I have many clients in relationships, in all stages of commitment: dating, living together, or married. But all of these people have one thing in common: when they have issues with their partners, they tend to wonder whether they are with the “right” person, or if there is “someone better out there” for them. From what I have experienced and observed, here are ten indicators that you are with the right person, meaning someone who is deeply compatible with you (I discuss compatibility here) and with whom you are likely to have a healthy and fulfilling long term relationship.
10. You are attracted to them. Maybe over the years your attraction has waned, that would be normal. But, you have early memories of being extremely attracted to your partner, and when they dress up or look at you a certain way, you still feel attracted to them. When there has never been a spark, that is cause for concern.
9. You do not have frequent, volatile fights in front of the kids. Notice I say in front of the kids. There are some couples who are actually compatible and in a relationship they enjoy who do frequently have massive fights, and then make up, and do it all again the next day. These are two highly dramatic people likely raised in dramatic households, and this works for them. But, most people nowadays know that it is toxic to fight in front of your children, so if you cannot control your fighting in front of the kids, then that is an indicator that your relationship, at least while your children are still in the house, needs to be worked on.
8. You respect them. Once you start to think of your partner as silly, ridiculous, or crazy (like in “Mr. Perfect and His Crazy Wife“), your relationship is at severe risk. Note that there is not always a reframe that you can do in order to respect your partner. Therapy doesn’t change people’s minds about everything. If you feel that on a deep level, you do not feel respect for your partner, this is often the death knell of a relationship, and a profound indicator that you might be better off with someone else. (Therapy can, however, help you figure out if you just condescend to everybody, meaning that there is no potential partner that you would respect; colloquially we refer to this as “It’s not you, it’s me.”)
7. You sacrifice for them willingly. Whether these are smaller scale sacrifices like sleep or time spent listening to them talk about work when you’re tired, or larger scale sacrifices like moving cities for their job or converting to their religion, you find meaning or even joy in sacrificing for your partner. You are confident that they would do the same for you, and in fact have examples from your shared history in which they have willingly sacrificed for you in similar or different ways.
6. You are on the same page with core values. There are many issues that you do not have to debate, because you’re so obviously on the same side. Politics is a rough one to disagree about, and women find this particularly hard. Child rearing is a key issue as well. It’s on trend to think that with enough communication skills and a surfeit of empathy, couples can differ on large key issues and just “agree to disagree,” but I will tell you that in practice, this doesn’t usually work out. Both partners wish they were with someone who just believed as they do, making life much simpler.
5. You do not keep a mental score sheet or tally, or if you do, it’s inverted. It is a terrible sign when couples compete on who had the harder day or who is the better parent…. unless of course you are saying that your partner did or is. If you are in a healthy, thriving relationship, you will notice that instead of amassing a mental list of every reason that you are better than your partner or more deserving of a break, you are amassing a mental list of all the nice things they’ve done lately and how you can give them a break.
4. You never, or very rarely, feel entirely out of control during fights. When you’re with someone who triggers all your deepest level insecurities, fights can escalate shockingly quickly. Especially for people with preoccupied attachment or trust issues, fights with partners can rapidly turn into a nightmare where you feel violent or self-destructive (whether or not you act on these impulses). When you are in a healthy relationship with someone who is a better long term fit, you may initially act in these out-of-control ways, remembering this dynamic from previous relationships (and likely from what you observed/experienced in childhood), but the fights never seem to hit the same fever pitch that prior fights with other partners did. Instead of feeling like your partner is intentionally picking at you or attacking you, you trust that they are trying to be fair and kind, even when angry. This allows you to learn to do the same thing.
3. You do not feel anxious dread about whether they will stay with you and/or be faithful. With someone who is a good fit, you do not feel anxiety every time they don’t answer a text or pick up the phone. It is a given that you trust them to be faithful. You may feel anxious when an attractive person flirts with your partner; that is normal and is an evolutionary mechanism called mate-guarding, but your anxiety settles back down fairly quickly.
2. You do not particularly care what other people think about them. Sure, it would be great if all your friends and family members loved your partner. But, when you are with someone who is a truly good fit for you, you are secure in the knowledge that your opinion of your partner is the only one that matters. This doesn’t mean you don’t listen if a loved one brought up something they thought was a true red flag about your partner. But you take what others say with a grain of salt, because you feel certain in your choice.
1. You feel like you finally understand what people are talking about in books/TV/movies/functional relationships. When you have mostly been in dysfunctional relationships or relationships where you felt unsure about how much you really loved your partner, you feel like love songs or representations of love in the media, or even things that your happily partnered friends tell you, must on some level be distortions or exaggerations. When you have found the “right” person for you, though, you finally understand what people mean when they talk about love.
If you feel like this checklist fully or mostly describes you and your partner, share it with them! If you are single and dating, this post brings up many good points to introspect about as you meet new people. But in a third scenario, where you’re in a long term relationship but you felt kind of nauseous or depressed as you read this post because you know you don’t really “click” with your partner in these key ways and it’s a source of ongoing stress for you, please think deeply about what you are getting out of staying together. This would be a fruitful area of exploration with a therapist as well. You only get one life, and being with someone who you know is not a good fit can lead to anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, and anger. Relationships are fixable, but not all the time, and whether or not your relationship is viable is something you deserve to figure out. And until we meet again, I remain, The Blogapist Who Says, You Only Get One Life Is My Version Of YOLO.