“I was dating this girl, Danielle, for three and a half months,” reported Brad, a first-year college student.
“Things were going exceptionally well, she even said she loved me, then out of the blue I received this letter from her saying she no longer wanted to see me. She said she had met this guy Allan, and had fallen in love and for me not to call or try to contact her.” He shook his head. “I never talked to her again.”
Brad, a good-looking young man, was the first of his working-class family to attend college. His finances were scarce. So, to save money, he lived in a rooming house and ate out. On weekends he drove the two hours to his home to catch-up on his eating and do laundry. But he was happy to be at the college because it offered him a degree in the field he chose to study, musicology.
On his first day at college he met Danielle, a very attractive student from a prominent family, who was a resident of the town in which the college was located. They began dating immediately, but on a limited basis as Brad was gone on weekends. So, most of their dating activity revolved around college related activities, e.g. dances, parties and the like. Their relationship grew but did not involve sexual intimacy.
It was near the end of his three-week Christmas vacation, while visiting at home, that Brad received Danielle’s letter.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Brad said shaking his head, “and ever since I have been trying to figure out what it was that I did or what it is about me that caused the breakup.”
What Brad didn’t know at the time, but was later told by friends, was that Danielle was also dating Alan, a recent graduate of the same college Danielle and Brad were attending and who was now working in the family business. Both Alan and Danielle were from similar prominent business families and knew each other casually.
Unfortunately, we don’t have Danielle’s input on why she jilted Brad. But, even if we did, it probably would be too general, such as she “fell in love”, to be precisely explanatory. To more specifically account for Danielle’s action The Houle Relationship Approach (HRA) would like to proffer an explanation by employing certain of its principles. (1)
In an effort to answer Brad’s question, about what caused the breakup, The Houle Relationship Approach (HRA) offers not one, but four answers which are:
1. Danielle was attracted to a person, Alan, who possessed greater power than did Brad.
2. Danielle’s importance, her status, was more greatly enhanced when with Alan than with Brad.
3. Danielle shared and participated in more interests and activities with Alan than with Brad.
4. Having a relationship with Alan served a more meaningful purpose for Danielle.
But I’m getting ahead of myself so let’s begin by looking at the four reasons for the jilting of Brad from the perspective of the person doing the jilting, Danielle, for it is she who chose a relationship with Alan rather than one with Brad. These four reasons are based on the four elements, Power, Status, Interests and Purpose, that the HRA contends comprise all relationships which strongly influence the way we behave, such as in the development of relationships. These same elements can also be the source of our many problems. Let’s look in more detail at the four reasons (elements) involved in the jilting of Brad.
1. Danielle was attracted to a person, Alan, who possessed greater power than did Brad.
This reason for jilting Brad is based on the HRA relationship element of power which states a person with power is in “possession of control or command over others.” (2)
The HRA posits that there are several types of power, two of which are of interest in Brad’s case. They are Attractive / Winsome power and Financial power.
Attractive/Winsome power is so named because it has the power to attract others to oneself. A person who has such power exhibits certain characteristics such as physical attractiveness, personality, interpersonal skills, or other attributes that make her or him likeable and attractive. Generally speaking, people prefer to interact and associate with those who have attractive / winsome power.
In this example both Brad and Alan have attractive/winsome power. However, Alan possessed a type of power that Brad lacked - financial power.
Financial power involves money, and it is money that gives power to an individual. It really isn’t money per se that is the issue, it is what money can buy that gives the person the power. Having money or coming from a family with money adds to the person’s attractiveness. Stated more precisely:
“The constant exposure to attractive images of wealthy people shapes our standards of beauty and reinforces the idea that wealth and attractiveness go hand in hand. (3)
2. Danielle’s importance, her status, was more greatly enhanced when with Alan than with Brad.
The word status, as used here, refers to the standing (importance) one relationship has to another. In this case it involved the two relationships, the one Danielle had with Brad and the one Danielle has with Alan. In any relationship the participants decide, usually without conscious awareness, as to the importance the relationship has for them as compared to other relationships.
So, when relationships compete, as often seen in dating relationships, the participants must choose which has the greater importance or status for her or him and act accordingly, as Danielle did in choosing Alan over Brad. This was probably due to the similar backgrounds shared by Danielle and Alan as opposed to the background shared by Danielle and Brad; Brad being from a working-class family and Danielle from a more prestigious one.
3. Danielle shared and participated in more interests and activities with Alan than with Brad.
We appear to be born with a concept called self-interest which is involved in satisfying our basic needs such as warmth, food, water and physical contact. As we grow older and gain experience we become aware that others also have self-interests and in order to interact with them we must blend our interests with theirs, resulting in what is called shared interest.
It is around and through these shared-interests that we began meaningful interactions with others. And as we narrow our interactions and focus more intently on a specific individual, these shared-interest-interactions draw us to them. When people begin dating, they participate in shared-interests, but the relationship won’t rest on solid grouns unless they feel their interests, backgrounds and values are similar.
Background in this instance refers one’s social class, religion, etc. Values refer to one’s ethics, principles and standards of behavior. And as research shows that interests in shared values and background tend to predict relationship success. (4)
Brad’s interests lay mostly in the college world, his studies and various related activities. He assumed that Danielle’s interests lie lay there also. However, it appears that Danielle’s interests were more directed toward her cultural background and community leanings rather than toward her interests in college activities. For as Brad later stated, she was uncertain as what to study in college. ln short, she was drawn more to Alan who has similar shared-interests than she was to Brad whose interests were different from hers.
4. Having a relationship with Alan served a more meaningful purpose for Danielle.
All relationships serve a purpose, including the dating relationship. One purpose the dating relationship serves is to determine if the couple wants to engage in the more intense Intimate-Marital (I-M) relationship.
An Intimate relationship has many of the characteristics of a dating or friendly relationship. One notable notable distinction is that in the Intimate relationship both parties usually agree to mutually and exclusively satisfy each other’s needs, such as financial, emotional and sexual needs. Usually that agreement comes in the form of a commitment, verbal and behavioral.
Making a commitment implies that both parties will exclude all other competing relationships that would interfere in the I-M relationship’s role in mutually and exclusively meeting those aforementioned needs. While Brad willingly committed to seeing only Danielle, Danielle didn’t make such a commitment verbally or behaviorally, as evidenced by her dating Alan while at the same time dating Brad. As the relationship between Danielle and Alan became more serious, Danielle saw fit to remove herself from what could amount to be a competing relationship with Brad.
Summary
To summarize: The reason Danielle jilted Brad was because she was attracted to Alan, who also possessed greater financial power than did Brad. And her feelings of importance, that is her status, was more greatly enhanced when with Alan than with Brad. In addition, she shared and participated in more interests and activities with Alan than with Brad. Her attraction to Alan and his financial power, along with her elevated status when participating in their shared interests, all served the purpose of her wanting to enter an I-M relationship with Alan rather than with Brad. Then Danielle did what her relationship with Alan prompted her to do: she jilted Brad.
Conclusion:
The problems associated with being jilted have been a matter of discussion for ages. Some have even offered a correction should the problem present itself. For example, the seventeenth century French playwright Jean-Batiste Moliere suggests:
To find yourself jilted is a blow to your pride. Do your best to forget it and if you don’t succeed, at least pretend to. --Moliere (5)
Unfortunately for Brad, he could neither forget nor pretend to forget and continually agonized over the reasons he was rejected. Despite Moliere’s good intentions he did not provide an answer to Brad’s question as to why he was rejected. Hopefully the HRA explanation does.
I’m sure it is of little consolation to Brad as to why he got jilted. However, if he had the knowledge of the HRA’s offerings on relationships and how they operate, he would have been better able to deal with the jilting. He could have done this by either not entering the relationship or moderating his relationship with Danielle by dating others. Also, this knowledge would have helped him cope more realistically with why he was jilted instead of blaming himself.
References
1. Houle, Thomas, A. Why We Behave The Way We Do: The Houle Relationship Approach 2nd Ed. Tomar
House Vero Beach Fl. 2023.
2. Random House College Dictionary 2000, New York, N. Y.
3. https://www.millionairematch.com/dating-tips/are-rich-people-more-physically-attractive
4. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/between-you-and-me/202009/does-similarity-matter-in-relationship
5. http://www.azquotes.com/quotes/topics/jilted.html
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