If lasting love has eluded you it may be difficult to keep the faith that you’ll reach your goal of a beloved relationship. Whether you’ve gone through divorce, a history of toxic partners, or are drawn to unavailable people, the struggle is real. When you’re feeling lonely and alone it can be difficult to imagine how to choose a life partner.

The most important decision you’ll make in life is who you choose to share your life with. The desire for a partner who supports your dreams and goals can seem like a fantasy if you’re unsure of how to choose a life partner and just leave it all to chance.

The right partner brings fun, security, and companionship as you face life’s challenges together. They’ll help increase your joy, and comfort you during times of sorrow.

Choose badly, and your self-confidence, self-esteem, and happiness could suffer. You may end up feeling lonelier than you did when you were single.

Rushing through the dating process and into the bed of the next person who gives you butterflies is likely going to repeat the same pattern of disappointment and heartbreak that you’ve been trying to break.

Instead of leaving the most important decision you’ll make up to something as fickle as a feeling, remember that in order to choose a life partner, your head and your heart must be in harmony.

Knowing how to choose a life partner begins with uncovering the source of your struggles, being willing to learn new strategies for giving and receiving love, and understanding the qualities that lead to healthy, lasting love.

Your Past Experiences In Love Are Keeping You Stuck

The limiting beliefs you hold about love and dating were cobbled together from your past experiences. Most people refer to this as their relationship baggage.

They try to avoid past mistakes by being hyper-focused on what they do not want. They rely on chemistry over common sense and go exclusive with a stranger who ticks the boxes on their list and lights them up without taking time to find out if this person can meet their needs.

So, how do you choose a life partner when you’ve been hurt and disappointed too many times?

How To Choose A Life Partner When You’ve Struggled In Love

1. Discover The Source Of Your Struggle

The problem with love is that you weren’t taught the skills for selecting a mate, or for how to make love last. Instead you cobbled together limiting beliefs and behavioral strategies that you learned from your family of origin, or from negative experiences that you vowed you’d never repeat.

You made decisions about yourself long before you knew who you are and how the world works.

You may not be aware that you have a belief system about love that’s driving your choices and behavior. This hidden love blueprint highlights people who feel familiar to your childhood wounding patterns and can make a good match difficult to identify.

Your Love Imprint^® is the unconscious patterns and strategies for giving and receiving love that are shaped by early childhood experiences (particularly the relationship with your parents) which determines who you are attracted to. Think of it as your GPS for love.

Your Love Imprint is the source of your struggle to find lasting love. How to choose a life partner begins with identifying this core wound from childhood so you can be set free from your negative patterns and strategies.

2. Healing Your Heart

Choosing a life partner isn’t possible until you take time to heal your heart. As healing is not a straight trajectory, most people rush the process of getting over a breakup. They rush back into dating long before they’re ready and end up repeating their negative patterns and many become cynical about love in the process.

Your emotional baggage can also get in the way of making a wise choice for a partner and hinder your ability to create emotional connection with someone new. Rather than looking outside of yourself for comfort and support place your attention on inner healing so you can feel complete on your own.

Having your heart broken is a normal part of life, it’s a necessary aspect of growing up. Learning to bounce back after disappointments in dating builds your love resiliency. Without it you’re left feeling dependent on another person to feel whole.

Utilize our 5-step Golden Nugget process to move through all the steps of healing from heartbreak so you can move forward to find your forever person. When you learn from heartbreak you’re not destined to repeat it.

How to choose a life partner when your heart is broken? Take time to heal your heart so you can choose more wisely moving forward.

3. Beware Of Instant Intimacy

Don’t let your feelings in the moment decide your future. When you commit quickly because you feel a strong connection and attraction, you’re more likely to ignore red flags and repeat old patterns.

Instant intimacy is a false positive. That sudden, intense feeling of chemistry isn’t a good indicator that you’ve found a good match. It’s actually a signal from your subconscious mind alerting you to a similar pattern from your past relationships or childhood wounding. It’s your subconscious altering you, saying, “This is familiar! This is familiar!”

The intensity of that signal is easily confused as excitement and attraction when it’s really a warning sign. If you have a pattern of selecting toxic or abusive partners the familiar signal can feel obsessive and compulsive.

It takes time to get to know someone and discover if they are an ideal match for the long term. Don’t let excitement cloud your judgment, instead be cautious of people who want to move quickly. This can be an indication of someone who has issues with boundaries.

How to choose a life partner when there’s an intense feeling of attraction? Realize this signal is a warning sign, not a green light to move forward quickly.

4. Practice Slow Love

Slow love is the antidote to instant intimacy. Delaying exclusivity, physical intimacy, and commitment gives you time to discover whether you’re a values match (which is a necessary ingredient for love to last). Moving slowly through the dating process also gives you the opportunity to observe your own behavior and avoid repeating past strategies.

By slowing down while dating you can evaluate whether your potential match can meet your needs. You can discover if you can navigate conflict and work through your differences. Slow love gives you the opportunity to discover whether your date is a good match for a long-term relationship.

People tend to give the benefit of the doubt too quickly, especially when there’s a strong connection. Don’t give a stranger the benefit of the doubt. Take your time and let them earn your trust and win your heart.

How to choose a life partner who you can trust? Practice slow love before committing your heart to discover if they’re a good match.

5. Know The Difference Between Your Wants And Your Needs

There is a difference between what you need to feel safe, happy, and loved and what you want your partner to be like. Focus on finding someone capable of meeting your needs versus looking for someone who matches the long checklist you made.

You may find a partner who has a good income, is kind, and enjoys the same activities you do, but if they aren’t capable of meeting your needs, then you’re not going to have a happy life together.

Make it a priority to find someone interested in what makes you happy, and who is also willing to take actions that leave you feeling loved and safe. Your needs are not negotiable, however you can compromise on other desires.

How to choose a life partner who will make you happy? Only commit to someone who meets your needs along with some of your wants.

6. Choose A Life Partner Who Shares Your Values

Shared values are the glue that holds any group together. Whether it’s fans of a sports team, co-workers, or partners in a marriage, shared values are how you stay on the same page even though you have different strategies and backgrounds.

When you share values you have the ability to weather the storms of life together. If you don’t value the same things, when times get tough you’ll grow apart or even break up because you can’t get on the same page.

You can’t determine what someone values quickly, nor can you by asking them questions about what they value. Values are revealed through how someone spends their time, their energy, and their resources. These are only revealed over time so don’t rush or make assumptions. Observe their behavior, especially when there are disagreements.

How to choose a life partner so you can weather the storms of life together? Take the time to discover whether you share the same values.

7. Choose A Life Partner With A Compatible Lifestyle

Having compatible lifestyles ensures that you’ll enjoy spending time together. Shared interests, goals, and activities are the foundation for quality time spent together through every stage of life.

Having great sexual chemistry is wonderful, but if you don’t want to spend time together outside of the bedroom then your relationship won’t be very fulfilling or long-lasting.

While your shared values are the why, a compatible lifestyle is the what. It’s how your shared values manifest into shared hobbies and activities.

It’s easy to spice things up when you enjoy the same lifestyle as you can seek ways to create new adventures and hobbies together.

How to choose a life partner so that your quality time together creates a lasting bond? Make sure to choose someone with a compatible lifestyle.

8. Don’t Leave Out Chemistry And Attraction

Oftentimes people who’ve been burned in love by a hot and heavy romance try to forgo chemistry altogether. The concept of marrying your best friend may sound appealing but in practice it grows stale over time.

Sharing your life with a partner must include physical attraction and intimacy because without it there’s no reason to stick together through the inevitable curveballs that life will throw your way. Mutual desire keeps your relationship healthy.

Chemistry is only an issue if you leverage it as the only important ingredient. Like yeast in bread, it’s only one of a list of other important elements.

How to choose a life partner that keeps your relationship spicy? Think of attraction as one ingredient to a recipe for long-lasting love.

9. Foster Healthy Communication

Every relationship will include misunderstandings and conflict. This is an inevitable part of sharing your life with someone. Without kind, respectful communication you’ll have difficulty working through your differences.

Couples grow apart over time because they don’t talk about their differences and don’t have the skills to repair and reconnect after conflict.

Keep the doors of communication open in your relationship by finding someone who’s capable of kind, respectful communication. When you can discuss issues and resolve conflicts, they become a doorway to a deeper connection.

How to choose a life partner you won’t grow apart from? Speak your truth respectfully to see if they are capable of hearing you and matching your ability to be authentic.

Rather than seeing your struggles in love as a life sentence, be open to learning new strategies for how to choose a life partner. Leaving your love life to chance and happenstance only reinforces the likelihood of repeating negative patterns.

The first step in changing your struggles in love is to identify Your Love Imprint. When you identify your core wound in your family of origin, you put yourself in the driver’s seat to make lasting change. It’s the “You are here” spot on your map to long-lasting love.

Instead of continuing to repeat the same pattern over and over again or becoming cynical about love, book Your Love Imprint session. You’ll fill out a brief questionnaire and be sent directly to our online calendar so we can support you in ending your negative patterns for good. If you want something you’ve never had, you may have to do something you’ve never done.