Courtship is a period for you and your partner to decide if you are getting married or not. It is the time to love intelligently not blindly. You said yes to your partner because you love him or her, and are willing to be committed. So, how do you keep a healthy relationship with your partner during courtship to avoid a painful breakup? This article has your answer.
Many a time, in a relationship with your partner, it is easy to get carried away by the butterflies in your belly, the gifts, the kiss, the attention and the feeling of love in general. All of these are beautiful, but they are not the focal point in your relationship. They are like the side attractions.
What should you do during courtship?
1. Ask intelligent questions, including the seemingly unintelligent ones
Why should you ask questions and not just go with the flow? The reason for questions is to get answers that inform your decision about whether you want to be in the relationship with your partner or leave.
Ask questions about your partner’s background, genotype, their value system, their future ambition, their plans for marriage, their plans for the future, their love language, their mentor or who they are accountable to. Their likes, their dislikes, their friends, their philosophy about money, their religion, their thoughts on responsibility, how many kids they would love to have if they want any at all, their philosophy on family, their career prospects, how they want to be loved and many more questions that are important to you both. Love each other but remember to ask these questions.
2. Communicate clearly
You are both from different backgrounds and are of different personality types. The more reason it’s advisable for you to communicate with your partner in clear and simple terms. Don’t make things unnecessarily hard by expecting them to understand how you feel about something or your thoughts about something.
You should speak up instead of assuming that if they love you, they should understand how to interpret your mood or your thoughts. That’s not in any way logical. If you don’t like what your partner does, let him or her know. Don’t start to act hostile towards them believing that, that way they would get the memo, and apologize for what they’ve done wrong. Don’t push them to the wall. Speak up if there is need to.
Also learn the effective way to talk to them about issues, maybe a bad habit, or something that you don’t like about their behaviour. Don’t sweep issues under the carpet because that way they’ll keep piling up till when there would be an outburst. One that could lead to breakup. And guess what? You would have avoided a break up if you spoke up and acted logically.
3. Set goals
Partners that set goals and do things together are on the pathway to building a strong bond. In a relationship with your partner, you both could set goals with the aim to achieve something. It is true that you both may not be interested in the same things, but there are things you can do, if you find a common ground between you both. You can set goals to read books that will help your relationship thrive. Books on relationships, communication, love languages and the likes. You can both do therapy. Work on projects together. Learn new things pertaining to each other’s interest, pray together, visit friends together. Create time to go on a picnic, and many more.
4. Consistency in growth
The fact that you are in a relationship doesn’t imply that everything around you, but your relationship stops working. Being in a relationship is not an excuse to stop growing and developing yourself. There must be a desire to consistently grow. The same should also apply to your partner. Don’t stop doing the things that matter. While you are working towards making your relationship work, don’t forget yourself and leave your growth out of the picture.
5. Sacrifice: avoid measuring sacrifices
One harm you can cause your relationship is comparing your sacrifices to that of you partner. You agreed to being in a relationship with your partner because you love them and are wiling to commit. In a relationship, sacrifice is an essential ingredient that ought to be present. Remember it’s not about you alone, your partner is also involved. However, partners tend to make the mistake of setting a standard for the sacrifices their partner makes for them by comparing theirs with their partner’s. This is an unhealthy way to be in a relationship because if your partner doesn’t meet the standard, unnecessary fight could tear you both apart.
Make sacrifices on your own terms, and from the standpoint of how much you love your partner. Also allow your partner do the same.
6. Transparency
A relationship that is built on a bedrock of lies would eventually crumble no matter how strong it appears. Don’t lie about anything at all, not even who you are. You want to be honest and open in your interactions with your partner. Don’t pretend to be who you’re not.
7. Forgive
Learn to make allowances for your partner’s fault. You want to avoid holding grudges against your partner. Do you know what happens when you hold on tightly to your partner’s fault? You will be heaping upon yourself hurt and other disturbing emotions. Ever heard this saying by Marianne Williamson before? “Unforgiveness is like drinking poison yourself and waiting for the other person to die”. In other words, when you forgive your partner, you are doing yourself good.
8. Don’t hide your struggles
One mistake you don’t want to make is keeping your struggles to yourself when you have a partner to share them with. Of course, there are times you’d probably want to handle things by yourself, and that’s fine. However, don’t suffer in silence when you have a partner to share your struggles with. That’s part of transparency. It’s not only the good moments you share with them. Being in a relationship with your partner also entails letting them in on the seemingly bad moments too.
9. Accountability
You both should be accountable to someone. It could be a counsellor or someone you both trust to give good counsels and show up for you both. Someone who can correct you when things are going south. Someone you can reach out to when it looks like you’re about to hit rock bottom in your relationship with your partner.
Someone who see your blind spots, and help you correct them.
Finally, the whole idea of courtship is not to compulsorily get married. It is the period where you’re sure that you want to end up together. It is the both of you getting to know whether you are compatible or not.
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