Carolyn Hax: Try to see things as he sees them

Dear Carolyn: My boyfriend has relationship issues. His parents split up a few years ago after 23 years of marriage, and it left him devastated. His mother just up and left and never looked back. He was very angry with her.

After their divorce he adopted the attitude of “nothing lasts forever.” While he professes his undying love for me often, he does not seem too keen on the idea of marriage. After I felt comfortable enough to tell him he was the one I wanted to marry, he countered with, “Why is marriage so important? Is a piece of paper going to make you love me more?”

To hear him degrade my confession was very hurtful. How can I get him to realize that not all relationships are like his parents’? I am ready to love him forever. How can I get him to see that? – Hopeful in CA

You are ready to love him forever. That doesn’t mean you will.

You may call that pessimism, but I call it useful. Some relationships do go the distance. It’s just that you don’t know it’s going to happen until it actually does, even when you’ve dutifully put in the effort. Marriage may help, but it hardly has final say.

Even if I did see things your way, though, I would still suggest the following, because it’s always the right thing to do for a partner: Stop trying to “get him to see” how you feel, and start seeing how he feels instead.

He built his understanding of forever on his parents’ marriage, and now, traumatized, he has to start over. Of course he’s a skeptic. (A skeptic who might benefit from competent counseling, by the way, if he’s receptive to that.)

That’s why your strategy of offering him blind faith in you to replace his blind faith in his parents won’t help, and may in fact put distance between you. “I will love you forever” is just not a promise you can make; we don’t have that kind of control over our feelings.

A more realistic, therefore more effective alternative – not to mention healthier, I think – is to promise things you can actually deliver. Say, to treat him with respect. To listen to him, to be honest, to admit mistakes fully, freely and quickly, to share feelings, to weigh his needs as the equal to your own. To tend the flames.

These are assertions he can believe.

When, and if, he’s ready. To that end – counterintuitive as it sounds, he might be more receptive to a downer than a pep rally. “You’re right, marriage won’t make me love you more” isn’t what he believes; it’s what he knows – and so by having the courage to accept and admit this, you’d at least make a credible case that you’re someone he can trust.