Q&A: RELATIONSHIPS

By JEFF HERRING McClatchy Newspapers

Published Sunday, September 21, 2008

Q: I’m concerned about my daughter. She keeps picking guys who are no good for her. She even knows she does it. How can she stop what she is doing to herself?

A: Each of us has an internal radar that picks up and locks in on certain kinds of people. I call this process our "relationship radar." If we are lucky, or if we have worked at it, our radar picks out people who are potentially good for us.

Unfortunately, some folks have faulty relationship radar that chooses people who will eventually cause them pain. Let’s look at the factors in how faulty relationship radar gets set:

● The model for relationships we saw in our parents.

● Our own self-esteem.

● Our relationship experience and history.

If you’ll notice, two of these factors, the model we had and our relationship experience, are things in the past that we cannot change. That’s the bad news.

Some tips for correcting your relationship radar:

● As you think back on the parental model you had for relationships, make two lists: The first is a list of characteristics from your parents’ relationship you would like to keep; the second is a list of characteristics you would like to leave behind. Then get to work on eliminating the negative characteristics from your life.

● Pay attention to your relationship history and patterns. Do you find yourself attracted to the same kind of person who winds up hurting you? Do your relationships follow a similar pattern and end in the same way? These are signs that reveal that your relationship radar needs some radical readjusting.

● Based on the exercise above, make a list of danger signals to watch for in people you are getting to know. Then make a list of positive characteristics in someone with whom you’d like to be in a relationship. This can be an ongoing and growing list that will guide you in resetting your radar and then in making a better choice.