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How to know if you're ready to make a true commitment — or not.
By Debby Gullery — Written on Apr 20, 2020
If you’ve dating someone for a while now and think they just might be "the one," yet you find yourself hesitating to make a real commitment, it's time to reflect and ask yourself some deep questions.
Am I ready for a relationship?
After all, if you're in love, what's keeping you from making a true commitment?
To further guide you in your self-reflection, start by asking yourself these two critical questions:
1. What does your vision of the ideal relationship or marriage look like?
2. What are you currently bringing to the table that would contribute to making that ideal a reality?
In order to have the relationship or marriage of your dreams, you have to know what you want it to look like and what skill sets and character traits you need to create it.
Healthy, successful relationships don't happen by magic or luck. They require a tremendous amount of self-awareness and maturity.
So whether or not you're ready to make a commitment comes down to how mature, aware and determined you are.
If you have the four traits, they're signs you're a mature adult who's ready for a real relationship.
1. Integrity
Integrity means that you do what you say you will do. Having integrity assumes you are consistently working toward bringing your core values and actions into alignment.
2. Self-control
Self-control means understanding that your actions and words affect others. If you have self-control, you actively work to manage your negative emotions.
For example, think about how you handle disappointment, anger, loneliness and failure. What do you do when someone hurts your feelings or disagrees with you? How do you handle stress?
The answers to these questions will help you determine what skills and tools you already have in your arsenal to help you maintain your emotional health, as well as to have healthy interactions with others.
3. Communication skills
All relationships require good communication. What are your communication skills like?
Do others think that you’re a good listener? Can you express your feelings well, and can you negotiate and cooperate with people who disagree with you? Are you a good team player?
4. Willingness to sacrifice
Sacrifice may not a popular word, but it is a necessary ingredient of successful relationships. Sometimes we will need to defer gratification or allow the needs of others to take priority ahead of our own.
And sometimes unconscious and/or unrealistic misconceptions about how relationships should be prevent people from taking personal responsibility.
Three of the most common misconceptions about relationships are these:
- "If I just meet the right person, I’ll be happy."
- "The right partner will meet all of my needs."
- "My bad habits will disappear once I find the right person."
In successful relationships, both partners understand that their attitudes determine everything, so they make an effort to develop what I call the habit of happiness.
In other words, rather than expecting their partners to make them happy, they take responsibility for themselves and each other.
They don’t blame their partner when things go wrong. Instead, they check in with themselves first, assuming the best of their partner rather than the worst.
Maturity means being willing to take responsibility for your own actions and reactions.
It is demonstrated in healthy relationships in these two important ways:
- By taking personal responsibility: "I am committed to growing my heart and maturing my character to its full potential."
- By caring for your partner: "I am committed to helping my partner become the best they can be."
The next thing to reflect on is your capacity for love.
Most of us like to think of ourselves as loving people — and you probably are. But take time to consider how well you express that love.
Think about how it is that you know when someone loves you. You know it because they show you that you are loved!
In the context of a romantic relationship, love isn't just those feelings wafting through the air in-between two people. Loving feelings need to be expressed through loving actions.
One of the best ways to measure your capacity to genuinely love someone is to look at your ability to forgive them and make sacrifices for them.
Being able to forgive is an essential quality in all healthy relationships.
When you live and interact with someone every day, you will inevitably make a lot of mistakes, and so will your partner. You will hurt each other often. But forgiving each other is what allows you to repair and renew your commitment.
Building and sustaining a committed relationship is one of the most rewarding things you’ll ever do — and it's also the hardest.
It takes real skill and effort to do it well. You will need to bring your best self to the table so that you can be a blessing to your partner rather than a burden.
So before you decide whether the person you're with is "the one," or before you start looking to find someone who will be, take time to reflect on these questions: What do you want your relationship to look like and what are you bringing to the table?
Then work on developing the skills and attitudes that will allow you to co-create the partnership of your dreams!
More for You:
Debby Gullery is a relationship coach who loves to teach people simple strategies they can use immediately to improve their most important relationships. She is the author of ‘Small Steps to Bigger Love’, a practical, easy-to-use book for couples who are seeking to be more intentional and loving. Check out her website for more information about her work.