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This time, you should totally believe what he says.
By P.D. Reader
Last updated on Sep 13, 2023
Have you ever wished that there was a way to tell if a relationship would work out from the very beginning? That you could immediately tell if a new love interest was worth the time and effort?
It turns out you can if you know which red flags to pay attention to.
Over thirty years ago, therapist Robin Norwood wrote the bestseller Women Who Love Too Much: When You Keep Wishing And Hoping He’ll Change. In it, she included an entire chapter on how a man and a woman about to suffer a miserable, dysfunctional relationship find each other and feel mutually attracted.
Describing “the subtle signals that flash” between a couple who’ve just met, she implies you really can tell the ending of a relationship from the beginning.
Sometimes, the signals aren’t so subtle. Sometimes, they are bright as a bolt of lightning right at the very beginning of your relationship to announce, "Put those beautiful dreams away. You might want to skip this one."
Often, they tell you right up front what’s going to happen! So keep your ears open, and don’t rationalize these warnings away with a dream or an excuse.
To explain what I mean, let’s take a look at my last three significant relationships. In each one, something the guy said at the very beginning told me how it was going to end.
In two of those cases, I didn’t want to hear it, and boy was I sorry.
Here are the easiest ways to know if your relationship will last (before you get in too deep).
1. “I don’t love you, and I’m afraid I’m just going to use you.”
That’s what my first serious boyfriend said to me on our third or fourth date. From what I knew of him, I didn’t believe this guy would ever actually use me. But, should I have listened? Yep.
When I met him, he was brokenhearted over his divorce. He’d found his wife in bed with another man and tried to no avail to win her back—even though she told him she didn’t love the other guy either!
He’d been a minister, so I assumed he was honest. We had a great time together. He was my first serious boyfriend, and I was so over-the-moon about how nice it was, I thought if I could treat him better than his ex-wife, surely he’d notice how great I was and change his mind about me.
Two years later, I was driving miles out of my way to take him back and forth to work because his car had broken down (and then gave him $5000 toward a new one), I listened to him complain about how he had been turned down for an assistant manager position at a jewelry store.
The answers he gave on the personality test they use to screen job candidates were too honest.
The store, he reported, generally didn’t hire his kind of profile because it correlated with dishonesty. In his case, they made an exception and hired him. I guess they got fooled by the minister's background, too.
Shortly after being hired, he met someone new at the store and dumped me, and within months they were engaged. He then, against company policy, used his employee discount to purchase jewelry to offer his wedding photographer in trade, in lieu of payment. The store found out and fired him.
2. "I don't expect to live very long."
“I love you enough to marry you.” This is what he said to me about nine months in to the relationship! It was a very happy relationship in which we were together eleven years and married for seven.
In fact, it was the best relationship I’ve ever had. This guy never gave me any reason to doubt he cared about me. There was never any “Does he or doesn’t he, will he or won’t he?” None of the nightmare feelings we’re all familiar with where the guy starts “acting funny”, and we’re afraid he’s trying to duck out on us.
I will say, though, he was twenty-one years older than me, and one thing he said a lot was he didn’t expect to live long. He would often say the women in his family lived long lives (his mother passed away in her nineties), but the men didn’t make it past their seventies.
Sad to say, my husband didn’t even make it that long. He was stricken with brain cancer and passed away at the age of sixty-six. So, again, what I was told at the very beginning turned out to be the truth.
3. “I have nothing to offer you. I have nothing to offer anyone in my current condition.”
At the beginning of a very close, magical relationship with a guy separated after twenty years of a very unhappy marriage, he said this:
“It's possible I will not have the courage to do what I need to do. That I'll find I'm not strong enough to live on my own. If that turns out to be true, it's my fault and no one else's. I have nothing to offer you. I have nothing to offer anyone in my current condition.”
If you hear those words, believe them.
After he moved out, his wife and grown children ostracized him and his guilt pulled him back to the marriage. He dumped me suddenly, unexpectedly, and very painfully. Two years later, I heard from the guy again. He was still married, and still miserable.
Three serious relationships; three times the guy told me the ending at the beginning. So, how can you tell from the beginning of your relationship will last? Simply listen. And better yet, believe what your guy says.
Robin Norwood may be onto something, here.
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P.D. Reader is a level one student in the NCGR School of Astrology, but her work focuses on spirituality, lifestyle, and relationship topics. She runs Unfaithful: Perspectives on the Third-Party Relationship Medium.
This article was originally published at The Thinking Other Woman. Reprinted with permission from the author.