Q. Why can't a lady see the "real" man before they get too involved in the relationship or before she marries? Is she looking through rose-colored glasses or do both parties change? Why so much divorces after being so "in love"? A lot of times the "red flags" are right there in front of the woman's face but she ignores it thinking she will change him later. So many young girls in my church recently married and now divorced and some miserable. I'll be 40 years old next month and I 'm not sure I ever want to get married! What are the red flags? (Andrew)

A. What kills most relationships are the desire for perfection and unrealistic expectations. You are quite right that all the 'red flags' are there at the beginning. But courtship and dating is not a time for finding fault or seeing the obvious. It is a time to impress one another and to be on one's best behaviour. Otherwise couples would never get it together. So the true self is not revealed until well into the relationship when the couple feels more comfortable and relaxed with each other or there is a crisis. Of course, both parties would also have been changing because of this.

Every relationship has 5 stages and the first two carries mainly positivity and intense feelings of love. That is the time we see exactly what we want to see in a date and heaven help anyone who finds fault with our date at that time. We can only see through rose tinted lens because that is nature's way of bringing people together. Naturally, in the third stage, a few months or years down the line, the parties begin to reveal their true selves, especially if they are living together. The intensity would have been wearing off by then and little habits which were so cute before begin to irritate. Worst of all, expectations from the dating days have not been fulfilled, so the disappointment and problems begin.

Unfulfilled expectations carry resentment, frustration and anger with them. The girl might have hoped her man was more romantic and the guy might have hoped his gal wouldn't put on weight. None of that happened and so both parties begin to reassess the situation. If it becomes overwhelming, that's when talk of divorce begins or many people will cut their losses and live with their unhappiness and frustrations, while blaming their partners, for as long as they can. Any "red flag" can be anything we are not happy with in the early stages of dating. Like if the person drinks too much or smoke. Don't expect them to get any better later on. In fact, they are likely to be worse with their faults. So anything which is not too comfortable for you, don't ignore it. You will pay for that later. Assess what it means to you and face it head on before the relationship develops further.

One can definitely find Mr or Miss Right, but it means allowing the person to be themself, not having too many expectations of perfection, losing that desire to control the partner and loving them unconditionally. But very few mortals are capable of such behaviour, hence the eternal difficulties!

Learn more about this author, Elaine Sihera.
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