How to Not Fall in Love With a Jerk Review

Why do people sometimes fall in love with someone who is all kinds of incorrect for them? Their friends and family see lots of scarlet flags about their partner, just they themselves miss these warnings entirely, sometimes to catastrophic consequences.

My invitee today argues that these kinds of errors in relational controlling happen when someone lets his heart dominion without too heeding his head. His name is John Van Epp, and he'due south a therapist and the writer of the book How to Avert Falling in Love with a Jerk. We begin our conversation discussing what society'due south default template for creating a successful human relationship looks similar, and how information technology leads people astray. John and so defines what makes a jerk, a jerk, and the signs that you lot're dating a jerk. He so explains why it is that people so often miss these signs, by using a model of how attachment develops in a relationship; I think this model is super useful in understanding relational dynamics and you don't want to miss it. We and then discuss why men demand to exercise a better chore in helping to pace relationships, instead of only letting women set up the tempo. We end our chat discussing the things you lot demand to know about a person that you lot're forming a relationship with, including their relationship skills, family life, and values, before yous escalate your commitment to them.

Show Highlights

• What's the template people oft fall back on when it comes to dating and marriage?
• How John defines a "jerk" in a human relationship
• What happens if y'all find out only later (even much afterward) that your significant other is a wiggle?
• How relationships go too intimate likewise rapidly
• The stages of how a human relationship should progress (yeah, there's a lot of research on this!)
• What roles do men and women play in this pacing?
• Is it truthful that "happy wife = happy life"?
• What does information technology mean to really know someone?
• Why is information technology harder in our modernistic world to get to know people?
• What are the 5 key areas in which you should get to know someone?
• What Seinfeld tin can teach y'all about conscientiousness

Resources/People/Manufactures Mentioned in Podcast

• How Exercise You Know When She's the One?
• Should Y'all Live Together Before Marriage?
• Why Every Man Should Read Jane Austen
• The 14 Cherry-red Flags of Dating
• How to Spot Red Flags in a Relationship
• How Delaying Intimacy Can Do good Your Relationship
• The All-or-Nothing Matrimony past Eli Finkel
• How to Avert a iii-Auto Pile-Up In Your 30s
• The 10 Commandments of Make clean Advice
• The Best Ways to Fund Your Relationship Bank Account
• How to Test Your Relationship Without Moving In Together
• DIY Marriage Counseling
• Saving Your Marriage Earlier It Starts
• How and Why to Concur a Weekly Marriage Coming together

Connect With John

Love Thinks website (use code "artofman" to become a twenty% discount on courses)

Love Thinks on Instagram

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Read the Transcript

Brett McKay:

Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness Podcast. Why do people sometimes fall in dear with someone who is all kinds of wrong for them? Their friends and family see lots of red flags about their partner, only they themselves miss these warnings entirely sometimes to catastrophic consequences. I judge they debate that these kinds of errors in relational conclusion making happen when someone lets his heart rule without besides heeding his head. His name is John Van Epp, he'southward a counselor and the author of the volume How To Avoid Falling in Love With a Jerk. We begin our conversation discussing what order'due south default template for creating a successful human relationship looks like and how it leads people astray. John then defines what makes a wiggle a jerk and the signs yous're dating a wiggle. He then explains why information technology is that people and then often miss these signs by using the model, how attachment develops in a relationship and I call up this model is super useful in understanding relational dynamics and don't desire to miss it.

We then discuss why men demand to do a better job in helping footstep relationships instead of only letting women set the tempo and we end our conversation discussing the things you didn't know virtually a person that you're forming relationship with, including the relationship skills, family life and values before you escalate your commitment to them. After the testify'south over, bank check out our evidence notes at aom.is/love things. All right, John Van Epp, welcome to the evidence.

John Van Epp:

It's very exciting. Cheers and so much for having me.

Brett McKay:

So you are a counselor and you've written a book called How To Avoid Falling in Love With a Wiggle: The Foolproof Way to Follow Your Heart Without Losing Your Mind. So this book, How To Avoid Falling in Dearest With a Wiggle, it'southward based on a marriage plan or a premarital programme you lot developed called PICK. What is PICK and what issues are you trying to address in this program?

John Van Epp:

Yeah, so fashion back in the mid '90s, I developed the concepts, worked it through and put it in a certification course where people could go certified to actually go out, become our workbooks, get this preparation and facilitate it in their own corresponding locations. And then that was multiplying my efforts. And then it's not me doing all the piece of work and it actually took off. We started to have singles organizations, the military machine grabbed information technology every bit nosotros headed into the 2000s, social agencies, customs initiatives that had federal and state grant money, and by the time nosotros reached the end of 2000s and hit 2010, 2011, nosotros had over a 1000000 people having gone through the program being taught by all these certified instructors. And in the center of that, McGraw-Hill published the book. So the content of the volume and then the course itself has a lot of overlap.

Brett McKay:

And with the Selection program, is this for people like couples who are thinking almost getting married or virtually to get married or even people who marriage isn't on the radar all the same, but it's a plan subsequently on in life?

John Van Epp:

Well, sure, and then I think if somebody is in a serious relationship, I remember this would be really corking material for them to become through, but I really, to be honest, information technology was designed to go what I telephone call upstream. I wanted to reach pre-relational people. People that were just maybe had been in a human relationship or young people even or divorced people that came out of relationship and they were merely kind of saying, "Hey, we need a better template of what to get to know most somebody and how to build a healthy relationship because the template we've used or the template we've learned simply isn't really effective or information technology'due south not worked."

So that was really my target audition and it's been that way. We've had over a hundred thousand kids in public schools go through the Pick plan with instructors coming into the school systems and instruction it. And that'south been pretty cool. So it's pretty far upstream. And and then we've worked a lot with adult singles of all ages. So I retrieve that that's really the primary place where I'd really like to see your listeners say, "Hey, let'due south expect into this fifty-fifty more than. I'm non interested in a serious relationship correct at present." Okay, skilful, you are the very person that I desire to look into this material and call up nigh it and take it because now is the best time pre-relationally.

Brett McKay:

Well, I think it'south interesting you're teaching this stuff to high school students considering this is similar important stuff. Your marriage, your human relationship, is ane of the biggest things that have the biggest bear on on your life yet we don't really teach kids like what they should look for in a partner. So you mentioned we have a template that we fall back to because we don't get this sort of intentional instruction. What does that template expect like and why isn't it non constructive?

John Van Epp:

Yes, and then the template that people fall back on is usually what I consider to be several unlike unanalyzed beliefs that tend to drive the culture at large. 1 is intuition. I'll know when I know. When I'yard in with somebody, it's kind of the click factor. As soon equally things click with me and this person and… I'll merely know when I know I. Nobody needs to teach me anything, I simply figure it out and I know it intuitively. The 2d, and that doesn't work, in that location are some people that mayhap do take that innate ability, but the vast majority people don't have that good of judgment or you might say they haven't been trained to have their intuition function at such a loftier level of really knowing and being able to predict longterm relationship potential of an private that they have some kind of chemistry or attraction to.

A 2d, I would say template that's used is the conventionalities that relationships that are good for you or good or… It's kind of a dichotomy. Information technology'south either salubrious or unhealthy, good or bad, functional or dysfunctional. And they have this dichotomy and they believe that if it's on the positive side of the dichotomy, they're proficient, they're healthy, they're functioning, then a relationship just runs itself. If I take to work at it, that must mean something's wrong with information technology. And that concept, anybody that has e'er had a longterm relationship, a friendship even, knows that unless you lot take some kind of concerted effort, ongoing free energy investment into the human relationship, the relationship tends to offset deflating. Simply nonetheless we believe that more than about a romantic relationship than any other. I'll just know when I know, the click factor, information technology's in my intuition and if it's really skillful, it just goes at its ain stride and information technology runs itself.

And I don't accept to accept whatsoever kind of training, information, interest. And it's kind of like asking people, "When do you feel is the right fourth dimension to take sex activity?" A lot of people would just say, "Well, I'll but know when I know and when information technology feels right." And information technology's that intuition and the relationship volition just go there when information technology's the right time to become at that place as if the relationship is this matter outside of myself and the other person and I don't have whatsoever involvement in pacing how this relationship develops. Those 2 things I found were extremely detrimental and they left lots of burned, crashed relationships in people'south histories. And really so all of those hardship experiences become brought into the next relationship and complicate things even more. So nosotros came up with a unlike mode of getting to know somebody and edifice a human relationship and really being more informed and intentional, and we found it to be way more successful of all ages, by the way.

Brett McKay:

So you mentioned that intuition can effect in people if they're not lucky, they might look out, just typically they don't. Just relying on intuition leads you to end upwards falling for a jerk. Then for definitions, how do you lot define a jerk? What makes a jerk a jerk in a marriage or relationship?

John Van Epp:

Well, I call up the starting point, Brett, is all of us at i fourth dimension or some other act like jerks, right? Tin can you acknowledge that as well?

Brett McKay:

Aye.

John Van Epp:

Okay, only yous didn't elaborate on it. Probably everybody would like to hear a story too from you, but nosotros'll go on.

Brett McKay:

I'one thousand sure they would.

John Van Epp:

We'll let yous off the claw. But I'll say for myself, I've made very jerk decisions over the… I'm in my 60s now and and then been married for twoscore years. And in my relationship with my kids, my married woman, we all make mistakes and errors. Then the discussion is non trying to say kickoff of all that yous got to find a person that is perfect. The second affair I would say about what the give-and-take is not maxim, these are kind of disclaimers, is that the word is non saying that the jerks are a particular gender. We all gender neutral. No thing what you are or how you lot ascertain yourself every bit a human beingness, everybody can human action like a wiggle. But I would say there is a marked deviation between acting similar a jerk and what we will say is beingness a wiggle.

And then a couple things. Commencement I'll just say some unproblematic signs of jerkiness is lack of clear insight into how their behavior is impacting other people that they're in a relationship with. That makes people a fiddling jerky. Some people have that insight simply they don't have any real intendance about how they're… They're like, "Wow, you made somebody really experience bad. Well, that'south their problem. I'one thousand non responsible for their feelings." And so there's either lack of insight or care virtually how my words or my deportment impact others. I think a 2d sign or warning flashing point that this person could be a bit hasty is if they're really lacking, woefully defective, some relationships skills like the skill of empathy or the skill of apology, how to admit their faults and they talk things through, woefully lacking communication or how to handle conflicts.

Then there'southward these alert signals, but I would say we could probably spend this unabridged time making a list of all of the things that people can practise that would throw them in a category of interim like a wiggle, but the lesser line of existence a jerk is they accept a persistent resistance to addressing and actually irresolute whatever gets put on the tabular array is bothering others. So in other words, when you lot're in a relationship with somebody, one of the key areas to look for, I telephone call information technology a global characteristic of a person, is do they have the change cistron? Practise they have the ability to have insight into themselves, see something that keeps repeating as a pattern and bothering yous? And when it gets put on the table and you lot talk about it, they actually take information technology to centre, they take responsibility and they practise something to make a change.

That sounds simple, simply there are a lot of people in relationships that are unwilling to address bug that a person's put on the table or maybe multiple people put on the table that, "Hey, this is something nigh yous that offends others, bothers others. I really similar to try to change this." Well, and they have a defense resistance to that. So I would simply showtime with a very simple definition of the departure betwixt acting like a jerk versus beingness a jerk is whether a person has the change gene. They have a willingness to be open and receptive to something nigh themselves that needs to be addressed and change and they put in some concerted endeavour to do information technology.

Brett McKay:

Well, and the problem you highlight in the volume is that people don't typically realize they're in a relationship with a jerk, someone who's has jerkiness qualities till it'south too tardily, and by and then they're and then entwined in the human relationship that it's hard to become out and y'all're similar, "Man, how did I get into this? How did I miss this when I beginning started dating this person?"

John Van Epp:

I call it the caput and the heart demand to work together and accelerated bonds. And then when you lot become into a human relationship, there'due south something that is attracting you. Information technology could be a kind of a sexual chemistry, you lot could be really attracted to the person. If information technology's got some romantic aspect to it, and so y'all would await that there'southward some kind of a allure and hopefully it's mutual allure, and that is similar a magnet pulling you lot toward each other. Only and so there are bonds, major bonds that I say exist in every relationship, whether it's romantic or not, that I put together in a tool that we call the Relationship Attachment Model.

It'southward this kind of graphic that's going to appointment me if I call information technology a graphic equalizer, just if you think of a soundboard with sliders that become up and downwards, it is depicted, these bonds that occur in all of our relationships are depicted as a slider. And they can have a very low level and they can move up to a very high level. And what I say is there's somewhat of a progression. It lies which bonding factor, which aspect of the relationship is going upward really loftier, but they go into a relationship and some of those areas of connexion in the relationship, what I telephone call these bonds, some of them go upwardly super fast near superficially, and they don't fully know the person. So the know is actually the commencement of the five sliders, how much I know this person or they know me, and that might be actually very low, but their trust or their reliance or even their touch in terms of simply attraction and and then forth or even getting involved sexually, those things can go up super fast, create premature feelings of bond and closeness.

Why are they premature? Well, they're premature because my bail is greater than what I truly know almost this person. Then I don't know if they're a jerk or non a jerk. I don't know what the patterns are of how this person'southward going to human action. I know how they've treated me, I know what we've experienced together in the six weeks nosotros've been seeing each other and now we're sleeping together, and I dropped my friends and I'chiliad spending bulk of my time. So another slider in this model I developed is chosen rely. How much I depend on this person or how much I've put into a sense of them depending on me or me depending on them, how we're meeting each other'south needs. And then a lot of my needs are now all getting funneled into this relationship with this person of six weeks.

And if you become to my trust, which is another level, that is like all the way up because everything's been good and so far. For half-dozen weeks, everything'southward been good. But my know is locked into actually time. And you tin't get to know the patterns of a person until there's been enough fourth dimension for sure things to surface. And so a pattern by definition is something that keeps repeating. So there has to exist boosted time beyond it surfacing for something to really repeat. Well, vi weeks, a lot of times is not enough time for even somebody in a relationship to get mad at yous. Then you don't even know how they're going to treat you if they're mad at you. So here you are sleeping with them, channeling a lot of your needs and the reliance and your belief in them, your trust belief is way upward and yet your know is really low.

And that is the norm for how many, many people today are building relationships and it actually is a recipe. It'due south a a potential recipe for catastrophe because as your know goes upwards a niggling more and you're circular the corner of what we call the ninety mean solar day probation period rate, when things are really starting to surface that didn't surface in the beginning and perchance some things are starting to repeat. So you're starting to see a few patterns, all of a sudden you hit this three month mark, this xc day, and all suddenly you'd exist like, "I thought I knew this person, but I'yard really wondering, do I actually know them?" And people are shocked equally if they thought they fully knew them but they're their knowing wasn't high on that level. It was their trust, it was their rely, independence and meeting each other's needs and it was their affect was super high.

So I can explain that model a little more and in a more than organized fashion, but only answering your question, why practise people get involved, all of a sudden realize, "I thought I knew this person, they seemed bully, merely now they look like a wiggle," it'southward considering our definition of a jerk was they're non acting like a jerk 24/7, information technology'southward that at that place is a repeating pattern that doesn't surface typically in the start of a human relationship, only over time begins to surface and when addressed does non change and starts to take major defenses on it changing.

So accelerated relationships are the norm. They've been the norm for a long, long time. I was growing up in the '70s and accelerated relationships were happening when I was in high school dorsum in the '70s. So over those decades ever since, accelerated relationships have just become more than and more the norm. Only I think that they are a very unwise way and a very risky way that we do relationships. And we need to talk most guys for a infinitesimal. Then I'll let yous proceed asking questions simply I exercise want to speak directly to guys every bit stepping upwardly, existence pacemakers of relationships rather than maxim guys volition just practice whatsoever women permit them practise.

Brett McKay:

Well, yeah, and so permit'south summarize this Relationship Attachment Model considering I thought information technology was a very useful tool for people. Then the idea is that there's these 5 sliders which you call bonding areas, and the first one is know, then you said trust, rely, commit and bear upon. And the way you talk about in the book is that in a relationship you lot have to go through these in a progression. Y'all can't become too fast like y'all said. You tin't advance to touch before you get to know the person because that's just going to pb to disaster or commit. Similar at that place's a lot of people who end upwardly living, moving in with somebody, but they don't really know that and they find out the person has lots of debt and they're like, "Oh my gosh, I didn't know yet." Or similar, "You've been in jail? I did not know you've been in jail."

And and so that's why you lot want to make sure you know. And I think the big takeaway I got from that is that you never desire to go farther in one bonding area than you have gone in the previous. So similar you never desire to go say if you lot're still in the know menstruum of a relationship, you don't want to over commit or over rely or over trust earlier you get to know that person ameliorate.

John Van Epp:

That's a very, very perfect clarification of it. So if people are imaginative, they can imagine in their listen this image of five sliders going up and downward and what y'all just said is know. Starting from the left, it would be know and and then trust and then rely and so commit and then touch. And exactly what you said, they're representative of a slice of the whole of what a relationship is. A relationship is the interaction of these five areas. How much I know somebody, how it interacts with how I trust them, how that interacts with how they run into my needs or I meet their needs and how we rely. And these things are like two way streets, so y'all could get a niggling more complicated with a model and say it'south non just how I know them, but how I accept let them become to know me or how they trust me and I trust them.

So they practise take a little more complications. We starting time thinking of them every bit two manner streets, but they are pieces of the whole. And when y'all think of a brand new relationship, any human relationship, there's just an intuitive wisdom to not allow a level go higher or faster or develop in a greater way than any of the levels to the left. And then you lot're right. If the know is low, so I shouldn't take my trust go significantly higher than what I know somebody. If I'g trusting somebody way beyond what I know them, information technology definitely puts me at risk. But even if my know is up a piffling chip, if my trust isn't fully developed and I step into, similar you said, moving in with them, that makes my commitment really high. We have lots of interesting research. Literally, I don't know if everyone knows this, but there accept been over a thousand enquiry studies on moving in together outside of matrimony.

These are, I'm talking almost in academic journals, they don't have any item religious… They're almost always out of academy settings, and so because there's so many research studies that have been done, in that location have been what they call meta studies, which then take all of the enquiry that was done from like 1980 to 2015 and let's take all of the enquiry and grouping information technology on cohabitation in unmarried relationships, and so unmarried people moving in together. Allow's take all of that research for those last 15 or twenty years, whatever, the metastatic is looking at. Basically a summary of it confirms this logic, this intuitive logic of my model that the people that move in together are forming a reliance way higher than their trust typically and manner college than what they know somebody.

So the know, trust, rely, commit, touch progression, their rely is really high, their touch is actually high, their commitment is kind of skewed. They don't want to become to a full commitment of union which truly is historically the greatest delivery. We are going to commit together, to be together as a union for life. That's been the celebrated definition of what marriage is. And they're not ready for that just their rely is really high, their commitment is a fiddling bit crooked you might say, and mid range, their touch is all the mode to the top. Their trust is mid range because they're non quite sure if they can believe everything good virtually this person but they have enough to move in together, and they're know, even though they might say their know is really high, there's a ton of things that they don't know about each other.

What all the research in the meta analysis every bit well as well-nigh of the individual studies, you can't actually notice any good research that says this arroyo of moving in and then eventually getting married is producing better marriages. But there is a lot of research that says the breakdown rates are significantly higher than the breakup rates in marriage. And you might exist like, "Well, that's good." And so they move in together, they realize it'southward non going to work out and they intermission up. But we also observe the after furnishings of those breakups tin be more similar to the later effects of divorce than e'er realized. And so people are thinking this is like a no mistake, no chance approach to checking out a relationship and they move in and their hearts are bonded and they're living together and their rely is really high and possibly they see problems and because their reliance is then loftier and they bought a house together, they're living together and they both put money out and bought a house, now their dependence, their co-interdependency has just moved significantly up.

Or they bought a domestic dog together. Even that. Or in the millennial generation, which is, what? Possibly 22, 23 years old to 38 years old now, having a kid when you're non married, and that generation is now over 50%. It'south 55%. And simply a quick stat, they looked at these moms that are having kids when they're not married and they asked them, "How many of you are going to eventually ally the father of your child?" Well, it was around seventy% said, "Aye, nosotros're going to marry the father of our child." They did a five year follow up with these millennial moms and but sixteen% 5 years later had married the dads and over fifty, it was really 65% plus had moved on to another guy. So just think how complicated life is becoming.

So I'm elaborating on what you said, but there is an intuitive logic that says as you get to know somebody, and nosotros can talk, Brett, about what does it mean to become to know somebody, what are the key areas, but as you get to know somebody, allow the ceiling of how much you truly know them, allow that set the ceiling of your trust. And as yous are getting to know them and checking out your trust based on that, we call it the three T's by the way, you've got to talk. So that's good to get to know them and build trust, merely second T is yous've got to exist together in diverse situations and moods and states of life. When they're stressed or when they're angry or when they're, we already said when they're mad at yous, this togetherness and diverse moods and settings takes the third T, it takes a lot of time.

So if yous let your know set the ceiling for your trust and how you know and believe in them as that's getting tested out, you keep pulling back your reliance to keep a little bit of a balanced life, not overly investing. The same with your commitment. And if you footstep information technology that way so you do everything you lot can to agree your physical involvement with them in check, I know everybody's similar, "Man, only you got to jump in the sack and check things out right away." But all inquiry from biological to psychological and social finds that jumping into sack with somebody, even in a hookup, creates chemicals in the brain that prompt a sense of connectedness and bond. Then we're creating bonds that don't match the other areas of the relationship.

And this skewed sense of I'm bonded to them, I can't stop thinking about them, I'grand spending my time with them, but this other surface area is not fully adult like how much I know them, whether I tin can fully trust them. These areas are not fully developed, whether they actually volition see my needs in responsible ways or whether they will be more than self running and self focused and I didn't realize that for the first few months. Doing a relationship with the logic of the Relationship Attachment Model, that intuitive logic, don't let a level get higher than the previous to the left, that has saved a ton of people heartache and decisions and helped them to apply it as, I call information technology, a human relationship GPS system to help them navigate their human relationship in a mode that is wise and safety and actually very rewarding.

Brett McKay:

So earlier you mentioned you want to talk about guys taking charge and existence a part of this pacing of it. So talk to that. What part does a guy accept in a relationship and pacing the human relationship?

John Van Epp:

Yeah, this has been… And so I had a counseling practice if I support, in Northern Ohio for 25 years and it was something that just bothered me so much. And so subsequently designing programs, and so we have a lot of programs now. I don't take a private practice anymore, but nosotros have a lot of programs that have been trying to do more preventative than remedial work. Apparently a counseling do does a lot of remedial work. Trying to fix something that broken. Like at present I want to just assist people endeavor to avoid things breaking down by making meliorate decisions on the front end.

I of the things that ever merely got me was this sense that respecting what a woman wants and what she's willing to exercise in a relationship is the role of the man. He is just to be thoughtful and respectful and not pressure her in any kind of way. And if he does that, then that is enough to be an outstanding fine art of manliness guy, okay? And I'one thousand similar, "Okay, that is all skilful, but that's not good plenty." The homo should be selective near who he's getting involved with. He should accept some criteria of what he wants from a female and what he doesn't like in a female, and he should definitely have some kind of a value system about how to intentionally stride the dispatch of the relationship.

And if she is like on the tertiary time they're hanging out together, she's like, "Hey, why don't you come up upwards to my apartment?" He's similar, "Are you sure? Is that okay with you? That'southward great with me." That permission that she is giving doesn't remove the responsibility he has of maxim, "Hey, I'thou pacing this human relationship." And I'm going to tell her, "I recollect this is early to be jumping in together and you lot know I'd like to. Man, I'thousand attracted you, I find it's an heady conversation to fifty-fifty talk nearly this, but I'm going to hold back because I really recollect that if we practice this human relationship differently, we might exist able to either develop a really great human relationship and see where it'due south going. And that'south going to exist a totally different landscape if we do this human relationship a footling differently. And I'd dearest to talk why that's of import to me."

I but plant even parents didn't teach their boys that this is a responsibility of a young man or an older homo, a middle aged man. It doesn't matter. This is the responsibility of the man in the relationship, not simply the woman. And so forever, it seems like women were the gatekeepers of whatever kind of sexual involvement and it wouldn't exist on that. They were actually not just the gatekeepers, just the relationship managers. This is a big problem in marriage. A lot of wives desire their husbands to join with them and exist human relationship managers. "Hey, why don't you programme a date? Why don't y'all recollect about something that'd exist fun to do? Why don't you wait at what we demand in our human relationship? Why don't you come up to me and say, we've got to improve our communication? Why am I ever the one doing all this?"

Well, it goes all the way back to how boys are raised. And boys are raised to not exist human relationship managers and to non be the gatekeepers of the concrete, sexual area of a relationship. And then I say nosotros've got to upwards the responsibility and the empowerment of men in relationships. Men should be much more engaged and they should exist much more positive about taking this on. Similar, "Hey, this is a good thing. I want to have some interest." When my wife and I dated back at the end of the '70s, we met in college and we dated in higher before we got married for a couple of years, and I'm thankful looking back. I was very much a relationship manager meaning, what exercise I mean by that? I was thinking well-nigh, "Hey, what is going on in our relationship? Where are we? What are things we need to talk near?"

I would bring up topics, I would prompt things. Information technology was a mutual… We both did it, but I can remember even as a xix, 20 yr old being very engaged in that fashion. And I definitely was thoughtful and nosotros talked about what we were going to do in our physical human relationship and what boundaries we were going to fix and not do. And that that helped u.s. to institute a all-time friend relationship that has been foundational at present for, like I said, over 40 years. So I just think that there's no way to get around that. And if we help men develop that sense of role in relationships, it empowers men and gives them fashion more sense of thoughtfulness and involvement than I think a lot of times they've had in the by.

Brett McKay:

And women volition appreciate it too.

John Van Epp:

I recall and then. And what I would say, if a guy'due south doing this well, so nosotros're not talking well-nigh control freaks. So just to put a couple of disclaimers out there, nosotros're not talking about control freaks, nosotros're not talking about interrogation, we're not talking about authoritarian approaches. None of those things I'm talking well-nigh. I'm talking most only upping their interest and beingness thoughtful nigh the relationship and really engaging in the relationship on a regular footing from the very beginning all the fashion on into longterm committed relationships. And absolutely, the partner will be very, very appreciative about it. And if not, then that guy ought to actually step back and recollect nigh what does it say about this partner that doesn't similar me getting involved and taking some charge of this pole arena of what we practice together, what nosotros talk virtually and what our physical relationship is like. Why is she like this? What does that mean nigh her? Because I would say that'due south a reddish flag.

Brett McKay:

So yes, that idea that happy married woman, happy life, no, that's non good. It's probably going to pb to a lot of heartache and just not having a good time.

John Van Epp:

Well, if that is interpreted to exist happy married woman, happy life, and then all that means is I can exist totally passive. If that's the interpretation, then I agree that that'southward not a good, but if happy married woman means, "Hey, if I appoint, if I'g involved, if I'k helping to pace the relationship, if I'm managing it in a mutual way, if I'm thinking about what she needs as well as what I need and nosotros're putting those things on the table and I'k an initiator, not just a responder." If I am doing those things, I would say you're going to have a much happier wife and a happier life as well because those are the things, if you lot read all the books, they'll all be saying the same thing. Guys need to step into that kind of involvement. And I'm just putting it upstream at the very offset of a relationship. Guys need to be stepping in and they demand to be told this is a practiced thing for you lot to practise.

Brett McKay:

So permit's delve deep into the know factor considering in the volume, you spend a lot of time in this know area of bonding because I remember it's hard in the dating loonshit today. Oftentimes people are dating complete strangers. Like they meet at college, they're potential partners from Detroit, they're from California. It used to exist like way back in the 19th century, like you grew upwardly in the same home town, families knew each other generations. You lot knew the person. Not then anymore. So what does it mean to know somebody in a human relationship?

John Van Epp:

Yep, you're so correct. I came beyond this book written correct on the border of the 1950s. So it was coming out of the '40s which was, if you lot think back to history, that'southward the World War 2, when came out of the Depression and all those things, and information technology was also the era where nosotros had not quite yet stepped into the 1950s of suburbs. People lived in the cities. And anyhow, it was the Burgess, the leading sociologists of that time menses, and it was a book called, I think, Dear, Matrimony and Courtship. It was a great trivial book I found and I came across this study that in the lxx percentile, I don't remember exactly if it's 73% or 74%, but of the people in a report in the city of Philadelphia, people that got married, married somebody that they had lived within half dozen blocks off. So 70 people will say that upward at the 75%. And so three out of four people were marrying somebody that was in their neighborhood.

And you're absolutely right. That is not really what's going on in this day and age. People are meeting online and building long altitude relationships on a very, very regular basis and coming together in dissimilar settings where they have come from. Backgrounds that are very diverse. And the multifariousness is not bad. I love variety, merely empathise diversity makes figuring out compatibility much more complicated. It'due south non that relationships have go simpler, they've go more complicated and yet the relationship information for what nosotros're talking almost being upstream has, I recall, actually been depleted. And then the people guiding the process and friends and relatives and family unit. Information technology has just all dropped off and people are marrying much afterward, and so they're more than contained and on their own, and they almost become dependent on similar assessments online. Similar I'll take eharmony and so I'll practice this cess and information technology volition start helping me connect with people. And okay, and so this is where wisdom is institute is in some kind of an online assessment.

And I like things like that, but I think we need to become fashion, way across that. So empowering singles with key target areas to explore and talk about in their relationship. These are the almost important areas to get to know and nosotros want yous to understand them, to take some in depth information nigh them considering you are the one running your relationship, not some online assessment. You're the one that is ultimately making the decisions, not some algorithm. And then we want you to exist empowered with this so y'all tin go into it. This really came out of, Brett, when I was in my individual practice in the mid 90s, I was also teaching marriage and family unit coursework in graduate schoolhouse, and I came across some research that had to do with characteristics of people before marriage and how they predict some kind of event after marriage.

And so some of them were individual characteristics, some of them were relationship characteristics, only they were things basically that you could get to know virtually somebody earlier union that predicted how that person seemed to role after union and what the outcomes would exist. And I thought, "I wonder how many enquiry studies have been conducted on something nigh a person, like unmarried characteristics that predict marriage outcomes." And so I set myself, and that's really how this book came about, I set myself on the journey of collecting all of the enquiry I could observe that was virtually that. And I found hundreds of research studies that nobody had ever organized or cataloged, and I began to put them in categories and plant that there were actually 5 key areas that covered the vast majority, nigh all of this research. And so I put them in a piddling acronym and they became five core capacity of my book.

And they are as well in the PICK program and we have an online version, so people can… They don't accept to get to a alive class. They could just jump online. We phone call information technology Head Meets Heart and information technology goes through the same areas. It goes through that Relationship Attachment Model we've talked about, it goes more in depth into those v areas and then it goes very in depth into the 5 central areas to get to know about somebody that nosotros're talking about right now.

Brett McKay:

And what are those 5 central areas? Just as a summary.

John Van Epp:

Okay, then I'll put them in the guild of the book. And so at that place are a piffling different order in the programs but in the volume, they offset with what I idea would exist the logic. Like you meet somebody and y'all beginning hanging out together. We employ the discussion dating every bit we've been talking, but I don't know who uses that give-and-take anymore. Relationships have become so undefined, which is like a whole nother topic. Simply when I go on college campuses at present and everything, they say if somebody is dating, they don't phone call it dating more, they call it talking. And then what practise you lot guys practice when yous're talking? So that's what information technology is. So I just tried to exist like, "Okay, what would be the logical progression of these five areas?" And it's not cut rock and they're not like finish one and become to the other, only usually the beginning affair that you brainstorm to see is what I telephone call compatibility potential. So you see like yous're talking to somebody and it's that click cistron that I mentioned earlier. It's that sense of chemistry. It'southward some commonality.

And and then I define three major areas of compatibility that I recollect get a lot deeper than merely that initial, but I think that'southward kind of it. Do nosotros feel a niggling fleck compatible with this person? And and then the second major surface area is relationships skills. And then you figure that out. How does the person talk? How does the person handle themselves with me? How do they collaborate with me in terms of their skill level? If you call up of a relationship skill, if we wanted to find that, only think in relationships, in that location are activities that we do. We talk, we share, open up up. That's all parts of talking. We programme things to do together. So there'south activities, whether it'south recreation, whether it'due south a project, whether it'south work, we back up each other, we make priorities, we meet each other'south needs.

That takes a lot. We can figure out what the person needs. I telephone call it beingness a kind of sore of another person. How much am I an practiced? I want this other person needs, right? So these are activities. The proficiency of how good you are at a particular activity is your skill level. So skills are not some separate category of the activities that brand up what we practice in human relationship, skills are just the measure of proficiency that we accept at doing that. So how good am I at talking and listening would start to fall into what nosotros call a communications skill. So obviously you lot start hanging with somebody, you lot not simply initially see this first category they said information technology'due south how are we clicking? What's our compatibility? What'southward our chemical science? Simply then yous also are doing activities together and you lot showtime to come across how good they are at these detail activities.

Those two things by the way, are not enough to really tell you what this person is like. They're important areas, but there are other areas that don't surface and so quickly. And the tertiary 1 is what I called a human relationship scripts. How a person treats everybody else. Forget about how they care for you. Think about how they treat a co-worker or an authority figure or their family or extended family or how they treated an ex or how they broke upwardly with that ex or how they talk well-nigh people. A lot of times, how they're treating me doesn't really friction match how they care for some other significant people in their life, fifty-fifty maybe a stranger or somebody that is a waiter or a waitress, a service person. Sometimes how they treat these other people in other arenas is starkly dissimilar than how they treat me.

But I similar how they treat me, but also that'southward their business. But a lot of times, those scripts over time start to get turned into the relationship and they starting time surfacing in the relationship. And so they're non a proficient friend, they don't pay a lot of attending to a person that they're friends with or maybe certain family unit members. They tune them out. They don't look very conscientious toward those people and they never like pursue… Like shouldn't you call your brother or, yeah, whatever. Or your friend always reaches out to you, just you never really achieve out to them. And you meet this kind of passivity in how they treat others but they're and then involved with me and they're constantly with me and they're constantly talking to me and we've been together now ii and a half months. And man, I don't even pay attending to their relationships scripts with others.

Huge red flag because information technology's really likely that equally you round the corner from three months into perchance 13 months passing your first yr, all of a sudden, or maybe even second year, you start to run into some of those relationships scripts are starting to become normative in how they relate to me. And that was, I could see it in the first couple months of our relationship, but I minimized it considering I didn't retrieve it had whatsoever significance. Compatibility, their bodily skill level of human relationship activities in things that they practice, the scripts of how they care for others, their relationship patterns with others, that's number three, now we kickoff to get into the really deep stuff. The quaternary one is what they learned and take taken out of their family upbringing.

This is non easy to go to know in the beginning of a relationship because ordinarily if we hear anything well-nigh family, we just hear some low-key stories most families, merely you have to look really hard. Family upbringing, whether it was adopted family unit, a biological parent family, a unmarried parent family, whether information technology was an institutional or a foster family or they group habitation, whatever everybody grew upwards in during those 18 years, whatever period of time you desire to say, they were experiencing and internalizing things from those family unit dynamics. From how the family related, how they retreated and they become some of the strongest predictors of what they're going to then take out and re-establish in the families they establish or the relationships that they establish in their machismo. Then the quaternary area is what I would say, what they learned and took out of their family. Information technology'southward not always what happened, only it's what they took out.

And the concluding one, which is extremely of import, and I oasis't establish everyone to talk about it but me, and that's the censor. People take a conscience. It'due south the dynamic value system that operates in them. But in that location's a relationship conscience. There is a sense of not just correct and wrong but empathy is prompted by the conscience. The conscience is like that internal voice that monitors you equally you lot are living life. Information technology tells yous end, dull downwards, don't do that. I'll just mention a show. A lot of people when Seinfeld was on and now they lookout all the reruns but going to some of the author, not only Jerry Seinfeld but and so Larry David then the Larry David show. Well, if you lot want to see someone that depicts what good old Sigmund Freud called a Swiss cheese conscience, I think Larry David is similar the perfect example where sometimes he'southward super careful and so other times he's like so, in your infinite, he'south and so inappropriate with somebody but we all laugh at it if you like to testify. If you don't like to show, please don't be offended.

But there'south a lot of humor there but he is showing kind of that censor that some things stick, some things simply go right through and he seems and then uninsightful, unempathetic and so forth. This doesn't always reveal itself right away. These five areas, how you and I clicked together, the key here is of a compatibility. How skilled yous are in some of the nearly important areas of human relationship activities like advice, problem solving, conflict, empathy, apologies, things like that. The tertiary is how exercise yous care for other people because that's such a strong predictor of how you deed in relationships in general and it'southward probably going to come into our relationship? And and then let's go deeper into our family unit stuff. What did you take out of your family? And and so finally, deep inside of yous, what is the maturity and the functioning of that censor that is such a strong influence on how you alive your life and then how you're going to ultimately relate to me in a relationship?due north

Brett McKay:

Ad this like you said, it takes talking, it takes being together and it takes time. A lot of time. What more time do you lot think information technology's going to take?

John Van Epp:

It does. And if I put those five areas dorsum into that Relationship Attachment Model, going from left to right is know, and then as I dropdown box, just call up about these five areas. What am I getting to know about compatibility? What am I getting to know about skills? What am I getting to know about their relation scripts? What am I getting to know on a deeper level near their family and what they took out of information technology and how those experiences accept shaped them and what am I getting to ultimately know most their grapheme and conscience in this inner sight?

And every bit I become to know those central areas, which definitely take time, you can't sit down with somebody and pull out 101 questions and say, "While we're waiting for dinner to come, I thought I would just enquire some questions here that came from this podcast that was actually interesting on how to avert getting involved with a jerk. No, I'1000 not saying you lot're a wiggle but allow'southward go through these questions. I take xx for each of five categories.

Larry David would do that of form, but if you know these areas, and in my book I practice have about twenty, 25 questions for each of these five areas, so over a hundred questions. If y'all know the target areas and the questions, and so as time goes on and it feels comfy, these things can just become part of the fabric of how you're talking together. And equally your know slowly goes up, it tells y'all how y'all can trust and believe in them and it tells you how much you tin look to them and depend on them. And these three really all interact. How they run into my needs, how I trust them, how they come through for me, what they share, what nosotros talk near. And as they interact, they inform how invested I should become in my commitment and where I should set some boundaries and our physical relationship to touch.

Brett McKay:

Well, John, we've talked about a lot right at present, only there'southward and so much more we could talk virtually. I retrieve we've got to have you back on the testify to discuss this more. But in the concurrently, where can people go to learn more than virtually the book and your piece of work?

John Van Epp:

Oh, that'd be great. Well, beginning of all, I would love to come dorsum on anytime. Just let me know. I'd be glad to. And nosotros take some gratis things then we accept some things that can exist purchased. And so let me just start with the volume. So they can just jump on Amazon and find the book that way. That's no problem. Once more, it'southward published past McGraw-Hill and it's called How To Avoid Falling in Love With a Jerk. Merely if they likewise go to My Love Thinks like, dear, L-O-5-East, thinks, T-H-I N-K-S, not stinks and information technology's my. My Beloved Thinks because we say honey should think. It shouldn't just be intuitive. The head and the heart should work together. So if they become to My Love Thinks, they can get a lot of free resources. Nosotros have a whole library of free resource and we accept a web log that's free that is ever giving information.

There is also, we take online courses and right in that location from My Love Thinks they can click online courses and if they use the code artofman, A-R-T-O-F-M-A-N, artofman, they tin can get a 20% discount on any of our online courses. And the online course that goes with the content we've been talking about is called Caput Meets Heart. Then it'due south virtually the head and center working together obviously. And so finally Dr. Morgan Cutlip, who happens to be my daughter. We work closely together. She's very involved in all of this. She has an Instagram, My Love Thinks, where she puts out daily relationship tips. She also does the blog that I mentioned on My Dearest Thinks, but if you go to @mylovethinks on Instagram, you tin can sign in and become these free resource just from her daily tips. And they really are skilful. I recollect they're helpful. She goes through the spectrum of singles on into committed relationships and marriage.

Brett McKay:

Well, fantastic. Well, John Van Epp, thanks for your time. Information technology's been a pleasure.

John Van Epp:

It'southward been great talking to you.

Brett McKay:

My invitee there is John Van Epp, he's the author of the book, How To Avoid Falling in Love With a Jerk. Information technology'due south available at amazon.com and bookstores everywhere. You can find out more information well-nigh his work at his website, lovethinks.com, not lovestinks.com. Lovethinks.com. Likewise check out our testify notes at aom.is/lovethinks where you find links to resources where we delve deeper into this topic.

Well, that wraps upwards some other edition of the AOM Podcast. Cheque out our website at artofmanliness.com where you lot can find our podcast archives wells, thousands of articles we've written over the years. A lot of things about relationships on there. Cheque that out. And if you'd like to enjoy add costless episodes of the AOM Podcast, you can practice so and state your premium. Head over to stateyourpremium.com, sign up. Use lawmaking manliness at checkout to become gratuitous trials to premium. Once you lot're signed up, download the Stitcher app on Android or iOS and yous can offset enjoying advertizing-free episodes of the AOM Podcast. And if yous haven't done so already I'd appreciate if you have i infinitesimal to give united states of america a review on Apple podcast or Stitcher, whatever platform you utilize to mind to podcast. And if you've done that already, thank you lot. Please consider sharing the prove with a friend or family unit member who yous remember nosotros take something out of it. Shoot him a text. As always, thanks for the continued support. Until next time, this is Brett McKay telling you not only to listen to AOM Podcast, simply put what you've heard into action.

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