# 5 keys to choosing a partner > Are you tired of jumping from relationship to relationship? Or of realizing that you repeat the same pattern over and over with different people? - **Author:** mireia-navarro-vera · **Category:** Pareja - **Published:** 2022-12-12 · **Updated:** 2023-03-10 - **URL:** https://elteuespai.com/en/5-keys-to-choosing-a-partner/ - _Translation pending clinical review._ --- Are you already tired of jumping from relationship to relationship? Or of realizing that you repeat the same pattern over and over with different people? Have you even gotten to the point of thinking that something is wrong with you because you can't find the person or the stable relationship that it seems we all should have? Romantic relationships are some of the most important relationships in our lives and yet no one teaches us how we should relate or what we should expect. The first information we have on this topic comes to us from our parents' relationship, who can barely manage their own emotions because no one taught them and whose entire education about relationships is that when you get married it's forever. And the next bit of information we receive comes from the romantic movies we watch at the cinema, which are very far from reality. So we head out into the world of relationships with myths and totally biased information. It's no wonder things go so badly for us in love. Don't you think? If you want to learn more, here's the link to the video on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/Ws3ANTdahGo ## Myths about romantic relationships - **Love is enough**. It seems that loving someone is already enough. Love is necessary but not sufficient. - **Love is for a lifetime**. Once it appears, without you caring for it or watering it or anything, it just stays forever. A relationship is a living being; you have to care for it and nourish it so it survives. - **My partner has to meet my needs**. Your needs are yours. Take responsibility for them. - **There's a soulmate out there who fits me perfectly**, I just have to find them. We are whole oranges relating to oranges that should also be whole. Get to know yourself well first. - **My partner has to make me happy**. You are responsible for your own happiness; afterward your partner can add to it, but they won't if you weren't already happy before meeting them. - **My partner belongs to me**. Nothing is forever and nothing is yours. Your partner should freely choose you every day. - **You have to be in a relationship to be worthy**. Better badly accompanied than alone. For years society has labeled women who reached a certain age without a stable partner as spinsters. And this has led us to prefer staying in relationships that don't work rather than being alone. Society and our own fear of loneliness. - **You don't see your partner as they are but as you'd like them to be**. We build an ideal of how they should be and when we see the reality that doesn't fit, we get disappointed and keep searching or, worse, we try to change the other person. There is no perfect relationship nor the perfect man or woman; stop searching. - **A divorce is a failure**. You may have had a healthy and satisfying relationship with someone for years and still end up separating, simply because what you liked at 20 you no longer like at 50, and nothing more. A relationship ending doesn't make it a failure. The failure is staying in a relationship that no longer works. - **The prototype couple**. Society sets criteria for how a couple should be. They should live together, share time, have hobbies in common, choose to be together rather than with other people… We are not all the same, nor do we have the same needs. Each couple is a world of its own. So it's impossible for us all to fit into this prototype. Look for the style of relationship that works well for both of you, not the one imposed on you from the outside. ![myths about romantic relationships](/images/blog/2022/11/mitos-relaciones-pareja-1024x683.webp) ## Keys to choosing a partner ### 1. Knowing how to be alone It is essential to **spend time with yourself to get to know yourself**. My weak points, my strong points. What I'm looking for in a relationship or what I want from a partner. Reflecting on myself and on my wounds. Analyzing the mistakes and successes of past relationships. Time for reflection, time for self-knowledge, and time **to know what I want and don't want from a relationship.** If I don't know how to be alone, it's easier for me to latch onto any relationship. If I don't know what I want, it's hard for me to focus on looking for it and to know whether I've found it or not. I usually recommend making a list of what I want from a relationship and of how I'd like the other person to be. That list almost always defines us ourselves; if we ask for someone hardworking, it's because we are too. In the end I'm asking for someone similar to me, someone who shares my principles, at least the most important ones. It's good to make this list and review it from time to time, to know what I want and what I don't want. What makes me feel good and what makes me feel bad in a relationship. **To have a good relationship with a partner, I must first have a good relationship with myself, be a whole orange.** Only then can I go into a good relationship, offering the best version of myself. When you know what you want and what you can offer. When you know that you are the main person responsible for your happiness and for meeting your own needs. Then you're ready!! ### 2. Feeling love **It's there or it's not. It's the magic and it doesn't depend on you.** So this ingredient is necessary, but not sufficient. I'm not going to explain what it is; we've all experienced it at some point. I'm not talking about infatuation, because that is only a phase of love, the first one, and it has an expiration date. Infatuation lasts approximately 6 months to 1 year. Afterward, love may or may not arrive. One is just as important as the other. There's an **experiment carried out by Helen Fisher**, an American biologist and anthropologist who has devoted her life to studying love and which I believe is the best one that has been done. I'll give you a quick summary of her conclusions: she studied brain behavior in couples in love at the start of their relationship and 30 years later. At the beginning of the relationship, in the infatuation phase, the brain areas activated were areas that are also activated in addictions; we only want to see that person, we go through withdrawal if we don't see them, we think obsessively about them, we eat less, our neocortex is more deactivated which means we make more mistakes at work, etc… As you'll understand, we can't stay in this state for long because the species would go extinct. So little by little we return to normal. At that moment we cross the bridge of love or we don't; we can stay at the door and feel that there's nothing more, that we don't love that person. That's why many relationships end in the first year or two years. If love continues, the brain areas that activate are areas more related to attachment and empathy, with serotonin playing a greater role than the dopamine that governs the infatuation phase. ![older couples](/images/blog/2022/11/parejas-mayores-1024x683.webp) #### And what happens to the brains of these couples after 30 years? Well, there was a small percentage who said they still felt in love with their partner and happy in their relationship. In this percentage it was observed that there were areas from the infatuation phase still slightly activated. Fisher came to the conclusion that love is universal; we all feel it regardless of our race or culture, our brain reacts the same way. Reading these studies and others that corroborate the results and add more information, it seems that infatuation is the first phase of what can later become love, something more stable, lasting, and that activates many more areas of our brain, especially those of well-being. That there is a percentage, even if small, who feel happy and in love in a long and stable relationship. So, for me, love is essential; it has to be there no matter what, and then we can add other ingredients to it. The best expression of love in everyday life is shows of affection, physical contact with the other person, the need to have them close and to embrace them. ### 3. You have sexual desire **Feeling sexual attraction toward your partner is important**. It's normal for this desire not to be the same in the infatuation phase as in the next phase. But **it shouldn't disappear**. And above all **it must be felt from the beginning**. We should pay attention to this part, which is sometimes neglected and even sometimes demonized. It's an important moment in which you give yourself body and soul to your partner. We're not just talking about sexual desire, sexual drive, and orgasm. We're talking about connection, contact, dedication, surrender; we're talking about that part you only share with your partner. Sexual encounters decrease in frequency, but they don't have to decrease in quality. All couples should dedicate time to being alone, in intimacy, devoting a few hours just to having sex. If you want to go deeper into this topic, I recommend reading the post "[Keys to living a full sexuality as a couple](/en/keys-to-living-a-fulfilling-sexuality-as-a-couple/)". ### 4. You feel they are your best friend **They are the first person you want to share a joy or a sorrow with.** You have a good time together, you have topics of conversation that interest you, although you can also be quiet and comfortable in the silences. Being alone together is an option you enjoy. Every now and then you get away to be able to be alone and you have a great time. You don't need to share all your hobbies, but you do need some that you enjoy together. Besides, you can have a good time even in very boring situations like a family obligation you don't feel like attending at all. **There's complicity, there's good vibes, there's laughter, and there's a desire to be together.** ![keys to choosing a partner](/images/blog/2022/11/claves-elegir-pareja-1024x683.webp) ### 5. A project for the future **You feel that you share important values**, that you could undertake a project for the future with that person because they have a way of living similar to yours. **You admire aspects of their personality or of their way of seeing things.** They bring something to you and teach you, and you feel they make you grow as a person. **They support your dreams and respect your spaces**. They see you when they look at you and not themselves. **It's that feeling that with them you'd go to the end of the world** because you know things would go well for you. That being together brings you more good things than being on your own. You feel that it fulfills you intellectually as much as it fulfills you emotionally. This point is the most rational of all and even so you'll feel it in your heart more than in your reason. Admiring your partner and feeling that you can learn and grow being with them gives you that part of wanting to keep building by their side. ## Conclusions These keys can guide you in your future relationships or in your current ones. The fact of fulfilling them doesn't guarantee us success if you believe that success means it lasts a lifetime. **Maybe what we should do is change the meaning of success, right??** We could say that being in a relationship that makes me feel love, sexual desire, the desire to be together, and admiration. That makes me grow as a person and that adds to me is already a success in itself; it doesn't necessarily have to last a lifetime. **Maybe we'll only be together for part of the journey, but it will have been worth it.**