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Are you looking for a partner for life? Do you want a marriage that will last?

The first step to ensure this is at the beginning of your dating

Some common situations that lead people to choosing a wrong partner:

Get involved quickly when ” love at first sight ” happens.

Fear of not being able to find someone else even if red signals are on.

Clock is ticking because of age.

Fear of loneliness; ” someone wrong is better than nobody ”

Someone who ticks my check boxes for a partner, even though I do not love him / her. ( marriage for convenience )

He treats me so well, really loves me. I don’t feel for him, but maybe I will in the future. ( When young and inexperienced, not knowing how hard it will be to live a daily life with a person you do not love. It happens more often with women. I have come across many divorced women who went through this situation in the beginning of their relationship and got married. However things did not change during years of marriage. Finally they divorced. )

Many people choose their partner based on initial physical attraction or superficial personality attractions. They just can’t go beyond the attraction or their romantic fantasy about someone to work out whether there are any real foundations for their relationship. Very often they misunderstand ” crush ” as ” connections “.

They rush into a relationship or even a marriage far too quickly because ” connections” are too strong to resist. I have heard this comment often from people who came to see me looking for a partner: “I found someone last night; “I found someone last week”. By the time they make this comment, they are no longer single! Their status changed overnight or in a week! Some would come back a few weeks later saying it was a disaster. Some would eventually get married and break up in 6 months or one year’s time; some would stay in a long term and miserable marriage “for the sake of the children”, which is not uncommon in many existing marriages. I have come across many divorced people, who tell me that their marriage wasn’t that good in the beginning, but it dragged on for years and the parties have grown ever more apart.

Don’t give time for both partners to develop. In other cases, when the initial attractions were not mutually expressed at the beginning of dating, people become impatient. I heard report like this: “We are just friends, there is no intimacy. I don’t know what is going to happen; I do not want to waste a few months of my time to go nowhere! ”

Rejecting when initial connections are not there. Some people will come back to me after first meeting with someone, saying ‘”We can only be friends, no more”; some told me referring to a new person they meet: “I will know it in five seconds if this person is for me”.

Judging your dates at first sight, whether accepting or rejecting, is the first mistake we make when it comes to meeting a new person. It is a most common mistake. Why is this? The answer is simple – you are craving for that romantic attraction and love at first sight. In doing this you forget that friends are forever but lovers come and go. If you want a lover who can stay with you for ever, check out whether you can be friends as well. How? Give it time. Remember that what comes quickly, goes quickly.

Recommended book –
How Healthy Choices Grow Healthy Relationships
” Boundaries in Dating”
by
Dr. Henry Cloud & Dr. John Townsend

Romance is great. Sexuality is great. Attraction is great. But here is the key: If all of those are not built upon lasting friendship ad respect for the person’s character, something is wrong.

A real and lasting relationship must be built upon lasting friendship first…… The best boundary that you can have in your dating life is to begin every relationship with an eye toward friendship. Do not rush into any kind of romance……

If you do not allow yourself to rush into falling for someone that you have not become friends with first, you will be more sure when you let yourself go to the next step….see if that person is a person that you would like spending time with if there were no romance at all. That is one true measure of a friend, a person with whom you like to spend time, having no regard to how you are spending it. “Hanging out” is fulfilling in and of itself. And that, long-term, requires character, and in the deepest of friendships, shared values as well. “

If you find that you are not really friends with someone you have a “crush” on, let that be a warning signal that something is wrong.

Friendship should always be an underlying foundation of any romantic relationship. Romance is fleeting, and comes and goes. Friendship lasts. Both are important in a lasting relationship.