Capital C

How to Avoid Marrying A Jerk:
A Catholic Perspective on Healthy Relationships

This article is based on the book How to Avoid Marrying A Jerk: The Foolproof Way To Follow Your Heart Without Losing your Mind. by John Van Epp, Ph. D. I am adapting the messages in the book into a Catholic perspective on establishing healthy relationships. I believe that the United States Catholic Catechism for Adults, John Paul II, and our teaching on moral theology gives us similar guidelines, and I plan to expand on those guiding principles later in this article.

Who’s a Jerk?
The first point is that a jerk can be either male or female. A jerk is anyone who refuses to change his/her “jerky” ways. Some characteristics of jerks are boundary breakers, for instance, someone who breaks the boundaries of commitment and can be categorized as a player. Players feel trapped by any sense of commitment and are addicted to the frequent fix of new love. Another common boundary breaker is the space invader, whose motto is, “What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine.” Space invaders have a never-ending entitlement to your attention, interest, money, time, and emotional support.
Other traits of jerks are the utter inability to ever see anything from anyone else’s perspective, and a dangerous lack of emotional control and balance. Emotionally unstable people live on either the extreme right or the extreme left of center. Those on the right are the overreacting, explosive types, and those on the left are the flatliners. They have no emotional pulse. If you’re like most people, you have, at one time or another, dated a true jerk. The worst part is that you probably didn’t realize that the person was a jerk until it was too late. Without a plan for building safe relationships and determining the true character of the partner you picked, you can easily find your emotional immune system compromised and your vulnerability to unhealthy relationships heightened.

Your Heart Matters, but So Does Your Head
The problem is not that you are unsure of what you want. According to a recent national survey by researchers at Rutgers University, 94% of singles stated that they want to marry their soul mate. However, the current system of dating in the U.S. is not giving you the tools to decipher who is worthy of your precious time, energy and soul support. The plan I am describing from the book How To Avoid Marrying a Jerk presents the successful and scientifically proven PICK program that, if followed, guarantees you won’t marry a jerk. Getting skeptical yet?!
The PICK a Partner program has been validated with research conducted at Ohio State University and road tested in seven countries, 48 states, and by thousands of instructors in military bases, churches, and social agencies. I am in no way connected with the book or the program, but I am endorsing the messages that it sends.
The love-is-blind syndrome prevents you from seeing your partner in a clear light. You may overlook or minimize significant problems if you bond too quickly with a person, or if you’re just too nice – more on that later. In order to develop the head knowledge you need to make a good choice in a partner, you need to be informed about the characteristics that predict marriage material. Studies have found that most of the predictors grouped into five categories:
1. Compatibility potential – the balance between the similarities and differences of personality, values, and interests between you and this person – in other words, how you “fit together”
2. Relationship skills – communication, openness, and conflict management and resolution
3. Patterns from other relationships – relationship patterns from both romantic and nonromantic relationships
4. Family patterns and background – the quality of the parental marriage and the family’s expression of affection and emotion, development of roles, and interaction patterns
5. Character and conscience traits – the emotional health and maturity of conscience
These predictors can help you find balance when using your heart and your head when developing a healthy relationship and the choice of a partner.
When we only use our head when choosing a partner, it looks something like an arranged marriage. These marriages were designed to maximize a rational approach to marriage: bringing together a couple who were similar in cultural, religious, and ethnic backgrounds; compatible in social status and family values; and beneficial for not just the two who were marrying but also the extended families involved. However, Western society revolted against arranged marriages and started a “pathological experiment” in an “all you need is love” mentality. The twentieth century raised romance to heights it had never previously known. Singles were led to think love and only love. The trouble with that approach is it didn’t recognize that the head and the heart were made to work together. The twenty-first-century motto needs to be “Love thinks.”

Results of the PICK a Partner Program
The results of the PICK program have been impressive. Participants:
· Learned about pacing a relationship
· Placed greater importance on FACES: Family background, Attitudes and actions of the conscience, Compatibility potential, Examples of other relationships, and Skills in relationships
· Reported less influence from myths such as “love alone is sufficient reason to marry,” “Cohabitation improves the odds of a lasting marriage,” “Opposites always complement,” and “Choosing a mate should be easy or happen by matter of chance or accident”
· Had a stronger understanding of the importance of taking one’s time to really know his or her partner and whether the relationship was ready for marriage, and many more valuable conclusions.

RAM – Relationship Attachment Model
The Relationship Attachment Model (RAM) was developed by Dr. Van Epp as a simple tool to use that respects the complexity of love, yet it is universally applicable and rational. It’s a plan to guide you to know what a partner really will be like as a spouse, to stay emotionally and physically safe while the relationship is growing, and to make healthy choices that will lead to a fulfilling marriage. The RAM exposes jerks, protects you from blinding love, and provides you with a map for pacing your relationship.

Know Trust Rely Commit Touch

Picture a sound system’s equalizer with five up-and-down sliders evenly placed across the face of the board (above). The slider on the far left represents the extent to which you really know a person. As you move the bar on this slider up over time, you signify a richer, fuller, and more personal knowledge of the other. The next slider represents the range of trust you have for the person. This bar rises to denote a deeper, more positive, confident trust in your partner. The third slider represents the extent to which you rely on this person. Moving this bar up indicates the greater ways you depend on this person to meet your most significant needs. The fourth slider represents the range of commitment you have established with the person. The slider for this dynamic rises to signify greater levels of commitment expressed within your relationship. The final slider, on the far right, represents the degree of sexual touch and chemistry that exists between you and your partner. Elevating this slider signifies increases in the passionate chemistry and sexual contact with your partner. In the Catholic perspective, the ultimate act of commitment is through the Sacrament of Marriage and then the couple can begin a new life of sexual intimacy together. The balance of all five bonding dynamics determines the healthiness of your relationship and the clarity of your perspective on your partner.

Safe Relationships
There is one basic rule for guarding the safe zone: never go further in one bonding area than you have gone in the previous. This rule is based on the view that the five bonding dynamics have a specific order and logic to them: what you know about a person determines the degree you should trust him or her; this trust directs you in choosing what personal needs you can rely on him or her to meet; you should become committed only to the extent that you know, trust, and depend on that person; and finally, any degree of sexual involvement is safest when it matches the context of the overall intimacy reflected in the levels of the other four dynamics. Again, in the Catholic perspective, commitment and sexual involvement go hand in hand after the Sacrament of Marriage. According to the United States Catholic Catechism for Adults, the reason for this is that sexual intercourse between unmarried persons is sinful because it violates the dignity of persons and the nuptial meaning and purpose of sexuality, which is ordered only to the unitive and procreative goals of married people. Sexual intimacy before the Sacrament of Marriage confuses people. It makes them more committed to each other then they should be because they do not truly know, trust or rely on this person, but they are sharing in a very intimate act. Acceleration of the five bonding dynamics, especially sexual touch, is one of the most common ways people are set up to get involved with a jerk. The danger of any imbalance among the bonding dynamics is that it leads to tolerating or even encouraging serious problem areas that should be addressed once they are exposed.

Healthy People Make Healthy Choices
Being the best person you can be is the first step in building a healthy relationship. For the most part, healthy people make healthy choices. In the same way, unhealthy people tend to build unhealthy relationships. Being a healthy individual is the prerequisite to being a healthy partner. There may be some serious personal issues you have never even acknowledged that will greatly influence both your choice of a partner and your ability to relate in that role. Don’t be afraid to go to therapy or do whatever it is you need to do to resolve your own issues, so that you can be the healthiest person you can be at the time a healthy person is ready to get into a relationship with you. If you. However, if the warning signs are going off and you think you may be involved with a jerk – let them go, wish them well, and encourage them to get into therapy and deal with their unresolved issues. It is not up to you to “heal” anyone. It can only bring you down into an unhealthy place when dealing with an unhealthy person. You must protect the precious life God gave you and be on the lookout for a healthy person – not on the look out to “save” a jerk. WARNING: GOOD-HEARTED PEOPLE HAVE THE GREATEST RISK FOR STAYING IN A RELATIONSHIP WITH A JERK! Good-hearted have the greatest risk for staying in a relationship with a jerk because good-hearted people so quickly forgive, overlook problems, minimize shortcomings, and give second chances (and third, and fourth, etc.). Get healthy and get smart! It is not your job to tolerate “jerks” but it is your job to fulfill the potential God gave you for this life. God has given you the gifts of life, love and relationships – what are you going to do with those gifts?

The Formula for a Healthy Relationship
The quotient for knowing someone consists of three components that take you much further than the feeling of knowing, and make up the dynamic experience of truly knowing another. I = T + T + T. Intimacy equals Talk (mutual self-disclosure) plus Togetherness (diversified experiences) plus Time. A balance is necessary between what you know about a person from talking and what you learn from your experiences in a new relationship. You cannot rush intimacy. There is no way to really know someone without spending ample time. Studies have supported this repeatedly. Couples who marry after knowing each other than two years have close to twice the divorce rate than the couples who date longer than two years. Three months is the “magic number.” Not until around three months into a relationship do deep-seated patterns start to become evident. The three-month rule states that “it takes three months for many subtle but serious patterns to begin to surface.” Also the newness of a relationship is a natural inebriating effect accompanying attraction that typically begins to wear off around the third month.

Modesty
The United States Catholic Catechism for Adults says that MODESTY ensures and supports purity of heart, a gift that enables us to see God’s plan for personal relationships, sexuality, and marriage. A modest person dresses, speaks, and acts in a manner that supports and encourages purity and chastity, and not in a manner that would tempt or encourage sinful sexual behavior. Modesty protects the mystery of the person in order to avoid exploiting the other. Modest behavior respects the boundaries of intimacy that are imbedded in our natures by natural law and the principles of sexual behavior laid out in Divine Revelation. This Catholic perspective on modesty enforces all the major points in the book How to Avoid Marrying a Jerk. It reiterates the fact that people are precious and need to protect themselves. It also clarifies the preciousness of love, sexuality and relationships. The Catechism simply gives a guideline for the best way to conduct yourself if you are trying to stay healthy, happy and safe. By defining modesty as a gift that enables us to see God’s plan for personal relationships, sexuality and marriage, modesty certainly holds quite a bit of weight. Who is interested in knowing God’s plan for personal relationships, sexuality and marriage? Most of us!

My Story
I am not prude; I simply want to pass on some valuable information that may protect some men and women from making the same mistakes I made. I wasted most of my twenties in one unhealthy relationship after another. I became involved with quite a few jerks and it took me years to claw my way out of unhealthy patterns. I went to therapy for several years to deal with underlying issues from my upbringing that made me desperate for any kind of attention, especially attention from other needy and broken people. I feel that I am able to promote the theory the book How to Avoid Marrying a Jerk, as well as the Catholic perspective without being a hypocrite. I have grown in wisdom and would do things differently, if I had the opportunity. I hope this article met your intellectual, spiritual and healthy emotional needs. I hope you learned something and would pass this article on to other men and women who need to see their lives as precious gifts from God and want to make the most of that gift. God bless you on your journey to healthy relationships and a healthy life-time partnership.

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