Ask Richard: Skeptical Guy with a Credulous Girlfriend

Bite the bullet and dump her now. I mean that seriously. If she were interested in learning…understanding… that might be one thing but I doubt it is going to get any better over time. People can change, but you can’t change people. She doesn’t sound interested in growing intellectually and eventually you will be looking down on her, intellectually and I suspect you already do but might not admit it. There IS a woman out there that has your current girlfriends good qualities AND is bright enough to be skeptical.

I don’t think an atheist and a christian (or whatever religion it may be) would go well together.

Agreed with the above comments.

If the relationship continues, it will be a constant source of frustration for both parties, and speaking as a person who has been there – you’ll begin to lose respect for the “gullible” party.

I have to agree with santa. It appears to me that she is consciously resisting understanding – an important part of you.

You might not come to look down on her intellectually (though that is, of course, a possibility), yet it is very likely that your “spats” will grow to the point where your relationship starts to deteriorate, and then the blame games will begin – actually, it looks like those have already begun, from both sides (though she is a bit more vocal).

AAaaand then there’s the chance that I’m misinterpreting the situation, so…well, just think through your actions before doing them.

Best of luck to you in this.

My girlfriend is a theist, and christian, and it’s nothing like this. We are able to discuss and challenge each other’s beliefs and most of the time it does not devolve into hurt feelings. It sounds like she’s very different from the woman in the letter though: my gf is a lawyer and quite incredulous and very good at arguing against me and doesn’t get her feelings hurt by arguing (I might feel hurt more than she does! 🙂 )

Even then, we have broken up and almost broken up before, because of our differences in beliefs about god and how to acquire knowledge. We have learned to try to argue differently than we are used to. But I think that’s pretty normal; we are both sensitive about different things. We are still together, it is rough even when your temperments are the same. To be with someone so completely different as it sounds, I can’t imagine it how hard that would be to work. There is no need to blame either party, it sounds like the problems are not really worldviews, but different temperments.

Maybe it’s the sound of your voice that she doesn’t like. Try limiting your expression to intrigued-yet-supportive grunts and hmm-mmms along with vigorous head nodding.

I agree with most of the above posters and think that, given the limited description of the situation, the relationship is doomed. Trying to postpone the ending will only make it that much worse when it happens.
The scientist and the artist can flourish in a relationship if both parties allow it. But it doesn’t sound like the girlfriend will allow it. Overly-Skeptical wrote “She thinks I can’t listen to any interesting thing she brings to me without “trying to tear it down””, which I read as “You should accept this because I accept this” – from both of you.
The other thing I see is that O-S appears to be painfully tone-deaf. I’m ADD enough that I would probably share the same reaction to the dog picture: “Ooh! Big dog! But is that *really* the biggest? I wonder if I can find one bigger? That’s bound to be *hilarious*!” But it’s important to communicate that you’re doing this to find pictures of big (or bigger) dogs for entertainment value – because it can very easily be read as you’re doing it to prove her wrong. Same goes for discussing Malcom Gladwell (who I’ve also never heard of [providing another counterexample to your ‘all of we skeptics know’]) – it’s okay to debate the points for validity and finding the truth, but it can easily be seen as trying to prove her wrong. If you’re willing to try to make the relationship work, you need to anticipate how the words you say will be heard, and if this letter’s a valid sample, it’s something you need to work on.
Finally, questioning the validity of everything is practically the definition of cynicism. I agree that cynicism can be a good thing, for much the same reasons as you hold. So if the topic comes up again, accept the label of cynic and describe its virtues; don’t deny it.

Overly-skeptical: leave, before she leaves you. I say this from bitter personal experience. I was in a long-term relationship with someone who had some different epistemological criteria than I, and after a few years, she left as a result. And our differences weren’t nearly as large as yours. She was intelligent, like your girlfriend, but she was also a scientist and wasn’t interested in paranormal nonsense – except religion. One or the other of you is going to feel they’re not being respected, and that will doom your relationship.

Parse: I know you’re just using it as a stereotypical shorthand, but I don’t think the phrase “the scientist and the artist” is very useful. I know artists who are sensible people in touch with reality, and many scientists who are good amateur musicians, poets, etc.

Wow, everyone is aware there’s a difference between skepticism and pessimism, right?
I think the strength of a relationship with this kind of difference depends entirely upon how much value each partner places on their way of seeing the world. Since Overly-skeptical is clearly aware that there are two different world views in the relationship and wants to get past it, if Overly-credulous is of the same opinion I think the relationship will be fine. I know I’ve had differences of opinion with my husband over the past couple decades in areas up to and including religion- but since neither of us define ourselves by those opinions (I am an atheist, but this does not define who I am, it’s merely a bit of information I know to be true) they didn’t hurt us at all, merely gave us more to think about.

I’ll jump on the ‘disagree with Richard’ bandwagon for this one.

Rejecting reality in favor of pretty stories we tell ourselves is not a valid philosophy.

Which is why I agree with Greta Christina and I’m no longer an evangelical Christian.

Exciting? Yes. Useful? Sure. Legitimate? No. Fantasy is not a legitimate approach to reality. If all we’re concerned with is whether or not our worldview makes us happy, we may as well get hooked on psychedelics and do nothing else. Plenty of exciting, mind-blowing fantasy, but reality will still find us starved to death in the end.

stephanie: yes, you’re right about the attitudes and values. I still doubt that Overly-skeptical’s relationship will work long term, but it does indeed depend on the parties involved. If both are truly committed to the relationship, then yes, the relationship might be able to work even given large differences.

As a scientist, I should know better than to generalize from my personal n=1 anecdotal sample. But it certainly informs my emotions on the matter.

On the other hand, there’s a difference between knowing that there are two world views, and accepting both. Overly-skeptical thinks his girlfriend is wrong (rightly so, in my opinion). Many people find it difficult to live their lives knowing that their partner believes they misunderstand the world.

@Stephanie This is an epistemological issue not that of opinion. How one comes to a decision and a viewpoint about the world is as important as their conclusions. As least to me and many people here. I find when someone doesn’t base their beliefs on logical and consistent criteria they are doom to believe ridiculous things and be too unpredictable to imbalanced in view.

You’re going to take this incredibly personally but I understand different people have different criteria for what they want in a partner but some are better than others. Intelligence is important to me but maybe not others. A sense of humor is important to me but maybe not to others. Liberal value judgments (which is one of the only valid areas of disagreement) would be nice but maybe not to others and their respective value judgments. Skeptical and logical reasoning is important to me but maybe it isn’t to you.

All these things tend to affect larger areas of the relationship and our ideas and if they are in constant odds what’s the point? Look at it this way, we all have our cut off when it comes to compatibility. I’m sure you would never be with a Naturopathic, young earth creationist who is a member of the KKK. There may but no real objective correct cut off point but I fail to see how your criteria is better other than the fact that you’ll get along better with the credulous.

I think that people can have a successful relationship while holding opposing beliefs. In the end I think it’s less about the beliefs and more about how you deal with each other. Mutual respect. If you have that, then you are in a good place.

My girlfriend sometimes shows me excerpts from horoscopes. Now, I don’t believe in that stuff, but I don’t take every opportunity to point out how foolish her belief is. It’s fun for her, so I smile and enjoy her wonder.

I don’t think your girlfriend is entirely to blame. Obviously, the two of you have some opposing beliefs, but it might be good to sit down and discuss this problem. If you think her approach to life is something you can’t accept, then you should probably come clean and break up with her. On the other hand, if you can accept it as harmless, then you can learn to respect her beliefs. This goes both ways too. She needs to acknowledge that you are a very skeptical person and learn to take your skepticism with a grain of salt.

I guess the point after that babble of text is simple. Communicate.

*You’re too skeptical, EXCEPT MATT, whose comment went up while I was still typing:-)

I’m not the only one that googled “world’s largest dog”, am I?

Xena: What does being skeptical have to do with not finding the value in art, poetry, music, etc.?

“It does no harm to the romance of the sunset to know a little bit about it.” — Carl Sagan

I would advise you to seperate. If she’s getting all bent out of shape over the world’s biggest dog then I would expect there to be some more subtle issues with the relationship. Also, if you identify yourself as a skeptic, that’s who you are, and your girl friend can’t stand skepticism… Why would you want a girl friend who can’t stand you? Find someone who will share your interest in reality instead of trying to replace it with woo.

When my wife and I met, I was, an atheist, although more of the “Live and let live” variety, and my wife was a practicing Wiccan. Today, I’m still an atheist, although I’m far more skeptical than I was just a few short years ago. And my wife still identifies as Pagan, though I’m not sure how serious she takes it.

We’ve been together for 10 years, married for 5. We have our disagreements like any other couple, but we’ve never had any kind of friction due to our philosophical differences.

I’ve grown in my skepticism, and I believe she has too, to a certain extent. And we’ve grown in other ways too.

That’s what couples do. They grow together.

So I have to disagree with some of those who would say that two people are incompatible because of their spiritual or secular position. Maybe you are, and maybe you’re not, but you can’t let some random people with predisposed opinions on believers and spirituality make that judgment for you. Whether or not you and your girlfriend are compatible, or whether your differences are something that can be worked around, or whether you can grow and change and rub off on each other as Richard suggests, is for you and your partner to figure out for yourselves.

You are two different people, with two different perspectives, and different opinions on different topics. That will never change. But you can learn and grow together.

At the same time, you don’t have to go to Snopes every time she shows you a picture from the Internet. You’ve got to give people the benefit of the doubt, and the chance to figure some of this stuff out for themselves. I’m still working on that one myself, but you’ve got to let some stuff slide every once in a while.

Your girlfriend likes to share stuff with you as a way of connecting. I still do this with my husband of 27 years. (Fortunately, we’re both skeptical and atheist/agnostic, though this wasn’t always the case.) When you criticize something she’s showing you, she feels that you’re criticizing her, and rebuffing the connection.

If you want to encourage her to develop a more skeptical style of thinking, don’t do it using any of the pictures or articles she’s already decided are interesting or positive. She will only become defensive and this will cause her to hang onto her point of view even more strongly. Instead, find articles that you find interesting — perhaps something from a skeptical magazine, something that shows a silly belief being debunked convincingly — and share these with her. As long as they don’t seem like a direct attack on something she believes or likes, she may be able to read them with an open mind.

Maybe she’d be open to debunking of creationism, or the ‘we never really went to the moon’ conspiracy type beliefs. I have found that skeptical thinking needs to be learned — for most people is isn’t how they’re used to thinking. If she can learn to think that way about some things, she may begin to approach other beliefs that way on her own, over time. But that is only likely if she doesn’t feel any need to defend beliefs to you.

One other suggestion is to find positive things to share with her — to counter the image that you’re just cynical. Share wonderful Hubble space photos, or amazing facts about nature, or something along those lines. Let her see that being skeptical of the paranormal doesn’t mean turning your back on wonder.

Karen

I’m going to agree with the minority of commenters on this one – I too am in a relationship where I am “overly skeptical” and she is much more “willing to believe”. I think that, because of this difference in our perceptions, we have both grown and matured very much more than we would have with people who share our views. She has shown me that it isn’t always necessary to analyze everything with the skeptic’s hat on – that sometimes just enjoying something at face value for its own sake (in my case, ghost stories and other semi-spiritual occurences) is important in life; that it’s ok to enjoy something without having to ask why or how every once in a while. And I’ve shown her that it’s important to be aware of how our beliefs mesh with reality, and to be more wary of scams and lies (to do some research before leaping into something that seems appealing, even at the expense of losing some of that enthusiasm). We’ve had our share of fights, but we’ve gone along the path that Richard prescribes here, and it seems to be working quite well for us. How can we ever learn about ourselves if we stick only to those who think like we do?

I recommend first trying Richard’s advice. One should always try to develop a relationship before “cutting and running”. You might have something very good, otherwise, going on with her. Your heart will know. Your mind will follow. 🙂

And, yes, I’m more skeptical about most things than almost everybody I know. I just know what things really matter to me. Once you figure out what really matters to you, you will know what to do.

Break up.

I’m sorry but I’m agreeing that Richard’s advise was bad and this relationship is probably doomed. Even Richard has an off day or two.

It’s not just skeptic vs. credulous, believer vs nonbeleiver. Those can be worked out. It’s the fundamentally different way of looking at the world and themselves that’s the problem.

She is very reactive to his not coming around to her way of thinking. A believer who could make it work with a skeptic wouldn’t need this. Take the danged dog, for instance. She didn’t shrug and let him have at debunking it, she threw a hissy fit about his spoiling her fun. She’s certainly not going to be able to take larger skeptism towards larger subjects if she gets this worked up about something like world’s largest dog that matters not a hoot.

That says volumes about how her faith will feel threatened by his doubt each time and every time.

Run, run for your life from this shrew.

Listen, if she’s really credulous, maybe the relationship can be saved. Try this link (http://www4.ncsu.edu/~brwilli2/cnn1.html) on her, and if it works, you’re good to go.
Not.
On a more serious note, if she can’t deal with simple truths in life, how is she going to deal with the more uncomfortable and ugly realities as they pop up unexpectedly? Will she have your back when you need her or will she withdraw into her own more comfortable fantasy world and leave you hanging?
So much of this has to do with emotional courage and strength, my friend. My experience has shown that most folks who insist on living in a world of make-believe are extremely needy and weak. That may fly for a time, but living with someone like that long-term will eventually sap all of your strength. Besides, smart, brave, independent girls are way sexier. I only wish I had found that out earlier in life.

Hrm. Count me as one of the commenters who agree with Richard. This sentence is probably the single best piece of relationship advice ever typed on a blog.

Just reduce the importance for either of you to be “right.”

I don’t know nearly enough about Overly-Skeptic’s relationship to say, “dump her,” or “stick it out.” However, I do know that having to be “right” all the time will kill a healthy relationship in a hurry.

Cindy, you said:

“I can give you a quick test. Ask her to read Daemon Haunted World, Science as a Candle in the Dark by Sagan.”

This is funny. We were on a vacation in February and the book I took to read was Demon-Haunted World. I read her a quote about how lying to yourself for the purpose of beliefs is like stealing and she disagreed with me. I don’t think she would like the book much.

Karen and Milena.

Great comments! Thank you very much.

@Godless Monster: As long as “wrinkle prevention” is a 2-way experiment, there’s no harm in having some fun with it.

@Overly Skeptical, the letter to Richard didn’t mention the Sagan quote. If she disagrees with the statement “lying to oneself is like stealing”, she may have a much deeper problem than a banal sense of humour. Maybe having some fun with other types of silliness will help her understand that you’re not discrediting her entertainment(?) to be cruel. Maybe it won’t.

Watch for signs of what Godless Monster warned about at 12:36 am. If she starts saying or doing things that approach delusional when she’s under stress, or expects you to pull her weight all the time, THAT’S when it’s time to start reconsidering your options.

So, Overly-Skeptical, you’ve got this girlfriend, Overly-Credulous. What exactly are you getting out of this relationship that makes you want to stick with it? Is the sex really great? ‘Cause I don’t see anything like “I love her so much my toes hurt,” or “Last month when she was working late, I brought Chinese take-out to her office because I missed her at home,” or “We used to talk about maybe getting married and having kids” — in short, “I really want to preserve this relationship because it’s important to me.”

In one of your comments, you say she’s smart, “maybe smarter than me!” So she’s techie-smart, right? Not stupid.

The skeptical/credulous divide you present seems to be a red herring. To me, and I know I might get flamed for this, it sounds like you really, *really* want to be right. All the time. Because you’re not going after Truth, you’re trying to be hurtful (the Sagan “lying to yourself” quote was a lousy choice, because it attacks her; the “biggest dog” kerfuffle says, “I don’t trust you *and* I’m going to prove that you’re both wrong and too stupid to see this was Photoshopped!”) under the guise of “Truth.” It sounds like you’ve focused on the “credulous” part of your girlfriend’s personality because it’s an arena where you can always be “right.”

You say, “She thinks I can’t listen to any interesting thing she brings to me without ‘trying to tear it down’ which is obviously not what I am doing at all.” Well, no, from the info you provide, that *is* what you’re doing, and you’re tearing her down by extension. If I were your girlfriend, I would’ve kicked your butt into the next state by now.

If she *is* important to you as a person, not as a straw woman you can keep knocking down, you need to take a good look at your own psyche and motivations and behaviors, vow to clean up your act, and ask her to forgive you for acting like a jerk. This doesn’t mean you stop being a skeptic, but it does mean that you treat her like a human being.

@SmittyTheKitty

Anti-skeptical straw man? [All]skeptics are emotionally bankrupt?

I said that all the commenters on this particular blog engaged in this particular discussion up until 5:53pm yesterday were too skeptical, not that they were emotionally bankrupt. And I told Overly Skeptical that embracing the absurd once in a while can be fun.

Also, “not knowing” to scrutinize a piece of information, and preferring to regard a passing whim as such a low-priority item that scrutinizing its validity would not be worth the effort are two different approaches to assimilating said information.
Gf’s statements: “[just] let [me] believe something that makes me happy”, in reference to a picture of a dog, and “[you] can’t listen to anything…without trying to tear it down” sound like attempts to bring the focus (priority) of a discussion back to the care aspects of a relationship to avoid an excessively critical and time consuming discussion of causality.

I’d thank you kindly to not put absolutist statements in my proverbial mouth, Mr. second year philosophy student. But if, in the future, you’d like to engage in friendly and challenging debates, my views lean toward consequentialist at this point. Throw me all the “fat men” I can save. Practise is good.

Like I said earlier, new info regarding gf’s reaction to Sagan’s statements on lying to oneself was my reason for (more or less) conceding to the majority here.

Karen has a good point. I’ve learned to not immediately say “oh you don’t know that” etc, but maybe bring that up a little later. It doesn’t seem like you are shutting them down or being dismissive that way.

walkamungus said:

You say, “She thinks I can’t listen to any interesting thing she brings to me without ‘trying to tear it down’ which is obviously not what I am doing at all.” Well, no, from the info you provide, that *is* what you’re doing, and you’re tearing her down by extension. If I were your girlfriend, I would’ve kicked your butt into the next state by now.

If she were my girlfriend, I would’ve dumped her for being so manipulative. It sounds to me like she’s trying to get everything her way and attack him for asserting himself. How dare he care whether or not things are true? He should just shut up and let her be happy, whether it increasingly irritates him or not! Right?

@Xena

The bit about [all] skeptics being emotionally bankrupt was a careless overstatement, and I apologize for it, but that sentence wasn’t important to my main point. You implied that being too skeptical can interfere with your ability to appreciate art or enjoy silly things like photoshopped pictures, and my point was that that’s not true. Any definition of skepticism that leads to that conclusion wouldn’t be accepted by a vast majority of self-proclaimed skeptics, and that’s why I consider it a straw man. Like I said, I agree with your main point, I just think it’s unfair and misleading to characterize “skepticism” that way.

Unfortunately I’m not a philosophy student so the bit about consequentialism and fat men went over my head, but I presume it was fairly witty… sort of makes me wish I were a second-year philosophy student.

Oh, cheeses, I love this crap where we turn it around on the skeptic. Nowhere in the original letter was there a single hint of Overly-Skeptical being superior or looking down on his girlfriend, but somehow some people have managed to add in a ton of “you’re not skeptical, that’s just your excuse for being abusive” crap. From what I see, the only abuse is coming from the overly-credulous girl–as MikeTheInfidel and Chakolate have said, she is being emotionally manipulative to get her way, and she is being actively hostile to Overly-Skeptical’s viewpoints while demanding special treatment for her own viewpoints.

I mean, okay, she wants to believe in the supernatural, but it’s pretty clear from what is written that she isn’t going to leave it at quiet non-opposition–she wants you to nod and say, “yup, yup, yup, that’s totally true and the world is filled with magic leprechauns, no doubt about it!” without making even the slightest endeavor to research a single claim–because that would be insulting. And so what if that makes her happy and it’s totally a part of her identity and rejection of it feels like rejection of her? Guess what? The skeptical person has a skeptical identity, and the skeptic shouldn’t have to suppress his/her own identity so the other can have his/her way in everything. This shit can’t work when one person is supposed to suppress him/herself because the other person gets ridiculous every time s/he doesn’t get his/her way on something!

And yes, it is completely possible to get with someone credulous when you’re skeptical, as so many have pointed out with stories of their own relationships. But what those people are missing is that their credulous partner is making an equal effort toward compromise and is making equal concessions, as opposed to just expecting the skeptical partners to shut their mouths just so the credulous partner can keep feeling perfectly special. If this girl wants the relationship to work, it sounds like she wants it on her terms, which are “you need to embrace my views and abandon your own”, to judge from her behavior over the slightest skepticism from her boyfriend.

I would have dumped her by now too, from what I’m hearing. There’s no compromise from someone who’s very identity seems to rely on always getting her way, and when someone cares more about ideas that make her feel good than ideas that have evidence to support them–or when her emotional attachment to her own actively credulous views takes absolute overarching precedence over any views that might be important to her partner–well, that’s a pretty scary indication of that person’s maturity and emotional stability, as well as that person’s mentality toward other people.

And I know from experience that it’s not easy to live with someone who can’t take criticism but keeps bringing up the touchy subjects–my mom keeps confronting me with my disbelief in the supernatural/ghosts or in Sylvia Browne, no matter how many times I have told her “look, you believe, I don’t, I thought we were just going to leave it at that and stop getting into these stupid arguments so we can continue to have a loving relationship!” Yet, she continues to try to “convert” me, bringing up the subject again and again, and accusing me of being “close-minded” constantly. And then my father tells me to “stop trying to butt heads with her” when I’m not even the one bringing up the subject!

The GF sounds the same way–this isnt’ a matter of O-S “needing to be Right all the time”, this is a matter of the GF “needing to be Right all the time” and having no tolerance for the fact that her BF is a skeptical person. Like my mom, it sounds like she figures that if she keeps hounding him with her beliefs, she’ll be able to convert him to her way of thinking. My mom does that with SB especially–she’ll quote Sylvia, shoehorning some Sphynx-like platitude into a conversation, and then wait expectantly for me to say “wow, that is so wise and true and I was a fool think she was some kind of fucking vulture con-artist!” And it doesn’t matter if I disagree, denigrate Sylvia Browne as a con-artist, nod or grunt in a non-committal way, or just say nothing–if I don’t react with abject credulity, I get the lecture about what an arrogant, horrible person I am for not accepting the Glory that is Sylvia. She wants total and complete unquestioning agreement and nothing less, just like O-S’s GF.

But that’s just me, and I’m not Overly-Skeptical. I’m just going with what I heard, neither omitting nor adding information. Only O-S can fully assess what he wants to do, since this is his situation.

Sorry to go off, but we’re going through this same shit with my brother’s GF, who behaves in the exact same way, and I’m perpetually pissed at both her dismal behavior and the way some of my family try to turn it around to make him the bad guy. So it’s kind of personal to me, and also depressing to watch someone you love get manipulated like that and have no power to stop it. That kind of behavior has always pissed me off, but it pisses me off even more than ever now. >:(

stephanie wrote:

I know I’ve had differences of opinion with my husband over the past couple decades in areas up to and including religion- but since neither of us define ourselves by those opinions (I am an atheist, but this does not define who I am, it’s merely a bit of information I know to be true) they didn’t hurt us at all, merely gave us more to think about.

Very nicely said stephanie…..and what a great point.

That used to be me. For 8 years. We would have the weekly fight over something stupid. They usually started with me not believing or wanting more details on something. Then we would have meta-fight about how we are fighting.

Eventually we broke up. I should have left years prior.

Well said, OS. It sounds like the matter is resolved for now.

I’ll continue my discussion with Smitty if it becomes relevant at a later date. For now, I’ll just say that hollering “straw man” is to philosophers what slut-shaming is to feminists. I’ll forgive you, but don’t ever use that expression in the presence of a real philosopher. Them’s fightin’ words! (I’m actually a 2nd year anthro student with enough philosophy electives to say that I have about the equivalent of a 1st year background in most philosophy programs in my area,btw)

Again, good luck OS & OC. I hope you’ll find your happiness, whatever that means for you.

Yes, OS. Mathy disciplines are way easier. While there are often different approaches to finding a correct answer to a numbers-based problem, there is usually a correct answer and an incorrect answer.

Unlike numbers and trees and rocks, people are not consistently predictable or reliable. Unfortunately, most of the relationship experts on the market can only use broad and imperfect guidelines to measure human behaviour and suggest solutions to common difficulties with each other. And, even when the guidelines are somewhat workable, they’re still derived from models that separate “bodies” from “minds”, or refer to personalities as “innate”, which carries religious implications. And to learn enough social science theory to be able to do a proper job of critically assessing these models takes 2-3 years and thousands of dollars.

I’m not sure about your area, but where I am techies are required to constantly upgrade their knowledge and skill set for a changing work environment. If your company ever offers to pay for more education, you may be able to build a few social science and humanities courses into whatever curriculum they’re suggesting by telling them that these will make you a more “well-rounded worker”. That may give you some of what you need to more efficiently assess and use the free sources (libraries, used bookstores, etc.) available to build your own relationship skills DIY program, if you’re worried about lining the pockets of some scam artist.

Other than that, all I can say is stay flexible. Adaptability is key to evolution.

Run, don’t walk, run away from this relationship now! It’s only going to get worse as you get older, trust me, run.