The 40-year-old guy I'm dating swivels his head to check out ladies everywhere. He even comments on those he finds attractive. I've mentioned that it bugs me. He contends that it's my insecurities that are really the issue here. I can see how lower self-esteem might lend itself to an offended reaction, as opposed to just a shrug or an eye roll, but is this really on me?

--Blamed

Yes, of course your insecurities are the real issue here. Because what woman wouldn't feel great when her boyfriend's all "Whoa, boobs are out tonight!"?

That said, it is normal that he's driven to look. Men evolved to have their eyeballs all up in every hot woman's business because the features considered beautiful in a woman correlate with health and fertility. Ancestral men who passed on their genes (and mating psychology) -- the men whose male descendants are walking the planet today -- are those who went for the fertile young hotties, not the 70-year-old ladies with a lot of personality.

Not surprisingly, brain imaging studies by evolutionary psychologist Steven Platek and his colleagues find that when men see pictures of curvalicious women -- those with an hourglass bod, a fertility indicator -- there's "activation" in (most notably) the nucleus accumbens. This is part of the brain's reward circuitry and, as they put it, "the seat of addictive behavior." Regarding their findings, Platek told me, "We think that this is why men quite literally find it challenging to look away from a highly attractive female body."

No, not "impossible" to look away. "Challenging." Like it may sometimes be for you to keep from stabbing your boyfriend in the thigh with a fork when he rubbernecks at a passing pair of Wonderbreasts. However, feeling disturbed by his girl-gawking isn't a sign you're emotionally defective. Consider that emotions aren't there just to jazz up your day. Psychiatrist and evolutionary psychologist Randolph Nesse explains that emotions have a job to do -- to motivate us to "respond adaptively" to threats and opportunities. For example, that rotten feeling you get in response to your boyfriend's ogling is basically an alarm going off alerting you that a man's commitment isn't there or is waning. Wanting to feel better pushes you to remedy the situation.

If your insecurity is tripping you up, it's in how you seem to be second-guessing the emotions yelling at you, "Do something! HELLO?! Are you in a coma?" The thing is, you don't have to feel assertive to be assertive. You just have to (gulp!) stand up for yourself as an assertive person would.

Again, the problem isn't that your boyfriend's looking; it's that he's looking (and commenting) while you're standing right there, feelings and all. Be honest with him: This doesn't just "bug" you; it hurts your feelings. It makes you feel disrespected. And it needs to stop. Now. Because you want to feel loved, respected, and happy -- either with him or with some guy you meet at his funeral, after his tragic but inevitable death from drowning in a pool of his own drool.

For two years, I've been in the best relationship of my life, after years of really bad ones. I'm thinking that maybe the key to a happy relationship is having two people who think they aren't good enough for each other. Not that we feel that in a pathetic way. We each just feel really grateful and lucky to be with the other person, and it makes a difference in how we treat each other. Thoughts?

--Happy At Last

Sometimes the thing we tell ourselves is love is really "the thing I got into because I was scared I'd die alone -- surrounded by empty single-serving zinfandel bottles -- and get discovered 10 years later, mummified, on my couch."

What seems key this time around -- in how happy you two are -- is the gratitude you feel. Gratitude for your partner comes out of noticing the sweet, thoughtful things they do -- like taking out the trash without needing to be "asked" at gunpoint.

However, what you're grateful for isn't so much the garbage relocation as what it shows -- what social psychologist Kaska Kubacka describes as your partner's "responsiveness to (your) needs." This, in turn, tells you that your happiness is important to them, which tells you that they value you and the relationship. Awww.

Seeing that you're loved and cared for like this motivates you to do sweet, loving things for your partner. Which motivates them...which motivates you... (Think of it as love on the Ping-Pong model.) This helps create and maintain the kind of relationship where, when your partner blurts out "I love you so much!" your inclination is to respond in kind -- instead of turning around to see who the hell they're talking to.

I really appreciated your recent column about people who go through with getting married when they know deep down that they're making a mistake. I'm reminded of the common societal admonishment against being a "quitter." There's this notion that you're some kind of loser if you quit anything -- even when logic tells you that you should bow out. This sort of absurd anti-logic is used (with the "marriage takes work" notion) to intimidate people into remaining in marriages that are total failures, which prolongs everyone's suffering.

Ideally, "till death do us part" doesn't lead to daydreams involving a shovel and a tarp.

Granted, there are people in miserable marriages who stay together -- sometimes because they believe that a man with horns and a tail would end up chasing them around with a flaming pitchfork if they split up and married somebody else. Others, in humdrum but not ugly or toxic marriages, stay together -- admirably -- for their kids' sake. But many unhappy couples -- with no pitter-pattering little feet but the schnauzer's -- don't split up or are seriously slow to do it out of this notion that quitting is for losers.

I'm not suggesting that couples should scurry off to divorce court at the first sight of a cloud on the marital horizon. But there's a cost-benefit analysis to be done. Couples need to consider whether it's actually possible to work to make their marriage succeed or whether that would take their being two totally different and actually compatible people.

As for what "succeeding" in marriage means, let's be honest: In modern society, we have a luxury we never did before -- marrying for love and happiness. We then expect that these will continue to some reasonable (or sometimes unreasonable) degree. In previous centuries, sometimes you lucked out and got love in the marital package. But, as marriage historian Stephanie Coontz points out, for "thousands of years" -- until the late 18th century -- "marriage was more about property and politics than personal satisfaction." Two people would get "betrothed" to each other as a way of brokering peace between nations or getting the money to keep land in the family ("marriage is between a man and a potato farm").

These days, however, if continents or children won't be ravaged by a couple's breaking up, maybe there's no reason to be answering the question "Grandma, how'd you and Grandpa make it work?" with "We didn't. I just stayed till he died."

Even so, human psychology doesn't make it easy to extricate ourselves. Research by psychologist Elliot Aronson finds that we are prone to "self-justification" -- believing whatever puts us in the best light. In other words, we are natural-born spin doctors, driven to protect both our ego and our public persona -- to the point where our knee-jerk response when we fail at something is pretending we haven't, to ourselves and everybody else.

There is a psychological tool you can use to combat this. It's "self-compassion" -- basically, when you're going through a hard time, treating yourself as kindly as you'd treat someone else who's struggling. Psychologist Kristin Neff, who studies self-compassion, finds that an essential element of this is seeing your "common humanity" -- meaning viewing yourself as part of a whole population of flawed, fallible humans.

This might help you look charitably on the concept of the "starter marriage." This is a first marriage for a very young couple without kids or many assets that ends in divorce in five years or less. (These are people who went into marriage not knowing themselves or their partner all that well and not really understanding what marriage requires.) Still, older people, upon hearing about this newfangled "get out of jail free" card, will often grumble the marital version of "When I was your age, I crawled 20 miles to school over broken glass!" ("Um, thanks, Aunt Bessie, but I learn just fine when Mom drops me off in her Tesla.")

But consider that this "starter marriage" concept is actually very helpful -- right in line with the notion from self-compassion that you're not alone in making mistakes. Understanding this can help you view your failures less as shameful embarrassments and more as learning experiences that you can use to make better choices in the future. Seeing failures in this more compassionate, positive light could also help you be a bit faster to admit when you've screwed up so you can move on. This is certainly preferable to just sitting there glumly mired in your bad choices like a little kid who peed his pants -- and has to stay in those wet pants for the next 50 years, at which point somebody will throw a big anniversary party to celebrate.

I'm a 28-year-old guy in a corporate job. I'm out there trying to meet women and date (or hook up), but I'm not doing so well. In college, I was able to hook up and get girlfriends pretty easily, and I haven't put on 100 pounds or anything. I've noticed that three of my male co-workers (at my same level at work) are getting lots of girls. All three are in major debt from buying clothes and leasing cars they really can't afford. Is being on the road to bankruptcy really what it takes to impress the ladies?

--Living Within My Means

Candlelight all over your apartment is really romantic -- unless you're using it because they've cut your power off again.

When women finally start looking to settle down and make a life with a man, the last thing they want is some credit-card-surfing spenditarian who gets his exercise running from collection agents. However, despite this, women can also be like blue jays on shiny objects -- especially shiny objects with, say, Audi emblems -- and men's "mate competition" through spendy-spend-spending reflects that.

Research on men and women ages 18 to 45 by evolutionary social psychologist Daniel Kruger found that men who had run up credit card debt were more likely to have multiple sex partners than their more sensibly spending bros. (Women's debt level didn't have any meaningful effect on their sexual body count.)

Again -- rather obviously -- women aren't all "I'm looking for a man who'll eventually have to crowdfund our children's dental bills." However, looking at Kruger's findings, another evolutionary psychologist, Glenn Geher, speculates that men's overspending "may act as a false signal of wealth, and although it is a false signal" (of the ability to provide resources for a woman and any children) "sometimes this deception is effective."

As for why that might be, just as a guy doesn't get to ask a woman whether her genes or steel-belted Spanx are the force behind her supermodel abs, a woman won't be poring over a guy's credit report at the bar. She'll just paw admiringly at the cashmere hoodie he took out two loans and sold his twin brother into slavery to buy.

This isn't to say you need to go into the red to get girls. It's ultimately a bad strategy for any guy who wants more than a string of flings. However, what would probably lead more women to give you a chance are the first-glance trappings of success -- beautiful shoes, designer eyeglass frames, that fab cashmere sweater, and maybe a really nice soft leather jacket.

The thing is, you can get these items simply by shopping shrewdly -- like at end-of-year sales or on eBay. They'll surely cost more than the duds you'd otherwise buy, but consider them investments to get you in the door. Remember, even women who want a boyfriend who's fiscally responsible are likely to be impressed by that sweater that took four years combing a Mongolian goat to make. And let's say some woman's just looking for a hookup. It's all good; she won't know you long enough to discover that although you do drive a brand-new "alternative-fuel" vehicle, it isn't a Tesla; it's a Schwinn.

I love my girlfriend and try to be good to her. However, her folks came to visit, and she thinks I was rude because I seemed uninterested and was on my phone the whole time. I told her that I think her parents are boring. I was just being honest. She got really mad. Am I supposed to lie about being entertained by her parents?

--The Boyfriend

There comes an age when other children's parents shouldn't have to hire monkeys and birthday clowns.

Twenty-some years ago, in the hospital maternity ward, your girlfriend's mom and dad heard the wonderful news -- and it wasn't, "It's an iPhone!" So, when her folks are visiting, there's a reasonable expectation that, yes, you would redirect your attention from "Words With Friends" to words with parents.

Surely, this is not news to you -- or really anyone whose brain has not been relocated to a jar. So you might ask yourself whether this ignore-athon of yours reflects some subconscious desire to sabotage your way out of the relationship. If that's not the case, consider something the late German social psychologist Erich Fromm pointed out: "To love somebody is not just a strong feeling -- it is a decision, it is a judgment, it is a promise." In other words, loving someone is something you do. Tragically, this acting lovingly business may sometimes require you to put your entertainment needs second -- even if the only way to survive the crushing tedium of being with your girlfriend's folks is to spend the evening secretly pacing the floater in your right eye.

I'm a 61-year-old guy who's been married four times. I love the security and acceptance of marriage, but after several years, either my wife du jour or I will get bored, and we'll agree to move on. Clearly, I like being a husband, but I do a poor job of remaining one. Can I change that?

--Chairman Of The Bored

So, you just want the security of marriage with all the excitement of dating somebody new -- which is kind of like wanting a latex hood and ball gag that are also a comfy old pair of slippers.

Though, no, you can't have it all, you might manage to have a good bit of it all -- the security and the excitement -- by bringing in the neurochemistry of the chase when you're in the cuddly-wuddly long-term attachment stage. This probably sounds complicated, but it's basically the brain version of how your freezer can serve as both an ice cube manufacturing area and a makeshift morgue for Squeaky the hamster, until you can give him a proper burial.

It turns out that the goo-goo-eyed "Granny and I are still so in luvvv!" and the bug-eyed "Wowee, that's new and exciting!" can have some brain parts and neurochemicals in common. Social psychologist Arthur Aron and his colleagues did a brain imaging study of couples who were still passionately in love after being married for 10 to 29 years. Surprisingly, the results looked a lot like their previous results on couples who'd just fallen madly in love, with intense activity in regions of the brain "associated with reward and motivation."

The neurotransmitter dopamine is a central player in this reward circuitry. Though dopamine is still widely known by its outdated nickname, the "pleasure chemical," current research by neuroscientist Kent Berridge suggests that it doesn't actually give you a buzz (as opioids in the brain do). It instead motivates you to do things that might -- like eating cake, smoking a doob, and making moves on that girl with the hypno-hooters.

Dopamine-secreting neurons are especially on the alert for what researchers call "novel rewards" -- any yummy, sexy, feel-good stuff you haven't tried before. Neuroscientist Wolfram Schultz finds that "unpredictable rewards" may be even three or four times as exciting to us as those we're used to.

The problem is, when there's nothing new on the horizon, there's no reason for your dopamine to get out of bed. In other words, there's a neurochemical explanation for why your marriages often go dullsville. But, there's also good news: Aron and his colleagues note that "if partners experience excitement" from, say, "novel and challenging activities" that they do together, "this shared experience can reignite relationship passion by associating the excitement with the relationship."

Obviously, these should be unanticipated good experiences -- like alternating who plans date night and surprising each other with the week's event -- not having your spouse find you in bed with the cleaning lady. You might also try to delight your spouse with small unexpected gestures every day. Ultimately, you should find bringing in surprise much more fun than simply hoping the relationship won't die -- kind of like a paramedic just staring down at a heart attack victim: "Not lookin' good, dude! Hope you didn't have any big weekend plans!"

The girl I'm in love with has a boyfriend. She and I have already fooled around, but she can't bring herself to break up with this guy. She insists she doesn't want to lose me and promises we'll date eventually. I'm confused. Do you think she's playing me?

--Lost

It's nice to hope for the best about people -- but still put a note, "tofu-kelp casserole," on that foil-wrapped plate of brownies you stuck in the break room refrigerator.

However, especially when our ego is involved, we're prone to believe the best about people, because of what psychologists call "optimism bias." This is a form of selecto-vision that leads us to overestimate that things will turn out wonderfully for us and underestimate the likelihood of our experiencing bad stuff, like being in a flaming car wreck or a flaming car wreck of a relationship. In short, we believe that bad things happen to other people. For example, that cheater we're in love with is only cheating because the other dude's such a fuckbuckle, not because she has the ethics of a dust mite.

Because optimism bias is ego-protecting, understanding that we're susceptible to it typically isn't enough to dig ourselves out. What might help you, however, is telling yourself your story, but about some other girl and guy. Then advise that guy on his prospects. For example: Yes, here's a woman you can trust completely to be faithful -- whenever she's trapped, totally alone, 2,300 feet below ground in a Chilean coal mine.