| Take
Off the Rose-Colored
Glasses When Dating
by Susan Dunn, MA |
Robin
was giving me an anatomy
of her divorce. “There
were signs,” she said.
“Plenty of them. I
just ignored them.”
“The counselor told me
to ignore how he treated
other people,” said
Manuela, “and
concentrate on how he
treated me. But one day
I became ‘other
people.’”
It’s typical to do
this in the early stages
of dating and falling in
love because, first of
all it’s an exciting
and complex process
getting to know someone,
and secondly, there are
all those wonderful
dreamy chemicals bathing
our brains.
It’s also a time when
we’re prone to be
“optimistic,” to
assume everything’s
going to be marvelous.
Nobody starts a new
relationship hoping it
will be a disaster. We
invest a lot of time and
energy into it, and we
can begin to see what we
want to see, not
what’s really going
on.
This, by the way, is one
of the catch points
about Emotional
Intelligence, and about
learned optimism. It’s
recommended in many
daily situations,
particularly performance
situations (like giving
a speech or pitching an
account), but it is
never recommended in
situations of great
consequence. At those
times, we need to take
off the rose-colored
glasses. Dating is
surely one of those
times.
While you’re enjoying
the chemical bath coming
from the brain-stem and
limbic brains, stay in
touch with your
neocortex – the
thinking brain – and
process just exactly
what it is you’re
seeing and experiencing.
Working with a coach,
BTW, can help you with
clarity.
“No hay casualidades,”
say the Spanish. Roughly
translated it means,
“nothing happens by
accident” or “there
are no coincidences.”
Each of these things
happened early on in
someone’s dating
career and were ignored:
· We were sitting at
the kitchen table at his
folks’ house and heard
a mousetrap go off.
Edward sprang to his
feet, ran over to the
trap, freed the mouse
and then beat it to
death with a fly
swatter. Somehow I
didn’t think that
related to anything else
but the mouse, though it
made me sick at the
time.
· Stanton was a good
doctor. He had taken a
contract and was working
from home and made
plenty of money and that
blinded me. Turns out
he’d had a couple of
partnerships that had
failed because he was so
demanding and impossible
to work with. Boy did I
find out about that
later. It’s very
strange for a doctor to
work out of his home.
Somehow that never
registered on me.
· Leo was always very
relaxed with me, but
whenever a waiter came
around, or he talked
about someone from his
past, he was so
critical, it was like he
was examining them with
a magnifying glass. Came
the day I fell under the
magnifying glass and was
found to be
‘wanting’ just like
everyone else, in tiny,
little inconsequential,
fly-speck ways.
· Eino always called
his divorce “leaving
home.” I’d never
heard a grown male talk
that way, but I ignored
the implications. My
friends said he was like
a kid, but I just
couldn’t see it until
I became the surrogate
“mom.”
· "You know how
those fraternity parties
are,” said Nita,
referring to her college
promiscuity as if it
were common place. I had
no idea what she meant,
but I found out later
on. She assumed casual
sex with just about
anyway was, ‘well, you
know how it is.’
· Though she was always
on her best behavior
when we were together,
Dalida referred to her
secretary, her maid, and
her hairdresser as
“the help,” and
demeaned them in front
of me.
· Our dates were
frugal, because I’m on
a budget and Annie
seemed to enjoy them. I
missed that all her
conversation was about
how much things cost,
and how she noted, as
people passed by, the
Gucci purse, or the
Rolex watch, or the
nasty “fake”
jewelry.
Hard as it is, try and
keep your head about you
– that is, don’t get
“flooded” by those
wonderful chemicals to
the point where you
aren’t paying
attention to the little
things. That’s all it
is – little things.
Watch how they treat all
the other people in
their life. The Spanish
also say, “What goes
around, comes around.”
You will have learned,
or will be learning,
that it’s best to nip
things in the bud. Yes,
people can change. And
yes, at middle-age
we’ve all had our
‘learning
experiences.’
Be mindful. Observe. Ask
questions. It can save
you from looking up one
day and saying, “It
was there all the time.
Why didn’t I see
it?”
“Choose your life’s
mate carefully. From
this one decision will
come 90% of all your
happiness or misery.”
~ H. Jackson Brown, Jr.,
“Life’s Little
Instruction Book”
|
| About
the Author |
| ©Susan
Dunn, MA Clinical
Psychology, The EQ Coach™,
http://www.susandunn.cc
, helping people like
you negotiate the turns
of midlife transition.
We bring the power of
Emotional Intelligence
to your life through
coaching, distance
learning, eBooks and
Special Reports. Susan
is the author of “How
to Live Your Life with
Emotional
Intelligence” –
http://www.webstrategies.cc/ebooklibrary.html
Mailto:sdunn@susandunn.cc
for FREE eZine.
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