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SOLVING THE RELATIONSHIP PUZZLE
By Dr. Tom Merrill, Bobbie Sandoz Merrill, MSW
Cox News Service
Published on: 07/09/04
Avoiding the relationship hustle
Question: My first marriage ended three years ago after several years of being hustled by my husband. Before we married, he was Mr. Wonderful and seemed to be the kind of man I had always hoped to spend my life with. It didn't take long after the wedding, though, for him to begin showing a very different side. By the time I decided to end the marriage, he was coming home late and then spending hours in front of the TV or his computer. On the weekends he played golf with his buddies and never asked me to do anything with him. I am now going out with a wonderful man who it seems can do nothing wrong. He tells me he loves me, calls me daily and appears to want to spend all of his time with me. We're talking about marriage, and that has me worried. How do I know if he is really who he is showing me? If I marry him, how do I know our marriage won't turn out like my first one?
Wanting to Know
Tom Says: Good questions. . . for both of you. How can either of you be certain that who you are seeing is the person you will wake up with tomorrow?
There is no certain method, but there are things both of you can do that at the least will let you see trouble signs if they are there. I don't know what you brought to the party in your first marriage, but if you are like the rest of us, you contributed something to its demise. So, first, make certain you know what your part was and get it handled. If you do not know, chances are almost 100 percent you will repeat it the next time around. The general rule of thumb is to clean up your old sandbox before you step into a new one — or you will track in old litter.
Assuming you have done this, you should check out your prospective partner's Relationship Intelligence quotient...his RI. You want to know how smart he is about relationships. If he is relationship stupid then you can count on it surfacing down the road, and you might have to do more remedial work than you are willing or want to.
While there are paper and pencil tests available to measure different relationship abilities, I think the best way to get at the subject is to have a side-by-side conversation with your significant other candidate and ask him directly. You will be able to tell immediately if he is the kind of person willing to talk through even the toughest of topics, a significant component of RI.
What you are looking for is his willingness to commit himself to staying the way he is now
after the marriage. So, ask him. Be creative and come up with ways to tease out his thoughts on those areas important to you and to RI.
Based on what you have said about your past marital failure, the qualities you feel are non-negotiable include honesty, honoring, inclusiveness, communication and integrity. These are major components of RI. I am certain you have others as well. Put them on your list and start the conversation NOW! Give him lots of air space to talk about how he feels about the areas that are important to you. If you do not like what you hear, or you disagree with him, don't try to sell him on your point of view. You want to know where he is in terms of his ability to have a successful, long-term, permanent relationship. The degree to which he measures up to the things you feel are important is the degree to which he will not turn into a project.
Here's the tricky part. If he is hustling you, he'll take your concerns as information and will say or do what he needs to win your heart. So, do not take what anyone says at face value. Continue to make sure that what he does is consistent with what he says. I listen to what people say but I believe what they do.
If he doesn't seem to know what you are talking about or doesn't feel that the areas you have defined are important, this should have the flags flying and the bells and sirens going off. Unless you are a glutton for punishment, run, don't walk, to the nearest exit. If he is willing to talk honestly about his needs in a relationship and backs it up with his behavior over the long haul, then you will have a pretty good idea that what you see is what you will wake up with.
Have fun!
Tom Merrill, Ph.D., ABPP, and Bobbie Sandoz Merrill, MSW, are married and veterans of the relationship puzzle. Tom, a clinical psychologist, and Bobbie, a therapist and parenting specialist, bring their personal and clinical experiences to this column. They have co-authored Settle for More: Finding and Keeping the Relationship You Want, to be published in fall, 2004. They welcome reader responses and questions: Merrill@lava.net.
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