How to choose the partner that’s right for you

← Back to Blog
30.05.2018 2015

It wasn’t the first time this question came up during a coaching session, when another one of my clients asked: “How can I make sure I choose the right person?” I began wondering how many people on earth go to sleep with this question in their heads

article

And it’s an absolutely valid question! Sure, under the idea of romanticism, modern society expects us to follow our gut feeling when choosing a partner. We’re supposed to just know. We’re supposed to choose the one with the ability to make us happy. But as you’re about to read, what we’re attracted to in a romantic partner, might not be a good guide to our personal happiness. Before we get into that, it’s important to understand how human attraction works and what mechanisms are at play when we’re choosing a partner. Among an abundance of psychological theories and countless research studies surrounding romantic love and attraction, there’s one particular mechanism that - if understood - can help you make a mature and healthy decision when choosing a partner:

    • As humans, we’re bound to seek consistency and familiarity

    - it’s simply how our brains work. We strive for consistency and familiarity with so much effort, we usually even prioritize it over happiness.

    What that consistency looks like for a person is defined during childhood. Most of the situations that profoundly influence the way we now seek connection happened so early on in our life, that it’s unlikely we even consciously remember. If you were brought up learning that you are valuable, you’ll likely choose a partner, who treats you consistently with that upbringing. If you grew up surrounded by conflict and drama, then that feels familiar. If you’ve learned that your caregivers frequently ignore your bids for attention, you’re going to gravitate towards a partner with whom you can recreate that sort of familiar reality.

    But even if your upbringing was mostly positive and your caregivers were normally responsive, the feelings experienced during childhood were rarely limited to just affection and care. Parents are only human themselves and even the best ones get tired, hungry and irritable every once in a while. That’s why, inevitably, our template of love is likely to be interwoven with a range of problematic attractions.

    Maybe you find yourself drawn to people who are always slightly distant or the ones you find most interesting frequently turn out to be jerks? At the same time you may discover that you reject certain candidates, who appear to be emotionally intelligent, mature and balanced, but you’re simply not attracted to them? The reason might be that too much maturity feels foreign, so you end up rejecting someone, not because they’re wrong for you, but simply because they’re not what you’re used to.  

    How the heck is that knowledge going to help me find the right partner, you wonder? Well, let’s have a look at a couple of things you can do to optimize your decision making process:

    • Learn about your patterns and liberate yourself from them

    The good new is, that it’s possible to emancipate oneself from learned behaviors and the first step is becoming very clear about one’s patterns. While most of our patterns are unconscious and will remain that way until after years of self reflection with the help of a coach or therapist, you can make first steps right now by starting to explore your inclinations. Sit down with an empty piece of paper on a free afternoon and list all the people you’ve found yourself attracted to over the last couple of years. Try to remember what drew you to them initially, as well as the reasons that led you to not being with that person today. Then think of people, who you’ve rejected, what you found unattractive about them and what they had going for them. Are you starting to notice a pattern?

    Maybe it’s the person, who always calls a day later than they said they would, the one you don’t feel equal to, because you think they’re completely out of your league or it’s the one who seems like they desperately need you to save them from whatever wrong choices they’re making - once you know what kinds of difficult behaviours you’re attracted to, you can start to let go. You will see that the clearer you become about what you consider to be normal, the more you will be able to make the distinction between what you’re drawn to and what you need.

  • Now, I’m not claiming that this process of self discovery is going to be easy (personal growth rarely is), but most certainly it’s going to help you make a more informed decision and is likely going to save you a ton of drama down the line.
    • Give people a chance you don’t think are your type

    After you’ve done some reflecting and discovered the features that you’re attracted to, challenge yourself and try to let go of the attractions that don’t serve you at this point in your life - and then look around to see who else there is! We can love people who are different than our default types, but only if we choose to get to know them

    • Right for what?

    So, who are you looking for? A passionate love affair? A co-parent? A best friend? Someone you’re able to cohabitate with or a lifelong companionship? The right person to backpack through South America with might not be the right person to bring to your yearly family get-togethers. There’s this notion in society that the “good couples” are passionately in love till the last days of their lives and that the “right person” is our best friend, the parent of our children, a loving partner and to top if off, the person we have the best sex of our life with. Just try to grasp the insanity of this and the pressure that puts on our partners and ultimately on ourselves for choosing them!

    Instead of trying to live up to this unrealistic idea of romanticism, think about who you’re really looking for at this stage of your life. Make sure the basics align depending on your situation and just roll with it.

    • Don’t make choices out of fear

    Countless relationships exist today, because a decision was predominantly made out of some kind of fear. Generally the fear that drives people to commit to unhappy relationships is the fear of being alone, but this is different from person to person. Before you enter or hold on to a relationship out of fear, save yourself and that individual from the tremendous resentment that comes with it. Consider being alone for a bit longer and wait for the right partner.

    • Don’t confuse intensity with love

    You may not want to hear it, but the best relationships are usually pretty boring. Yes, all relationships are hard work, and fights are inevitable if two people try to share the most intimate parts of their lives with each other, but overall life as a couple should be rather undramatic. In healthy relationships there’s no one chasing after the other at the airport, no stuff being thrown out the window at 2am and no need for surprise visits at your partner’s office to check if they actually are stuck in late meetings. When choosing a person to be with, don’t confuse drama with being crazy about someone.

    • Are you the right person?

    Instead of constantly asking yourself if this person is the “right” person for you, shift to wondering, if you are the right person for them! What does it mean to be the right person? What if one day you come across someone and are convinced that you two belong together - but they aren’t? What do you have to offer in a relationship? Which are your greatest flaws and what are you doing to work on them? What can you do to make yourself happy, before you off-load your discontent on your partner in a quest to be comforted?

    Now, if you’re still confused, don’t worry. There’s no such thing as a perfect partner for anyone and even with the really good matches it’s impossible to be absolutely sure about wanting to share your life with them. Take your time, be patient and continue to reflect.

    Good luck on your journey!

Do you like the article? Share it with your friends:

Order package

To order the package, specify the name and e-mail



    By signing up you’ll be added to my email list and will receive regular emails that include inspiration and advice and inform you of offers to help you build your lifestyle business. We take care of your data in accordance with our privacy policy and you are free to unsubscribe at any time.

    Notify the course

    To order the package, specify the name and e-mail

    Thank you
    for contacting us!

    Wait for the letter within
    1 hour with further guidance

    ANNA KHUDOYERKO with heart

    Privacy Policy

    1. INTRODUCTION

    This privacy policy provides you with details of how we collect and process your personal data through your use of our site www.dontmarry.me or any subdomains including any information you may provide to us when you purchase a product or service, sign up to our email list or take part in a prize draw or competition.

    By providing us with your data, you warrant to us that you are over 18 years of age.

    don’t marry me is the data controller and we are responsible for your personal data (referred to as “we”, “us” or “our” in this privacy policy).

    We have appointed a EU Representative who is the contact person for EU data privacy authorities.

    VGS Datenschutzpartner UG
    Am Kaiserkai 69
    20457 Hamburg
    Deutschland
    anna@dontmarry.me

    If you have any questions about this privacy policy, please contact us by using the details set out below.

    Contact Details

    Full name of legal entity: don’t marry me

    Email address: anna@dontmarry.me

    Postal address: don’t marry me, Swiss Post Box 102843, Zürcherstrasse 161, 8010 Zürich, Switzerland

    It is very important that the information we hold about you is accurate and up to date. Please let us know if at any time your personal information changes by emailing us at anna@dontmarry.me or updating your settings in our preference center.

    2. WHAT DATA DO WE COLLECT ABOUT YOU

    Personal data means any information capable of identifying an individual. It does not include anonymised data.

    We may process the following categories of personal data about you:

    • Communication Data that includes any communication that you send to us whether that be through the contact form on our website, through email, text, social media messaging, social media posting or any other communication that you send us. We process this data for the purposes of communicating with you, for record keeping and for the establishment, pursuance or defence of legal claims. Our lawful ground for this processing is our legitimate interests which in this case are to reply to communications sent to us, to keep records and to establish, pursue or defend legal claims.
    • Customer Data that includes data relating to any purchases of goods and/or services such as your name, title, billing address, delivery address email address, phone number, contact details, purchase details and your card details. We process this data to supply the goods and/or services you have purchased and to keep records of such transactions. Our lawful ground for this processing is the performance of a contract between you and us and/or taking steps at your request to enter into such a contract.
    • User Data that includes data about how you use our website and any online services together with any data that you post for publication on our website or through other online services. We process this data to operate our website and ensure relevant content is provided to you, to ensure the security of our website, to maintain back- ups of our website and/or databases and to enable publication and administration of our website, other online services and business. Our lawful ground for this processing is our legitimate interests which in this case are to enable us to properly administer our website and our business.
    • Technical Data that includes data about your use of our website and online services such as your IP address, your login data, details about your browser, length of visit to pages on our website, page views and navigation paths, details about the number of times you use our website, time zone settings and other technology on the devices you use to access our website. The source of this data is from our analytics tracking system. We process this data to analyse your use of our website and other online services, to administer and protect our business and website, to deliver relevant website content and advertisements to you and to understand the effectiveness of our advertising. Our lawful ground for this processing is our legitimate interests which in this case are to enable us to properly administer our website and our business and to grow our business and to decide our marketing strategy.
    • Marketing Data that includes data about your preferences in receiving marketing from us and our third parties and your communication preferences. We process this data to enable you to partake in our promotions such as competitions, prize draws and free giveaways, to deliver relevant website content and advertisements to you and measure or understand the effectiveness of this advertising. Our lawful ground for this processing is our legitimate interests which in this case are to study how customers use our products/services, to develop them, to grow our business and to decide our marketing strategy.

    We may use Customer Data, User Data, Technical Data and Marketing Data to deliver relevant website content and advertisements to you (including Facebook adverts or other display advertisements) and to measure or understand the effectiveness of the advertising we serve you. Our lawful ground for this processing is legitimate interests which is to grow our business. We may also use such data to send other marketing communications to you about relevant products and services, such as online courses; books; live broadcast trainings such as webinars; live events and conferences; coaching and mentoring services. Our lawful ground for this processing is either consent or legitimate interests (namely to grow our business).

    We do not collect any Sensitive Data about you. Sensitive data refers to data that includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health and genetic and biometric data. We do not collect any information about criminal convictions and offences.

    Where we are required to collect personal data by law, or under the terms of the contract between us and you do not provide us with that data when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract (for example, to deliver goods or services to you). If you don’t provide us with the requested data, we may have to cancel a product or service you have ordered but if we do, we will notify you at the time.

    We will only use your personal data for a purpose it was collected for or a reasonably compatible purpose if necessary. In case we need to use your details for an unrelated new purpose we will let you know and explain the legal grounds for processing.

    We may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent where this is required or permitted by law.

    We do not carry out automated decision making or any type of automated profiling.

    3. HOW WE COLLECT YOUR PERSONAL DATA

    We may collect data about you by you providing the data directly to us (for example by filling in forms on our site or by sending us emails). We may automatically collect certain data from you as you use our website by using cookies and similar technologies. Please see our cookie policy for more details about this.

    We may receive data from third parties such as analytics providers such as Google based outside the EU, advertising networks such as Facebook based outside the EU, such as search information providers such as Google based outside the EU, providers of technical, payment and delivery services, such as data brokers or aggregators.

    We may also receive data from publicly available sources such as Companies House and the Electoral Register.

    4. MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS

    Our lawful ground of processing your personal data to send you marketing communications is either your consent or our legitimate interests (namely to grow our business).

    Under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, we may send you marketing communications from us if (i) you made a purchase or asked for information from us about our goods or services or (ii) you agreed to receive marketing communications and in each case you have not opted out of receiving such communications since. Under these regulations, if you are a limited company, we may send you marketing emails without your consent. However, you can still opt out of receiving marketing emails from us at any time.

    Before we share your personal data with any third party for their own marketing purposes we will get your express consent.

    You can ask us or third parties to stop sending you marketing communications at any time by following the opt-out links in every email sent to you OR by emailing us at anna@dontmarry.me at any time.

    If you opt out of receiving marketing communications this opt-out does not apply to personal data provided as a result of other transactions, such as purchases, orders etc.

    5. DISCLOSURES OF YOUR PERSONAL DATA

    We may have to share your personal data with the parties set out below:

    • Service providers who provide IT and system administration services.
    • Professional advisers including lawyers, bankers, auditors and insurers
    • Government bodies that require us to report processing activities.
    • Third parties such as copywriters, customer support and virtual assistants.
    • Third parties to whom we sell, transfer, or merge parts of our business or our assets.

    We require all third parties to whom we transfer your data to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We only allow such third parties to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

    6. INTERNATIONAL TRANSFERS

    Countries outside of the European Economic Area (EEA) do not always offer the same levels of protection to your personal data, so European law has prohibited transfers of personal data outside of the EEA unless the transfer meets certain criteria.

    Many of our third parties service providers are based outside the European Economic Area (EEA) so their processing of your personal data will involve a transfer of data outside the EEA.

    Whenever we transfer your personal data out of the EEA, we do our best to ensure a similar degree of security of data by ensuring at least one of the following safeguards is implemented:

    We will only transfer your personal data to countries that have been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for personal data by the European Commission; or
    Where we use certain service providers, we may use specific contracts or codes of conduct or certification mechanisms approved by the European Commission which give personal data the same protection it has in Europe; or
    Where we use providers based in the United States, we may transfer data to them if they are part of the EU-US Privacy Shield which requires them to provide similar protection to personal data shared between the Europe and the US.
    If none of the above safeguards is available, we may request your explicit consent to the specific transfer. You will have the right to withdraw this consent at any time.

    7. DATA SECURITY

    We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know such data. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

    We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

    8. DATA RETENTION

    We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

    When deciding what the correct time is to keep the data for we look at its amount, nature and sensitivity, potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure, the processing purposes, if these can be achieved by other means and legal requirements.

    For tax purposes the law requires us to keep basic information about our customers (including Contact, Identity, Business Communications, Financial and Transaction Data) for ten years after they stop being customers.

    In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal data for research or statistical purposes in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

    9. YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS

    Under data protection laws you have rights in relation to your personal data that include the right to request access, correction, erasure, restriction, transfer, to object to processing, to portability of data and (where the lawful ground of processing is consent) to withdraw consent.

    You can read more about these rights here.

    If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please email us at legal@sigrun.com.
    You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive or refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

    We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

    We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you.

    If you are not happy with any aspect of how we collect and use your data, you have the right to complain to your local supervisory authority for data protection issues. Read more about these rights here: https://www.eugdpr.org/. We would be grateful if you would contact us first if you do have a complaint so that we can try to resolve it for you.

    10. THIRD-PARTY LINKS

    This website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy policy of every website you visit.

    11. COOKIES

    You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when websites set or access cookies. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this website may become inaccessible or not function properly. For more information about the cookies we use, please see our cookie policy.

    12. CHANGES TO OUR PRIVACY POLICY

    We reserve the right to update our privacy policy at any time. We will notify you over email if you are subscribed to our list and by updating the date of our notice here on this page.