My Ex-husband Taught Me a Question to Ask While Dating

I should’ve asked him the same question before I married him.

My ex-husband taught me a question to ask any man I am dating. It’s one my sister asked him during our marital problems. His answer shocked me and remained with me.

I didn’t have to ask the guy I was just seeing this question.

He happened to answer it inadvertently.

Before I tell you his answer, let me explain the conversation between my sister and my then-husband. They were close so she asked him to meet her for lunch.

She was worried about our struggling marriage.

She wasn’t trying to ‘fix’ our relationship as much as to be a sounding board and resource. She was attempting to raise our communication level and be supportive.

They spoke about a lot of things that day.

But it wasn’t until after my divorce that she told me the question she asked him.

“What made you fall in love with Colleen?” asked my sister.

“I thought she was pretty and she had a lot of friends,” said my husband.

I was at a loss for words.

“Seriously?” I asked my sister. “That’s it? This is what he describes as the reason he chose to spend his life with me?”

I said ‘I do’ to a man who had chosen me for the shallowest of reasons.

Scratch that.

I had wasted years dating a man before I said that vow.

I won’t be doing that again.

I will ask a man I’m dating, “Why do you like me?”

Don’t get me wrong.

This isn’t a first, second, third, or even fourth date query. It wouldn’t be appropriate, nor could it be answered that quickly. But it is a question I will ask if I date someone for a while, or if things begin to get serious.

Looking back, I know why I never asked my then-boyfriend turned ex-husband.

When we fall in love or lust, we focus on the feelings ‘we’ have for that person. He consumed my thoughts. My feelings were all about him. I didn’t look for much reinforcement because I was young.

I didn’t need a lot of answers.

Especially, after he told me he loved me.

I didn’t need to hear why. That seemed like enough. Love seemed all-encompassing or felt like it should be.

There’s something scary…

About my ex-husband’s answer besides the shallow part.

It had absolutely nothing to do with me.

It was all about him. It was how I reflected him. He was looking through me, not at me. I fed a need of his. He wanted an attractive girl with a large social circle.

I was an accompaniment to his world.

I wasn’t ‘his world.’

My ex-husband taught me a question to ask while dating.

The guy I was recently seeing inadvertently answered it.

I didn’t ask him the question. It wasn’t appropriate because it was a five week fling. But it was definitely deeper than a fling. There was a stronger attachment.

One night we were out with a friend.

I was having a hard time with our eleven year age difference.

I knew there was a gap only I didn’t realize it was that big.

Note to self. Always inquire how old someone is if they ask you out. Don’t eyeball it. You may be wrong.

He was telling me I shouldn’t care. Believe me when I say I didn’t want to care. If he had been the one who was eleven years older I probably wouldn’t have.

But I didn’t want to be the one.

A few minutes later he answered my all important question.

Even though I never told him he did.

“Why do you care?” says our friend.

“She shouldn’t care,” he says. “She’s beautiful, smart, fun, funny, sexy, and she’s a good person.”

He would never have known…

The words he spoke that stole my heart.

Can you guess?

It wasn’t beautiful, smart, fun, funny or sexy.

Those are nice words. Who wouldn’t want to be called any or all of them. But if he had said only those descriptors it would have gone in one ear and out the other.

When he said, “She’s a good person.”

I hid my emotion well.

But it touched me far deeper than probably anything a man has said to me.

I’m sure I know why. It’s because I was married to a man who didn’t look below my surface. All of his compliments were about beauty or how good I looked in an outfit, not about me.

It caught me off-guard, crazy as that seems.

To hear him describe me that way.

I would put that under the category of one of the right answers.

My ex-husband taught me a question to ask while dating.

“Why do you like me?”

There’s not necessarily one answer.

But for this girl, there is a wrong answer.