Watching your good friend get engaged is both exciting and concerning at the same time. Of course, you want them to find love, but you don’t want to see them get hurt. Say too much about your concerns, and you might overstep your boundaries. And say too little, and they might claim you didn’t have their back.
It’s an awkward position to be in, but this was Charlotte’s big night. And she was beaming with joy as she held her fingers in our faces to behold the sparkle of her diamond engagement ring.
“I’m officially off the market!” she said, raising a toast to everyone.
But that was over six months ago, and we weren’t four minutes into our lunch appointment before I noticed she wasn’t wearing her engagement ring. Charlotte caught me glancing at her hand, and that’s when her composed facade melted down into an empty plate of tears.
“I could use your advice,” she said.
No longer able to eat lunch, we settled on cocktails instead and had a long conversation about what happened between her and her fiancé, Eddie. He’d been seeing another girl on the other side of the town. And he might have gotten away with it—for a while—had he not been spotted by Charlotte’s younger cousin, Derrick, who worked at the bar where the two were having their secret rendezvous.
Derrick assumed Charlotte had broken up with Eddie since he was all over this new girl in public. And so when he saw Charlotte at the family reunion dinner, Derrick mentioned that he saw her “old boyfriend” with his “new girl” at the bar recently. Charlotte had no idea what he was talking about, and it required them both stepping away from the table to have a side conversation.
She left the family reunion sick to her stomach and struggling to drive home. As soon as she walked into the condo — the one they’d decorated together as soon-to-be-newlyweds— she confronted Eddie as he and his buddies watched a college football game.
When she mentioned the name of the bar and the girl’s description, the relaxed tan Eddie acquired from playing golf every weekend slid off his face. And his expression gave Charlotte all the proof she needed.
Busted!
With no way out, Eddie confessed he’d been hanging out with his old girlfriend so they could “reach closure,” he said.
But Charlotte was no fool.
She took off her engagement ring, dipped it into the guacamole, and told him, “You only suck once with me!… Because there’s no double-dipping allowed in this house!”
And with that, she moved back home to live with the parents — again.
Culture Clash
She couldn’t talk to her mother about the situation, because she wanted her daughter to be married even if it was to a cheater. Charlotte explained to me that in her culture, a woman in her early 30s needs to be married. If not, the relatives get all suspicious and gossipy.
“But you’re a modern woman, Charlotte,” I said to her. “You can do what you want.”
“I’m half modern,” she said to me. “But there’s another half to me that’s old fashioned and wants to fit into my culture. Besides, I hate this single life. I can’t stand how deliberate and calculated dating is now, like ordering up a meal on Postmates. How did finding your soul mate turn into an app?” she asked.
I knew what she meant. Before I got married, I tried to hang with the professional dating scene. But searching for “love” online can destroy your self-esteem and reduce love into a catalog of false claims and misrepresentations, just to make the initial sale.
A trail of tears
Charlotte was an amazing lady. But she’d been through some tough breakups over the last ten years. And the trail of bad relationships had shaken her confidence and turned her optimism into a bitter vinegar.
She felt victimized by her lovers and spoke at length about the men that had destroyed her belief in love. I tried to be the best listener and supporter I could be for my friend. But when Charlotte pressed me harder to “please be honest with me,” I didn’t hold back.
“This Eddie guy was a bad dude from the start!” I said. “He had ‘ladies man’ written all over him. And if he can’t keep his zipper up during the engagement period, imagine how bad it would’ve been a few years into the marriage. It’s a good thing you found this out now before you got married to him.”
“Thank God!” Charlotte said.
“I’m not sure if he’s a narcissist or just stupid. But what kind of man does this to someone they’re about to marry?” Charlotte said. “I’ve had my heart broken so often that I’m not sure I can trust men anymore!”
“Why do you think this keeps happening to me?” she asked.
“Well, I only have one question for you: Who keeps picking these guys for you?” I asked. “Because that’s the person you need to blame for your relationship misery!”
Charlotte looked at me, confused.
So I asked again, “Who keeps picking these guys for you?”
Charlotte waited a bit and said, “Me! I keep picking these guys.”
“Yes, you do, Charlotte,” I said, knowing full well where I was going with this line of questioning.
“You play a big role in picking your lovers and allowing them to get inside your dreams. Nobody is forcing you to date these guys. You could turn them down when they ask you out, but you choose to be with them. I know that’s tough to hear, but you need to examine the role you play in these misadventures.”
I could see Charlotte wheels turning in her head as she looked down at her hands and across the painful relationships she endured over the years.
“Why do you think I keep picking the wrong guys?” Charlotte asked.
“I’m not qualified to answer that question in full. But I will say this much: We all have a pattern to our relationships, who we like, and what we find attractive in a mate.”
“Some parts of that pattern are healthy, and some are unhealthy. We all get a love template placed on us during our childhood by the people who taught us how to love?”
“Who teaches us how to love?” Charlotte interrupted.
“Our parents teach us how to love. They load the software and the core operating system in us. And then we spend our lives trying to use that software to connect with those we find attractive.”
“But sometimes our core operating system of love is corrupt, flawed, or has bugs. If each time we start up a new relationship, it eventually crashes, it might be time to wipe our hard drives clean and download a whole new love operating system inside us.”
“There’s a pattern to the kind of guys you date. And your love system keeps crashing at just about the same place in the relationship. While these guys may look different on the outside, they share a lot in common: Adonis, playboy swagger, and a smooth-talking charm. And I’ve noticed, they all drive fast cars, wear their shirts open, and put on way too much cologne.”
Charlotte busted out laughing about the last comment.“You’re right! There’s a pattern.”
“What’s up with that?” she asked
“Well, I’m just hazarding a guess here, but is there any similarity to the dynamic between your mother and father’s relationship? Did he perhaps drive fast cars, wear his shirts open, and put on lots of cologne?
And then Charlotte got quiet again. I’d hit another sensitive nerve. “Yeah, he did all that and more,” she said in a more affected tone. “Not in the same way, but he focused a lot on his clothes and his looks. And he was always sneaking around with other women late at night. He’d get caught but was an expert at smooth-talking my mom to let him back in the house.”
“She’d put up with this behavior? I asked.
“Yes!” She said, shaking her head. “And so, his bad behavior just got worse.”
“Is there a part of you that does the same thing with guys?” I asked.
“For sure!” she said.
“It’s not uncommon for people to re-play both sides of their parent’s love dynamic because it’s the primary script we know,” I said.
“Do you think you may be subconsciously picking guys that aren’t loyal and struggle with commitment?”
“Definitely!” she said. “And I keep trying to fix them.”
We know people more than we realize
“I know from the work I do in studying human behavior that people subconsciously scan other people and read their souls through a hidden language via the eyes, voices, and mannerisms.”
“We know a lot more about their good and bad qualities than we realize. Our subconscious brain reads them long before it gets registered in our conscious minds.” I said to Charlotte. “And some people trigger familiar feelings in us.”
“Small things, such as the way someone holds their hand, pulls their hair back, walks, or carries themselves, can remind us of specific childhood memories and sensations buried deep within us. Familiar smells and voice intonations can trigger all kinds of hidden emotions and feelings we aren’t able to access consciously,” I explained.
“So much of what we love in the “other” in the beginning stages is a composite image of features. It’s like an Instagram or Pinterest page — full of the best-edited qualities, details, gestures, and reminders of things that touched our hearts in the past. But the composite images we glean from others don’t always represent the full picture. They’re slices of edited projections of what we want these people to be, not who they are in reality. And those initial false readings can be where we keep making the same mistakes in who we chose to love.”
“But those misreadings are our responsibility to catch, not our lovers. Even though they might mislead us,” I said, “love is a ‘buyer beware’ proposition, and we need to do more than just kick the tires.”
Break the cycle
Charlotte looked at me and said, “I do have a pattern that I keep re-playing. Perhaps I’m trying to correct something in the past that isn’t fixable. Or maybe I’m attracted to the bad boy.”
“But what can I do about it?” she asked. “Love does what it wants to do with us, right?”
“You can break the cycle,” I said.
“How?” she asked.
“By being more aware of when you find yourself feeling attracted to another person,” I said.
“If you practice this awareness long enough with the people who strike your fancy, you’ll uncover a pattern for what attracts you. But the key is not to automatically attribute that feeling to Cupid or destiny. That feeling might be a psychological trigger from a childhood moment, memory, or emotion.”
“I’m sure there are things you loved about your father — memories you miss, tender moments when you felt loved and safe — that sometimes come through in others,” I said.
“I know it sounds mechanical, but just the awareness alone will help keep you from losing yourself to the past feeling of a familiar moment you miss but might be misleading you.”
“I know this awareness technique works because I’ve practiced it myself. Whenever I found myself falling for someone too quickly, my first step was to focus on my breathing and to observe my bodily sensations—such as heart rate, skin sensations, dry mouth, etc.—to see how the ‘other person’ affected me.”
“Focusing on my breathing helped me catch myself before the “fall,” and the subconscious grip took hold of me. While it didn’t stop my feelings for this person, it gave me an awareness of the psychological dynamic that was going on between us. And that insight alone allowed me to understand better what was going on inside me.”
“In some situations, I consciously chose to pull back from these feelings, because I could tell it wasn’t a healthy love, but more of a homesick yearning. And in others I moved forward with them more aware. It sounds complicated, but this is how you can get on a path to making smarter choices about your relationships.”
“The poets, love songs, and Rom-Com movies want us to fall in love intoxicated, without thinking, and dating under the influence.”
“But just because we feel something from the ‘other’ doesn’t mean it’s right or healthy or meant to be. That’s the big mistake we make in picking people. We believe the feeling is a sign, but it might just be a trigger.”
“We have to walk into relationships sober, and with our eyes wide open, lest we keep getting hurt and repeating harmful patterns.”
Eyes wide open
Charlotte and I finished our drinks and went our separate ways. She’d drop me an email note here and there to let me know how she was doing, but several months had gone by since we last met in person.
When I ran into her at the holiday party, Charlotte seemed much calmer and self-possessed. She had a new guy on her arm, and he was so different than her usual suspects.
As her new man and my wife talked, Charlotte leaned over and whispered to me, “He drives a Volvo station wagon…”
“What?” I said, confused.
“He doesn’t have a fast sports car. His shirts are all buttoned up, and he doesn’t wear cologne. He’s got zero game!” Charlotte laughed. “He’s a smart, geeky nerd that is kind, caring, and family-focused. And he’s the complete opposite of the guys I dated before.”
“Is this radical change working for you?” I asked.
“Yes, but I had to learn how to pursue a different type of love, not using the cheater’s love language originally installed in me. I don’t ‘fall’ in love now, as much as I choose who to love.”
“I’ve broken the cycle of picking the playboys and the smooth talkers. I’m more aware of how my attraction to those flawed qualities drove me to pick the wrong guy every time. I’m not trying to fix anyone anymore. And I’m also not looking to blame anyone when the guy I picked turns out to be a jerk.”
“I’m the captain of my love-ship. And I take full responsibility for who I choose as my shipmates and the success—or failure—of my relationships. And I feel so much better being in charge of my love!”
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Previously published on Medium.com.
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