THE SURF REPORT **SPECIAL**: A chat with TOUGH LOVE’s Steve Ward–12/17/09

TSR: I just have to tell you, I adore your mom Joanne.

SW: Thank you. she wants to be in the show more and more. We’re doing a lesson together for the couples show.

TSR: When i saw couples show promo – I thought here’s steve ward, nice young single guy counseling couples. Will he run into interference here?

SW: They’ll ask “What do you know?”

TSR: Well, not “What do you know?” because you have experience w/relationships and you’ve dated a lot but how will u answer that?

SW: Thats what my mom is there for – she validates my work – and basically we share the same brain – we think exactly alike so itll be very easy for her to step in and say “look I’ve been married, I’ve been divorced, I got married again, I’ve raised 3 kids” – she’s that barometer for keeping the relationship going strong.  I’m really good at helping people decide whether they should be together. in the book, there’s a breakdown of the stages of relationship building – all the finding and dating – I wrote that section of the book.

I really turn to my mom for what the secrets are that help a relationship keep going strong. I already know them because I grew up in a very happy home. My [birth] father is jewish – made of cast iron, fiercely loyal but about as emotional as a phone cord – my mom is a very passionate woman – she needs that energy, that emotion. after being married five years and having 3 kids, there was no love in the home or in the marriage, just her and us as children, so she made the decision to leave him cause she wanted us to grow up in a room full of love and she wanted us to feel loved by the man that would be in our lives. And she ended up, when she left my father, he was completely devastated, and she introduced him to someone else he wound up marrying and that’s how she got starting in matchmaking.  She went thru a divorce – 24 years old, 3 small kids, and she met my stepdad, the man I call my dad, and he was 20, devout catholic, never married, no kids, wanted both.  He met my mom, fell in love with her, he married her, he adopted us 3 kids, we took his name – that’s why I have a gentile last name – and he’s been my dad for 25 years. The sad part was that my birth father disowned us. Once my mom met somebody else, it was too devastating for him to see her happy. He was a successful jewish businessman and she met and married a poor Irish carpenter. It was very embarrassing for him to see her with someone who couldn’t provide her with the things he could provide her with. yet he (my mom’s new husband) was able to provide her with things my father couldn’t provide her with.

My father couldn’t deal with her in order to see us.  It’s ok.  My [adoptive] dad is a saint. He’s a great role model. That’s why I call my dad my soulmate because I truly believe that if not for him, i wouldn’t have turned out this way. He sets a great example for me and is a great mentor my whole life.  He’s still madly in love with my mom and it’s so great to see that they still have that passion for each other and it’s funny because they’re a typical married couple – married more than 20 years, they fight, they bicker, but at the end of the day, they know they’re not goin’ anywhere. They’re so committed, it gives them a sense of freedom in the relationship, knowing that no one’s ever gonna go anywhere – no matter how rough it gets or how difficult the road becomes. My mom said to me the other day on the phone: “I know that if anything ever happened to me, if I got sick, or i had to get an appendectomy or i was deformed, your father would still be there for me.  And if anything ever happened to him, I’d still be there for him.”  And they’re young – my mom’s 50, my dad’s 46, and they’re grandparents.  They’re now finally getting to start to enjoy life again. They gave up 20 years to raise kids.  My parents never went on vacations when we were growing up, they never went out and treated themselves to nice dinners, every dollar they scraped together went toward the kids.  And now, once we got into college, that’s when my mom and dad started vacationing and going out with each other.  And now my mom says to me: “the secret to keeping a relationship going after all these years is to keep reinventing the rules and keep it exciting. And everyday, remind that person why you’re with them.”

TSR: Don’t take people for granted.  That’s important for friendships too.

SW: Now that I’ve had some years of experience matchmaking, I’ve arranged matches that have resulted in matches, they got married and then after five years, they got divorced.

TSR: Did you get to do the follow-up?

SW: Yeah! And then i worked with them again. It’s interesting to hear what happened and how it fell apart. The one example I’m thinking of in particular is one man had just lost his father and it was very difficult for him but he met this girl and she was very nurturing and supportive while he was going through this period of mourning. He got over it, they fell in love and married, it was going well for four years and then she lost HER father and she couldn’t deal with it and she started drinking and it started getting really bad, drinking at 10am and he told her, “look, this is out of control. I know you’re dealing with a lot. I dealt w/the same thing, you helped me, I want to help you but you have to stop drinking.”  She denied she had a problem.  He told her if she didn’t stop drinking and go talk to somebody, that’s it.  She wouldn’t do it and they broke up.  And then he came back to me.  What are you gonna do? That’s not the result of a bad marriage or a bad match.

TSR: That’s circumstance, “shit happens”

SW: Right. I’ve gotten to live vicariously through my parents, through my clients. I’ve always been on the outside of the looking glass and being able to look into relationships, I don’t need that personal experience of being in the relationship to understand that.

TSR: You’re also really smart about recognizing patterns – that’s why TOUGH LOVE is effective.  You see the pattern and that’s part of the casting process as well: let’s pick somebody with bad patterns and put them on the show.  Even watching you, I can tell you have a great degree of intelligence and a curious mind your ability to see patterns is crucial.

SW: Typically that pattern goes back much further than the relationship – it goes back to behavior they’ve demonstrated their whole life.  from the moment they were children and the thing is I believe all behavior is learned behavior – they learned to be the way that they are as a result of their parenting or as a result of their experiences with other children and sports and adolescent activity which forms their behavior as adults.  It’s interesting to see how men and women respond differently in relationships as a result of their relationships with their parents: a young girl’s relationship with her father and her mother is very different from a young boy’s.  So you can have the same father and mother and the boy and girl will grow up to be completely different than the girl, even with the same exact upbringing.  A woman who is Daddy’s Little Girl, he showered her with affection and attention, she could do no wrong, he loved her to death, meanwhile, he couldn’t stand his wife, so the wife was always neglected and the daughter didn’t have as much respect for the mom, the mom grew to resent the mom because she got the attention the mom wanted from her husband, and so now the daughter grows up fearing other women, feeling that she has to compete with other women for the attention of the man in her life, that her father gave her this mentality that she can do no wrong, so now she deflects, she’s never the problem, it’s always everybody else.  I’m the one that has to dissect this for her and explain to her why she is the way she is and if she’s happy that way, fine, keep doing what you’re doing.  If you’d like to change, and you’d like to grow, let me tell you what you can do differently and get where you want to be.

TSR:  I listen to you and I hear a lot of therapy-speak.  And I think of going to therapy and hearing myself say awful things and being so surprised at what i said.

SW: (Steve told the story about Alicia’s remark about not going out with Jeremy again “if he’s a jew” (in the episode that aired last sunday). Our showrunner Richard Hall (Monty Hall’s son) is jewish – i love him, he’s incredibly talented – and he’s very proud to be jewish, as am I.  And I respect that.  The first cut he turned over to the network really crucified Alicia (no pun intended).  And the network came back and said, “we can’t do this.” They didn’t want to do that to her.  She’s already getting backlash. They made it a lot softer now. I wasn’t there when she said all these anti-semitic remarks but Tina was offended as she has many good friends who are jewish.

SW: The blind beauty pageant was designed specifically for Jenna.

TSR: Steve, Jenna needs years of therapy.

SW: Seriously. I know.  At the end of the episode, I tell her, “I’m not a doctor, I’m a goddamn matchmaker!”

TSR: There’s only so much a matchmaker can do.  A lot of what you do is theraputic anyway because when you say to somebody “you’re gonna have to break this pattern if you’d like to move forward” it’s like prescribing it to them.  It’s like the old line from TOOTSIE, “we begged you, get some therapy!”

SW: Ha! Exactly. I tell jenna “look, you’re addicted to negativity and you’ve gotta kick this habit or you’re gonna be single the rest of your life.” And the beauty factor: for Liz’s talent, she opens a bottle of beer with her mouth and shotguns a can of beer. I’m like, “that’s ladylike.”

TSR: Classy broad!

SW: A lot of people don’t remember this but in the 2nd episode, I took out Liz’s nose ring.  She came in with a nose ring, such a beautiful girl and she’s got a f–ing nose ring!

TSR: Some of the kids today think that’s cool.  I love jewelry but on my hands or around my neck.

SW: I hear ya.  Even angel with her face piercing – I couldn’t take that out or she’d have a big hole in her face for the show.  But with the nose ring, I told Liz she had to take it out because it wasn’t helping her.  Rockers dig it but if she’s looking to increase her opportunities, she had to go a little more mainstream.

TSR:  We have to talk about the daddy issue episode – a lot of the women got very upset, it was heart-wrenching to watch it.  You had kind of a stone-faced expression on your face and your mom did the comforting.  Do you ever have transference problems with the clients?

SW:  No.  I cry like a bitch. I cry a lot.  You have no idea – I’m such a wet blanket.  And the thing is, I have to be strong for them. They have to see me be strong – I can’t show weakness, if I do, they’ll lose respect.  So mom stepped in to do the comforting; she shoulders the emotion. I was sitting there and you have no idea how hard it was for me to hold back the tears.  There’s nine women sitting around me, all crying.  I’m just trying not to cry and I use the trick of going through the starting roster of the 1985  Chicago Bears in my head: Payton, McMahon, etc.  Just to get my mind off it.  It will distract you from the emotion.  I also stopped to look around at the crew and they’re not affected so I had to hold it together.

TSR: My heart went out to the women even though I don’t even like some of them.

SW: Rocky’s poem was beautiful – I’d never heard poetry out loud that was that beautiful.  And it’s a shame cause what we highlight on the show is “who’s your bitch now?” and these other grotesque songs she writes.  I’m so empathetic, I get it, I understood and it was so cathartic for her to get that out.  And Sally – omigod – when you sit there and listen to all the abuse she and her mother went through – we don’t show it all.  I talk to every one of them and their stories are so amazing and tragic and sad and I’m just glad they’re contributing members of society, not delinquents.

TSR: Or drug addicts

SW: Exactly. It’s amazing.

TSR: How has the 2nd cycle been different from the first?

SW: This time, they all walked in knowing who I was.  None of the women in the first cycle knew who I was when we started with the S1 speed dating.  In S2, I had to use alternative means of getting to the source of impressions.  The women instantly respected me and what I did in S1 and they knew that I know what I’m talking about.  In S1, they had no idea who I was.  The men in S2 were lining up to be on the show. Not so in S1; Shane was waiting for the other shoe to drop – it was on VH1, it was a dating show, he was waiting for Jody to say “I’m really a man.” or “I’m a drug addict.”  He kept grilling Jody because of it.

This season, all the guys know I’m not there to expose them or make them look bad.  It’s about using them to get through to the women so guys were lining up to be on the show because it wasn’t about exposing their frailties or faults, it was about using their experience to help guide the women.

Liz is the less rich version of the southern belle from S1.  It’s amazing how the poor southern girl acts classless, she has no class. I was trying to match her with somebody who doesn’t mind being with a girl who has no class. Dave, the ex-marine cage fighter doesn’t mind that his girl is shotgunning beers and opening bottles with her mouth.  So they were actually a match.  I’m working with what i’m working with – I couldn’t put her with a mensch.

TSR: Let’s talk about bringing Taylor back. I think a little of her goes a long way.  I know she’s good TV but I don’t buy any of the stuff with her.  I think it’s much more interesting to watch you work with the other girls.

SW: You should tell my producers at the network.  It wasn’t my idea to bring her back.  She had a TV Q almost as high as mine.  She won the fan favorite by 60% in S1, the next closest was Jody at 12%.  I feel like the people who watch our show are watching for the experience of it.  I tell my mom constantly that it’s not about us.  It’s about learning. What can I take away?  That’s why I love Dr. Drew’s show too.

The competition shows like THE BACHELOR, BACHELORETTE are sending the wrong message to America. It’s telling people that the only way you’re going to get the person you want is by directly competing with others to get that person – and that’s not healthy.  Life and love is not a competition.

TSR: Those shows support the worst romance myths to women.  Little girls get messed up in the head from those myths.

SW: And I’ve gotta deal with them when they come to me later on in life!  People are sensitive to my opinions.  I’ve formed opinions about marriage that don’t seem consistent with my brand as a matchmaker; people assume i’m all gung ho about marriage and marriage is the be-all, end all.

TSR: Not for everyone.

SW: It’s not for everyone.  I use that Rita Rudner quote, “Marriage is a great institution, I’m just not ready to be institutionalized.”

My mom and I believe that if two people want to come together to start a family, marriage makes a lot of sense, but if you already have a family, or if you’re looking for closeness and intimacy, you don’t need a piece of paper and a ring to be committed to each other.