The Weekly Newspaper of Inglewood
Herald Publications - El Segundo, Hawthorne, Lawndale & Inglewood Community Newspapers Since 1911 - (310) 322-1830 - Vol. 70, No. 28 - July 15, 2021
Kids Fun Zone Returns, Free and In-person
Kids Fun Zone offers art activities to explore new ways of self-expression for kids. This in-person event will be providing individual supplies to all registered kids. By registering for your time slot, we ask that you please attend at the specific time in which you registered and
please be on-time. This event is FREE to the public, but you must register to attend. Crafts always by Artsy Kidss. For more information go to: www.crenshawimperialplaza.com/kids-fun-zone. Photo courtesy Crenshaw Imperial Plaza.
Dear Neighborhood Therapist,
I am happily engaged, but as the wedding
date gets closer I find myself thinking about
a relationship from a few years ago. It was
a very good relationship for a long time (we
were together longer than my fiancee and I
have been), and we had discussed getting married.
I was close to buying a ring. It was very
different from my current relationship. Now I
find myself thinking about all of the ways that
my former relationship was satisfying that my
current one is not, and while I am definitely
happy to be marrying my fiancee, I worry. How
can I stop my past relationship from affecting
my marriage?
– Worried About the Future, El Segundo
Dear Worried,
Your relationships with your parents,
relatives, friends, and the place you grew
up affect who you are, and who you are
affects your marriage. It doesn’t make
sense that past romantic relationships would
somehow play no role, either. This is the
good news! In many ways, your “baggage”
is baked in already: your past relationships
are already affecting the current one. (The
same goes for your fiancee and her life,
of course.)
But I suspect that you’d like to know
if it is possible not to feel the very thing
you happen to be feeling. I wish I could
fix that. The pang of regret, the path not
Your Neighborhood Therapist
taken, the things you miss about another
person that you will never have again…
these are things that most reflective people
think about.
What you can do is try to figure out - as
best you can, nobody gets it perfect - how
your past relationships have affected you, and
thus how they affect your marriage. The reason
for doing this is so that you can account for
these effects and act accordingly. Just as an
example, you may discover that it’s harder
for you to give affection than you want it to
be. Now that you know that, what do you do?
No, that’s not so easy to figure out. You
might need some help. But it’s a good start
if you take a look specifically at what you
are giving up by getting married, and then
think specifically about why you hope that
marriage will make giving up those things
worth it. What are the trade-offs?
Next, give yourself a break: we all think
about what might have been, and the lives we
might have led under different circumstances.
Of course you may wonder what your life
would have been like if you had married
someone else. You may even wish you had
sometimes, especially when things that you
used to enjoy may not be as accessible as
they once were.
You know you will have to make sacrifices,
and yet you have still decided to give marriage
a try. This suggests to me that you have
a sense that you can do this, and that you
think it’s worth it. And that’s the key. What
I am about to say doesn’t mean you should
never work to make your relationship better,
and it’s not very romantic, but I think it’s
helpful to consider on those days when we
think the grass is greener: a marriage doesn’t
have to be perfect, or even great. It just has
to be, for you, better than the alternative on
more days than not.
Please write to tom@tomandrecounseling.com
or text to 310.776.5299 with questions about
handling what is affecting your life, your family,
the community or the world. Tom Andre is
a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist
(LMFT119254). The information in this column is
for educational purposes only and nothing herein
should be construed as professional advice or
the formation of a therapeutic relationship. •
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