How to make a relationship work New book offers advice for couples and singles alike By Jeffry Larson, Ph.D.
 July 24 00 Judging the possibility for long-term success in a relationship can be a difficult process, clouded by mixed emotions and unrealistic expectations. Reknowned marriage counselor Jeffery H. Larson attempts to erase some of the confusion and debunk popular myths about marriage in his new book, Should We Stay Together. Read an excerpt below. 
 MYTHS ABOUT PREPARING FOR MARRIAGE
 July 24, 2000 On NBCs Today show, Matt Lauer talks to Jeffrey Larson about his new book, Should We Stay Together? 

The high divorce rate in the United Sates and the resulting concern with marrying the right person makes selecting someone to marry an especially important contemporary issue. You may struggle with finding the right person to marry, feeling competent as a future spouse, or feeling confident that a relationship will work. This is partly due to the magnitude of the decision, the increasingly high expectations we have of marriage (for example, My spouse should simultaneously be my lover, my best friend, and my counselor), and the fact that if you do not choose carefully, the marriage could end in divorce.
 MYTHS: WHAT ARE THEY? A significant cause of your struggle with the decision may be your belief in myths about selecting a mate and preparing for marriage. Myths are widely held beliefs that are not true. That is, there is no scientific evidence to support them, yet many people believe them.
 To assess your belief in the myths about preparing for marriage, rate how much you agree or disagree with each of the statements in Exhibit 1.1.
 Myths such as these are dangerous because they may lead you to be too critical or not critical enough-of yourself, your partner, your relationship, or your decision about marriage. 

For each of the myths you agreed with, think of your reasoning in support of the myth. For example, who taught you this myth? What evidence do you have that this myth is true? False? Your belief-in-myths score is high if you agreed or strongly agreed with five or more of the myths. If you agreed or strongly agreed with three or four myths, your score is moderate. Agreeing with two or fewer is a low myth score. The more myths you marked Uncertain to Strongly Disagree, the better your understanding of the true nature of selecting someone to marry and preparing for marriage.

 Myths such as these are dangerous because they may lead you to be too critical or not critical enough-of yourself, your partner, your relationship, or your decision about marriage. They may also lead you to seek the wrong kind of person to marry. They may set up irrational expectations, such as choosing someone to marry is easy. They may fool you into believing that you and your spouse will live happily ever after-regardless of your incompatibilities.

 The most disturbing myth is the one that says, We know practically nothing about the factors that predict a happy marriage. This book was written to debunk the whole set of myths but especially this one, and educate you about the premarital predictors of marriage satisfaction based on over half a century of research.
 
 'The Marriage Triangle' 
 Take the Relate quiz to see how you score according to the three factors that predict your future marital satisfaction. z. 

DEBUNKING THE MYTHS
 Lets go into more detail on these eleven myths about preparing for marriage. Well see why each myth is false and provide an alternative, more realistic belief for each myth. I believe that if you can rid yourself of your belief in these myths and start thinking more realistically about preparing for marriage, you will have taken the first step toward a more satisfying, healthier, and ultimately easier experience in preparing for marriage. The first two myths concern your partner.
 YOURE MY ONE AND ONLY
 The myth: There is one and only one right person in the world for you to marry.
 Expect several negative consequences if you endorse this belief. For example, how do you determine when you have found this one right person? Will you experience a special, even magical feeling? Will you pass up other good marriage prospects while waiting for this special feeling? Such a belief may also foster passivity in selecting someone to marry. For example, if you believe that your one and only will eventually just come along, there will be no positive pressure to date actively and get to know others more intimately. This was the case for a college student I once counseled. He argued that the person he should marry would be revealed to him by God and that until he received such a revelation, he saw no reason to spend his time and money dating multiple partners. I argued that God helps those who help themselves!
 There is no scientific evidence that there is one and only one best person in the world for any individual to marry. If this myth were true, why would people remarry after the death of a beloved spouse?
 The reality: There are several individuals to whom you could be happily married.
 The fact that there is no one and only in no way militates against using good judgment when selecting a spouse. Rather, it means that if one person does not measure up-assuming your standards are realistic in terms of your own assets-there are other persons who will.
 THE PERFECT PARTNER
 Advertisement 
 
 Quick Gifts Swimwear Books Music & Video Computing Electronics Toys & Games More . . .

The myth: Until a person finds the perfect person to marry, he or she should not be satisfied. 
 This is an unrealistic expectation. Such a desire for perfection reduces your ability to find solutions, and can lead to the opposite of your desired results. We live in a world of probabilities. The desire for absolute truth and security leads to exaggerated expectations that cannot be fulfilled and consequently produces indecisiveness and anxiety in the mate selection process.
 If you believe there is a perfect partner for you somewhere out there, you will be likely to engage in short-term rating relationships in order to more quickly identify if a person is Mr. or Miss Perfect. After all, who wants to waste their time dating someone with whom there is no future? Instead of getting to know your dates and relating to them, you will instead evaluate and rate them-prematurely. You will then develop a pattern of multiple short-term relationships, which lead to frustration, disappointment, and disillusionment for both you and your dating partners. The pointlessness of this belief is further amplified by the fact that people change over time. The person who appeared perfect at the beginning of the relationship will inevitably appear imperfect later.
 This frustrating pattern was described to be by Rhonda (thirty-six), a single, attractive woman who was a colleague of mine. When I first met her and found out she had never married, I was shocked. One day at lunch I discovered why. She described her search for the perfect guy!! This was fueled by her irrational belief that she must not make a mistake-that would be shameful! She reported having been engaged three times in the last five years, only to break off each engagement about thirty days before the wedding. She was paralyzed with the belief that there was a perfect partner somewhere out there. The closer she got to the wedding day, the more worried she was that this guy might not be perfect. She was about resigned to being single for life. I emphasized the self-defeating nature of her perfection and shame beliefs. She later thanked me for helping her confront her problem.

 The reality: No one is perfect.
 Select a mate based on the qualities that are most important to you, and be able to compromise when all the qualities are not found. A balance sheet with the pluses and minuses of a particular relationship may be useful for you. The most you can hope for is to decide in light of the best information available. The next two myths focus on you.
 THE PERFECT SELF
 The myth: You should feel totally competent as a future spouse before you decide to get married.
 This belief will keep you single for a long time, because few individuals ever feel totally competent to be a husband or a wife. In addition, successful marriage requires cooperation and effort by two people, not perfection in one or both. You may use this belief as a rationalization for an underlying fear of close relationships or marriage.
 A thirty-one-year-old man I know used this excuse to remain single. He attended nearly every self-improvement seminar that rolled into town. He constantly read magazines promising to provide the eternal truths: What women really want in their lover, and How to talk to women so they will find you irresistible. This guy ended up with enough self-esteem and phony lines for five men! Friends inadvertently reinforced this belief about competency by praising him for such devotion to self-improvement. I questioned his real motive and he later disclosed that he had once been engaged and his fiance was untrue. He was devastated! He swore he would never let another woman take advantage of him!
 The reality: A person should feel competent to be a spouse, though some feelings of anxiety are natural.
 However, this anxiety should not keep you from marrying. No one is perfect, and no one can perfectly predict the future adjustments a couple will have to make.
 JUST TRY HARDER
 The myth: You can be happy with anyone you choose to marry if you try hard enough.
 This is the opposite of the perfect partner belief. The negative consequences include taking a too casual approach to mate selection (since just about anyone will do), fostering another unrealistic belief that with enough effort anything is possible, and premature marriage (that is, committing to a relationship before carefully evaluating similarities, differences, values, goals, expectations, and so on). The truth is, some people I have counseled have such serious personality or behavioral problems that just about anyone would go crazy trying to live with them!
 A good example of this kind of person is one who has very low self-esteem and little confidence. This person is overly dependent on a partner for attention and love. Recently a man engaged to such a woman resentfully described how she followed him around like a puppy dog. Day and night, Dr. Larson, she demands my undivided attention. I cant even go study for a few hours without her resenting it, guilt-tripping me for being gone so long, and accusing me of not putting her first in my life. Nothing I do is ever enough! This poor guy was not only frustrated but significantly depressed over this situation. He was not sleeping, eating, or concentrating well. He was in danger of flunking out of school in his last semester as an MBA student.
 People with active addictions to alcohol, drugs, sex, work, or whatever are another example of individuals who are nearly impossible to live with happily. And all the effort on the spouses part seldom results in the addicts changing or the relationships improving significantly. As they say, addicts usually have to bottom out before they will seriously change. Bottoming out will probably include destroying the relationship first.
 Many married individuals who hold this try-hard-enough belief have experienced months or years of trying harder to make the marriage work without much success. This is because marriage is a reciprocal relationship that requires both spouses working together to resolve relationship problems.
 The reality: It takes two mature and well-adjusted individuals to make a marriage work, so one needs to be reasonably sensitive and selective in the choice of a mate.
 A prospective mate should be someone who is willing to give their fair share to the relationship, to compromise, and to be sensitive to equity in the relationship.
 OPPOSITES IMPROVE MARRIAGE
 The myth: You should choose someone to marry whose personal characteristics are opposite from your own.
 Unfortunately, this belief encourages you to look for partners who are different from rather than similar to yourself. It also encourages irresponsibility on your part (for example, the sloppy person who marries the neat person, thinking that the neat person will pick up after him or her), and it discourages personal change (for example, rather than changing your shortcomings, you find someone who is the opposite of you and who you think will make up for your shortcomings).

 Although in some cases opposites may attract, marrying someone whose traits are significantly different from your own will probably lead to conflict and dissatisfaction.
 When Jason-an impulsive spender-met Mary, he was attracted to her self-control and thriftiness. He thought she would be a good complement to him if they married. She would keep his spending sprees under control! After less than two years of marriage his label of her as thrifty had evolved into stingy! They even fought about money on their honeymoon!
 The reality: A person should choose someone to marry whose personal characteristics are similar to his or her own. Polar opposites may find one another enjoyable, different, and alluring for a limited time. However, long-term relationships usually flourish when similarity rather than dissimilarity prevails. The next five myths concern the process of selecting someone to marry and preparing for marriage.
 LOVE IS ENOUGH
 The myth: Being in love with someone is sufficient reason to marry that person.
 Simply because you are profoundly attracted to a person and have passionate feelings of love does not mean for a moment that you should marry that person! Falling in love is easy. Marriage based mostly on emotion or hormones rather than reason is dangerous. Premarital relationships based mostly on these factors often result in premature marriages before people really know each other well.
 Romantic love actually may be something else, for example, a strong sex drive, a flight from loneliness, a neurotic attachment (as in the case of an over-adequate partner married to an under-adequate partner), or an excuse for domination and control. The expression I love you has such immutable place in our traditions that it can serve as an excuse for anything, even for selfishness and evil. The irrational strength of some individuals belief in this myth is exemplified by a couple I saw in a premarital counseling session. The woman sat in a session with her admitted drug-addicted fianc and spoke about how important it was to her for him to provide her with emotional and financial support when they married. Knowing this emotionally unstable and chronically unemployed man well, I asked how she expected him to do this. After all, wouldnt she more likely end up taking care of him, instead? In response to this question she smiled and commented, But, Dr. Larson, you dont understand. I love him. My thought at this expression was, So what?
 Although romantic love is a requisite for marriage for most American couples, marital success is based on many other important factors as well, including similarity of values, similarity of backgrounds, age at marriage, personal and couple readiness for marriage, realistic expectations, and happy childhood. Of the two dozen or so premarital predictors related to marital satisfaction as determined by researchers, romantic love is only one.
 The reality: Although romantic love is important, especially in the early stage of a relationship, other factors are equally or more important to marital satisfaction and should be considered before marriage.
 A DECISION OF THE HEART
 The myth: Choosing someone to marry is a decision of the heart.
 This reflects an underlying belief that the ultimate decision of marriage should be based on feelings rather than thought. Some people trust their feelings over their thinking processes. Unfortunately, there is no scientific evidence that making a marriage decision based solely on feelings is wise. In fact, it is unwise! True peace of mind about marrying a person comes from not only feeling this is the right thing to do, but also knowing on a more rational, analytical level that this is the right thing to do.

 On one occasion, I suggested this concept to a student in my marriage preparation class. She exclaimed, I know realistically that Tom and I are very different from each other. He is from another race, religion, and cultural group. I know the adjustments will be many, but darn it, I love him, and I should follow my heart! Hearing this, I engaged her in a discussion (focused on thoughts, not feelings) of the many specific adjustments the two of them would have to make to make this marriage work. She had never carefully thought about all these adjustments before. After our cognitive discussion, her heart was less sure of itself! As a result, this couple came to twelve sessions of premarital counseling before they eventually married.
 If you are wise you will base your marriage decision on both thoughts and feelings. You should feel good about the decision and, more objectively, you should analyze your decision so that if you explained to me your decision to marry  that is, why your partner is a good choice, why you feel ready, why the relationship and circumstances surrounding it (the context) are favorable  I would see your logic and the wisdom in your decision.
 The reality: Choosing someone to marry is a decision of the heart and the head.
 LETS LIVE TOGETHER
 The myth: Living together will prepare you for marriage and improve your chances of being happily married.
 Cohabitation may help us get to know each other better, but will not serve as a trial marriage or increase our chances of being happily married. 

Mounting evidence shows that living together  which scientists call cohabitation  is significantly different from marriage and that cohabitation used as a trial marriage usually does not improve a couples chances for later marital success. In fact, as you will learn later in Chapter Five, serial cohabitors have higher divorce rates than those who do not cohabit! It turns out that serial cohabitors lack the level of commitment necessary to maintain a long-term marriage. They often distrust themselves or their partners and they tend to be more unconventional about marriage than others. Unconventional attitudes are related to higher divorce rates.
 A good example of an unconventional attitude toward marriage was open marriage-espoused by some social scientists in the 1970s. In such a marriage, the spouses gave each other permission to have sex with outsiders. This was thought to enrich the marriage and rid it of some of its boredom. The divorce rate for such relationships was so high that social scientists gave up on the idea very quickly  but some prospective spouses still want to give it a try!
 The negative consequences of the belief in cohabitation as marriage insurance include violating your moral standards and later regretting it, creating tension with your parents if they disapprove, and later feeling disillusioned when cohabitation fails to make the relationship divorce-proof.
 The reality: Cohabitation may help us get to know each other better, but will not serve as a trial marriage or increase our chances of being happily married.
 ITS SUPPOSED TO BE EASY
 The myth: Choosing a mate should be easy.
 There is a popular belief that marriage and mate selection are a matter of chance. The myth that mate selection is accidental or easy relieves you of the responsibility for failure in a relationship or responsibility for taking action to help a relationship flourish. It also may discourage you from participating in marriage preparation programs and premarital counseling.
 The popularity of self-help books, the RELATE and other similar premarital assessment questionnaires, magazine articles on finding a mate, and marriage preparation courses suggests that mate selection may not be as easy as it once was. Experts now warn individuals about poor reasons to get married, people one should not marry, myths about marriage that can damage the relationship, avoiding addictive relationships, and so on. These books and articles focus on not making mistakes before marriage. They contain lists of questions individuals should ask themselves before they marry, including: How well do we communicate and understand each other? How do we usually handle disagreements? and How well do we know each other?
 The reality: Choosing a mate is not easy; the decision should be carefully thought out.
 Our society has undergone rapid changes that confound marriage and career decisions. Changing sex roles, the high divorce rate, the effect of inflation on the family, the need for higher education, and higher expectations for marriage have made choosing a mate and marriage preparation more complicated than fifty years ago.

 MARRIAGE IS INSTINCTIVE
 The myth: Preparing for marriage just comes naturally.
 Do you believe marriage does not take any special knowledge or skills? Many people believe the myth that we are born with or somehow magically learn from our parents or peers how to pick a suitable mate and how to prepare for marriage. This is referred to as the myth of naturalism. Unfortunately, what you often learn from others about finding a mate or preparing for marriage is either incorrect or limited information.
 Ill never forget the day in my university marriage preparation course when a student reported to me what his father said to him when he told him he was taking my course. His father exclaimed, Why in the world are you taking marriage prep? That stuff just comes naturally  you know, its part of growing up! I asked the student how much he actually had learned so far in life about preparing for a satisfying marriage and he responded, Practically nothing!
 The reality: Preparing for marriage is learned and is based on sound information and personal assessment.
 So where do you get accurate information and develop the skills necessary to prepare for marriage and make a wise choice? One good source is social science research. The purpose of this book is to give you some of the most important, basic information from social science research that will help you in the process of finding a suitable mate and preparing for marriage. Reading this book and thoughtfully completing the assessments and exercises herein will serve as your first scientific marital preparation. This book is limited to preparing for marriage and selecting a suitable partner. There are many other good books you can read after this one on how to maintain marital satisfaction after the wedding.
 NOBODY KNOWS WHAT WILL WORK
 The myth: We know practically nothing about what predicts a happy marriage, so just take your chances.
 Fortunately, people who believe this myth are wrong! Although there is still much to learn about the premarital factors that predict happiness in marriage, my research on this subject and the RELATE questions in this book can tell you very much. This book helps fill the information gap in our society on what predicts a happy marriage.
 You may be used to consulting the physical sciences to make good choices-for example, you may read Consumer Reports for research on the top ten automobiles before buying one. In a sense, this book is a social science version of Consumer Reports on marriage preparation. It will inform you about marriage, marriage preparation, selecting a person to marry, and most important, assessing yourself and your relationship.
 The reality: We know many things about the predictors of marital satisfaction that can help you have a happier marriage.
 MOVING BEYOND THE MYTHS: WHAT WE KNOW
 Now lets turn to the subject of what we know. Chapter Two introduces you to the model I call the Marriage Triangle-three key premarital factors that predict later marital satisfaction. The remainder of this book explains the specific subfactors in each of these more general factors that predict marital satisfaction. It also gives you the opportunity to assess yourself and your relationship on each of these important points, and to set goals for improvement in your individual and couple marriage readiness. At the end of the book (Chapters Six through Eight) Ill show you how to bring all these factors and your own assessments together to make a better choice of whom to marry and when to marry.