Pre-Qualifying Someone For Relationship

It’s 8 years later. My husband and I are still married. With Venus conjunct Saturn in Capricorn, this seems a good time to bring this back up…

I was recalling some of the questions my husband asked me before we decided to go forward in our relationship. I wrote about this at the time. He asked me a lot of very serious questions most of which I could not answer without at least a day of thought. It was rather embarrassing.  What do you think about this? How do you feel about that?  These were questions I think most people would have and could have answered on the spot but the man has his Saturn aspecting my Mercury and I had to think about this stuff HARD.

I had to think about it ought of respect for him because he made it very clear he did not want any more failed relationships in his life which is a point you can come to.  I surely didn’t want him making a mistake on me.  This meant I had to think his questions through and come up with honest answers which are not necessarily the answers that would roll off a person’s tongue.

The answers didn’t have to please him.  He’s too smart to ask questions with obvious answers anyway and while this may sound like a grilling, I didn’t see it that way. I got into it. How often does someone really want to know how you think and feel anyway? Not that often.

He was asking me about things he’d thought through and perhaps pondered for years and initially I was embarrassed not to have ready answers but I got over it eventually when it became obvious it was hopeless to try to answer this stuff on the spot and have my responses be authentic.

What happened in during this period was astonishing,  We became closer and closer like being knitted together.  It slowly became clear that we could do this – become one but I wanted to tell you one of his question.

One day I got a picture of Dora on my phone. You know, DORA.  She is shocking.

“Do you think you would like this dog?”  he asked.  “Could you put up with a dog like this?”

I think that is funny but anyway, this is for those of you who are trying to find a serious relationship or a deep relationship. If this is what you want, I hope this gives you some ideas…and some courage.

~~~

Edit to add, in 2019 – If you’re serious about forming a lasting bond, it makes sense you work to get sense of the person you’re committing to.

44 thoughts on “Pre-Qualifying Someone For Relationship”

  1. “How often does someone really want to know how you think and feel anyway? Not that often.”

    So true. So, so true. :::sigh:::

    I wish I could convey how much this resonates for me. I think knowing my partner for a long time before we hooked up as a couple (13 years) helped accept some of the more difficult things that arise in our relationship.

    Talking is so valuable. Our Mercuries are Fixed, and squared, but we have a drive to communicate regardless and this helps.

  2. Indeed. He is a wise man. and his point about no more failed relationships was why I was celibate for 13 years before having one last try with the Man.

    There might have been a deal-breaker in there among his questions – there almost certainly was somewhere otherwise why ask? – but in whatever case it’s best to *know* what you are taking on

    Many years ago, shortly before the first really serious and (apparently) final break with the Man, I was going through horrors with people trying to eject me from my home, inc illegal actions. |At one point, in the middle of big showdown partly because he was giving me no support, he invited me to go live in his house – not to ‘live with him’ but to ‘rent the spare room’. Well be all know what that would had involved! – all on his terms 😉

    Apart from any other considerations, I turned him down on the spot since he didn’t like dogs. He didn’t even like MY dog, whom everyone loved to bits – she was very winsome and extremely well behaved. I knew I wouldn’t be able to leave her in the house with him for very long, I just didn’t feel I could trust him with her.

    Dealbreaker… I’ve often wondered what might have happened, had I risked it.

  3. Where were you with this advice 10 yrs ago? All the same, I was way to young and moving fast, so it probably wouln’t have mattered. It’s great to have it now, thanks ;o),
    Angie

    1. When, Dora first got here and my husband would leave, she would crouch down and wimper and wait to be hit. It wasn’t pretty. Actually it was horrifying, as it was clear she’d been beaten by a woman.

      I will say she got over it very fast. She trusted me pretty quickly and I was grateful for this because it’s a horrible feeling to see a dog crouch down like that.

      Anyway, she skulked around close to the wall every time he left home for a few days and then she was sort of normal but the next time he left she went through this again. About the fourth or fifth time she concluded I was not going to hit her and she became very happy because, Dora, in spite of loving my husband, always wanted to be around another girl because she really never left my side after that.

      1. And I did take her for her blessing although she had been dead a few days. Cluck was decoy, you may remember. I sneaked, Dora in my purse per the church lady’s advice and instruction.

  4. OMG that is just horrible! I actually got chills. I mean, just wow.
    I inherited our dog which was a Christmas gift to my husband’s ex. She complained for years he wouldn’t get her a dog, then he did, then she refused to take care of him. She just wanted to call him mean. She never got him groomed and my husband would come over and see there was no water in the dish, like every time.
    So we got him and I love him.
    What a mean lady, both cases.

  5. So she got her decent Christian burial, in a way. 🙂
    God bless her!

    That abused cowering- I cannot be around it. It is so unnatural for a dog, because they are so naturally exuberant. It’s sickening. There has got to be some kind of punishment for people who do that, karmically speaking. They deserve torture themselves!

  6. Well, you are a healer, so a serious case like hers needed someone with your ability to stomach it, no doubt.

  7. @elsa So happy to see this pic. Dora, so sweet with her little thin legs in that photo…
    We miss her, my son cried when she died.He saved her pics. In a consult you said that Dora and I were busted in a million ways and that she could be my patron saint. I concur. Privileged to have that connection with someone so magical. Rest in peace dear Dog and a Half.

  8. Thanks, Frog and Pixie. Dora is still lying in state but my husband keeps threatening to bury her in the back yard and then dig her up and put her in freezer. 🙂

    He says she did enough fuckin’ with him and now it’s her turn. 😉

    But really we all plan to see each other next life. Er…it’s kinda obvious.

    We talk about, Dora every day and Cluck. In fact my son got his present from my husband today and it wished him a ‘Happy, Dora, Clunk, Dora, Dora, Clucky Happy Birthday”.

    They have Gemini, see?

  9. I so understand where your husband is coming from. I tend to go for shock value though I just lay out everything what I will or won’t stand in any relationship. It the person has issue with it then they are not for me. My present husband was like cool then we are alike in our ways of thinking. It has worked out so far. We lived together for 18 months Married in Dec of 1997 and are still very happily married.

  10. Bloody Hell. Of course Cluck too.Sending good vibes from my bed. Up early tomorrow as, Royal wedding or not, It’s business…Italian style!

  11. I’m sorry, that wasn’t very coherent. I missed whatever happened to Cluck, but I gathered he died from a few things you’ve mentioned from time to time. I’m sorry. It must have been very hard for your family, especially Vid.

  12. I’m new to this blog, but since I have stumbled upon here I have been an abut reader. I have to say a few weeks ago I got into a conversation that delved deep into questions I knew not an answer to, which has caused me to go deeper into the recess of my mind. I have never discussed such matters or thought to ponder them on my own. I felt uneasy not having defined answers and feel like only after weeks of the discussion do I know how to answer. Thank you for writing about this, I no longer feel alone in thought!

  13. My mom’s new Internet boyfriend asked her for a list like this. She wrote him ten pages a month or two ago and he has yet to write his own back. HMMMMM.

    Though apparently he has ah, shared his sexual fantasies with her. “I’m not going to tell you those. But he came out with THOSE really quick,” she said. Oh, men and their priorities.

    This is a nice idea to try, but in my experience with asking people to write stuff in general, people don’t like to do it. Beats me why the dude asked my mom if he didn’t plan on reciprocating.

  14. Avatar
    theflowerisaleafgonemadwithluv

    You can bet your bottom dollar that the next man in my life is going to be grilled to the hilt. And he should take it as a compliment that I care enough to be sure it’s serious. There comes a time when one is tired of messin’ around and time becomes precious. Your husband is obviously an intelligent man of substance. And Dora — how could anyone not love that dog?

    Of all the posts I’ve read by you, Elsa, this one is the most important for me. Thanks very much

  15. I have another failed relationship which is killing me at the moment. The guy is an Aries and has been hit pretty hard by all the transits going on.

  16. As a great ignorer of red flags in the past, I think this is the greatest idea..quizzing likes and dislikes, esp. finding out the extremes… getting to know someone enough to know if you can live with that person. It’s actually a great way to love yourself, so that you can love someone else effectively. I met and married my last ex 25 years ago when neptune was squaring my neptune. A recipe for disaster… that was so much fun and full of joy for many years at first, but in the end… those red flags I told myself I could deal with.. did me and that marriage in. Thank God I have Pluto in the 7th… rising well from the ashes at the moment… 🙂

  17. LOL! I have aries sun, mars and mercury and I regularly am this blunt about stuff too so everytime you write about the things he does, it makes me feel nice, even though he is a male and I am a female, I have discovered the aries energy does not care and it just all comes out so might as well direct it!

  18. I love dogs, never had less than 3… and i take care of them till death takes them, which i never get used too… one of my main requistis over future relationships, was that she must love them.

    my actual gf had fear of dogs, i made she loose it in less than a week, saying theres no other way to cont this relationship unless u face my dogs and accept them… and she did it.

  19. Great Post! I finally agreed to go out with a man who has been asking for a while. He has made it very clear that he wants a relationship and I’m thinking I will have many questions for him.

    My last relationship started great but ended in lies and disaster because I did not take time to really know the guy. I am going very slow this time around.

  20. Love her deer in the headlight look! shes a saint now . No one comes near me without a luv of animals no questions about it .

  21. Hey Elsa! Love your website and droll take on life! Just saw your 2011 piece on pre-qualifying for relationships (your husband’s questions). Brilliant! We need this guy’s DNA! DORA is an old soul and if someone cannot love such a honey with truly soulful eyes they are destined to return as a cockroach. My beagle who saw me through 3 family bereavements and relationship break up would leave the room when the ex entered – had I taken this on board things would have gone a lot more smoothly. Hey Ho. I think your husband is well deserved and he sounds like an amazing man. Good luck to you both (and the lovely DORA!)

  22. “because he made it very clear he did not want any more failed relationships in his life which is a point you can come to.”

    Hear, hear. That’s about how I feel, like I have ONE more chance in me, MAYBE, and if that doesn’t work out, I’m utterly done. I can’t just try on random dudes for size and see how they fit and recover when they bail.

  23. “It’s not that she was lying to me! She just didn’t tell me the whole truth.” In a nutshell, that was the problem I had in my most recently failed relationship. It was heartbreaking, and I’m still getting over it. I still remember the day – July 20, 2017. Like your husband, I now feel that the ONLY way I will get into a relationship I must have certain questions answered: Are you taking antidepressants? What health issues do you have? Smoker? How much alcohol do you drink? Oh, you’re separated – get back to me when your divorce is finalized! And I realize this may seem insensitive, but I want to know if you suffered emotional trauma at any time in your life after being sexually abused or raped? Yeah, it does make a difference. It would not stop me from loving you, but I need to know what I’m dealing with. Honesty and trust does not care if you feel embarrassed talking about it – I need to know.

  24. I got into a relationship with a man who asked me those questions and answered mine in return. Our needs and goals seemed to align, I was happy to have found someone who seemed to care so deeply about finding the right person. The week before my birthday he said he’d met another woman and didn’t understand why I was so hurt since we were never in a committed relationship (we’d never used those words specifically but all actions implied it). I was devastated and felt betrayed that he chose a date with a random woman that didn’t even pan out over me. And now he wants to act like my friend again but I cannot trust him.

  25. Elsa’s husband’s question reminds me of the Inuit tale of The Skeleton Woman. If I could, I would link a lecture on the subject by FA Cloutier Nov 2011.

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