The Beginning of Intentional Dating

I know so little about football, but I LOVE reading the sports section!  It is like the men’s version of a soap opera with the personalities, egos, bravado and s#$%-talking.  So, my home team, the Redskins, have had some major drama.  They brought in this young man a couple of years ago with all the pageantry the Pope is getting today.  And what happens, the first season, he gets injured and he has been that way off and on for the last two seasons.  Well, this young man made a faux pas and said he was the best quarterback in the League. (Hang in there. I am getting to my point.)

  

Maybe it was taken out of context by the media.  In any case, the coach, Gruden, benched him and promoted the backup quarterback, Cousins.  In fact, this young man is now the third string quarterback.  What a fall from grace!   Life goes on for the Redskins. Gruden is going old school, employing the running game, according to the Washington Post Express (free papers to keep Metro riders busy during train delays).  Sometimes, we go to the past to find a new way of winning. 

How often does that really work?  You know when you breakup with your boyfriend and you start feeling lonely, the last boyfriend starts to look good again.  Right?  Even though, he was never been on time, never paid for dinner and had a roving eye, but he is available and you know him. 

History has habit of repeating itself.  If you have just broken up with B, don’t go calling A!  Take some time off and read “Keeping the Love You Find” by Harville Hendrix. There is a great possibility that you will end up with the same type of guy, just like the Redskins, flashy guy that talks a good game then poops out before he has earned his keep.

Harville proposed a theory that says we are attracted to the same person over and over again.  This person is a positive and negative hybrid of our earliest caregivers.  I want you to try this exercise.  (It won’t hurt and you do not have to share the results.)  This is the abbreviated version.  For the full version, go to page 30-31 in “Keeping the Love You Find”(1992).

Take a sheet of paper and make 4 columns for your last four significant others.  Then write what you liked and what you didn’t like for each of them.  Then circle the words that repeat for all 4 columns, both positive and negative.  (See the illustration below.)

See the pattern?  This pattern is your IMAGO partner.  Most likely your parents have these characteristics.  There is evidence that we mate with people similar to our parents.  It is like we date our parents so we can fix the stuff from our childhood, but it doesn’t seem to get any better.

According to Harville Hendrix, “you cannot avoid choosing partners with the devastating problems you had at home.”  The solution is “to find someone who is aware of his or her problems and willing to do, with you, the hard work necessary to heal.”  Only then will you attract a healthier partner.

I like to keep my posts short and I am running out of room for this deep topic.  So, let me end with this.  I did this exercise shortly after my divorce because there had to be a sensible way to stop the drama.  (No, the list is not mine.  It is just for illustration.)  I forgot what the details were, but I was shocked at how closely the IMAGO pattern matched my parents. 

Go a little further in the book and you will find a concept for healing called “Utilitarian Dating” (look on page 259 or email me).  At the end of the day, you may be attracted to the same type person over and over again, but with these exercises you will be able to make conscious choices, which may help you to better ones.