Guideline to Decide if She is a Life Partner

[goforit]

Anastassia,
There are some of us that do not need another person to feel complete.  I was married to one woman for 21 years after dating her for 4 years.  We had (and still have) two beautiful children that we raised together.  I was entertaining many different AW (one at a time I might add).  My life was interesting and fulfilling.  I saw no need for another wife to be honest.  Meeting Lena was an impulsive adventure that eventually led to us falling in love.  I married Lena, not because I needed a wife, but because of my love of her and my inability to want my life to continue on without her in it.  Regardless of all the oddities of our pairing, we truly were made for each other.

I think this would be a stronger argument if you had sworn off women completely in between your marriages. You were married, and then divorced, and didn't want to marry again but still desired female companionship. One of those "relationships" blossomed to the point you wanted to marry again. But all along women were a constant, even if you didn't want to commit to the point of marriage.

I think we are all built to be in community. I think that is true of monks as well who for the most part live in social communities even though they don't establish marital communities.

My point in this thread, that some refuse to acknowledge, is that not everyone needs to be married and that some of us fell into love and eventual marriage in a more traditional manner.  You see I think it is unnatural the way most go through this process.  Making lists of women, meeting many at a time and then analytically choosing the best candidates and only eventually picking one "best suited" to be a wife.  When does love come into this process?  With my built in aversion to marriage, you can only imagine my thoughts of marrying a woman without love.

Given your definition of love as a unique and special emotion I can certainly understand why you would feel this way.

I happen to think love is a very unique and special emotion.  Many over use the term to describe infatuation or even a strong "like" for another person.  I fell in love with two different women at different times in my life.  I married them both.  By far, Lena is the great love of my life.  I didn't plan on it nor did I plot it out to happen.  It just happened naturally.

And that is a great thing but its not the only way. And I don't really think there is anything natural about true love. It is not natural to stay committed when all hell breaks lose. The natural thing to do is leave. It is not natural to stay the course when the emotions aren't as strong or the feelings as wonderful or life as sweet as it once was. The natural thing to do would be to bail. Love is what we need when the natural thing to do is something else.

I have given a number of examples of men that happened upon women, fell in love and then married them without any hard plans to do so.  Such is life.  It is not all planned out to the smallest detail.

Well I can't speak for anyone else but it would be a great overstatement to say I have planned things out to the smallest detail. I have my non-negotiables (5) and everything else is up for grabs.

You see I think the whole MOB thing fosters the mind set that love is a secondary thing to consider.

Again it all depends on how you define it.

They encourage men to meet women and plan out how to get them to marry.

That is not how I see it. In my mind one of the advantages of searching this way is that generally BOTH parties have already decided they want to get married as a general principle. That is not always the case but generally so.  Now you are just searching for who it might work best with.

They encourage men and women to make snap decisions and to throw caution to the wind.  Not to mention the one week wonders.  It just isn't natural.

 

Snap decisions and one week wonders are bad ideas, but it is not something which is inherent to the process. People meeting and dating "naturally" have been known to make snap decisions as well. People don't change when they get involved in this process. They bring to the table who they already are, and if they are impulsive....well...I think you see where I am going.

[goforit]

Goforit, is that ‘Wow’ good or bad? ;-)

Lets just say, once I picked my jaw off the floor and really believed a woman wrote such a profile, I would have gently put down my mouse, closed my laptop, and checked to make sure I hadn't been accidentally been transported to the Twilight Zone
 

KenC, as to whether it is normal or abnormal to put marriage ahead of the relationship, I don't know, it depends really how you think and what you mean. You are saying that the whole world is doing it this way, it doesn’t mean it is right though because we know that the end is near and at the end chaos gets bigger and nastier, right becomes wrong and vice versa. Sleeping together to check sexual compatibility becomes normal vs. after marriage; marriage of convenience can be normal if two people are fine with that vs. based on commitment and love; letting all the Ukrainian Russian prostitutes into the US is normal and letting honest grandma to help with a newborn grandchild is abnormal...

If such stuff was the sign of the end times the world would have ended long ago, like during Roman times!

I have always wanted to say that long distance relationship with all its weirdness and difficulty is just perfect for me. It is sent from heaven and can’t be better personally for me. What’s the best way to find out about the person’s heart other than talking and writing letters? Providing of course that person is honest (and that brings lots of other issues, of course I understand).

With my ex-fiance (from America) that is exactly how we got to know each other. I think we learned a lot more about each other because of the distance and separation than we would have being up close and personal on a nearly daily basis.

BUT when it comes down to finding my husband and spending the rest of my life with him, no matter how nice he might be, his values and beliefs should be the same as mine, otherwise it will never work.

As far as I am concerned, this is the foundational bedrock of successful relationships.

[Bruce]

Good stuff here - but you all need to focus on the negative a bit.  You should be in complete agreement about what you absolutely hate.  If what truly repulses you also repulses her you definitely have something to build on.

Of course, character traits are what counts most.  I'll say it one more time.........

1.  You must be physically attracted to each other.
2.  You must get along socially
3.   You must common goals for the future
4.   You must touch your partner deep inside her psyche

For those looking - its not you, its the other person ie. unfortunately, attraction / love is selfish, especially at the beginning of a relationship.

[DKMM]

My mistake was getting engaged between step 3 and 4 there on your list.  Oops!

[AnastassiaAsh]

Good stuff here - but you all need to focus on the negative a bit.  You should be in complete agreement about what you absolutely hate.  If what truly repulses you also repulses her you definitely have something to build on.

Was that a joke? 

I hate everything that is opposite of Christian values, no need to go into details, that's a given and my man will understand that at once. Also I hate winter, wind and other little things like that, but these are not important in evaluating one's partner.  I never thought about it this way, strange.

[Simoni]

... character traits are what counts most.  I'll say it one more time.........

1.  You must be physically attracted to each other.
2.  You must get along socially
3.   You must common goals for the future
4.   You must touch your partner deep inside her psyche

Excellent post, Bruce.

[WmGO]

I think much of the back and forth debate on this topic comes down to the very definition of love. If love is defined as an emoton, even a very strong one, then it seems absolutely right that one can only come to it through a long period of time. It is also equally true that should that emotion fade then one can only conclude that love has faded. If however love is defined as something more, even though it might include wonderful emotions and feelings, then a truly loving relationship can begin on a different basis and in less time than love defined as an emotion.

I believe love is a choice. I believe love is something we do. I believe love primarily is (love is patient, love is kind, bears all things, etc.) rather than emotion. Don't get me wrong, I think love can have all kind of wonderful emotions and feelings attached to it, but I also believe that love can exist quite solidly even when those feelings wax and wane over time and sometimes disappear altogether.

The most famous Christian verse of all time is John 3:16, "for God so loved the world that he gave....". Notice that is doesn't say, "for God so loved the world, that he had a warm fuzzy feeling about it, or a really strong emotional attachment to it." Nope, love is something we do. And I bet when God gave Christ to die that excruciating death on the cross, he didn't have a very warm feeling about the world at that moment. You don't have to be a Christian to see the principle involved.

I have always loved my family, but there have been times I haven't felt very good about them. But love is a choice, a commitment, that often involves feelings, sometimes very wonderful feelings, but nonetheless transcends all of that. Christians are commanded to love. You can't command an emotion.


It is a great and wonderful thing to find a life partner while not actually looking, but it can be equally rewarding to be very self-conscious about the whole process. One can choose to love someone and have the feelings follow, or one can have the feelings first and then declare they are "in love." But the "romantic" version that is the norm today has not always been the norm and is really not all that traditional. And without a solid commitment that transcends all else, is may have a tough time lasting as well, as seems so evident in our modern society.

 

[WmGO]

Gator agreeing with AnnastiasiaAsh:

...Seriously, this is a fundamental requirement or otherwise serious conflicts will emerge that probably can not be resolved.  Both the man and woman need to have moral compasses that point in the same direction, the same inner code.

That's a big 10-4.

[deccie]

I hate everything that is opposite of Christian values, no need to go into details, that's a given and my man will understand that at once.

Is not there a wide variation of Christian values Anastassia? Perhaps not at the core but at least at the peripheral level. A liberal Christian and a conservative Christian are likely to have quite different world views.

Where these discussions get interesting for me are around issues of faith versus blind faith.

Faith perhaps could be seen as a positive but blind faith is subject to so much abuse and mis use by others I had a hard time seeing it as anything but a negative.  Is it not the first cry of those in charge in any sort of conflict that God is on THEIR side?

When I see things like the tele-evangelists with their huge mansions and their private jets I have a hard time beleive they are doing "God's work" rather than feathering their own nests..

[55North]

I understand Anastassia's 'Christian values' to more in the general European mode, ie, a sort of post-Christianity where Agnosticism and Atheism are probably dominant, but the last 1000 years of religious culture lingers on, even when under attack from non-Christian religions as it represents our ethics very well.
 
And that applies to the post-Soviet space in my experience.
 
We barely comprehend the US dichotomy highlighted by Deccie.