The Tactical Guide to Women: How Men Can Manage Risk in Dating and Marriage

The book is a quick, funny, engaging read. Shawn Smith is full of fun turns of phrase and anecdotes. The title is a bit infelicitous. It suggests a smarmy book on pick-up artistry. The subtitle - "How Men Can Manage Risk in Dating and Marriage" - accurately portrays the content, which is standard self-help relationship psychology from a straight man's point of view. I appreciate the book's engagement with the psychological literature - many self help books eschew statistically grounded measurements of human behavior.I particularly value the book for its pro-male, pro-female stance. Smith is able to discuss important risks of dating and marriage for men - diastrously asymmetric legal outcomes in divorce; inaccurate societal assumptions about domestic violence - from a positive, relationship-affirming point of view. He takes on these inequities and toxic feminist worldviews without the angry, bitter, misogynist tack typical of the Men's Rights Activist or Red Pill communities. Smith makes it clear that unabashed masculinity is something healthy heterosexual women seek and cherish in men; this message is lost in more "politically correct" self-help books, to the detriment of men misled into trying to auto-feminize their way to success in love.Unfortunately I didn't find the core of this book - Smith's concept of a "bright triad" of clarity, maturity, and stability in high quality women - to be particularly convincing. I found the material to be a mishmash of general relationship skills and some gee-whiz material on women suffering from mental illness, addiction, or personality disorders. Maybe better editing would have made this categorization of traits more clear. (At a lower level, the copyediting in the book is not great. Duplicated sentences, missing words, and extra words are frequent.) But I fear that the concept itself may just not be that strong. On the topic of general relationship skills, I found Gottman and Silver's _The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work_ to be more cogently organized and a wonderful read for men and women alike.My own interest in this book stemmed from my relationship history - getting ready to return to dating after two relationships in a row where I poured energy into fine young women who coolly resisted commitment. I came away disappointed. Before buying this, I read Robert Glover's _No More Mr Nice Guy_. It was revelatory to the point of being devastating in unpacking my own contribution to these failures. Glover does not say much on how to pick women well, so I wanted to know Smith's take on selecting for women with an appetite for commitment. Smith has nothing to say on the matter, and in fact, I struggle to pin down where these ex-girlfriends go wrong on his bright triad rubric. Furthermore, I was hoping for advice on gleaning information about compatibility on a few-date "tactical" timescale. Smith suggests waiting a year beyond the initial 12-18 month honeymoon period to emotionally evaluate a prospective partner before making hard-to-reverse commitments. I was disappointed to read that, as 2.5 year heartbreaking roads to nowhere are exactly what I'm looking to head off at the time of writing. A couple more of those and I'll be squarely middle-aged and never-married. If your past resembles mine - a history of failing to find commitment rather than jumping into it with disastrous partners - I enthusiastically recommend Glover. Glover at least pushes the reader to be a "good ender," e.g. to break up quickly and decisively when there seems to be a poor fit. That advice is far more tactical than anything here.All told, this book is not bad, but I feel it does not live up to its promise.

As a divorce attorney of over 14 years, I regularly see men in my office who are devastated and baffled as to why their marriage is ending and why the wife has decided to take them to the cleaners, both financially and emotionally. This book is for men who don't want to find themselves in that position. This book is for men who don't want to waste years and years with the wrong woman only to lose half of their retirement/paycheck to a person who didn't value them to begin with. This is the book I will give my 17 year old son to read before he ever gets into that first relationship. Life is too short and precious to waste investing time, money, and love with a person who is toxic. If you are contemplating whether a new person is right for you, or whether your spouse is right for you...and especially if your own bad habits are causing you to make costly love decisions...the Tactical Guide offers great advice and great insight for both men and women who want healthy and lasting relationships. One of the best books on relationships I have ever read.

Men, read this book. Much more so if you consider yourself to be the romantic type, or one that dreams of happily ever after endings. Relationships can descend from fun and romantic to hell, and rather quickly, and the judicial system as it is today is not set up for you to win. Dr Smith reminds us, in a non-nonsensical, straight forward way, that we need to treat this area of our lives as if it were a business, because legally that is what it could eventually turn into. That you need to evaluate and analyze the option in front of you, and seriously consider and weigh in its pros and cons. He tells you to screen for certain psychological traits in women, but also to look and identify these in yourself. He reminds us to consider the legal ramifications of such decision making. The teachings in this book are not only helpful to men, but to women as well, and it’s a invaluable and important read. I highly recommend it.

Content is valid and accurate, IMO. Writing (and editing) is lucid, and flows well. Appreciate structure of knowing one's self first, then evaluating a woman as potential a GF/partner/mate/wife. The simplification of categorizing a partner as GF, fiancee/intended, or wife is genius. In some ways (e.g. evaluating women as partners) this is a broader hashing out of the famous (infamous?) hot-crazy matrix (search for it on YouTube).Bought it for my son and hope he reads it. Wish I'd read this when I was his age (22), but useful also to a single man at any age. Never too late to learn the lessons in this book.

I wish this book had been around in my mid-teens. Fathers may tell you how sex works, but they don't warn sons about toxic women and how to identify them to avoid a lifetime of regret. I bought my 13 year old grandson a copy and he is reading it and says that he likes learning the why to poor choice girls and the identification of same.

Fantastic book, it tackles issues of yourself you may need to work on, as well as highlighting qualities and values you should look for in a potential female partner. Honestly, this book is not purely for men, women would get a lot of valuable information out of this as well. It's full of so much valuable information on relationships and clinical viewpoints that I find it hard to imagine many people walking away from this without learning something.Couldn't recommend more for young men as well, I'm 22 and I got this for hearing horror stories on marriage. Also, despite a few grammatical errors it's concise and flows well. Making it both easy to digest and quick to read, which I mean in a great way.

From the title of this book, you might think it's another of those books written to show you how to get girls into bed ... ie. how to act like an Alpha male even though you are a Beta.Nope. It's MUCH better than that. (Nothing wrong with the former kind of book -- both sides need such guides in the War Between the Sexes.) This book shows men how to avoid getting into entangling, damaging relationships with the wrong kind of woman, and how to have a lasting relationship -- i.e. a stable marriage -- with the right kind. (And of course I'm over-simplifying if it appears that I am saying, or the author is saying, that there are only two kinds of women.) Both kinds of advice are valuable: if you're already married, Dr Smith gives you good advice on how to avoid being a male jerk. (He also has written things for couples, and for women.)He's clearly had a lot of clinical experience, and the book has many examples from his practice. A great book for someone about to enter the War mentioned above. Wish I'd read such a book sixty years ago.

This field is littered with desperate idiots like a lot within the 'Red Pill' community. Feeding off genuine male frustration and vulnerability. This book however is not of that ilk. The author is a serious professional with good sound advice and insight. Worth your money and time.

I enjoyed this book and the concise way the material is presented. I think it offers great insight for dating, pre marriage and post marriage advice for men with a non gynocentric perspective of perpetual wife pleasing.The book is highlights the important of masculinity and the need for men to embrace that part of themselves to make relationships truly work.I highly recommend for people interested in intergender dynamics and relationships

I saw this book as a suggestion , and expected it to be red-pill related. This book's is awfull, just telling stories about problematic couples and mentions what the writer believes that their problems were.There's no point in telling thousands of stories about other couples, this is not an objective book, and the writer doesn't go straight to the point.If you are a male reader interested in reading something that will lead you to higher improvement, don't buy this book, go buy Rollo Tomassi's books, that's a much better deal.

all of itand then againand againand then go back and read it againand then keep checking it as a reference guide each time you want to analyze a specific encounter with a woman.just. gold!ignore this advice if you want to bankrupt your life.