How to Choose a Partner in Life for a Lasting, Happy Relationship
Choosing a partner for a lasting happy relationship is not so easy as checking off a list of preferential characteristics. There is so much more to that. Most women who struggle in relationships think they need to find the right one and then their relationship will be happy and easy. Moreover, the way that they try to choose the right one, winds up actually hurting them. If you want a secure happy love-life, you need to learn how to choose a partner for life.
We don't properly learn how to choose a partner in life
Many of us choose the right partner the same way we shop for a car. We look for the best we can afford, based on some characteristics someone told us we should focus on. So, we look more into traits such as attractiveness, education level, social status, and so on. It's like checking off the boxes on a template someone else prepared for us. Mostly, we base it on other people's 'instinct.'
But I get it. This practice has been done for centuries now. It has become a norm. So, without a doubt, we go for the most 'logical' thing instead of choosing someone we can spend the rest of our lives with. Thus, by the time we mature and want to settle down with someone, we are not aware which characteristics are significant to us and which ones are just based on what family or society told us we should worry about. You can wind up with an excellent and compatible guy based on these characteristics and still be unhappy together.
What is not the right way to choose a life partner?
Remember, this is your life, not your mom’s or your grandma’s life. What they told you is important, may not apply to you. You see, your parents and grandparents want the best for you, but they come from a place of anxiety. If you use their criteria for selecting your life partner, you may wind up married to a good person, but it doesn’t guarantee you that you will be happy.
What are some of those criteria?
❤️ looks
❤️ wealth
❤️ life style
❤️ family background
❤️ education level
Most women focus on these seemingly important criteria. And, don't get me wrong. They are not unimportant, but I want you to know that they are not enough. Choosing a life partner based on these compatibilities doesn't guarantee that you will be happy.
In order to find the partner with whom you can be happy in a relationship you need to know how happy, and how happy in a relationship feels and nobody ever teaches us this. If you are a high-achieving woman and an anxious love seeker, this is even more relevant for you.
The mistakes high-achieving women and anxious love seekers make when choosing a life partner
Anxious lovers attach to quickly
Anxious love seekers struggle when dating due to their anxiety that causes them to attach too quickly even before they know that the partner is right for them. In some ways, you can say, that maintaining the relationship becomes even more important than the personal happiness. This is just how anxious love seekers learned to manage relationships very early in life. That was a survival strategy, which causes them major struggles in relationships.
Trying to make it work with someone who just can't love you in the way you need them to love you, is gonna be so painful.
High-achieving women often don't know what makes them happy
Our family focuses on making us good achievers. Instead of encouraging us to pause and check in with ourselves to know how we feel about certain decisions in life, our parents often pushed us to carry on meeting our goals. They rewarded us for accomplishments without teaching us how to relish our achievements or enjoy simple pleasures.
So, we are tricked into thinking that happiness will come when we achieve this or that.
This is especially the case if you are an anxious love seeker. You may not know how to read your feelings. Maybe because you are often focused on reaching something that you think will make you happy instead of enjoying and relishing the moment. Similarly, when you meet someone, you start over-functioning and overthinking everything trying to make it work instead of enjoying and figuring out if this is the right person for you. This is why it's gonna be hard to figure out who is right for you.
This over-functioning mode causes you to disregard your emotional states. It's hard to access your emotional intelligence or intuition. As a result, many women wind up completely disregarding red flags or paralyzing themselves by overthinking every potential irrelevant detail as a red flag.
How can you expect that you are supposed to know how to choose a partner in life for a happy relationship if you never learned to focus on yourself?
How to choose a partner for life for a secure happy relationship
If you want to find a partner for life and create a happy, lasting relationship with him, you need to get to know yourself first. You need to be in touch with your feelings and understand what you want. So instead of checking of the boxes such as, he has to have an advanced degree, he has to be 6 feet tall, he has to be from such and such family, or he has to be wealthy, I suggest focus on your feelings that make you happy about these particular criteria.
Right questions will give you the right answers. These two questions will help you explore your feelings and make better decisions. Ask yourself:
These questions will help you find the correct answers in picking the right man as your life partner. Ultimately, we need to be in touch with our emotions if we want to create a happy relationship.
Now back to your checklist. Should you ditch it. You don't have to. But it's important to remember that it's not enough.
Why does your checklist criteria for a good partner suck?
When you focus on simple criteria, they don't really guarantee that your expectations will be met. For instance, what is the meaning of an advanced degree? You can miss out so much, focusing only on that simple criterium. Perhaps you want someone you can admire and someone who can have an intellectually stimulating conversation. Maybe the advanced degree also may mean that he is financially stable.
But, can you think of any man that doesn't have an advanced degree that you can admire, who can hold an intellectual conversation, and who is financially stable? A few people come to my mind. For instance, Ashton Kutcher or Steve Wozniak satisfy all those criteria, at least for some women.
On the other hand, you can find people who have advanced degrees but are super dull. With this, you might have felt that you have found your ideal partner, but the time will come that you'll realize that you really did not get to know the person and you'll feel disconnected instead of happier. It really comes down to knowing yourself and what your needs are.
Similarly, you may find a technically rich person who doesn't know how to manage his money. I've seen many people with trust funds who struggle with money issues. Their families are not financially secure. Similarly, I've seen men from simple backgrounds create financial security for their families.
Take your time
So, it's essential to examine the feelings and dynamics you want to have with this person. And then, when you are meeting people, you can further explore how it feels to be with them in a relationship. Take your time. No need to rush this part of the process. It's your life we are talking about.
Right Partner Radar is just a part of Dating with Purpose, the second stage of my Secure Love Creator program that I'm working on. In this part, I provide support and discuss this topic. Women who go through this program feel confident and secure in their relationships because of their choices.
If you want to learn about my program, join my Secure Love Creator ClubIs relationship coaching right for you?
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Reach His Heart- Communicate with your partner, so he never has to feel attacked