Evaluating Whether A Potential Partner May Be The One For You
by Paul Mauchline

Suppose you feel ready for a relationship and you meet someone. After seeing the person several times, there is a sense of compatibility between the two of you. He or she stimulates your curiosity, and you are interested to the point of having thoughts of starting a long-term relationship with this person. There are two fundamental areas that you must examine, should you be considering a relationship with this person.
 
The first and very key area involves evaluating your potential partner's readiness for a relationship. This readiness consists of four parts. Is this person able to communicate with you openly and honestly? Second, does he or she demonstrate the qualities of a person who loves himself or herself? Third, is your potential partner aware of the effort and work required to have a long-term, loving relationship, and is he or she willing to put forth that effort with you? Finally, is this person, like you, prepared to make a relationship partner his or her first priority, after himself or herself, in life? If the person with whom you are considering having a relationship lacks any of these crucial components, he or she is probably not the one for you. There are, of course, exceptions, but embarking upon a relationship with such a person is enormously risky. You need to know that your potential partner is ready for a relationship. Getting involved with someone, hoping that he or she will change, is not a solid foundation for a loving, committed relationship: in most cases, with rare exceptions, you are wasting your time.
 
The second area that you must consider is that your values, goals, and lifestyle do not clash with those of your potential partner. Let us assume that both you and your potential partner are each clear about your own values, goals, and lifestyle choices. What if they are different? For example:
 
* You may dislike the city and really want to live in the country, whereas your potential partner loves city life and detests rural life.
 
* You may have very different approaches to money and finances. Perhaps long-term financial security and planning is very important to you: you are careful with your spending, you always plan ahead for major purchases, and you believe in saving for a rainy day. Your potential partner, on the other hand, spends it as fast as he or she makes it. He or she has the philosophy that money is for fun and enjoyment, feeling that, after all, you cannot take it with you to the grave.
 
* You may want to build a family, whereas your potential partner is not anxious to have children.
 
These are just a few of the many examples of differences between two people that could make a relationship highly unlikely to succeed long-term. Occasionally, the values of a potential partner may stimulate a thought of change, which you may have been considering. Any changes that you make have to be for you, not for the sake of a relationship. No one should relinquish his or her own dreams, goals, values and lifestyle for the sake of a relationship. Doing so could easily be fuel for future resentment and regret. Significant differences in values, goals and lifestyle are a warning sign of potential problems for the future if the relationship progresses. You owe it to yourself to evaluate these two areas before considering entering into a long-term relationship with anyone.
 
Copyright © 2000-2001. All rights reserved. Paul Mauchline