Czytaj książkę: «Are You the One for Me?»

I dedicate this book to my mother, Phyllis Garshman, and my stepfather, Daniel Garshman

For loving me unconditionally, for always being

there when I needed you and for showing me, by

your example, how wonderful love can be when

you’re with the right person.

Contents

Title Page

Dedication

UNDERSTANDING YOUR LOVE CHOICES

1 Love Is Not Enough

2 Why We Choose the People We Love

3 Falling in Love for All the Wrong Reasons

4 The Six Biggest Mistakes We Make in the Beginning of a Relationship

AVOIDING WHO’S WRONG

5 The Ten Types of Relationships That Won’t Work

6 Fatal Flaws

7 Compatibility Time Bombs

KNOWING WHO’S RIGHT

8 Six Qualities to Look For in a Mate

9 Sexual Chemistry: What Turns You On and What Doesn’t

10 Compatibility: Finding Out Who’s Right for You

11 Commitment: Making and Keeping One When it’s Right and Letting Go When it’s Wrong

12 The Adventure of Love

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Also by Barbara de Angelis

Copyright

About the Publisher

You are lying in the dark next to the person you love. You can tell by his breathing that he’s asleep, and as you gaze at the outlines of his face, you wonder about the future of this relationship. You know he wants to marry you. You love him; you can’t imagine living without him, but the thought of marrying him scares you to death. What if you make the commitment and find out later that there’s someone you’re more compatible with? How can you be sure he’s really the one for you?

You and your husband are eating pizza and watching a movie on television. This is the first chance you’ve had to be alone together all week. It’s hard to believe that next month will be your tenth wedding anniversary. It’s been a good ten years, and although there are no big problems in the marriage, sometimes you wonder if you made the right choice. You love him, but don’t feel as ‘in love’ as when you met. You glance over at him sitting on the couch and ask yourself whether you’re really fulfilled, or just ‘comfortable.’ Would you be happier with someone else? Is he really your perfect partner?

You’re sitting in your attorney’s office, looking down at your divorce papers. Once you sign them, your marriage will be officially over. The pen trembles in your hand, and your eyes fill with tears as dozens of memories flood into your mind: the first time he kissed you; the night he asked you to marry him; the joy you felt on your wedding day; the fun you had fixing up your first home; the closeness you felt when your children were born; the safety you felt in his arms; the hopes and dreams and plans for the future. Never in your wildest dreams did you imagine that it would turn out this way. You were so sure it would work, so confident that he was the right person for you. But now, as your signature severs the marriage forever, you ask yourself, ‘Why didn’t I see it? How could I have known it wouldn’t last? Why did I make the wrong choice?’

Falling in love is a magical and powerful experience. Each kiss, each conversation, each moment in the beginning seems so right, so perfect. But soon attraction and infatuation become a ‘relationship,’ and we are brought down to earth with the challenging realities of sharing our life with another human being. And as those first enchanted weeks turn into months, one day we find ourselves asking: ‘Is this person right for me?’

If you’ve ever been in a serious relationship, you’ve asked yourself this question—before you made a commitment, before you got married, or, if the relationship didn’t work, before you decided to leave for good.

I used to hear this question every day when I had a radio talk show in Los Angeles. I received more phone calls about this problem than any other.

‘I love my boyfriend, but I’m afraid to make a commitment and marry him. What if I meet someone I love more in a few years? How can I tell if we’re compatible enough?’

‘I’ve been dating a woman for two years, but she has children I don’t get along with. Do you think this relationship can work?’

‘My husband and I argue all the time. He refuses to go to counseling and we hardly ever have sex anymore. I love him and don’t want to hurt the children, but I’m totally miserable How can I be sure it’s really over before I leave?’

‘I’ve just come out of a very painful relationship. I want to find a partner to share my life with, but I’m afraid of getting hurt again How can I tell the next time if I’m with someone who is wrong for me before my heart gets broken?’

I understand the pain and turmoil these people are going through, because I’ve been through it, too. Since my first serious relationship at seventeen, and, until recently, I fell in love without giving serious consideration to whether the person was right for me, let alone whether they loved me enough. Someone showed up, and if he had something lovable about him, I would start a relationship. I’d convince myself he was ‘the one’ only to find out that we were incompatible and watch the relationship fail. Then I would feel sorry for myself and wonder what I was doing wrong.

After too many heartbreaks, I was forced to face the sad truth: In spite of my experience, education, and my intense desire to be happy, I continually chose partners who were not right for me. I was falling in love with the wrong people for the wrong reasons.

I’m happy to say, I’ve spent the past five years of my life learning how to help myself and others make better love choices, and the results have been truly amazing. When it was time to choose a topic for my third book, I knew right away what it would be. My first two books were about how to love; this book is about whom to love. It’s about knowing when someone is right for you, and avoiding those who are wrong. I hope that what you learn in this book will give you the understanding and support you need to create the passionate and fulfilling relationship you deserve.

HOW COULD I HAVE BEEN SO BLIND?

We all want to be happy in our love life, and we want our relationships to work. So, obviously, none of us deliberately sets out to choose partners who are wrong for us. We truly believe we are making the right decision when we select a mate. But the sad reality is that, more often than not, those choices turn out to be painful mistakes.

MANY OF US ARE CHOOSING THE WRONG PARTNERS AND WONDERING WHY OUR RELATIONSHIPS ARE NOT WORKING.

Have you ever thought or said the following about one of your relationships?

‘How could I have been so blind? Why didn’t I see what he/she was really like?’

‘I felt so sure that, this time, it would work. Where did I go wrong?’

‘He seemed so wonderful when we first met. I can’t figure out why he changed into someone I can’t stand.’

‘All the signs were there from the beginning that she didn’t feel the way I did. I guess I just ignored them and convinced myself things would get better.’

‘We loved each other, but we couldn’t agree on anything, and all we did was argue.’

‘I was so sure he was different from the other men I’d been with. It took me almost two years to find out that I’d picked the same type of guy all over again! How could I have wasted so much time?’

‘I remember feeling really in love with her at the time, but the truth is, I never told anyone we were together because I was embarrassed to admit I was even involved with a woman like that.’

‘Everything about him seemed so perfect; I kept telling myself that I should be happy with him, but there just wasn’t any chemistry between us.’

There is an old saying, ‘Hindsight has 20/20 vision.’ It’s always so much easier to look back and see things clearly that we could not see at all then. It’s much easier to be wiser about the mistakes we made yesterday than the ones we are in the process of making today. Yet, I’ve always lived by the philosophy that there are no ‘mistakes’—only opportunities for growth and learning. And learning from the past gives meaning, and even purpose, to some of the pain and heartache collected along the way.

This book contains everything I have learned about choosing the right partner, from my own experiences and those of the men and women I have counseled and worked with. It’s about understanding why you make the love choices you do, and learning how to make more fulfilling ones. It answers the questions, ‘How could I have been so blind?’ and ‘How can I tell if I’m with the right person?’ and hopefully will give you the vision you need to see the truth about your own love life.

IF YOU ARE SINGLE, I hope this book will give you tools and guidelines for making healthy, successful choices in your partner for your next relationship.

IF YOU ARE RECOVERING FROM A BROKEN HEART, I hope this book will help you understand why your relationship choices were not good ones for you, and will give you information that will help you make much wiser and less painful choices next time.

IF YOU ARE UNMARRIED BUT IN A RELATIONSHIP, I hope this book will support you in getting clear about whether your relationship is right for you, so you don’t have to waste time and energy on a relationship that won’t work.

IF YOU ARE IN A COMMITTED RELATIONSHIP OR MARRIAGE, I hope this book will show you that many of the conflicts you and your partner experience may stem not from lack of love, but lack of compatibility, and that understanding your differences can help you live more peacefully and passionately together.

WHY SOME RELATIONSHIPS DON’T WORK

Relationships don’t work for one of two reasons:

1. You are with the right person but you are loving wrong.

You and your partner have poor communication habits.

You don’t know how to create real intimacy.

You don’t ask for what you want, and end up feeling resentful.

You neglect the relationship.

or

2. You are with the wrong person.

Your love or life-style is incompatible with your partner’s.

You do not share enough common values and commitments.

Your partner has ‘fatal flaws’ that make having a successful relationship impossible.

You can’t give each other enough of what you need.

Several years ago I wrote my first book, How to Make Love All the Time, as a manual to help people learn how to love one another in a way that creates healthy, passionate, fulfilling relationships. The book was really about how to stop loving the wrong way and start loving the right way, reason number one above. But that information, as valuable as it has been to millions of my readers around the world, is incomplete without the material I’ve included in this book, because if you are loving the wrong person, loving the right way won’t make a difference.

WHOM YOU CHOOSE TO LOVE IS AS IMPORTANT AS HOW YOU CHOOSE TO LOVE.

WHY WE FALL IN LOVE

Ask most people why they fell in love with their partners, past or present, and you’ll probably hear answers like this:

‘I met Kathy at the gym where I work out. Something about the way she got so into that aerobics class and gave it so much energy really appealed to me.’

‘Donna was a bridesmaid at my cousin’s wedding. She looked so beautiful in this pink strapless dress—I knew on the spot I was going to fall in love with her.’

‘Jo Anne and I knew each other since we were kids. Everyone always said we’d probably get married when we grew up, and I guess I never even questioned it—it seemed like the right thing to do.’

‘Alex and I were assigned to work together on a project in our office. I think it was watching him problem-solve—he is so creative—that attracted me to him.’

‘I’ve always been a sucker for music, so when I heard Fred play the guitar at a friend’s house, I knew he was the one for me.’

‘This sounds terrible, but I always had this fantasy of a tall, dark-haired man with a mustache. Dennis looked exactly like that, and nothing else really mattered.’

‘My ex-husband was so selfish and controlling. After my divorce, I think I was attracted to Stan because he was such a nice guy. He always seemed so sweet and considerate.’

These may seem like good reasons to start a relationship, but they are NOT.

All Kathy’s boyfriend knows about her is that she has a lot of physical energy.

All Donna’s boyfriend knows about her is that she looks good in pink chiffon.

Jo Anne’s husband has been so influenced by what his friends and family think that he doesn’t even know why he loves her.

Alex’s girlfriend is enthralled with his business skills but has no idea what his emotional skills are.

Fred’s partner has fallen under a musical spell—she knows nothing about him except for the romantic personality she assumes all guitar players have.

Dennis’s girlfriend likes the way he looks—she is attracted to a fantasy, but doesn’t know anything about the person underneath.

And all Stan’s wife knows is that Stan is definitely different from her ex-husband. But whether he is what she wants and needs is a different story.

None of these people thought they were making the wrong decision. They all sincerely believed that they were making intelligent, sensible choices in their partners. But the frightening truth is that many of them will discover in a month, or six months, or six years that they are in a relationship with the wrong person.

MOST PEOPLE PUT MORE TIME AND EFFORT INTO DECIDING WHAT KIND OF CAR OR VIDEO PLAYER TO BUY THAN THEY DO INTO DECIDING WHOM TO HAVE A RELATIONSHIP WITH.

Is it any wonder, then, that our relationships don’t turn out the way we want them to, that our hopes and dreams turn into heartache, disappointment, and despair?

TEST YOUR LOVE IQ

Part of the reason why so many people choose to be in a relationship with the wrong person is that they have what I call a low ‘Love IQ.’ Your Love IQ is based on how much you know about creating and maintaining a healthy relationship with another person. Therefore, whether your Love IQ is high or low determines how good or how bad your choice in partner will be. If you have a high Love IQ and are ‘Love Smart,’ you will probably still make some mistakes in love, but not as many as if you have a low Love IQ. Then you are ‘Love Stupid.’

Here is a quiz to help you determine your Love IQ. It contains ten statements about love. Grade yourself according to how much each statement describes the way you have felt about love, now or in the past, and how often this belief has affected your life.

If the belief about how love should feel expressed in the statement has affected you in your past or present relationships:

Very frequently..................Give yourself 0 points

Often...................................Give yourself 4 points

Occasionally.......................Give yourself 8 points

Rarely or never.................Give yourself 10 points

WARNING: You will be tempted to take this quiz from the perspective of how you think you should feel about love and romance, instead of being honest about how you actually felt in your past. Don’t respond to each statement only on the basis of your present attitudes and all you have learned; respond honestly, based on a summary of all of your relationships throughout your life.

Why is this important? For instance, let’s take the first statement in the quiz:

‘If my partner and I really love one another enough, none of our problems or personality differences will threaten the existence of our relationship.’

Perhaps you’re in a new relationship, where, for the first time, you’re being honest about problems rather than avoiding them. You might feel that this statement doesn’t apply to how you feel now at all. You want to answer ‘Rarely or Never’ and give yourself a quick 10 points. But let’s say that in your previous relationships, you’ve ignored conflicts and flaws by telling yourself you loved the person so much that none of his or her hurtful or unloving behavior mattered. From that point of view, this statement applies very much to how you felt. So you should answer ‘Very Frequently’ and give yourself 0 points! The reason you may be tempted to answer from the point of view of your new understanding of love, rather than how your relationships have really been in the past, could be that you just don’t want to appear unenlightened or messed up. As a member of my office put it, ‘Can’t I just answer from the past six months of my life? Do I have to include all those years when I didn’t know what I was doing?’ My answer is, ‘If you want to be honest with yourself, and learn from your mistakes, yes you must include your past.’

YOUR LOVE IQ QUIZ

1 If my partner and I really love one another enough, none of our problems or personality differences will threaten the existence of our relationship.

2 If I am finally with the right person, I won’t ever be really attracted to someone else, because I will be so in love.

3 If it’s really true love, I’d know the moment I see the person for the first time.

4 The right relationship will always be interesting and exciting.

5 If it’s really true love, I won’t feel complete and whole when I’m not with my partner.

6 The sex in a relationship can’t be really fabulous unless it is true love.

7 My perfect partner will give me everything I need and will fill in all the empty spaces in my life—I won’t really need anyone else.

8 If I’m really in love, I’ll feel excited and nervous each time I see my partner; being with him/her will give me goose bumps.

9 If I’m with the right person, we will be so in tune with each other, we’ll always know how the other person is feeling.

10 If I’m in the right relationship, it will feel naturally harmonious, and we won’t have to work that hard to make it work.

Now total up your points:

80–100 Points: Congratulations! You have a high love IQ. You are realistic in your understanding of relationships and realize that love is not enough to make a relationship work—it takes communication, compatibility, and hard work. To avoid future problems, work on those areas in which you have a low score.

60–79 Points: Your love IQ isn’t bad, but it could be better. You are still letting your romantic ideals and fantasies determine your attitudes about relationships. Pay more attention to how you are feeling and not to how you want the relationship to look. Don’t be so afraid of conflict. Remind yourself that true love doesn’t mean things have to be ‘perfect’ all the time. The exercises in this book will help you raise your Love IQ.

40–59 Points: Warning! Your Love IQ is dangerously low, but you probably already know this because you have been hurt so much in relationships. The reason you continue to be disappointed in love is that you don’t pay enough attention to whom you are with. You put your partners on a pedestal and are more ‘in love with love’ than with them. If you want to stop suffering and be happier, you will need to make some major changes in the way you choose and behave in relationships. Use the information in the rest of this book to become much smarter about love.

0–39 Points: Emergency! Your Love IQ is so low that you are guaranteed to get your heart broken over and over again. Your love life needs immediate attention. It’s time to grow up and leave your fantasy world behind. Your relationships can work, but only if you commit yourself to understanding what you’ve been doing wrong and learn how to make better choices for yourself. Stop blaming the partners who have let you down and take a good, hard look at how you set up relationships to fail from the beginning. The rest of this book will help you find the answers you need to create healthy relationships.

If you ended up with a very low Love IQ, don’t feel too badly. When I first devised this quiz and took it myself, I scored a meager 28 points! Obviously I knew that these ten statements about love were unhealthy attitudes, but I tried to be totally honest with myself about how I have viewed love in my past, and that’s how I scored 28 points. By the time you finish reading this book, your Love IQ will be much higher and your confidence in your ability to make successful love choices will be much greater.

UNCOVERING YOUR LOVE MYTHS

Have you ever convinced yourself you were in love when you were really in lust?

Have you ever been involved with a partner who was all wrong for you and not realized it until months or even years later?

Do you ignore the problems in your relationship because you don’t want to ‘rock the boat’?

Have you had a habit of mistaking drama and tension for true love?

Have you ever talked yourself into staying with someone who was mistreating you because your relationship ‘looks good’ on the outside?

Do you ever question a really healthy relationship because you don’t feel head over heels in love with your partner all the time?

Do you suspect that you choose partners with whom you are not compatible and ignore the people with whom you could be truly compatible?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, it’s because you’ve been affected by what I call …

THE FIVE DEADLY MYTHS ABOUT LOVE

Love myths are beliefs many of us have about love and romance that actually prevent us from making intelligent love choices. These beliefs or attitudes are false notions about relationships that we develop from:

Watching television and movies.

Reading romantic novels.

Never being taught about love.

Consciously and unconsciously, we base our decisions in relationships on these Love Myths. Let’s look at five of the most deadly Love Myths. As you read each one, think not only of your present relationship but about your past relationships as well.

1 TRUE LOVE CONQUERS ALL.

2 WHEN ITS REALLY TRUE LOVE, YOU WILL KNOW IT THE MOMENT YOU MEET THE OTHER PERSON.

3 THERE IS ONLY ONE TRUE LOVE IN THE WORLD WHO IS RIGHT FOR YOU.

4 THE PERFECT PARTNER WILL FULFILL YOU COMPLETELY IN EVERY WAY.

5 WHEN YOU EXPERIENCE POWERFUL SEXUAL CHEMISTRY WITH SOMEONE, IT MUST BE LOVE.

Love Myth 1

True Love Conquers All

Deep in our hearts, we all secretly believe this myth about love—that if we really love our partner, we will be able to make the relationship work. No problem, no conflict, no set of circumstances is insurmountable if we just love enough.

Exercise: Think back to your past relationships, or to problems in your present relationship, and fill in the blank to this sentence for yourself. Make a list of at least a dozen responses that refer to different partners you have had.

If I love my partner enough, it won’t matter that (problem)

If I love my partner enough, it won’t matter that __________

If I love my partner enough, it won’t matter that:

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Example: If I love my partner enough, it won’t matter that:

He drinks.

Our sex life isn’t great.

She criticizes me all the time.

We fight constantly over how to raise the children.

He is a strict Catholic and I am Jewish.

I’m not really sexually attracted to her.

He doesn’t have a job and hasn’t worked in two years.

She has a terrible temper and blows up all the time.

He constantly flirts with other women.

I don’t get along with her children.

He has a hard time telling me how he feels.

His family doesn’t accept me.

I want children and he doesn’t.

She still hasn’t gotten over her ex-boyfriend.

He’s thirty years older than I am.

We live on opposite sides of the country.

Here are the consequences of believing in Love Myth #1:

1 You avoid facing your relationship problems, or seeking solutions to those problems, by telling yourself, ‘If we love each other enough, none of these conflicts or personality differences will matter.’

Dennis, thirty-seven, called me on my radio talk show one day and explained that he was Jewish and his fiancée, Alice, thirty-five, was Catholic. They had been dating for two years, and although they talked about their difference in religion, they never really resolved their feelings about it. ‘I always worried that one day it would be a problem,’ Dennis confessed, ‘but we got along so well in so many other ways, and I didn’t want to rock the boat. Then Alice and I started to talk about marriage. When I thought about my future, and about having children, I realized that I wanted my kids to be brought up in the Jewish faith, and that there were things about Alice not being Jewish that I also missed but had never told her. I asked her to convert, but she refused. She is a pretty strict Catholic, and says she wants to be married in the Church by a priest, which means she couldn’t marry a practicing Jew. I keep feeling like our love should conquer these differences, but they don’t seem to go away.’

The love Alice and Dennis felt for one another was not enough to overcome their lack of religious compatibility. Although many couples can make interfaith marriages work, Alice and Dennis were each too deeply entrenched in their own religions to compromise. No matter how much they cared about one another, they could not be happy and true to their own beliefs by staying together. But they had put off facing these problems by telling themselves, ‘If we really love one another, our differences won’t matter.’ They kept trying to love and accept each other more, never facing the obvious until the very end.

2. You stay in unloving and unfulfilling relationships even when they are not working by telling yourself, ‘If I just love him more, he will change.’

Kimberly, twenty-eight, and her husband David, thirty, came to me in hopes of saving their marriage. They had been together for six years but couldn’t seem to get along without constant arguing. ‘I love David so much,’ Kimberly explained with tears in her eyes, ‘but I am constantly criticizing him. It’s driving him crazy, and I hate myself for doing it.’ I asked Kimberly to list her complaints about her husband. ‘David is a quiet type of guy. He’s pretty introspective, and not much for socializing with a lot of people. I’m totally the opposite—very outgoing and talkative, and I love having fun, being with friends, and living life passionately. I hate to say this, but I feel bored a lot of the time with him. It seems like we don’t have anything to talk about, and I feel like I’m always pulling him out of his shell.’

‘I’ve told Kim that this is the way I am,’ David responded tensely. ‘I want to make her happy, but I feel like she is asking me to be someone I am not. I’ve always been low-key, and I really don’t want to change.’

As we talked more, I learned that Kimberly married David because she was looking for stability after having been cheated by a college boyfriend. She was so concerned with making sure he was a nice guy that she never asked herself whether they would be compatible together. Kimberly and David had so many differences in life-style, temperament, and personality that living together harmoniously was next to impossible. They loved one another very much, but it was not enough to make their relationship work.

But Kimberly believed Love Myth #1, that true love conquers all, and continued to stay with David, hoping that if she just loved him more, he would change. She never considered the possibility that David wasn’t changing because David didn’t want to change. She just kept trying to be the perfect wife, believing her love would transform David from the man he was into the man she wanted him to be.

Sadly, belief in this Love Myth can cause you heartache, pain, and even physical harm because it convinces you to stay in relationships that are not healthy. People with very low self-esteem or a childhood history of neglect or abuse often set themselves up in toxic relationships they find difficult to leave, convincing themselves that if they just loved their partner more, his/her harmful behavior would disappear and be replaced with love and affection. This is a trap. Your partner’s dysfunctional behavior is determined by forces that have nothing to do with how loving you are.

3. You beat yourself up emotionally when a relationship doesn’t work, telling yourself, ‘If I had only loved him/her more, I know I could have saved it.’

Eileen, fifty-four, was married to Raoul, sixty, for thirty-one years. Raoul was an alcoholic whose rages and irresponsibility had tortured Eileen and her three children throughout their lives. After pleading with her husband to get some help, and facing his total denial of the problem, Eileen found the courage to leave. Two years after their divorce, she came to me for help with her feelings of depression. When I asked Eileen what she thought was bothering her, she replied, ‘I guess I feel guilty.’

‘Guilty about leaving your husband?’

‘Not just about leaving him,’ Eileen said with tears in her eyes, ‘but guilty for not trying harder to make it work I feel like I abandoned him. Maybe if I had gone to more Al-Anon meetings myself, I would have understood him better, and he would have stopped drinking. Or maybe if I had been more affectionate, or satisfied him more, he would have given up the alcohol.”

The more we talked, the more obvious it was that Eileen was still punishing herself for what she saw as her failure to save her marriage. Eileen’s mother had always told her that ‘a good wife stands by her man through thick and thin,” and so Eileen felt that she was an inadequate wife. Eileen’s depression was brought on by her belief in Love Myth #1—that if she had just loved Raoul more, their marriage would have worked. The reality of love is very different from the myth. Of course, love is the foundation for a good relationship. But if a relationship is going to survive and grow, it needs a lot more than love.

Here’s the reality about Love Myth #1:

LOVE IS NOT ENOUGH TO MAKE A RELATIONSHIP WORK —IT NEEDS COMPATIBILITY AND IT NEEDS COMMITMENT.

The sad truth is, very few relationships end because the two partners do not love each other; they end because they are not compat­ible partners.

I know this from my own painful experience in several of my past relationships. Like many people with the wrong partner, I attempted to make up for the lack of compatibility by trying extra hard and loving with added intensity. But in the end, we were not compatible enough to live peacefully and happily together. For years I blamed myself, thinking that if I had loved more, the differences wouldn’t have mattered. Now I know I was wrong. Differences do matter, sometimes just enough to make a relationship challenging, but often enough to make it unhealthy and unfulfilling. Throughout the rest of the book we’ll look in more detail at how to tell if you are compatible with another person.

Love Myth 2

When It’s Really True Love, You Will Know It the Moment You Meet the Other Person

When you watch a romantic film, you see it.

When you listen to a romantic song, you hear about it.

When you are single and lonely, you dream about it.

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT

I think we all secretly believe in ‘love at first sight,’ the idea that if it is really true love, you will know it the moment you meet the other person. Oh, there may be other kinds of love, but according to this Love Myth, true love will strike you like lightning.

I remember first hearing this myth as a young girl, and I longed to be swept away during a powerfully romantic moment in which I’d look into a man’s eyes and know instantly, and without a doubt, that this was my lifelong soulmate! I dreamed about ‘some enchanted evening,’ as the famous ballad from the play and movie South Pacific described it, when I would ‘find [my] true love … across a crowded room.’ Anything less than this kind of intense emotional recognition seemed a pale imitation of what I was sure true love should feel like.

You can call it ‘love at first sight’ or ‘instant chemistry,’ but the possible problems are the same if you believe in Love Myth #2:

1 You dwell on the intense connection or chemistry and avoid examining the rest of the relationship.

Skip, thirty-two, is a very successful entrepreneur, who met Marcia, a twenty-seven-year-old accountant, at a wedding. ‘My first. thought when I saw her,’ he told me, ‘was, ‘God, she is beautiful,’ and my second thought was, ‘I’m going to marry this woman.’ That night was probably the most romantic night of my life. It was a beautiful summer evening, and we danced together on an outdoor patio under the stars. Marcia even caught the bridal bouquet, and everyone kidded us about being next.

‘We dated each other for the next ten months, and then she told me she wanted me to make more of a commitment—in other words, to propose to her. I told her I needed more time, that I didn’t want to rush things, but she kept pressuring me until one day she gave me an ultimatum: marry her or she’d leave.

‘I knew something was wrong, because I just wasn’t happy, but whenever I’d question whether I was making a mistake, a little voice in my head would say, ‘How could she be wrong for you if you had ‘that feeling’ when you first saw her?’ I couldn’t answer that question, and I kept remembering how crazy I’d been about Marcia in the beginning. I told myself that my concerns were born from my unwillingness to grow up. So I married her.’

‘Are you still married?’ I asked Skip.

‘No,’ he answered with a sad grimace. ‘I left Marcia after two years. The truth was, our relationship didn’t live up to that first magical evening—Marcia is beautiful, but she is also very angry. She controlled me with her rages, and she drank too much, which made the blowups all too frequent. I put off breaking up with her for much longer than I should have, because I kept doubting my own feelings and thinking about how perfect things were when we met. I didn’t want to see the truth; the romantic picture was much nicer.’

Skip was a victim of Love Myth #2—he hid behind his intense first impressions of Marcia, and used them to fuel his fantasy of their relationship, rather than facing the reality of how unhappy he really was.

ARE YOU A ‘LOVE-AT-FIRST-SIGHT JUNKIE’?

2. You get addicted to flashy beginnings and miss opportunities for real, lasting love.

Alexia was a petite, striking thirty-six-year-old woman who owned a children’s clothing store. She came to me to decide what to do about her relationship with Kent. ‘I’ll tell you right away that in the past, my relationships haven’t been great,’ Alexia began. ‘I seem to have been attracted to these flashy, exciting men who end up leaving me or cheating on me or somehow hurting me. These relationships always seem so powerful when they start, and I feel so wildly and desperately in love, and then—POW!—I get hurt.

‘Last year I decided to swear off men entirely, and then I met Kent. He is the cousin of a good friend of mine, and a bunch of us started spending time together on the weekends. I liked Kent from the moment I met him, but never considered dating him because he wasn’t ‘my type.’ We became really good friends, talking for hours on the phone at night, sharing things with one another we’d never told anyone else. It got to the point where we called each other several times a day and spent most of our free evenings together.

‘Suddenly one night while we were driving back from seeing a movie, Kent leaned over and kissed me on the lips. At first I was shocked and thought, ‘You shouldn’t be kissing him—he’s your friend!’ But then I started getting into the kiss and realized that I liked it. Kent looked at me and confessed that he’d been wanting to kiss me for months and that he thought he was falling in love with me.’

‘How did you feel about that?’ I asked Alexia.

‘Totally confused. Excited, frightened, all mixed up. Kent was supposed to be just a friend, not a lover. He’s not the kind of guy that I picture myself with.’

‘And what kind of guy is that?’

Alexia looked a little embarrassed as she replied sarcastically, ‘Oh, you know, the kind that sweeps me off my feet and then knocks me down again.’

‘Alexia,’ I answered, ‘your relationship with Kent sounds healthy. I don’t think you’ve ever known what healthy love is supposed to feel like.’

Alexia believed so strongly in the Love Myth of love-at-first-sight that she was invalidating her growing feelings for Kent. She couldn’t imagine that love could be real if it didn’t hit her over the head in the first five minutes of the relationship. Like many ‘love-at-first-sight junkies,’ Alexia was addicted to the instant high of infatuation and therefore couldn’t even recognize the real love that had developed in her relationship. She almost sabotaged the first healthy romance in her life.

Being a ‘love-at-first-sight junkie’ is one of the most deadly ways in which we lower our ‘Love IQ.’

‘LOVE-AT-FIRST-SIGHT JUNKIES’ OFTEN LOOK FOR ALL THE WRONG QUALITIES IN A MATE AND OVERLOOK THE RIGHT QUALITIES.

WHAT IS LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT?

Just what is it that you feel when you meet someone and have that instant feeling of falling in love? If it isn’t love at first sight, what is it?

Lust-At-First-Sight. You experience raw, sexual chemistry between you and another person, and assign more emotion to the bond than there actually is. You can’t stop thinking about the person, not because you are in love with them, but because you are turned on by them. Intense physical attraction, especially with someone who fits your mental picture of the ‘perfect’ partner, can easily be mistaken for love, especially if you are looking for an instant high. But the high of lust-at-first-sight is often followed by the low of the disappointment you feel when the relationship doesn’t turn out the way you hoped it would. (See Chapter Four for more about ‘Lust Blindness.’)

Infatuation with their image. Sometimes when you think you are falling in love with someone, you are actually ‘in love’ with their image: how they look; their profession; how much money they have; the car they drive; the things they’ve done in their life. You build a fantasy relationship in your head, telling yourself, ‘My boyfriend is a doctor,’ or ‘I’m dating a woman with the perfect body,’ and thus you ignore the real person.

In spite of these dangers, is it possible to feel at the moment you meet someone that this is the perfect partner for you, and to be correct? What about those couples married for thirty years who say they knew they were right for one another on their first date? Wasn’t that love at first sight? I like to think that they experienced a powerful attraction and emotional connection that grew into a strong and successful relationship. They recognized something special in one another at ‘first sight,’ but the true love developed over time.

Here’s the reality about Love Myth #2:

IT TAKES JUST A MOMENT TO EXPERIENCE INFATUATION, BUT TRUE LOVE TAKES TIME.

Imagine sitting in a cabin on a cold, snowy night. You decide to build a fire to keep yourself warm. You have a choice of using newspapers for the fire, or logs. If you know anything about fire, you know the answer to this puzzle—the newspaper would create a big blaze quickly but would die out just as quickly. The logs would take longer to catch, but would burn slowly and steadily for a very long time.

I’ve seen so many people, including myself, make the mistake of looking for that instant blaze at the beginning of a relationship rather than looking for a partner with whom they can build a solid and lasting relationship. I’m not saying you can’t have both, just as you can use newspaper and logs to build a strong fire. But if you have found yourself choosing inappropriate partners over and over again, perhaps you’d be better off looking for Mr. (or Ms.) Log instead of Ms. or Mr. Flammable!

HOW I ALMOST MISSED OUT ON THE BEST RELATIONSHIP OF MY LIFE

In case you haven’t guessed by now, I was a ‘love-at-first-sight-junkie’ myself. The more infatuated I felt with someone, the more credibility I gave my feelings about him and my new relationship. I’ll share more about my own mistakes in the following chapters of this book, but first let me tell you about how my search for instant chemistry came close to ruining my chances for true romantic happiness.

About four years ago I was in the process of ending an extremely painful relationship with a man I had loved for a long time. I was fortunate enough to have two best friends, both male, named Kevin and Jeffrey. I originally met Kevin and Jeffrey through my seminar work, and they eventually became facilitators in my organization. Through their support I found the courage to admit to myself that I wasn’t getting what I wanted in my relationship, and to face the fact that I needed to leave.

During the many months over which I came to terms with my decision, Jeffrey and I became very close. We talked every day on the phone. We worked on many projects together. We joked around that we were really like brother and sister, since we look alike. I knew women really found Jeffrey attractive, although I told myself he wasn’t my ‘type,’ and he would often kid me and say if he could find a woman like me, he’d take her. I found myself making excuses to see or talk to him, but I told myself it was just because I was going through such a hard time. I noticed we were finding more reasons to hug or touch one another, but I convinced myself it was because we felt so safe together.

One evening as Kevin, Jeffrey, and I were in a meeting discussing some seminar business, Kevin looked at us and said, ‘What’s going on with the two of you?’

‘What do you mean? Nothing’s going on,’ I responded quickly.

‘Well, it’s just that when you are together, you look like you are in love,’ he answered.

‘Don’t be silly,’ said Jeffrey. ‘We are just great friends. You can’t actually believe that we would be any more than that, can you?’

‘All I know is that when I’m around you, it sure feels like more than friends,’ Kevin said with a smile. ‘Look, I’m going to leave the room now, so you can both talk about it.’ And with that, Kevin walked out.

Jeffrey and I sat across from each other on the couch in silence. For a moment we looked into each other’s eyes, and then we both started to cry, for Kevin had put something into words that we had both avoided talking about, or even admitting to ourselves: We were indeed falling in love.

Jeffrey reached out and took my hands. ‘I can’t believe this is happening,’ he said. ‘We are supposed to be just friends.’

‘Maybe it is just something temporary,’ I answered in a frightened voice. ‘Maybe we just think we feel this way, but it will pass.’

And in that moment, I truly wanted to believe that my feelings for Jeffrey would fade, because I couldn’t totally accept the fact that I loved him. Dozens of questions forced their way into my mind all at once: If I loved him, why hadn’t I known about it until tonight? How could I feel so close to someone I hadn’t been attracted to initially? Since it hadn’t been love at first sight, did that mean the relationship would be passionless?

Like many ‘Love-at-First-Sight junkies,’ I didn’t trust my feelings for someone unless they hit me over the head. I looked for all the wrong signals to determine whether I was ‘in love’—drama, intensity, fear of loss or abandonment, extreme highs and lows—all signs of an unhealthy relationship. For the first time in my life I had developed an emotional connection with a man based on friendship, trust, openness, safety, consistency, and true caring, and I hadn’t even recognized it because it felt too peaceful to be love.

For several months I struggled with my emotions. One day I’d want to go ahead with the relationship, and the next day I’d decide that I was kidding myself and should break it off. There were many moments in which I questioned whether my feelings for Jeffrey were strong enough, all because the relationship had crept up on me rather than arriving all at once. I put poor Jeffrey through hell with my lack of certainty and came close to losing him for good. It took me almost a year to let go of my Love Myth about the way we should have met and the way I should have felt, and to finally appreciate the depth and the joy of how I did feel. That was four years ago, and looking back, I thank God that Jeffrey was so patient and that I didn’t throw away the best thing that ever happened to me. Instead I threw away the Love Myth that had gotten me into one dysfunctional relationship after another.

A first impression of someone is not enough to determine whether he or she will be a healthy and loving partner. You need a second, third, fourth, and fifth impression. You need time to discover someone’s character, not just their exterior.

Remember: Falling in love is the easy part, but building a healthy relationship takes hard work.