How to Avoid Marrying a Jerk: The Foolproof Way to Follow Your Heart Without Losing Your Mind proposes a great method of evaluating your relationships and their potential for providing years of wedded bliss - or wedded blehhh! The RAM methodology stands for Relationship, Attachment and Model and helps people to analyze their romantic attachments on four vital levels. The five dynamics that make up relationships are Know Trust, Rely, Commit and Touch.

The first major point discussed is that being a jerk is not gender-specific. Beyond that, the way to identify jerks is by their disrespect for and breaking of boundaries, their refusal to even try to see other people’s perspectives, and their inability to control their emotions. Some of the nuggets of wisdom presented include that, while good doesn’t always last, bad almost always gets worse, and that three months is the time period after which deep-seated patterns rear their ugly and sometimes deadly head. This one jumped out at me and screamed remember this: chemistry is often not a good character judge, for it sees what it chooses to see - despite which, chemistry is not static.

The advice given in How to Avoid Marrying a Jerk is backed up with easy-to-understand logical reasoning as well as examples from the author’s career as a marriage counselor. The book is very reader friendly, broken down into digestible bites instead of throwing it at you all at once. There are even Cliffs Notes of sorts, bulleted lists at the end of every chapter that synopsize the cogent points so that you can go back and reinforce the invaluable suggestions if you have forgotten them.

How to Avoid Marrying a Jerk should be required reading for everyone as soon as they reach dating age. Trust me, it will save you and/or those you love hours, maybe years of tears and recriminations.