AVOID THE JERKS AND FIND “THE ONE” WHO'S RIGHT FOR YOU Over 200,000 Copies Sold! "An insightful and creative contribution to managing the complexity of choosing a life partner. I heartily recommend it." --Harville Hendrix, Ph.D., author of Getting the Love You Want and Keeping the Love You Find "Don't be part of the 'where-was-this-book-when-I-needed-it?' crowd. It's not too late--read it now!" --Pat Love, Ed.D., author of The Truth About Love and Hot Monogamy Based on years of research on marital and premarital happiness, How to Avoid Falling in Love with a Jerk (previously published in hardcover as How to Avoid Marrying a Jerk ) will help you break destructive dating patterns that have kept you from finding the love you deserve: Ask the right questions to inspire meaningful, revealing conversations with your partner - Judge character based on compatibility, relationships skills, friends, and patterns from family and previous relationships - Resolve your own emotional baggage so you're ready for a healthy relationship John Van Epp, Ph.D. , conducts seminars and workshops worldwide on marriage and relationships. His popular video program, “How to Avoid Marrying a Jerk,” is being taught by certified instructors internationally in thousands of churches, singles organizations, educational and agency settings, and throughout the military. Visit his website at www.johnvanepp.com. How to Avoid Falling in Love with a Jerk The Foolproof Way to Follow Your Heart Without Losing Your Mind By JOHN VAN EPP McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2007 John Van Epp All right reserved. ISBN: 978-0-07-154842-7 Contents Chapter One Follow Your Heart Without Losing Your Mind * * * How Did Something So Right Go So Wrong? Meet Charlotte, twenty-five, who has just ended a two-year relationship: When I first met James [twenty-seven] at the insurance company where I worked, he was easygoing, charming, and funny—he turned out to be all that and more. He moved in with me after seven months of spending almost every free moment together. I would have sworn that I knew him better than anyone in the world. But then he changed; he went out with his friends more and became less interested in me. When I tried to talk with him about keeping balance in our relationship, he would become defensive and detached, as if he just didn't care. I kept trying for the next year and a half, thinking that he would change, but he only became worse. Looking back, I wonder if I ever really knew him. Then there's Marc, thirty-eight, at the end of a three-year relationship: I felt sorry for Jenell the first time we talked. She was going through a divorce from a real jerk who cheated on her. I wondered how any guy could do something like that to her; she was so beautiful and nice. She told me she had never been treated or loved in the ways that I took care of her. When I heard about her screwed-up family, I realized why she seemed to feel so "at home" with jerks. It felt great to give her love, something she said she never really had. Around the fourth month of dating, however, Jenell became moody and picked fights with me, as if she wanted to be mad. I kept trying to make things better, and they were, for a while, but then she would go back into her shell. I should not have stayed with her so long. Why do I always get into relationships where I am the giver? Listen to Tasha, twenty-eight, at the end of a five-year relationship: The thing that impressed me most when I met Duane [thirty-one] was that he was so good with my six-year-old son. He always talked to him, horsed around and played with him, and would even bring him surprises when he came to my apartment to see me. Being a single mother, I easily fell in love with the father my son never had. I was bothered by the way Duane became harsh sometimes with me, but I wrote it off as just a bad mood. And anyway, you've got to take the bad with the good. We married on our first anniversary of going out, but from that time on he was never the same. He had frequent rages and treated me just like his father had treated his mother. I never thought he would act like that; he had been so different before we married. How did I miss the signs of what he was going to be like in marriage? What do Charlotte, Marc, and Tasha have in common? All three ended up with something different than what they thought they had originally. They minimized incidental problems that became damaging patterns, not recognizing the signs. It is easy to get fooled when you are feeling in love. The problem is not that you are unsure of what you want. According to a recent national survey by researchers at Rutgers University, 94 percent of singles stated that they want to marry their soul mate. However, many of them acknowledged a lack of confidence in being able to achieve this goal. You're probably reading this book because you've noticed a pattern in your own relationships—a pattern you want to bre