Eyes Wide Open: How Do You Find Love?

How do you know what you're getting into with another person? How can you tell what you really need? Novelist and therapist Amy Bloom offers an intensive session in cultivating insight and understanding in September issue of O, OPRAH Magazine.

Go figure. Here's the heart and the head of it: Know yourself, know the other, and face the truth about yourselves. Lesson 1: Know Yourself He's often late, which is inconsiderate = I fear not being sufficiently appreciated. Thanks, Dad.He thinks about his needs first, and mine second = If you express your needs, no one will love you. Thanks, Mom.Your partner's faults are real (I'm on your side here) and various and even grievous, but those are their faults and, frankly, we're here to talk about you...and me.

Lesson 2: What "Knowing the Other Person" Means When you look at another person's behavior (and please, do look at what he does, not just how he explains what he does. A man with a good and different explanation for each of the five times he's stood you up is a really good...explainer. Did you want to marry a world-class explainer?), the question will arise: Is it character or circumstance? Did he do what he did because of who he is, at his core, or was he pushed to that behavior by circumstance? Guess what? Pretty much, after 18, it's character, every time. It's true that under extraordinary circumstances—baby trapped under car, grandmother stuck in burning building—you might see some hitherto unsuspected heroism emerge in someone you thought had not a drop, and even so, what you learn from that is: He had a drop of heroism in him, after all. But it is also true that even a man pushed to robbing a bakery for bread for his starving child will show who he is by how he conducts himself during the robbery. Lesson 3: Know Yourselves

Be real and be unashamed, even of your faults. I do truly know what he's made of and vice versa. We are both people who want cutmen and foxhole buddies; we see life as wonderful and difficult and requiring energy and stamina and, occasionally, guile. We don't mind any of that. We are both bossy and demanding and largely unrepentant. We don't mind any of that. We yell. We apologize profusely. We are idiosyncratic in our tastes, and we are both quite confident that our taste is better than most people's (including each other's). We take sex and family and food seriously and organized religion not at all. We are hard to embarrass and we cry like babies. We are each what the other hoped for.To read the entire article:

My recommendations: Say What You Mean & Mean What You Say! All you have in a relationship is your honor. If you are not 100% committed to that individual, then your honor is lost and worth nothing.