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There is a Right PERSON, and a Right TIME for Love by Paul Dobransky

Fri, 06/22/2007

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Let's talk about something that virtually every dating website totally forgets when we are talking about what gets men and women together for the duration:

I call it, RIGHT PERSON, RIGHT TIME.

I am borrowing from a woman friend who gave me advice from about ten years ago. I had a friend named Joanne, and we had been on the Semester-At-Sea program together in college.

This was an around the world voyage where students learned all about world cultures for college credit, they went out into the countries of call, and had adventures, and bonded like friends that many go a lifetime without finding.

One particularly nasty occasion I had a terrible breakup with a woman I found "perfect" for me at the time. It is laughable now how WRONG for me she was, but as time goes on, we get perspective don't we?

Joanne's advice to me was this: "My mom always told me that yes, there is such a thing as the right PERSON for us, but there also has to be the RIGHT TIME, too."

At the time, this advice stunned me with how true it was, and is, and the same goes for women seeking the right man. You had best remember that there needs to be a RIGHT TIME TOO.

A great bulk of my work with women (and men too) involves the need to train people for the first time in the notion that there really is a human COURTSHIP process, no matter how messed up our social culture gets in the western world.

This means that there is a TIMING to everything between men and women, that there are right times and wrong times to take a relationship to the next level. Any men and women try to FORCE the changes and advancement of a relationship before the relationship is READY.

So one of the deep things I give women in live seminars in Chicago (write me at drpaul@womenshappiness.com) is a total understanding of how it is that men and women share a joint STORY together when they find a durable bond.

If you think about what a story is, it has characters in it and plot, but it has TIMING.What if you saw a romantic comedy, and it took until the final moments for a couple to even strike up the most basic sexual chemistry? You'd be bored out of your mind and say it was a TERRIBLE movie.

Or if the characters hooked up for a night, got married, and did a bunch of married-person stuff for the rest of the film. BOR-ING. No drama, no conflict, no challenge.

The same is true of YOU and Mr. Right. In The Secret Psychology of How We Fall in Love, I completely elucidate this mystery for you.

And in the meantime, you can learn all about how to quickly judge the RIGHT MAN in the first place, before you even get into timing, simply by going to www.womenshappiness.com if you are a WOMAN and www.doctorpaul.net if you are a MAN.

QUESTION:

Hello Dr. Paul, I have a relationship question I was wondering if you could help.

I have been dating a man for the past 10 months that we had fallen in love. He was a bit "anal" pardon my slang...and also was divorced about 1 year 4 months ago. We were working on marriage and started to take pre-marital testing to see our areas of concern.

I have not been married before and I am 50, and he was married 34 years and he is 56. One of the things that came up in the testing is that I have an unrealistic expectation on what marriage is truly about. This concerned him greatly, because he feels that he may not be able to please me and doesn't want to go through another divorce.

However, suddenly---3 weeks ago a small spat started and before I knew it---he sent me a "dear jane" letter stating that he loves me, but can't see things working out. I have been devastated ever since. Before I received the letter I called him, because I hadn't heard from him in a couple of days--which he proceeded to tell me about the note he sent--3 sentences long.

I told him I disagreed with his decision, but I would honor and respect his feelings-and that I would not be contacting him again unless he did. However, he then sends another --nicer---letter stating that he does love me very much, and he will miss me, but there were 2 hurdles he just felt he couldn't get over--one being--"the unrealistic expectations" and the other stating that I was becoming too emotional for him---(I just lost my mother last year and am still grieving). It's been about 3 weeks and not another word from him.

Do I dare contact him with my feelings or just let the whole thing go?

I am still in shock---one day being madly in love, the next-totally out of his life.

Signed --confused and hurt.

NY, NY

ANSWER:

TIMING When thinking of marriage it is good for a woman to go VERY SLOWLY in evaluating what is right for her (and for him)... You may notice that in the western world we don’t have COURTSHIP anymore, where people take their time and don't necessarily rush into a commitment, but when they DO, it is SOLID.

When men sense BOUNDARY problems (which include expectations problems, unrealistic views of what is possible, disrespect or dishonesty, or simply "not knowing onesself and what one really wants and needs) men go RUNNING from women.

The reason for this is that in marriage there is HUGE risk if a partner is poorly selected, and this man VERY RECENTLY felt that pain. He may be still processing that and this may not be all just about YOU. As for YOUR selecting, you may want to pick men who are NOT recently divorced, and are absolutely over the grief, and do it form a field of SEVERAL men, not locking onto just ONE in short order.

The other thing is that if he is "anal" this presents a problem in HIM being able to be workable in a marriage. That takes COMPROMISE, and people who are "anal" don't compromise well.

Above all, we NEVER CONTROL other people or their tastes or actions, and when a man senses CONTROL or IMPATIENCE from a woman, he goes RUNNING, and rightfully so. When people even "passively" hint that they want to CONTROL us, or in subtle comments like "you really should be (this or that)..." or "when are you going to propose to me?" or "why don't you be (this or that) way instead of what you are doing now" these are all subtle hints of a boundary problem in the woman.

They signal a rocky commitment ahead, because folks with boundary problems cannot truly commit. I completely cover personal boundaries, how they work, and exactly what they mean to YOU as far as men being mature enough to COMMIT, in my mindOS system at www.womenshappiness.com .

Sometimes women find that when they think a man "cannot commit" it really is that he picks up on a woman being also not able to commit. You have never been married. Look inside and see if there is a reason why. Have you had commitment problems?

Commitment is NOT signing a piece of paper called a marriage license. that is artificial and fragile. Commitment is having strong boundaries, win/win behavior and shedding a need for controlling others, to find that they VOLUNTARILY want us. Commitment is voluntary, not a contract on paper. It is a kind of chemistry of maturity, not a business arrangement.

But I digress.

It's all in my materials. Especially the boundary material in its own chapter in The Secret Psychology of How We Fall in Love. Think on all this and let me know what you think...

QUESTION:

Dr. Paul, How long do you think people should wait before entering a love relationship after divorce?

Thank you,

Jennifer M.,Chicago, IL

ANSWER:

As in the above story, it is probably longer than 3 months on average. I also know that many people have this preconceived idea that it has to equal the same length as the relationship, or half that, or twice that, I don't know.It's silly to look for an exact length of time once you know my material.

What matters is your ability to assess a man's CHARACTER quickly, his PERSONALITY TYPE, and therefore, both his ABILITY to recover from past losses, and his ability to even commit, PERIOD!

People need a STORY to evolve around them in a romance, and this prevents us from getting to overscientific and analytical about romance. So instead of looking for EXACT times, consider what makes a good novel or romantic comedy flow for you from stage to stage of relationship. It will feel right when the time comes, or the story somehow “feels wrong.”

Psychiatrists and our training and texts actually arbitrarily set SIX MONTHS as a normal length of time to GRIEVE a major loss. Beyond that, the loss is considered an illness condition and called "pathological grief."

If you look deeply at this though, many mature men tend to be able to overcome grief quickly, or even find themselves not in grief at all. Many people understand that the end of a relationship doesn’t HAVE to be a disaster or a grief-stricken torture, but rather one of many growth experiences in life.

In the old days in places such as Ireland and Italy, they had WAKES, which were actual week-long funerals where the deceased would be not merely mourned, but CELEBRATED. Loss could actually be a JOYOUS event, something to HONOR and ACCEPT.Mature men and women with good boundaries can accomplish this.

In addition, one's type of personality may come to bear. In my KWML material also covered in The Secret Psychology of How We Fal lin Love, I teach men and women how it is that we all have one of four types of personality, and this has bearing for us on how we handle loss.

A KING or QUEEN type of personality style handles loss though a lot of THINKING, and a tendency toward this can PROLONG grief and being able to move on. However, they often think enough to learn some lessons from the past.

Yet have trouble applying them in new ways that cause CHANGE in approach.

A WARRIOR personality in men and women gets through grief quickly, and is ready for what's next. They learn from the past but may not be so imaginative or flexible about trying new skills in relationships in the future.

A MAGICIAN personality may move on quickly as well, but not take many lessons from the loss. And so may repeat the same errors in the future. But if by chance they DO learn from the past they are more equipped at being flexible and trying on new more mature behavior in the future.

Finally, a LOVER personality in a man or woman may be SLOW to move on, and LONG at grief, have difficulty learning lessons from the past, and yet if they manage to, does move on to the future with new, more flexible approaches and changes behavior.

Test your personality style at www.kwml.com for free.

If you want more on this, check it out at womenshappiness.com if you are a WOMAN and www.doctorpaul.net if you are a MAN. I have free weekly newsletters on the subject there.

Thanks again!

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