Dating and the RAM

This week we discussed preparation for marriage and how the way that we date and see dating can affect the relationships we choose to stick with in the future. I want to mostly discuss a problem I see with dating in our society today. There is so much more “hanging out” than actual dating. A date should include the “3 P’s,” which are paired off, paid for, and planned. Many times, hanging out is not really like a date at all because there is no opportunity to get to know each other and it is usually with a group of people.

This can be hazardous to future relationships because you end up kissing and cuddling and maybe eventually having sex with this person you do not really know. From this, emotional feelings and attachment begin to come about, and you end up in an exclusive relationship with someone you think you love, but you really only love the idea of them and the physical attachment you have gained. Then, what happens when you choose to marry this person and find out not too long after all of the things you never realized before. Divorce will soon be the result. Maybe this is the reason why there is so much divorce in our society today.

We talked in class about an interesting theory about how we should choose the people that we date and eventually marry. John Van Epp wrote a book called, “How to Avoid Marrying a Jerk,” in which he shares what he called the Relationship Attachment Model.

You can see from the picture that there are 5 fundamental dynamics that create attachment, how well you know a person, trust a person, rely on a person, commit to a person, and how much touch you share. You can see how this model is like a scale of sorts, and Van Epp suggests that one bonding area should never be higher on the scale than its previous one. In other words, you should never trust a person more than you know them, or you should never be more committed to another person than you trust them.

This model makes so much sense to me and helps me understand better how the way we seem to “date” today can be harmful to us, individually and as a society. We are not really dating to create lasting relationships. Instead, we are dating just because we want to feel something or because we just want to have fun. I think this also could mean that there are also less people getting married, too, not just more divorce because people do not build relationships properly. More than anything, I think there is too much focus on touch, which should be the last level of attachment. Too many people are “hooking up,” and just looking for opportunities to get laid or make out with someone instead of beginning by getting to know each other, then creating trust, reliance, etc.

I am worried also how this will affect future generations. So many children are being born out of wedlock or their parents will divorce later on. One of their parents may even leave and never come back. This is not good for children. It creates so much stress on them and causes problems in their lives, then they end up in the same situations as their parents.

I think what I am trying to say is we need to be more focused on building lasting relationships and looking to how our actions effect the future. Use Van Epp’s model to evaluate your own relationships and create better ones.