How to Pick Your Life Partner (2014)

First off, don't fall into a pattern. The whole courtship, engagement, marriage, honeymoon route is full of constantly changing things. The rest of your relationship will likely be the hum-drum boringness of daily life. As a practical tip, maybe challenge yourself as a couple to do at least one new thing a quarter: say for example rock climbing where you can split of belaying duties with climbing.

Unfortunately most people are still stuck in the mindset that everyone who isn't broken inside wants children. I've never wanted children at any point in my life, but I'm wrong apparently.

My father said the same thing to me about my mother on two different occasions: "I could never have made it without her." But the thing is it took him years to get to that point.

Enjoy what you have now. Realize that it's only the beginning of a journey which could be long and wonderful. Think of it as... I don't know, the tutorial level of a video game or something. It's quick, exciting, and over soon, but there's a whole game left that you still have yet to play.

It's a variation of the travellers curse, where the more places you visit the less satisfied you will be with settling in any one place.

That happens because you find new, positive qualities in each place, and no place will ever have them all. In fact, over time any place will have proportionally fewer of the positive qualities you've found, and everywhere becomes less appealing the further you travel.

You should also read part 2 of the article.

After some relationships from 18-28 that all ended unhappy, I decided to screen my next partner in a very rational way. Of course I wanted romance and some attractiveness out of my next girlfriend, but I primarily wanted a friend that I could talk to when we were 95 and sitting in wheelchairs next to each other, unable to do much else. Destiny called and the girl I then met and found worthwhile to date further became my wife and mother of two children.

Why I reference the second part of the article: we just talked about it and totally agreed that our marriage was more or less how it should be (as described in part 2) and felt not at all touched by part 1.

While we are for sure people that are different, we usually find new stuff we absolutely want to do together. Last year we did boat- and radio licenses (5 so far...), this year we began pistol shooting in a sports club, we travel to many places, have tons of family meetings (I think being in a supportive family helps a lot, too)... yes we also have the occasional fight, but there has been exactly no occurence where it had not been completely resolved before sleeping.

So being rational about your partner does not mean to stop the fun, stop the romance, but means you know exactly what you get into and care for the happiness for you own life.

Remember: a divorce is often the complete destruction of your life dreams. You can destroy yourself and/or your partner. Your partner REALLY gives the single life he/she has in your hands and hopes, like you do, that everything will go right. Don't be a fool when given such a treasure.