A Sure Way To End Up Miserable

Two weeks ago I wrote about discovering ones self before pursuing a serious relationship. Last weeks post was about walking, taking baby steps, to marriage rather than sprinting to it. This week I would like to write about one issue that could help explain why 36% of women and 38% of men ages 20-24 end up experiencing a divorce.

People have been studying marriages for quite some time yet no one has been able to determine if there is a perfect age for marriage. Despite the unknown age, it is important to understand that word age has two characteristics according to psychologists: physical and mental. Physical age is pretty self-explanatory so I’ll just keep it brief. This refers to the physical development of the body, i.e. height, weight, wrinkles, etc. Mental age is determined by one’s cognitive abilities such as reasoning, problem solving, and thinking outside of the bun. Physically, most people reach their physical peak in their late twenties. Mental or cognitive abilities usually reach the adult level around the age of 16 while emotional maturity isn’t reached until after the age of 22 (1).

Emotional maturity can be described as the ability to manage and control emotions. It encompasses character traits like self-esteem, self-control, responsibility, and so on... I think you get the point. To give you an idea of this term, A person who is emotionally mature can handle getting laid off at work, heart break, receiving a ticket, failing an emissions test, and so on without slipping into a state of depression or throwing their shoe at a window. If the person you are dating cannot handle the misfortunes of life without turning into a Tasmanian devil or a hermit crab, please leave. This person is unstable. No one likes the feeling of standing on an unstable ladder. So before you think about saying the words “I do”, consider your own emotional maturity level as well as the person you feel is the one for you.

Here are some questions to ponder:
Do I think positively about myself?
Do I shut down when I experience failure?
How dependent am I on others?
Do I have control of my emotions?
Am I organized?
What is he talking about?

I guarantee that if you get involved in a serious relationship with someone who is not emotionally mature, you will be unhappy because you will either be trying and be a different person to keep your partners emotions at equilibrium or you will be yourself and ride the roller coaster of misery.

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1.Emotional Maturity Lags Cognitive Ability In Teens (2009). http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/22095.

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Baby Steps

I just want to remind you that I am not an expert on dating or love. The ideas I come to come from studies and the writings of experts in the field of marriage counseling.

My favorite movie of all time is What About Bob. If you have not had the chance to see this classic, do so. In this movie the main character, Bob, is suffering from all kinds of psychological disorders he has imposed on himself. He seeks help from Dr. Leo Marvin, a renowned psychiatrists and author of a new book titled, Baby Steps. To keep it short, Dr. Leo Marvin’s concept of baby steps, the process of setting small reasonable goals, saves Bob’s sanity.

In the case of dating, taking baby steps will ensure that the person you think might be a candidate for marriage is the right one. Here I am going to change baby steps from the process of setting small goals to the process of taking small advances in a relationship.

I came across an article on the web titled Top 10 Dating Mistakes, and I would like
use what was said in the article concerning mistake #3, Fantasizing abut the future:


"When you catch yourself trying on his last name before the third date, it's time to remind yourself to slow down. In the first 3-6 months of a relationship, you are likely running on oxytocin, which is a chemical found in chocolate. It creates the sense of well-being and euphoria that comes with “falling in love.” This might as well be dubbed the period of temporary insanity, because you are not in command of all your faculties; your brain is hijacked by those lovely chemicals, interfering with your ability to think clearly (a.k.a. twitterpated). Until you have time to really get to know someone, and see him or her in a wide range of situations, it is helpful to not get ahead of yourself; don't strongly attach to some illusion that you have created about the person. This can lead to pitfalls of setting up unrealistic expectations and subsequent disillusionment, or depression if the relationship doesn't work out [and even divorce]" (1).


I think most of us have at one point or another been twitterpated with someone of the opposite sex and are paying the price, living with the shame of knowing that we were an idiot for having such feelings toward that person. What causes one to make such poor judgments? Studies have found that one way in which the hormone oxytocin is released is when two people engage in the act of kissing and kissing someone after only a few dates is quite common these days (2). Other causes might be due to poor sense of self-conception, immaturity, you’ve never met a girl who listen’s to the band At The Drive-In or a guy who enjoys getting pedicures and is open about it. The bottom line is that we are susceptible to being misled by our fantasies of the future, so let’s be real with ourselves and take baby steps in our relationships to ensure that our judgments are sound, that we might avoid the mess that comes from taking the larger steps.


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1. Top 10 Dating Mistakes (http://www.cognitive-therapy-associates.com/top-ten-dating-mistakes.php).
2. Science Finds The Secrect of a Hot Kiss (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/article5683569.ece).

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"Know Thyself"

One thing I regret in life is that I didn’t begin to keep a journal until I was a senior in high school. What was great about this first journal was that it contained, in great detail, my first kiss and the short-lived romance that followed. Oh how I love to relive the day she stomped on my heart by leading me to think that there was still a chance, but after countless phone calls and no answer, I realized that she was just not that into me (it goes both ways). That red college-ruled notebook was filled with all kinds crazy stuff. The reason I am jabbering about this journal is because writing about my experiences in life has allowed me to capture who I am as a person and that is what I would like to discuss today.

Would you want to be in a relationship with someone who is wishy-washy and inconsistent? If you do, good luck enjoying that rollercoaster because eventually you will get sick and throw up all over that person and that person won’t be happy. An inconsistent personality is a pretty good indicator of one who is unsure about whom they are. In Dr. Neil Warrens article, Before Looking For A Partner, Look Within Yourself, he makes the claim that before you get involved in an exclusive relationship you better know who you are. Why? Because if you don’t know who you are how could you possibly know what you want in life or in a future partner?

Here are a few suggestions and questions to ask yourself from Dr. Warren (from the article above and his book, Falling In Love For All The Right Reasons) and myself on how you can connect with you:

• Keep a journal. It’s healthy and can be used as a form of therapy that you don’t have to pay for!

• This one is my favorite: Who is the one person (it might be more than one) that has the ability to make you consistently angry? Maybe you like people who push your buttons.

• Who has the ability to make you feel inspired and why?

• Does the idea of being married and committed to the same person “until death” or “forever” sound appealing?

• How important is money to you? (Obviously you need to have money to sustain your life… in most cases)

• Travel. Go somewhere you have never been for at least a week. If you or your parents are rich travel the world for a few months.

• Take a psychology class. You will be surprised at how odd you really are.

• Honestly, the best-case scenario would be to have your plane crash on some mysterious island that forces you to live like the boys in Lord of The Flies just like the T.V series Lost. If you can’t connect with yourself there, I believe you are hopeless.

To end I would like to quote Dr. Warren again. “When it comes to something as critical and all-encompassing as marriage, it’s simply unwise to hope for the best when you can know for certain who would make the best partner for you.”

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50/50... Not so good

(Experience #1) October General Conference 2009, a friend of mine, Jenessa, invited me to join her for the Saturday afternoon session of General Conference. As Jenessa and I walked through the security screening one of the security volunteers, an older gentleman, asked if me if I was with Jenessa, and I replied, “yes.” He then received some kind of impression to tell me “hold on to this one.” Thank you sir, but we’re not even dating.

(Experience #2) Not too long ago my girlfriend (not any more) and I made a trip up to Park City and decided to walk up Main Street. While we toured Main St. we ventured into the Family Tree genealogy center for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This decision quickly turned sour. The elderly couple stationed at the Family Tree were very kind as well as the sister missionaries. Right before the couple left and while my girlfriend was in the bathroom, the elderly man proceeded to give me his two cents concerning my girlfriend and I, mind you we had only been dating for three months. His last words right before he and his wife walked out the door were, “don’t waist any time young man” leaving me no opportunity to give him my two cents. Here is some information about marriage in the twenty-first century.

According to The National Center For Health Statistics (NCHF), almost 50% of all first marriages will FAIL (receive an F in the subject of marriage/end in divorce). In other words, flipping a coin can be a pretty good predictor for whether a marriage will last or not. Other secondary sources (divorcerate.org, marriage101.org) reveal that 36.6% of married and 38.6% of married men age 20-24 will receive an F in the subject marriage. In 2002 divorce was so popular in America, it had earned its spot in the top 10 landing at number 7… ouch. To salt the wound some more, renowned marriage counselor Neil Clark Warren, founder of the successful online relationship website eharmony.com and author of the book Falling In Love For All The Right Reasons, states in his book that out of the remaining married couples, 25% will be unhappy with their marriage. Shall we flip another coin? The fact that only 25% of marriages are flourishing is extremely depressing. Let us open our eyes again and look at what we have before us. With the statistics from the NCHF and findings from Dr. Neil Warren, 75% of all people who choose to get married will be unhappy.

It wasn’t until this past summer when a friend of mine experienced a second divorce, that I developed a strong interest for understanding how to have a successful marriage. Most people would agree that getting to know your love is important but many fail to search beyond the taste of music and movies and animals. And I know what you are thinking right now and you are right, it’s impossible to know every little detail about the someone, because the chances that they have forgotten what happened in third grade is very likely. But please understand that it takes quite some time to really get to know someone. How long was it before your current best friend earned the respect and title of “best friend?” My hope is that this blog will help young single adults who want to get married understand what marriage really is (according to those who are married) and how they can prepare for a marriage that will last.

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