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Have You Married A Jerk? 9/23/2006 7:02:33 PM
There's a new book out, by John Van Epp entitled "How Not to Marry a Jerk". I couldn't resist viewing an interview about it, just to see if I'd followed the rules...
And I didn't. Does this mean I married a jerk?
Well, probably so. That's why I'm divorced.
John says in his book that we often fall madly in love and as a result, begin to overlay all of our ideals on that person--whether they deserve the high praise or not. This makes sense to me, because falling in love feels good, and we do tend to overlook the obvious signs that could spell trouble. You know how it is, we make excuses for that behavior that, if we didn't care for the person so much, would require us to take a step back and analyze a bit more.
What floored me though was John's next statement in the interview. He proposed that our overlay of our ideals on our beloved causes us to extend more 'trust' to that person than they deserve.
Okay, be honest now. How many of us have experienced that? (Maybe a better question is---how many of us have NOT experienced that?!)
Nevertheless, the way he describes it sounds SO LOGICAL, so EASY. Why didn't it seem that simple when we were in the midst of it?
John also goes on to describe a jerk as (and I paraphrase here) someone who has bad qualities but refuses to change them. Sound like anybody you know?
In any case, John says that one of his goals in writing the book is to help singles engage their mind as they're going through the dating process. I know my mind is now engaged, and analyzing. How about you?
Did you marry a jerk?
Here's the link if you'd like to view the interview.
