Love & Marriage 112 - How to find a mate. Step 2 - What are your requirements for a mate?

So yesterday I started a series of posts how to find a mate. Yesterday dealt with the topic to get to know yourself first. If you missed it you can read it here:
https://steemit.com/christian-trail/@hope777/love-and-marriage-111-how-to-find-a-mate-step-1-know-yourself

WHAT ABOUT FINDING MY SOULMATE?

Note that I am not using the term soulmate as I don't really believe in soulmates. I do believe in true love, but to believe that somewhere on the earth there is another person that will fit you like a glove and complete you, in my opinion, is wishful thinking and unrealistic. This may be the reason why lots of single people struggle to find a life-partner. Along with this belief of soulmates also goes the belief that you will find each other some magical way or other. That will also not happen. If you are looking for someone to spend your life with, you have to make it happen! If you find someone and you work through the process your "in love" will turn into "true love" if you are 100% committed to make it work!

WHAT TRAITS DO I WANT IN MY LIFE-PARTNER?

With the list that you compiled of who you are, "your picture", (see yesterday's post) you now draw up a list of what you want in your partner. You start to compile a "picture" for your future mate. To help you with this we will look at my picture again and how I would go about it.

If I take my answers and I write down my "picture", I would have written, I am a Christian, I am friendly and outgoing, I love people, I love to be outdoors. To be in the company of other people makes me happy, to be in nature and outdoors makes me happy. To be alone makes me sad, to see other people hurt or unhappy makes me sad. My body is not perfect, I am chubby but I am comfortable with my body. I am not ashamed of my body. To have a career is important, but I have to do something that I like. In the past, I just work because I had to earn money, luckily for me that changed and I can do what I love now.

So what would I write down if I was looking for a partner? My first and most important thing was that I am a Christian. So I would most definitely first write that down.

• He must be a Christian. (this would be a deal breaker. If I met someone I would first find out if he was a Christian, if not, I would not even waste my time.)
  Guys and girls, don't underestimate this. If you are religious or not religious you will have to find a mate that share your beliefs and views. If you are an atheist and you marry a Christian there will soon be strive and serious problems.

• Another important one is your culture. Preferably you would look for somebody of the same culture. For instance, if you marry an African where they permitted polygamy and you only believe in monogamy how would you cope with your husband later on taking more than one wife? I am using an extreme example. I think the cultural thing can be overcome if it is not so extreme. But you will have to get to learn each other's cultures and see if you can adapt or compromise. Marriage is not easy so it would be better to not complicate it further.

• If I am an extrovert I would not look for an introvert person, as I would like to talk people and have people over and if my spouse is an introvert, he would not like that, he/she will prefer to spend some quiet time at home.

• I am friendly, I need someone that is friendly and compassionate and care for other people like I do.

• I like the outdoors, so I would like to find someone that like the outdoors too. I absolutely love swimming, it is like my second nature, my mate will also have to love swimming as I am not prepared to swim alone for the rest of my life.

• As I don't have the perfect body, I would have to find someone that the perfect body is not that important too, but someone that will accept me as I am. Look out for people that from the start want to change you. It is not easy to change a person. Also, don't think I will change this person, it is an almost impossible task to change someone. If there are some character traits that really is unacceptable to you, don't waste your time move on.

• I need someone with a career that will give me financial stability. In my mother tongue Afrikaans we have another saying,"if poverty comes through the back door, love goes out the front door." This is not to say that you cannot marry a poor person or someone who is still studying as long as you are realistic and you know what it will take from you. If you are both young and you are going to work yourself up and you are fine with that, then by all means. But if you are a spoiled brat, already have a successful career and love the "good life" then you will have problems if you marry a spouse that cannot keep your standard of living at the same level you are used to. This is another sure recipe for failure.

Studies have found that people are more likely to be attracted to and pursue romantic relationships with individuals who are more like themselves across a broad range of personal characteristics, including age, religion, political orientation, and certain aspects of intelligence. Generally speaking, it appears, birds of a feather romantically flock together.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/head-games/201412/do-opposites-really-attract-its-complicated

Having said all that, there is a belief that opposites attract. I have experience of both, my late hubby who I was married to for almost 25 years was my exact opposite. He was an introvert and I was an extrovert, but at least we had other things in common like our religion, culture and love for the outdoors. So while he did not like to invite lots of people to our home, at least we did not just sit at home, we went camping and fishing a lot, and that was a highlight in our marriage and made for quality time spent together and great memories!
Sometimes he had to compromise when I was having people over once a while. If you are married to the exact opposite it will bring you lots of challenges and you will have to know that you will have to adapt and compromise in your relationship to make it work.

Then when I got married to my second hubby, we had more similar character traits. We were both extrovert, outspoken, also love the outdoors, and we were both Christians. So on the surface we were the same. But as time went on, we also discover that we have our differences and that we must find solutions or make compromises. So no matter if you marry a person that is opposite of you or someone more similar to you, a marriage is always a process of adaption, compromise and give and take.

So now that you have the "picture" of your future mate, you will set out to go and find your special someone.
The next post will deal with how do you find that special someone?

Thank you for reading, be blessed and have a wonderful day/evening!

Images: www.freepik.com

I found true love for the second time, it is not so hard, you can too!

@hope777 & @scotty777 (aka the "scott team")