WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Wherefore Art Thou, Romeo?: FACES: Family Background P.1

Episode Date: October 3, 2025

In John Van Epp's Book, How to Avoid Falling in Love with a Jerk, Van Epp uses the acronym, FACES, to explain how best to get to know a person. Greg and Emily work through the first letter, F for Family Background. What roles do your parents play in your future relationships? Hear about this and more on today's episode. 

Batman doesn't do ships, as in me. You complete me. I'm George, George McFly. I'm your density. It is not about the nail. No matter who, any man has a chance to sweep anyone off her feet. You're listening to Where For Art Thou, Romeo? The show that discusses how to navigate romantic relationships

and how to achieve a mean between the extremes of hookup culture and over-discerned dating. Here's your host, Emily Shudy. Welcome to Where For Art Thel Romeo, the show where we talk about how to follow your heart without losing your mind. My name is Emily Shuddy and my co-host is licensed marriage therapist and also my dad, Greg Shuddy. We're all navigating relationships every day, but sometimes the most intimate are also the most challenging. Our goal is to help you get out of your own head when it comes to your or even your friend's relationship questions and concerns. Welcome back, Greg. It's good to be talking about all these things again. It is. It's so much fun talking with you. I'm glad that the summer's over so we can actually do this together. Yeah. And I think what we're trying to do this year, the semester, I guess for me, is just kind of take a step back and dive more deeply into some of the concepts that we've touched on and just talk about them more, more in depth with.

just trying to maybe capture a couple of more details about what we were really trying to get, like, talk about because it seems like there's just a lot to say. It's a complicated topic when you start talking about anything related to relationships.

That's why, you know, people, they have to cut me off when they ask me about marriage or ask me about relationships because it's like, there's so many things to talk about. And it's like, okay, I just wanted to know this one thing. But, you know, And that's why your mom's always saying, not everything is compared to a marriage or a relationship.

But it is. So I get it. Yeah. And I wanted to add something to the beginning of some of these shows, what I like to call Cupid or Stupid moments. Because there's so many times we read something on the internet or we hear a story from someone and we're like, oh, my gosh. You know, that was really stupid. Or, oh, that was really sweet. So that's kind of what I'm thinking about here is.

pulling some stories. And not, not, we don't, I don't know if they're actual stories, but I've heard so many in my office in therapy that some of these could actually be real. Yeah, that's, sound good? That's the truth. Yes. Okay. And I just want to say, some of these have words in them that I don't want to read on this family-friendly radio station. So I'm going to, anytime there's a curse word, I'm just going to use the word bleep. Does that sound good? Sounds good. Okay. I get it. This is a female saying this. So she said, I met some guy on Reddit. There is a red flag right there. This story almost makes me yearn for the days. My boundaries were non-existent because I mean, but it means I got into some crazy bleep. It seemed a tad

quirky. He didn't own a cell phone. For instance, I asked him to meet me at one of my favorite coffee shops. I find him there. He has a laptop, but it's like 20 years old. I'm shocked. It connects to Wi-Fi. He doesn't drink coffee. He's sitting there drinking milk from a plastic cup. I ask him to go outside. I can tell he's not showered. I'm sitting downwind. It's not great. And then she has in these stars, this is where 30-year-old me leaves, but 26-year-old me stays. I tried to go, but we ended up walking past his truck, and he pulls out some flowers for me. But not ones he bought, once he picked from the side of the street, like a five-year-old. He wants to hang out longer, so he pulls out his telescope and we go for a little walk.

He has pockets full of starburst candy and keeps offering them to me. It's too cloudy to use the telescope, and it's also still daytime. I'm trying to hurry the walk up at this point. I found it odd that despite him not owning a cell phone, he had pretty much every possible electronic known to man in his backpack. Tablet, laptop, Kindle, gaming system, everything. So strange. We circle back to the truck. I try to say goodbye, but he really wants to hang on longer in his face.

It's super sad. So I say, I need a ride to the pet store. Because I did. It was my errand for the afternoon. So I get into his truck, ankle deep and empty five-hour energy. shots. He drives me 15 minutes to the local fish store where we look at fish and I purchased Driftwood. I guess I'm somewhat hopeful maybe I can convince myself it wasn't a terrible waste of time. At this point, it's dark and he keeps trying to touch me, but also recall he was unshowered

and it was gross. Also, we get hungry, so I recommend we eat somewhere quick because I want to get out ASAP, but still don't know how to pull his parachute. I love how she says that. We stood at a buy the slice kind of place. He makes me pay for my own $2 slice of pizza after ordering his own, which was a little awkward. He asked me if I think they have milk. I say no. He asks them if they have milk. They don't.

He pulls out of his cargo pants an enormous container of garlic salt and asks me if I want any. What? He offers to give me a ride home, but I lie and say, I'm close. I'll walk home two miles in the dark. by myself and try to decompress because I should have left four hours ago. And then lastly, she says, he leaves me a voicemail from his parents landing or landlines saying he had a great time. I message him on Reddit and say, we won't be hanging out again. That's insane.

So much in there. I don't even know what I just read. I don't know. I know. And I'm sitting here going, I've heard situation. situations somewhat like this where someone gets into a situation where they're like, ah, they tried to meet at a place that was a common area, but then you got this person who's lingering and just trying to continue.

Honestly, like, ick factor majorly just is going off in my head with all of that. Just because of like the situation more than even just his appearance as she described it, you know, because it's just like, you could tell from every moment along the way that something was not right. So there's a lot of stupid moments in here on both parts for her to kind of stick around even at some points here. Yeah, I think like that just doesn't sound super safe to me. Thankfully, for her sake, nothing really terrible happened. But I feel like that could have. I mean, she kept it where there were other people.

Yeah. I think that was smart of her. I was really entertained by her comment about, like, at least it wasn't a total waste of time because they went to the pet store. I actually was having a conversation with a friend about this recently. He was like, I really think, you know, you should go on dates where you're doing practical things. He was sort of joking. I'm not sure if he was entirely joking, if I'm going to be honest. But he was like, you should go on dates where it's like, you go to pick up your dry cleaning.

So then if it doesn't go well, at least you did. something useful. And then one of the other people in the conversation, another woman was like, that is the worst idea I've ever heard. That's so unromantic. It was really funny. I just found that very entertaining. Okay.

And I have to give this guy a Cupid moment because I'm like, the whole fact that he had some flowers for her and he picked them on the side of the road. Okay. She is like a five-year-old. But I'm thinking, but again, it was the first date. Maybe not the best time to have that. At least he offered her some of the starburst and didn't just eat them himself. Now, the fact that he had garlic powder.

That's just very random. To end this up, two things that you would recommend from this, two lessons learned. Let's put it that way. One for her, one for him. What would you say? For her, I would say, I would probably have. gotten out of that situation sooner. Her gut instinct was actually pretty good.

I think that she was wise to keep it in the open space. I would not have recommended getting in a car with him. From his side, I would have suggested maybe taking a shower. I really, you know. Yeah, you stole my takeaway from him. I'm like, yeah, that's number one. Number two is, yeah, dude, don't try and pull out a telescope. when there's still daylight.

I think I must have missed that part. I think I missed the telescope part. But anyway. Yeah. It was a cloudy day and it was still light at the time. And for her, you know, I agree with you. Just find a way to nicely bail. Because again, if it's this weird, you never know where it's going to go.

Anyway. You're listening to Whereforeartho Romeo, where we're discussing some of the funniest and most awkward first date stories. I'm your host, Emily Shuddy, and my co-host is licensed to marriage therapist Greg Schrody here on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. So to get a little bit more serious, we wanted to take a step back into some of the things that we talked about just how to get to know somebody and what it looks like to do that. What are the steps to do that?

And Greg, you have something I know that is really helpful for this. there's an acronym that comes from, I believe, did you say John Van Epp's book, The How to Avoid Falling in Love with a Jerk or Jerkette? Yeah. In his book, he talks about how to pace a healthy relationship to really predict what it would be like in marriage. And if you think about it, that's what most people are doing when they're dating. They're trying to figure out, is this someone that I really want to invest more in or that I want to, you know, bail on? That's a mean way to say it, but you know what I mean. or to end this quicker. And so one of the things he talks about is the first key area is getting to know. Are you getting to know this person?

So with that, he talks about, he uses this acronym Faces, because these are the things that a lot of people, you know, they're trying to figure out, how do I really assess this relationship for something that I want to move towards marriage on? And really look for those red flags versus, is, you know, just kind of disregarding those red flags and moving forward. I think that's what most people are trying to figure out. So F is family background.

A is attitudes and action of the conscience. C is compatibility potential. E is examples of other relationships. And S is skills of communication. So we're going to focus on family background today. This is a huge one. with family background, I think, you know, there's an old saying that he used to use. Now, I don't know how many people at your age would understand it. But if you've ever watched

the Beverly Hillbillies, I've not seen it. That's the thing. It's just, yeah, it's one of those. I was trying to think of a modern day family that's just really weird. But it's one of those if you marry, they used to say if you marry Jethro, you marry the clampets, meaning the Jethro was the son and then the family was crazy. But the point is that too often we want to think that the family is not a big part of it. And yet the family is a huge part of it, whether the family was present or not there. And the same thing, you know, even if the family, let's say the parents pass away before you actually start dating this person, they still play a role in who this person is.

And that's something that a lot of people don't often dig into is what does that look like. And again, I want to be very clear as we go through this that it's not one of those just because they might have some crazy background with family that you automatically go, the heck with that one. Because if that was a case, I wouldn't have married your mom. You know, there was some of that difficulty there. But it's important to go into it understanding those dynamics. Does that make sense? Yeah.

So are you saying like it's really important to know what their family is like, how they engage with their family, especially if it's possible if they're still alive because that can be a good indicator of the types of things that they will wrestle with, even if they are actually, you know, wrestling with them well. Yeah. Yeah. So some of it is that family involvement that's going to play out if they are close by or if they're alive because they will be interacting in some fashion, whether it be antagonistic or whether it be very supportive. But even if they've passed away, they played a role in raising that person. So in a sense, you're who you are because of partly how, well, good. bit of how we raised you and the background that you had. And so those patterns you're going to bring into your relationship someday. And some people often, I even ask this in my marriage class is,

when does a marriage relationship begin? And people will say, well, on the first date. Some people will say, you know, I've had people say, when you consummate it. But really it's back when you were born because you start learning how to be in relationship with people as a baby. And I think that that's what people need to recognize that the family plays a huge role in that. I think it's really interesting too because I've heard people say, I don't want to be like my parents at all. Like, I don't, I don't want to do anything the way that they did. And in a sense, you are, by saying that you are also saying, oh, yes, I am a product of my family, almost just as much as if you did everything the same way that they did because you are intentionally choosing something based on how you were

raised, even if it's the opposite, which is very interesting. And it doesn't mean that you're going to be exactly that way, because it could be that you reject the family that you were born into, meaning that maybe you grew up and you didn't have a lot of love. You didn't have a lot of interaction with your parents and you say to yourself, I'm not going to be like that. And so an example I would use as my own father, your grandpa. He grew up in a home where his dad was a silent alcoholic. He didn't beat the children.

He didn't scream and yell at him. He just sat and drank and was quiet. And his mom was what I would call, I hate to say it this way, but a nag. And that's just the way she was. She would just, you know, nag him and nag the kids. And so the one thing my dad said was, you know, his dad was not very involved in his life and never told him that he loved him. And so my dad chose the opposite. He said, I am not going to be like that.

And so he made it a point to really, you know, try to say, I love you more. And then I would use the same example with your mom who grew up in a home where, you know, there was that disconnect. between her and her, at least her dad, whereas her and our family really tried to be more connected with you guys and build unity. So she chose the opposite. What are some things that would be indicators from family background or like interactions with family that might be concerning to you? Well, I mean, he goes into some thoughts about how do we interact and what's our relationship like with our parents. So he would look at a home, whether you are very enmeshed or very disconnected.

So enmeshed means we're kind of in each other's business. We all kind of know each other and we are, you know, always talking about everything versus disconnected where, you know, we don't talk. I see this in many people where their kids are always in the room or the parents are always busy and at work. how they do discipline, you know, if they discipline really harshly, abusively, versus no discipline at all. So, you know, he looks at these different categories of how we, how the parents interact with the kids, and whether it's too extremes versus kind of in the middle, where we're not too harsh but not too lenient,

not too ameshed, but not too disconnected. Does that make sense? That makes sense. I guess what I'm wondering more, though, is like in the case where maybe it is a family with extremes like that, if I'm someone who's interested in a man from a family like that, but I'm worried about how that's going to impact our relationship, what would actually be an indicator that that should be a deciding factor on ending our relationship versus being something that actually we could work through. Sure. Well, okay. So what I would say is first and foremost is that if you understand that, is, you know, getting that understanding is important and then not disregarding ways that that person is implementing that in your relationship together. And sometimes you don't see that in the beginning.

That's why I don't like when people get engaged and start getting prepared for marriage after six months of dating. Because you don't start seeing some of these patterns until at least three months, but really not until six. But then as you notice that, the question is, does he notice that? Does he know that about himself? And is he trying to work on it? And that's, again, back to your mom. She really noticed these things in herself. And some of it came through our, you know, our arguments and really digging into it,

whereas her sibling didn't. He just kind of ignored it. And yet that played out in his life. So it's you going into the relationship, really seeing that and not disregarding it when it happens and addressing it. And is he willing to do? Or in the other way, it's she will. willing to do the work towards that. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. It does. Do you have any last thoughts on that for the day before we wrap up? I know it's a big topic, so we can always talk

about this again another time. Oh, I think, yeah, I think it'd be good next time to finish up because we just scratched the surface here. You know, part of it is not just, let me just put it this way. It's not just your relationship with the parents. It's your relationship with siblings. And sometimes even your relationship with extended family that's important to kind of look at. And just be aware of. And like I've always said, it's important to find someone who's willing to become better or trying to be better versus someone who's just like love me warts and all. I think that's the key in all of this. All right. Well, tune in next time to hear more on the topic of family backgrounds in relationship. I just want to remind you that relationships are a process.

They take time and effort, and we just want to help you balance your head and your heart. This is your friendly reminder to not be discouraged, because if you haven't found your Romeo or Juliet, then make sure that you shower. Yes. If you have questions that you would like us to address, please email them to E-Shoudi-E-S-C-H-U-T-T-E at Hillsdale.com. edu, and we will discuss them in future shows. Please check us out on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your shows to catch anything you have missed or want to hear again. That's all for Wherefore Art thou Romeo.

I'm Emily Shuddy. And I'm Greg Shuddy on Radio Free Hillsdale, 101.7 FM.