Is this the Right Person and Are You Both Ready for Commitment?

If they do not have both right now, are you wasting time you could spend finding someone who is both? Never push someone into more than they are ready for, it won't end well in the long run.

Is this the right person? This is different from 'do you love them'. We often put no more thought into relationships than answering the love question. We, especially when young, believe if we love deeply enough, we can overcome anything. The divorce statistics are enough to convince us otherwise. We can love someone and not be able to live with them. If it were otherwise, love would be easy.

We need to put more thought and research into who we end up with. While it is impossible to find a perfect person who never emits noxious odors or disappoints us occasionally, we should not let our discretion fall so low that we end up with someone who wounds us often and leaves us mostly unhappy. Settling for someone who checks too few boxes on our wish list just so we have someone to wake up next to is a poor recipe for fulfillment.

Similarly, entering a marriage with the idea that we can change someone or smooth out the rough edges should be a huge red flag that this is not Ms. or Mr. Right. Society seems to rub our face into the fact that we need to be part of a couple, but we should not allow the pressure to set us up for misery and perhaps divorce. Sometimes it is better to be alone than with the wrong person.

An equally important question is: are they ready for a commitment? Not everyone desires a monogamous life, so if you want the Norman Rockwell picture with two children and a white picket fence, you need to know what your partner desires in this regard.

This person may be someone you could see growing old with, but if they need to sow their oats before they even consider putting a ring on it, maybe they are not sure you are the right one. If they are still playing the field, find someone who is not. The only thing more painful then spending three years waiting for someone to commit to you before it ends is putting in four years with the same result. What if there is someone just around the corner who possesses both the readiness and the appropriateness and you are tied to an anchor, waiting, and not looking around to catch sight of them?

It may be that the person you so desperately love has FOMO – fear of missing out. Maybe there is someone better out there, maybe marriage will curtail my job opportunities, maybe casual sex is better... Television and social media have opened up our world in ways our grandparents could not have imagined in their younger days and it seems there are so many possibilities.

The solution some people resort to when they feel they have paid their dues and now a payoff is owed is to issue an ultimatum. I imagine this works as often as it leads to a break up. There is a saying,'a man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still'. While you could see an ultimatum as setting a boundary, it could feel to those on the receiving end as a threat. No one likes to feel pressured or trapped and it is hard to feel loving and not resentful towards the person making them. Pressure may make diamonds, but if you have ever put an unopened can of food in a campfire, you have an explosion on your hands. If your partner suffers from FOMO, even if they put a ring on it, will they continue to look around? A life long commitment that will be happy and enduring should be the result of a genuine desire.

Another method is trapping someone by getting pregnant. It is more acceptable then it once was to remain unmarried after a pregnancy, but some still think this is the way to get someone to commit. This is a terrible excuse to bring life into the world. If you are a man whose partner has just found out they are pregnant, you need to ask yourself: 'if she was not pregnant would I still want to marry her?' Becoming divorced is hard enough, try it with another person for whom you are responsible.

You deserve both the right person and someone headed down the same path as you. Do not get fixated on a person and try to cram them into the picture you have of the future. Focus on the future and find someone who can not wait to take a selfie with you there. You’re worth it.