Cougars Back On TV – Extreme Cougar Wives

by Linda Franklin

Cougars are Back on TV.  Here we go again!  This newest show will most likely cause a lot of controversy, but isn’t that what it’s all about?  The three mature women set to star in TLC’s Extreme Cougar Wives, insist that there is nothing better than dating younger men.

Jude, 53, met her boyfriend Kevin, who is 32 years her junior, seven years ago when he was in a relationship with her daughter. And today they are inseparable.

She can’t stop smiling as she details their sex life, claiming that ‘it’s amazing what falling in love can do for your self image’, however Kevin’s mother is significantly less enthusiastic about the love affair.

‘So she’s older than your mother… Oh, Kevin,’ she wails as the duo break the news of the relationship on camera’.

Then there’s Hattie, the 76 year old cougar looking for love.  She describes her life as ‘extreme’. In the show she meets 25-year-old Andrew while taking a dip in a hotel swimming pool, and later in the show is seen entertaining a young gentlemen admirer at dinner telling him ‘skin, I love skin.’

Stephanie, is the last self-described ‘extreme cougar’ to appear in the hour-long episode. You can’t help who you fall in love with: 65-year-old Stephanie as you coos at her  boyfriend Octavio 28.

Extreme Cougar Wives premieres on TLC on Sunday, November 25 at 10pm ET.

You know how I feel, if you are truly happy, if you’re honest about what you want  and you’re not hurting anyone, then go ahead and enjoy the moment.

The Real Cougar Woman is a 5-carat diamond who knows the importance of taking care of her health, beauty, relationships, finances and spirituality. Linda Franklin says,”there is no stopping a woman who has a strong belief system, passion and a dream. All things are possible”. Linda’s book, Don’t Ever Call Me Ma’am helps women of all ages tap into their power and live life to the fullest.

 

Dating Fears After Divorce – Especially Getting Naked

by Linda Franklin

Dating after divorce can be daunting.  You’ve been sequestered in a relationship for decades and here you are about to embark on a whole new life.  For some, this transition might be easier than others, but I’ll bet all women over a certain age are terrified about exposing their naked bodies to a new man.

It’s hard for us to believe that any man will see you as sexual being when all you see is every little imperfection in your body.  Every bit of cellulite, every spider vein, every sag that you make you cringe.

Friends can tell you that you are a total babe and any man would be lucky to have you.  But, until you believe it yourself you will be scared to death to let a man near you. The sexual confidence that accompanies youth recedes when your body shows any signs of wear and tear.

We forget that physical attraction has as much to do with personality and confidence as it  does your appearance.

According to psychologist Dr Sharron Hinchliff, a lecturer at Sheffield University who has spent 12 years researching female sexuality and aging, women in mid-life who are apprehensive about venturing into new relationships because they lack confidence in their bodies should take heart — men are not impervious to the passing years, either.

‘The women in our study reconciled the awareness of their own expanding waistlines and aging bodies with the fact their new partners might have a bit of a paunch or a bald spot,’ she says, ‘It’s quite possible they also had their own sexual hang-ups and difficulties, such as erectile dysfunction. Women often overlook the very obvious fact that men age, too.’

Now, what  if you have set your sights on a younger man like many women are these days?  Well, they are not immune to insecurities either.  Their fears of rejection often surpass your own.  They want to please you but don’t know how to do it.  I get emails from lots of guys who want my advice on how to please an older woman in every way.

So, you just have to take that leap of faith.  Get back out there, be yourself and have confidence that you will attract the right men into your life. Confidence is a huge turn on.

The Real Cougar Woman is a 5-carat diamond who knows the importance of taking care of her health, beauty, relationships, finances and spirituality.  Linda Franklin says,”there is no stopping a woman who has a strong belief system, passion and a dream. All things are possible”. Linda’s book, Don’t Ever Call Me Ma’am helps women of all ages tap into their power and live life to the fullest.

Katie Couric & Boyfriend Split – Another Cougar Relationships Bites The Dust

By Linda Franklin 

Better Times

Katie Couric has split with her boyfriend of five years Brooks Perlin. Apparently, things have been rocky for a number of months and they both decided to call it quits. The couple had a 17 year age gap, so another famous cougar relationship bites the dust. 

Katie who lost her husband to colon cancer in l998 met the 37-year-old in 2006. Speaking later of their meeting she said: ‘I thought he was really cute. He asked me if I wanted to have dinner sometime and I liked that it was so direct and natural.

‘When he called, he asked me if I wanted to be in a sailing competition with him. I don’t sail. Then he asked me if I wanted to go surfing, and I’d never surfed. I said, “listen Mr Outward Bound, how about something normal?”.

The mother-of-two said it didn’t even cross her mind how old he was at the time. It was only later when she confided in friends that she was going on a date that they googled him.

She considered cancelling but was persuaded by friends not to and did not look back. 

In April, Couric gave a gushing interview to People magazine about her relationship, saying Brooks ‘challenges me in ways no one has ever challenged me before’ and that ‘they just clicked’.

But only a month later, she hinted at trouble with the green building-materials distributor, saying: ‘I am in the process of figuring out the future, and so is he. I am really happy in my personal life . . . but it is complicated.’ 

So, are all cougar relationships doomed to failure?  I don’t think so, but like any other relationships it requires constant attention and dedication.  

The Real Cougar Woman is a 5-carat diamond who knows the importance of taking care of her health, beauty, relationships, finances and spirituality.  Linda Franklin says,”there is no stopping a woman who has a strong belief system, passion and a dream. All things are possible”. Linda’s book, Don’t Ever Call Me Ma’am helps women of all ages tap into their power and live life to the fullest.

Cougar Woman Admits Younger Men Are Exhausting

 By Linda Franklin

I read an article about relationships that have a large age gap and wanted to share it with you. To get the full scoop click here.  With all the spin around Ashton and Demi’s divorce, many women are wondering if an older woman can find happiness with a younger man.    You decide for yourself.

Helen Backhouse, 56, an artist, is married to computer programmer Pierre Burghgraeve, 40. Helen thinks the 17 years between her and husband Pierre have become more apparent as they have got older. She says, “I enjoy reading, gardening and sitting peacefully, while Pierre is much more active. And our tastes are very different, too. I love music from the Seventies that he hates, and he listens to rap, which I can’t stand”.

“I like to tell everyone he keeps me young, but it can be exhausting being with a younger man”. And living with him and my son is sometimes like living with two squabbling teenage boys”.

There’s no doubt that being with a younger man raises eyebrows.

When we first got together, my friends were horrified. They worried he would eventually fall in love with a woman his own age and I would get hurt. Pierre reassures me this will never happen. Yet there are times when I have questioned what on earth I am doing.

I married my first husband, when I was 26 — he was the same age. The marriage ended after ten years without us having children.

When I was 38, I decided I wanted to be a mother and a  male friend agreed to be the donor father. I brought Thomas up on my own, until I met Pierre.

We met when Pierre when he became the chef at a restaurant near my home in 2004. When it comes to the physical side of our relationship, the thing that flashes through my mind is, ‘I’d better have the lights off’ — but Pierre has always made me feel desirable.

Sometimes I do worry about the fact that when he’s 65, I’ll be in my 80s. But I joke that after I’ve gone, he can find a woman his own age and have a whole new life.’

PIERRE SAYS: To me, age is irrelevant. When I met Helen, I didn’t think: ‘How old is she?’ I simply thought what an attractive, interesting woman she was. She has a wonderful career and is her own woman. I like the fact she’s seen more of life than me.

People may look at us oddly sometimes, but I no longer notice. Besides, I am not frozen in time — I am ageing, too. As I get older, I feel the age gap between us narrows. I don’t think too much about the future — I am just glad we are happy now.’

The Real Cougar Woman is a 5-carat diamond who knows the importance of taking care of her health, beauty, relationships, finances and spirituality. Linda Franklin says,”there is no stopping a woman who has a strong belief system, passion and a dream. All things are possible”. Linda’s book, Don’t Ever Call Me Ma’am helps women of all ages tap into their power and live life to the fullest.

Men Who Don’t Want To Leave

by Dr. Fayr Barkley, Ph.D

 

It starts out very insidiously. You have a few dates with a new man; dinner, movie, an event with mutual friends. All is going well and it feels like you have been together forever. You invite him over to your place for pizza and a DVD. He brings his toothbrush and you think nothing of it since he is staying the night and it is just a toothbrush. A week later you look in your fridge and there are 7 types of bread, a six pack of beer – none of which you have bought.

 

As you stand there ferreting through all his food stuff, you realize the amount of laundry you have been doing lately has doubled. Sure, he has been spending the last several nights at your place. Why not? He is easy to get along with, the sex is great and since he does live one town over, it is just more convenient for the both of you. You also realize that since he has been camping out at your place, he has acquired two of your dresser drawers, several hangers in your closet and now his car AND his motorcycle are parked in your driveway. And then it hits you: When did he move in?

 

You tell yourself, “I should have seen it coming.” You are no stranger to the toothbrush routine and this isn’t your first rodeo. But here it is again–a situation that went from inertia to warp speed, from just meeting and starting to date to finding his socks and underwear all over the house. As you stand bewildered in front of the fridge wondering who on earth needs 7 types of bread, you hear him in the living room on his cell phone telling the newspaper to change his delivery from his house to yours.

 

Gulp.

 

When did this turn from casual to commitment without a summit conference and press release? Why didn’t you get the memo? And most importantly, are you ready for cohabitating with a man you really haven’t known very long? Isn’t the reason for dating to get to know someone well enough through all the seasons before you make a life altering decision such as this?

 

Moving in together changes a lot and for those of us women who are accustomed to living on our own, it can mean redesigning our plans, patterns, and daily decisions. It means having to have 24/7 consideration for the person who is now under our roof.  Moving in is a big decision that should not be taken lightly nor without much discussion. Ground rules need to be set. (Don’t leave your dirty underwear and newspapers all over the house.) Division of labor needs to be addressed. (If he cooks, you clean up the kitchen.) Finances need to be discussed. You need to discuss what is and what is not acceptable to you; since it is YOUR roof he is living under. And you also need to let him know where you draw the hard line that can get him kicked out.

 

If your new man starts to move in on you, be aware of the tell tale signs. It usually begins with a toothbrush. The best case scenario is that things go wonderfully and the relationship is strengthened; but this can only happen with honest communication and boundaries that are set and respected by both parties.

 

The Real Cougar Woman is a 5-carat diamond who knows the importance of taking care of her health, beauty, relationships, finances and spirituality. Linda Franklin says,”there is no stopping a woman who has a strong belief system, passion and a dream. All things are possible”. Linda’s book, Don’t Ever Call Me Ma’am helps women of all ages tap into their power and live life to the fullest.

 

Women More Adventurous In Bed

by Linda Franklin

Talking dirty and being sexually adventurous seems to come more naturally to women than men.

In a new survey, it turns out women are not only more experimental in bed, but were far more likely to talk dirty and share fantasies with their partners than men.

While most respondents – all of whom were in relationships – said that they enjoyed sex with the lights on, wearing sexy lingerie, having sex in different areas of the home and using lubricants, more women than men were willing to go further in the bedroom.

This is good to know because for far too long women have been made out to be the prudes who actually restrict their male partners.  That’s just not the case is it ladies?Being sexually adventurous is, perhaps unsurprisingly, linked to the sexual satisfaction of both partners – so much so that the more open-minded and repeatedly adventurous the couple, the longer the relationship lasted.

50 per cent of the survey’s respondents said that they watched porn as a couple.

In a previous survey I read, revealed that women are more bored in their relationships than men, despite being more sexually satisfied.

A quarter of those respondents – over half of whom were married – said that boredom in their relationship had led to infidelity, and nearly 60 per cent were keen to try something new to spice up their sex lives.

One thing both sexes agree upon is their shared enjoyment of orgasm – though simultaneous climaxes are far rarer than many a Hollywood movie may have some believing.

 

The Real Cougar Woman is a 5-carat diamond who knows the importance of taking care of her health, beauty, relationships, finances and spirituality. Linda Franklin says,”there is no stopping a woman who has a strong belief system, passion and a dream. All things are possible”. Linda’s book, Don’t Ever Call Me Ma’am helps women of all ages tap into their power and live life to the fullest.

Body Image and Sexual Satisfaction

21 Sep 2011 | 10:06 am

By Linda Franklin – The Real Cougar Woman

Body Image

How you perceive your own body plays an important part in achieving sexual satisfaction.  If you don’t feel good about your body how can you feel sexy?   If you don’t feel sexy how can you enjoy sex?

I know women who are have the most amazing sex lives and they do not have great bodies. They are making a conscious choice not to focus on their flaws.  The  stretch marks, the flabby belly, and the wing bat arms, are not going to interfere with their sexual enjoyment.     

Loving acceptance of who you are is a process that can begin with re-focusing on small things that you like about yourself.  The key is turning down the volume on your own self judgments.   It’s these negative, critical voices playing in your head, that stifle pleasure of any kind.  And, in the bedroom, that are particularly deadly.  

Women have to be less concerned about what they imagine their sexual partners are thinking and more about how they want to feel. 

 Believe me, men are not half as critical about your body as you are.  Most of them care far less about how their partner looks and much more about creating an intimate connection.It’s not easy for women to overcome the strong societal forces telling us to look and act a certain way. However, we have to make that a priority – our happiness depends on it. 

The Real Cougar Woman is a 5-carat diamond who knows the importance of taking care of her health, beauty, relationships, finances and spirituality.  Linda Franklin says,”there is no stopping a woman who has a strong belief system, passion and a dream. All things are possible”. Linda’s book, Don’t Ever Call Me Ma’am helps women of all ages tap into their power and live life to the fullest.

Marriages Break – What’s Your Hurry?

Marriages Break

By Linda Franklin – The Real Cougar Woman

Couples who live together before getting married could be behind the falling divorce rate, research suggests. I have always been a proponent of living together. Why not spend the time to see if you are compatible before tying the knot?

The report said: “There has been a decline in recent years in the proportion of marriages ending in separation or divorce by the fifth anniversary. We suggest as a hypothesis that the growth of cohabitation may have played a role in this incipient decline.’

These days one in six couples co-habit compared to fewer than one in 100 adults under the age of 50 in the early 1960s when it was seen as socially deviant.’ And, about 80 per cent of couples today have spent time living under the same roof before cementing their relationship legally through a marriage ceremony.

I guess I was one of the so-called deviants because I lived with my husband for 20 years before we walked down the aisle. During that 20 years we both changed many times and there were times we did go our separate ways. Like all couples each of us were experiencing growing pains and because we had the freedom of not being married we always worked it out and got back together. We did finally get married and I can honestly say that the piece of paper did nothing to change the relationship.

The report by academics at the University of Southampton said: ‘Cohabitation has become a normal part of the life course. ‘In 2004–07, 61 per cent of men aged 25–44 and 64 per cent of women of this age had cohabited at some point in their lives; of those aged 45–59, 38 per cent of men and 35 per cent of women, had done so.’

These days more and more people delay committing to a relationship until later on in life – on average about two years later than they did in the early 1980s.

If couples contemplating this enormous step thought more about the responsibilities of marriage and less about the actual wedding, it would be a step in the right direction.

The Real Cougar Woman is a 5-carat diamond who knows the importance of taking care of her health, beauty, relationships, finances and spirituality. Linda Franklin says,”there is no stopping a woman who has a strong belief system, passion and a dream. All things are possible”. Linda’s book, Don’t Ever Call Me Ma’am helps women of all ages tap into their power and live life to the fullest.