Miss Becky's Breakup Boot Camp

By Becky Rutledge

Leave him.  .  .wondering what happened!
Listen up, Ladies!  Breaking up doesn't have to be so hard to do, especially when you know how to turn your suddenly single sorrow into Southern-style sass.
If you're nearing the end of relationship road, Miss Becky's Break Up Boot Camp will show you Southern belle tricks for dumping him with diplomacy. Whether you've got a dead-end boyfriend, a deadbeat husband, or just plain want the man in your life dead, Miss Becky dishes up the breakup tips you need to get you back on your feet:
 

   • If I Knew Then What I Know Now: Stop repeating your mistakes.
 
   • Excuses, Excuses:   Interpreting male break-up speak.
 
   • Annie Get Your Gun!: Tips for avoiding stalkers and other bad news exes.
 
   • Ex-Etiquette: How to behave.  .  .and misbehave without getting caught.
 
   • Food for the Broken Heart: Southern Belle Break-up Foods.
 
   • Getting Back on that Horse: How, when and why to start dating again.

So grab a mint julep, slide into your little black dress, and get ready to move on!
Miss Becky Rutledge hails from a long line of real live sassy and strong Southern belles.  When she's not doling out dating advice, she works as a clinical psychologist in Memphis, Tennesee, specializing in family and relationship therapy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Citadel Press
• Release date: Nov 20, 2014
• ISBN: 9780806537849

Book preview

Page

Introduction

Men are almost always showing us their best side when they are courting us. But even what starts out as the sweetest dreams can have nightmarish endings. Once men commit, the other side emerges and, occasionally, it ain’t pretty!

Some of the signs are subtle, but others are right there in front of you. Can’t see them? Check out the following signs that your relationship is headin’ south (pardon the pun, but it’s just too perfect!).

He can’t hang out with you because he’s going to lots of football games with his buddies—even though it’s the middle of the summer and he thinks you’re too stupid to realize it’s the off-season. Puh-lease . . . Southern women know their football!

He is not the least bit ashamed to call you, wasted, in the middle of the night because his car has been stolen and he needs a ride home—from the topless club!

He thinks beer is a mouthwash.

Whenever your girlfriends ask how the two of you are doing, you respond with something along the lines of, I’ve been thinking of cutting/coloring my hair. What do you think? I just feel the need to change things up a bit.

Not only do you encourage him to hang out with the boys, you have actually started to organize poker nights, flag football games, and strip-club outings just to get him off the damn couch for a few hours! Hell, you’ll even go to the bank and get him a wad of one-dollar bills for Tiffany the stripper so you can avoid spending time with him!

All those little personality quirks that used to be so cute have begun to drive you positively up the wall. For instance, you used to laugh so hard when he sang at the top of his lungs in the car even though he was tone deaf and screwed up most of the words. But now you think, So help me God, if that man opens his mouth to butcher that song one more time, I’m gonna strangle him with my purse strap.

Consider the following five things: TV football game, the couch, beer and nachos, tightie whities, and breaking wind. If he is involved with all of these at the same time, you’re in trouble!

Even though he’s out of work, he’s just been too busy to call you. And, even after you’ve told him this is unacceptable, he still doesn’t call. But he does text. Texting does not a relationship make!

He tells you that your butt looks big in your pants—before you ask!

He’s too tired for sex. What will happen next? Hell freezing over?

Now if you don’t recognize any of the signs above, perhaps you need further help. Miss Becky’s Breakup Boot Camp may be just the ticket to helping you decide if it’s time to dump your man. You’ll learn to do it with such grace and charm that it will happen before he even knows it. Whether you’re single with a dead-end boyfriend or in a marriage that is, regrettably, not what you had hoped it would be, this book will get you through it.

If, God forbid, you are the one who is being dumped, I’ll help you bounce back and get your revenge. How do you divide up your stuff, and what should you wear to divorce court? After all, these are important issues for Southern belles and should be for the rest of you, too.

And if that’s not enough, I’ll share with you some irresistible Southern comfort foods to get you through that poor me period. Then, it’ll be time to learn how to get back on that horse and ride, sister, ride!

This book is your key to breakup success and your return to the top of the heap! So find yourself a comfortable chair, a box of tissues, and a strong drink, and read on!

PART ONE

Washing That Man Right out of Your Hair

CHAPTER ONE

When Mr. Right Turns into Mr. Nightmarishly Wrong

You’re probably asking yourself, Just what in the hell was I thinking ? You thought you did everything right and found yourself the perfect man. However, he has managed to transform himself into some reincarnation of Satan! Don’t worry, ladies, it has happened to all of us at one time or another. It’s time for you to change direction, that’s all. Thank goodness you found this book in time, for I am going to teach you everything you need to know to get rid of your man. It will take hard work, a bit of gumption, and a kick-ass attitude if you want to wash him right out of your hair! But I’ll be right by your side, providing tips, plans, and advice. You are not alone. Plenty of us Southern belles have been there, and we have the scars to prove it. So pull yourself up by your bootstraps and let’s get to work!

Sometimes, it’s just plain hard to tell if it’s time to ditch your dead-end boyfriend. Dumping him may sound like as hard a job as keeping him. Or you might hold out hope that he will turn back into Mr. Right. Or you may think you know of lots worse guys, so perhaps you’d better stick with what you’ve got. Ummm—NO! These are pathetic reasons to hold on to your current relationship. We belles know we are worthy of so much more, and so are you! Consider the following ten types of issues that might signal trouble—if you recognize any of these in your man, he may not deserve you, and therefore he must go!

HYGIENE

When a new man comes into your life, he’s usually minding his p’s and q’s. He’s clean and neat for the most part. But other men may not have the same view. Think of it like doing the dishes. It’s not a matter of who’s doing the dishes, it’s a question of whether the dishes are dirty. What I mean is that men don’t always consider the same things to be dirty or gross as we girls do.

Some men will think nothing of wearing the same underwear for four or five days in a row. The same goes for socks. It’s not hard to tell who’s been walking all over God’s green acre in the same pair of white tube socks for several days. In fact, I can pretty much tell you what my friend Buster had for dinner the last three nights in a row. All I have to do is look at the top and bottom of his socks for the remnants of food dropped from his dinner (he ain’t too neat, either!). He thinks nothing of it, especially because he lets his dog, T-Bone, gnaw on those socks and he figures that counts as cleaning!

Other signs of poor hygiene include BO that you can smell from across the room. It’s an especially bad sign when you see others cringe as he walks by with the cloud of disgusting odor clinging to him, like Pigpen, that dirty kid with the dust in the Peanuts cartoon. Or, if he opens his mouth to say something and you smell his halitosis before he can speak a word, that’s not a good sign, either. I went to law school with the nicest man, but the poor thing smelled as if he never brushed his teeth. Apparently, he never had a clue because no one wanted to hurt his feelings by telling him.

If your man has greasy hair, and not on ’count that he thinks it looks good that way, he’s not taking care of himself. The same thing goes if his clothes are perpetually dirty or messy. If he was keeping himself up when you first met him, and he seems to have adopted a devil-may-care attitude ever since, then he has no respect for himself, nor does he have any for you!

UNAVAILABILITY

This is really just a nice way of saying he has another girlfriend or he is married. If he’s upfront with you about this and you don’t have a problem with it, then by all means, jump right on in!

The situation is more difficult when he doesn’t tell you and you develop feelings for him. Then he drops the bomb on you: Oh by the way, I am still seeing my old girlfriend, but we are in the middle of breaking up. Yeah, right. Can’t he just break up with her? How long will that take? Or how about, I’m so glad I met you. I didn’t want to ruin what is the beginning of something great, so I waited to tell you about my wife. Give me a break! Like there was ever a good time to bring that up?

Girls, if he’s still in some sort of relationship—whether it’s a divorce, a breakup, or a continuing deal—he is unavailable, no matter what he tells you! He may be telling you the truth and is indeed extricating himself from another relationship. But while he is ending that one, he isn’t going to have the time to pay attention to you as the goddess that you are deserves. There’s also the chance that his idea of breaking up and how long that should take is completely different from what your idea of it is. If he isn’t out of another relationship pretty quickly, he may be trying to have his cake and eat it, too! If you think he’s worth the wait, then hang in there. Otherwise, accept his unavailable status and move on.

SEX

Don’t you love the feeling you get at the beginning of a relationship? That butterflies-in-your-stomach, can’t-keep-your-hands-off-each-other feeling? With time, however, even the most passionate of couples experience a natural change in their sex lives. This is pretty normal considering that after a while, you know everything there is to know about each other sexually. It is no longer the first time with him, so the excitement changes. So if sex is the only reason a man wants to be with you in the beginning, then it’s bad news unless that’s all you want, too.

It’s natural to have less sex as the relationship goes on, but if the sex begins to drop off until there is no sex at all, it’s bad news. Some couples actually decide to never have sex. Maybe it’s because of health reasons, for example, but they stay together anyway. But down here in the South, that’s something we don’t quite get! When sex is not forthcoming, we belles tend to wonder if our men are getting it elsewhere, and typically we are right about that.

It bears emphasizing that your man is not a keeper if he expects you to do things sexually that makes you uncomfortable or that you don’t like. No actually does mean no, and don’t you forget it! I remember when a lawyer I knew, Gail, said her new boyfriend wanted her to dress up like a cowgirl and holler Giddy up and Whoa, cowboy during sex. While Gail thought it was hysterically funny and absolutely unnecessary, it didn’t make her uncomfortable enough to decline. After all, like she said, If that’s all it takes to make him happy, well . . .

It didn’t stop there. Eventually, this same boyfriend wanted Gail to swing from the ceiling while suspended from some sort of gadget. This time, she wasn’t into it; not only because swinging and spinning make her sick as a dog, but it was also something she just didn’t want to do. When she explained this to her boyfriend, he sulked and told her that he just might have to find sex elsewhere if she couldn’t fulfill his needs. She told him to go right ahead and find himself a gymnast if that’s what he wanted!

So with sex, it needs to be pleasant and fulfilling for both of you, not just him. If you are finding early on that this is not the case, you might try to see if you can alter things such that the sex pleases you, too. But there will come a point where you’ll just know that sex with this person is not going to make your toes curl, and then it’s time to pitch him to the curb where someone else can enjoy him!

HIS SUPERIORITY

If you are with a man who criticizes everything you do, it’s a good time to run like the wind and get away from him! My friend Amy met Todd at one of those speed-dating parties. What she liked the most was his quick wit. In the beginning, he’d tease her about certain things, such as the way she drove, and her cooking. I’ll have to admit, we all found it to be pretty funny since we’d been in a car with her (she drives as if she’s in a NASCAR race!) and we’d eaten her cooking (let’s just say she’s on a first-name basis with the fire department!). As time went by, Todd became bolder in his comments about Amy. Have y’all noticed my little angel is getting a gut? he’d tease. Or, We can’t play poker. Amy can barely understand Go Fish!

I guess I don’t have to tell you that we began to worry about how Todd treated her. Hell, even some of the guys sided with us and told Todd to cut it out. Poor Amy would try to laugh it off, but you could see her spirit dwindling little by little every day. Nothing she did was right in Todd’s eyes. The last straw came when she brought home the beer that Todd liked so much. Now, in and of itself, bringing beer home to your boyfriend ain’t that big a deal, right? Not for Todd. Yes, ma’am, Amy said, Honey, I got the beer you like. He took one look in the fridge and proclaimed, You know I hate canned beer. I only want bottles.

As Amy told it, she took one of those cans, shook it up real good, and opened it in his face. Before he could utter one judgmental word, she told him where he could shove those cans and escorted him out the door. She had finally had enough. If you are in a relationship with a man like this, you might do well to do what Amy did!

YOU’RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME!

Akin to the superior man is the one who has to have everything done his way and wants to control your every move. Strong, independent women typically threaten men like this. If you have a career, for instance, it had better not be higher paying than his, or more important. He simply cannot handle it. He will take out his jealousy and his need to be the top dog by making you kowtow to his desires. Being in a relationship with this sort of man will soon begin