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Part of the reason why so many people choose to be in a relationship with the wrong person is that they have what I call a low ‘Love IQ.’ Your Love IQ is based on how much you know about creating and maintaining a healthy relationship with another person. Therefore, whether your Love IQ is high or low determines how good or how bad your choice in partner will be. If you have a high Love IQ and are ‘Love Smart,’ you will probably still make some mistakes in love, but not as many as if you have a low Love IQ. Then you are ‘Love Stupid.’

Here is a quiz to help you determine your Love IQ. It contains ten statements about love. Grade yourself according to how much each statement describes the way you have felt about love, now or in the past, and how often this belief has affected your life.

If the belief about how love should feel expressed in the statement has affected you in your past or present relationships:

Very frequently..................Give yourself 0 points

Often...................................Give yourself 4 points

Occasionally.......................Give yourself 8 points

Rarely or never.................Give yourself 10 points

WARNING: You will be tempted to take this quiz from the perspective of how you think you should feel about love and romance, instead of being honest about how you actually felt in your past. Don’t respond to each statement only on the basis of your present attitudes and all you have learned; respond honestly, based on a summary of all of your relationships throughout your life.

Why is this important? For instance, let’s take the first statement in the quiz:

‘If my partner and I really love one another enough, none of our problems or personality differences will threaten the existence of our relationship.’

Perhaps you’re in a new relationship, where, for the first time, you’re being honest about problems rather than avoiding them. You might feel that this statement doesn’t apply to how you feel now at all. You want to answer ‘Rarely or Never’ and give yourself a quick 10 points. But let’s say that in your previous relationships, you’ve ignored conflicts and flaws by telling yourself you loved the person so much that none of his or her hurtful or unloving behavior mattered. From that point of view, this statement applies very much to how you felt. So you should answer ‘Very Frequently’ and give yourself 0 points! The reason you may be tempted to answer from the point of view of your new understanding of love, rather than how your relationships have really been in the past, could be that you just don’t want to appear unenlightened or messed up. As a member of my office put it, ‘Can’t I just answer from the past six months of my life? Do I have to include all those years when I didn’t know what I was doing?’ My answer is, ‘If you want to be honest with yourself, and learn from your mistakes, yes you must include your past.’