Dating Relationships Contribute To Your Future Marriage

If you’ve ever needed encouragement to work on your dating relationship, here’s some: Researchers have determined that people who are capable of sustaining lasting relationships before they marry are married longer and are more likely to be married for life than those whose pre-marital relationships don’t last that long.

That means that by working on your present relationship, even if you don’t marry that person, you are contributing to the likely success of your future marriage.

Relationships aren’t always smooth sailing. In the beginning, the level of passion and intensity you feel for the other person drowns out things that aren’t so desirable. You are so excited about being around him that you quickly forget about his annoying humming and the fact that he differs with you politically. But, as with all relationships, the new eventually wears off and what likely didn’t concern you at first becomes a major annoyance or issue.

The change is because of the growing intimacy between the two of you. The more you are with one another, the more the “little things” began bothering you. This isn’t all negative. It means that you care. When something on TV annoys you, you simply change the channel because you don’t have dedication or intimacy with the channel or the person annoying you on the television. But when you have even minor levels of commitment and intimacy you have larger potential to become irritated by some of the other person’s behaviors because he or she is a major part of your life.

Anticipate it

I’m telling you this so that you can know to expect aggrevations and issues that make your relationship less effortless and sometimes less natural than it was originally. That’s not the time to walk out. Not only does this person deserve more from you (and you from another), but you need to “practice” the dedication levels that will be needed in a marriage relationship.

If you break the relationship at the first sign of difficulty you have hampered yourself in two ways:

1. You may have married this person if you had endured the testing days and come out even closer to one another than before the problems started.

2. You didn’t allow yourself to learn how to operate in a relationship experiencing trials. When you marry, there will be periods of trouble, arguments , hurt feelings, annoying behavior and anger. Sometimes you might even require professional marriage help. If you left a pre-marriage relationship because it wasn’t all “smooth sailing,” it will likely be much more challenging for you when you actually marry and experience friction.

Know When to Fold ‘Em

I’m definitely not suggesting that relationships should be forced. A person can only stand so much before enough becomes enough. However, I am saying that one of the strongest indicators of who will make a “good spouse” is probably how he or she responds to conflict in your relationship. If she can’t handle a little conflict before marriage, it will likely be hard for her to handle it when you’re married.

At least, consider conflict as a positive challenge. Not a reason to terminate your relationship, but an opportunity to test your ability to stay committed despite challenging times. Some will deal with this better than others. If you observe a continual pattern of conflict, it might help you decide not to continue your relationship with that person. But the conclusion is, don’t surrender at the first sign of conflict so that you’ll have some experience when it occurs in future relationships and so that you don’t ditch  “Mr. (or Mrs.) Right” because you had a few wrong days.

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