Alisa Bowman Speaks

06. Jan, 2011 Categories: Resources by Sarah Baron 2 Comments

Alisa Bowman Speaks

Want to hear something refreshing and honest about marriage? Someone who doesn’t paint an unrealistic picture?

Then you are going to want to meet and learn about Alisa Bowman, author of the just-released book, Project: Happily Every After. Her story? After being a divorce daydreamer (that is just about the best term ever created), she refound love in her marriage, making it her happily ever after.

I read it and found it incredibly compelling. We interviewed her right at the release of her book. Today is the interview. Tomorrow is our take on what makes her story so compelling.

1. What has the reaction been to the book and to all of your interviews so far?

About 90 percent of the reaction has been phenomenal. People are telling me that they love the book for all the right reasons—the honesty, the humor, the story, and the advice. And the book seems to be doing exactly what I wanted it to do: encourage people to talk openly about marriage. The book just debuted, but already I’m getting emails, tweets, and other messages from friends, colleagues, acquaintances and strangers. They are coming out of the closet and talking about their marriages—and they are talking about them honestly, transparently and with a great deal of hope and humility. Of course there have been a few folks who just don’t get it. They’ve called me “clueless,” “selfish” and “melodramatic.” But a writer can’t please everyone.

2. Your husband seemed willing to try whatever you threw at him to make it work. What would you advise for those women and men whose partners are not so willing?

Work on yourself. It won’t feel fair, of course, and you will find yourself thinking stuff like, “Why am I working on myself when he’s the one who has to change!” Just keep reminding yourself of three important truths:

1 . You have no other option. It’s either this, a lifetime of misery or divorce.

2. Even if he never comes around, you’ll be a better person in the end. All of your self-improvement will have made you happier, more assertive and stronger—so you can stand on your own two feet while married or while alone.

3 . You just might find that your spouse follows just behind you. As you become happier, he will adjust accordingly. I’ve found that marriage improvement is a lot like a dance. One spouse leads. The other follows. As you work on yourself, learn and practice skills that will help you both in marriage and in life. Assertiveness is important in all life endeavors, including marriage. So are listening skills. So is forgiveness.

3. I found the project side of your personality fascinating. Are you always a project-based person?

Yes, I like to divide issues into two categories: what I can do something about and what I can’t. I patiently accept what I can’t change. Of what I can change, I follow a process: I break big problems down into several categories. For instance, for the marriage project, I broke the problem of “I wish my husband would drop dead” down into anger (and the need to forgive), lack of attraction (and the need to revive our sex life), resentment (and the need to feel adored), fighting (and the need to learn how to communicate) and loneliness (and the need to work on emotional intimacy). I read and learn everything I can about each category, one at a time. I try various solutions. I assess my progress. I repeat as needed. I used this process to train my dog. I used it to lift depression. I even used to it market my own book.

4. Any other sexy suggestions you’ve picked up along the way speaking with other women along the lines of “the Martini?”

Yes, I’ve learned a lot since writing the book because feeling sexy is a constant struggle for me. This is what I’ve learned:

• Make sex a priority. If you are too tired or too stressed to do it, that’s a sign that sex is not a priority for you. If it were a priority, then you would solve the problems that are causing you to feel stressed and fatigued.

• Seduce him. I used to think that I needed my husband to seduce me in order to get turned out. As it turns out, I’m more likely to get in the mood if I attempt to seduce him instead. For instance, I gave him a strip tease last year for his birthday. It turned out that I really gave a gift to myself. • Coconut oil. Many women experience lubrication issues as we age. This is something that few people talk about because it’s embarrassing. And commercial lubricants leave a lot to be desired. But coconut oil smells nice, feels nice and is also good for what ails women. According to my gynecologist, it actually fights yeast infections. It’s solid at room temperature, but it will melt in your hands. Insert a little inside your vagina before sex, and use it as a lubricant for you and for him.

5. What has been your biggest surprise from writing this book?

I’m amazed by how everyone seems to read something different into the book. Many women read it and get seriously mad at my husband. But others read it and they tell me that my husband is a “great guy” and that my marriage just wasn’t all that bad. And still others fall somewhere between the two extremes. Maybe they hate my husband, but they think the marriage improvement project itself went too smoothly. It’s fascinating to me to see how different people interpret the book differently, and they seem to interpret it based on what their own marriages are like.

6. What is the biggest mistake you see women make in their marriages today?

We feel hurt or resentful for very legitimate reasons, but we retaliate in completely dysfunctional ways. We do passive aggressive things like make sure there is no dinner left for him when he doesn’t call to say he’s running late. We withhold sex because he didn’t watch the kids as promised. When he asks, “What’s wrong?” we say, “Nothing, I’m fine” when we’re not. And we bully and control our spouses rather than treating them like human beings with a different point of view. I practiced all of those behaviors and I practiced them for years. That’s how I know they are dysfunctional—they almost brought my marriage to an end. It wasn’t until I embraced humility, got over the idea of “fairness” and became the “big person” that I was able to assertively speak up for myself without feeling the need to lash out and punish my husband in the process.

See what I mean? Tomorrow, we discuss the book and what made it so compelling for me and the deeper issues it brings up…