Excerpts from Sandra Harmon's "Getting To "I Do"....

There are many thousands of you out there who are successful at work but find yourselves without a relationship because you are confused by male and female roles. I will show you the clue you have been missing. I will tell you ten secrets that will allow you to meet the man you want and become engaged, very likely in the first year.

If you're a powerful woman, you don't have to change. You just have to learn how to use your female side to attract men--that is, if you want to be the female in the relationship. If not, I will teach you how to get the "right" man who will respect your leadership.

Part One: Before You Go Out the Door....

Although both male and female elements are vital to the make up of both men and women, I believe that for a relationship to be healthy and successful these must be reconciled and become complementary to each other. In other words, there can only be one male and one female in every relationship.

Which would you rather be?

A successful relationship has three components:

• Chemistry
• Compatibility
• Communication

Successful relationships are an exchange of opposite energies. If you want your thinking respected first, you will choose to be the "male" energy. If you want your feelings cherished first you will choose to be the "female" energy.

You cannot chaotically or spontaneously jump back and forth between the two energies. That destroys relationships and wears down one or both people.

The key is to know yourself, know which energy you are comfortable with, and ground yourself in that choice before you enter a relationship.

In a rational family a woman is taught to love herself first. The stereotypical image of the self-sacrificing woman is wrong.

One of the most important qualities your masculine man will look for from you is joyous receptivity. A second thing that a man wants from a woman is that she be available for him.

Casual, non-contractual sex in a normal woman triggers a bonding that can verge on physical addiction. This is due to a sexually stimulated hormone called oxytocin.

To have a loving, sexual, committed relationship all you need is one respectful, caring person and one cherished, fun person...and it doesn't matter which is which.

Part Two: How to Attract a Man

Before you to out there to attract a mate, decide whether you are the "male" or "female" energy.

If a woman doesn't take care of her body, if she can live in a messy environment, she is not in touch with her feelings as a woman.

These days you must go out and hunt for romance with the same skill and determination you would muster to look for a job or an apartment.

Chemistry is not negotiable, but whom you flirt with is. The initial attraction between two people is chemical. Chemistry is a body-to-body response.

The more passive a woman is, the more potent she is, because she attracts a man toward her. A woman is most erotic when she is magnetic.

Since male energy is assertive and female energy is passive, the one who speaks first is male.

A man needs to feel respected by the woman he is sexually attracted to, so instead of advice, try offering a man affection and respect. When a man requires a woman to give, he then becomes the female.

Part Three: The Four Stages of a Relationship

If you mate too soon, you are likely to be condemning the relationship to a sexual experience rather than to a lovemaking experience. Making love is a combination of physical chemistry, mental compatibility, and emotional generosity.

If you're a feminine-energy woman, you can't ask a man to change for you.

Women have to be patient, and the only way they can do that is to be anchored in their own self-love.

Women who are interested in marriage must signal men before sex that they are moving toward marriage, or too often the woman will be hurt and time will be wasted.

Learn how to talk to your man. You only have three lessons to learn. They are:

• How to ask for what you want
• How to say "no" to what you don't want without becoming emotional
• How to negotiate with the man in your life so you can hear what he wants (and what he doesn't want)

The relationship commitment takes over where the commitment to a person ends, because a human being cannot be good enough very day to be worthy of a commitment from you. But the relationship can be, and it will keep two committed people together.

How do you get satisfying lovemaking?

• By having good chemistry together
• By sharing a compatible lifestyle
• By verbally communicating all of this to each other
• By agreeing to a commitment of monogamy, continuity and longevity

For many men and women who are phobic about love due to poor early love training, obsessive, addictive relationships with high levels of pain seem like love.

Although most of us have some degree of damage that we've had to deal with, sometimes bad relationships overtake the healthiest of us, or we fall into them unknowingly.

I urge you never to "demand" marriage. I believe it is better for a woman to pass a man up that to demand to be married. You must let him make his own choice. If he wants you enough, he will negotiate. Don't seduce him with money or sexual generosity, and don't try to intimidate him with angry edicts.

In marriage, bodies commit sexually and sensually. The mind commits with money and property and status in the community. When the body and the mind are committed, you have Like, Love, and Lust, and then--and only then--is the person in love.

To love and be loved is the ultimate spiritual goal of all good people. Understand that life is a process, and that our marriages, the way we live together, the way we communicate, and the way we negotiate all must change as we do.