Something interesting I received a long time ago and thought it wise to keep. Funny thing is, I completely forgot all about it when I was busy choosing my life partner. After reading through it again, I think the advice Heller provides is very sound and practical. If you’re thinking about getting married, these are some great questions you should be asking yourself.
5 Golden Rules For Finding Your Life Partner
by Rabbi Dov Heller, M.A.
A relationship coach lays out his 5 golden rules for evaluating the prospects of long-term success. When it comes to making the decision about choosing a life partner, no one wants to make a mistake. Yet, with a divorce rate of close to 50 percent, it appears that many are making serious mistakes in their approach to finding Mr/Ms Right!
If you ask most couples who are engaged why they’re getting married, they’ll say: “We’re in love.” I believe this is the #1 mistake people make when they date.
Choosing a life partner should never be based on love (alone). Though this may sound not politically correct, there’s a profound truth here. Love (alone) is not the basis for getting married. Rather, love is the result of a good marriage. When the other ingredients are right, then the love will come. Let me say it again: You can’t build a lifetime relationship on love
alone. You need a lot more.
Here are five questions you must ask yourself if you’re serious about finding and keeping a life partner.
QUESTION #1: Do we share a common life purpose?
Why is this so important? Let me put it this way: If you’re married for 20 or 30 years, that’s a long time to live with someone. What do you plan to do with each other all that time? Travel, eat and jog together? You need to share something deeper and more meaningful. You need a
common life purpose. Two things can happen in a marriage. You can grow together, or you can grow apart. Fifty percent of the people out there are growing apart. To make a marriage work, you need to know what you want out of life - bottom line - and marry someone who wants
the same thing.
QUESTION #2: Do I feel safe expressing my feelings and thoughts with this person?
This question goes to the core of the quality of your relationship. Feeling safe means you can communicate openly with this person. The basis of having good communication is trust i.e. trust that I won’t get “punished” or hurt for expressing my honest thoughts and feelings. A colleague of mine defines an abusive person as someone with whom you feel afraid to express your thoughts and feelings. Be honest with yourself on this one. Make sure you feel motionally safe with the person you plan to marry.
QUESTION #3: Is he/she a mensch?
A mensch is someone who is a refined and sensitive person. How can you test? Here are some suggestions: Do they work on personal growth on a regular basis? Are they serious about improving themselves? A teacher of mine defines a good person as “someone who is always
striving to be good and do the right thing.” So ask about your significant other: What do they do with their time? Is this person materialistic? Usually a materialistic person is not someone whose top priority is character refinement. There are essentially two types of people in the
world: People who are dedicated to personal growth and people who are dedicated to seeking comfort. Someone whose goal in life is to be comfortable will put personal comfort ahead of doing the right thing. You need to know that before walking down the aisle.
QUESTION #4: How does he/she treat other people?
The one most important thing that makes any relationship work is the ability to give. By giving, we mean the ability to give another person pleasure. Ask: Is this someone who enjoys giving pleasure to others or are they wrapped up themselves and self-absorbed? To measure this,
think about the following:
1) How do they treat people whom they do not have to be nice to, such as a waiters, bus boy, taxi driver etc?
2) How do they treat parents and siblings?
3) Do they have gratitude and appreciation?
4) Do they show respect?
If they don’t have gratitude for the people who have given them everything, you cannot expect that they’ll have gratitude for you - who can’t do nearly as much for them! Do they gossip and speak badly about others? Someone who gossips cannot be someone who loves others. You can be sure that someone who treats others poorly will eventually treat you poorly as well.
QUESTION #5: Is there anything I’m hoping to change about this person after
we’re married?
Too many people make the mistake of marrying someone with the intention of trying to “improve” them after they’re married. As a colleague of mine puts it, “You can probably expect someone to change after marriage…for the worse!” If you cannot fully accept this person the way they are now, then you are not ready to marry them.
In conclusion, dating doesn’t have to be difficult and treacherous. The key is to try leading a little more with your head and less with your heart. It pays to be as objective as possible when you are dating, to be sure to ask questions that will help you get to the key issues.
Falling in love is a great feeling but when you wake up with a ring on your finger, you don’t want to find yourself in trouble because you didn’t do your homework.
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May 26th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
I totally agree with Rabbi Heller - and wish I has known about this before my current relationship. Although we are still together, we do not share a common life purpose, I am not safe expressing my feelings and thoughts (he’ll use them against me later), he does not work on personal growth and sees no reason to improve himself. Although he does treat others well - he is a taker, not a giver and as a result of that, does not make me feel special no matter what!
May others find this “list” and live by it. If/when my relationship ends, I will settle for nothing less!
May 26th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
Hi Carol. Thanks for sharing so openly. As someone who has come a long way since I wrote this, I think it is important that you decide what it is you want from the relationship you are currently in. If you do not see it lasting then it might be better to end it rather than waste each other’s time, unless you’re just looking for companionship for the time being.
There is no perfect partner in life and every relationship requires a lot of work and commitment. If you allow yourself to focus only on the negatives in your relationship, then it will forever be a doomed relationship. Nothing will change that except your conscious decision to do something about it.
If you still have hope that something long-term might come out of this relationship, or if you still have feelings for your partner, you may want to consider having a serious talk with him about where you both stand and where you want your relationship to go. Let him know how you feel and identify what it is that you must have in your relationship that you cannot compromise on. If you and he cannot come to some mutual agreement, then you can assume there is no point taking the relationship any further.
As for the feeling of being special - that is a feeling that usually fades as the relationship progresses because there is a common tendency for couples to start taking each other for granted over time. To continue to create that feeling, you both have to be aware of it and make the effort to treat the relationship as you did when you first started going out.
Anyway, these are just some of my thoughts and by no means is it a definitive answer to the problems you face in your relationship. I hope things work out for you in future.
May 26th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
Hi,
Thank you very much for your reply. You are correct - there is no perfect partner - and one of the things I love about Rabbi Heller’s list is that it give you a guideline so one has a fighting chance…because it is a difficult road that we travel - this partner business.
One of the problems I have is that I am a giving person - and I want to give - but when you live with a taker, it is hard to continue to give…and I can resent it and decide to not give…but I always end up giving cause that’s me. And, he always ends up taking…cause that’s him. I don’t want to be in a relationship without being able to give - I don’t mean in huge ways, just in everyday life. I want a relationship where both parties understand that giving makes the other person’s life a bit easier - and that we WANT to make the other persons life easier…I do what I can best do to ensure your life is easier, you do what you can best do to ensure my life is easier. To me that is love….generosity…doing the best for the person because you love them and that ensures that they will do the best for you - generosity of the heart and an understanding that one can only give when one is being filled up again. My partner (of 10+ years) does not understand that.
Oh well, I can’t dwell on this one too much - there are other issues too and the realization that in the long run - I can only take care of myself and do what I have to to resolve this. Life is complicated - and I am usually a very upbeat person - but I have to say, it is harder and harder to rebound - the elastic can’t only be stretched so many times before it does not return to its former self.
I see you are in Australia - correct? Did you manage to find someone fitting some/lots/most of Rabbi Hellers bill?
I am in Toronto and summer is just starting here and that is a beautiful thing.
Carol
May 30th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Wow, you have been in this relationship for a very long time. I think it is likely that your partner is taking you for granted. Sometimes having a third party to mediate can help. For instance, some couples go for marriage counselling before marriage. My cousin did that. She said the value of doing that helps you raise issues that you might not be comfortable doing because you’re “too close”. It helps to have a third party involved.
Carol, before you let the upbeat person that you are drown in a draining relationship, I do hope you get some help or at least have a real talk with your partner about where you both stand. Don’t let it slide. Time is a precious commodity so you need to know whether there is potential for you to continue in your current relationship or whether you should make way for someone new.
I was from Australia. I moved to Malaysia for a bit of work experience and just to live life. I ended up finding my partner over here and getting married. It was kind of rough at the start and, to be honest, I wasn’t even looking for someone to fit Rabbi Heller’s bill. For a while there, I wasn’t sure if we were going to make it. It wasn’t until I started listening to this recording by a guy (I forget his name now) who said that our soul mates are not people who are like us, but people who are not like us. Our soul mates are the ones that drive us batty because of the buttons they push. These are the people who help us grow as a person, not the ones whom we never have conflict with. It was a really interesting perspective he put out. Perhaps I should write a blog post about it…
Anyway, another way of looking at it is like what a friend once told me, “Happiness is when you accept suffering.” It’s a quote from Buddha (not that I am a believer of Buddha).
But if I look my husband as I go through the 5 questions put forward by Rabbi Heller, I would say he scored 4 out of 5, which is not too bad.
I love Summer, too.
May 30th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
One day I definitely have to visit Toronto…
August 13th, 2008 at 4:20 am
Thanks for an excellent post. I\’m still making notes.
August 18th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Nice to hear you enjoyed our posts…thx for sending an email to that effect. Rabbi Heller sure knows his stuff and is a very wise man!