How Did Something So Right Go So Wrong?
Meet Charlotte, 25, who has just ended a two-year relationship:
"When I first met James (27) at the insurance company where I worked he was easy-going, charming and funny ... he turned out to be all that and more. He moved in with me after seven months of spending almost every free moment together. I would have sworn that I knew him better than anyone in the world. But then he changed; he went out with his friends more and became less interested in me. When I tried to talk with him about keeping balance in our relationship he would become defensive and detached, like he just didn't care. I kept trying, for the next year and a half, thinking that he would change, but he only became worse. Looking back, I wonder if I really ever knew him."
And here's Marc, 38, at the end of a 3-year relationship:
"I felt sorry for Jenell the first time we talked. She was going through a divorce from a real jerk that cheated on her. I wondered how any guy could do something like that to her; she was so beautiful and nice. She told me she had never been treated or loved in the ways that I took care of her. I realized why she seemed to feel so "at home"with jerks when I heard about her screwed-up family. It felt great to give her love, something she said she had never really had. Around the fourth month, though, Jenell became moody and picked fights with me, as if she wanted to be mad. I kept trying to make things better, and they would, for a while, but then she would go back into her shell. I should not have stayed with her so long. Why do I always get into relationships where I am the giver?"
Listen to Tasha, 28, at the end of a five-year relationship:
"The thing that impressed me most when I met Duane (31) was that he was so good with my six-year old son. He always talked to him, horsed around and played with him and would even bring him surprises when he came to my apartment to see me. Being a single mother, I easily fell in love with the father my son never had. I was bothered by the way Duane became harsh sometimes with me, but I wrote it off as just a bad mood. And anyway, you've got to take the bad with the good. We married on our first anniversary of going out, but from that time on he was never the same. He had frequent rages and treated me just like his father had treated his mother. I never thought he would act like that; he had been so different before we married. How did I miss the signs of what he was going to be like in marriage?"
What do Charlotte, Marc and Tasha have in common? All three ended up with something different than what they thought they had originally. They didn't pay attention to or minimized incidental idiosyncrasies that became damaging patterns and simply did not recognize the subtle signs of future problems. It is easy to get fooled when you are feeling in love.
The problem is not that you are unsure of what you want. According to a recent national survey by researchers at Rutgers University, 94% of singles stated that they want to marry their soul-mate. However, many of them acknowledged a lack of confidence in being able to achieve this goal. You're probably reading this book because you've noticed a pattern in your own relationships -- a pattern you want to break, and you're asking yourself this: I know what I want, so what am I doing wrong?
You know what you want but ...
Why are you always attracted to jerks?
Why do you keep picking partners who have the same problems?
How can you really know what someone will be like as a marriage partner?
Why are you so desperate?
How can you see so clearly what you want in a soul mate, but be so blind to a realistic view of what your partner is really like?
Why does your partner change so much in just three months?
Why do you think more clearly, feel more confident and act more assertively when you are not in a relationship?
You were told that his "ex" was such a jerk ... now you wonder?
Why did you overlook so many signs of problems?
Why do you always end up trying harder than your partner to make the relationship work?
What are you supposed to do to protect yourself from trusting too much?
How long does it take to really know someone?
When you look back on that relationship that now is over, why did you overlook all the signs that seem so clear now?
How can you feel so loved and so betrayed by the same person?
How can you love and hate the same person?
Why did your partner change as soon as you married?
Is this as good as it gets?
Read More ... Excerpted from 'How to Avoid Marrying a Jerk' by John Van Epp. Copyright© 2006 by John Van Epp. Excerpted by permission of The McGraw Hill Companies. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher
