One of the fundamental underlying elements of the relationships, both successful ones and failed ones is the partners involved.
This might seem as obvious, relatively few people make a decision to be with one person over another consciously. Part of the problem might be lack of choice; however it can also be an abundance of choice.
For example someone who doesn’t have a lot of choice in romantic partners, regardless of the reason – their decision to be with someone would be influenced by desire to be with “someone.” This natural and overwhelming desire would force that individual to pair up with an incompatible partner instead. Counter intuitively this might even be worse for them that remaining single, but as will be discussed later people are seldom rational when it comes to dating and romance.
As an alternative, someone who has considerably more people interested in dating them than they have time for and so they have more choice with whom to date. While the decision is rarely made out of desperation in this case, the situation non-the-less makes it very difficult to select the matching partner because subtle differences between individuals are reduced to few artificial criteria – often the least important in a relationship. Less concern and hence consideration is given to selecting a partner for a lasting relationship because there’s always an available pool of interested prospects. This abundance of people to date contributes to switching partners at the first sign of difficulty in the current relationship.
The often touted solution is to select a partners based on values, ambitions and personal preferences which should follow natural physical attraction. But this logic is also flawed – and possibly the reason why many relationships start off well and then deteriorate over time seemingly unnoticed – until the effort to maintain a relationship outweighs the enjoyment and support of being in one. This is often followed by one partner being much less satisfied with the other, and barring any outside factors that would prevent the relationship from dissolving it ends.
The question then arises – who, or rather how, do we increase the chance of selecting the right partner for a long-term, fulfilling relationship?
To answer this question, it is only important to understand that romantic relationships have a lot more in common with other types of relationships than with physical attraction. This is because after initial stages of a relationship are over in four to six months, the bulk of interactions and situations that both partners find themselves in are very similar and require the same skills as managing other types of relationships – with family members, close friends, co-workers, and bosses or others we all must interact with on on-going basis.
Not discounting the importance of physical attraction as the primer for a romantic relationship, it is none-the-less not nearly enough to maintain a relationship past the initial stages which last on average about 6 months. Failure to select the right partner, then, wouldn’t manifest itself enough to be noticed until the relationship is well on its way.
But before we can engineer a list of criteria past physical attraction that a partner must meet to increase the chance of maintaining a lasting relationship it is first important to answer the question of what is the purpose of a relationship.
I will answer this question in this continued series of articles about creating happy and fulfilled relationships.