Editor’s Note: I’ve been lucky enough to get, Maryanne Comaroto, internationally know relationship expert and radio host, to guest blog once a week for the next ten weeks! What follows is pure dating and relationship gold that’s been mined from the deep and fertile depths of Maryanne’s rich experience. Today’s dating gem will as always conclude tomorrow so please stay tuned! This post looks at the life of one good man and how it touched so many.

I went to a memorial this week. A friend passed away suddenly; a shock to us all, but to none more than to his bride of twenty-some years. My heart went out to this brave woman and her three children who watched her life change dramatically without any warning. She told me that it was all so surreal—that one day he was laughing and telling her a story that made her laugh so hard she was crying, and the next day she was watching him curl up in a fetal position, and then he was gone. Just like that.

Yet at the reception after the memorial, instead of drowning in her tears (which we would imagine is what most of us would do), she wanted to talk about what a great, loving father and husband he was. How funny and generous he was. How many people’s lives he touched, and how blessed she was to have had twenty years with him. And while yes, her eyes were puffy and blurred with mascara, as sad as she was, she was genuinely grateful and proud to have spent this chapter of her life with such a man. You could feel it was true.

On the ride home tears spilled down my cheeks, as the truth of her words about her husband were also true for me, in a smaller yet significant way. This man has indeed touched my life, his generosity and beautiful spirit has definitely made a difference to me and my family. And then I felt this wave of inspiration fill my heart. A reaffirmation of why I do what I do and do it with such passion. To help people find what my girlfriend found with her beloved husband, however long they were blessed to share that together.

People ask me all the time how to have a great relationship, how to date successfully, or meet someone and start a healthy dating pattern. I usually ask them the same two questions: What do you want, and what are you willing to do about it? Then I direct them to my Relationship Aptitude Test, or RAT, which helps you smell a rat—or find out if you are one. It’s multiple choice. Take your time.

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