Is Your Partner The Right One For You?
For most people, matching with the right partner who shines the promise of happy years together is one of the most confusing aspects of life. You may even question the idea that the right partner is the one we choose for life? Even though there are no certainties there are some principles that can guide you into whether your partner is the right one for you.
I offer a new definition for the ‘right one for you’: It is the person with whom we need to engage now, without reference to whether we will be the right partner for each other till eternity. We have some things to learn from each other, now.
What Do I Mean By the Right One For You?
Partners are vehicles with whom we experience ourselves and go deeper in our self-understanding. This serves life. Our right partner is the person with whom we need to engage now, without reference to whether she will be the right partner for each other till eternity. We can learn from each other, now.
Attraction Is The Key
If you are attracted to a person, you need to follow this attraction and experience where it takes you, open yourself to what gifts of self-knowledge it carries for you.
When the attraction is not reciprocal it also carries lots of wisdom about your journey to self knowledge.
No Shortcuts
As you learn more and more about who you are with each encounter you are likely to move towards reciprocal attractions and ultimately the soul mate of your life will appear.
So in my view the number of your partners are not relevant, what matters is how deeply you can go in your journey of self discovery with a partner. As you move in the ladder of self knowledge either your current partner evolves or the qualities of the partners to whom you feel attracted change.
Criteria For The Right One For You
Here are some questions you need to be asking yourself about your relationship:
- What aspects of yourself do your partner’s personality, family and choices show you? For example if you refuse to socialise with your partner’s family because they are religious you might recognise an aspect of you that is extremely cautious over religious control and manipulations.
- Which aspects of yourself are you willing to accept or make changes? Now that you are aware of your cautiousness you can choose to overcome it or choose to accept your state without any will to move on.
- Can your partner live with each of these aspects if they stayed the same? Sometimes change can be instant, at other times it can take so long it would feel as if it will never happen. But as Heraclitus pointed out many centuries ago, we know that change is the only constant that does not change.
Now ask same questions from your partner’s perspective:
- What aspects of her/him do your personality, family and choices show him? Following our example, your rejection of his family might reflect his hidden wish to distance himself from them.
- Which aspects of himself is your partner willing to make changes?
- Are they going to change or accept this newly found part of themselves*
- Can you live with each of these aspects if they stayed the same?
Being able to ask these questions will take you a long way. What you need to know is that you may well outgrow a relationship when you stop expanding.
Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)image:Carmela Nava
