example, if a woman would date, let’s say an athlete and he makes millions of dollars and she end up with heartbreak. And she dates another athlete and she ends up with heartbreak. And she dates another one–well you can do nothing but blame yourself after that, because you keep doing the same repeated cycle over and over again.
Frank: Well, who are you blaming if it’s just one? And why you need to blame anybody? Why not?
Terry: As far as the heartbreak?
Frank: Yeah.
Terry: Yeah, you blame the person that keeps putting their self in the situation, not necessarily the person that she’s dating. She can blame herself if she keeps putting herself in the same predicament.
Frank: Okay. Tell us about the title of your book, I Married my Best Friend. That’s quite a title.
Terry: It’s basically a spiritual self-help book. I titled it, I Married my Best Friend, because it has all the message and ingredients to get you to that point, whether if you’re already married or in a relationship, it adds to it. And I feel like friendship is the most important thing when it comes to a relationship, because when it comes to just your personal best friend whether it’s man or woman, that’s who we share our inner dark secrets, that’s who we open up to, that’s who we laugh with, that’s who we play with, that’s who we lean on when we need someone and that’s a partnership life.
Frank: But what if you’re not marrying for laughter and fun and good times? What if you marrying for money? Is it important–
Terry: You shouldn’t marry.
Frank: I’m the first to tell people who you get married for whatever you want to get married for. I don’t feel comfortable telling somebody you should not get married for whatever reason you want to get married for. Why would you feel so comfortable?
Terry: Because it’s only going to last for so long.
Frank: Everything is only going so last for so long.
Dr. Gayl: Frank is not in it for the long haul.
Terry: What happens when the money runs out? What happens when someone gets in a car wreck and can’t have sex anymore?
Frank: Well who says–
Terry: You have to have some substance when it comes to marriage. And that’s the thing that’s wrong with the world. We’re subjective to what we see on TV and what the world says marriage is and we forget who’s the author of marriage and what matters when it comes to marriage. And that’s why we have so many divorces these days, because people get married for the wrong reasons.
Dr. Gayl: You know Terry, my friend told me the other day, who appears to me to be happily married–she stated, “Gayl, everyone gets married for the wrong reasons, initially and then you learn what the reason is. You guys have kids, you build a life together. You build love and family and you just build on what you had initially and what you had initially is nothing compared to years down the road.” So what would you say about that, because you just stated that people get married for the wrong reasons?
Terry: He said because of money. If someone came to me and said, I’m going to marry Joe, “Because he has a million bucks, I would say, well you know honey, you need to look for something else, in this relationship before you take that step, because what if something happens to Joe and he doesn’t have the million dollars anymore?” That’s the difference.
Some people marry just because of the *(inaudible) 09:20 they have for the first three months or the first six months. Or they married because they feel like they met Ms. Right and she’s the most beautiful thing walking. Nothing is wrong with that, but if you marry someone for money or for sex, there is no guarantees, because those things always change.
Frank: Well there are no guarantees anyway and if someone wants to get married for money and the money runs out, “Well, we’ll deal with that when the money runs out and if I want to marry you, because you’re good looking and you may be in some form of accident and your face maybe disfigured, we’ll deal with that when we get there.” There are no guarantees period. Why are you so set on it being one basic standard when there are not even any guarantees with that standard?
Terry: I didn’t even give one basic standard. I gave several different ones.
Frank: Okay.
Terry: You mentioned money and I said, “No, I would never tell someone, you need to marry him, because he has money.” And that frame of thinking is why the divorce rate is so high.
Frank: And what’s wrong with that?
Terry: And that’s why I’m here to change it.
Frank: What’s wrong with the divorce rate being high?
Terry: That’s the negative. It nags people out. It makes people think “Why get married, because the divorce rates are high?” Like their marriage will automatically fail, because of the divorce rates are high. I’m surrounded by people that have been married for 20 plus years. I don’t see divorce that often, but for other people they see divorce very often, because of that frame of thinking.
“Let me marry him because of this,” or “Let me marry her because of this,” instead of standing on something that has some substance to marry the person. If you don’t really have something to hold on with that marriage, I suggest you keep dating until you get there. But until then, you don’t, because marriage doesn’t fix problems, it complicates them.
Dr. Gayl: Terry, did you marry your best friend?
Terry: Yes, I did.
Dr. Gayl: You did. Okay, what caused you to get to where you are now, being a prior womanizer?
Terry: I’ve been ready for marriage, I think about four years before I met her. I was actually in a long-term relationship before me and her even took that step.
So I been ready for years, it’s just I wasn’t with the right person. I kept thinking I was and I kept putting myself in a situation to force it. I even putting a ring on her finger and everything *(inaudible) 11:57 but it wasn’t the right person.
Dr. Gayl: Is that the person you speak of in your blog that you were with for seven years?
Terry: That I was with for seven years? No, it was not that person.
Dr. Gayl: Okay.
Terry: Or anyone in my past. Anyone in my past just wasn’t the right person. It doesn’t matter if I tried to make it work or if I married them or whatever the situation may have been, it wouldn’t have been there.
Actually, getting back to what Frank said about marrying for the wrong reasons–because I got married when I was 19. I didn’t know nothing about marriage. I married her because she was 28, we had good sex and she had money. And after I married her, the marriage only lasted three months and I didn’t have no idea or no clue of what marriage was about. I didn’t know nothing about God. I didn’t know nothing.
Frank: So, was that marriage a mistake?
Terry: It was a lesson learned. I don’t really call too many things in life a mistake. It was a lesson learned. It taught me that I needed to be more educated on marriage. I needed to be more educated on what I really needed in a relationship and not what I wanted.
Frank: Why don’t you carry the same point of view to divorce? Why are divorces not simply lessons learned as everything and why are they negative?
Terry: The thing about divorce–I’m not even 100 percent against divorce. I might have coached over thousands of people and I can probably count on one or two hands how many times I done told people to get divorced.
So, I’m not against it. It’s just doing body harm to you and the person just doesn’t want to get right and they’re constantly cheating, you have no choice. But if you’re just getting a divorce, because now Joe doesn’t have his millions and you guys are just going through a couple trials and tribulations, then no you need to stick in there. Because when it was all good, you guys were smiling and happy, but now things are heading south, now a person wants to run.
Marriage is work and that’s the reason why I feel that type of way about divorce, because people run when it gets tough, when things start falling apart when it comes to finances, because finances is the number one problem that even forces divorce most of the time–when people start struggling. Because, then it starts relating on the mentally and the emotionally.
And if you’re mentally and emotionally out of whack, now your [acts] 14:23 is out of whack. Now you guys are not having sex, you’re not talking, you’re not conversating, you’re not dating, you’re not doing anything. Now you feel like you need to get a divorce. That’s why it’s so important to have something to hold onto.
That’s what made me marry my wife, because she gave me something that hundreds of women couldn’t give me. She gave me the connections, she gave me friendship. I can be myself. I can talk to her. I can laugh with her. It was just different and I knew that this woman, I wasn’t going to let go. And I thank God for that, because if it wasn’t for me marrying her, if it wasn’t for me being with her, I know for a fact I wouldn’t be talking to you guys today.
Frank: You noted that when men commit that it generally isn’t our fault, that it didn’t work out and Dr. Gayl clearly doesn’t agree as she’s looking at me like I’m crazy. Please explain.
Terry: Because, if I coached maybe–let’s say 20 people in a day, 18 of them are going to be women and they’re going to have problems with commitment, they’re going to have problems with cheating, they’re going to have problems with lying, things of that such.
Frank: Meaning, they did it themselves.
Dr. Gayl: No, with the raggedy men that they’re fooling with.
Terry: And it’s not even being about being biased, because I have a lot of male clients as well that go through some of the same things also, but for the majority its women, its women that’s having this problems.
I don’t have many men come to me with problems. I have majority of women come to me with these problems. That would show that numbers, numbers don’t lie. It’s the man that’s having problems with commitment and it’s mainly, because of what we see. It’s because we see the things in rap videos, we see the things on TV. We have access to more things with Facebook and Twitter. We see the video girls. We have options. So, when you have options, its lead up to that.
Dr. Gayl: In one of your blogs you noted that, this is the reason as to why it’s a woman’s problem that the relationship doesn’t’ work out, it’s because one, you stated that women typically force men into their relationships so they feel like they have no other option.
Terry: That’s true.
Dr. Gayl: Now, they’re here and it’s like, “Well, gees you caused me to get in this relationship. I didn’t really want to be in it in the first place, so now I’m going to go out and be with whoever I want to, because I really didn’t want to be here in the first place.”
Terry: That’s true too, because what happens is, women put some man in a corner where they will kind of force their arms to be in a relationship when everything showed before the relationship that they should’ve never got in it.
They could’ve been having other women. They could’ve been cheating. They could’ve been doing several other things before the relationship happened and she could have probably caught him up with something and said, “Hey, I’m leaving unless you be with me,” and he’s with her and it’s still a continuous cycle. Sometimes it goes that way also.
Frank: You said if you’re dating for over six months and they won’t commit to let it go.
Dr. Gayl: And you know what? I agree, because my mama told me that too. But what’s your reason Terry?
Terry: You’re wasting your time. There’s not a man alive that can tell me honestly, with his hand on a stack of Bibles and Jesus over his shoulder that he doesn’t know that this is the woman that he can be with after three months.
It’s no man that can tell me that. We know these things. We just choose not to abide by them, because we don’t have to sometimes. I mastered that. That’s one thing that a womanizer mastered at, is not committing. Making women feel like they’re in a committed relationship without saying it. After six months that’s when you let it go. That’s way too long. You’re wasting your time.
Frank: Wait, you–
Terry: When of course it’s not promised.
Frank: You didn’t say when you talked about a womanizer before, you didn’t say anything about making a woman feel like she’s in a committed relationship. In fact, you said just the opposite that the woman knows that she’s not in a committed relationship. Please bridge the gap between that and the comment you just made.
Terry: She knows by the time you spend with her, how you make her feel like she’s the only one, but she knows you’re not going to give that commitment, because she feels like most of the time–most women feel like, if she forces that hand, that you’re going to walk away. That you’re not going to give her what you’ve been giving her every single day, every single week and every single month that you dated her.
That’s the difference in bridging the gap, not telling her, “Hey, we’re going to be in a committed relationship,” but making her feel like she’s in a committed relationship.
Dr. Gayl: By spending money on her, holding her hand when you guys go out, PDA stuff like that.
Terry: Pretty much. You spend money. That’s part of the entertainment: going to the movies and out to eat. That’s just entertainment. But not holding hands and things of that such.
Frank: Are you saying these women that you’re talking about are basically, stupid?
Terry: No, I wouldn’t say stupid.
Dr. Gayl: And I wouldn’t say stupid either.
Frank: I mean, she knows that you’re not in a “committed” relationship. She knows you’re not–
Terry: She has false hopes.
Dr. Gayl: Women do have hopes. They have false hopes.
Terry: They have false hopes. They basically feel like “If I can give him the cow, maybe he’ll buy the milk.” They feel like, “If I keep giving and giving and showing them that I’m this wonderful woman, then maybe he’ll commit.”
Dr. Gayl: “Maybe he’ll change his mind.”
Terry: “Maybe he’ll change his mind.”
Frank: And you’re saying a woman is not getting anything out of that relationship up to that point? She’s just an entertain–
Terry: No, because a woman ultimately wants a relationship. She’s doing all those things to get to that point. It’s like working a job. If you have your mind set on being the manager, you’re going to do everything possible to climb the rank. And if someone gets promoted before you that came in after you, you’re going to be very upset and that’s what women do.
Women work men like they’re working a job. Like “Hey, I want to eventually be his wife. I want to eventually be his woman, so I’m going to do this and do that and do this and do that,” but then when it doesn’t work out, now heartbreak. “Now I’ve done gave him my all. He never committed to me.”
Frank: But a woman–
Terry: That’s why after five or six month you should stop.
Frank: If it’s like working a job, you’re leaving out the part where she’s getting a paycheck.
Dr. Gayl: She does receive some compensation. She gets however–
Terry: She gets to spend time with him.
Dr. Gayl: Right. However, many times hours of day he gives her.
Terry: Like I said before, it’s like if you come into a corporation and your mindset is on, “I want to be the manager. I want to be the supervisor,” and Joe comes in months behind you and Joe gets promoted before you. But you feel like you’ve been working your butt off. You’ve been working overtime, you’ve been doing this and doing that, you’re going to be mighty upset. The check is not going to matter, because then you’re going to feel like you’ve been disrespected, you’re not valued and like, “You know what? Maybe I need to find somewhere else to work.”
Frank: But you do need to find somewhere else to work and that’s the point.
Terry: And that’s the reason why you don’t make, you wait over six months.
Frank: Wait, you do need to find somewhere else to work, number one. Number two, just because you think that you should be the manager, doesn’t mean you should be the manager. It means simply, you think you should be the manager. It doesn’t necessarily mean that staying overtime and working super hard is what’s going to get you there. And for you to have the preconceived notion that, that will get you there is the recipe for heartbreak, because a relationship must be mutual.
You have to be providing value that someone else values. And if your partner doesn’t value it, whether it’s a job or a relationship, then the connection isn’t there and you’re not going to get “promoted” as you’re saying.
Yet you’re not wasting your time and to say that a person who doesn’t get–as you’re putting it-promoted, doesn’t get the managerial position wasted their time–it’s disingenuous, it’s setting your readers and listeners up to play the victim, unnecessarily, when they can just simply look at the scenario and say, “I invested my time in x, y and z. It worked the way I wanted it to work or it didn’t work the way I wanted it to work.”
Terry: So you suggesting that women, not even–let’s get off of just women. You’re suggesting that people should consistently date people for long-term, don’t get a relationship out of it, don’t get anything out of it, but they feel like they did a 100 percent and to date, let’s say four or five people and this keep happening too. That’s okay?
Frank: I’m suggesting that if whatever you’re doing, whoever you’re dating, you date them, because you like dating them. You enjoy the company, you enjoy your experiences together, you may end up married, you may end up in a long-term relationship, but you may not. And either way, its okay. That’s what I’m suggesting.
Dr. Gayl: I think that’s a complete waste of time.
Terry: Everybody’s entitled to their own opinion.
Frank: And how is it a waste of time?
Dr. Gayl: It’s a complete waste of time. If two people have different outputs or if they don’t have a common goal, then it’s a waste of time.
One person is out here lollygagging and having fun, getting it in with this person and that person, while the other person is thinking long-term, just singular with this one person. You’re conflicting and it’s a waste of time.
Frank: Let’s put it back on Terry’s job scenario. There are numerous examples of someone applying for a job as “Hey,” you can just say a secretary and they do such a good job where the supervisor advances them unbeknownst to them.
They were just hiring a secretary. The person in the job was just expecting to be a secretary and the supervisor just expected them to be a secretary, yet they do such a great job they get a promotion.
Well, neither of them had that expectation of a promotion, but they got there. The same with relationships: they’re often times when we spend time with each and we enjoy ourselves and we just simply enjoy ourselves and you say at some point one of you may very well say, “Hey, you know, I like to be in a relationship with you.”
Dr. Gayl: Right, if you’re open to that. But if one person has wholeheartedly stated, “Hey I just want to be friends. I just want to go out. I just want to have a good time. I’m not looking for a relationship. I don’t want more.” That’s the difference than saying, “I’m open. We’re dating, we can friends and we can see where it goes to from here.”
Frank: Well, at no point did we discuss whether the other party was open to it or not and that’s not something that Terry said, that the partner–
Terry: Those are things that are discussed in the beginning. When you meet someone, nine out of 10, the man is always going to tell her what he’s looking for. And what happens is, she sees all of the good qualities and forgets what he said in the beginning and she invests that time, like you said–having a good time and figuring that “Well, maybe I can be different and open his eyes and maybe he’ll want a relationship,” and he doesn’t.
Most of the time when you’re dating someone–even through the course that he’s dating women, I’m pretty sure that in the beginning, this is always discussed. People don’t just go into situations most of the time and not discuss what they’re looking for, especially if you’re over 25 or 30.
Frank: Tell us about your journey to becoming a husband. Sounds like a pretty fun and exciting one that you’ve had.
Terry: It was actually. I was in a four year long-term relationship and in that relationship it helped me get to this point. Like you said, if the relationship doesn’t work out, then you count it as a mistake and that’s when I said, “No, I really don’t,” because I kind of thank God for her, because she made me better as far as being a man. It prepared me to be a husband.
I didn’t like washing clothes and cleaning up, but within that relationship those are things that I had to do. It better prepared me. Being a husband is only complicated if you make it complicated. That’s why I married my wife, because it’s not complicated.
She’s still my friend. I can still talk with her. I can still laugh with her, so I don’t feel like I’m the typical husband. I got to ask my wife for this and ask my wife for that. I don’t have to do those things.
Frank: What’s the difference between your wife and your previous long-term relationship?
Terry: The connection. She makes me smile. She cares about me, and I know it and I feel it. The previous relationship, I know she loved me, she cared about me as well, but it was just different. It was two different levels.
Frank: So, if you find a woman who makes you smile twice as much as your wife, you’d leave her?
Terry: No.
Frank: Okay, so what’s–
Terry: A woman would never get that close to me to make me smile twice as much. What I mean by her making me smile was, because I was open to her for her to make me smile. We were friends. There was nothing intimate. We hung out. We had fun. It was just different. It was something I never shared with a woman before. Even though, throughout my life I have had women friends and associates, but it was just different.
Dr. Gayl: So, it’s that intangible quality that you found in your wife that you didn’t have in the previous relationship?
Terry: It was something that I knew could last long-term, because with my previous relationship when I had the money, when I was making six figures a year, the relationship was great, but when the company went under, now the relationship is going to the pits. So, that’s the difference.
My wife been here before she became my wife. She was here through the struggles. She was here through this. She was here through that. So, I know she’s not here for the money.
I’m telling you, she’s the reason why I’m talking to you today, because there were periods of times when I just wanted to stop everything and stop everything and do something else. But because of her, now I’m here.
Dr. Gayl: Do you feel like you owe it her or was she just your encouragement? Do you feel like you owed it to her to marry her?
Terry: Not necessarily owed it to her as far as marrying her. Me marrying her was more honoring her. Showing her that, “I appreciate you and I don’t want you out of my life. I value you, so I want you to be here for the long haul, because not do I want you, but I need you in my life.” That’s why I married her.
Dr. Gayl: How long have you guys been married?
Terry: It’ll be a year next month.
Dr. Gayl: You’re still fresh?
Frank: You really think you need your wife?
Terry: Yeah, yeah. I would say that. Yeah.
Frank: And what would happen–
Terry: I love my wife.
Frank: What would happen if you didn’t have her?
Terry: What do you mean, like if she died tomorrow?
Frank: You determine how. You broke up, she died–
Terry: Well, breaking up and divorce is not an option. That would never happen, so I’m not worried about that. But if she died tomorrow, I mean life will go on.
Frank: Alright.
Terry: I would still be able to manage. But what I mean by want and need–to want like water, food and air is a need. We need these things to live. To drink Kool-aid, eat steak and whatever else, that’s a want. So my wife wasn’t a want. It was somebody that I knew, “I need her in my life.” I don’t want weigh my options for other women to see, “What else do I want” Do I want the girl with the big old booty? Do I want the girl with the long pretty hair or the pretty eyes?” I didn’t want to weigh my options. I was tired of wants. I wanted to focus on my needs and my needs was, “I need someone that could fulfill me internally.”
Dr. Gayl: I believe you answered this earlier, you stated that you were already to get married when you met your wife. So, were you already in that position prior to meeting her or was she the one that came and changed your mind?
Terry: No, because actually, when I ended that relationship, I started dating, but I started dating–actually with the message that I give today, the two week rule. I was dating women, just talking to them. I wanted to see if we could just get a connection through conversation, because I needed something to hold onto. I didn’t really care about you being the most beautiful thing walking or what you have and what you got, because I had all that already. I wanted something that I can hold onto something with them.
Dr. Gayl: Right, so you already went into it–
Terry: No, I dated other women. Before I took that step with her, she knew it. I was dating other women and talking to other women, it just wasn’t nothing intimate or really going out with them or anything. But I wanted to see what they could bring to the table and I was upfront with these women. I told them. I said, “Next year I’m getting married. Whoever it is, I don’t know.”
Dr. Gayl: Yeah, but at this time it sounds like you were dating with a purpose rather than before, you were just–
Terry: Right.
Dr. Gayl: Right.
Terry: Yeah.
Dr. Gayl: Okay.
Terry: Right. With the previous relationship, with that situation, we actually met online and then it just went just a hundred miles per hour after that. We were living together and in a relationship and everything else within a month or two, but I had already knew when I met her. I was ready for commitment. When I’m ready for a commitment, I go in with it, but if a commitment doesn’t work out then I went back to score my options with women.
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You’re listening to Frank Relationships and we’re talking with relationship coach and author of The Mind of a Womanizer series and I Married My Best Friend, Terry Bams. Please, tell our listeners how they can find you and your books.
Terry: You can find me on Twitter at @mrbams. I’m on Facebook. AuthorTerryBams, go to my website, terrybams. And yes that is my real last name. Or you can just put in Google “Terry Bams” and all my information will come up. You can also get the books on Kindle, Nook and Amazon.
Frank: Something you said–I’m kind of taking us back. You talked about needing your wife and I got to admit, I have probably said something like that along the course of my relationship life, but I find that, that sounds good and is not true.
If I were to tell anybody I need them, be it my wife or anybody else, I would be lying, because as much as I love her and as much as I want her in my life, to say that I need her is an overstatement.
I would be okay, somehow or another, I don’t know what the circumstances would look like, but I would be okay without her as would she without me. Why do you feel such the need to make such–what I’m going to say, an overstatement?
Terry: That’s just my opinion and how I feel. Everyone is entitled to how they feel for their partner. But with my wife, I will always stand on it. She’s someone that I know that I need in my life. If something happened to her, yeah I probably would be devastated, but that she’s just someone I need and I’ll more say that, because of being with hundreds of women.
None of the women I ever needed. I didn’t really miss anyone. I cared about women. Even in my previous relationship, I loved her, but she went out of town or anything, I didn’t miss her. I didn’t need for her. But with my wife, when she’s away, I miss her, I need for her and I never felt that way. So, that’s the difference when it comes to me and comes to wants and needs, because I have wanted over hundreds of women. But for now, I have one that I feel like I need.
Frank: What’s the key element in a relationship?
Terry: Communication. Communication is everything, because once the communication stops, everything else stops: understanding, trust, loyalty, love. If you’re not talking, you’re just not getting anything across.
Frank: Are you talking about communication, meaning using your mouth, because we can be communicating with our body language around the house or without saying a word to one another?
Terry: Using your mouth, because are not mind readers and that’s part of the problem when it comes to relationships. We expect and we assume things and when you assume things you know the saying, “You make an a-hole out of yourself.”
So, it’s best to open your mouth and tell people how you feel. And it’s also timing is everything, how you present things. A lot of times when a woman is talking to a man she has to learn how to talk to him. Better yet, how to talk with him, because a lot of women talk at men and a man will get on the defense a lot quicker. That’s the thing and I thing and I think that if you practice, it will help grow relationships.
Frank: You’ve noted that it is important to establish a spiritual connection with God before looking for your soul mate, why?
Terry: It’s the foundation. If you’re looking for a soul mate and if you’re looking to get married, God is the author of marriage. Everything starts there and ends there and I wouldn’t go no other way, because I know that’s what helped me get to this point, because if it wasn’t for God, I wouldn’t be where I’m at right now. I wouldn’t. I know that for a fact.
Plus, you’re going to always have issues when it comes to life and it comes with dealing with people, even in relationships and God helps with that. He helps remove people, he helps add people. He helps you understand what love is, how to give love, how to receive love. It’s just a difference.
When I was in a four year relationship there was no spiritual connection and this marriage there is a spiritual connection and it’s different. It’s just totally different.
Frank: Explain the God is the author of marriage statement.
Terry: He’s the creator of marriage. He created Adam and Eve that was the point. Nowhere in the Bible does it say anything about man and woman becoming boyfriend and girlfriend and a woman is supposed to become husband and wife. So, marriage was never man-created: weddings, rings, all the glamour things that come with weddings are manmade. Marriage is created from God.
Frank: And how do you advise people who are not on the same spiritual track as you? Or do you?
Terry: It’s not really about being on the same spiritual track as me, because I wouldn’t, I’m not that holy. No one is that holy. But you get there. Practice, just commit, commit to a church, just go in as you are. Don’t worry about people judging you. That’s the hardest thing that people deal with and that’s what scares people away from churches and religious establishments and things of that such, because they worry about those things.
I came in as I was and now I’m here. Just give it a try. I would rather someone say, “I’m going to give God a try, I’m going to give this relationship a try with God,” because you got to do different things to get different results.
Frank: You have a prospective on selfishness. Please share it.
Terry: Selfishness: someone that’s more looking to receive than give. Selfishness–it won’t last for the long-term of the relationship, because the other person would be unhappy secretly.
They might not say it and a lot of people I know are in this position, where they’re married and the spouse is selfish and they think about themselves and they don’t really care to ask your opinion on things or to invite you to things. It’s no room for their relationship. In relationships compromises is a must. That’s the longevity ingredient: compromise.
Sometimes you have to give to receive. Sometimes you have to bite your tongue just to make it to another day, but that’s just what it comes to, because when you’re dealing with relationships, you’re dealing with two different people, two different minds.
No matter how much, I might love my wife and I might feel like she’s my right companion and my life partner, it doesn’t necessarily mean we’re going to always think alike.
Sometimes you have to compromise and that’s when communication comes into it. When you talk about things and you sit down and you say, “Okay babe, I want to do this on this day. We can do this on this day with you.” That’s when you eliminate [stuff] 42:37.
Frank: What do you consider the most important piece of device that you can give to men?
Terry: When you find that right one man, just hold on to her because I never knew I would find her again, because I feel like throughout my life, I had some good women. I have. I had some that would buy me a whole car if they could. But when you have that one, you just hold on to her, because there’s nothing else out here.
This world is getting worse than getting better and having someone that loves you for you, it can take you so many places in life. Because, most men want to be successful, want to have things, want to accomplish things and to have someone by your side that can help you get there, you can’t put a price on it.
Frank: You’re telling the men of the world or that are listening to stay with the woman you’re with, if you think she’s a good woman, because there’s nothing else out here?
Terry: Pretty much.
Frank: There’s no faith there and we’re talking–my understanding of you, is you’re a man of faith. I mean you talked about spirituality, you talked about God–
Terry: My faith is in God, not women. That’s where you’re mistaken at. My faith is only in God, not women.
Frank: Well, exactly.
Terry: God put my wife in my life and that’s why she’s here. I know that for a fact. So, when you have a good woman, there is no reason to keep going to go look. That’s kind of like–if you already have everything under the sun–and that’s part of the problem–we have everything that we want–she can be beautiful, nice body, great sex, make a good income, respectful, supportive, everything under the sun, but then we still want to look. We want to see, “Man, maybe it’s something else better out here. Let me keep looking.” That’s the problem.
Frank: Is there anyone in our life that God didn’t put there?
Terry: Yes and no, sometimes we hold on to people that God has told us everything under the sun, we need to remove.
Frank: But did God put them in your life?
Terry: He allowed it. God has the power to remove and add. He can let anything–He’s in control of everything. He can remove people, if He feels like they need to be in your life and He can let them stay there and I’m a witness to that.
I remember–and I will never forget, when for the first time in my life when I was in my previous relationship, that I got on my knees and started praying and I didn’t even know why.
This is when I just really got in church. I wasn’t holy or nothing like that, I was sitting all the way in the back of the church of a thousand people and I finally got on my knees and He gave me the mind to pray. So, I prayed.
The next night I had asked my current girlfriend, “Hey, let’s pray together tonight. Let’s do something different.” And she told me, “I’ll pray in the car, you can pray on your own.” And I’m like, “Hmm, okay.” And then, literally the next following week, the house that we were living in–that we were leasing to buy and we were scheduled to buy it a couple months down the road. The wife said her and her husband was getting a divorce and her husband wanted the house, so we had to move. That was my last sign that I needed, because me and this woman had been through hell and back.
I’m like, “Okay, now this is the last sign and it’s time for me to go.” And that’s why I say, if I didn’t let go of that situation and if I didn’t make the choice that I made today, I wouldn’t be talking to you today. I know that for a fact. But at times, we hold on to people that God has given us a sign to let them go.
Dr. Gayl: What’s the importance of being equally yoked?
Terry: Very important. And it’s not on the sense of saying that if someone is, I guess you could say, “A holy Christian” and they meet someone that’s a Christian or part of the church but not–
Frank: What’s the difference between a holy Christian and a Christian?
Terry: A holy Christian is someone that thinks they’re holier than Jesus and they just stay. They live, sleep, eat by the Bible. You see them, “It’s a blessed day.” It’s this, it’s that. It’s fine if you want to be that way, I’m not against that, but we’re human. We’re still human beings and we still have human thoughts, so no one’s that holy, no one’s that perfect, but Jesus.
But if you can be someone and be equally yoke, I suggest it, because if you’re unequally yoke, you’re fighting an uphill battle. It’s like some one that’s Catholic or Christian, they’re Muslim. I’m not saying I’m not against it or anything, because I have coached people that were in those situations
But for the long-term, you have to think about things. Most of the time we date people, we don’t think 10 years from now. We don’t think it’s like okay, “If we get married, do we get married at my Catholic Church or do we just or we don’t go that route, because I’m supposed to be submissive to my husband. Now do I have to be Muslim? Do I have to be this?” Those other things that you don’t think about and sometimes we ignore them–in the beginning when someone tells us their real beliefs.
Frank: What’s the most important piece of advice you can give a woman?
Terry: Just pay attention to what he says in the beginning. Any man that you date, listen to what he says in the beginning [pay attention to] 48:35 actions. And I say that, because some men are honest. Some men will say, “I’m not looking for a relationship. I just got out of one or I just got divorced.” And some men will say, “I’m looking for a relationship and their actions don’t show it.” So, pay attention to what he says and watch what he does.
Frank: You said that a man has a purpose in a relationship. What is that?
Terry: To be the man. To be the head honcho.
Dr. Gayl: What does that mean to be a man? Let’s say I’m a clueless woman, doesn’t know anything, like how Frank thinks of me and probably all women for that matter.
Frank: That’s not funny.
Terry: When it comes to I guess–when you separate the difference between being a married man and being a man in a relationship, there’s a difference.
Being the married man, you’re supposed to be the provider, the protector, the head of the household. You are to your wife the next person that has the authorization from God, because you’re, supposed to submissive to God and she’s submissive to you. So she’s going to follow your lead. So you are example of the household. Your children, everyone follows your lead.
And it’s not to say that women can’t have an opinion, because I value my wife’s opinion all the time. I always ask her about things before we make decisions, because she knows I’m going to have the final say so on things. But when it comes to relationships and being that man in a relationship, it’s important to show what you can be far as being that provider, making sure you have stability far as a job or whatever the situation may be. Show her that you can protect. And it’s not saying that every single man that looks at her, you smack them upside the head or anything, but you have to show her–
Frank: Just some of them.
Terry: What a man is. No not none of them. Then she’ll think you’re crazy. And the crazy part is, she’s going to like you even more. But it’s just being a man. Men know how to be men. That’s just what it comes down to.
Frank: You’ve been listening to Frank Relationships and we’re talking with relationship coach and author of, The Mind of a Womanizer series and I Married my Best Friend, Terry Bams. One more time, please tell our listeners how they can find you and your books.
Terry: You can find me on Twitter @mrbams. I’m on Facebook at AuthorTerryBams, my website, terrybams.com. And if you can’t find me on there, just put in “Terry Bams” and Google. You could probably put in “Bams” and it’ll come up. My books are on Kindle, Nook and Amazon. And that’s pretty much it.
Frank: Along today’s journey, we’ve discussed the two week rule, wants verses needs and the most important advice that brother Bams has for men and women.
I hope you’ve had as much fun as I’ve had chopping it up with Terry. I’m certainly grateful for the opportunity and the information.
As always it’s my wish for you to walk away from this conversation with a heaping helping of useful information that’ll help you create a relationship that’s as loving and accepting as possible. Let us know what you thought of today’s show at facebook/relationshipflove, on Twitter @mrfranklove or at franklove.com. On behalf of my producer, Phileta Legette and my assistant producer, Anayza Stewart, keep rising. This is Frank Love.
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