Week 5- Build Healthy Relationships and Avoid the Jerks

Most everyone wants to avoid being a jerk at all costs, but even more, everyone wants to avoid falling in love with a jerk. Of course, we all have our days where we could be a little bit nicer to the people around us or refrain from a snarky comment or two. However, those things do not make you a jerk, so give yourself more credit and let me help you truly understand who Dr. John Van Epp is calling a jerk. Merriam Webster dictionary defines a jerk as: an unlikable person especially: one who is cruel, rude, or small-minded. a selfish jerk. Dr. Van Epp defines a jerk as: “… Somebody who has a significant or serious problem area with their personality and has no intention of altering it. A jerk is the person who, deep down inside, is not willing to change something that hurts the person they're in a relationship with.” The biggest difference that I find between the two is the consistency in which negative actions are shown and the lack in desire to change such actions even after they are addressed as undesirable. 

Many of us (especially girls) use Disney as the happy ever after that we aspire to obtain one day. Yet we also see some of the best examples of jerks within the same movies that end so happy. Some prime examples of the biggest jerks to begin are Gaston. With no respect for Belle, he barges into her house paints, through words such a demanding and toxic future relationship and we wonder why Belle didn’t want to stay. Another example is Hans from Frozen. At first glance everything seems to be perfect because they finish each other’s sandwiches and sentences. Yet, through his manipulation tactics we see that he is no less of a jerk than Gaston. Of course, we see Gaston as a jerk and it is highly unlikely that any of us would fall in love with that kind of a jerk but, it can be really hard to hate Hans in that same way because without lots of time together we are unable to see the true character he is hiding and for that reason many fall victim just as Anna did.  

Some of the greatest tools that Dr. Van Epp gave us was the equation of the T’s. Time, talk and togetherness. We learn that it takes 90 days before we even begin to see the true nature of someone and the actions that are consistent often only when we aren’t around. Talk is most valued when it includes mutual disclosure from both people and does not include oversharing of information that does not match the relationship dynamic. Lastly, togetherness is key in allow opportunities to experience many different activities and circumstances together to determine how a person will react in a given situation. In the realm of togetherness we also learn that people have different relationship scripts which means that they will act differently around different groups of people and seeing people in different environments while together can divulge possible unseen attributes of a person. 

The other tool that we are given to help us build healthy relationships is the RAM or Relationship Attachment Model. It includes 5 different categories that in order are know, trust, rely, commit, and touch. The purpose of this model is to place the previous categories on sliders and not let a certain category to be higher than the previous. In essence we need to know someone more than we can trust them, more than we can rely on them, more than we can commit to them and more than we should be touching them. As we keep the sliders in the safe zone with the previous one always being higher than a zone for proximal relationship building can take place. 

Building a healthy relationship can be hard and happens on a case-by-case basis however, as we follow the teachings of Dr. Van Epp it is more and more likely that our relationships will end up on top. This is not only romantic relationships but can be applied to all relationships and interactions that we have with many people around us. Relationships are everywhere and the first step to making them meaningful is to make them healthy through following the RAM model and using open and honest communication.