I Read I Suck at Relationships So You Don’t Have To So You Don't Have To

But, right away, Frankel makes it clear that at least one old friend will be joining her in spreading insight in this book: Dr. Xavier Amador, a therapist that viewers of Bethenny’s Bravo spin-offs (and upcoming episodes of this season of RHONY, if promos are to be believed) are intimately familiar with. A soft-spoken, rational man, Dr. Amador’s only demerit is that he allowed his sessions with Frankel to be aired on national television. In the context of this book, Dr. Amador pops in and out as Bethenny shares her thoughts about how men are like cavemen and women are excessively hormonal (more on that to come), providing the only real voice of reason in a book filled with the words of a woman who is very far from accepting her current life situation despite the fact that it’s oozing out of every word she writes.

“Thank you, Dr. Amador, for your contribution to what I hope will be a game-changer for modern relationships,” Frankel writes, in a “special thank you” before her introduction. “Contribution” isn’t even really accurate, as the book seems like it was written by two different people: one who has been legally barred from writing with enough detail to be compelling, and one who knows what he’s talking about but doesn’t have the cachet to make you care.

Then, it’s actually in her intro where Frankel provides the most detail about her life, some of which is territory she’s already trod over on RHONY—which, in perfect reality television cross-promotion, premiered last week as her book came out.

It’s no secret that right now I’m going through a very negative and public and nasty divorce. Right now, I’m in relationship recovery. In my last significant relationship, I hit rock bottom. I think people thought that I sold my company, I landed on the cover of Forbes magazine, and my life was now perfect. Actually, as I’m writing this book, I don’t even have a home. I’m the richest homeless person you know. I’m like a vagabond with no personal belongings, running from hotel to corporate apartment to the homes of friends, because at this time, getting an apartment isn’t possible for me. Trust me when I tell you that no amount of money will ever make you happy.

She gets dark. And then she stops getting dark. The rest of the book drops in few other other details about Bethenny’s life (mentions of former boyfriends who did such-and-such thing), but they’re all so vague and without context it’s difficult to tell what’s going on. “Pick up this book if you, like me, were duped into trusting someone,” she writes. “When a recent relationship fell apart, I beat myself up,” she says later. “How could I have been so stupid?” Whatever conclusions she draws are not drawn very clearly:

I’ve learned that the ones you think are trustworthy are very often the ones who aren’t, and the ones who seem like they wouldn’t be trustworthy sometimes, surprisingly, are.

Overall, Frankel seems deeply skeptical of the capabilities of men. She also has very little faith in the control of women. Her first two chapters are devoted to each of the sexes, respectively; the men’s section includes lines like, “Men like easy. Not easy like slutty (although some of them like that too–but only for test drives, not for the long haul).”

Frankel believes “men are simple,” but her words are undercut by interjections from Dr. Amador, who tries to provide a little context for the way men are conditioned to hold back their feelings, and doesn’t just throw out statements like “men think with their penises.”

In contrast, women, according to Frankel, are dominated by their periods. “…here’s a fact: Women are a little crazy. We can’t help it. It’s hormonal,” she writes, adding that “the bottom line is that PMS is the devil.” Then later, in a chapter about communication between the sexes:

Unfair as it may seem, you have to cop to PMS. Just say it. “Look, I have PMS, I’m sad, and I’m sorry. Can we start over?” You also need to remember to hold off on major relationship decisions and discussions until you feel back to normal again. Do not make important decisions while under the influence of PMS, menstruation, or menopause. Do not have important, life-changing conversations. It’s too easy to forget that your emotions are exaggerated, and you could say or even do something you’ll regret forever.

For the entire decade that you might have menopause, don’t make any sudden movements!

Frankel is also wary of the complications that can arise around sex. “Sex is never just sex to a woman. There are a few exceptions, but they are as rare as a unicorn,” she writes. “Remember, all men really want is to have a good day.” She recommends cutting out all exes from your life, comments that texting can “destroy real intimacy” (“Cheaters use text. Just know that. His wife could be in the room while he’s texting you.”) and offers a page-plus interlude on love advice from Maria Menounos.

When Frankel is done waffling back and forth between her well-trod theories about men and women and why they do the things they do, her observations about the effect that money can have on a relationship ring the truest, probably because that’s when she gets the most specific. She returns to her time on the Real Housewives:

This is a franchise that took affluent, privileged couples and gave the women fame and money and power they didn’t have before. In many cases, couples who had been married for years with an unchanging dynamic in which the man made more than the women were thrown into chaos. Now the kids were grown or getting close and suddenly the women becomes famous and is making money and oftentimes becomes the breadwinner. The men can’t handle it. They get jealous of the fame and power and money, and they resent their wives for suddenly making more than they do. Sometimes they start talking badly about their spouses to the press, or taking money from their wives. It’s a power struggle they didn’t expect and had never encountered before. The men try to get the control back by trying to steal the spotlight as well as the resources and they might get their 15 minutes of fame, but in the end the relationships don’t always survive. I see this happening, not just on Housewives but in every reality show franchise in which women are the stars.

It’s clear that money and the tension it can bring to relationships is something Frankel knows a lot about, and as she talks about how modern women and men struggle with changing power dynamics, it’s the only time she doesn’t sound out of her element.

I’ve also been in a relationship with someone who didn’t make as much money as I did. That was a real struggle, too. I wanted us both to contribute to our lives together, not equally but proportionally to our income. I felt that he really struggled with paying for things, and this was a sign of things to come because later, it came back to bite me in the ass. … I didn’t expect him to equal my paycheck, but I also didn’t expect him to live off me and try to take from me all he could.

It’s here that you get hints of what she’s been through, which has always been where she’s been strongest at giving advice. Her chapter where she tells women to “get a life”—to find their own passions, focus on what they want, etc—was convincing. But then, soon, she’s back on relationships again, and it starts to feel like she should just take a break: “Don’t do what I did and turn the other way or mess with the crack until it gets bigger and bigger.”

The self-help genre is probably 90 percent full of shit, but it can’t be discounted entirely; even an atheist can acknowledge the support that faith can provide for a believer. So it’s disappointing to see someone like Frankel be so held back from actually helping people. Maybe just not enough time has passed for her bygone fairytale life to fade into the background; while reading her book, I kept flashing back to episodes of Bethenny Ever After, when she went on her Place of Yes book tour, accompanied by Jason and his parents (her “new family”) sitting supportively in the audience. Despite her protestations that she’s in a better place now, if that wasn’t success, what is?

“Enjoy your work,” the man at the bookstore skeptically said to me when I bought this book. I wish I could say I did; perhaps it’s easier to stomach if you don’t read all 300-plus pages in a day, but I Suck Relationships So You Don’t Have To reads like advice from a woman who’s not so much of a failure as much as someone who has lost her ability to do the only thing that she was good at: monetizing being herself.

Image via Touchstone