4 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Settling Down
There is so much pressure to find your perfect soul mate, the one that is destined for you. I’ve blogged about it before, but I do not believe in soul mates. I don’t believe there is only one person for everybody. I don’t. I guess I’m not romantic enough. I think it’s bologna and makes us put unreasonable expectations on another human being.
What I do believe in is after making the choice to be committed to each other, to do just that. (As always, the caveat here is if you’re being abused. This is not geared towards abusive relationships.) I took the decision to say yes to My Forever very seriously. As seriously as any 21 year old can take the rest of her life, at least.
Y’all I love that man with all of my heart. He means the absolute world to me. That doesn’t mean he’s perfect. That doesn’t mean I’m perfect and that doesn’t mean we’re perfect together. It means that we’re two flawed human beings that chose to say yes to forever and are living that forever out day by day, fight by fight and laugh by laugh.
I would marry him again and again and again. This is my list that I give to the single people looking for a partner.
What to look for in a potential partner:
(Change the pronouns if you need to. I’m a woman married to a man so that’s the view point I write from, but this still applies to you if you aren’t.)
- Is he a nice guy? We’ve all seen the stories of the wife of the serial killer that had no idea. It happens. I suppose. Moral of the story, it’s hard to be certain. But really, is he a nice dude? Does he treat you right? Does he minimize everything you say? Does he listen? Does he encourage your dreams? Does he put dishes in the dishwasher or expect you to do it? Does he open the door for grandmas? Does he have animals? How does he treat them?
- How does he treat his mother? A lot can be learned from how he treats the people that are closest to him. Keep in mind, you marry his family too. We are in direct business with his family so that’s even more true for us, but it’s true for you too. Some people can’t stand their mother-in-law taking care of their husband. I don’t mind. Margaret is really great about being helpful and loving without crossing into overbearing category. She knows when to let us fight it out. She knows boundary lines. She loves both of us. Watch carefully the family interactions.
- What do you want to change? You know how they say you can’t change another human being? Yeah, that’s a big fat lie. Matt has changed almost every aspect of my life. I used to love going out and being social, now I love staying in and being with him. I used to need instruction for everything. I wanted to get it right and needed to know what that meant, now I just do it and figure it out later. I used to want to share our whole world with everybody (and I still share 98%), but do keep that 2% close to the heart. I used to say ‘I can’t’ a lot, now I say ‘I’m having difficulty with this’. On the flip side of this, My Forever hasn’t changed very much. At all. So you might have luck influencing your partner, but you might not. Don’t bet on it. If you think your partner would be just right if only he would change these few things, don’t go through. Be happy with what you have at this point, not after changes. Those changes might never happen. If you aren’t happy now, don’t expect to be later.
- How does he eat potato chips? Seriously. Matt and I joke about this every time he eats chips. I swear he never ate chips while we were dating. It drives me absolutely bonkers. He shoves a million in his mouth while dropping half of them to his lap and eventually floor. He won’t eat one at a time. It has to be 12 chips at one time. I can’t. Now, it’s a joke. Now he does it intentionally and purposely to get me to laugh or throw something at him. But in all reality, the things that are cute and drew you together, are often the things that pull you apart. There has to be give and take. You have to let things go. You have to apologize. You have to move on, even when you want to hang on hard.
Forever is a long time. I hope when you choose your human, you’re in it for the longterm. Marriage is hard. Living with another human brain that doesn’t think like yours is hard. It’s not perfect, but observing these four things before committing should get you a lot farther.
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~Matt & Kelsey