How to Find the Love of your Life? Rosario Alfaro Martínez (psycotherapist)

Everybody has wondered how to know if we really are in love, and if that person is suitable for us. We would like to have a magic wand that helps us know if we have in front of us our blue prince or the princess of our dreams or if it is just another frog.

Love matters are very complicated, that is why the best advise we can give you in ALMAS is that you make your choice based on GOD because He has the best plan for your life and that you ask Him who is the right person to share what you are and what you have. If you know how to listen, He will show you what is best for you.

In order to make you feel safer when making your decision we would like to share with you some tips that might help you know if your are making the right choice.

• Step 1: Exclude the most frequent causes of a bad choice of couple:

1) The decision to get married too soon when you do not know really well that person, that means short courtships that do not offer the opportunity to know well that person.

2) Getting married too young. Getting married when you are still a teen-ager.

3) Do not get married when one or both of you are in a hurry to get married.

4) When one or the two of you are choosing the other to please third parties.

5) When you have very little experience, due to lack of communication, because you never discuss and you do not know how to solve conflicts.

6) When one or the two of you have unrealistic expectations of what marriage really is, either because you see it in a very ideal way, or because one of you think that you will be able to change your partner’s way of being, feeling, thinking or acting once you are married.

7) When one or the two of you have emotional problems you have not discussed during courtship. For example jealous, vices as drugs or alcoholism.

• Step 2: A clear mental image

Have a clear mental image of the ideal partner for you. For this end it is important to make a distinction between the person of my dreams and the person I can attract.

“Do not worry to find the right person, instead, you try to be the right person”.

In order to be at the same level of the person you want for you, you must work on your own person, therefore you must maximize your virtues and minimize your defects.

• Step 3: Chose someone like you

Although opposite poles attract, this does not mean that you have to be different in every sense. Statistical and scientific researches on married couples that have lived together for a long time show that those couples with more things in common live better than those who are more dissimilar.

For this reason it is important to analyze similarities and differences. When we talk about similarities we talk about vital and transcendental things. Essential similarities are Values (Religion, Family, etc.), the emotional intimacy capacity with the other person, personal habits like hygiene, food likes, among other things.

You have to be FLEXIBLE; marriage commitment allows adjustments in many things.

We also have to take into account that marriage is a complement and it is here where the dissimilar things play a role, and it would be better to call them COMPLEMENTARY THINGS.

• Step 4: Both of you should be healthy people
This refers a little to maturity, being aware that it does not come with age, but maturity is something that is growing inside a person from the very moment he/she is born.

So try to be a “healthy” person before getting married. This also means that you are “independent” from your parents. It means that you must not confuse the relationship you have with your parents with the relationship you have with your spouse. You must always respect your parents, but you must consider yourself part of another family and be aware that after you marry somebody your husband or wife is the most important person in your life and not even your children will replace that.

• Step 5: Find a love that you feel deep in your heart but express it carefully

A courtship relation that is based only in the emotional part (passionate), does not allow you to know well, so during this courtship period it is more important talking than “touching”. Passion, EROS (from the Greek sexual love) is only temporary, though positive, the problem is that we stay there. The passion, EROS, is good, but you have to know how to express it carefully because that passion may destroy your life.

• Step 6: Let that passion of love matures before getting married

Let it turn into a mature love of trust. This means, let time goes by to learn how to be a person and a couple. A love of plans and dreams, of personal experiences that grows higher than the passion. We are not talking of endless relations of several years where you do not know any more if it is love or habit what you feel for each other. It is about love, where you really know each other and you are aware that none of you are perfect, but that you can be better if you are together.

• Step 7: Take control of the art of intimacy

Keep the moments that only the two of you know. Intimacy means being able to be who you really are in front of that person. It means being ONESELF with the other person.

• Step 8: Learn how to manage conflicts

Do not try to avoid conflicts during courtship, problems are good because it is the only way that allow a couple to grow, those problems become useful when you get married because if you learned how to manage those conflicts during courtship, marriage will be much easier.

• Step 9: Do not go on with courtship or engagement if you are not ready to get married for life

When a person wants to get married for life, only this thought can help him/her not to be adulterous, not to have substitute loves, to be faithful, to have and keep a commitment even in hard times. The idea of a marriage for life makes of it a more intimate marriage. If you think that you cannot live all your life with your girlfriend or your boyfriend you’d better end that relationship.

• Step 10: Celebrate your marriage with your family and friends support

People who love you, see your relation from another point of view, and that may help you to see how good or bad is your decision of getting married, this does not mean that it is not your own decision, but the opinion of those who know you and wish you well can be of great help.

“For lack of guidance a people falls; security lies in many counselors”. (Proverbs 11,14)

So if there is a person who really loves you, who considers that your relationship is not good for you, you should, at least, give him/her the time to listen to what he/she has to say and then analyze if his/her opinion is objective or if it has an important point that deserves your attention.

And if you discover that your relation is not healthy, do not feel afraid of looking for professional help, you can find premarital counseling that can help you; all couples need support.

Here in ALMAS, A.C. we can help you or send you to the right place where you can find the help you need.