Appearances, respect, understanding, financial package, love and honesty are some of the basic tenets that everyone looks for in a potential life partner before marriage. However, these things get jaded with time owing to their ephemeral nature. Once that happens, the so-called strong foundations of a relationship, no matter how old, get shattered into irreparable pieces.
If you are thinking about your marriage lately, then evaluating what you want from your partner is of paramount significance. This is essentially so because what you want might be radically different from what you need in life. Maybe you want a partner who is make-your-friends-jealous attractive or who is make-a-millionaire-look-beggar crazy rich, but what you need is essentially a person who is affectionate towards you and is all ears when you had a hard day at work.
So, it’s important to always evaluate what you want and ask yourself, ‘Is that what I truly need in life?’ Looking for a potential partner is also a journey that asks you to plough deep within your grounds, look into the seeds you’ve grown years ago and think whether they serve you now or not. It means that more often than not, we often choose individuals that corroborate our emotional baggage because they seem familiar. When that happens, you are ensnaring yourself in a marriage that will, in no time, will seem like a trap.
Although it’s never easy to decipher a person’s true characteristics, there are some universal traits that you need to look out for while choosing your spouse.
Universal Traits to Look For in a Marriage Partner:
1. Familiarity v/s Comfort:
Whenever you meet someone for the first time, the first thing you ask yourself is, ‘Do I feel at ease in their presence?’ If the answer is yes, then it’s a green flag. But if the answer is no, then you be careful around them. Sometimes, our bodies are the first indicators of another person’s character. It is often called gut instinct. So, pay attention to that. If you feel comforted and at ease in their presence, that’s a good sign.
However, if you are reminded of someone else in your life by meeting them, for instance, your father or brother who was emotionally unavailable to you, you might be still drawn towards them, since they evoke familiar emotions in you. You might unconsciously want to draw similar patterns in your present and future that you experienced in your past. Therefore, building self-awareness and asking yourself ‘why’ at every step is extremely important.
2. Willingness to take responsibility:
Take any marriage, it’s not a communion of two individuals. It’s a union between two families and a promise of creating one in the future. When the potential partner shies away from taking responsibility or dismisses the notion of it with a vague answer, you should not hold your hopes high. Being responsible for your marriage and as a family is important if you want to stay together. In a marriage, both individuals have to be responsible and accountable for their mistakes. Fear of commitment or responsibility will not lead the marriage on a desirable road.
3. Emotional Maturity:
This is one of the most important traits to look for in a marriage partner. When something goes wrong, be it forgetting to pick up your kid from school or lying to your partner for whatever reason, it’s easy to blame it all on your partner. Reacting is easy, spontaneous, requiring the least amount of thinking. In such cases, marriages seem like they were made in hell. If you’re looking for ‘the one’, stop looking for a perfectionist.
Instead, look for a person who is emotionally mature, which means, who keeps their emotions under control and responds, and does not react. There is a huge difference between the two. A balance is required between emotions and your reason. Without it, your boat will capsize.
4. Readiness to evolve:
No marriage is a bed of roses. If you want your marriage to stay in for the long haul, you have to put the effort into it. Efforts are not always waiting for your partner for dinner or lunch or remembering their birthdates and your marriage anniversary. Sure, little things like these do count but in the long run, the partners need to be understanding enough to let go, to forgive and to keep the larger picture in mind. Efforts include accepting all the ways of one’s living without wanting to change or fix them. Efforts include evolving. Oneself as well as the marriage.
5. Sharing your visions and goal in life:
The cliché adage, ‘Opposites attract’ couldn’t be more wrong. Sure, your potential partner can have different tastes in music, movies or books. But, just because your partner is a Slytherin and you are a Gryffindor does not mean you’ll get a divorce from them, right? In fact, heated arguments can make the marriage more lively and less serious. Who wouldn’t that?
What you don’t want, however, is your partner not wanting children whereas you craving for them ever since you were like, what 15? That’s when a crevice threatens the marriage. Having similar long-term visions that you are serious about is important for a long and healthy marriage. You might sacrifice them or compromise under the garb of ‘I love him/her/them’, but that does not guarantee that someday when something goes wrong, one or the other wouldn’t say, ‘I sacrificed this for you and now you’re doing this to me?’
Resentment can kill any marriage, no matter how deeply rooted or long it is. Therefore, it is essential to look for a partner who shares long-term visions and ambitions with you.
There is no perfect one. We are all sailing in the same boat, rowing away the hardships together. So, the search for a perfect one for marriage will certainly be rendered futile. Focus on what you need and what you want your life to look like. Tune in to your intuition when you meet people and see who resonates most with you.