Background.

That’s right. A person’s background.

Here’s why.

If you are a parent, no matter how great of a parent you imagine yourself to be, your actions, your parents’ actions all greatly effected how you relate in relationships as an adult.

I was with somebody at one point in my life whose background was entirely different from mine.

Now, you might say, that’s okay. And I thought so, too… until I dug deeper.

I grew up in a very affluent town called Scarsdale, New York.

Even though my parents didn’t have the money other parents had, my grandparents had money. I was never lacking anything and I learned a lot of valuable lessons.

No matter how crazy my mother was, she taught me to communicate and talk things out.

I have triggers from childhood, as we all do.

Issues and things to resolve.

My partner, who I tried to make it work with, came from a much different background.

More of a middle-America background.

Not really coming from money at all.

A whole different culture. A whole different way of doing things.

And when it came down to discussing things, we were never able to come to a resolution. Our backgrounds were totally different. We saw things so differently. No matter what stuff we learned as adults, whenever you are in the midst of something, arguing with somebody or trying to negotiate with somebody, a lot of your behaviors come through with what you learned as a child.

Fears will come up. Attitudes will come up.

And it’s all about how we learned to deal with things as a child.

So one of the most important lessons that I took from that relationship was to look for somebody that has the same background as me.

It’s funny, a lot of my friends are married to Jewish women. They grew up Jewish and they wanted to marry a Jewish woman. Their parents wanted them to marry a Jewish woman and they were forced to do it. I used to make fun of it. But I can tell you, of all my friends whose marriages have worked out, the number one thing has been that they come from the same background. They understand things the same way.

They came from the same type of culture. They understand each other.

It’s extremely important that, when you choose somebody, you have to look at their character first. How do they handle conflict? Are they malleable?

Or are they always looking to prove that they are right? Meet their parents. Take a look at their mother. Take a look at their father. Listen to how they work through conflict. Look at the way that dad treats the mom. Is he loving? Is he sweet? Then the man in question is going to be loving and sweet. Because that was his conditioning. That’s how he was basically programmed growing up.

You see, no matter how great people think they are as parents, kids basically watch their parents and learn about how to treated the opposite sex.

That’s how they learn how to treat the opposite sex.

You need to look deeply at somebody’s character and see what they are all about. See where they came from. And then realize that the way they are handling things is the way that their parents do. They will do so without even realizing it.

The most important secret to having a successful loving relationship has just been exposed here. It’s all about character. And where they come from and their background.