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3 Biggest Mistakes
People Make While Dating
By Barbara Wright Abernathy
For some of us dating can seem like a grand adventure when we decide to get into the social whirl and start meeting new people. For others it may feel more like a roller coaster ride—partly exciting and partly terrifying. The desire we have to be close to that special someone drives us forward. At the same time the memories of previous hurt, disappointment, betrayal or worse we experienced make us want to hold back.
Letting yourself be paralyzed by the fear that you might be hurt again robs you of any chance of happiness. It's much better to educate yourself about why so many relationships don't last and learn how to avoid the mistakes in the first place. So let's look at the three biggest mistakes people make in dating. Maybe you have made one or two of these mistakes, or maybe you've already made all three!
As you read each one of the three recall some of your past relationships and look back to the point where you could have made a different choice. Once you're aware of how you went wrong you can use that experience to do better next time. Loving another person should be a decision, but we tend to act like it's a disease we caught, as if it's out of our control.
You'll have a tough time finding a good match if you let your emotions run the show at the beginning. Auntie Barbara's rule is: "Engage brain before opening heart!" Now every time you are in front of the mirror getting ready for a date I want you to look yourself in the eye and repeat: "Engage brain before opening heart!" at least 3 times before you go out the door. Use your head early on in the dating game and you'll suffer far fewer heartaches.
Big Mistake #1: Expecting that having the perfect partner will fix everything.
Are you searching for a mate because you think that if you only had the right person in your life he or she will make your problems disappear? Are you hoping that this perfect partner will dissolve your financial worries, be the perfect parent to your kids and magically give you the self-confidence and self-respect you are short on?
Most of us are reluctant to admit to ourselves that we are looking for a mate to rescue us. We'd like to believe that we have loftier aspirations than that. But unless we have gained enough maturity to claim responsibility for our life being the way it is, looking for someone who can fix things and make us feel better is tempting. This subconscious motivation to take the easy way out and get someone else to do the hard work can get us into deeper trouble.
The person who appears to be the perfect solution can become the source of more problems and unhappiness when their rescuing turns into controlling. I remember how happy and grateful I was to be rescued by a boyfriend who invited me to live with him and get out from under the high rent I was paying that I couldn't afford. I was the one who made the foolish decision to move into a lovely townhouse at a time when the income from my business was erratic and I had no savings at all to back me up. His offer was kind and generous so I jumped at it.
Our first few months together were fine while I worked hard to build my income back up. Then he began giving me unsolicited advice about how I handled my money. The advice soon turned into criticism and verbal spats. Now I was really stuck. I couldn't afford to move out on my own yet. So now I had to hide my real feelings or risk being tossed out on to the street. Not a pretty picture. I went from the frying pan into the fire, all because I looked to someone else to solve my problem.
I loved being rescued, but did I love him? Or did I just think I loved him because he rescued me? He loved rescuing me, but did he love me? Or did he mostly love how it made him feel competent and powerful when he took me under his wing? He seemed like the perfect partner that I had been hoping for and he did solve a big problem for me. Until I realized I now had a bigger problem--and it was him!
So expecting that the perfect partner is going to do for you what you cannot seem to do for yourself is a great way to set yourself up for a big disappointment. We spend so much time making that endless list of qualities that we want in our ideal mate. There is nothing wrong with wanting those qualities in another, but until you understand the Law of Attraction you will not get the results you want.
The people and things you attract into your life are like a mirror of your own consciousness and character. You can only attract someone who is on your same level. That is the Law of Attraction. If you are desperate and fearful, you'll attract a partner who is desperate and fearful too. If you are emotionally healthy, kind and loving then that's the kind of person who will find you attractive.
So the trick is to take that list of yours and do what you need to do to BE that person yourself. Do you want your mate to be a person who always has your best interests at heart? Considerate of your feelings? Cares how your day went? Is a good listener? How well do you really score in those areas? Do you want your mate to be a good money manager? That means you need to learn to curtail your spendthrift ways.
Have you given any thought to what you have to GIVE to this much-desired partnership? Or do you spend most of your time figuring out what you want to GET out of it? If you want to have a great person for your mate, you've got to BE the same kind of great person yourself. If you want a great partner, you have to BE a great partner. Does that mean you've got some work ahead of you? Probably. The good news is that this is entirely within your control. So now you can stop looking outside yourself and start looking inside.
If you're not happy with the type of person who is attracted to you there is no need to despair. Whatever your complaints have been about your dates in the past, you now know that those qualities were in you too. It's just so much easier for us to point them out in other people than to see them in ourselves. He/she was always late.... selfish.... inconsiderate... cheap... irresponsible... couldn't be trusted, etc. etc.
Take a good look at how you behave and how you treat other people. Look in the mirror—the quality of character you see there in yourself is the best you can do in a partner. Do you like what you see? When you can answer an unequivocal YES to that question the right partner will be saying yes to you soon!
Big Mistake #2: Getting entangled with a partner who is incapable of meeting our needs.
We like to call our attachment to our romantic partner love, but often it's more accurate to describe it as an entanglement. Something in that person evokes such strong emotion in us that we are hooked. We are not getting treated as well as we think we deserve to be treated, but do we walk away? No, we plead, beg, plot and scheme to try to get the other person to love us the way we want. We keep hoping he or she will see the light and change into the person we want them to be.
The big mistake here is that we fall in love too fast and don't take enough time to see if this person is remotely capable of loving us back. When there is unfinished business in our past, especially emotional wounds from childhood, we often unconsciously attract a person who hurts us the same way. We get ourselves into a similar situation hoping that this time we can make the outcome different and that will heal our old hurts. It's just amazing how some people can go round and round for years hoping that their lover will change, waiting for the day when it will magically all be different.
How many women marry a man who is irresponsible and unwilling to hold down a steady job? Then they have kids and she spends years moaning about how hard their life is. Or how many men marry a self-involved woman whose cool and distant demeanor was a challenge while dating, but slowly destroys his self-esteem over the years. No one stopped long enough to assess whether their partner was truly able to care about them and was able and willing to meet their needs.
It is vitally important to your future happiness that you recognize what emotional issues are coloring your ability to be objective about the people you date. If you don't find a way to heal those old wounds through some type of therapy or spiritual counseling you'll find yourself with partners who will just replay your old dramas with you. The kind of love you want remains out of reach until you make peace with the past. Only then do you have the capability of seeing clearly whether a potential partner is a person who can really love you.
Real love is not the skyrockets and fireworks falling-in-love and out-of-control feeling of your initial attraction to a person. People who win at love, meaning they find a good match and are in it for the long run, stave off lighting the fireworks until they can see that the other person is a reasonably good bet for the long-term. You must use your head to protect your precious heart. Then you can make a conscious choice to let yourself go into that fabulous free-fall of infatuation with a good chance that you'll make a soft landing instead of the old crash-and-burn routine.
Real love is quieter, not as exciting as the infatuation stage, but deeper and more satisfying and definitely worth the wait! So watch out for emotional entanglement--don't mistake it for love. Find a way to make peace with your past and get professional help if you need it. When you meet someone new make your first weeks of dating loose and light. Keep your objectivity and be an observer of clues to your date’s true character. Think of yourself as a "love detective" and don't dive in until you know what kind of water is is the pool!
Big Mistake #3: Allowing resentments to build up and erode the respect we once had for each other
Let's suppose that you have successfully hurdled over the first two obstacles. You're seeing someone on a regular basis, spending more and more time together and getting to really know each other. This is the point where Big Mistake #3 can come in and sidetrack you, or even lead to a breakup. If you have a relationship going that's developing into real love, the basis for that love is mutual respect for each other.
Anything that undermines that respect is like a mine buried in a meadow. You can't see it on the surface but it is there waiting to blow up in your face. If you don't learn how to handle disagreements and misunderstandings with your partner and instead bury your feelings to avoid the discomfort, you are planting the seeds of destruction. It takes courage to tell your partner when they do something that you don't like. Our initial reaction is to just gloss over or ignore these things.
For example, one of you is bound to be more concerned about household clutter than the other. In my case my husband is the neatnik. When we were dating we spent some weekends at his house and some at mine. At my house the dirty dishes would pile up in the sink until I got motivated to put them into the dishwasher. At his house dirty dishes were put directly into the dishwasher–except when I was around.
The dish issue really bothered him but I was oblivious to it. So the resentment built up in him until one day he exploded in anger at me. I felt like I was blind-sided because he never said a word about how unhappy it made him until the resentment turned into anger. Then we had to have a big long talk about the whole situation (which most guys hate) and figure out how we could avoid a replay of the scenario.
Turns out he was so used to having his wishes and feelings ignored in a previous relationship that he was in the habit of stuffing his feelings down until they overwhelmed him and came out in anger. Most of us were never taught to communicate our unhappiness over someone else's behavior early on before it has a chance to turn into a destructive angry outburst.
Even the happiest of couples don't get through life without any conflict or disagreement. But if you are going to live with someone day to day you have to know that the other person cares about how you feel and wants to know if they are doing something that annoys you. And you have to show your partner that you are willing to listen when they have some grievance and willing to change your behavior to accommodate them.
I think my husband was almost amazed when I said, "I had no idea this bothered you so much! If you hate the site of dirty dishes hanging around I can learn to put them into the dishwasher. You don't have to get mad at me – you just have to let me know what's bugging you." It took us both a while to develop the habit of nipping resentment in the bud and we're still far from perfect. However, we are both well aware of how important it is to keep our respect for each other, no matter what we may disagree on.
Did you know that one of our foremost relationship experts, Dr. John Gottman, can predict with incredible accuracy whether a couple will end up divorced? He just has to observe the way they speak to each other. If they criticize and demean each other, it means they have lost respect for each other. Without respect love dies. Unless they can regain that respect and treat each other with kindness, their marriage is doomed.
The best time to develop this skill is before you get married. During your dating days plenty of opportunities will come up for you and your partner to practice giving each other notice that some behavior is bothering you. Find out if you two can discuss these things before a mountain of resentment builds up. Find out if your partner really cares enough to listen to you and respond to you. If you can't talk about the little things, how will you ever be able to talk about big issues when they come up later?
Think twice about staying in a relationship where you get criticized more than praised. If your partner disrespects you while dating, it will only get worse after you marry. Respect is difficult to gain back once it is lost. And don't ever think you're in love with someone whom you don't respect – you're just in lust! Make self-respect and respect for your partner the bedrock upon which you build your relationship and you're on your way to happily ever after.
Copyright 2004 Barbara Wright AbernathyAttend a FREE Teleclass with Barbara every month! Subscribe to
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