If you have a partner with redeeming qualities can you identify it? When you meet your perfect partner, will you know it? Do you have standards that your partner must live up to, boxes that they must check to be with them, or do you just get to know someone and see if there is chemistry?
Of course, you want there to be chemistry, you want that person to light you up, to make you feel like you’re the most special and desirable person on Earth, but what about next year, 5 years, 10 or 20 years down the road. Is that enough to sustain your relationship?
It’s not; you need someone that has the redeeming qualities that make a long-term relationship possible. Someone who’s going to stick with you through the good times and bad, someone trustworthy, someone who will be kind to you and treat you like the precious person you are.
So, take some time to get to know this new partner. Spend time together as friends before leaping into a “relationship”. Learn about each other and be specific about what you need in a relationship. Couples don’t do that enough. Love is great, sex is great and it’s wonderful to feel special. However, life isn’t always a honeymoon. Everyone has tough times where they’re going to need their partner to be there for them both physically, emotionally and to be steadfast and reliable when times get rough. This is the worst time to find out that your partner doesn’t possess those qualities and abilities that you them to have. What a disappointment you are up against when you are having a crisis and find out that your partner is not able or willing to help you.
One topic most of us don’t even discuss until we are in a relationship is our partners view about money and finances. This is a critical idea to know about your partner prior to falling in love and then protecting our hear so it doesn’t create a situation that you will get you hear broken. The top 3 things you can do to resolve money issues in your relationship once and for all are the following. First, we must understand how we learn to deal with money and our behavior surrounding financial matters is formed in childhood. The redeeming qualities that we need is our partner allowing them to take in new information and change their behavior. If we don’t have a good foundation in our relationship with trust and understanding and a deep connection with our partner, money matters can be a real trigger. We need to Identify Your Money Archetype According to expert Emily Bouchard at the Wealth Legacy Group, patterns of behavior tend to fall into certain Jungian archetypes. This is “counselor-speak “for the ways we act when we come into stressful situations about money. Our behavior can follow certain patterns attributed to a “type” identified by Carl Jung, the founder of analytical psychology. These types fall into categories of:
Innocent: A sense of confusion and of not knowing how to proceed.
Fool: Leaping in before looking and gathering the relevant data.
Victim: Feeling put upon and blaming others.
Martyr: Righteously indignant, resentful, and bitter.
Tyrant: Needing to control; infuriated and wanting to act
and state your case.
Creator/Artist: In denial and avoiding anything to do with money.
Warrior: Empowered, aware, and ready with the data.
Magician: Aware, alert, and grounded in the current circumstance while able to access creative and new ways to deal with persistent problems.
You can have one or more of these types of behavior working in your relationship and if you do have more than one, they can be at odds with not only your partner, but they can be at war within yourself. These are the things that tear relationships apart. Once you become aware of these issues and how they impact your relationships with your partner and family, you can begin to understand how to have better conversations about these issues.
Don’t avoid conversations about money. It will only create an elephant in the room. You know it’s there, but you choose not to address it until it blows up in your face like a hidden landmine. Talking about important things are one of the redeeming qualities that most of us want our partners to have.
The best way to deal with money conversations is to be open and honest with your partner about your questions and concerns. The more authentic your connection is with your partner, the more secure you will feel about voicing your needs and concerns about money.
Getting down to the nitty gritty can be hard to do, but once you’re there, you can achieve something meaningful and something that will strengthen your relationship. Not just regarding financial matters, but about everything in life, you face as a couple. There are many issues that come up only when you know each other well. The important redeeming qualities to see whether your partner possesses is his willingness to see is that all these things take time and patience to learn about how your partner perceives these things. Money is just one example of this and something that requires the maturity to understand how important taking the time to fall in love is and that love takes maturity and the ability to truly get to know one another.
Are there warning signs when your relationship is having problems? Yes! There are couples that come to see me in my Couples Expert office practice whose relationships have been going downhill for some time. Some of them are keenly aware of when exactly things started to go wrong but felt powerless to stop it. Many others are blissfully unaware of the warning signs that were present and on the average spend up to 6 years living in an unhappy relationship before seeking professional help for their marriage.
Imagine the amount of anger, pain and resentment you can save up in 6 years! The couples certainly have a long road back to finding a happy and close connected relationship again.
This led me to think about some of the warning signs that occur when couples begin to have problems in order to make you aware and perhaps then you can get help before you spend ANY lonely and frustrated years in an unhappy relationship. These warning signs are just that. When you see this is happening, don’t wait, get help right away. Sure everyone can have a rough patch, but when you begin to see patterns and these same scenarios repeating it’s time to sit up and pay attention before you and your partner are in real trouble.
- Constant escalation of disagreements
- Lack of kindness in daily interactions
- Rude, short, discounting, dismissive behavior
- Feelings of resentment or loneliness
- Living separate lives
- No sharing of loving feelings
- Not talking about things that bother you
- Problems in sex life
- No humor or play
- Broken promises or broken trust
- You just don’t know them anymore, personality changes
The good news is that when these things do happen they don’t have to spell an end to your relationship. If you and your partner both want to stay together and make it work, there are ways to make that happen. The redeeming qualities of your partner need to include being committed to working things through. I’ve been helping couples to find their way for over 30 years now. It’s possible and realistic to think that your relationship doesn’t have to end if you are going through tough times and don’t know how to turn it around.
Learn to communicate in ways that show one another you truly care for and love each other. There are very few marriages that cannot be saved if both parties are willing to work on them. This entails doing the inner work on yourself that will help you to grow into a person who can sustain a loving and emotional connection with another human being. There are few mistakes too great that cannot be rectified and no one is beyond help.
Pay attention to those warning signs and watch for destructive or negative patterns in your relationship. Address them immediately and use the resources you have available to you in your city or town to find professional help to get you and your partner back on track.
Taking time to understand what makes each other tick, what excites your partner, what they love and feel passionate about is smart and a great way to protect your heart. It will be way better to find out that you’re incompatible when the relationship is new, than after years of investing your love and care into it. It’s the difference between a letdown or disappointment and a broken heart with a lifetime of regrets. You need experience and history with you partner to be able to identify the redeeming qualities of your partner.
Oftentimes, people are simply so desperate to have someone to share their life with that they are willing to overlook some obvious red flags. I urge you never to ignore those feelings of alarm when you’re getting to know someone. It’s far better to remain single and keep looking for your ideal partner, than to get together with someone who’s obviously wrong for you simply because you dread being alone or fear you will never find “the one.”
You can never have too many friends, so I suggest you being your relationships with building them into friendships. If there’s going to be more to it, you can see it happening organically. Be up front when you meet people. Tell them you’re looking for a friend and partner and you start with one and work your way up to the other. If you find this person has that depth of feeling for you, you are not obligated to jump into anything. Take your time before you commit. Make darn sure (as sure as you possibly can) that this is a person worthy of sharing your life and being your partner. Typically, this doesn’t take weeks but months or maybe even years. What’s the rush if this is someone you will be spending your life with? You should be willing to invest whatever time is necessary.
Talk about your hopes and dreams, even (GASP) religion and politics! Get to know each other and go down that mental check list for a mate. Don’t be a victim of circumstance or fall into a relationship for convenience or company. Partnering with someone is one of the most important choices you’ll ever make in life. Make a good one!
